WorldLink 0.2.0-rc1 — The Thomas Release

❤️ The Thomas Release

This release is named for my nephew Thomas, whose inspiration changed the direction of WorldLink.

WorldLink began as a way to make traveling between Minecraft worlds feel more seamless than a traditional loading-screen transition. Thomas inspired me to take that idea further: instead of merely moving the player to another server, WorldLink should make it possible for the player themselves—their data, progress, and compatible modded state—to travel with them.

That idea became the foundation of WorldLink's persistent player-transfer system and public Player Data API.

The Thomas Release is the first release candidate to bring that vision together:

One portal. Another server. Same adventure.

This one's for you, Thomas. ❤️

🚀 What's New

WorldLink 0.2.0-rc1 introduces transactional player-data transfer between independent Minecraft Forge servers.

Travel is no longer just a server connection. WorldLink can now prepare, persist, claim, restore, verify, and safely consume player-transfer data as the player moves between servers.

🌎 Cross-Server Player Transfer

WorldLink now supports:

• Persistent player-transfer snapshots
• Source-server travel preparation
• Destination-server transfer claiming
• Player-data restoration
• Post-restoration verification
• Transfer consumption after successful verification
• Recovery state for interrupted travel
• Expiration and cleanup of obsolete transfers
• Explicit success and failure acknowledgements
• Fail-closed behavior when a transfer cannot be completed safely

A failed preparation or restoration does not intentionally become a successful partial transfer.

🔌 Public Player Data API

The Thomas Release introduces WorldLink's public compatibility API for other Forge mods.

Third-party mods can register a WorldLinkPlayerDataHandler to participate in cross-server travel.

Handlers can:

• Decide whether their data should participate in a transfer
• Capture player-specific mod data
• Restore that data on the destination server
• Verify the restored state
• Define their own compatibility data version

WorldLink handles the transaction, persistent storage, networking, claims, recovery, cleanup, and failure handling around those handlers.

🛡️ Compatibility Safety

Third-party compatibility handlers are isolated from WorldLink's core transaction system.

RC1 includes handling for:

• Capture failures
• Restore failures
• Verification failures
• Handler exceptions
• Missing destination handlers
• Incompatible handler data versions
• Preparation failures
• Interrupted transfers

When preparation fails, the client receives a failure acknowledgement and safely exits the pending travel state. The player can leave the portal and re-enter to try again.

🧪 External API Validation

The public API was tested using a completely separate Forge mod built against the compiled WorldLink JAR.

Testing confirmed that an external mod can:

• Compile against WorldLink's public API
• Register its own player-data handler
• Capture custom player data
• Persist that data through a WorldLink transfer
• Restore it on another server
• Participate in post-restoration verification
• Complete a successful WorldLink transaction

Intentional third-party handler failures were also tested to verify that broken compatibility code is isolated without crashing the server or producing an unsafe partial transfer.

🌀 WorldLink Portals

RC1 also includes the WorldLink portal system:

• Animated portal interiors
• Portal particles
• Nether-portal-style ambient sound
• Configurable destinations
• Travel countdown
• Creative Mode instant activation
• Arrival protection
• Portal rearming after travel
• Player-facing travel failure messages

💾 Persistent Transfer Storage

Fresh installations use:

WorldLink-Transfers

WorldLink maintains persistent pending and consumed transfer state and includes automatic cleanup for obsolete transfer data.

The storage location and retention behavior are configurable.

📚 Developer Documentation

WorldLink includes documentation for developers wishing to add compatibility through the Player Data API, including:

• API reference
• Integration tutorial
• Example player-data handler
• Example registration class
• Handler IDs and data versions
• Capture, restore, and verification behavior
• Failure and compatibility requirements

⚙️ Requirements

• Minecraft: 1.20.1
• Mod Loader: Forge 47.x
• Java: 17
• Environment: Client and Server

WorldLink must be installed wherever the WorldLink travel system is being used.

⚠️ Release Candidate

0.2.0-rc1 is a release candidate, not the final stable release.

The core system has completed end-to-end cross-server testing, persistent-storage testing, failure-isolation testing, external API testing, cleanup testing, and fresh-install testing.

Additional testing with larger modpacks and additional third-party player-data handlers is encouraged.

Please report reproducible issues with logs and relevant configuration information.

WorldLink 0.2.0-rc1 — The Thomas Release

One portal. Another server. Same adventure. ❤️🚀