Greetings, Spacefarers!
We’ve got the transcript for you today from last week’s AMA session on February 22nd, 2022. It’s been edited for clarity, with answers attributed to the team member who responded. We want to thank the community again for making this such an awesome session, and coming prepared with great questions for the team!
Q: What types of NFT’s will there be?
DapperDon: Celestial Claims (also referred to as Land Claim), Capital Ships, Heroes and Guilds.
Q: For the average Free-2-Play player that does not own NFTs, is it beneficial to venture into space alone or join a team? Are there drawbacks to either choice?
HF Artemis: I think in a game of this scope it’s always a good idea to have someone that has your back. It will be a symbiotic relationship between F2P and NFT holders, and I definitely think it will be more challenging, though not impossible, to go it alone.
DapperDon: All players will start in House Space, F2P players will be able to safely build up their fleets and homebase, they will be introduced to mining and combat with NPCs. They will also quickly need additional resources and components so they will have to venture out into one of the 3 clusters to utilize NFT Claims so they can progress and earn DUST.
Q: When land rush? (When can land be purchased?)
HF Artemis: Just missed one, it ended last week for now, but there should be holdings
available from those who might be selling
Q: A Guild will be an NFT? How does that work? Or is the NFT just your membership card for a guild?
DapperDon: Basic guilds, what we call common, are very small and don’t have the benefits of NPC faction affiliation. Uncommon and above allows for much greater membership, a number of benefits and unlocks 25% of ship progression (of that faction affiliation) at it’s highest levels. One person would purchase the NFT guild Charter and then can invite whomever they like.
Q: Wen land claim? (When can land be claimed in game?)
DapperDon: We just added a ton of assets and POIs to the game during our movement module (on top of free roam movement) and we need to rejigger the map data to account for all of these. So not before that
Q: I’m also interested on “wen”, but in a more serious perspective, I’m more concerned about the economic fate of many p2e games, if not all. I truly believe there must be a source of resources coming from “outside” the echosystem, to sustain the economy. this could be battle passes, ads/commercials/billboards, etc. Is EoE aware of these challenges and what is being done in that regards? Thank you!
HF Artemis: We’re all in on EoE, and that includes a robust marketing plan. We’re absolutely aware of the challenges in this space, and are ready to take that on.
DapperDon: Absolutely, you don’t have to look far to see the economic impact from the lack of planning in that regard. We’ve hired an excellent economist that has spent the last decade focused on market pressures and balance and he’s focused on tying in-game economies to the external. That being said, I have an innovative (I think) riff off a pass that I think is going to be a game changer.
Q: Will a gamer who is not interested in earning anything want to play EoE? Is it going to be fun for everyone?
HF Artemis: This is something that’s critical to us, we want the game to be FUN, first and foremost, and as a 4x grand strategy, there’s a lot of hard work going into the design and gameplay
Q: When playing, can you send your ship to harvest, close the game and come back to mined resources? Or do you always have to be in the game?
HF Artemis: You can absolutely mine offline, it’s async, so no need to be on 24/7
Q: Can you choose who mines your Claims or are they just randomly assigned? Ex: if you wanted to have your friends be the ones mining
DapperDon: You can choose who mines for sure. You can set it up so anyone who meets certain criteria (fleet power, level, guild affiliation, etc) You could set it up so only guild members can mine.
Q: Can you give us a sense of the timeline of battles. for example, how long between when someone scouts out my claim, discovers that there are miners and decides they want to attack? And then how long will I have to respond (e.g., send in reinforcements) once I find out they’ve decided to attack the miners?
HF Artemis: Gonna be a lot of factors that influence that. Whether or not they burn dust for faster speed, the distance, etc. You can go in blind, and not even probe, but then you can get surprised by heavy defenses when you arrive. Generally, you’d be looking to build up your defenses, so that if someone shows up, you can repel that attack
Q: Our planets should have the ability to play the orb visuals
DapperDon: THAT is a super cool idea. We wanted there to be a realistic view when you probe a plant in our UI. Since we check your wallet for ownership of the NFT claim, I wonder if we could do the same for the Orb and display that (or some representation)? I’ll look into it but it may have to be a post launch feature depending on the lift.
Q: Can you set a timer up or do you manually have to boot them from the mining?
HF Artemis: leases will be on a timeframe, so say you decide to lease for 12 hours, it would expire after that time
Q: Can I generate all by myself without Planet Dust?
HF Artemis: Dust comes from mining NFT claims. If you don’t own one, you can still lease a mining spot and mine some.
