Illuvium - MM-NOT

[frigid pine]

Hey guys, I'm not sure who to tag or where to ask so I'll tag our favorite guys <@&814435151307866142>

How was the decision made to focus on building MMO next? According to Kieran, the next game title was supposed to be decided after extensive market research, gather community sentiment and follow the governance process by writing an iip.

Instead we got none of that and it feels one day we woke up and decided to go for an MMO.

Don't you guys (everyone not just the imc) think that going for any type of MMO, as you are downsizing the team for limited runway reasons is borderline acoustic?

Am I the only dweeb who thinks Zero should be developed into it's full potential pvp city game before we do anything else? Has anyone played pvp city builders? Not only do we have perfect assets for it, it's gonna take much less time and resources to build, but also generate a ton of revenue.

Mobile web2 whales are the best, they just dump 100k on games like this for fun, unlike goofy web3 ROI sniffing whales.

The environment is also much more open to p2w and other paid services, compared to pc and consoles.

We can do a variation of clash of clans + monster strike (a japanese mobile game, whale favorite), or another spin, we have so many options.

Can this possibly be outsourced to a small indie studio to build while labs work on their plans?

Thoughts?

[sterile raft]

Yes, We skipped the process from IIP-44 game development process

[frigid pine]

Obviously, the question was moreso why

[sterile raft]

[void elk]

technically the MMO isn't a new game. It's Overworld 2.0.

[loud halo]

Glad that you bring it up @frigid pine

I dont know the full picture here but i was also surprised to hear about an MMO lite. Some people seem excited about it though but for the most part the people i talked with shared the sentiment that this didnt make much sense

Someone pointed out to me that mmo was a dying genre and couldnt see how a half baked game (lite) could get players from the existing big IPs (i havent checked if its true that its a dying genre)

What does make sense is that OW as a lot of assets that can be used to make a game out of it quite easily though

Maybe the main reason this feels rushed and went through even before we start our first game (arena) and jumped over IIP might be because we desperately needed something new to sell to for the next raise

[frigid pine]

I agree with everything in that paragraph including the last part. Although I'm not sure why it was thought it's gonna have a positive effect? Any type of MMO lite or not it's gonna take a shit ton of time and resources, on a limited runway with downsizings the workforce doesn't seem like a bullish announcement to me at all, more desperate if anything. I'm just trying to make sense of it cause it rly baffles me.

Even without runway issues MMO is still the riskiest genre to do, it just requires you to trap that lightning in a bottle in every aspect of it if you have any hopes of it being a success.

[neon solar]

Nownow, Jaganite, you arent paid to troll in serious feedback channels 🙂

[neon solar]

Indeed, early on, ICC shared in council channels the obvious difficulties that would accompany IIP 44. Three points were raised back then:

1. There is an incredibly long and arduous process surrounding gathering the required information, and then filling out the specific documents around the new gamemode.
2. A number of documents that are mentioned in the IIP have never been fleshed out. They would require drafting/finishing the documents to ensure the process could be followed.
3. Finally, removing the IIP altogether would would reduce the impact that the community could have on future game decision making.

So, to work around those issues: the complexity involved around implementation, and having to fix/remove IIP-44, the team chose to rebrand Overworld, which means that it isnt a new game, but an update to the current overworld game.

Just to clarify, on "working around point 1" a lot of thought was obviously put into this, with a number of teammembers presenting ideas internally on what possible next steps could be taken with the Overworld.

A rebranding to MMO-lite in theory does not strike with IIP44, as well as community expectations. The overworld was always supposed to become an RPG, where similar to Monster Hunter or DokeV you would fight alongside your Illuvials and a number of friends gainst other illuvials/leviathans.

I expect the MMO-lite to simply be the term that the team coined to encompass an Illuvium-based RPG with multiplayer expeditions and Monster Hunter-like battles.

[neon solar]

I do agree that building out IZ for the free to play audience could be a good move.

