The article this is pulled from can be found here:
http://www.coinssource.com/interview-with-the-founder-huntercoin/Huntercoin (HUC) is a truly innovative e-currency which features a dual SHA-256 and scrypt traditional mining system along with a very unique gaming graphical interface through which people can control in-game characters to collect coins. HUC is the first so called human-mineable e-currency and is the beginning of an entirely new category of online multiplayer gaming which would eliminate the need for central servers and make it practically impossible to cheat. In this way, the Huntercoin developers are really pioneers in the field of blockchain applications.
Huntercoin’s virtual world of Chronosius is accessed with the HUC wallet client. Most of the HUCs are released within this gaming environment though there is some dependence on traditional proof of working mining through the SHA-256 and scrypt algorithms. Players control ‘Hunters’ which are the in game characters that are able to collect and harvest coins. Once HUCs are collected on the game map (see right), they need to be brought to the ‘spawn’ area in order for them to be sent to your actual wallet address.
Huntercoin is approaching a ‘hard fork’ or a major client update at block 255,000, which will bring on a lot of changes in game play and the human mining aspect. Recently, we had the privilege of asking the founder of Huntercoin some questions regarding its history, future and about some of the team’s most recent efforts. Here it is:
First of all, thank you so much for taking the time to answer our questions. Ever since I first learned about Huntercoin, I was fascinated with the possibilities of a distributed, peer to peer gaming platform. The idea of a multiplayer system without the dependence on massive centralized servers is clearly an attractive solution for the gaming industry and more importantly, for the gamers.
What inspired you to create this so called ‘human-mineable’ crypto-currency?I’ve always been a gamer and that’s really where it all started. From the CBS Colecovision to the Commodore 64 and Amiga and finally to the PC with a variety of MMORPGs. My first experience of the concept of virtual things having real world value was on Everquest in the very early days (1999-2000). I made a few trades of virtual items for better virtual items and eventually for ‘real’ money. I soon discovered that I could make a modest living out of it and I did for the next 10 years (across multiple MMOs). Then in 2011 I heard about Bitcoin. I was fascinated by the idea of an alternative to ‘real’ money (or fiat currency to give it the correct name). To my mind, trading Bitcoins for goods and services was really no different to trading virtual items in a MMO. Then Namecoin came along and the penny dropped. Virtual currencies could come in many forms and maybe, just maybe, it could also come in the form of a MMO. The crypto-currency could be the game and the game could be the crypto-currency.
What have you found to be most challenging in the development of Huntercoin? What about the most rewarding aspect of its development?
From my perspective the game mechanics have been the most challenging. Getting the balance right was and still is a learning experience. It has to be interesting but not too easy and not too hard for human players. It also has to be loop-hole and exploit free! The most rewarding aspect was the day of release and witnessing that it not only worked but there was a whole new world unfolding before our eyes. I know this sounds very grand but it felt like we had created a new Universe or ecosystem of sorts.
What type of future do you foresee for Huntercoin?I expect it to gain some significant momentum over the ensuing year and become popularly known. There are so many clone coins out there creating lots of distracting noise but these will die out as their bubbles burst and support wanes. A number of us are absolutely committed to Huntercoin’s further development and we’ve been working hard to ensure that the foundations are right before we grow. Doing this will ensure longevity.
In the long run I believe that Huntercoin will be a component of the future labour market because humans can earn crypto-currency by playing a game and this may represent a better prospect than some of their other job options. As more people play and earn it is increasingly likely that they will trade the currency directly for goods and services. I mean, when you collect your wages you don’t usually exchange them for another currency whilst letting someone take a cut too.
Do you foresee any specific problems with the continued development of Huntercoin? Does this latest update address some of these problems?It is all progressing very well and we continue to work on improvements but we recognise that what we are doing with Huntercoin is pretty unique so some challenges test us more than others. The main improvements are:
1. Blockchain size and syncing speed
Daniel Kraft aka Domob, the lead coder on the project is working on implementing blockchain pruning and improving performance. Fortunately we are both avid namecoin supporters/contributors, and Daniel is leading the development of the namecoin codebase. This means that improving either huntercoin or namecoin works both ways in that an improvement to one means an improvement to the other. It’s a nice symbiotic relationship!
2. Bots
There are bots operating (mining) within Huntercoin just as there are bots creating email accounts and sending spam. They can be a nuisance but in some sense they also make the game more interesting. They’ll never be eliminated in entirety nor would we really want that but we can do a few things to help keep the numbers down and make it pretty difficult for them. We think the best way of doing this is to help the human players (miners) retain the advantage against the bots and their masters. For now (Hard Fork) this will be achieved by doing three things:
a. Increasing the cost of playing the game will increase the risk to the bot masters.
b. Implementing “The Cleansing”. In a nut-shell, this is akin to a natural disaster in the real world that could occur at any time so running an army (of bots) is going to be risky business if they could all be wiped out suddenly.
c. Addressing a process called re-cycling so that we can prevent human players and especially bots from playing for free.
People love games and the concept of earning an e-currency with ‘real-world’ value through gameplay is clearly an attractive prospect. What do you think needs to happen for Huntercoin to reach a broader audience?It’s really a case of addressing 1. and 2. mentioned earlier. That’s really about performance improvements and limiting the bots. This will help broaden the audience initially. But perhaps the biggest thing we can do is to enable anyone to play (mine) Huntercoin anywhere on any device. This is the thing we are really excited about so watch this space for when we roll out a centralised server service that allows human-miners to play via mobile devices or virtually any PC or MAC. Just download from the store and start playing without worrying about blockchain syncing or anything like that. This simplicity combined with the ability to earn and play will really launch Huntercoin into the mainstream. It’s just a small matter of time. But, we are committed to doing the right thing for Huntercoin, the existing community, and what we anticipate will be a whole new (and very big) future community, so it will be ready when it’s ready.
Thanks again for taking the time to answer these questions for us. We look forward to following the Huntercoin project as it progresses and are quite excited about the possibilities.
For more information about Huntercoin see our review here:
Huntercoin Review
