Waygate 🌀 Elden Ring Private Server

Waygate is an attempt at implementing a server based on Elden Ring's matchmaking protocol. The aim of this project is to offer a more vanilla online experience while allowing users to mod the game.

Waygate is not an overhaul, aside from replacing the game's peer-to-peer to be more bearable this mod does nothing to enhance the online experience by itself. I count on other mods to implement tweaks to the online experience, please do not open feature suggestions pitching me a tweak that "would objectively improve X".

WARNING

Over the past year testing with about 30-40 people no ones has reported getting banned from official online play, however there is no guarantee this server is completely safe to use.

Setup

Postgresql

The server requires a postgresql database to store messages, bloodstains, ghosts and more. I am not going to cover how to set up a postgresql database as enough places cover this exact procedure.

It is worth noting however that waygate-server will run migrations automatically once connected to a database.

Keys

The game uses a set of fixed keys to kick off the connection and perform the key exchange. You will need to generate a key pair for your server and client. You do this once during setup of the server.

In order to generate a keypair you invoke:

$ ./waygate-generate-keys

This will print a valid keypair alongside instructions on applying the keypair to your setup:

# Pass this to your servers launch command
--client-public-key = "8oWXtzzyvMwg0DZTUxdRP/HzDnDhlw8J1ZyXiB2Giks="
--server-secret-key = "XzUteM9hPf2n/XUg8L2ImxIaRUGusUpqYVFDnEY0Egs="

# Add this to your clients's waygate.toml
client_secret_key = "VD7xDTwd6+kt9zg+3qzVaKnxfIvVIwSG8JM1cc8Eeu0="
server_public_key = "5HCUh3iOJiPwsEPvln0QFnmx9sFaQrzDI9XopTa532c="

Running the server

Grab the latest release for your platform and invoke it as such:

$ ./waygate-server \
    --bind 0.0.0.0:10901 \
    --api-bind 0.0.0.0:10902 \
    --api-key "<API KEY>" \
    --database "<DATABASE URL>" \
    --client-public-key "<CLIENT PUBLIC KEY>" \
    --server-secret-key "<SERVER SECRET KEY>"

Parameter	Env variable	Description
--bind	WAYGATE_BIND	Specifies the binding address for the game server.
--api-bind	WAYGATE_API_BIND	Specifies the binding address for the api server.
--api-key	WAYGATE_API_KEY	Specifies API authentication key. Keep secret.
--database	WAYGATE_DATABASE	Specifies the database URL to be used
--client-public-key	WAYGATE_CLIENT_PUBLIC_KEY	Specifies the KX client public key. Keep secret.
--server-secret-key	WAYGATE_SERVER_SECRET_KEY	Specifies the KX server secret key. Keep secret.

Database URL

The --database parameter expects a database URL like so: postgresql://<USERNAME>:<PASSWORD>@<HOST>/<DATABASE>.

API

The server also spins up a HTTP JSON API that allows people to do automated healthchecks, broadcast messages and more in the future. This HTTP server is bound seperately from the game server to what was specified by the --api-bind parameter.

API authentication is regulated by the --api-key which requires you to specify a key that must be matched on incoming HTTP requests. You can use random.org or a password generator to derive a secure API key.

You can find more about the API as well as examples here.

Setting up the client

// TBD

Additional configuration

Logging

The logging setup is configured with logging.toml. Under the hood it's log4rs, which has its own manual on the logging options.

Announcements

The announcements are set in announcements.toml.

What's working? What needs to be done?

• Summoning per sign
• Quickmatches (arena)
• Invasions
• Player messages
• Bloodstains
• Player ghosts
• Summoning per puddle
• Fia/Warrior Jar Pool
• Group passwords
• Blue Cipher Ring
• Quickmatch ranking
• Match Density (PvP activity on map)
• A fuckton of telemetry-related messaging

Non-gameplay tasks

Code cleanup and tidying

A lot of the development happened as I was reversing the game, so a few parts need rewriting to be more maintainable. The database needs indices as an optimization, etc

Credits

The most important section of this README, this project took a long time to execute and there's still a bit to go. Without these people this project would've remained on my disk forever.

• Tremwil for implementing the serde wire (de)serializer and writing tools to hook the games serialization layer and generating typemaps from said hooks.
• LukeYui for answering my dumb questions
• ClayAmore for testing and support on the motivational end
• Steelovsky for testing
• Mintal for testing
• Metalcrow for testing
• Shion for testing
• Dasaav for testing
• auramalexander (Dylan) for name