Ive played a ton of PVP city builder games, and IZ barely qualifies as city building.

Questions to you would be; would you purely be catering to the mobile whales? Make a F2P out of it? Would you include lands and if so: Would you require landholders to pay for content, and if yes, how much do you expect that landholders would invest into a game that they bought a 4Eth plot for?

[frigid pine]

I wouldn't even call current version of IZ a game, but I don't want to offend any of the guys who worked on it, they did what they were asked to do.

The mobile city builder which I played and spent the most on was state of survival (SoS). It's a free to play p2w game as any other mobile online game. What i think benefits those types of games, and can benefit ours greatly is that p2w players don't directly compete against f2p, which is the friction point that creates toxicity on the f2p end. Instead all players form guilds that consist of both f2p and p2w players combined, playing and competing together instead of against each other. I think that's the best recipe for success if you are gonna do p2w. We can implement it greatly too.

And to answer your final question - land owners would be paying as much as anyone els for the general content. Their perks can be - only land owners can form guilds, which by itself can provide other perks & benefits. Land ownership would also still be eligible for the 5% of total revenue, although that mechanic should be totally reworked to work in a more fun & user friendly way.

So the land plot price and how much the land owner should spend in game are not related with the exception that if they choose they can spend their share of the 5% revenue on ingame stuff instead of claiming it.

[sterile raft]

fine, ill go back to my cave. ciao.

[neon solar]

I do like the way you think 😄
I agree with landholders having specific perks such as creating guilds, and ideally certain other interactions. But you shouldnt exempt landholders from paying to win. 👍

Now, this isnt my call to make but i would agree that making a mobile builder based around lands makes more sense to me personally than a TFT clone.
Removing Arena wouldnt make sense though, so lets see that through, and Overworld is also very close to a working product with combat being worked on for about half a year now.

I think IZ should be the next avenue to be fleshed out fully. That is after the team finalise both Arena and OW.

[frigid pine]

Not finishing the arena modes would be just as acoustic as doing an MMO now, so yes definitely. My only issue is ascendant should have been finished first before starting to work on gauntlet but that's another topic.

Dunno how close OW is to being finished, but combat alone can carry us at least for a few years, as long as we have the necessary utility for the illuvials that make hunting not a total waste of time. Right now the only utility is leviathan and in it's current form my feelings towards it having any sizeable pull are reserved.

Hell even current ow could've worked if we built a few key features around it to create demand for the products. Instead we are removing the demand slowly slowly to the point only stats in leviathan remain. And our entire model depends on that until the miraculous appearance of this MMO

[frigid pine]

https://tenor.com/view/wow4-warcraft-illidan-gif-20757144

[spring frost]

MMO-lite isn't a dying genre, OG MMO's are.

For example people are very excited for GTA and Monster Hunter, both of which have many MMO aspects

[spring frost]

In full transparency the team did have an internal game jam. They presented a multitude of game types for consideration and the MMO-Lite concept ended up winning.

As for community sentiment. Every single time I make a video my comments are filled with people who want the Overworld to be great, and an MMO-Lite was always the plan as the natural progression for that. Even since day 1 newcomers have wanted Illuvium to become an MMO. Now personally I think World of Warcraft is kinda boring.

But games like Destiny and Monster Hunter are fun so I think MMO-Lite is fine.

As for Zero and Mobile. Gauntlet to Mobile is on the radar to service that market and will likely be complete before any MMO-Lite release.

