The short answer is we don't know an exact premium to be used for 'one click jewels' through the game's website. From a player experience we can't adjust the price of jewels hourly or we will end up with very upset players wanting refunds or changes (EG: "I bought 1000 jewels for 10 dollars and now if I spent 10 I'd get 1100!! give me 100 free"). By adding a healthy premium for the one click purchase option it will allow us to leave a mostly static price (adjusted say, monthly) and to cover the risk of chargebacks.

Players will of course be able to use exchanges to load cheaper jewels into their account and we will need to be buying coins from exchanges ourselves to refill the coins used by the paypal accounts.

The separate sites/gambling integrations will tie directly into exchanges as users of such services would be more familiar with cryptocurrency and would be more tolerant of fluctuating prices.

Apex and Triumph will be converted to using a full jewels cash shop. They can purchase jewels from us through paypal (draining the paypal reserve fund and meaning we have to go to an exchange to re-buy coins to fill it up with) or they can purchase directly from an exchange. Obviously the paypal prices will be inflated and will have limitations in regards to coin maturity to avoid us running into charge backs (full description in OP on how that all works).

Heroes will launch from day 1 with a fully embedded jewels cash shop with the same basic setup but more uses for the coins. Apex/Triumph limits our cash shop to involving a few character customization options (weapon and armor skins) and premium VIP status (3 day and 30 day vip tokens). With heroes we have a lot more content which can be monitize, including but not limited to the following.

-Armor skins
-Weapon skins
-Mount skins
-Premium VIP status
-Random loot crates
-Jewels tokens (peer2peer trading of the coins)
-In game titles


So, a conservative estimate for jewels in apex/triumph would be around 5k usd/month in purchased coins (which could be from us through paypal, or through any exchange they wish to use). With heroes the use cases will be much larger and I would say a conservative estimate of 10-15k usd/month within the first 2 months of launch with the potential to grow significantly in the 4-6 months following.


The main use of the money raised from the ICO will be not only to create the secure backend for processing jewels (the cash shop, the wallet functionality and more) but more importantly, to create new provably fair gambling mini games. This is where the possibility of the coin explodes because those mini games are not bound to our project. These games will be embedded into our client using a html5 compatible webview but also available as a completely separate website and mobile app.

This means our coin will be used for all in-game purchases on apex/triumph/heroes but also in these mini games which will be available inside our game, on their own website (altcoin gambling enthusiasts can play it without ever knowing about our server if they wish) and also opens up the possibility of introducing other private servers and online games to integrate the same mini games. I know of at least 2 other servers who would be interested in doing so and I'm sure once we have it fully released and proven we will get a lot of attention from other projects.


TL DR cause I ranted too long: Consistent demand from the game itself but real long term growth would be implementing gambling the coin in our servers, in dedicated mobile apps and in other games and servers.

We'd be happy to hear from other investors if they have similar concerns. That being said though, we feel we're being pretty upfront with people. I'm not sure that escrow could offer much more peace of mind compared to the public track record me/my projects have as well as the ongoing information that we're providing. Lets be clear here, if this was some sad attempt at scamming people, we could still do it while using escrow. That's not the case though so I'd say give the game a try, talk to some of the players, check out some of our past videos and posts and let us know if you have further thoughts or suggestions.

As mentioned by the official jewels account, if it's a major concern for a lot of people, we can of course look into making the switch.

When I was around 10 I started messing around with html. I don't remember what prompted it but I messed around making some really, really basic websites. Because of my complete lack of art abilities I never did much, was just teaching myself some basic tags and stuff out of boredom. I've always been incredibly interested in video games so I've always tried to teach myself little bits and pieces be it doing mods for games, basic scripting or really basic game engines to help learn.

When I was in highschool playing conquer there were a few (realllyyy bad) C# sources that were made public and I started messing around with them learning to understand the code, writing some basic NPC scripts, etc. It was all trial and error and very, very messy.

