[ANN] Nxtopia -- a MMORPG built on-top of the NXT network

[Damelon]

Oh, I agree with the fact that people need goals.
On the one hand I loath "Achievement" systems when badly implemented, but when done correctly (ie. in line with the game context) I admire the grace of such a simple but effective idea. Ánd I fall for it everytime.

Quests, assignments etc. are important. However, I also like them to be embedded in some kind of story.

It's the difference between "Slay n X's to advance" and "Safe my village by exploring the Unholy Cave of Nrgrn!", in which you álso slay n X's, but also are presented with a nice narrative to identify with. Seeing as we have some DM's and D&D players here, thinking up some nice storylines to implement should be doable

Indeed. I love stories and story-telling.

How can we incent the scripting of such a story? Any ideas? It should be an incentive that would encourage the scripting of good stories even after the start of NXTopia.

What about crafting stories as AE traded items?, could a "story" be quest?, The author issues it as an asset, and it costs 1-10nxt for the gamer to embark upon, with the chance to win NXT and prizes, the admission fee goes to the AE, for funding the quest payouts and the shareholders.

 so if you craft a GREAT story, and lots of people want to battle for your Prizes, your AE makes money.

 The nature of assets, is they are transferable, so if you LOVE a certain quest, you can buy shares in it, and maybe earn NXT in the real world. and you could back a good story teller with his next story.

 The quests could even be their own games, that you play by logging into certain servers. Some are free, walk around town, slaying wild dogs, asking people for news from far away lands, and the harder quests could be decentralized, some fee, some free, with the user deciding on how they wish to play, risk ad all that..

 This would encourage great story tellers, who would also have to craft great items and prizes. So awesome if this was all DIY and decentralized.

 Riffing here, but you could issue a Battle Royal Asset / Quest, where people all come and fight with great prizes and total inventory loss upon dropping. You could go in and fight, you take 80% of all items you win, the Battle Royal Asset retains the 20%

Just WOW!

I love the idea of stories/quests being Assets!

This will keep me awake tonight

[1713910351]

1713910351

[1713910351]

1713910351

[swartzfeger]

Nxtopia -- MMORPG built on-top of the NXT network

current bounty: 26,000 NXT

5000 - jl777
1000 - swartzfeger (Transaction id: 12550164158045962834)
3000 - chanc3r (Transaction id: 5658009271669858297)
1000 - MyZhre (Transaction id: 8826881503135433086)
3000 - Damelon (Transaction id: 17094914052077797717)
1000 - DrearyUrbanite (Transaction id: 5539495976647418930)
1000 - brooklynbtc (Transaction id: 7928426557842646935)
0500 - rdanneskjoldr (Transaction id: 91193539943795488)
5000 - msin (Transaction id: 3011638676023709764)
0500 - EvilDave (Transaction id: 1103023256425459700)
2500 - LiQio (Transaction id: 17259695350230030848)
1000 - Pandaisftw (Transaction id: 16708576594121402630)
1000 - eb101 (Transaction id: 11083404370711498345)
xxxx - ChuckOne [will support once mixing/zerocoin is in place]
0500 - apenzi (Transaction id: 15260598453647834729)

This is an opportunity to support an online game that leverages many of Nxt's advanced features, one of the highlights being a user-driven crafting economy.

Donations can be sent to 13776816462073143763; please include tx id so I can include it when updating this post and making it easier for James to keep track of incoming transactions.

We're also considering implementing a kickstarter-style tier system for bounty donators. These would be cosmetic rewards that wouldn't be available after game launch. Something like:

10 NXT - badge
100 NXT - cap
1000 NXT - cape
10000 NXT - beta access (?)

Depending on how we handle character death/respawning, these items may be also confer a quicker resurrection.

[snailbrain]

Why don't you just clone Huntercoin?

The game has been up for several weeks now.

www.huntercoin.org

Not to diminish huntercoin, but Nxtopia is all about Nxt's Asset Exchange. A completely user-driven crafting economy.

And... † Vorpal Swords †

sounds awesome..

I take it it's not actually a crypto currency, it's just a game?

what would be the advantage of putting it on the NXT network other than just having a normal server based mmorpg? (apart from it being much slower?)

