Online Role Playing Game with Bitcoin trading built in

[bitfantasy]

Farming,quests, crafting, fighting, exploring, building...

https://www.bitfantasy.com/

It was invite only at first, we're now taking public sign ups   if you use the code bitcointalk when you sign up you get an extra item.  It's constantly being developed but from the closed period people seem to really like it.  We didn't go down the Kickstarter type route and instead are hoping people will help fund us directly, and with bitcoin,  so.. support us, support bitcoin and play a fun game too

Cheers!

[1715593503]

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[1715593503]

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[favdesu]

so the game costs BTC0.1 and there are no gameplay videos?

[Mitchell]

so the game costs BTC0.1 and there are no gameplay videos?

This. It looks good, but I don't play games if I don't know how it is.

[Welsh]

Maybe post some gameplay & more screenshots. Then I may consider playing it. But, at the moment I don't know too much about the game and have only seen little screenshots which don't show anything about the game.

[marcovaldo]

so the game costs BTC0.1 and there are no gameplay videos?

It's not expensive.
Someone might buy it and share it here with others

[Mitchell]

so the game costs BTC0.1 and there are no gameplay videos?

It's not expensive.
Someone might buy it and share it here with others

I know. But I only buy something when I know how it works and really looks like.

[bitfantasy]

Its a good point, I did try to hire someone (for bitcoin) to make me a video but it fell through and didn't happen - will have to try again, or do it myself 

[Mitchell]

Its a good point, I did try to hire someone (for bitcoin) to make me a video but it fell through and didn't happen - will have to try again

Well I would do it, no problem.

[Kluge]

Fascinating. I love looking at this stuff. Wouldn't the obvious choice of funding be to charge a transaction fee rather than limit audience with an upfront fee? I mean - you have a kind of BitMit system built in the marketplace - and I like that BTC is just an alternate choice of currency. Wondering what made you decide to go with an upfront fee with a recurring subscription? Generally, you get some type of 7 or 14 day trial for free, at least.

Is GP tradeable for BTC? Are all items tradeable for GP/BTC, or are there "no-drops"? The turn system is concerning. Are you planning on selling turns? What made you decide to have a turn system on a subscription game?

The "Mystery" object is also a first for MMORPGs, I believe. It can literally contain money, meaning there's a chance the developers will be paying you directly for playing. It's both pay-to-play and (directly!) pay-for-play.

[001sonkit]

Its a good point, I did try to hire someone (for bitcoin) to make me a video but it fell through and didn't happen - will have to try again, or do it myself  

Just go online, be a pirate, rip a camtesia off the bay and start recording Wish to see what it will be

PS: I think a buy coins with BTC or buy item with BTC would make a better revenue for you。

[btcton]

I agree. In-game transactions with BTC would be better.

[Welsh]

There should always be a free trial for games when there is a up front payment, or at least some videos. Some people could purchase this to access the game but not like it. 24 hour trial would be nice.

[monbux]

so the game costs BTC0.1 and there are no gameplay videos?

Geez, make it free and allow users to buy items with BTC once in game...

[lenny_]

0.1 BTC for sign up to beta version of game? For something like this?

These days, really? When you can buy pack of Crysis, Medal of Honor, Battlefield all together for ONE DOLLAR? (Humblebundle.com)

I guess you need lower your prices 10x times to get any sign ups.

[001sonkit]

http://blogs.wsj.com/accelerators/2013/02/27/do-the-freemium-math/

Might be useful

[b!z]

Paying for a possibly terrible RPG game? Nope.

[bitfantasy]

Its a crowdfunded indie game, the graphics are getting better all the time but it's more about gameplay than graphics, people have enjoyed playing it for hours every day so yes while it doesn't look like a million dollar AAA studio game a bunch of people have found it fun.  Half of them even upgraded to a higher crowdfunding level.  Don't forget that no million dollar games studio is contrbuting to the bitcoin ecosystem either  

I understand people make choices based on graphics, it's human nature.  I ignored minecraft for months too. Bear in mind it's a pure HTML game, no plugins - no installs. It will always be 2D probably but it will get better as we pay artists and swap out the art, (I found it hard to find suitable artists for btc - anyone interested?)

On micropayments, we could have made it free and nickel and dimed everyone, but that makes for sucky games and we wanted to make it enjoyable. It's a very conscious decision.

Fascinating. I love looking at this stuff. Wouldn't the obvious choice of funding be to charge a transaction fee rather than limit audience with an upfront fee? I mean - you have a kind of BitMit system built in the marketplace - and I like that BTC is just an alternate choice of currency. Wondering what made you decide to go with an upfront fee with a recurring subscription? Generally, you get some type of 7 or 14 day trial for free, at least.

Is GP tradeable for BTC? Are all items tradeable for GP/BTC, or are there "no-drops"? The turn system is concerning. Are you planning on selling turns? What made you decide to have a turn system on a subscription game?