Apex and the upcoming Heroes project are in C# with mysql backend. The client protection is done in C++ although that is not done by myself. I have a second programmer working with me on heroes who does the client integration side of things. My projects requiring actual client side graphics have been done in XNA/MonoGame and I've written a lot of different tools to help in my workflow. A good example is recently I reverse engineered the model files in the client, wrote a tool to preview, edit and export them so that I could easily import or alter effects to create new items in game.

Here's a super basic set of videos I did so our artists knew how to work with my tools.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJ2guEjBCwA



Rebirth will not rely on any existing client and will be built entirely from scratch. For that we plan to use Unity3D for the client side (C#) and C# for the server side the backend database will likely be split among various db types but will likely end up primarily using mysql. At that time we will likely also move towards using asp.net so that our client, server and website all are based on C#. Makes things easier.

One of the points in the roadmap mentions various prototype builds and that will be very important. The game client we're using now is using some really, really bad practices for how it renders objects in game and how it handles network traffic. That's not problems that can be solved without writing our own custom client from scratch and we plan to to it properly. The first couple months of development for that project will revolve entirely around designing various approaches for the game rendering, file management and network architecture to make sure it's modern and scales well under heavy loads.

Warning possibly long post ahead!


Growing up I was always very interested in computers and video games. It wasn't really until highschool though that I was exposed to programming.During that time I was playing a lot of conquer and because of how pay2win the game was, there was a huge hack/bot community surrounding the game. I started teaching myself a little bit about programming but when I went to university I felt that I didn't want to be a professional programmer due to the stigma many programming (especially game design) jobs have in regards to crunch period and constant layoffs when projects are completed.

During my first year at university though I did take a few programming courses due to my own interest while majoring in Philosophy. There's actually a lot of crossover between the two in regards to AI and theory of the human mind. When I was entering my second year though I realized I was spending virtually all of my free time teaching myself more programming and so I made the switch over to computer science. I was lucky enough to get a summer internship for a software development company at the time who specialize in software to map and manage very large data centers. As a result of that internship I was able to meet with some really cool companies and people which secured my interest in programming.

In regards to other job experience, my first job was actually at the local computer store in my town where I worked for a number of years until the owner sold the business. I then was able to use a government program to start my own business doing mobile computer repairs and training which I did until I left for university. After graduating I worked for a number of years for a local internet provider doing technical support as well as writing internal tools for their business. The main one that stands out was a tool to estimate if customers would be able to receive rural wireless service taking into account their location's topography. This involved turning their address into gps coordinates, comparing it against towers in their area and then using heightmap data to try to estimate if there were any obstructions in the way.

After working for that ISP I streamed league of legends semi professionally for around a year before starting to do freelance work for others in the conquer community again. When I saw how poorly managed most of those projects were, I made the decision to start working on my own and the rest is history


TLDR version: I have a background in computing and customer service with lots and lots of experience regarding internet communities (forums, streams and open source projects). I've also had experience running my own company and in freelance work before I started doing the current server projects.

I completely agree. We want this to be fair for everyone. While of course early investors are hugely appreciated, we feel the project has enough merits that investing will be worthwhile for everyone and we want to keep it that way even for those who may be a bit late to the party

Appreciate the support greatly!

Essentially correct yes.

People can always buy jewels from exchanges but if they want a quick and easy paypal transaction, we need to have some amount of reserve we can sell to them. That fund would need to be consistently replenished by us re-purchasing jewels from the various exchanges.


People buying through paypal will have limitations in regards to what those jewels can be used for to make sure that we do not have to deal with chargebacks (they can consume the jewels they bought from us but not trade it to others or cash out to an exchange. Those jewels will be locked until they are 'mature'). Such an option needs to exist because a significant portion of players are not going to be willing to deal with going to an exchange and need a 'one click' solution to buy their coins.

I've already added a page for it. Seems it never got added to the OP


http://apexconquer.com/ico.php

In the past most of our players have come from facebook advertisements but with Heroes we have access to our previous mailing list from the past year and a half. The following is our main methods we plan to use to help grow the new project.


