# Maintain World At Ruin > Product card for World at Ruin — a source-available, cloud-native MMORPG built almost entirely by agents, a first-class portfolio product. The repo's own AGENTS.md is authoritative for the settled design; this card keeps the operate notes and open decisions. Use when the daily maintainer selects World at Ruin. - Skill: `devantler-tech/maintain-world-at-ruin` (Agent Skill) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add devantler-tech/maintain-world-at-ruin` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/devantler-tech/maintain-world-at-ruin/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: DevOps & Infra - Author: devantler-tech (https://skillmd.com/u/devantler-tech) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/devantler-tech/maintain-world-at-ruin --- # Maintain: World at Ruin (game) A cloud-native MMORPG the maintainer wants to exist, built **almost entirely by agents** as a **first-class portfolio product** (maintainer direction 2026-07-17: it needs the same attention and love as the rest of the portfolio — not a back-of-queue pick). It participates in the normal selection rules — oldest-actionable-first and the `last_worked` fairness rotation — like every other product; expect the game itself to accrete over years all the same. He redirects via the **PR workflow**; ship draft PRs as usual. **Status: bootstrapped 2026-07-16.** The repo exists, the `applications/world-at-ruin` submodule is in place, the roadmap is seeded as GitHub Issues (`roadmap` label — Phase 0 art-pipeline taste gate first), and the settled design lives in **the repo's own `AGENTS.md`, which is authoritative**. This card keeps the operate notes and the deliberately-open **`OPEN DECISION`** items below; once those are settled and recorded in the repo, thin this card to a plain pointer like the other product cards. **The stack, the product law and the design pillars below were settled with the maintainer directly (2026-07-16) — do not re-litigate those.** The directive covers *decisions*, not the whole card: a few points are deliberately still **OPEN**, and they are marked **`OPEN DECISION`** where they appear. Those you may not treat as settled — decide them when you implement the subsystem, ship the call as a draft PR (he redirects there), and update this card with what was chosen. Shared cross-repo rules are in the monorepo [`AGENTS.md`](../../../../AGENTS.md). ## The premise — “as code”, which decides everything else No UI clicks, no desktop design tools. Everything text-authored, built headlessly in CI. **If an agent cannot author it, it does not get built**, because nobody is hand-making this. So “as code” is the *premise* and every other preference — engine, fidelity — yields to it. - **Client: Godot 4** — chosen *because* `.tscn`/`.tres`/`.gdshader` are text and headless export is first-class. **Unreal was rejected:** `.uasset`/`.umap` are binary, so agents cannot author levels or materials. This knowingly costs the graphics ceiling (Godot ≈ semi-realistic PBR; no Nanite/Lumen). - **Art: generated as code, all OSS/CC0 — never commercial assets.** Headless Blender (`bpy`) → glTF; **MPFB2 + Rigify** for characters (core assets CC0, explicitly closed-source-safe); Poly Haven / ambientCG (CC0) materials; WFC interiors, grammar towns, SDF caves, erosion terrain. **Blender's GPL covers the tool, never the output.** Target is **stylised-realistic (“a more realistic WoW”)** — that style is *parametric*, which is exactly why it is expressible as code. Photorealism is unreachable in any engine without a human sculptor; do not re-attempt it. - **Weakest link: animation.** CMU mocap (verify licence per dataset — AMASS/LAFAN1 are research-only, never ship them) + procedural IK. Telegraphed combat mitigates this by putting the signal in the ground, not the frames. - **AI-generated 3D**: MIT models exist (TRELLIS, TripoSR) but topology is poor and **training-data provenance is murky** — a liability for something he owns outright. Concept/props only, never a shipped hero asset. ## Server - **Realtime tier**: zone / dungeon-instance **Agones** GameServers (CNCF). **One tick loop per process — NEVER decomposed.