The "Mystery" object is also a first for MMORPGs, I believe. It can literally contain money, meaning there's a chance the developers will be paying you directly for playing. It's both pay-to-play and (directly!) pay-for-play.

The upfront fee is more for the game content than the trading - you can fully play without trading or buying anything with bitcoin at all.  We had a few direct player to player item trades in the closed period but the game is not designed to force you to use bitcoin at all. So you are paying for the game, the trading is "free" (at least for 1 year).

GP is  not currently tradeable directly for BTC but it's in the list of proposed features.

Yes the Mysteries can literally contain bitcoin, you can win a whole bitcoin as well as smaller prizes (we accidentally left a bitcoin prize in during the closed beta and someone won back his entry fee within the first few days!), it's one of the other reasons there's no free trial, people might try spamming accounts

Cheers!

p.s hopefully have someone to do the video now..


https://www.bitfantasy.com/screenies/escrowBuy.jpg

[b!z]

How many players are there so far? Did all of them pay for access?

[bitfantasy]

39 paying players. The only characters who didn't pay for access are ones we use to test signup etc.. with ourselves.

Screenshot from today
https://i.imgur.com/iJT6lWA.jpg

(just posting for interest, most people in that shot are offline)

[ManBearPig]

I wish anyone starting any crypto project good luck but... seriously. Is this one of those 'No animation, must come back every hour of every day to make the most of it' style thingies?

There a ton of quality free games around but I always pay when a game is worth it.

We have no idea what this all about, just that it looks awful.

Yep, make it Freemium. Once of course it's Premium.

Note to devs: we need more quality and/or innovative crpyto solutions, not just 'me too' projects.

[bbit]

This is a perfect use case for BitMonet isn't it ?

1 day pass, 7 day pass etc.,etc ....

[bitfantasy]

Had a really good response yesterday, the crowdfunding is working, we could afford to upgrade our tree graphics

https://www.bitfantasy.com/img/newtrees.jpg

I think it does have a unique aspect by the way, unless there's another MMORPG that you can trade with bitcoin in, and doesn't get you to pay extra for levels/items/etc(maybe there is?).  Yes other MMO games exist where you can trade items for (fiat) money. But that money sits with those companies, you have to withdraw it and pay fees.  Here there is no withdrawing, you get the money from trades directly to your wallet. Oh and they aren't bitcoin, which is what we are about - no?  

Yes it does have programmer/placeholder graphics, no bones about it - it's being crowdfunded, it's being developed. Sometimes people crowd fund projects that they can't yet see or play, here you can play and watch it develop, and support something clearly committed to bitcoin, but you have to put up with rough edges, it's not everyone's preference and that's totally fine.  

[greyhawk]

If your unique aspect is "you can trade via BTC" this should be a HUGE SIGN that something is going very very wrong with your game. Because this aspect has nothing to do with your game at all, it is an external factor. The game itself needs something to draw in people otherwise it's just "Game X, but with bitcoin".

[ixxi]

I've been playing this game ever since it first opened to the public and still loving it. The graphics are oldschool RPG, which I understand not everyone likes, but it works for me. The game is being updated regularly and new content is being added all the time.
This sure has potential and for what it's worth, anyone who likes old style RPGs (and Bitcoin  ), I'd sure would recommend to give it a try.
I don't see the upfront fee so much as a fee to play the game, but more as crowdfunding a potentially great game.

[bitfantasy]

It's not just a BTC trading game, it's a real RPG and being able to trade in BTC is never in your face and not the only reason to play. People play for hours every day and never use bitcoin because I am trying to make the game fun and not a bitcoin extraction game

Hopefully the fact it's just HTML5 (so you can play easily without installing anything) is also a draw. So while you are sitting watching the exchange rate in one browser you can potter around killing undead, or breeding cows,crafting, or building in another, not to mention you end up hanging out with other bitcoin folk and get to hear about their mining rigs and so on

If the high exchange rate doesn't change I will have to consider discounting the sign up fee, but we have a twitter competition on for a free account now:

https://twitter.com/BitFantasy/status/398057986448310272

We're still planning a free/cheap trial sometime when we can iron out the details.

[MakeBelieve]

It really does suck you need to pay to sign up. Do you offer demo accounts? Otherwise I could be paying for a game which I don't even enjoy playing. At least popular games like WOW offer a trial edition which has limited features.

[beegatewood]

Are you going to make this game F2P?

[bitfantasy]

@MakeBelieve not yet, we will.  

@beegatewood making it F2P is not planned, if it was free the only way to make it viable would be to nickel and dime (bitcoin and.. er satoshi?) players and we don't want to do that, id rather spend time making the game better instead of trying to figure out how to extract more money from players  


Price has been changed now to reflect bitcoin's booming value, it's now 0.04BTC https://www.bitfantasy.com/#signup

[lenny_]

WOOT? 0.02 BTC (17 USD) for sign up to RETRO browser game, with graphics worse than my Pentium II with 128 MB RAM, where I was playing Tibia 15 years ago? Really