These files help in the configuration and management of Rend in its afterlife of sorts. While you can no longer play Rend normally (or even acquire it by regular means) after the game and later its index/auth server was sunset, with some minimal tweaks you can indeed still play.
More could be done here but to get started here are some minimal pointers. To get more join the Last Hope community at https://discord.gg/gUJyZEXxyq which also deserves full credit for all the work that went into these customizations, particularly Farlier for reverse engineering some bits related to the index server and the DLL customization process.
To run a server you need to get the "Rend Server" via the Tools section on Steam. Let it install on a Windows system normally. You'll need to port forward 7777 and 15000 by regular means if you're hosting behind a typical residential router, and have those ports open on your firewall software for UDP at least. LAN play may also be possible with port 14001 available locally?
To run the server in LAN mode include the -LANGAME parameter - it may also be necessary to include -multihome=1.2.3.4 with a suitable IP for your network.
To run the server on the internet you must customize at least one game file to avoid being hardwired to the old defunct index server, otherwise your game server can't show up in the in-game server browser. Unsure if you'd be able to use a client with -connect=1.2.3.4:7777 with an entirely vanilla server ...
The main customization applies to PhysX3Cooking_x64.dll which lives in <REND dir>\Engine\Binaries\ThirdParty\PhysX3\Win64\VS2015 - many variants of this file have been supplied over time, see the involved process in the DllPatchingProcess directory and pick from one of the dll- folders in this repo.
To run the game server find your way to <Steam library dir>\steamapps\common\Rend Server\Otherlands\Binaries\Win64 and execute OtherlandsServer-Win64-Shipping.exe -NoEAC -log BeaconPort=15000 Port=7777 adjusting the ports as needed, but being mindful that the in-game server browser only will try to connect to game port 7777 (direct connection via client CLI args can use other ports). You should not need to run this from an admin-elevated command prompt.
On the client side you need to acquire the game then run it with one or more command line arguments. These can be added in Steam or via Windows Command Prompt, or even Powershell.
In the most basic setup you may be able to use -LANGAME to simply play on the local area network in your home.
More typically you'll want to connect to a remote server. One somewhat awkward way to extend a LAN to remote players is through a VPN service like ZeroTier, which was the first successful way to play remotely without the index server, but it suffered from a certain degree of complexity and performance problems.
The better way involves customizing one or more game files. Like with the server the main one is PhysX3Cooking_x64.dll - see IndexServerEmulator's readme for additional details of DLL variants specific to whether or not you're attempting to use a custom ("rogue") index server provided by you or the Last Hope community.
To finally launch the game there are new (and old?) command line arguments available, particularly as character creation may be unavailable:
-NoEAC- disable the anti-cheat. This must always be enabled, either using this argument or picking No EAC when launching from Steam. Otherwise the modified DLL will be caught as a problem.-playername=SOMENAME- set your character name-faction=#- pick your faction, either1,2, or3(Revenant, Conclave, or Order)-console- if you want to see some basic game logging during startup and connecting in a separate window-connect=1.2.3.4:7777- with a target server IP or URL, to connect directly - if this works the main game menu will appear for a moment but automatically continue to the loading screen (if connecting works!)
So as an example to connect directly to the main Last Hope community server you'd use a command like the following: -noeac -playername=GenericViking -faction=2 -console -connect=rend.terasology.net:7777 (this should work via Steam launch by simply plugging it into Rend -> Properties -> General -> Launch Options - although you may still have to pick no EAC in a popup)
If you attempt to connect via server browser from in-game be sure that your filter is set wide and includes the No EAC flag. If a server is listed but the detail panel just has a progress indicator that keeps going odds are that port forwarding / firewalling is getting in the way. If the server does show details immediately but the "Join" button does nothing it may be that the game server is on a non-standard port and can't be reached via server browser.
To configure the server gameplay settings you mainly need to look at config.ini in the root dir for "Rend Server" and Game.ini which lives deeper in at Rend Server\Otherlands\Saved\Config\WindowsServer\ - that location also has the Server.ini which is needed for defining admins and cheaters by using their user id. That shows up in the log on login or when attempting to cheat without rights to cheat. Example id: Cervator$f=2$2320887228
See https://pingperfect.com/index.php/knowledgebase/312/Rend--Admin-Commands.html for a good overview of commands and ids. A copy has been taken in case the original ever goes offline, see the commands.txt file.