Setting up the client to play on different servers

[munkibowl]

I have limited hard drive space(less than 1GB) and already have a patched copy of RO. I'm interested in trying out some different servers, since this is the only one I've ever played on. I'd like to know how I can play on different servers with only one client installed. It seems like every server has their own *.exe patches, and I get the feeling that running them would simply make my client stop working, rather than allowing me to play on different servers.

[Pandora]

You're correct, here's how I would go about it.

Most .exe will not search for your RO folder, you have to specify it, therefor, install their .exe in an empty folder. You'll most likely be left with various files to their server name. Put those files in your RO folder, do NOT replace anything. You'll be left with the files that weren't copied because they already exist.

When you wanna play, you'll need those files and you'll wanna rename them.

Example: you already have server AAAA installed, the other server is BBBB. You're left in your folder with the files data.ini, which you already have one of those in your RO folder. Rename the data.ini in your RO folder to dataAAAA.ini then drop the data.ini from the BBBB server and play on server BBBB for a while. You wanna play server AAAA again? You rename the data.ini to dataBBBB.ini and rename dataAAAA.ini to data.ini

Maybe I'm making it more complicated, sorry if it is XD hope I've helped in some way.

[munkibowl]

Thanks for the help, it was really easy to understand. I'm going to give it a try.

Edit:

I tried this with two different servers, when I hit start from their patchers, nothing happened. I am still able to connect to my original server though.

[Pandora]

Different servers use different types of files, sometimes it's hard to combine.

Does your main server use a data folder or a servername.grf?

[munkibowl]

I'm on GatheringRO, which uses a data folder, the two I tried seem to have servername.grfs

[Pow]

Data Folder :

In the case of using the server using a data folder (Which strikes me as strange why servers would choose to do this, especially now adays), you want to follow what Pandora suggested - but after

Example: you already have server AAAA installed, the other server is BBBB. You're left in your folder with the files data.ini, which you already have one of those in your RO folder. Rename the data.ini in your RO folder to dataAAAA.ini then drop the data.ini from the BBBB server and play on server BBBB for a while. You wanna play server AAAA again? You rename the data.ini to dataBBBB.ini and rename dataAAAA.ini to data.ini

This step, go into the installdir/Data folder (The place you made the new installer) and grab their sclientinfo.xml.

Go into your Gravity/RO/Data folder (Located in Program Files) and do the same as above with the sclientinfo.xml

Example : ServerAAAsclientinfo.xml (To help you keep it all in check).


GRF

Your best option here is to just edit the data.ini file to add your server's grf.

Although, if you have a nice admin - ask him/her to hex a client to read its own custom .ini file.. Its pretty simple to do and I hope you would be hard pressed to find an admin that can't do it.

[Pandora]

Or just rename the AAAA server's data folder when you wanna play BBBB server, that works too. Basically any client will check for a data folder first and then it will look into data.ini to know where to get the files it needs.

[munkibowl]

I could be wrong about the data folder, I really don't know much about this kind of thing, but I didn't notice any gatheringro.grf file. I think the problem may be that I installed the original server's full client, as opposed to installing kro and sakray and a patch. I don't think it had a data.ini file, since when I looked at the data.ini file, it was from one of the other servers(when I copied the files, the only thing it wanted to replace was the sclientinfo.xml), and I was still able to get onto my old server just fine.  However, the data.ini file had "2=data.grf", and there is no data.grf file in my RO folder, which may be the problem.

[Pandora]

Most server will use a servername.grf which is the standard way. Using a data folder is not recommended, but some servers still do it.

Basically a serverfile.grf is a compressed data folder.

Like I said, by default the client.exe will look for a data folder, then if it doesnt find one it will look for data.ini and get graphics/information in the order mentionned.

sdata.grf and data.grf are gravity files, you usually have one or the other, or both. And usually before them you'll have the server's grf.

Example:

[Data]
0=heRO.grf
1=sdata.grf
2=data.grf

That means when your game needs a file, it will first look for it in "heRO.grf", if the game does not find it, then it'll look in "sdata.grf" and lastly, in "data.grf". Doesn't matter if you don't have data.grf, sdata is a huge file which contains everything to play on sakray.

In short, if you wanna play on your first server, all you need is their data folder, when you wanna play on other servers, you need to rename the data folder (for example to data_AAAA but anything will do), when you rename the data folder, it will force the client to look for data.ini and look there for the other server's grf.

To complicate things a little more, some servers will have their own .ini instead of data.ini, which is actually recommended because that way it doesn't interfere with other server. If that's the case, their client.exe is modified to look for servername.ini instead of data.ini and usually you can safely have all their files in your RO folder without interfering.

If you have more than one server installed that require data.ini you just have to rename them when you wanna switch.

[munkibowl]

ok, I renamed the data folder, and you were right, it worked just fine! Thank you for helping me, I really appreciate it.

[Guest]

lol u can be like me and just separate every single server file and keep the server's files separate ..... (i do it a lil more complicated then that though)

[Pandora]

Yeah, but he said he was limited on space otherwise that's indeed a safer way to go ^_^