Wizard Wednesday Recap, 2021-12-15

Magic Machine formally announces its partnership with Bisonic, a game studio, to create an MMORPG based on the Runiverse. (December 2021)

Runiverse Game Partnership with Bisonic Announced

Magic Machine formally announced its partnership with game studio Bisonic. A website for the game was launched, and a land sale was announced for Q1 2022. This was the culmination of a lot of negotiations and legal proceedings, and MM is happy to finally be able to announce it. Dotta mentioned that he and Elf had originally met to co-create mobile games. They built a game that was fairly successful, but when it came to Forgotten Runes, they realized that they needed to work with a larger, professional team.

This was the initial animation shared for the Runiverse game, in development from Bisonic. (December 2021)

Elf was excited to share the initial battle animation that showcased the talents of their art team. Bearsnake believes that the Bisonic team is aligned with MM on the core concepts of FRWC. Bisonic has staff that has worked on many well-known and esteemed video games in the past, including Elder Scrolls Online, Diablo, Overwatch, World of Warcraft, Far Cry 3, Rainbow 6 Siege, Batman Arkham Origins, Killer Instinct, Street Fighter and more.

In response to a question about how FRWC holders would benefit in the game, Dotta said that many options are on the table, but those decisions haven't been made yet. But he wants to make sure Wizard-holders are taken care of.

Lorepunk asked about what a "create-to-earn" mechanic might look like in the game. To help answer this question, Jeldor, Co-founder of Bisonic, came to speak. Jeldor grew up playing popular MMORPGs like Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies, and he wants some of the better experiences from those games to inspire the Runiverse game. Jeldor said that "create-to-earn" does NOT mean a "Second Life" sandbox experience, where the players have to build everything. There will be established locations, enemies, and quests. But players will be able to own their land, build a house according to their preferences, or even build a guild hall on a larger piece of land. You will be able to build economic engines on their land, such as forges and shops. Over time, Jeldor hopes that the cities will be built up into epicenters of creation and collaboration. Elf added that he believes there will be room for artisanal creation. Jeldor said that you will have tools to create portraits in game, for example, that can later be sold in-game and displayed in someone's house. It could also extend to in-game books and poetry readings.

Dotta talked a little bit about tokenomics. The idea is that all the items in the game are resources, essentially tokens of some sort, that can be traded or sold for in-game economic beneift. There is a lot to be developed in this area, but it should be one of the innovative aspects of the game. Jeldor hopes that this will be the economic engine that drives growth.

Excerpt from the Coinbase newsletter that featured FRWC, among other prominent projects.

In response to a question about character classes and how characters develop in the game, Jeldor acknowledged that the battle animation preview seems to indicate multiple classes. The idea for the encounters is to have them happen in real-time, often with parties of multiple players. There will be a class-less system, but you will be able to assign abilities to your character that will allow them to act like a variety of classes. There will be also be specialization of abilities available. This allows you to easily create "hybrid-class" type of character, if you wish. This is intended to provide a high level of flexibility in the character development system, which will facilitate the inclusion of additional characters like the Warriors later on. The dungeons will be designed for 4 players, and there will be 4 vs. 4 "player vs. player" as well.

There was an audience question about the cost to play the game. Dotta acknowledge that Layer 1 gas fees could ramp up expenses. The land sale will be on L1 Ethereum, but something like zksync or starknet L2s would be used for the actual game transactions. At the same time, part of the game will be off-chain as well. Some of the in-game tokens won't be crypto right away, they will be stored off-chain and you may be able to "check them out" if you want/need to trade them outside of the game.

Dotta also clarified that you don't need to own a FRWC character to play, free stock characters will be available to create and play. The idea is to make the game accessible for everyone and have a wide audience, although Wizard ownership should become aspirational to many players. Jeldor confirmed that it should be possible to play for free, create something, and earn your way to the aspects of the game that cost some type of resource/currency.

Magic Machine released an image of their 2021 holiday merch box. Additional visual previews of the contents were also released. (December 2021).

In response to questions about partnerships between the Runiverse game and other games or metaverses, Dotta said it required a multi-layered answer. He sees the value of providing extensibility via an SDK, but doesn't want to include it too early, because the core game experience should be able to stand on its own. And the Wizard walk-cycles (and eventually, 3D models) will allow for Forgotten Runes integration with a wide variety of other projects and efforts. That being said, Dotta said that Magic Machine is open to creating special skins for certain partner communities. Like for example, Cool Cats holders could use a blue Felis wizard skin. But it needs to fit into the Runiverse world and lore.

In response to a question about whether Wizard types or locations would provide priority to land in certain areas, Magic Machine were clear that this wouldn't be the case. You would pay a flat price for a certain-sized plot, in a random location. Larger plots (eg. city-sized) would be sold in an auction. After you purchase the land, you will find out where it is on the map, you will be able to access and walk around your plot, and you will be able to trade for the location that you want on the secondary NFT market. Elf mentioned that it will be fun to try and get land that matches your character and personality, in contrast to some other sandbox metaverses, which sell plots on a uniform grid with no geography. Dotta mentioned that there will be incentives to be active with your land plots, they don't want a lot of squatters sitting on empty land for speculation purposes.

Jeldor ended by talking about the cities - they are intended to have different specialty industries, just like actual cities. You'll need to travel to different cities to get the best equipment or crafting skill in certain categories. Other cities might specialize in live entertainment events and fighting tournaments.

Coinbase includes Forgotten Runes in their Newsletter

The Coinbase newsletter is sent to hundreds of thousands of its user. In the latest edition, Coinbase featured its various partners for its Coinbase NFT platform, and FRWC was among them. Elf said that he had been waiting for this moment for a little while, and it was gratifying to finally see it happen.

The Inaugural Forgotten Runes Merch Box is Revealed!

Magic Machine released previews of its holiday merch box, including pictures and descriptions of everything that's in the box. Dotta asked people to consider buying it based on what is shown, and not to speculate because they think there might be hidden goodies inside.

LachnessMonsta attested to the high quality of all the items in the box. Bearsnake encouraged people to make unboxing videos when they receive them. When asked why they didn't increase supply so that everyone who wanted could get one, Bearsnake replied that MM needed to ensure they didn't over-extend, and that there will be more merch coming.

Lore Reading

The lore reading this week was for Scryer Rodolfo of the Reach (9058), read enthusiastically by ChartCinema.