I’m the solo developer of Bitiverse, a persistent browser MMO that I’ve been building in public alongside a small group of actual players.

This has gradually become something different from ordinary playtesting. These aren’t people running through a temporary build and completing a feedback form. They have persistent characters, homes, guilds, businesses and relationships with other players. They progress normally while I watch where they struggle, listen to what they discuss and turn useful feedback into updates.

It has been enormously valuable. Players experience systems together in ways I never could alone. They discover confusing onboarding, broken progression, economic oddities and unexpectedly fun social behaviour. A throwaway joke about owning seventeen chairs resulted in players filling their houses with chairs. Feedback about having no direction led to new narrative onboarding. Requests for things to do together became house parties and playable table games.

The difficult part is finding more people willing to participate in that relationship.

A fifteen-minute first-impression test is useful, but an MMO also needs people who return, progress and eventually encounter its deeper systems. I want players who genuinely enjoy inhabiting the world, not unpaid workers being asked to hunt bugs. In return, they get unusually direct access to development and can see their experiences influence the game around them.

For anyone who has developed a live or community-driven game:

How did you find your earliest long-term players? What made them feel invested enough to return? And how do you listen closely without letting community feedback turn the game into design by committee?

Hey! I’m Fortisq, the solo developer of Bitiverse.

It’s a small, free, persistent browser MMORPG that has somehow grown far beyond my original sensible plans. You can fight monsters, gather resources, craft equipment, trade, join guilds, build a permanent homestead and eventually excavate a personal dungeon beneath your house.

The game is fully playable, but I know it’s rough in places. Some systems are surprisingly deep; other parts may be held together by one pixel and a nervous goblin.

I’m not going to promise that Bitiverse will become your new forever MMO. I’d just love a few patient players to wander in, try it honestly and tell me where they become confused, bored, stuck or unexpectedly entertained.

There’s no download or mandatory account wall. Press Play, make a guest character and only create an account later if you decide the little fellow is worth keeping.

https://fortisq.itch.io/bitiverse

If you try it, even ten honest minutes and one useful observation would mean a lot. If you build a house, tell me where, I enjoy watching actual neighborhoods appear in this ridiculous little world.