-Thorough pre-testing. Right now we're doing a public beta to test all of our new content to make sure it's ready but also to get existing players excited and telling their friends.
-We will be doing a referral program where if you invite your friends to play, you + they both get rewards. We generate a unique identifier per computer so it's not easily abused.
-We will be using our existing mailing list to send out a professionally designed newsletter letting our old players (both current and past) know about the launch and the new features.
-We will be doing a large facebook advertising campaign at launch to drive new players to it
-We will be using a number of top100 type websites to bring in more players
-We will be using a number of gaming forums and doing our best to get our new project listed on a number of gaming news websites as well


Our past experience with these various methods will allow us to combine and improve on them to be even more effective this time around. Our goal is to get the new project to 2,000+ active daily players within the first 2 months. That's a fairly reasonable goal and my personal goal is to double that (4,000 unique accounts per day) within the first 6 months.


The new project is just miles beyond what the previous one was in regards to ease of use. We're no longer trying to get people to play a decade old version of a game with no tutorial and very clunky old game systems. We have proper tutorials built right into the new project as well as a ton of new features to make it easier for players who've never played conquer before to know what they need to be doing to get started.

With the implementation of jewels from day 1 launch it will also provide an easier to use and manage cash shop for people who wish to spend money on the game AND we have the extra content provided by the provably fair gambling games we are looking to create using funds raised from the ICO to add even more gameplay content for people.

The Heroes project is much larger in scale in regards to

-Potential playerbase
-Amount of features players can spend money on: we actually ran into issues with apex where players ran out of things to spend money on.
-Long term prospects: more content means less reason for people to get bored and stop playing

Apex/Triumph will still exist alongside heroes. Heroes is providing a more modern gaming experience which many people will want, but some will still of course prefer our older servers.


Yes to all of the above. Expect more specific answers from the JewelsProject account within the next few days. We have a ongoing dev document regarding how those things will be handled. Don't want to jump the gun by releasing partially completed info.


Mini games and RNG are a huge part of the game already. We offer a ton of PVP options for those who want to duel and show off their skill but we also offer a very large amount game play for those who don't enjoy fighting other players. Here's a (partial) list.

-Gambling Mini games: Poker and dice games already exist and we plan to add more custom provably fair gambling games which will utilize jewels to gamble vs the house.
-Player housing and furniture, shared guild halls and more
-Lots and lots of visual customization options to change the looks of your armor, weapons, hairs, avatars and even things like titles and special glow effects to indicate your mastery of the game.
-Casual non combat events. Trivia events, horse racing, hide and seek, etc.

Are you selecting TriumphConquer from the login screen? Most likely you have apex selected which is a different set of accounts.

I personally play with windows 10 with no problem. You should be fine

I'd be happy to do some hit based duels with anyone from the thread who wants some PVP practice and of course to answer any questions they have

Any messages sent to Support[GM] in game send me a sound notification so that I can reply as needed.

Face of the server

We are rapidly finalizing all the details for the ico and should have more concrete details available by the end of the weekend. While we get everything organized for that, we're also doing a contest for our players. We noticed that we have a lot of really passionate players who are already posting pictures of themselves on our forum or in some cases making their own t-shirts for the game with their character names on them. We want to reward our players for their passion and creativity so we've launched a mini competition through our Facebook page. Everyone who posts a picture of themselves with something listing their character name/server will receive a in-game reward consisting of 3 days of free VIP service. Our favorite entries will receive a 30 day VIP token as a bonus reward.

Those entries will then be turned into a collage and used for future advertisements as a quick way to demonstrate to prospective players that we have a thriving and passionate community playing our game. The contest is open now and will run for 7 days. That will give us time for the contest to close, any art to be made and launch a new advertising campaign using those materials for August 1st which will ideally coincide with the public launch of our new Conquer Heroes project.

Looking for Artists, Modelers, etc

Another minor update but we are looking to accept resumes for artists of various types. In the coming months we will be requiring more artists to work both on the gambling mini games for our existing projects, to create new advertising assets, graphics updates to our website as well as to start doing concept art for the new game.

Resumes can be sent to hr@apexconquer.com please be sure to link to any public portfolio you have ideally with a focus on some of the following skills.