** The unit of scale is the *number* of zones. A network hop between “player moved” and “was he in the cone” re-creates the desync problem telegraphs exist to avoid. - **Meta tier**: real Go microservices over gRPC — mostly **Nakama** (Apache-2.0) for auth/social/chat/storage. Write only what it doesn't give you. - **Postgres/CNPG**; runs on the existing platform via Flux. **Seamless instancing** falls out of Agones: allocate the dungeon server as the player approaches, pre-connect, hand off — no loading screens, no pop-in, ever. - **Physics stays OUT of the authoritative path** — capsules/navmesh only. This is what makes a Go authority cheap, deterministic and latency-tolerant. ## Licensing **Source-available and proprietary — NEVER call it “open source”** (free redistribution is clause 1 of the OSD). Copying/redistribution prohibited. Needs a **bespoke EULA** and a **CLA with copyright assignment** (EU: assignment plus fallback exclusive licence) gating the first external PR. **No GPL/AGPL in the shipped tree** — enforce in CI, don't remember it. ## Product law — the constraints that outrank the design 1. **No hard resets, and nothing is taken from a player silently.** An early player keeps playing as it evolves: no wipes, no seasons, no stat squishes. **The world may be migrated** — that is expected — but every migration is either **non-breaking** (expand/contract migrations, versioned save data, backward-compatible protocols; the player never notices) **or goes through a visible deprecation** that tells the player, in-game and ahead of time, exactly what is changing, removed, or destroyed and when. **CI-enforceable, and the guard must exist before the first player does** — an agent must not merge a change that strands a character or removes something from a player without an announced deprecation. 2. **Experimental features are opt-in behind a feature flag.** Anything unsettled ships **default-off** behind a flag; a player must **opt in**, it is validated in that state, and only once proven does it flip default-on and the short-lived release flag retire — the game-facing edge of the portfolio **feature-flag-first delivery** rule. 3. **No power/wealth inflation, no ecosystem corruption.** A dupe, a runaway drop rate or a botched economy change cannot be un-printed without the very reset the game forbids — economic integrity is engineered at the root: transactional integrity, idempotency and an audit trail are day-one requirements. Migrating *content and data* forward is expected; letting *value* leak is never allowed. **The collision to keep front of mind: WoW/Diablo-4's answer to inflation IS the reset** (D4 wipes seasonally; WoW squishes stats). Both are forbidden, so economics come from **Guild Wars 2** instead: horizontal progression, a ceiling that never rises, bound loot, no trading/auction house (kills RMT, botting and dupe *value* at the root), hard sinks. WoW/D4 texture, GW2 economics. ## Design — classless weapon mastery (The Secret World-shaped) - **Classless.** Playstyle is defined by which weapons you master. **Two weapons equipped, or one wielded alone to empower it** — flexibility and multi-specialisation. - **Trifecta**: damage / healer / tank. Each weapon leans toward one or more roles. - **Progression = weapon mastery, earned by *using* the weapon.** Mastery unlocks **new arsenals — never more damage**: more and more interesting ways to approach combat. - **Death**: lose some unbanked mastery, respawn at the nearest respawn point, and **reclaim it or lose it forever** (a Souls bloodstain, kept even though the Souls loop was dropped). A filled bar **banks unlosable progress** — a ratchet floor. - **Balance**: mitigation / damage / healing throughputs stay balanced so **all areas stay relevant**. Progression is *advisable* for the hardest content, never *required* — doing it unprogressed should be possible but unwise. Some areas/dungeons are **gated by story or orderly completion**; unlocks are **account-bound**. - **Hard, skill-based bosses and elites** spread across open world, dungeons and raids — opt-in risk of losing or gaining larger amounts of mastery, plus the odd cosmetic. - **Loot is Elder-Scrolls-shaped: a sword is a sword.** How well you use it is *your* mastery. Huge visual variety so players find the look they want **without touching balance**. **Armour is the exception** — real mitigation/lightness trade-offs: light = agile, heavy = takes a hit. - **Endgame**: mythic-like dungeons, regular dungeons, raids, endless dungeons. **Loot-based progression here only** — vertical, **with a real loft** (maintainer direction 2026-07-17). **In the open world, endgame gear gives a cosmetic edge ONLY**: the open world is a fair challenge for everyone, and an experienced player's edge is their arsenal of abilities and weapon skills. - **All endgame stays relevant — keys and scaling everywhere** (maintainer direction 2026-07-17): every endgame activity carries keys and scaling that keep it engaging and replayable; expanding the endgame means BOTH improving what exists and building more; neither the endgame nor the open world may ever go stale or irrelevant. ## Design guards — the traps in the above, and how to hold them These are the non-obvious failure modes. Treat them as laws, and prefer designing them out over policing them after the fact — economic corruption, once loose, cannot be recalled without the reset the game forbids. - **🔴 The endgame ladder is the one place power grows — it MUST be bounded and inert outside itself.