Wizard Wednesday Recap, 2022-11-16

"Forgotten Runes is pioneering a 4th kind of world-builder. And at the moment, I'm going to call it, a living avatar. This is the creator who is also the creation; they literally own and embody the character that they develop for. This type of world-builder creates effortlessly because they are the creation." Elf quotation released alongside this Secret Tower 3D preview via Twitter. (November 2022)

This week, Elf returned after being out sick, along with Dotta and Bearsnake as usual. Tania del Rio was celebrating her birthday during this WW as well!

Magic Machine remarked on all the happenings re: FTX/Alameda/SBF. The info flow from social media was high during this time, with a lot of misinformation among it. Dotta remarked that our generation is having challenges with info processing in this age , but our descendants will do better.

Community Q&A

Will there be a Wizard hangout during the Miami Basel event? Bearsnake: Nothing scheduled just yet, but there will be a low-key time and place to gather one evening during that event for those that will be attending. Stay tuned for more details.

Warner Bros. released a "Lord of the Rings Web3 Movie Experience" in October 2022. Shown here is the home page for their experience web site. Elf was not impressed.

Sharon asked about favorite Thanksgiving foods:

Elf: Mashed potatoes.

Bearsnake and Dotta: Stuffing.

Jitcy: Martinelli's (sparkling cider). I lead a weird lifestyle.

Elf’s thoughts on the landshark not being genned? Elf: I’m disappointed, and I blame Dotta 😝. Dotta recounted the situation how the landshark had very strict Pirate affinity requirements that never got fulfilled in the gen that was used.

Elf Comments of the Lord of the Rings "Web3 Experience"

Bisonic shared a preview of some of the different tent styles aligning to the various Color Wizard Hat factions. (November 2022)

Next, Elf wanted to comment on the Lord of the Rings Web3 experience. This was on Twitter, and was the target of a lot of derision and mockery. It seemed to have been created by outsiders without a firm grasp of the industry. This demonstrates how traditional media companies will have trouble adapting their existing IP for web3. They mainly just see the volume of sales, but are unaware of the tech, the community, and the novel creative forms. If you think about the hypothetical of creating a 10K LOTR character NFT collection, it wouldn’t work, because the franchise's value comes from the original beloved characters; they can’t create a bunch of new ones at scale. What this means, is that we are early in this game. If media companies want to partake, they will need to create their own new media property from the ground up, or they buy some NFT-native project that has proven success (the latter is more likely). They can’t scale up something they already own (the fans won’t like it). Conclusion: Elf sees no threat from these legacy media companies, they aren’t even in the race.

Dotta assured the Cult that this is NOT implying that MM sees a sale to a Disney or similar company as an exit strategy. The goal is not to be acquired by Disney or Warner Bros., it is to become a new, Web3-native media giant, embodying the Web3 ethos.

TV Show Update

Magic Machine had a call with Derek Kolstad in the past week, and it went well. Derek is creating the broad story structure and characters, and Elf is filling in a lot of the details, in terms of providing locations, more characters, and other lore details into the framework.

Dotta released a preview for one of the hexagon resource animations, for the upcoming real-time resource collection and building game, Battle for Goblintown. (November 2022)

Dotta added that Elf has made a giant graph using Figma about the relationships of the characters in the Runiverse for Derek to use as a reference. It includes about 100 different characters. Elf said that like Game of Thrones, there is no singular protagonist for the whole show. No Harry Potter-like central figure. Elf is also matching existing characters to archetypes that Derek requested. Bearsnake added that these documents are crucial to the dev process, since we don’t have novels to use as source material.

Elf: I observe everything that goes on around the Cult, and I weave stories around that. The Runiverse is a reflection of our real world, the discussions happening in Discord and Twitter every day.

The Battle for Goblin Town, Explained

Next, it's a big update on Wizard Catan, the on-chain resource collection, building and trading game that Dotta has been working on!

Dotta: This game is called “The Battle for Goblintown” and is set in Goblintown. There will be a greenpaper released with every detail, but I can give the overall concept now. The game is inspired by the board game, “Settlers of Catan”, maybe more so the Cities and Knights variant because your Wizards and Warriors will appear in the game too. Catan is a hex-grid game. On a table-top, the grid is relatively small, but in this game, the grid is massive to accommodate every player. Everyone has their own account, tied to their wallet. Built items will reflect in your wallet as non-transferable tokens, but there will also be resources, which are NFTs. On the grid, you can build settlements, and generate resources. The 5 resource types are: sticks, shards, slime, chickens, and kobold koolaid. You’ll earn these resources from the buildings, and you can buy/sell/trade resources as NFTs, or use them in game. You also can build roads, and you need to connect your settlements with the roads. The settlements/roads cannot be unbuilt, and they are tied to your account. These constructions are strategic - you can surround, or be surrounded by, others.

