How to Join an Online Multiplayer Game

Overview

This guide will show you how to join an online multiplayer game

Going to the Network Menu

First, we’re going to need to enter the network menu, to do this, click on the 3rd button on the Main Menu, the one with two worms in computers

by the way, you can click (with the left mouse button) on all screenshots to view them in full

Setting your Nickname

Before we enter an online multiplayer game, we need to first set a nickname. You can type it in the Player Information section in the network menu.

You are limited to:

16 characters
basic latin letters in both cases (a-z, A-Z)
arabic numbers (0-9)
Grave accent ( ` )
Hyphen ( – )
Apostrophe ( ‘ )

!!! MAKE SURE THAT YOU DOUBLE-CHECK YOUR NICKNAME BEFORE THE NEXT STEP !!!

The reason is, that the default name is usually:

Your Username in Windows or Linux
Your First Name in Linux, if you are emulating through Wine

!!! IF YOUR NICKNAME IS ADMIN OR ADMINISTRATOR, YOU WILL BE KICKED WITHOUT A WARNING !!!

Joining WormNET

Once you set your nickname, to enter WormNET, click on the 2nd button, the one with two Worms on a globe with a satellite over them

Entering a WormNET channel

To enter a WormNET channel, first, we need to choose one. For the purposes of this guide, we’re going to enter #AnythingGoes. To enter a channel, double-click on its row.

Statistics have shown that #PartyTime and #RopersHeaven are usually used for tournament purposes, it is not recommended to join/host games there unless you’re part of one.
Oh, and the #Help channel is dead, unfortunately

Entering a game

Once inside a channel, look for a game lobby that you’re interested in. Games hosted by HostingBuddy usually have the scheme name written in them. For the pure default experience, you’re looking for “Intermediate” or sometimes “Normal”. To join the lobby you’re interested in. double click its row.

A note about passworded games

Some games can be passworded. If you attempt to join one, you’ll be prompted to enter the correct password in 30 seconds. Do not enter passworded games unless you actually know the password.

To distinguish the difference between passworded games or not, look for either:

the color of the font (where yellow games are passworded, beige games without one)
the padlock on the very left of the row of the game, to the left of the country flag (closed, silver padlocks indicate passworded games, gold open padlocks indicate games without one)

Adding your team

Once you entered a game, look for a window with Worms heads in it, this is your barracks. To pick a team from barracks, click on it.

It is recommended to pick only one team on games with strangers, otherwise you might get kicked

Additionally, you can edit teams in the barracks on the fly by right clicking (clicking with right mouse button) on the row representing it

Readying up

Once you placed a team, you need to indicate that you’re ready. To do this, click on the big lightbulb icon. A lit lightbulb icon means that you’re ready. To unready, click on the lightbulb again.

It’s also important to mention that every change in game settings will wipe everyone’s ready status

Once everyone is ready, the game host can press the button to start the game.
In case of HostingBuddy, once host types “!start” to make HostingBuddy ready AND when everyone’s ready, the game will start automatically

A note about in-game chat

Right when the game starts, you might encounter that you will not able to do anything. That’s because in-game chat is preventing you from that.

To hide chat, press Page Up on the keyboard.
To show chat again, press Page Down.

To chat, type a message after showing chat, and press Enter to send.

You can also pin the chat window with CTRL+PageDown
…And also unpin with CTRL+PageUp

As well as change the chat size:

to increase, use CTRL+DownArrow
to decrease, use CTRL+UpArrow

you can change chat size for both pinned and opened chat states separately

There are also couple chat commands, and you can read about them over on [link]

BONUS: Community Server List

Sometimes, there can be occurences when the official WormNET server is down. Fortunately, you can join the community server instead.

To do this, click on the options button, which is the 4th one with bunch of question marks…

…then click on the “Advanced” box

…and make sure that “Use community server list” is enabled.

To toggle this and the other options, click on the row of the option. If the box to the right is filled, then that option is enabled.

Once you do that, and try to connect to WormNET, you’ll instead be met with a list of servers.

By default, for version 3.8, you’ll be met with a list where there’s only one community server, and a staging server for development purposes.

You’re only interested in official WormNET, or, if that’s down, the community server.

To join a server from this list, double click on the yellow title of the server.

The same instructions apply for joining to a game in the community server

Closing thoughts

I hope this guide helped you, if it did, please leave a like and favorite

If you have additional questions regarding this guide or topic, please leave them in the comments
If you have other questions regarding Worms Armageddon, either add me on Steam, or check out these other guides

Worms Armageddon Guide