1. Finish current games
Game Council Summary
The game council met and discussed various key parts of the ecosystem, analyzing the existing games and putting forward an objective report as to which games are more worthy of continued development beyond the current state.
In-game economics were a large part of this meeting, with some interesting XP and achievement concepts proposed for VulcanVerse to create a more immersive experience.
Frenzy pass proposals were made and shall be discussed internally before publishing (new document outlying the functionality of Frenzy Passes and their roles in different games is underway).
Troy’s GDD was reviewed at the meeting, and more information on Troy is to be expected in the very near future.
Community feedback has been reviewed by the development teams behind our side-games and we now have a variety of proposals to analyze in order to prioritize which games we focus on and continue developing.
1. Berserk
Berserk 10 point plan update:
V3.0.6 released to PTR for community testing this week.
Upcoming Milestones:
Unifying input system to futureproof implementation of new card abilities, graphic engine optimisations, and bug fixes — 13/11/22
Release new version to PTR including mobile releases. Re-enabled Customisation Module. — 16/11/22
Production Release for V3.x.x including new card draw, and various bug fixes — 23/11
Complete work on: Card and Vulcanite Rental Systems; Add remaining Vulcanites as playable characters; tweaks to MMR system. — 09/12/22
Test and approve final stable release for Season 3–16/12/22
Status of Prereqs to launch season 3:
V3.x.x stable and approved — V3.0.6 is in QA now. There’s some outstanding features, and a few issues to resolve.
Card draw balance change — Feedback on it has been positive so far. Will go live with the next version to make it to production.
MMR Balance change — options presented to Devs for tweaks to the system, will be implemented in a couple weeks time
Remove Starter League — with the new cards and reworked card draw we feel starter league is no longer necessary. We want to slowly work towards pulling the player base back together. But will continue to monitor the situation and make a decision closer to season start.
Vulcanite Rental, Card rental, addition of missing vulcanites as heroes — due to complete by 09/12
Approve new Prize structure — new prize structure proposed, that should encourage more play, and be more restrictive on people just coasting to prizes. As well as be more rewarding as we increase the player base. we’ll release more info on it shortly.
2. Vulcan Runner
a) iOS build updated and made live for the community
b) Android build updated and made live for the community
c) Windows build Canny issues are being worked upon, updated build will be made live by this weekend to the community
3. Tartarus
a) The implementation on the shared game design document is complete
b) The team is currently testing the game and fixing the bugs
c) The updated build will be released to the community by last week of the month after the QA cycle
4. Tower Defense
a) The alpha version of the game based on the initial UI planned has been completed
b) The team has not been working on the game for last 2 weeks
c) There have been few issues reported on canny , the team will work on them and will update the build next week
Marketing Update
CMO, David Daumas is working to review the competitive landscape for each of the games and evaluate potential. This is a huge undertaking with a lot of games and projects under the Vulcan Forged umbrella. However, the goal is to focus the marketing energy on the low-hanging fruits, the games and projects that can truly bring growth to the business and Vulcan Forged supporters. The review is still a work in progress and should be completed by the next sprint.
2. Announce C-Level hires
This task is personally managed by Jamie and a team of experts.
Please check out the latest tweet related to this topic:
https://twitter.com/vulcanforged/status/1584990188471652352?s=46&t=l04j9WhXRiXyzlS8hVleTw
David Daumas has been announced as CMO and some other big news to be expected. More on that for the next update. A big focus in the last two weeks is to ensure the marketing function but also the other core functions are setup properly for sustainable growth.
3. Redefine our play-to-earn economy
This task is personally managed by Jamie and a team of experts. The Game Council and management are also developing this.
We can however tell you the following changes will be made:
- $LAVA will become a static supply on Elysium only. More than 500m and less than 5bl. We know the number but won’t reveal it yet.
- $LAVA will only be available after a gateway through $PYR. Examples including purchasing the Frenzy Pass (or gifting it to a Cedalion), holding a Forge Tier of $PYR to generate it or buying a $LAVA gem.
- $LAVA will be deflationary, meaning on each transaction it will be burned and pegged to USD for transactions.
