Visibility, sharing, and curation

Visibility and curation are separate decisions. A builder can make a world public; placement in Featured Worlds or Staff Picks is controlled by Written Realms Alpha staff.

Make a world public

Open World > Config, select Edit in the general world section, enable Is Public, and save.

• A public world is visible and searchable to all players.
• A private world is limited to its author, builders, and players who already have access.
• Changing visibility does not restart the runtime or reset its characters.

Before making the world public, test it with an ordinary character and review every player-facing setting: lobby description, starting room, starting resources, death behavior, combat mode, content warnings, and communication channels.

Share a world

From the world’s lobby, select SHARE to copy its URL. A public URL can be opened by anyone. A private-world link does not by itself grant someone access; add the person as a builder or otherwise give them access to the world first.

Use the direct link for playtests even while a world is private. Tell testers whether their progress may be reset and which feedback you want before they begin.

Curated lobby placement

The main lobby currently has staff-controlled Featured Worlds and Staff Picks sections. The current World Config interface does not expose the older self-service Submit for Review workflow, even though earlier versions of these docs described one.

Making a world public therefore should not be read as an application for featured placement. If you want staff to consider a finished world, ask in the Written Realms Alpha Discord for the current process rather than looking for review-status buttons in the editor.

Readiness checklist

The criteria below are useful whether you plan to share a private playtest, open the world publicly, or ask about curation.

First and foremost, a world should be compelling to the people who experience it. Players should leave feeling that their time was well spent. Opening it to others means putting yourself in their shoes: something about the world has to draw them in, orient them, and reward their attention.

Polish

A shared world should feel meaningfully more complete than a work in progress. Give it an overarching structure or idea, clear lobby copy, and card and banner artwork when it is ready for a wider audience.

Coherence

A world should be relatively uniform in theme and style. These can change as a player progresses, but changes should be deliberately paced and happen for good reasons.

Introduction

New players should receive a deliberate introduction to the world. Even when the stylistic choice is to place a player in an unfamiliar environment without instructions, their initial experience should be thoughtfully designed and have a creative rationale.

Completion

A world needs either one or more definitive endings, or an endgame loop. Players should quickly develop a sense of which experience they are in, and the world should be built with that destination in mind.

Consistency

Some worlds use elaborate room descriptions; others use pithy one-liners. Still others rely on room names, mob and item descriptions, and echo messages. Any of these choices can work, but a world should not jump unpredictably from one fundamental style to another.

Rights and attribution

A publicly shared world must not use text, images, characters, or settings you do not have the right to publish. Create original work, use appropriately licensed material, and keep the attribution required by that license.

Curation remains discretionary

Featured placement curates a small collection rather than certifying every public world. Written Realms Alpha embraces the subjectivity of what makes a world good, and not every consideration fits neatly within the checklist above.

Every world has its own character, and sometimes its less definable qualities are what make it stand out. Staff may therefore choose what to feature based on factors beyond readiness alone.