Hello, fellow Mortals! It’s me, Justin Hulog, Executive Producer of Gods Unchained, bringing you this month’s extra special Dev Update.
Before we dive in, I want to extend a warm welcome to all new Mortals to Eucos! To our existing community members, wherever you may be in the Mortal Realm; deck-building and strategising in the Workshop, fusing for higher-quality cards in the Forge, battling for glory in the Arena, trading and amassing collections in the Market or simply holding $GODS tokens for rewards - a hearty welcome. We are so thankful to have you on board being part of a revolutionary gaming movement that focuses on real ownership of in-game assets with NFTs so early.
We’ve said it before, and we’ll repeat it. We at Gods Unchained have a lofty goal - to be the best Web3 game that reimagines traditional game design, tests new frontiers of game economy and paves the way for new gaming mechanisms made possible by blockchain technology. All that while unwavering from the crux of creating the most fun, exciting trading card game for you to play and giving you front-row access to game development in real-time as it evolves into the beast we believe it will become!
As we mentioned during our org restructure last month, our goal was to have a laser focus on building and launching features quicker that set the game up for long-term success. The fruits of this strategic decision are visible, with a lot of features shipped within a matter of weeks.
As you journey with us and contribute to this long-term vision, it’s time to take stock of our most recent developments, shed light on what’s happening behind the scenes and reveal some “secret-until-now insight” on what’s yet to come! Spoilers: A LOT of community-focused initiatives go live today!
Some Recent Highlights
Daily Play & Earn
The team has done an incredible job shipping this feature live on time, as promised. The community support has been heartwarming, and we are thrilled to see everyone enjoying the feature. We could tell you guys we’re as excited, too, because we crossed 1M in Community Fragments on day one within 8 hours of launch!
We hear all of your feedback and take it seriously. We will look into some of the features requested, like Daily Play & Earn Dashboard Phase 2, Forge 2.0, so keep ‘em coming. 😉 In celebration of Daily Play & Earn’s successful launch, we’d like to formally introduce Daily Play & Earn Kicker Bonus Month!
The Daily Play & Earn Kicker Bonus Month begins TODAY and will last for one month until 10am AEST on the 8th of October 2022. It will work like this: Each time our player base hits a milestone and stays that way for 3 consecutive days, we’ll increase the total number of $GODS rewards distributed by ~50%. 🙌
Monthly UsersDaily TokensStarting Point14,00050,00021,00075,00032,000100,00045,000150,00075,000
Can the pot get any sweeter, Mortals? Learn more about the Daily Play & Earn Kicker Bonus in this updated blog post.
Refer & Earn Program
A few weeks back, we allotted 100,000 $GODS to the Refer & Earn Program to give back to our active community members. Participation was so overwhelming that we had to close the program in half the time! But if you think we’re stopping there, you’re in for a treat. We are announcing the launch of Version 2 of the Refer and Earn Program.
The newly-refined Refer & Earn Program has 1 Million $GODS rewards and begins TODAY! The eligibility criteria for all Mortals are simple.
- Visit the Refer & Earn Page
- Invite your friends using your unique referral code
- Help your friends reach Rank 6 - Astral Meteorite (M+)
- You’ll both receive 10 $GODS each.
We’re super committed to giving back to the community, so this Refer & Earn Program will continue to run until we have paid out the 1 million $GODS tokens in rewards. We have increased the eligibility criteria this time because analyzing data from the last round, we saw clearly how multi-accounters/bots tried to game the system to take advantage of it. Our goal is to introduce more real players into Gods Unchained and will continue testing and iterating on the program over time to empower more genuine players.
Refer & Earn Program Boost
For a limited time only, i.e. during the sale period of Mortal Judgement: Light's Verdict, the 1M Refer and Earn Program will be boosted so Mortals can earn even more rewards! Here's how to earn more:
- Refer a friend & Earn 10% of all pack sales they buy!
- Plus, if they reach Rank 6 - Astral Meteorite - you both get 10 $GODS
There's no upper limit to how much you can earn, so spread your codes far and wide! Hurry, the incentive ends on 12 Oct 11.59 pm UTC. Go, go, go!
Multi-Accounting and Bot Rules
As we introduce new features and provide more value to our community, we’re implementing new systems to protect against bad actors. After carefully considering community feedback, we introduced the Card Cooldown Rule - wherein each card may earn rewards for only 1 account per day unless traded on the open market. Any account that uses the same cards as another account to earn multiple sets of rewards within a day will be banned as multi-account players. All accounts that violate our Terms of Service will be banned and disqualified for rewards. You can find our latest update on bots and multi-accounting here.
Reducing Royalty Fees
We’re reducing royalty fees for all Diamond GU cards traded on Immutable X protocol by half to 0.5% from 15th September at 10 am AEST! We aim to create a thriving ecosystem where high-value assets are more viable to trade on L2. Learn more about royalty fees in this blog post.