- Frenzy games will still need a $LAVA entry fee, of which half will still be burned.
- For $PYR to be the cow that produces valuable milk and for $LAVA to be at a sustainable value (thus increasing incentive for playing and holding $PYR) we believe a deflationary static supply is necessary.
Marketing Update
This point works hand in hand with point 1. We can’t redefine the economy before we have done a review of our ecosystem. Marketing is at an ideation stage for this point but nothing confirmed.
4. MetaScapes
Work in progress:
- Cinematic film & trailers.
- Ongoing marketing & development.
- New concept work + images.
- Alpha commenced & concept/description/gameplay are being documented (work in progress)
- Concept design for the four maps (based on the four environments — work in progress)
- CGI assets for the game (work in progress)
- Character creation (work in progress)
15th November 1st video teaser, now released:
15th December 2nd video teaser
25th January Final video release
Above are ETAs and are subject to change
Development & Gameplay:
In Progress by a dedicated Vulcan Forged & Metascapes development team.
Marketing Update
MetaScapes represents a HUGE opportunity but it’s also a HUGE undertaking. A trailer has been released and marketing will be more and more involved in the planning and strategy to make this project successful.
5. Mobile gaming focus
Cold Lava Implementation in mobile games is under discussion.
Dealing with iOS’s recent change in NFT mobile gaming rules.
Marketing Update
Once again, we are back to point 1 and 3. However, it’s clear that Vulcan Forged is in a privileged position with some games already live on mobile. This represents a massive opportunity to onboard mainstream players. In the next few cycles, marketing will be evaluating growth campaigns for our mobile games.
6. Migration to Elysium
Blockchain
- Certik Audit is in progress.
Preliminary report has been provided this week. In regards to the bridge, zero critical points were flagged. 3 classed as major were raised, in regards to access control that will be easily dealt with and cleared. The rest of the minor flags are in regards to code optimization. Nonceblox has already started addressing the necessary adjustments. Certik continues on chain testing with erc20 and erc721. - Mapped PYR (PYR that is bridged in) and wrapped LAVA (LAVA is the gas and native coin of Elysium, contract is needed to “wrap it” to tokenize it for use in dexes and smart contracts) both need to have the Lossless protocol included into their contracts. Rana is working with Lossless on this as well.
- API Services for Elysium were updated and provided by Nonceblox.
https://elysium-wallet-api-392.nonceblox.com/api-service/docs
Elysium Website
- Complete. https://web-elysium.vulcanforged.com/
My Forge / Marketplace
- Ongoing community testing of Elysium testnet with Metamask hasn’t revealed any issues.
- Switch to Elysium can start when Audit and Bridge integrations are finalized and the Elysium Vulcan Forged NFTs are complete with minting and ready to replace users Vechain NFTs.
ElysiumScan
- Done.
Mainnet: https://elysiumscan.vulcanforged.com/
Testnet: https://elysium-explorer.vulcanforged.com/ - Some small improvements were made to the UI/UX.
Bridge
- Aegis is being integrated to monitor for hostile activity and protect the bridge. Elysium chain is active on aegis.lossless.io- this first step of adding support for the Elysium network to their monitoring infrastructure is complete.
- Audit is still underway, on track for preliminary report end-of-month.
- The front end of the bridge had its design in theme with Elysium approved. Currently being integrated.
https://elysium-bridge-392.nonceblox.com/
NFTs
- Night Angel has been provided with the new images for Vulcanites. Elysium mints continue.
- The API necessary to modify the metadata of the NFTs has been provided by Vaival, making them dynamic. This has been tested on testnet successfully. It is also deployed on mainnet.
- Night Angel as POC of the migration of the VF NFTs, has set the procedure to batch mint all replacements as efficiently as possible. NFT issues, such as the white Medusas will need to be addressed later. For now, priority is getting the initial replacements minted into a VF wallet.
- The API to be used by dApps for the Elysium NFTs is done. Was migrated to AWS and shifted to dynamoDB to improve performance.
Mainnet: : https://elysiumnft.vulcanforged.com/
Testnet: https://elysium-nft-api.vulcanforged.com/
Additional Services Provided by Nonceblox
- Cloud Wallet, Game SDK, JS SDK, SDK Docs, API Services, and Dev Portal have been finalized by Nonceblox.
