With some tweaking it actually will
Step 1 - Install the game
Install the game from cd or ISO
Step 2 - Install official updates
As all official websites for the game is gone now
Here are links for the official updates for the game:
Official Update to 1.3
Update from v1.0 to v1.3 patch
Unityhq.net or Spawnsite.net or Mobdb.com or Gamefont.online
Official Map pack 1
For online gameplay you'll need this
Unityhq.net or Spawnsite.net or Gamefront.online
Official Map pack 2
For online gameplay you'll need this
Unityhq.net or Spawnsite.net
Official Tools
Optional
Unityhq.net or Spawnsite.net or Moddb.com
Step 3 - Tweak the game a little
With the gamespy server down, there is nowhere to check if the cdkey is valid anymore, this halted the game for a while
until ßahamutZero came up with the LivesForever mod that will disable the check.
This mod needs to be loaded whenever you want to play or host server online.
LivesForever mod
Removes gamespy cdkey check
LivesForever
Put the extracted folder containing LivesForever.rez inside the folder "Custom-->Mods" in the game folder.
Next you'll need (atleast I had to) run Nolf2.exe as windows xp sp3 compatible and adminitstrator
Right click the Nolf2.exe file and do this:
Step 4 - Custom map pack
Spawnsite custom mappack (2019)
Unityhq.net custom map pack (2019)
both have the exact same content (415mb compressed)
Step 5a - Qtracker
Since gamespy is no longer around, others have taken their place. One of these services are Qtracker.com
www.qtracker.com
To setup Qtracker tutorial
Step 5b - Connect Without Qtracker
Alternative method is to create a bat file in the same directory as Nolf2.exe
You can make a empty document with notepad,
and then put this line of code in it to join a specific server: (in this case Unityhq's doomsday server)
Save the file in Nolf2's base directoryNOLF2.exe -GOMULTIJOIN 1 +join 54.209.90.3:28888
Important: Choose "save as type: All Files (*.*)" and give it a name of your own choosing, I named mine connect_to_server.bat
Then run the connect_to_server.bat file to connect and the game will be launched.
Additional info
- Most nolf servers are running without the widescreen mod loaded, so you will need to disable this if you get a Cshell.dll error
... although the servers actually work: