Transcript of the Developer’s Ask Box in Defina’s Discord held last October 16, 2022. Some parts are edited for readability.
Ethan: Hello Definians! This is Ethan, the lead developer of Defina. I am really grateful to have this chance to chat with our amazing community. We always believe that the wholesome Defina community is the biggest treasure we have found on our adventure together. So despite that we won’t be able to come chat with you guys every day, too busy writing bugs, jk jk, we have been getting community feedback from our lovely mods Mochuck, Sophie and Ariel. Thank you for always supporting Defina and we hope what we have in store will repay the love we have received.
Mochuck: It is so awesome to see you here! We interact all the time with feedbacks but haven’t gotten to talk much directly. Busy life indeed.
Well if you don’t mind we can hop right into questions and get to the good stuff.
Ethan: Sure let’s get to it!
Mochuck: What kind of good news can you tell us?
What’s the current development progress?
Ethan: Good question I know everyone in the community is really looking forward to what we’ve been hiding brewing lol. We are working on the artworks, coding new game modes while exploring other new gameplay options. To cater the needs of the growing play-to-earn gaming market and with the current market condition, we have aligned that our goal is to create a truly enjoyable game and we are working hard on achieving that.
The good news is everyone thinks the game modes we have planned out are attractive but the bad news is we won’t be able to share it with players anytime soon. We have finished some of the game modes but we are also exploring other great ideas that would make a unique game that actually speaks to the players.
We are currently working on a roguelike game mode with a random map/item generation system that would avoid repetitive fights/actions and make in-game exploration more enjoyable. And with exploration, we are not only talking about the exploration in the game world or the plots, but also exploration in the game system, the exploration of weapon and equipment combos as well as the skill setups.
So I would say with all the things in plan, it is estimated to finish early 2023.
Mochuck: That sounds amazing! I am a huge roguelike fanboy!! The game already brings so much goodness adding my favorite game type. On top of that sounds great! So that leads to the next question.
When will the next major update release?
Ethan: Glad you like it! We are very excited about the next patch update as well, and that will include some game modes we have announced before. What’s more exciting is we’ll roll out the new heroes, the hero merge feature and the world cup campaign to prepare players for the new game modes and try to attract new players. Who’s excited to have the first SSS zorro lol. We are working on the art design and adding the finishing touch so it will likely be in November, before the World Cup starts!
Mochuck: I have been asking for all heroes to be SSS! My girl Florence needed the love lol.
Ethan: You might get one if you are lucky with your hero merge.
Mochuck: Haha I’ll start crossing my fingers now.
The community has been wondering is the cross-chain game version ready? if not, what % has been completed?
Ethan: Yes, it is ready! We are waiting for a good timing to release it. We believe it would be beneficial to cross to another chain when our new game mode is ready so we could attract new ecosystem players with exciting gameplays.
Mochuck: That makes sense.
What would be the measurement taken to prepare Defina for mass adoption?
For example, upgraded server, dedicated critical bug solving team?
Ethan: Very good question and yes all of the above will be available and apart from that..
- We are building an in-game wallet so traditional players can easily get on board with the game without setting up or learning about complicated blockchain stuff.
- With the new roguelike gameplay of Defina, it won’t require a high level of devices, and we are exploring the opportunity to make it web friendly so more players could try it out.
- We are working on making the game available in the Apple Store and Google Play so traditional players can download and get access to the game easier.
Mochuck: That sounds great! With all these changes to make things easier for everyone.
What are our plans to make the game sustainable?
Ethan: I would say rich randomness to increase playability. Competitions to encourage players to keep playing.
Mochuck: Apart from what I’ve answered to the previous questions, sounds like we are interested in doing events as well. So those all seem like good ways to keep things fresh and sustainable.
How do you minimize as many bugs as possible in a game?
Ethan: Good question! well as a developer we all know that when you are developing a game or a software, inevitably you will run into many bugs. I think the key is to conduct more thorough testing and pay more attention to the community’s feedback. Apart from that, before we release a patch we’ll have professional testers and trusted community members, our mods, knights etc, to help us run the test. And I would like to say thank you again to our community members who have helped us hunt down many bugs, be it in-game or on contract. We are very grateful!
Mochuck: I will definitely be front line testing as much as I can! Speaking of bugs,
How can each upgrade avoid multiple bugs? Also has the music config been added along with character stories?
Ethan: In the new version of the game, the way to present stories will be more subtle, but the plot will be gradually revealed through in-game items and tasks, and you will learn some of the story through the description of some items so it’d be more fun for players to explore. And yes a new soundtrack will also be produced.
Mochuck: Soundtrack sounds amazing!!! and the Story! I know we got awesome story writers! When will we be able to open mystic chests again? Is there any concern for the multiple boxes people have already?