Zero has a unique problem where it doesn't encourage revenue generation. Now maybe if it's enhanced it could go that way idk but there were some internal problems. Like Aaron said in the AMA. Zero and the Arena/Overworld were built on 2 entirely different systems and they had to be merged into one. Also Zero had a way smaller team than the Arena Overworld. So if Zero were to be chosen as a path you'd have to essentially sack 90% of the team and hire a tonne of new unity Devs to work on it id assume. Which would have Been a pretty risky strategic decision

[runic briar]

We had already begun work on the core components of the MMO-lite. Combat, Quests, Multiplayer, Boss battles. I'm actually glad you think it's a big new game though, that was actually the point of rebranding it into an MMO-lite not just "more features for Overworld the game you didn't like". We already have a solid base, and truthfully this is what Overworld was always meant to be. But we did have a lot of discussion on which game to continue working on, Zero was part of that, but ultimately we landed on finish Arena first, and then "finish" Overworld. I agree with you that Zero has a lot of potential as a web 2 game, but it wasn't built like that and it would require a ton of work to restructure it.

And as Scoriox said, many many pitches, I even made a pitch for a MOBA. But given how much is built already, mmo lite just made sense as the natural progression of Overworld

[loud halo]

Thanks for jumping in and clarifying things up @runic briar 👊

[timber jay]

Monster Hunter no doubt is the way for OW, but why not pause until Arena starts generating sustainable revenue? At this point with the runway in serious question and all of the DAO’s assets trending to zero why not focus exclusively auto battler and NFT sales? Why make a new Senior Dev hire for MMO, divide dev resources yet once again, after the experience of the last four years?

[spring frost]

Excellent question Relax.

The current mission is to build the Arena, and that's exactly what the team is doing. As I last heard, they have 2 developers working on game mechanics for the Overworld, and the technical artists optimising the game assets (mostly beneficial to optimise Arena and not OW). For all intensive purposes, they are practically not working on the OW/MMO-Lite at all. Even all the web devs have been working on Auto Drone Runs and the Repository straight after Beyond Wave 3 completed, which are directly tied to NFT sales of course. This leaves 80%+ of the dev team to work on Arena and adjacent systems.

So now you ask why hire a new Senior Dev for the MMO. This hire will not trigger the development of the MMO by the dev team, who will continue to polish Arena. However hiring anyone, especially of that calibre takes a lot of time, so waiting until the last minute could be wasteful as well. More importantly, designing the game systems takes even longer. So lets say they get hired 6 months before the MMO-Lite starts construction. They can spend that time mapping out every single quest, game loops and more, so when construction begins, the 'hard part' is already done.

Historically Illuvium has been quoted as not being fun and having a terrible game loop. This new hire's main responsibility is making sure that isn't repeated twice, and so I'd rather have them hired ASAP personally.

[timber jay]

Helpful reply as always. Wish Labs communicated as well as you and you defiantly merit your IMC comp. My preference would be a functional fiat on ramp (like 100 days over due that my bush league dev did for me in 10 mins with stripe), Mandarin Chinese arena (the only audience for the genre is totally unreachable), mobile arena done, and whatever is for marketing to thrust demand until revenue lifts off or the runway is no more.

[spring frost]

Excellent points and the team doesn't disagree. I am losing the word right now, but all the translations etc are in the same pipeline as mobile will be, they are both the priority for Arena after it is deemed 'complete'. That being said, how that functions alongside the MMO-Lites development I don't know.

I will definitely ask how we plan on developing it if our focus turns to the MMO-Lite and I agree mobile should be a higher priority. The team deemed outsourcing mobile dev would be too costly, but ultimately it comes down to difficulty of porting (since the assets should be ready within a month).

As for Stripe, I will follow up on this when the other updates come through mid March (if it isn't there already).

The word was localisation, haha I got there

[spring frost]

Also everyone answers things differently. Most of the time I am paraphrasing things I 'remember' Kieran telling me, and sometimes I am wrong.

But I prefer to be as detailed as I can be and have the team flat out correct me and tell me I'm an idiot than to do otherwise. If I think my answer will be more than 30% wrong then I don't give as much detail.

But I hope people see my messages more as mostly well-informed, but not gospel than directly from the team itself.

[timber jay]

Well they are refreshing to words to receive..breathes hope into what feels like a valley of death for landholders.