** “Gear upgraded to take on harder and harder content” *is* vertical progression, i.e. the exact inflation the product law forbids. **SETTLED by maintainer direction 2026-07-17:** (a) endgame gear is **cosmetic-edge-only in the open world** (stat-normalised/inert outside endgame instances — GW2 downscaling / WoW Timewalking are the reference mechanics); and (b) the vertical has a **loft but a bounded one** — beyond it, **difficulty scales, not power** (endless dungeons, mythic keys), and rewards become **score and cosmetics**. That is how “harder and harder” runs forever with no inflation and no reset. - **🔴 Usage-based progression's classic exploit is AFK/dummy grinding** (UO, Skyrim, ESO all bled here). With no wipe available this is permanent. **Mastery accrues only from meaningful contested combat** — appropriate-level hostile targets, server-authoritative, diminishing returns, and **zero** progress from training dummies, self-damage, or trivial mobs. - **Every new arsenal ability must be a SIDEGRADE, never a strict upgrade.** He is right that more options raise throughput in effect — that is precisely how power creep enters a game that claims to have none. Situational-by-design is the law, and **“no strict dominance” is simulatable**, so it is an agent-ownable CI guard rather than a matter of taste. - **Tune content against the *banked floor*, not peak mastery.** Unlosable progress is the only power level every player is guaranteed to have; everything above it is skill expression. - **`OPEN DECISION` — death penalty in group content breeds blame.** A bloodstain is fine solo; “you cost me my mastery” on a raid wipe is why WoW removed corpse runs. Consider full risk in open world/solo (his stated risk/reward intent) and a softened penalty in organised group content. Flag it as a decision, not a detail. - **Classless + dual weapons SOLVES tank/healer scarcity** — the classic MMO queue problem. Any player can swap to fill the missing role. Protect this; it is a genuine strength of the design. - **Axis map, to keep balance legible**: **weapons = horizontal** (your arsenal; cosmetic variety only). **Armour = your role/agility axis, and the bounded endgame vertical.** Keep them from blurring. - **`OPEN DECISION` — classless + account-bound unlocks make alts near-pointless** — especially with full appearance freedom. Consider **one character per account**: it simplifies the data model and identity, and removes mule characters as an economy vector. ## Phase 0 — before ANY game code **Prove the art pipeline**: headless Blender in CI → one MPFB2 character with proportions pushed stylised-realistic → one procedural cave → standing in Godot. It is a **taste gate the maintainer judges**, not a test suite, and it is the project's **one unproven bet**. If generated art can't clear his bar, the premise fails — cheap to learn now, ruinous to learn in Phase 6. ## Roadmap & enhancement The roadmap lives in **GitHub Issues on `devantler-tech/world-at-ruin`** (`roadmap` label), like every other product. Advance via [`product-engineering`](../../product-engineering/SKILL.md). Keep issues **agent-shaped** — small, specified, testable, art-free. **The project stalls the moment the next task is “make the combat feel good”**: that is a taste judgement and it needs the maintainer, so route those to him rather than guessing. **Phase 0 is the deliberate exception to “testable, art-free”** — it is *entirely* art and it ends in a taste judgement, so the rule above would forbid the project's own mandatory first step. Split it so the roadmap can carry it honestly: - **The machine-verifiable part IS a normal issue**: a headless Blender container runs in CI, an MPFB2 character and a procedural cave build reproducibly from committed scripts, and the glTF loads in Godot. That is testable, and an agent owns it end to end. - **The taste gate is a separate, explicitly maintainer-blocked issue** — he looks at the render and says yes or no. Never self-answer it, never infer a pass from CI being green, and never start game code because the pipeline runs. It is the one issue in the backlog that is *supposed* to wait for him.