Multiplayer

Who appears in your world

Realtime presence represents active villagers in the same world and channel. When another player enters, their safe public character information and current world position can appear. When they leave, change worlds, switch channels, or lose the session, their character is removed after the appropriate connection handling.

A player in another world should not appear beside you. A player in another channel is in a separate copy of the same map and should not appear either. Social state is broader than physical presence: a friend or party member can remain listed while elsewhere, but nearby-only interactions wait until both players meet the required proximity and session conditions.

Starville avoids duplicate character entities by tying a live presence to an authenticated game session and channel. Opening the same player in multiple browser sessions can still cause a newer connection to replace an older one. Use one active play tab when testing movement and social interactions.

World channels

Channels keep a busy world readable by separating presence into bounded groups. The status dock marks your current channel and shows population for available alternatives. Choosing a new channel changes nearby villagers and channel chat, but it does not duplicate your character, reset inventory, or create a second player account.

The current configured target is approximately 40 active characters per authenticated channel. This is a deployment target rather than a promise that every environment always uses exactly that number. A full or unavailable channel cannot be selected. If a switch is accepted, wait for the current presence to settle before starting a proximity-dependent action.

Realtime movement

Your browser captures movement input and presents a responsive local character. The realtime boundary validates the active session and delivers bounded movement updates to nearby players. Other clients interpolate those updates so remote movement looks smooth instead of jumping between every network message.

Realtime display is not permission to choose arbitrary coordinates, travel through collision, or enter an unrelated world. Durable world position and transitions still use trusted validation. A temporary network delay can make a remote character pause or catch up; it should not grant extra movement or create permanent copies.

Core presence and realtime movement are available now. Reconnect edges and broader social lifecycle refinements continue, so use the recovery guidance below whenever an interruption leaves a result uncertain.

Realtime character appearance

The coming-later character system is designed to add a privacy-safe resolved appearance identifier and revision to presence. Nearby clients hydrate approved modular layers from trusted catalog keys, then animate the same authoritative facing and idle, walk, or jog movement state. Movement payloads do not carry browser asset URLs or private profile fields.

When a player saves a Wardrobe change, an appearance-updated event replaces the rendered layers in place. Position, channel membership, and the remote entity identity remain stable, preventing a cosmetic change from teleporting or duplicating the villager. Reconnect and world-switch hydration restore the latest authoritative revision.

Shared modular appearance updates are coming later. Existing presence and movement remain available without implying that the future character creator or Wardrobe is already part of the current game.

Nearby Players

Open Nearby Players to see villagers close enough for the current interaction range. The list uses natural proximity, not a promise that every person visible on screen can be reached. Select a player to see available actions such as Inspect, Add Friend, Invite to Party, Send Gift, Request Trade, Mute, or Block.

Not every action is always enabled. A player may be too far away, busy in another settlement, blocked, restricted, already trading, already in a party, or part of a full party. Some interactions require the same world and channel for their entire lifecycle; moving away or switching can cancel or invalidate them safely.

Inspection is designed around safe public information: display name, level, appearance, and limited world, channel, or party context where permitted. It does not expose email, wallet address, private inventory, DUST balance, token holdings, session data, moderation details, block reasons, or staff notes.

Connection recovery

Connected is the normal state. Reconnecting means the client is attempting to restore the current session after a brief interruption. Connection Interrupted means realtime delivery is unavailable and social actions should not be assumed delivered. Starville may restore presence, party state, and an eligible activity state after reconnect.

Keep the tab visible and wait briefly. If recovery does not complete, check the internet connection and refresh once. Refreshing retrieves authoritative state, so a completed gift, trade, activity, or shop operation should not be repeated merely because the first screen response was delayed.