[spring frost]

Land has always ultimately been a difficult one. In the end I'd make the assumption that a majority of them see lands success as a revenue generating tool. Which doesn't happen without the game generating Revenue.

Unironically this is what literally everyone in the ecosystem wants.

But everyone has a different opinion on the road to get there. Some think to sack Arena and do the MMO, some think improving ILVZ, and some think putting Leviathan on a pedestal, I could go on.

But know that the teams mission is to boost revenue, even if they have disagreements on how to achieve that goal.

[frigid pine]

Thank you for taking the time to step in and reply Kieran.

Actually I don't know what to think if it's a new game or a rebrand, I just don't know any details on it at all. How long is it going to take? How are illuvials going to be incorporated into it? What the monetization model will be like? How are we going to differentiate people/classes, when the armors look pretty similar for an mmo?

It sounds like it's going to take at least 1-2 years to flesh it out. Until then the only source of revenue being stat-only gauntlet leviathan?

We desperately desperately need more use cases for illuvials (our best assets by far) and why anyone should 1) collect them 2) collect them with good stats 3) level them up. If we go by these 3 points, how does the MMO tackle them? Because a mobile city builder is perfect for all 3.

With drone runs coming in and probably end up being the 'main' method of acquiring illuvials, it's questionable what's the benefit of overdeveloping OW for the time being, unless it is thought it can generate massive revenues? More than a city builder?

Revenue aside, you can reach much more people with a mobile city pvp game than with a MMO (100:1 ratio?). It is also more likely to be picked up by kids and younger audiences, unlike MMOs that are a boomer genre (my fav but still).

Your pitch for a moba wasn't far fetched either. I think we should turn zero into a beast pvp castle fight game with creature collection/missions on the side (similar to how wow garrison missions work, check it out) and after that for next title it should either be a MOBA (we can make it work) or an FPS or a combination of both. That way we will have a stable revenue from Zero, mainstream title through the MOBA or the FPS, for maximum player onboarding into the IP/universe. Only then can we start thinking of an MMO, once we have a stable foundation.

[frigid pine]

So according to you, extensive market research = internal game jam? Where is the IIP?

Let me get this straight, for community sentiment we used few of the comments on your yt videos? If we somehow do a poll of every community member I doubt more than 10-15% will vote for an mmo. And even if the majority does, it doesn't mean that's the best path forward for the DAO/project, you should know this.

As for this mysterious and unique problem of zero not encouraging revenue generation - there is nothing to spend money on or to do in that "game". There mystery solved. Even if we had decent revenues, it would've still been boring as fk and not generating anything by itself, people would be just less frustrated about it.

[burnt salmon]

OG MMO's are dying? 😒 What's the difference between OG and non-OG

[neon solar]

The extent to which they are influenced by DEI

[spring frost]

OG is like super long-term type stuff. I mean maybe its not dying, but its audience will eventually be finished. The younger audiences aren't latching onto World of Warcraft

[burnt salmon]

Any reports that reinforce this claim? It's def not the 00s anymore for MMOs I feel and retail WoW is particularly rough because it is really hard to get into from zero, but you'd be surprised at the amount of zoomers in FF14 for example

[sterile raft]

wow players were and still are neckbeard pc master race, they are in the mid 30s tho

kids these days play roblox, minecraft, fortnite and valorant

and rivals

cant compete with this

[opaque pine]

I was super surprised myself to see that the next development will be an MMO-lite.
I made myself some tables month's ago considering multiple factors like dev time, potential revenue, market growth in those genres etc. MMO was always the worst performing genre to dive in. Mostly because it's long development time (regarding a short runway), monetization possibilities and already existing competitors.
Building out the citybuilder was almost an obvious choice, at least to me due to different reasons.

