Joining and visibility

The four visibility types

PRIVATE never appears in a public listing at all. FRIENDS appears only to a viewer the host has accepted as a friend. Both rules are enforced server-side, never merely hidden in a component.

The join password is stored as a hash, never in plaintext, and is never included in any read payload. It is cleared whenever the type changes away from PUBLIC_PASSWORD.

Walking in

Before a party starts, anybody who can see it may walk in — that is what a lobby is for.

Once it starts, a walk-in lands on a server mid-match with a roster that has already readied up, so the host decides:

joinAfterStartPublicbooleandefault false

Strangers may still join after the party has started. Off by default — a started match is a match, not a lobby.

joinAfterStartFriendsbooleandefault true

The host’s accepted friends may still join after it has started. On by default: a friend turning up late is the case hosts actually want.

friendsCanJoinbooleandefault true

Whether friends can walk into a FRIENDS party without an explicit invite. Only consulted for that type — PUBLIC* is always walk-in and PRIVATE never is.

An explicit invite bypasses both of the after-start switches. The host inviting somebody into a running game is the host deciding, which is what the switches are for.

Roles inside a party

The roster

showUsersbooleandefault true

Whether the roster is disclosed at all.

Each member’s own anonymity settings are applied on top of that, so a party that shows its roster still does not show an anonymous member.

There is exactly one place the roster is served without anonymity applied: the integration API’s party read, to the credential belonging to the server the party is being played on. The reasoning is on the privacy page.

Membership versus visits

A member has one membership row per party, however many times they join and leave. Repeat joins open a new session instead.

Keeping membership unique is what makes “is this person in the party?” a single lookup rather than a scan of their history, and it means a kick or a ban has one row to write rather than a state that has to be re-derived from the newest visit.

Only members in the JOINED state count toward the party’s population.

Chat

chatEnabledbooleandefault true

The party’s chat room.

chatPublicbooleandefault false

Whether non-members may type in it. A non-member’s message is stored muted, so it renders dimmed rather than being silently dropped.

Where the game is integrated, in-game chat can be relayed into the room and the room’s messages injected back into the game. See Chat relay.

Media

mediaEnabledbooleandefault true

Whether the party has a gallery at all. Off withdraws the section and refuses every upload, including the host’s.

mediaMembersUploadbooleandefault true

Whether members may upload to it, as opposed to the host and co-hosts only.