- Cloud Wallet was updated and confirmed now functional, and a design has been provided for review.
- API Services were updated and redeployed.
- Game SDK still needs to be verified by the Game team.
Elysium | Substrate based Smart Contract Platform
Elysium is a new Substrate based smart contract platform that makes it easy to build natively interoperable blockchain applications.
Marketing Update
Elysium. One more big project. David is still wrapping its head around this exciting opportunity and will be working on a competitive analysis plus supporting the delivery of key assets to allow the project to become the leader in its category.
7. UX, User Retention & Marketing
Marketing Update
UX, User Retention and Marketing- well, this is what the new CMO is passionate about. Let’s start with UX and User Retention. Marketing has already started conversations with key internal and external stakeholders for these areas. In the next few cycle, our C-suite will be making strategic decisions and tests will start. More widely, the marketing department will provide its 100 first days plan which will take into consideration large strategic decisions as well as shorter term tactical executions.
8. ElysiumSwap and Launchpad
ElysiumSwap
- Testnet complete. Waiting for token deployments on mainnet.
- Design work to improve mobile access was actioned.
Elysium Launchpad
- QA is ongoing, and cleaning up some front-end bugs
- Tiers for the staking requirements have been set after discussion with Jason, and will be pegged to set dollar amounts. Work has started to ensure launching a project involves a snapshot of pyr $ value to determine the tiers of participants.
- Mock IGO is being planned to run through the entire flow to ensure all standards are met.
9. VulcanVerse Gameplay
A new medium article created to explain the ongoing work in the background to improve the underlying architecture of VulcanVerse in order to be able to have smoother release schedules, improved performance and ability to scale and incorporate new features.
This is something that has been ongoing in the background whilst the core game is being improved, the first phase of new features and legacy bugs and performance issues have been squashed by our development team along with the help of our stellar community testers.
Current Status:
1. LAVA Bank -LIVE.
2. Treasure Chest Stage 1 — ALPHA NOW LIVE.
3. Treasure Chest NFT — CARD READY.
4. NFT backend flow -READY.
5. Achievement System — ALPHA NOW LIVE.
6. Fishing Stage 1: ALPHA NOW LIVE.
7. Concept art for Landmark changes — Fortress of the Wind, Necropolis, Charos (Statue for the Necropolis of Hades)
All of the below to follow as per our pipeline
8. New Foraging System (complete Revamp) — overview of foraging rework document has been released to various groups to gather feedback.
-Randomized loot tables
-Loot tables specific to quadrant and location
-Limited foraging crystals
-Limited amount of actively foraging Vulcanites per plot
-PVP Vulcanite battles during foraging
-PVE NPC boss/creature defending rich plots
-New spying system
-New Resource Sinks
-Pre-patch events
-In-game voting system using resources (materials, ex., wood, iron, etc.)
9. Lava Vulcanite unlocking system (possibly implemented before new foraging System)
10. Summoning process
-Vulcanites, fragments, scrolls, etc.
11. Alchemy system
12. Masteries
(*) At the same time as these will be released, some features are being reworked to become part of a bigger system where all features are interconnected.
(**) Major upcoming gameplay improvements on new foraging system to follow.
Troy
Expanded draft of Troy GDD ready
Feature & gameplay Troy GDD under review. The date for sale is not defined. The Game Council have provided feedback based on the expanded draft Troy GDD.
Pending below:
-Date for Sale
-Phases of Sale
-OG Badge early entry
-Troy Seed holders whitelist
-Public access
-Creation of a landing page
-Minting plots
-Marketing plan / strategy
– Plot information (work in progress)
-Tier information, including landmarks (description & design)
-Gameplay elements
-Landmarks being designed
Marketing Update
Instead of addressing gameplay specifically, the marketing function is working on getting a clear strategic roadmap of what is being planned for VulcanVerse.
10. US expansion
This task is personally managed by Jamie and a team of experts from the US.
Marketing Update
Jamie is all over this and marketing will be taken across this opportunity soon.