---

Note: Huntercoin is more of a Human Mining Crypto Currency than an actual game. Although war/strategy and skill is still involved.

[swartzfeger]

Oh, I agree with the fact that people need goals.
On the one hand I loath "Achievement" systems when badly implemented, but when done correctly (ie. in line with the game context) I admire the grace of such a simple but effective idea. Ánd I fall for it everytime.

Quests, assignments etc. are important. However, I also like them to be embedded in some kind of story.

It's the difference between "Slay n X's to advance" and "Safe my village by exploring the Unholy Cave of Nrgrn!", in which you álso slay n X's, but also are presented with a nice narrative to identify with. Seeing as we have some DM's and D&D players here, thinking up some nice storylines to implement should be doable

Indeed. I love stories and story-telling.

How can we incent the scripting of such a story? Any ideas? It should be an incentive that would encourage the scripting of good stories even after the start of NXTopia.

What about crafting stories as AE traded items?, could a "story" be quest?, The author issues it as an asset, and it costs 1-10nxt for the gamer to embark upon, with the chance to win NXT and prizes, the admission fee goes to the AE, for funding the quest payouts and the shareholders.

 so if you craft a GREAT story, and lots of people want to battle for your Prizes, your AE makes money.

 The nature of assets, is they are transferable, so if you LOVE a certain quest, you can buy shares in it, and maybe earn NXT in the real world. and you could back a good story teller with his next story.

 The quests could even be their own games, that you play by logging into certain servers. Some are free, walk around town, slaying wild dogs, asking people for news from far away lands, and the harder quests could be decentralized, some fee, some free, with the user deciding on how they wish to play, risk ad all that..

 This would encourage great story tellers, who would also have to craft great items and prizes. So awesome if this was all DIY and decentralized.

 Riffing here, but you could issue a Battle Royal Asset / Quest, where people all come and fight with great prizes and total inventory loss upon dropping. You could go in and fight, you take 80% of all items you win, the Battle Royal Asset retains the 20%

Just WOW!

I love the idea of stories/quests being Assets!

This will keep me awake tonight

Wow, yeah... the story asset would act as a key to access an area where the story/quest script is executed.

I think this would have to be instantiated and not persistent, but that's just a guess.

Part of the bounty would be a separate app where players can generate their own story/quest/modules. These could be instantiated in pre-defined areas, like going to a theater to watch a movie (or in Star Trek, entering the holodeck).

One hurdle I see is how do we vet user-crafted content? Not in the sense of profanity or quality, but in the sense that's it's scripted properly, it works as intended, and can be sold on the AE for VAST SUMS OF FILTHY LUCRE!!!

[Uniqueorn]

A lot of great ideas in here.
I've been busy today with the eSport NXT showmatch and other stuff, I got a little more work to do, but I'll keep a close eye on the development and slowly, but surely add more of my own ideas Great job everyone

[swartzfeger]

Why don't you just clone Huntercoin?

The game has been up for several weeks now.

www.huntercoin.org

Not to diminish huntercoin, but Nxtopia is all about Nxt's Asset Exchange. A completely user-driven crafting economy.

And... † Vorpal Swords †

sounds awesome..

I take it it's not actually a crypto currency, it's just a game?

what would be the advantage of putting it on the NXT network other than just having a normal server based mmorpg? (apart from it being much slower?)

---

Note: Huntercoin is more of a Human Mining Crypto Currency than an actual game. Although war/strategy and skill is still involved.

Hi snail!

The details aren't locked down, but the in-game currency would be translated into and out of NXT. Also, all things crafted and sold in the game will generate a NXT transaction fee.

The advantage here, vs just putting a game on a server, is leveraging Nxt's asset exchange. The players will, in effect, run the auction house.

The lunatics will run the asylum. As long as the logic is in place, it will be a brilliant piece of gaming (for those like me that enjoy 4x games). With enough gamers, market volume, smart resource gathering, arbitrage, etc, a gamer could earn income via NXT.

[brooklynbtc]

Oh, I agree with the fact that people need goals.
On the one hand I loath "Achievement" systems when badly implemented, but when done correctly (ie. in line with the game context) I admire the grace of such a simple but effective idea. Ánd I fall for it everytime.

Quests, assignments etc. are important. However, I also like them to be embedded in some kind of story.