• Low Complexity to build (low cost + low time)
• Big chunk of assets needed are already created (now even optimized already for mobile platform) and remembering how fast the structures were done, the new assets needed would probably be lowest effort possible.
• Easy to monetize (absolutely normal to pay for example for speedups, additional builders, buying hero boxes etc. )
• Perfect fit for using assets created in overworld
• Potential burning-mechanism for ow assets would be easy to implement
• Already on mobile plattform and therefore far more reach than desktop only
• Competition is not as strong as in any other genre

On the other hand the MMO raised a lot of questions i wasn't able to answer back then. Just to mention a few;

• How do you monetize? (MMO's is probably the hardest genre to monetize, especially with the decreasing number of players with subscription models or similar the past years)
• How do you use assets from overworld? (You probably won't go into a dungeon and summon a whole collection of 50ish illuvials to battle the enemies)
• How you going to set appart from competitors like elder scrolls, wow or others, which have over 2 decades of experience and development and a far bigger dev team?
  Reading it's an MMO-Lite doesn't make it much better. What does it actually mean, the "lite" part? Sounds almost like a half baked mmo... and releasing half baked stuff doesn't really work as we saw and tried to change with the focus on gauntlet.

[spring frost]

It's a more personal feeling, nothing too concrete. I did hear Final Fantasy is popular.

I guess it's anecdotal since I've seen the evolution of Pokemon over the years and it suffers from something similar, although not as bad.

But I still think Destiny 2 or Monster Hunter at launch were infinitely more popular than any new MMO of the past decade.

We will see if I'm right when Wilds launches in a week, my best guess is it could break every single record.

[spring frost]

To be fair. A creature capture MMO has never been made before. It definitely has competition in the MMO genre in general, but to say it's similar would be false, it's a first of its kind.

I agree that the monetisation component is the most difficult here, looking forward to what the team comes up with.

[opaque pine]

What do you mean with creature capture mmo, Illuvials gona be the loot in dungeons and raids?

[spring frost]

I personally hope they will factor in. Even if they don't, it'll be the first ever 'AAA' MMO where a companion creature is such a major component.

[void elk]

you'll capture illuvials but they won't be NFTs.

if you want NFTs you go buy drone runs.

https://tenor.com/view/so-sad-oh-no-trump-sad-gif-20568390

[sterile raft]

• usually monetization of mmo is cosmetic, mounts, pets and gacha. maybe drone run is the gacha?
• we have seen illuvial combat 👀

[void elk]

usually monetization is subscription.

some even have box cost.

[wary stone]

Nothing confirmed either way yet. So we need to be careful that the speculation here doesn't become fact 🙂

[sterile raft]

it's only $15/month and the game cost is $60 for 2 years

the real money is in cosmetic

asian MMOs are mainly gacha

[frigid pine]

Who comes up with this things?

[brazen stratus]

Yeah this is the main source but upsell by cosmetics etc. But there are those f2p mmorpgs who monetize solely on cosmetic or p2w mechanics

[void elk]

Yes and do we wanna make a p2w game?? 😩

[brazen stratus]

i hope not. Im definitely okay with cosmetics. It also justifies keeping more people in labs to keep creating the assets

[sterile raft]

our stat system is P2W

[void elk]

Yes and there's a specific game mode for that u know ?

[void elk]

We have fuel selling and market fees. Something no other web2 game has.

[void elk]

Yes it's not confirmed. But can you say it's not the team's vision?

[sterile raft]

Why would i want to invest in an asset thats only good for one game mode

[void elk]

U kidding right? Isn't that how it currently is?

It's not one mode it's THE P2W mode

Players are not investors. They won't invest in assets. They'll buy what they want/need.

[wary stone]

About the only things that we can say for certain are that’s it’s going to be multiplayer and that we’ll aim to reuse existing things where it makes sense. The vision is to build the best game possible with the resources and IP that we have 🙂

We’ll be drawing inspiration from a lot of places like the community, the team, existing games etc

[opaque pine]

how's that gona work? (Haven't played too many gacha games so far.)
You get the same loot in a 40 min dungeon as you get in a lootbox?
Game is basically lootbox flex? like you either purchase a lootbox to flex or you play the game to get lootboxes to flex?

