Wizard Wednesday Recap, 2024-09-04

Introductions

The team channels in with Tad Major who is joining fresh out of the new Runiverse game Dungeon. He recounts the story of facing the Dungeon Boss with a full party that had all had all been KO'd, and he struck the last blow right before he fell himself.

Elf says that he's only Level 11 and Dotta says that he's only Level 15.

Elf says:

"It's kind of hard to party up these days... maybe we should fix those bugs."

Dotta responds:

"Yeah, we can party up with each other."

Elf invites listeners to come up on stage to ask question about the game, life, Magic, or anything they want, but first requests that Entropy recap some information from Moku HQ

Moku HQ Collab

Entropy notes that Forgotten Runes holders can earn points and prizes in the Moku ecosystem just by having Forgotten Runes tokens. Then, he notes a drawing challenge / figjam with Moku and Forgotten Runes communities on 2024-09-05.

Entropy also alerts Moku listeners in the audience who are Questing for Moku HQ of the show's quest password: Icosahedron. He notes this is a 20-sided figure used notably in tabletop roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons as well as in the Forgotten Runiverse Lore.

Icosahedron

Elf jumps in to say that the Icosahedron is not just a 20-sided die, but also a Platonic Solid, one of the five types of Sacred Geometries in existence—and the one with the most faces.

"It's a very special piece of geometry."

He notes the other types of Platonic Solids:

* Tetrahedron

* Cube (Hexahedron)

* Octahedron

* Dodecahedron

* Icosahedron

Elf defines the Platonic Solid as a shape with equal edges; the same number of faces meeting at each vertex; and congruent, regular polygon faces.

Entropy says this sounds like a little bit of Magic and Machine. Elf says, "Exactly."

Twitter Spaces and Streaming

After reminding listeners to like and share the space, Elf then moves on to say that he would like to grow Wizard Wednesday into one of the best Twitter Spaces available.

He asks if anyone has listened to other Twitter Spaces: "They're kinda lame."

Dotta agrees, but notes that Entropy was streaming the Runiverse game earlier in the week and the stream had around 1.2k viewers.

"That's a lot more than we have right now. Maybe we need to stream while we have Wizard Wednesday."

Entropy jumps in to say he thinks the max number he saw was around 1,800 concurrent viewers, and notes his pleasant surprise. He says he loves the idea of streaming during the show, but it would require the team to "switch up [their] format a little bit" due to streaming setup restrictions in parallel with Twitter Spaces.

He mentions a potential workaround with Discord Voice Chat and a restreaming program.

Treasure Trove

Elf then gives another announcement that the day of the show is the last day to place orders for MeepleDad's "Treasure Trove 2," which is a Forgotten Runes merchandise box filled with community goodies.

The team note payment options in both crypto and fiat, and Elf invites MeepleDad to join and speak about the project, which was funded by the House of Wizards DAO.

#4 Crypto Game

Elf then says that he has "heard that we're the number 4 crypto game in all crypto games in the world."

Dotta talks about the "numbers behind the numbers" and notes the game was listed at DappRadar, noting that the contracts and addresses from which it pulls data are public information and he mentions "Footprint," which he compares to Dune Analytics for the Ronin chain. He says he has been putting some dashboards together and has seen a few others floating around with good metrics around number of people minting land, Runiverse items, etc. He notes that the day of the show, the team saw over 25k addresses mint the Daily Donut and invites skeptics and other curious listeners to investigate the numbers for themselves.

Elf laughs and says that he almost doesn't want the game to have its current status because it's in Beta—and the purpose of the Beta is to crush bugs. "It's not ready!"

Trial by Fire

Dotta says it's Trial by Fire, noting that there are bugs that the team would never find before getting it out into the world, though he speaks to the balance between expected number of bugs and and number of bugs that detract and deter from the game itself.

He lauds the Bisonic team.

"The Bisonic team has been grinding. We see it, but I want to make sure the people listening see it, which is like the nonstop lack of sleep, answering tickets, fixing bugs, making updates, taking bug reports, organizing them...grinding incredibly hard to fix these bugs."

He urges players to report bugs as they find them (which can be done in the support-ticket channel of the Forgotten Runes Discord). Dotta also notes that they're considering a bug bounty for the reproduction of some of the "more tricky" bugs. Elf quotes Reid Hoffman:

“If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.”

He says:

"Boy, do I feel that!"

Dotta laughs, and agrees, before winding back and saying that he's not embarrassed of the Runiverse game, necessarily, but notes that it doesn't feel good to have bug on either side, player or developer.

"You just gotta ship it. That's the right way to do it—ship it and get it out there.."

They note that overall, people seem to be enjoying the game outside of the bugs. Elf says the hard thing is making a good game, regardless of bugs, and that "crushing the bugs" is the easy part.

Dotta Speaks to Concerns

Dotta speaks to concerns about the game's economy that were brought up in the Forgotten Runes Discord's Sales channel. To this, he says that the way to address botting for things like the economy is to let the game run and see what people are botting, and then address it. Dotta says notes different ways for detecting bots and that it's something they will be working on "forever," as the game runs and people find different ways or mechanics to bot—as is usual for a Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game.

"The biggest games in the world are always going to have a bot issue."

He adds that there's also a big gap from where they are to where they want to be.

The New Dungeon

Elf asks if there are any more details about the new Dungeon. Dotta says that he is "lame" and hasn't played it yet, but says that he knows that Orbus has, and invites them up to speak about it.

Orbus joins and speaks about a few of the bugs, as well as the boss battle that Tad mentioned at the top of the show.

Tad jokes:

"I think I just got lucky. Yeah, I thought we were toast."

Spell Loadouts

Elf asks about everyone's Spell loadouts:

Tad says that Elf's loadout of the "ice spear" and "fireball" is a perfect place to start, noting that heal is necessary and that he might want to consider and area-of-effect spell.

Madotsuki Joins

Madotsuki chimes in to say that they've tried to engineer tougher battles in the game to require formulation of some strategy.

Elf asks about the new Dungeon, to which Madotsuki notes there have been some quality of life updates as well as new gear and spells. He notes that all spell slots should now be unlocked. He says this is the first Dungeon with multiple rooms and different outcomes and urges listeners to try it and give any feedback they have, noting that every incremental revision is one step closer to where they want the game to be.

Donuts

Dotta than mentions that the weekly Donut allotment has dropped, thanks to Niski. He also mentions updates to the Donuts website: namely in the Donut History and corrections for Donuts received in weeks past. Dotta also speaks about the Donut Leaderboard, the joining of massive Forgotten Runes holder, M4T to the Donuts site, and social media connection requirements to appear on the Leaderboard.

Dotta also addresses attempts to bot the Donut Leaderboard and points to the fact that most of the names that appear are names that active members likely know.

Botting

"Yes. Bots exist..but we're aware of it and working to make sure that it's not like bots were overwhelming the system and walking away with rewards while the people that have been here for years and years and years aren't getting that."

Dotta mentions that the Donut program will continue to run after the Forgotten Runiverse Open Beta Event for an "unspecified number of weeks." Elf reminds the Cult that new donut flavors are coming.

Winding Down

Halloween

Elf also says that the team is planning a fun Halloween event, and that he thinks it's going to be the most fun yet.

MeepleDad

After a quick rug and Elf's education of the audience of the Twitter Spaces "Nest," MeepleDad joins briefly to speak about the Treasure Trove.

Cult Content Chronicle

As the show winds down, the team note Bearsnake's absence due to illness, wish him well, and review the Cult Content Chronicle—art from the past week within the Forgotten Runes community collected weekly by Tania del Rio.