Publishing a World
Players install a world from a zip file. Publishing is making that zip, putting it where people can fetch it, and telling them it exists.
Version it
/version opens the World Version window. Give the world a version number; it is written to
world.ver in the world folder and shown to players, and it only ever goes up. The window also keeps
your publishing details and a world password in pubCenter.dat. That file is yours, not the
world's: it stays out of the zip.
A player's copy that was edited after installing is a modified world, and a server can refuse those. The published version is the one whose checksum everyone shares, so finish editing before you build.
Build the zip
The window's Publish button writes Publish/<World>/<version>/ beside the game
folder, containing the zip, a text file describing it and a short note on what to do next. The zip holds the
world folder's files. Leave out anything that is not the world: your notes, your pubCenter.dat,
the hero saves (they are not in the world folder anyway).
If you zip by hand instead, either put the files at the top of the archive or put them all inside one folder.
ReBreather's installer drops a single top-level folder, because that is how most old world zips were packed, but
any other layout is extracted exactly as packed and the game will not find world.ini. Keep file
names free of spaces; they become web addresses.
Put it somewhere
Any web host that serves a plain file will do. Players install it from the game's New Worlds window with Import World From File or URL, which takes either a downloaded zip or its address. Try that yourself, on a copy of the game that has never seen your world, before telling anyone.
Get it listed
The Worlds page on this site is a hand-kept catalogue that the game also reads. To have a world listed, send its address, your name and (if you like) a home page to the site's keeper, who is named in the footer. The catalogue records the version, the author, the world's status and a checksum of the zip, so send a new address or a new checksum when you publish an update.
Updates
Raise the version, build again, upload, and tell the catalogue. A player who already has the world sees the new version offered. Keep old quests working: a hero's tokens and cookies survive an update, and a renumbered token strands everyone mid-story.
What a world cannot do
A world is data. The game runs nothing from it, and the installer writes only inside the world's own folder
and refuses an archive that is absurdly large. A page shown by the script's HTML command must be a
plain page in the world's HTML/ folder or a web address. That is why players can install a world
from a stranger with no more worry than a saved game.