Ethan: We have started discussing it internally. And it would be better for you to be able to inherit those in the Finaverse. We have many new in-game items for the future game modes but they are not available at the moment. I know many of you can’t wait to open your chests already, don’t worry we will l resume the chest feature when the time comes. :Proud_Jack:
Mochuck: Speaking of boxes,
What items will be obsolete in Finaverse later?
Ethan: Well Finaverse will be a lot different to what we have in Defina now, and therefore we won’t be able to provide a full list of items for now. Certainly, many items that conflict with the new version of the game will be removed, and valuable items will be carried over to the new version in some ways.
Land fragments will still be useful in Finaverse though correct?
Ethan: Yes it definitely will be useful in Finaverse, my suggestion is to keep holding on to them and you will find its worth when finaverse gets online!
Mochuck: That is good to hear. I have some questions that aren’t exactly defina related but the community was curious…
If someone wanted to start to be a developer what advice would you give?
Ethan: We would say that all the technical skills are in service of gameplays and crypto gaming, and that’s why we believe the industry and defina as well are desperately in need of great gameplay ideas.
For the role of blockchain developer, you could start learning how to write smart contracts. For game developers, that requires quite a lot of learning of coding and experiences. You could try to send your resume to some gaming companies and learn from there.
Which technical skill is desperately needed in Defina/crypto gaming that would help to grow?
Ethan: lol like I said we are really in desperate need of great gameplay ideas. But besides great game play design, another important aspect would be the internet or blockchain security skills as the technology is new, new developers may not be aware of the design flaws of the smart contract. I am glad we have this awesome community to help, a few months ago a current Defina Knight member named Exsys reported to us about a contract flaw and helped us solved the issue! so yes, please feel free to give us your suggestions through our discord or other social media platforms.
Mochuck: I’m always here to collect those suggestions that’s for sure.
What was the most difficult thing in the process to develop the Finaverse?
Ethan: For us who started as traditional game devs, we think traditional game design ideas and gamefi game designs have many contradictory aspects, how to solve these contradictions is the most difficult part in developing finaverse, especially the economic design. :Proud_Jack:
Mochuck: Speaking of the economic design that is a good transition into our next question.
Most governments struggle to get the economy sustainable, how difficult is the tokenomics for a game and what inspires the conversations in debate among the devs?
Ethan: I would say the design of tokenomics is the most difficult thing for the whole game design. Since currently, a lot of players focus more on earning instead of game’s playability, so when the token price drops or too many rewards are given that lead to token price drop, it decreases the incentives for them to keep playing.
And in the last bull market run, a lot of projects gained popularity solely because of token price increase, with the bear market environment, it quickly cooled down. And it is quite different from the traditional gaming player base or stakeholders.
In traditional gaming, players are hooked and interested in the game or the designs. The target users are gamers. However, in crypto gaming, the stakeholders include institutional investors, retail investors, players, and play-to-earn players. It has a conflict of interest among them, so designing a game that meets every interest is particularly difficult. Game developers want to create a fun game, but the investors care more about return, so we got a lot of debates among the devs. However, ultimately, we’ve aligned the goal of developing a fun game and ignore the noises as that is what drives and motivates the dev team to work and we also believe that would be the ultimate future of crypto gaming.
Mochuck: I feel that is super important. There is a good mix of trying to please everyone but also trying to make the best decisions for the game as a whole. Can you explain how the tokenomics after Finaverse will look like? specifically how token sinks will look?
Ethan: We are still designing the tokenomics as it is closely related to the game design. Once we get the rougelike mode design set, we will have a clearer idea about the tokenomics and ways to sink tokens.
Mochuck: That makes sense. I’m optimistic we will get it right.
Have some random questions to throw in here real quick.
Will we need to invest a lot of money to play in Finaverse?
Ethan: hehe good question. But it depends on what you want to achieve in the game. If you wanna rank up or build your own empire, for sure you will need to spend tokens to buy stuff and upgrade your buildings.
Would Defina ever grow into an open world, unreal engine styled AAA game in the future?
Ethan: Open World is inevitable, but we don’t think unreal engine AAA style is the future.
Mochuck: That is fair.
What were the inspirations to create the characters?
Ethan: History, as you know our heroes are named after famous historical figures, and we watch a lot of Japanese anime.
Mochuck: Haha it shows we hit our brand target super well!
Which is the most powerful character in the game and why do you think so?
Ethan: Game Designers, because they are centralized, and they don’t care about what the boss says. Just kidding hehe.
Well we couldn’t tell you which character is the most powerful one as it depends on the player’s game play for the new game mode. For the old game mode, of course, SSS characters are the strongest ones in terms of stats.
Will we ever be in 3D?