[wary stone]

As you can see from the leaks, we’re making a big effort to show you the things that are being worked on so you can have a say in things as they progress too!

[void elk]

Yes big step in the right direction.

I'll be waiting on the MMO vision/economy/monetization model.

[opaque pine]

• yea + subscription. to be sustainable from cosmetics you need masses of players and devs for a continous creation of new cosmetics. Not sure you a MMO-Lite could attract those. Gacha in MMO is pretty much only asian market, right? (The region which is trying the hardest do regulate gacha systems the past years) Can't think of a western mmo with a gacha system. Are we going to be ready for asia?
• Exactly 🙃

[sterile raft]

the stats are valuable in OW and leviathan.

[void elk]

and OW is pay 2 play.

[sterile raft]

yea im not sure new games can do what WoW and FF14 have been doing with their subs.
lately i dont want to spend a dime on games before i play them.
battlepass is acceptable tho because i can get some free skins

[void elk]

I presented a MMO vision where you could play the entire game up to end-game for free. The counter-argument I got is that giving fuel for free is exploitable, cause somehow we can't monitor who exploits dungeons and finishes them in under X time.

and if we're so worried about bots, just put a box cost for the game. It's that simple...

you start farming the bots, they wanna come and cheat? They have to pay.

if they're not cheating, then who cares if it's a bot or a person???

[sterile raft]

i guess we'll wait until the new game director to join and assess our ecosystem.

[frigid pine]

Cause they will be devaluing whatever they are botting, and by that devalue the time and effort of normal players.

[void elk]

that isn't so in a pay2play game. They would actually make the economy go round.

sure you can say they would devalue the leveling items.

but honestly what's the harm in that? What we wanna protect is the end-game assets. Everything else should be cheap.

[frigid pine]

It's all hypotheticals, I just wanted to mention that there is an actual impact of bots even in pay2play.

I can't wrap my head around what the end game would be about? Capturing illuvials? What's the early and mid game then

[void elk]

well you said you read it, but maybe you didn't read it so well:
https://discord.com/channels/760344898200666112/1336280454067916880

[opaque pine]

for sure gona be harder to do if you can't rely on an already super popular IP.
To me it looks like with an MMO we have to accept that demand of Illuvials/armor/weapons won't be really increasing and have to develop new progress systems for Illuvials/weapons/ranger which will need a ton of time to design and build. Creating a sub economy for the mmo without having the existent general economy fixed. And somehow you have to monetize. Lootboxes won't bring in whale money if there is no reason to build out a collection or have assets for burning mechanics, since you likely won't need more than 1 -3 illuvials/weapons/armor to play the mmo.
MMO's typically also need a big team continuously developping cosmetics and content. So if we built that MMO, we basically need to hire new devs if we wana build more games, cause current devs will be there to creat content for the mmo. That's probably also the reason why almost only big gamestudios with a continuous cashflow dare to start developping an mmo, cause you simply don't have the workforce for it.

Don't get me wrong, i love mmo's and it would be a wet dream to have one in Illuvium, it's in my opinion just the by far riskiest move we can do.

[frigid pine]

I meant overall, not only your suggestion.

[void elk]

what's the end game in all other games? Trying to get the best loot.

[frigid pine]

Which is what, illuvials?

[void elk]

gear bruh.

[frigid pine]

I don't know man, it needs to have some groundbreaking mechanics and crazy good gameplay to have any chance of mainstream success. I still haven't heard a single good argument why an MMO should be the next title

Especially now that assets have already been optimized for mobile...

[sterile raft]

end game goal depends on the game itself, if PvE then downing mythic/extreme raids.
if PvP then leaderboard.
the gears are progression tool to achieve these goals

[gritty jasper]

PVE isn't just about raids.

