How to properly finish the closed alpha test of the game and move on to OBT?

Question

Game development

Good day to all. There is one browser-based online game at the stage of completion of alpha testing. The registered number of users is 10 thousand. Average online 200-500 people. A little more than six months have passed since the first registration of the player. Registration of players went on invites.
It seems to me that the time has come to complete alpha testing and move on to the open beta test of the game and the start of monetization. And here the most difficult question arose, what to do with the in-game property that the players managed to earn, with their gaming experience, with the alliances that exist in the game. And now the top al is up to 200 players, and it's clear that all players are not eager to start from scratch.
I see the following options:
Full reset.In my opinion, it will lead to the fact that not very loyal players, but currently connected by social connections, will simply fall off and will not start from a blank sheet. Also rage from those who have achieved a lot in the game and are now quite satisfied.
Leave as is and open registration. And immediately I get 2 castes of players: old testers and beginners who will never catch up with these old people, except perhaps through the purchase of an old player account. Yes, the black market has already appeared, I myself recently found out and I do not interfere with this process.
Reset experience and pixel property testers.Reset experience and all achievements to 0. Redeem all purchased property from the players at the market price. All game money that was on the player and will be added after the ransom is left with the player. Even if it turns out that everyone is equal in experience, testers have a huge advantage in terms of money. I have no idea how to "smear" this money of testers and not bring down the game economy for beginners.
I considered the option to freeze this money and pour it in as the player develops in the beta test, but for example, combat experience involves restoring health for game money. There was a fantasy that the first important battles of alpha testers would take the surplus out of the game. But such a development of events cannot be confirmed by anything, and it is not a fact that this will happen.
Rollbacks and resets in the game have never been carried out. The mistakes and stupidity of the administration that brought profit to the players was accepted as a fait accompli. There have not yet been fatal errors creating game gods.
PS The players did not sign any agreements. The topic of entering the beta test and release by the administration of the game has never been raised.
PPS Free2play game PPPS
Players from almost all over the world. The post-Soviet version of slaughtering the community and forcing everyone to play from scratch is not suitable.

Answer 1

1. Do a full wipe;
2. You give old testers an exclusive trinket that cannot be found or bought, but which can be shown to everyone;
3. You can also give testers some slight advantage at the start of the game and reward them with premium access to content for a month, two, three.
4. If you have previously taken money from players, return the purchased items to them at the start of the game, if these items still exist and they are already balanced with the rest of the game world. If not, return as in-game currency.
This is standard practice in f2p mechanics. Most importantly, do not spare the money that you have not yet earned. If you can give a magic stick that generally does not get out of balance, then give it. Can you make a discount? Do it. You can allow to register a guild for free, allow. If the game is interesting, then the players will bring money in full. Your task is to keep those who have already come.
And get ready that there will still be dissatisfied players. Even if you give them half the game. The most important thing is the balance, so that donators, if they get an advantage, just not a big one.

Answer 2

Purely theoretically, you can consider the option of a clean launch of the game and the parallel existence of an existing one (with resettlement to the backyard) . Of course, this will require additional resources, at least for a while (you can try to announce to the players that their cozy little world will exist for another N-th amount of time and after it will be mercilessly drunk) .
When you close the possibility of registering on the old one, its community will gradually decrease (someone is tired, someone has no time, etc.) . If at the same time give current players small buns(achievements, unique models, badges, fan items that do not affect the gameplay but with some "visual" effects, etc., i.e., basically, items that allow you to stand out) when creating an account on a game restarted for a wider audience , then the vast majority will most likely create an account, a smaller part will play in parallel, an even smaller number of players will abandon their “honestly acquired”. The main thing here is to unobtrusively convey to the old people that they can lose all the benefits without starting to play on the new beta from launch. Moreover, the support of "backyards" will be on a residual basis, they will not have any goodies, etc. The main thing is to create some inconvenience, but not to go too far.

Answer 3

In general, of course, you have stretched the alpha test for half a year in vain. It was necessary to divide at least into alpha testing - then wipe - then CBT - then wipe - then MBT.
As for the rest, I agree with Roman Kulakovich . Any player who is not the first time playing MMO games knows that after the alpha and closed beta they make wipes, and they knew what they were doing.

Answer 4

It might be worth adding content for all stages of the game along with the release of the OBT (by inst to lvl, etc.) just to make them easily accessible. That is, the player seems to have not lost anything, but there is no imbalance from this, since everyone easily farmed similar things. If there is a crafting system, then you can try to give resources for already crafted things, but do not give the level / crafting permission / recipes.

Answer 5

In general, testing usually ends with a complete zeroing, which is negotiated separately.
But since everything has already gone where it went, it's better to leave the server alone, and not infringe on existing players.
And to continue, you can give the “oldies” or especially distinguished testers a commemorative award for participating / helping in testing, announcing the termination of testing, and making registration / lifting at the initial stages easier, for example, giving new players some kind of goodies that help them get started quickly , and at the same time not introducing imbalance into the game.