Ethan: Unfortunately, it won’t be in 3D.
Mochuck: I know people want the ̶3̶D̶ ̶b̶o̶o̶b̶a̶ sad day.
Well to end the prepped questions.
We had people simply submit “I love you” as their question.
Ethan: Thank you! I love you too.
Mochuck: Thank you for all your time here with us Ethan! you have provided some amazing details and I am certain the community appreciated this!!!
End of Transcript
#General Chat Q&A
Shorune: How many Zorro to get SSS Zorro?
Nikki: HAHA, that would depends on your luck and the way you choose to merge.
HaoYouGei: What new features can we play in the patch version?
Nikki: The patch version for the mobile and pc won’t be available in a short time. The first update would be the merge feature + new hero + an very exciting world cup event [I bet you guys will like it and we will see more players and investors joining defina community]
HaoYouGei: How to attract traditional gamers because heroes are not cheap and wallets are a bit difficult for them
Nikki: Firstly, we’ve worked with an unannounced partner for introducing more Web 2 users [their tech allows non-crypto players to easily borrow nft assets and start playing], besides that, we are also working on developing an app to educate and gather Web 2 + Web 3 users and those players will directly get introduced to play Defina.
Brave: What will happen to the players who did 3 years worth of automining? Is compensation a possibility in the future?
Nikki: There will be a plan for asset compensation and asset conversion to new games. Don’t worry about that, a detailed conversation and compensation plan will be out once all the game features are developed. We still need to see what elements will be there in the new game so we could design it properly
z.z: Would we integrate a new exchange soon?
Nikki: The exchanges are not actively listing projects in the bear market, and getting listed in the current market condition is not a good decision either. We’ve been contacting exchanges closely for listing opportunities but with a right timing and plan
收手吧,阿祖!: Will 2nd Gen Hero can be mint in game via player or it will be only available through box sale?
Nikki: New heroes will only be minted through merging heroes. Detailed rules about that will be announced for the World Cup event. New hero + surprising rewards + supporting the world cup team
shorune: 1st generation got revenue share right so is it got different value depend on the rarity?
Nikki: This is not set as the game design keeps changing as dev came up with new ideas. Please wait for officially announced info.
Brave: Will the rouge-like gameplay be PVP or PVE based?
Nikki: Both
Brave: Wen anime?
Exsys: Will there be any fast paced/skill based game modes?
Nikki: Yep!! Roguelike mode will be quite addicting haha depends on your controlling skill
mycrypto: When will the work for marketing begin, let’s start making a sound ?
Nikki: haha yep!!! Wait for the World Cup event! Let’s make it the hottest event in current market conditions together. Will need your guys to share the event once we started it! More people join, more fun, and more rewards from it.
Brave: For the future merging feature, will it be possible to obtain Gen 1 heroes through new merges?
Nikki: yep!
ariel2k2 I TG: Are we going to be on offline events soon?
Nikki: Yes! One in the Philippines, one in Argentina!
Aeri ミ★ : I think someone asked, but if I remember correctly, we have a game patch next month hopefully before the World Cup, and Finaverse itself is early 2023?
Nikki: Finaverse development has completed 50%, but we are still thinking about if we should finish the development of it or push Roguelike development. The two modes have totally different mechanics and art styles. Developing one means delaying another one. Initially, we were thinking about developing a mini Finaverse while everyone waits on the final Roguelike Game. But now the team are doing reevaluation which mode should we choose.
The reason for reevaluation is:
1. Developing two modes requires double the development cost
2. Developing Finaverse will delay Roguelike Defina
A side note to the roguelike mode is that it also contains Land elements and trading of resources but would be very different than the demo video of Finaverse we showed before. Meanwhile, to keep everyone engaged, we’ve come up with the World Cup event to allow you to earn rewards, and support the World Cup while getting new heroes to get prepared for future game mode.
We’ve got a lot of unannounced things and hard work going behind the scenes. Sadly I couldn’t share with you guys now, but I ensure you that the Defina team is working hard to build and contribute to the Web 3 crypto ecosystem.
Thank you for supporting Defina ❤
About Defina
Defina is an innovative blockchain gacha game that embraces NFT technology that allows true ownership of acquired game assets in the game. Players can open Mystery Boxes, collect their favourite Hero NFTs and trade them in the marketplace. Level up your Heroes, Build amazing teams, Combat in PVP Arena and Battle Vrykos to save humanity from the brink of destruction! Defina’s vision is to bring blockchain to millions of players, allowing them to explore a new form of gaming through blockchain technology. Come join us as we build the Defina Metaverse together!
All characters of Defina and its game assets have copyright and are intellectual properties of Defina Finance.
Define your destiny, conquer your enemy & build with us daily!
