DCG Town Hall 1

#ama #townhall
DCG Town Hall 1

Greetings Slayers,

Thank you very much for attending our AMA on October 19, 2022 - we enjoyed chatting with you and hope you did too! It's been a while since we had an open-mic style AMA where anyone can jump in with a question or comment, and the team found the free-flowing conversation very invigorating. Our community wanted more insight into project development and asked many questions upfront covering virtually all aspects of the project. We received over 30 questions in total. They were categorized into Game Development, Lore and Graphics, Hero NFTs, Game Mechanics, Team & Marketing, and Incentives. Don't fret as we prepared this transcript to keep you in the loop for those who missed the AMA.

A significant part of the questions was very thought-provoking, and we thank our community for that. Our marketing manager Pyro said, "Lots of great questions. I don't see that so often in AMAs."

Game Development

What were some of the best challenges when integrating blockchain into the game?

The biggest challenge faced while integrating the blockchain with the game was the data synchronization between the game server and the blockchain. Even though all the game assets live on the blockchain, it deeply integrates with our game server database and how the game works. We devised a new layer within our game server to integrate on-chain data and game interactions to give a seamless Web3 gaming experience for the first time.

Also, we developed an ingenious way of putting the focus on the game more than blockchain transactions by introducing the Stash system. This allows players to play and collect loot. Later, they can do blockchain transactions to collect the loot at their leisure.

What has changed with the game over the past month?

The biggest change was integrating our multiple contracts with our game server to make the on-chain gaming experience seamless. Among the many fixes and background, server-side optimizing includes fiat on-ramp, a new tutorial system complete with location-specific tutorials to make a new player feel at home. A social sharing integration is being worked on so players who find great gear can share their findings on Twitter, etc. To top this one off, we have moved to testnet and the team (and ambassadors already at the time of writing this) are seeing the game with transactions. Nick has put hours in, and it's smooth sailing.

What's the funniest bug the devs had to squash?

Working with contracts, and testing on multiple chains can have funny moments. Neo was working on one feature, which was quite late at night. He was using one of the contract addresses of the wrong chain and realized after a frustrating 5-10 minutes

What does the road map look like for the next 6-12 months?

Great question. We're looking at an enhanced RPG and PVP experience for The Legend of Aurum Draconis, Including

  • Full blueprint and crafting system
  • Advanced map with greater character control
  • 2D animated battle screen
  • PVP Arena
  • Tiny Dragons integration
  • Land ownership system; own, buy and sell plots in the world
  • Crafting aesthetic items that can be placed in your plots
  • Earn by building forests or farms on your plot of land to generate crafting materials

Is there unique tech in LOAD that hasn't been done or is rarely seen?

We are very busy and don't get much time to research other projects thoroughly, although we should. If we have to pick one thing we're proud of, it'd be our NFT crafting.
Rarely will you find a project with this degree of in-depth crafting and customization! Resources can be mixed in thousands of different combinations to craft epic NFTs for your character to equip. Also, add Stash to that, as mentioned above.

Are the delays more due to underestimating the time (i.e. manhours) or the complexity of having to solve problems? Is it the actual coding that takes a while or pounding your head against the wall to come up with a solution?

Our team rarely has moments where we're banging our heads against the wall. As an experienced team, we can always ask each other for advice on handling certain situations. The delays are related to building the quality our community deserves and the developers expect from us. We want to provide the best user experience possible, which takes time. Much work has been put into making the codebase scalable for the future. There are big plans that lay ahead of us. Putting the legwork in now will make all the difference in the future.

Is it fair to speculate if games of similar complexity will run into similar issues, and do you see some of your techs as a competitive advantage? At one time, I thought an early release would give a nice first-mover advantage, and we know more games coming out in 2023. But perhaps they will run into the same issues and delays.

There is quite a bit of complexity in the game's reward loop, making it very addicting to play. This type of process takes time to perfect. The most difficult aspect of building any project is the release. We have so much planned for the game that we kept adding more and more features delaying the release date. Even today we were talking about a new marketplace feature but decided it's best to add it to v1.1 and concentrate on finishing the remaining few items for our v1 release.

Any thoughts on how tough it is in crypto vs regular shipping because of the finality of contracts? Like you can't just release a patch for a contract?

Yes, for sure. It's exponentially more difficult to build in crypto. Sam did a great job designing and building the smart contracts. This made the entire process straightforward for the rest of the team to build around. There are ways to upgrade contracts that help with the immutability issues, but this comes with community concerns. The community always comes first for this team.

How do you determine when it is good enough to release? It would seem it will never be perfect.

This is probably one of the most difficult aspects of building. You need to draw a hard line in the sand at some point. No more features will be added after the XYZ and XYZ features. Then you work backward on bugs. High and medium-priority bugs are essential to fix. We have these mapped out in our GitHub for our team to tackle daily. Next is the testing phase with the community.

Lore and Graphics

Will there be more lore as you progress in the game? For example, bosses, evil creatures, or strange things that can appear in the city?

We certainly are creative as a team in this regard but thankfully have a talented lore writer who has some tricks up his sleeves. Some storylines will take longer than others, but we plan to release more plots and twists over time, sneaking in DLCs a user doesn't need to pay for, web3 gaming for you.

What will be animated and graphically improved in the future?

We look forward to adding character models so you can equip weapons and armor to something more than a silhouette. We are also looking at adding sprites on the world map and in the battle to represent a character NFT. Additionally, the current in-game locations will take on a 3D model instead of 2D as it is on the world map. We have a preview of Groms bank's 3D model on our Twitter.

Hero NFTs

There are currently 2 126 hero NFTs available so far. Many of us have many of them, which could make the barrier to entry pretty steep for newcomers if the prices start to pump on release. Are you guys interested in player volume (new collection) or keeping it small (floor price up)?

There are many variables to monitor. We will prepare another series for the pipeline and wait for the metrics to show us the way. Although, in the beginning, organic interest may be fed with the heroes renting system in my opinion.

Special edition heroes. How many are there? Genesis or corruption or other? What rank? When?

There are 7 of them at the moment. They won't belong to Genesis or Corruption. Their uniqueness comes from the partner-theme artwork and special in-game bonuses. A competition between different communities may determine which hero will get the bonus. The one that makes the most noise will get the higher bonus

It is clear from the quality of these questions that many of our community members are very thoughtful and engaged. They recognize our project's value and contribution to the GameFi space, and as Web3 game developers, we can't ask for more. We are truly grateful to have you with us on our journey and hope you enjoyed this quick read.

Don't forget to share the article and stay around for the next one!

To join our community: https://discord.com/invite/dragoncryptogaming

To listen to the recording, visit the following link: https://twitter.com/DCGgamefi/status/1582690885786955776
For everything else: https://dragoncrypto.io/links/


Join Discord