It's the difference between "Slay n X's to advance" and "Safe my village by exploring the Unholy Cave of Nrgrn!", in which you álso slay n X's, but also are presented with a nice narrative to identify with. Seeing as we have some DM's and D&D players here, thinking up some nice storylines to implement should be doable

Indeed. I love stories and story-telling.

How can we incent the scripting of such a story? Any ideas? It should be an incentive that would encourage the scripting of good stories even after the start of NXTopia.

What about crafting stories as AE traded items?, could a "story" be quest?, The author issues it as an asset, and it costs 1-10nxt for the gamer to embark upon, with the chance to win NXT and prizes, the admission fee goes to the AE, for funding the quest payouts and the shareholders.

 so if you craft a GREAT story, and lots of people want to battle for your Prizes, your AE makes money.

 The nature of assets, is they are transferable, so if you LOVE a certain quest, you can buy shares in it, and maybe earn NXT in the real world. and you could back a good story teller with his next story.

 The quests could even be their own games, that you play by logging into certain servers. Some are free, walk around town, slaying wild dogs, asking people for news from far away lands, and the harder quests could be decentralized, some fee, some free, with the user deciding on how they wish to play, risk ad all that..

 This would encourage great story tellers, who would also have to craft great items and prizes. So awesome if this was all DIY and decentralized.

 Riffing here, but you could issue a Battle Royal Asset / Quest, where people all come and fight with great prizes and total inventory loss upon dropping. You could go in and fight, you take 80% of all items you win, the Battle Royal Asset retains the 20%

Just WOW!

I love the idea of stories/quests being Assets!

This will keep me awake tonight

Wow, yeah... the story asset would act as a key to access an area where the story/quest script is executed.

I think this would have to be instantiated and not persistent, but that's just a guess.

Part of the bounty would be a separate app where players can generate their own story/quest/modules. These could be instantiated in pre-defined areas, like going to a theater to watch a movie (or in Star Trek, entering the holodeck).

One hurdle I see is how do we vet user-crafted content? Not in the sense of profanity or quality, but in the sense that's it's scripted properly, it works as intended, and can be sold on the AE for VAST SUMS OF FILTHY LUCRE!!!

listen i was blowing my own mind as i wrote that..

im thinking minecraft and las vegas.

I think as far as user crafted items, why not figure out an algo, the more value of goods you put into something, the more powerful it is, with time as a factor as well

say you do enough dungeon quests, and you find 100 diamonds, you can forge(ha) those into a helm, or a dagger or whatever and since diamonds are hard they dagger is harder. 1000 diamonds is 100times as hard as 100 diamonds but takes 100x as long.

gold is heavy so it does more damage
magic is magic so it makes it lighter and swings faster

100 diamond, 100gold 1000 magic would be hard, cause damage and be fast as hell

1000 diamond would be hard as hell but cause less damage

1000 gold would be heavy as hell and slow but cause massive damage

[Bfljosh]

Real economy..

-Buy able spots to build houses on, interesting for investors or companies (maybe a tax for game development)
-Complex crafting systems with really rare recipes, so you can invest in making rare items to earn real money with
-Auction houses all in real crypto, all loot able items should have a function to create a really rich trading environment
-Quests rewards in crypto but also skill upgrades or items in crypto so you can create some balance
- You can start a company like an armor maker or a gem cutter and new players can be employed by you to start the game.
- It would be awesome if you could make a living out of this game like it is possible in Huntercoin.

[swartzfeger]

All,

I'd like to share some of the more interesting ideas that have been bounced in IRC and give a little more than what's been shared already:

Nxtopia is a MMORPG that will feature a user-driven crafting economy. Crafting an item is essentially issuing an asset that can be sold on the exchange.

Crafting requires materials (mats), so resource gathering will be a very important part of the game. There will also be a 'refining' process that will transform raw resources into mats that will be more useable for crafting, i.e., 20 wood>5 timber>1 plank. (these assets are refined in a Proof of Burn manner)

Crafting also requires a schematic, which is an asset that acts as a blueprint or a recipe.

Theoretically, a group of players could buy a Fort schematic (very expensive) -- the Fort schematic calls for 200,000 planks, 100,000 bricks, etc. The guild could then build the fort once material requirements are met. A fort could be a cool place for gamers to hang out and chat... or it could act as an outpost or strategic position near a valuable resource.

