How do I make a world go public?

[Siddown]

As said in the title, is there a way to make a world public, I don't want to go through the whole process with IP and MAC addresses, I just want to make a world be able to be played by others.

[entuland]

If you want to have your world accessible by others you primarily have three options:
- host it on a remote host outside of your LAN
- host it from behind your LAN and add the needed port forwards to the router (your router needs to have an IPv4 assigned to it, shared IPv4 addresses won't work, IPv6 addresses won't work)
- host it from behind your LAN and use a VPN provides the service of explicitly opening ports

The VPN is the "worst" solution from a performance point of view as the comms between the server and the clients would have to go through a longer route and through encryption.

The guide is linked by various "?" and "Help" buttons by the game, here is the link for your convenience: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rAeuk7qFinUyPRJGk4x6Dim3rmQN2zoLaR3PNR0roU4/edit

The guide should give you enough information to add the port forwarding - if you have access to the router administration it normally takes a few minutes to set up.

If the guide isn't clear enough or doesn't cover what you need (or for any other help for that matter) feel free to contact [e-mail] or, better, contact me directly on Discord - entuland#7134 - to receive live support.

[Siddown]

I am not good with anything related to this, in the F2P version, I did have a public world that I made without any of this, I just had it public

[entuland]

Correct, in the previous version we hosted the worlds on our servers for all players - Free to Play and PRO players alike.

Unfortunately about 2 years ago it was clear that the game couldn't sustain the costs of keeping those servers up - that's the whole point of having released The Definitive Edition, removing the dependency on our servers, having worlds hosted by players and ensure the game can continue being played, instead of shutting the game down for everyone.

If you need help with setting things up, as I mentioned, we are at your disposal.

[OtherACTION]

In short, host a dedicated server or pay for a server just to play with other players, or go through the lengthy process to setup Port Forwarding.

In the end the game is not multiplayer friendly.

[entuland]

Originally posted by OtherACTION:

In short, host a dedicated server or pay for a server just to play with other players, or go through the lengthy process to setup Port Forwarding. [...]

Hosting a dedicated server on your own computer could still requires port forwarding - these are the three main options for multiplayer with players on different LANs:
- host behind the router and add port forwarding
- host behind the router and use a VPN with port opening service (suboptimal for performance reasons)
- host on a remote computer that's not behind a LAN router

Originally posted by OtherACTION:

[...] In the end the game is not multiplayer friendly.

The current system is more complex than the previous one, that's true. Best we could pull off to avoid shutting the game down for everyone.

Also replied here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/280790/discussions/2/3808407347834380120#c3808407347834400616