Wizard Wednesday Recap, 2022-08-24

A response letter written by Kurt Vonnegut to high school students in 2006, shortly before he passed away. Magic Machine endorses the value of everyone making art in some capacity.

Magic Machine Likes Kurt Vonnegut

This is the first of our Wizard Wednesdays (WW) with no Elf, who is on vacation at an undisclosed location. Dotta opened by mentioning a Kurt Vonnegut anecdote that went viral on social media this week (and first shared in the Wizard discord by giveahoot). Vonnegut gave a thoughtful response to a student letter urging people to create for its own sake. Dotta proceeded to share the concept of Universal Shapes, basically 6 basic story plots that were presented by Vonnegut in the 90s.

Wizard Affinity Data is Now on OpenSea!

The first big Magic Machine (MM) news of this week is that Wizard affinity data is now available on OpenSea! This was one of the innovative aspects of the original Wizard collection, a measure of cohesiveness among the traits of the collection. At first, Dotta decided to not include it in the trait data on OpenSea. But due to challenges with new entrants discovering affinity, Magic Machine has decided to bring them to OpenSea (as it was already present for the Souls and Warriors collections).

Dotta said that when you look at Wizards with 100% affinity, they “sing” because the traits were designed to fit together. He admitted that 100% affinity wizards are his favorites among the collection. He proceeded to explain the concept of affinities a little further. There is an Affinity name, a # of traits, and a percentage of traits (number of traits in the same affinity compared to total traits). (Note: There is a Youtube video explaining affinities from HighTac.

A prototype of a Forgotten Runes-themed board game in development, shared by brennen.eth via Twitter, circa August 2022.

Community News

Forgotten Runes Board Game

The main focus this week was on community projects. We started with Brennen, who is developing a Forgotten Runes strategic board game. Brennen has been developing and designing board games for 10 years. He enjoys working within the limits of physical board games (as opposed to developing code, which is his day job). Brennen has previously developed Raid, a Viking-themed card game, and is about to release Seven Sails, a pirate-themed game. As a result of his experiences, he became a game consultant for a game publishing company. Through this role, he met faison (spelling may be incorrect), who had the original concept for the Runes game (although it didn’t have that theme at the time).

He describes it as a mixture of Monopoly and a diplomatic-themed game like Game of Thrones. The objective is to build a tower, and lately, brennen and faison have worked to fit the mechanics to the Forgotten Runes theme. There has already been some alpha testing done using Tabletopia. A physical prototype has been created as well, and this will help the team further refine the game. Once the House of Wizards DAO re-opens proposals, brennen plans to submit a proposal to pay community members to provide lore and art assets for the game. As a Nouns-holder, brennen is a believer in the process. He thinks that the game can be a good way to get FRWC into the mainstream. Brennen plans to include 8 Wizards, 8 Warriors, and 8 Souls in the game, so there is a possibility to get one of your characters into it also. The Nightmare Imp Beast is already planned for inclusion.

An upcoming casual dice-and-card game in development from Solopop, shared via Twitter, circa August 2022.

Treasure Trove is Released

We moved to MeepleDad talking about Treasure Trove. The objective of this project is to collect physical Forgotten Runes creations from a variety of community members into one loot box. Then shipping can be coordinated for all of them at once. Items in the box include Wizard cards (7-suit deck with FRWC ranks) from MeepleDad (with art from ArtisRock), and the Spell Runes dice & card game (PvP-Yahtzee-RPG) from SoloPop (Dr. Poplovski), and physical Runes trading cards, among other items.

Solopop(lovski) explained the gameplay and mechanics of the Spell Runes game, and described it as a mixture of random chance and strategic play to attract a casual gaming audience. Giveahoot mentioned that card artwork for the Runes TCG is in progress, and it is looking amazing.

MeepleDad will use Sushi’s Miso service to sell Treasure Trove, which will be open over the next week. There will be prizes for the largest donors, including poems from Lorepunk. The team needs to sell $25K to have enough scale to ship. Prices range from $250-$1500.

Moron Global - Wizard Waifu Content Conclusion

The Moron Global team chimed in, saying that they will commercialize the winning artwork from the Wizard Waifus contest into upcoming merch lines.

Code Name: Binary Star

A montage of Heroes of Cumberland derivative NFTs, released during the initial mint (August 2022). Art by maxwell (fecklessmage).

Dotta chimed in at this point that Magic Machine loves these initiatives, and wants to facilitate even more creation. Sometimes bringing a design or idea to life is difficult for those without experience in it. MM has started a new project, codenamed “Binary Star” which means two stars locked in each other’s gravity, which is how MM wants to support token-holders in their creation.

The concept is that you (as a FRWC token holder) can log into a tool with Web3 authentication, and then designate which rights you approve to be used for your characters. You’ll also be able to connect with vendors to bring your FRWC IP-related idea to life. It will be a long-term project, but MM wants to commit to this. Dotta said, “what good are IP rights if you cannot even commercialize them?” Bearsnake said that this tool will be built for the FRWC community first, but could eventually be used by other projects too. Dotta said that this fits into the idea that merchandising forms a lion’s share of many of the top-grossing media franchises of all time. Magic Machine wants the commercialized IP rights to drive most of the value to token-holders, not necessarily the tokens themselves.

Bearsnake mentioned that MM signed with a licensing agent, which has helped them multiply the amount of initiatives currently in the works. This person represents some of the biggest IP in the world, and is able to open similar doors for Forgotten Runes. He reminded the listeners that the two ways to typically build big media franchises are video games, and TV/film. Forgotten Runes is doing both.

Madotsuki mentioned that a trivia event will be running on the Runiverse discord, and winners can win some t-shirts from the latest Magic Machine merch line. He mentioned that he predicts that there will be a moment in the future when things will click for the general population, when they realize how FRWC token-holders are able to commercialize their characters in this globally recognized franchise.

Heroes of Cumberland Launches

We next opened the mint for the Heroes of Cumberland derivative project, created by maxwell (fecklessmage). Mint price is 0.0333 per token, with a free mint for lore writers. The tokens have individual names, and there are a varied assortment of cucumdog and related character traits.

Dotta closed by doing some Cult Content shoutouts - check out the mentioned pieces here.