Key dates to make a note of:
- Royalty fee decrease announcement Thursday 8th Sept 10 am AET
- Cancel orders on Friday 15th Sept 10 am AET
- Change royalties on Friday 15th Sept 10 am AET
Torchbearer Bounty Board
This is another initiative very dear to me as it embodies the spirit of Web3. We aim to engage with our content creators more meaningfully and have rolled out a pilot program a few weeks ago to a select group of GU content creators for feedback and testing. Essentially, we put out content creation bounties each week for people with access to earn rewards in tokens.
We’d love to reward your participation in creating engaging content. If you’re a meme-master, anime-artist, lore-writer or video-editor, we’d love to showcase your talents on our social media channels! We’ll open it to the entire community in the next few weeks.
Enhanced Onboarding Experience
While we introduce new players to our game and focus on taking it mainstream, we've got to make it simpler to onboard new users. If you're new, you would have a glimpse of our newly launched email onboarding campaign and the latest tutorials. Soon, a streamlined new user registration flow will follow. Other areas with marked improvements are game stability, bug fixes and regular balance updates to change up the meta making it more fun to play. Our work is far from done, but we’re happy with the progress we’re making and will continue to revamp our website's Learn section with new tutorials and written content.
Redefining Internal Processes
Next, we assessed our internal processes and identified two key areas that needed new structures and processes - streamlining game development and communicating these developments to our community effectively.
In the spirit of being transparent and bringing you along for the ride, let me explain how we decide on product development and roadmap planning. We at Gods Unchained (Immutable Game Studios and Immutable X) follow three cycles each year.
- Cycle 1: March - June
- Cycle 2: July - October
- Cycle 3: November - February
Before each cycle, all teams discuss and set a priority list of key deliverables. We’re halfway over Cycle 2, and I’m thrilled to share that we’re on track to meet our committed milestones. Below are the main features that all teams are racing to complete by 31st October 2022.
Exciting Upcoming Features
New Game Modes
The community has been asking for new game modes for quite a while, and I’ll be honest, in the past, this has gone lower on our list of priorities. Not to say we don’t think it’s crucial; it’s just that it wasn’t the right time because we first had to fix the game's foundations (bugs, bots, etc.). Now that we’ve made headway in those areas, we are raising this feature higher on our list.
To put things in perspective, a new game mode is not a simple feature launch. Multiple sub-steps need to be completed. Let me run through a few action items:
- Rebuild Game Mode UI
- Design Game Modes
- Add additional functionality (e.g. sealed functionality to tooling, and/or paid event functionality)
Pretty sure as we begin building we’ll identify a lot more areas (combat log, improvements to match-making and deck-building etc.) but for now, we are working through these. We hope that between this cycle and the next one, we’ll be in a better place than we are now to roll out new game modes and some UI additions!
Limited Content Drop
This one’s a biggie! We’re releasing an epilogue to Season 1: Champions Rise - the conclusion to the climax of the major expansion release Mortal Judgement. This is not a new set on its own. I know what you’re thinking, and let me stop you right there - we are tackling the card supply and balance feedback with this drop. One of the primary focuses of this set is on the game economy. We’ll be experimenting with a variety of Web3 launch tactics such as capping the number of sales or limiting the number of mints or making it a time-bound launch. But my lips are sealed until next week so put notifications ‘on’ to get more deets!
Chests and Cosmetics Migration
We know this is long overdue. The good news is that we have it on our roadmap to migrate Cosmetics from the current Ethereum L1 to Immutable L2. It’s a complex task and has taken time. Still, I’m happy to say we should successfully migrate all Cosmetics by the end of this cycle. Once complete, it’ll be easier for us to release more content and accessories (Chests, Trinkets, Boards etc.) directly on Immutable X. This ensures all our players own their assets and access an easy, gas-free marketplace to trade them on.
Player Test Realm (PTR)
In case you missed it, we utilized the PTR for a balance update last month, which was extremely helpful for the team in receiving quality feedback. We’re evaluating using PTR a lot more even for regular patch or balance updates. In the interim, we know you’ve been asking us to use the PTR more and to make it more accessible (possibly without access codes), so keep an eye out for another PTR session this weekend!
New Partnerships
What is web3 without collabs, right? We kicked off these announcements with AQUA, the gaming NFT marketplace. The AQUA team gave away valuable cards from one of GU’s OG collectors (@ohhshiny), who owns over 300K cards. One lucky winner even got to take home an unopened chest! On that note, we’ve lined up a few BIG partnership announcements for this cycle. You’ll find clues to these brands on our social media channels (*coughs* Twitter). Feel like Nancy Drew; stalk our handle!
Bringing Lore Into The Marketplace
I hinted at a lore refresh in our last Dev Update and during the Council of Mortals meeting. Content is and will continue to be one of the cornerstones of Web3, especially at GU. While our lore has always guided game design (and most games do this), this time, we’re pushing the boundaries of game mechanics by incorporating an in-game lore economy. Possibly for the first time, a Web3 gaming company will venture into the unknown, making a bold move that’ll impact the market.
We are here to innovate and explore unique ways to impact the greater GU ecosystem positively. Stay tuned for more lore-driven game-economy enrichment in the coming days.
That’s all for now, and we can’t wait to share more with you next week!
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