Phase 18: Open Beta

This phase is still ahead.

Ships

v0.18.0

Lesson

Capacity planning and community operations

Depends on

Phase 17

• 72-hour soak test with 1,000 bots plus real players: no memory growth and no tick degradation.
• Capacity test for each scaling.md case on prod, finding where each target fails, documented in docs/perf/phase-18.md, with the player cap set safely below it.
• Case 2 Tier 3 (3,000 to 5,000 active players) and Case 3 Tier 3 (1,000 in one area) measured on prod; if one process can’t meet them after tuning, write the ADR that starts Phase 20.
• Login queue when the server is full.

• Owner Decide on a community space (Discord, Matrix, a forum, or none) and set it up.
• Link the community space from the website and the game.
• Moderation process documented for moderators in docs/ops/moderation.md.

• Remove the invite requirement and switch the website’s calls to action to “Play the beta”.
• Owner Approve and publish the open beta announcement.
• Watch the first beta week closely and ship hotfixes through the release pipeline.

• Triage beta feedback into new items in this section and fix them by priority.
• Final content and balance polish.
• Decision Whether characters are wiped at 1.0, announced on the website and in game.

• docs/walkthroughs/phase-18-beta.md: capacity planning, the soak test and lessons from running a public beta.
• Release notes, tag v0.18.0 and publish builds.

• The 72-hour soak test passed.
• Every Tier 2 target in scaling.md is met on prod.
• A peak of 25 or more concurrent real players (or a target the owner sets) was handled without degradation.
• No open critical bugs for two weeks.