Wizard Wednesday Recap, 2024-08-28

Introductions & Runiverse Tickets

The team channels in from the Quantum Downs and dive into discussion of the Runiverse Open Beta test. “Ticketmaster Tad” joins in, and the team thank all of the “Ticketmasters” who have been tackling support tickets during this Open Beta event.

Open Beta Impressions

Elf says that his first impression is that everyone is having fun, but there are also a bunch of bugs.

Dotta says this is to be expected with an early version of any MMO, and goes on to say that he is incredibly proud of the work of the team at Bisonic. He notes that there are many things that just can’t be tested for prior to opening the game for actual users and says now that it’s built, the main task is to massage reliability issues.

Game Bugs & Scheduled Maintenance

Elf says that he feels it’s been a success regardless of the bugs and notes that the main purpose of the beta test is to identify and crush these bugs. Dotta notes that despite the bugs, the game’s player numbers have been solid and concurrent user numbers are consistent. He says that the areas with the biggest bugs are around Dungeons, and the team will need to take the game down for scheduled maintenance to fix some of the "more serious" Dungeon bugs. He says there will be an announcement concerning the date of maintenance.

Dotta also mentions that the game has seen global activity over 24 hour periods, noting that there is always someone on and always someone to party up with.

Donuts, Donuts, Donuts

The team also points out that it is “Donut Stacking Time,” and Dotta states that the weekly Donut drops have been allocated as well as other ways players can collect Donuts while playing the Runiverse game and owning Forgotten Runes tokens. Dotta also notes that the first Donut Jackpot has been issued, and recipients can be seen on the Forgotten Runes Donuts site.

Donut Leaderboard

The team also mentions that there is now a Donuts Leaderboard, to which Dotta gives caveats:

• Donuts have different rarity
• Donuts only show for users who connect with Twitter

Dotta says that the Leaderboard has also helped him detect some users who have taken part in referral scams.

Unrevealed Donut Types & Delegate

Elf notes that there are still Donut types that have not yet been revealed. He mentions an upcoming Donut specifically for Beast Masters.

Elf speaks about his personal Donut holdings, noting that he's not on the leaderboard, but says he hasn't connected all of his wallets yet, including the one with his Goat Wizard. At the mention of this, Dotta notes that the Runiverse game does support Delegate for token-holder safety.

Moku Takeover

Hantao, a cofounder of Moku, a Ronin Network publisher, briefly joins and speaks about the ongoing collaboration with Forgotten Runes including a Moku gacha where participants can win Wizards, Warriors, Donuts, and more.

Runiverse Bots & Expectations

Then, Dotta says that he has just seen a video of someone selling a Python bot to farm the Runiverse game. He says he thinks it's bullish: "Not that we'll allow it, exactly."

Entropy agrees and says that as "much of a drag as it is" the team must be doing something right to attract the attention of scammers.

Beta Test Expectations

Elf speaks to a "misalignment of expectations" between the team and community about the beta test, reminding the community that the purpose of the test is to find and fix bugs. Dotta says there's always a threshold of tolerable bugs before a game becomes frustrating to play.

Bisonic

He also speaks to the historic experience of the Bisonic team, noting that there are those who have worked for Blizzard and those who worked on Ultima Online:

"It's not like the teams don't have the experience they need to write an MMO...when you look at any...big MMOs from the early days, they also suffer from these issues."

Tough Lessons

Hantao then asks about the toughest lessons the team has learned this time around (aside from bugs). Dotta says that the most difficult part around managing an NFT project in general is having a thick skin and keeping perspective. He mentions the ability to take verbal beating from users while at the same time sifting through the negativity for kernels of true feedback or "trying to find the signal in the noise." Tad mentions that the growing pains of support tickets is temporary, and on the other side, it's exciting to be able to help introduce new people to the Forgotten Runes IP.

Ronin Community Shout Out

Dotta echoes this and again expresses excitement about the activity from the Ronin community saying they have been supportive, optimistic, and helpful as well as tweeting out lots of great Forgotten Runes content.

Elf seconds this sentiment:

"You guys have integrated into our community so well, mostly because you're just a bunch of talented creators!"

Guests

Andrew Campbell

Then, Andrew Campbell takes the stage and speaks about playing the Runiverse on the Apple Vision Pro. He asks about game cosmetics, and wonders if Wizard skins will eventually be able to show equipment earned in the game. Elf says this is also one of his biggest personal requests, and the team is also planning to allow custom names for players wearing Wizard skins.

Henboyd

Henboyd joins the conversation as well and notes that Andrew will be the next special guest on the Monday Magic News show. He also asks when the Password Reset will be fixed for Donuts accounts. Entropy verifies that this fix was pushed on Wednesday morning.

Hail.ron

After that, Hail.ron also joins to ask about future item distribution for partied players in dungeons, noting that the current distribution seems random. Bearsnake says that it is a topic of discussion and "it will evolve from where it is now." He says he thinks giving any more information than that right now might be unfair to the development team.

W1ldmage & Runiverse Trails

W1ldmage then also joins the stage and speaks about Salty Sloane's open casting call for Wizard NPCs in the upcoming Runiverse Trails interactive, text-based, AI event—a concept funded by the House of Wizards DAO. He notes that those who sign up as interactive NPCs will not be able to play as those Character tokens in the game. However, he encourages the Cult's participation in this live Lore event.

IRL Alpha Plug

Following this, Elf and Bearsnake plug their appearance on this week's IRL Alpha panel discussing the Runiverse game and Web3 gaming in general.

Favorite Lore For Newcomers

The team is then asked to explain their favorite Forgotten Runes lore to newcomers.

Quantum Ouroboros

Elf says that his favorite piece of Lore is for the Quantum Ouroboros, and though it is one of the Beasts, it came to us through Times Square in New York, rather than through the Gate to the Seventh Realm, like the other Beasts. He says this is just one of many instances in Forgotten Runes world where fact and fiction align.

SPZ & Oliver Tree

Tad says that one of his favorite pieces of Lore concerns Cult member SPZ who joined the Cult, wrote lore for someone else's Wizard and then later went on to own that same Wizard. He says he also loves when Oliver Tree put on the Gigas Chad costume and became Gigas Chad to the point of bodyslamming someone on stage.

Dialectic

Dotta also recalls Real Life Lore from The Day of Summoning (Mint Day) when Dialectic accidentally sent much more ETH than the mint contract accepted, and asked for it back—he notes they went on to own the legendary Sacred Key Master token.

Lore Reading & Cult Content Chronicle

On the subject of Lore, MeepleDad then takes the stage to share some fun MetaBot lore that weaves common AI phrases with hand-written lore in a clever way.

As the show winds down, the team reviews perhaps the largest issue of the Cult Content Chronicle to date—a collection of art from the past week within the Forgotten Runes community, aggregated weekly by Tania del Rio.