Q: The roadmap did not outline a timeframe in which we will be able to see/play the alpha. Any thoughts there?
Dapperdon: The plan is still to launch in 22, with changing movement to be Free Roam, adding the interactive FOW and all the services, POIs, Remnants and such It’ll be late Q3/Early Q4. I’m hoping to have something you guys can tool around in by Galaverse.
Q: Can you provide an example of what the primary game loop might look like? When a player logs in, what do they actually do?
DapperDon: Ok there is more to it but this was a representation of faucets and sinks we put together for a deck not too long ago. It’s not sexy but…
Q: From what we have learned, banding together can have amplifying effects. In fact, there could be a dark side to this. There appears to be a sound strategy in Free-2-Play players coming together and simply swarming an ancient NFT in perpetuity. While there is a cost for the swarm, the cost appears much greater for those associated with the ancient NFT. Is this true?
HF Artemis: no, because the resource output for that would be monumental. Non-NFT ships get destroyed, not just damaged, aside from their capital ship which everyone has to have at least one of. They’d get one shot, and chances are good you wouldn’t be sitting there doing nothing, nor your comrades in arms. They would constantly have to be returning to their own base, working to gather resources to build ships, taking the travel time back, etc
Q: Is there a cap for earning dust per day then related to the NFTs?
DapperDon: There is a calculation based on a host of different activities and factors that will determine DUST distribution. It will not be unlimited.
Q: Will we be able to upgrade ships or just build better ones? I have a basic miner that mines at XX speed or I have a basic miner with the penetrator 9000 that can mine a lot faster?
DapperDon: There will be equipment/Heroes that can be plugged in/Assigned to various buildings, mines, ships that will affect a multitude of stats and your ship progression (weaved into homebase progression) can also affect mining speed, capacity, etc.
Q: So… are you saying that eventually our Celestial Claims will become baron?.. like what type of time frame could we expect? Will there be new claims to get when that happens?
HF Artemis: no no, he meant in a day, like a person can’t get unlimited dust at the same time. Like other resources it would be capped
DapperDon: Celestial Claims are evergreen, they will produce resources and DUST forever. And while basic resources will be capped by the Owners upgrades and the ability of the lessees, DUST is a token and will be controlled by a different mechanism, one based on an activity calculation. Tokens have to be balanced for the good of the economy (so you don’t get the kind of thing you are witnessing elsewhere).
Q: So there will be 12 clusters in total in the future? (saw that on a map in the video)
DapperDon: That was an artistic representation that has since been scrapped in lieu of an Ancient Maproom that you’ll see coming out shortly that only contains House Space, the 3 clusters and The Core. The 12 bubbles were put there to balance out the astrolabe vibe but caused alot of confusion.
Q: Will there be in-game tracking of assets changing hands, or will it be possible for someone from a guild to secretly fund a rogue element to raid other guilds?
HF Artemis: @dapperdon can correct me if I’m mistaken, but I don’t think it will be public knowledge who owns what or who trades what. When I’m talking about a public black eye, or getting blacklisted, I’m talking about a person’s username getting to be very well known due to word of mouth. Chances are good those folks that are buying ancients are gonna be in game A LOT.
Q: How much in game time would it take to build ships in order to attack?
HF Artemis: depending on what you’re building, and how much, hours, possibly days.
DapperDon: Your ship foundries will be in a constant state of production. Your drydocks will always have Capital ships in for repairs. The need for Basic and refined resources for both building and upgrading as well as gear and Heroes will be all encompassing.
Q: It sounds like the scales are tipped towards land owners. I think many of us in the 4x space know the “leroy jenkins” types run deep.
HF Artemis: I honestly wouldn’t say that. I think it’s going to be crucial to have both F2P and NFT holders, in abundance. Without F2P, landholders would be sitting there with some very visually stunning planets to stare at, with little benefit because the mines wouldn’t be producing, both will need each other.
Q: It seems as though piracy will require constant re-branding, an advantage that we have as out-of-the-game players rather than actual denizens of this world. Are there any plans to discourage multi-accounting, or would someone with a lot of dust be able to spin up a bunch of fleets at one time for the purposes of incognito raiding?
HF Artemis: the resources would have to come from somewhere to make those ships. It’s not a situation where you can just get a throwaway email, materialize, make a fleet, and run for the hills. You would have to sit and play the game, acquire the resources, actually do the production, send the ships, etc for every time you did it
Q: So will your dust production turn off when you go offline, but normal resources will still mine and then when you get back in dust will start up again. Or maybe there is an activity timer/sensor controlling it?
