Is there any way to run your own gameserver? I cant see any code or mention of it on SourceForge. Doing p2p network games has its limitations, and having a single point of failure game-server like it is now feels like a bad idea.

If many players run their own gameserver it would not make it easier to find a mate. Maybe sometimes if thousands of players try to connect...
But you can run a client/server game. One player should start the network as server and tells all the clients which IP he uses. Clients connect to that IP. Make sure your router, firewall, virus scanner etc. allow access to the port. Standard is 5001 but it can configured in the network dialogue.

I know this is an old topic, but I would like this functionality as well... I would like to be able to run a server on my local network on a machine other than the one I play on. I have a small dedicated Linux box I could use for such a thing, but it doesn't run a GUI, and the main machine I use is a laptop (so it goes offline whenever I close it).

I think just having the option there to "add custom server" wouldn't drive too many people away from the official one, as long as the official server is the only one there by default. Like how Firefox Sync allows you to specify another server but I don't know anyone that does it personally... only the people who want/need that functionality would use it. :P

Why should a server run on your local network? If you just want to have it for testing purpose you could compile and run it. By hacking the ini-file it's right now possible to assign one additional host to your game. But no one other would know about your server. And to play with a few friends that know your IP address you can use the direct client/server feature.
Please give me some ideas what I can do to improve gameplay via network.

I have published the game server application now.