Structures such as factories, smelters, mills, etc could be crafted, that would make the refining process more efficient. Players that owned these structures could make money from other players via refining contracts.

One idea that was floated is particularly cool -- world 'events' that occur at certain points in the block chain. i.e., Astrologers predict a brilliant comet will appear at block 100,000, causing effect XYZ and other unknown and possibly dangerous effects.

Another idea that could be a PITA to implement but super cool would be user-generated stories/quests. These scripted, instantiated events could be triggered by players owning the quest asset and entering a defined location (similar to a holodeck).

Obviously, right from the start, resource balance has to be right. A player should have the ability to gather resources and craft a simple weapon in a single session. Players need to be rewarded with progress. On the flip side, massive structures such as forts or castles should require a group of people months, possibly a year or more, to earn the money to buy the schematic and gather the resources to build the structure.

That's a sort of unofficial brain dump (for now!)

[brooklynbtc]

I think as far as user crafted items, why not figure out an algo, the more value of goods you put into something, the more powerful it is, with time as a factor as well

say you do enough dungeon quests, and you find 100 diamonds, you can forge(ha) those into a helm, or a dagger or whatever and since diamonds are hard they dagger is harder. 1000 diamonds is 100times as hard as 100 diamonds but takes 100x as long.

gold is heavy so it does more damage
magic is magic so it makes it lighter and swings faster

100 diamond, 100gold 1000 magic would be hard, cause damage and be fast as hell

1000 diamond would be hard as hell but cause less damage

1000 gold would be heavy as hell and slow but cause massive damage

but what gives the diamonds, gold and wealth their values?  they need equivalent NXT put in.
It would be fine in the private Asset Exchange run Worlds, If I charge you 10NXT to enter, you can find some items, some people will find items worth 2 or 3 NXT, some will lose and drop items, and some will slay the level boss and win the big prize, say a sword, or something. Another reason for AE's to be funded with IPOs, so they could build some awesome prizes.

IDEA: I create an asset DiamondSwordQuest, sell shares and use the funds purchase supplies and to craft a 1000 diamond sword, then list all its stats and offer it at the end of the quest. I craft the story and set a difficulty level. users send 10nxt to enter the level and take part in the challenge. Along the way, they win battles and find items, and lose battles and drop items.
Question: when you die, do you respawn in the same level? losing all the items you may have found plus 10% (or more as specified by the story) or do you dump out, and have to pay again?
2nd Question: What happens if the first user beats the Big Boss and wins the 1000diamond sword right away? Maybe the value of the prize is determined by the cumulative admission fee, plus the Original Item as a One off award?

Since this is MONEY, and decentralized, there could be some bad quests written that give out prizes too easy, and there could be some that cost too much and never pay out and users hate. ALTHOUGH< isn't that just capitalism? We all pay the same for a movie, 2 hours entertainment and some are just SHIT, while others are life changing events.




Remember this is real money. Is that all the seed money we offered for bounties? Could be these items be dropped by when players lose a battle?

Or its a PoW coin on top, but how does that translate to NXT?

[swartzfeger]

Remember this is real money. Is that all the seed money we offered for bounties? Could be these items be dropped by when players lose a battle?

Or its a PoW coin on top, but how does that translate to NXT?

I don't think a definitive solution has been found yet. We need help with this.

An in game currency needs to be translatable into/out of NXT.

Issuing/selling assets generates tx fee (a real, honest-to-god NXT)

Tx fees would have to cover development costs but also be translated into a stored value that backs resources. So say there is a tx fee of .1 NXT... .050 goes to Nxt network, .025 goes to development fund, and .025 gets 'burned' into an in-game currency to back resources?

I'm not an economist. Obviously, this is the most important piece of the puzzle.

[swartzfeger]

Damelon (or whomever) --

This is a plea for help.

I sense that you've logged more hours than I have in EVE. I've played more WoW than any human should be allowed.

Either the WoW dev team, or the EVE team (I think it was EVE) before game launch hired a respected economist to dissect and audit their in-game economy.

Before we move forward, this really needs to be solved. We don't want Weimar Republic, Zimbabwe style hyper inflation with toilet paper shortages and a common iron shortsword costing a character 100x his monthly wages.

