This shard (named "Minkata" for it's use as a big sandbox) will be used to allow volunteers to try out proposed fixes and feature additions before they are submitted to Cyan for inclusion in the official Myst Online Uru Live (Again) game servers.
What is going to happen before general players can use the shard?
- Right now, there are a handful of invited "beta testers" who are helping us shake out any issues with the shard itself. We limited participation this round to make it easier to respond quickly when problems arise, and to be able to monitor the behavior of the shard during testing.
- In a few days, we will load a new version of the game client to the shard, which will include a few fixes that have been pending for a while in the OpenUru repositories (coming from the H-uru team at the Guild of Writers). At that point we will solicit more volunteers to go through a test period for those fixes.
- We'll ask the volunteers to submit trouble reports when they encounter problems. We are looking at some simpler reporting tools than the OpenUru JIRA, and don't yet know what the report process will be. We'll announce the process at the same time we ask for the next set of volunteers.
- Depending on how the test shard performs under load, we hopefully will open the shard to the general community. We are working on an automated sign-up system for registration.
- We will set a time interval for each test period before moving to another set of changes, but that will depend upon participation on the shard. We need players to use the features and fixes in the test shard to gain confidence in those changes.
I look forward to getting as many players involved as we can handle, to finish constructing the pipeline of delivering fixes and features for MOULa back to Cyan.
Look to this thread for updates as we bring Minkata closer to a public opening.
_Rarified