Setting Up an Area Server

[Erroneous]

There is only 1 central lobby server, and only 1 is necessary. This is the main hub for fragment, however people don't play on the lobby server, they play on player hosted area servers. These are where players actually meet up and play together on in groups of up to 3 per area server. Which makes hosting an abundant of area servers necessary for people; because is there's high demand of players online at a given time wanting to play but no supply of area servers to play on, then playing would be impossible. So how do you host an area server?

First you will need the Area Server program itself, and a Windows PC or Windows emulated computer

There is many iterations both official and unofficial for the area server program, i.e. the original 5 Japanese ones which point to the old server, the translated one, the multi-server one, etc... I recommend this one
https://fragment.dothackers.org/areaserver.zip

Download the zip, extract the file/folders somewhere on your computer, run the AREA_SERVER.exe file

Start with map editor

go to File

choose New Area

give it a name and a "symbol" can be whatever you want, I just abbreviate but whatever

the root town will be the root town all players will see when they enter your Area Server, they can not change, only you can from this program
hit OK, and you can start making new keywords and custom maps if you want, but entirely up to you

the root town shops are static to whatever root town you pick
the keywords dictate monsters and whatnot, click on Word Editor and you'll get tabs like this

use existing keywords or click on "Add" to create new words, whenever your pick A B C here, Result will unlock

whatever you do, be sure to Save

pick a slot from 0 to 100; you can create more than 1 area server, but you can only run 1 area server per .exe; you can make more copies from the ZIP file link above and host as many area servers you want

you can pick a random number and press save

after you make an "area server" in the Area Server program and saved, go to the Area Server icon

click on Area, then click on Publish Area Server

select from the list of saved area servers and click publish

you'll see a bunch of messages on screen, and in the message window box; if all goes well you should see "area server is now open"

this is 50% of the work
the other 50% is port-forwarding your computer/router
without doing that, no one can join your area server
it'll just be listed but inaccessible without port-forwarding

it depends on what is in profile.ini; and if you host more than one area server, you'll want to change the port in each file to be different; between 20000 to 20100

if all goes well your area server will be listed

then the area server program will say "a player is joining"

you can see their HP/SP live, but you can not edit the values
you can even see all players on the current map; people can't wander off to different maps, everyone is limited to 1

even on the field map

and if they die, they will be booted back to the root town

[Erroneous]

Sometimes setting up port-forwarding on your router is not enough. Sometimes you need to setup inbound rules for Windows. Here's a short guide how to allow port 20000 for AREA SERVER.exe program via Windows Defender Firewall.

Go into Advanced Settings on Windows Defender Firewall

you'll see this window

click on Inbound Rules on the left column
then click on New Rule on the right

choose port

enter 20000 for port

allow the connection

these rules all apply

enter a name and hit finish