So in-game currency <-> NXT or a separate PoW coin, burning etc -- this is critical.

It's critical because we ignore our relationships, our hygiene, and our careers in order to game. Gamers making sacrifices and using NXT make this the number one issue with Nxtopia right now.

I'm done dicking around with asset and resource spreadsheets for tonight, I need to find that EVE/WoW economist interview.

[swartzfeger]

Some food for thought:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/eve-online-its-economist-on-the-power-virtual-economies/
http://io9.com/5057849/real-economist-studies-virtual-economy-in-eve-online
http://www.fastcompany.com/3024392/meet-the-alan-greenspan-of-virtual-currency-in-eve-online

And David Friedman (a libertarian/Austrian school guy) on WoW, antitrust and cartels:
http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/61371

[swartzfeger]

One thing I learned from reading those links above; it would behoove us to run frequent analytics and develop a Player Price Index.

This in turn would determine if we needed to lower/raise loot drops, mining/resource gathering rates, etc.

The guy was mocked/scorned, but GWB gave a succinct answer to a question at a press event in late 2008, in regards to 'what's wrong with the economy': "We have too much capital chasing too few assets."

[MyZhre]

Sorry if this sound stupid, but how many player can we handle simultaneously?
do i need sign a transaction and wait confirm when i move from (x,y) to (x+1, y)?

[apenzl]

In Star Trek Online scripting "episodes" earns you in-game cash and resources.

What about crafting stories as AE traded items?, could a "story" be quest?, The author issues it as an asset, and it costs 1-10nxt for the gamer to embark upon, with the chance to win NXT and prizes, the admission fee goes to the AE, for funding the quest payouts and the shareholders.

 so if you craft a GREAT story, and lots of people want to battle for your Prizes, your AE makes money.

 The nature of assets, is they are transferable, so if you LOVE a certain quest, you can buy shares in it, and maybe earn NXT in the real world. and you could back a good story teller with his next story.

I'm in! I'll donate another 1K tomorrow. Gotta go sleep now

[edit] made it 500. Will follow.

[brooklynbtc]

I'm no economist, although I subscribe to the magazine and read it daily on the toilet..

What if the algo was a function of the Asset Exchange Quest entry price, and difficulty.

Servers could adjust their difficulty, payout reward percentage (Resources, dropped items percent, or "known items"), fee, etc and the games would all adjust the levels of baddies you fight per this algorithm.

Say you Char Strength with items and level is 10.

If you entered a level 1 quest with 0.1 fee (must have some transaction to prevent spam), it would be a cakewalk for the game play, and you could grind out a percent (20?) of dropped items, and 1 in every 15 quests you might earn 1NXT item. good for newbs, and grinding out EXP, which would level you up and improve your char.

The other percent dropped items would be sold for transaction fees, sold for resource purchases, or paid out as profit to server admins, creators, etc.

If you entered a level 1 quest with a 1NXT fee, you could expect to find a 1NXT item every 1.5 quests and game play could be the same

If you entered a level 10 quest with .01NXT fee you could expect a much harder game, but those 20% dropped items would be of higher quality, because higher players were dropping items and more of them

If you entered a level 10 quest with 1NXT the game play would be the same, but the dropped items could be converted to more gold, diamonds, and jewels with a higher payout due to higher items, or the 1NXT server could payout 40% dropped items

We talk about Zimbabwe style inflation, but since the server admins could set their payouts  
________________________
Server operators could retain the dropped items, and there is the chance that a higher level player could drop a valuable item on a stupid or unlucky move, and the server would gain this item. .  Server admin could then sell it for NXT on the exchange and buy resources to stock his server with, or list it as a "known item" so people would want to take the chance for that † Vorpal Sword †

Imagine this server is a public Asset, it could be even sold and paid it out as a dividend to asset holders,

[pandaisftw]

Sorry if this sound stupid, but how many player can we handle simultaneously?
do i need sign a transaction and wait confirm when i move from (x,y) to (x+1, y)?

