Will servers that have the updated DLC be able to be joined by players who did NOT buy the DLC.
DLC are supposed to be optional, but if you have to have them to connect to multiplayer servers, then it’s not really DLC, more like a paid update (a forced one too if you end up having to decide either to buy it or no longer play the game with other players).
I ask this because I’ve been wondering about all the bugs that happened after the DLC drop, and think there may be a connection between client and server side compatibility.
You don’t have to have the DLC to join servers. Several players on our server purchased the Khitan DLC and several did not – No one had trouble logging in and we’ve had no trouble with newer folks joining.
Yes, they can join even if they did not purchase the DLC themselves. The person without the DLC will not be able to craft those items in the extra content, but they can get them from another player whom has purchased it.
There shouldn’t be any real conflict in the DLC content and the servers, because it is just re-skins of other items already in the game and purely cosmetic. There was a small hotfix for starmetal meteor nodes along with the introduction of the DLC, so that is probably the root of any new issues that have occurred.