-Character modeling, texturing, rigging and animation
-Promotional art. Banners, gifs, logos, etc
-Clean, professional GUI designs
-Experience with Unity engine (particles, shaders, etc)

Obviously we don't expect one candidate to be able to do everything, those are simple some of the subcategories of work that we will be looking to hire out. We will be reviewing resumes and contacting applicants throughout the next couple of months in regards to freelance work we may have for their particular set of talents.

Glad to see some people from the thread giving the game a try. What's your character name/server?


Launched a minor update correcting a few in game bugs. Should be extra smooth for new players now. There was an issue with the VIP from newbie quests where it would require you to relog into the game to see the reward.

We're working to finish up the ICO website and all of the necessary timelines, background systems and details needed to do a proper informative release on the subject... I know waiting sucks but right now anything we could list would be subject to change which would be even more frustrating. Sorry I couldn't be a bit more specific on that


That's actually a group of players who made up their own tshirts and sent us the picture through our facebook page letting us know how much their family enjoys playing the game. We're actually going to be running a photo contest later this week where players can submit pictures of themselves listing their character name/server. We'll be rewarding those players with some in-game goodies and using the photos for future advertisement material.

Thank you for your interest! I'll forward your message along. We have a large amount of players from the Philippines so having proper translations of these announcements into Tagalog/Bisaya would be very helpful.



Everyone is of course welcome to their opinion but the fact that we have a project that's been online and successful for a significant amount of time, large amounts of expansion happening and a roadmap for the next few years of development does provide a rather solid backing for the Jewels (in regards to ongoing demand for the currency).

If you wouldn't mind, is there anything in particular about the project that turns you off? Negative feedback is just as important as positive because it allows us to address concerns others may share and continue improving the project.

I put together a super basic getting started playlist. These videos are available as mini tutorials in game but thought it might be useful to have them all in one place.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9OlmuxtFrY&list=PLAUFGbh94SIGXABbdQZZuqAxme5m3QVBZ

Extra tips as these videos sort of assume people know how conquer works.


Jumping

Hold down ctrl when clicking to make your character jump. It's much faster and will keep you out of danger.

PVP Events/Fastblade

It's mentioned in the playlist above but we have a ton of different events open to all players. The way fastblade works is that it hits in a straight line between your character and where you click on the ground. To hit accurately you need to aim for the feet of your target and be within a few paces of their character.  This can be quite difficult to do when they are jumping around and requires some practice.

Items

DragonBalls are used to upgrade the quality of items and can be traded in market for CPs (used to buy things from other players or from the shopping mall in game)
Meteors are used to upgrade the level of items and also in some quests. Players will often buy them from you.
+1 items are used to upgrade the composition of items. EG 3 +1 items makes a +2 item, 3 +2 items makes a +3 item all the way up to +9 (which requires thousands of +1s to create). This keeps them in high demand by players.
Blessed items (-3/-5) reduce total damage taken. -5 items sell for quite high prices to other players.


Those are the main items people are focused on hunting. The reason that most people start with an archer is that they are very efficient at killing a lot of monsters very quickly to try to find items which can be used to upgrade their gear or sold to other players.


Maps

The starting town (TwinCity) is actually very dangerous. As a new player you have nothing to lose if someone finds and kills you but it's still rare to see players sticking around town for very long for fear of dying. Most players will be off leveling, hunting, mining or will be in the market map.

Each city has a conductress which will allow you to enter the market as well as to speed travel across the game. If you're a new player looking to find some people to chat with, market is definitely where you want to go.


Hopefully this super brief mini guide helps anyone who is trying to take a peek at the server.

Thanks for all the kind words! Happy to see so many people finding interest in this project. Getting really excited to dive in and show some cool gambling mini games and extra content but right now we're focusing on the scalability and security of the project before anything else. Can't take any risks when people are involving money and want to make sure this whole project goes as smoothly as possible.


In regards to the ICO and further details, that will be something we cant provide solid details on quite yet. The JewelsProject account should have more solid details on investment timeline shortly as we have a meeting later tonight.