Most of the operations will be done serverside, only items (armor, schematics, etc) can be stored as assets, which makes sense because you can trade them. Originally we wanted to to do it all on the chain, but unless parallel chains are implemented (James said not in the near future) the fees would be way too high.

but what gives the diamonds, gold and wealth their values?  they need equivalent NXT put in.
It would be fine in the private Asset Exchange run Worlds, If I charge you 10NXT to enter, you can find some items, some people will find items worth 2 or 3 NXT, some will lose and drop items, and some will slay the level boss and win the big prize, say a sword, or something. Another reason for AE's to be funded with IPOs, so they could build some awesome prizes.

IDEA: I create an asset DiamondSwordQuest, sell shares and use the funds purchase supplies and to craft a 1000 diamond sword, then list all its stats and offer it at the end of the quest. I craft the story and set a difficulty level. users send 10nxt to enter the level and take part in the challenge. Along the way, they win battles and find items, and lose battles and drop items.
Question: when you die, do you respawn in the same level? losing all the items you may have found plus 10% (or more as specified by the story) or do you dump out, and have to pay again?
2nd Question: What happens if the first user beats the Big Boss and wins the 1000diamond sword right away? Maybe the value of the prize is determined by the cumulative admission fee, plus the Original Item as a One off award?

Since this is MONEY, and decentralized, there could be some bad quests written that give out prizes too easy, and there could be some that cost too much and never pay out and users hate. ALTHOUGH< isn't that just capitalism? We all pay the same for a movie, 2 hours entertainment and some are just SHIT, while others are life changing events.




Remember this is real money. Is that all the seed money we offered for bounties? Could be these items be dropped by when players lose a battle?

Or its a PoW coin on top, but how does that translate to NXT?

Gold, diamonds and all other in-game currency will have value because they will be used to make things. If the best weapon in the game "Supersword" costs 100 Crystals and 50 Unobtainium Bars, you can be sure those materials will be extremely expensive and extremely hard to get.

We discussed extremely cool ideas on the IRC, just a few here:

There can be a central island where PvP is enabled. However, the best resources spawn here, so there will be massive competition to mine these raw resources. In addition, we can make random monsters spawn as well have natural disasters every 100 blocks or so. In short, this place will be extremely hectic. And if you die, because we are using the "coin" concept for raw materials, you will drop the resources you just mined. So there will be a huge incentive for entire guilds (or even factions) to work together and protect their miners while attacking the opponent's miners to steal their resources.

Another great idea is to introduce the idea of supply lines, aka trade routes. If you have to send resources from Iron Smelter to Armor Smith, it won't just instantly transport there. A caravan will set out, and there is always a risk that someone may loot it. So you have to protect it. If your business is big enough, you can even built forts along your trade route to protect your goods. This will remove the tedium of "Click this button" from crafting, and add a strategic aspect (you cannot just send your caravans wherever willy-nilly without checking, you have to research and pick the best and most safe route).

As for the player-made quest idea, obviously there would have to be extremely strict guidelines. One solution that I can think of it not to have an arbitrary reward for the quest. The game would determine what kind of monsters (the more difficult, the more reward), how long it takes (rather, how big the dungeon is, time can be gamed), and how much the player contributed to that particular run.

IMO, player-made quests should be added later. Most games don't have it now, so it's definitely not an easy thing to balance.



The coins in game could be generated using PoC + PoA + PoL (Proof of Character + Proof of Asset + Proof of Location). With this system, you have to have a valid character in the right place with the right tool (next to a "rock" with a "pick" to mine ore). Every block you would have some % chance to mine a coin ("ore"). You then have to take this ore-coin to a smelter and refine it through Proof of Burn and then the player will be rewarded with the refined asset.

[twistelaar]

what happens if I make a donation? Can I make a ROI, or is it just a donation?

[pandaisftw]

what happens if I make a donation? Can I make a ROI, or is it just a donation?

We are considering to give donors (depending on how much they donated) cosmetic items. So 100 NXT would get you a hat, 1000 NXT a cape, etc. These items will be assets, and they will be very rare after game launch. So take it how you will.

We have not set in stone what we will be offering yet. Personally, I prefer to have at least some progress made before making promises to people. Right now, anything donated is just that, a donation. These donations will help entice quality and talented devs + artists to join our team and bring this project into reality.

To make it clear, if you donate now, we will retroactively apply these bonuses to you if/when we do start this type of fundraiser.