Yellow Wizard Haven is the epicenter for the values of fun and the pursuit of happiness.

There will also be a thief component (like Catan), but in this game, they are the Beasts. The Beast Masters will have a token they can use in the game. The Beast can move into a settlement and steal resources. They will take their cut of resources over time. To drive the Beasts away, you can create a Band of Wizards & Warriors that group together to fight. The Bands can attack/defend different roads, & each other, as well.

The pricing mechanics will be using some of the tech from Art Gobblers. A variable rate Dutch auction (VRDA) will target specific resource emission rate over time. If resources are created ahead or behind schedule, the rate is dynamically self-adjusting. Dotta acknowledged that these crypto games typically always blow up at some point. He can’t guarantee it won’t happen with this game, but he enjoys the challenge of trying to design something that can endure over time.

Christmas time was the original delivery goal for this game, but at this point, January is a more realistic time frame. Elf said that Dotta had wanted to create a game like this for the longest time (1 year ago). Dotta had been playing Wolf Game and other similar on-chain games, and wanted to build his version of it. He loves idle clicker games also. Elf and Bearsnake agreed to let him, as long as the Runiverse lore was integrated.

The Athenaeum items (Treats) may be helpful for providing boosts to attack or defense of different items in the game. More details and specifics to come. Partner collection holders who participated in the trick or treat event will receive at least enough resources to create one settlement. Warrior-holders will get more resources than partners, and Wizard-holders will receive even more resources than that.

At the Yellow Wizard Haven, wizards focus on creating good times, and use chronomancy to make those times extend as long as needed.

Regarding txn costs: Creating a building costs about as much as doing a Uniswap trade. But Dotta thinks it will encourage more play if the game is on Arbitrum (a layer 2 chain). Bridging mainnet tokens to Arbitrum will take some effort, but Dotta believes ppl will do it.

In-game lore: Elf wanted to talk about why this is set in Goblin Town. Basically, it’s meant to reflect the real world, and we are definitely in the middle of Goblin Town right now. In the Runiverse, Goblin Town is a large settlement full of degens, criminal rings, goblins, zombies, & a host of other unsavory characters. But you can still find rare acts of courage, virtue, and kindness. In the game, you are competing to become gang lords of Goblin Town. With Wolf Game and others, you get the sense that it’s degen central. And to some extent, this game will be as well, but there should be genuine fun for non-degens as well. And fun is the antidote to the bear market blues.

Meepledad's stash of Treasure Trove boxes, ready to ship.

Elf Lore Drop: Yellow Hat Wizards

From here we moved into another Elf lore drop: The Yellow Hat Wizards! Yellow Hats have taken the aspiration of humanity to relax and have fun, and have built an entire community around it. Life, liberty, & the pursuit of happiness are in full display at the Chronomancer’s Riviera. Many ppl are not able to “relax by the beach” until they’re too old to enjoy it. So the Yellow Wizards use time manipulation to stay young, & let parties last as long as they'd like. We in this world can also experience the manipulation of time. Machine-tracked time is different from time in our heads. Nostalgia and hope are manifestations of past and future time. And mindfulness can help us live fully in the present and extend time. What good is the money of Reds, tech of the Blues, or the conservation of Greens, if you don’t take the time to enjoy it? No good at all, if you're a Yellow.

Community News & Cult Content Shout-outs

MeepleDad came up, and talked about the Treasure Trove merch box. It contains an assortment of games, gaming items, and other FRWC-themed items, and the products have been manufactured and are at MeepleDad’s house, ready to ship. People who already pledged will get theirs, of course, but if you order soon, you should still be able to receive one in time for Christmas.

Cult Content Shout-outs:

• Sharkchild made a meme post with his goblin warrior crew chastising goblintown (the NFT project) for buying goblin brains. Elf praised how it incorporated FWRC characters, a Beast, an Athenaeum item, and even another NFT project to world-build.
• Loxley Labs, Retired Yield Farmer's project, has it’s own Twitter account, and is dropping artwork previews that look great.
• Joan Danger of Riffraff had another commission coming out, this time with a street wear outfit. And we got to see the other side of her shield...
• Runes is making progress - many more cards are being created. Additionally, a dedicated play hour was set for Thursdays at 8PM EST / 5 PM PST (US time).
• MehsterBrown is making dolls of various Wizards. MB also did a “baby shark” parody with the land shark.
• Henboyd released a commissioned illustration of a rabbit holding a knife!
• Emma continues to make many highly-acclaimed Runiverse film posters.
• BlackSand has released a pony racing community event. (They also have a fighting tournament that is ongoing).
• Dotta re-explained the Lorb to Elf. It was created by nifty miner, who came up and talked about the Cabinet of Curiosities, which is a magical item workshop. The Lorb is one of the creations of Magus Impy of the Toadstools, but there may be others in the future.