HF Artemis: no, if your mines are active, and leased, they’d be producing
Q: How will the Miasma play out in the game?
DapperDon: There is a secret behind the Miasma, some of the Core will be divided by it, to even travel near it will need upgrades to your fleet only the most powerful guilds will be able to produce.
Q: From a gameplay perspective, does this land closer to the MMORTS genre? Something like Clash of Clans? You build your base, build your fleet, and battle to control some central resource. Is there an overall objective? Are there pve elements?
HF Artemis: Yep, we think of it as a 4x grand strategy MMO
Q: Are we expecting to have more player than total available lease? or more lease than players?
DapperDon: I do expect we will have more players than leases eventually. There are common asteroids and such of the 3 different varieties scattered around all the clusters so newer and smaller players and guilds will be mining those out while waiting for a spot on a Celestial claim.
Q: I also remember @dapperdon talking about F2P players eventually progressing enough to own NFT.
DapperDon: You have to plan for it, give the players an avenue to transition (F2P>Earners>Owners). Now they may have to start with Ships or Heroes, or even an Uncommon Guild but the intent is for them to earn up, grab another Capital ship and equip it for mining. Someday may even have a fleet of Miners out there doing their thing.
Q: Could you explain a 4x game? What does that mean to you?
DapperDon: In the days of yore, Explore, Expand, Exploit and Exterminate. We’re more about the first 3 and less about the last 1.
Q: So this is like a never ending game of Catan in space? Sorry I just haven’t heard a lot about this game… It seems very interesting. A game that doesn’t rely on childlike reflexes haha
HF Artemis: Yeah, this is definitely one that isn’t dependent on reflexes, the way a platformer or shooter would be. it’s all about the strategy
DapperDon: That’s the plan. We talk about the legacy of NFTs (which is what really interest me in the space) and now it’s not 2-3 years out, it’s how do we get to 5-10 years.
Q: What does a quest look like? Fetch quests? Are there npcs? How many in game hours are you projecting to go from f2p-earner then from earner-owner?
DapperDon: Combat for sure, exploration, even some ambassadorial work.
Q: Which of all the game mechanics are you most excited to play yourself?
HF Artemis: The exploration for sure! I’m going to end up stranded in the middle of the universe for spending all my time flying around looking for cool stuff XD
Q: What are the penalties for not playing for say a month? What happens to your base/fleet?
HF Artemis: you’d likely just come back to a lot of damage, need a lot of repair, but you can’t lose NFT holdings, or NFT ships, so they’d be there when you return
Q: Can we mine all the spots on a land claim or will we have to rent them. Especially if you own several land claims?
DapperDon: You can mine all your own leases if you choose.
Q: On that same point, the dust will continue to accumulate for the claim holder if it’s mined by pirates, is that right?
DapperDon: That is the upside, yes.
Q: Any ways to manage the lease without opening the game?
HF Artemis: The intention is that it will always take interaction with the game at least somewhat regularly. We don’t plan to create a thing where someone buys a claim, places it, never logs in again, and it’s dandy.
Q: Would you need some sort of extra mining equipment or something to do so? Why would you lease vs mining yourself?
DapperDon: You would need the same mining vessels as anyone else. You could mine with a couple capital ships and lease out the rest, take the resources and build more capital ships with more mining vessels and eventually reduce the number of leases in lieu of your own fleets.
Q: F2P: I need to find some uncontested resource to mine? Is there any other way to progress?
HF Artemis: There will be resources anyone can mine in house space, so people will begin early progression that way. If you’re a guild or a big group, you still have to mine, progress, continue to get resources, and presumably, you’d be looking to attack other players and get more resources that way. Everyone will also be engaging with the PvE content, such as Quests, POI’s etc
HF Artemis: We would encourage new players to embrace the social nature of the game, and talk to other people, you know? If you’re trying to play an MMO as a solo, you’re gonna have your work cut out for you. Balance is delicate for sure, and that just makes it all the more critical to hear the feedback from the community. That’s something we definitely won’t shy away from when the time comes when you’re in game and playing. At the end of the day, it’s going to take fine tuning as people experience the live game and we see how it all plays out.
My literal job description is just that - I was hired to be the bridge between you and the team, and ensure that the feedback coming from you guys gets through and taken on board. Well, and also the fun stuff, planning events, contests, AMA’s, eventually Twitch streams, all that jazz” -