[craggy lantern]

One critical thing that confuses me is why the MMO-Lite is projected to take so long to release. We have:

• Several completed world maps and tons of environment assets.
• Great movement mechanics and Combat is well on it's way.
• A functional quest system built into OW (I understand we need less generic tasks within the quests, but we have the mechanic already built into the game to implement updated quests).
• Multiplayer coming very soon. Allowing 1v1 PVP battles in the MMO would incentivize leveling up your illuvials and getting high stat illuvials from pack opening. Maybe even gladiator style tournaments.

I see us needing progression systems such as leveling/skill trees for the ranger and for the illuvials, but once we have that, what else do we really need to compete with something like Black Desert Online? Big storyline and cinematics aren't even really necessary. How many people's decision to try an MMO are based on the story vs the amount of people that don't even read the quest lore.

• Pack opening is coming very soon, that along with the Illuvidex should be revenue enough (to start) with some cosmetic sales to keep an MMO going. The MMO is just the medium we use to enjoy our illuvials. Don't overcomplicate it at the expense of a 1-2 year wait.
• We have skins and cosmetics
• We can add new features, mechanics, and revenue streams after an MMO release, but I think we need something with a shorter timeline to get excited about and to use our illuvials.

"We have a great autobattler and a fun MMO that is constantly improving and growing" is a nicer narrative IMO than "we have the most possibly refined auto battler and in 1-2 years we'll have an MMO, nothing for now but when you have it, it'll be amazing".

[void elk]

indeed, we're mainly missing the progression systems and fleshing out the dungeons/raids and all the monsters in it. That and figuring out how to make the whole economy actually work.

[craggy lantern]

I've seen some leaks for mobs and heard they're working on the Leviathans for raids (Breach?), economy seems fine to just buy packs with fuel, buy illuvials optionally for ETH through marketplace, use illuvials in MMO? Also add weapon (and other) cosmetics for sale.

[void elk]

fuel needs to be a stable currency so the whole system becomes stable and actually manageable so that we can somewhat predict playing costs.

[neon solar]

So far, the economy has been the area with the most inconsistencies.

An NFT arena game where you dont need NFTs and a fuel market that is inflated unless we have 100x playerbase.

So i hope the team asks the community for feedback on that. I hope they will be open about game systems and discuss how to slot the MMO-lite into the economy.

Naturally after we have had the necessary changes to fuel to remove the current issues.

[craggy lantern]

I agree, hasn't there been a lot of discussion of refining 3 fuels down to 1, and putting a fixed USD price to fuel to avoid the downfalls of the current system? I think fuel could become stable once it finds price discovery, but that won't happen until mass adoption happens and we see what people are actually willing to pay for each cosmetic, illuvial, etc.

[void elk]

we don't need price discovery. We set fuel for the price we find it's better. And then analyse from there and adjust as we go.

if it works for 1000 players it'll work for a million

you just need to get the formula right.

[craggy lantern]

Sounds good to me. Seems like a very important issue but not one that would block the rest of the MMO's development. These discussions and solutions can be discussed alongside preparing the MMO for an earlier release.

[void elk]

definitely.

[craggy lantern]

I'm all for adjusting from a starting point as data rolls in. That happened in Marvel Heroes when it first released. The prices were way too high and the sales data reflected that, so they greatly reduced the costs and the economy was smooth sailing for years.

[void elk]

yep, my suggestion was 1,000 fuel = 1$. Nice, clean and affordable. But apparently the team is designing a whole new magical system that can't be disclosed.

[gritty jasper]

WoW was developed for 4 years by 900 people, BDO - 4 years by 400-500 people. Do you really think that Illuvium labs can handle 100 people faster? And if faster, then what will they do during this time? 1 raid and a hundred quests? Which in a month everyone will get tired of. We've all played WoW or BDO or somewhere else for more than one year and understand what a real MMOrpg should look like.

[frigid pine]

Even "mmo lites" like Warframe took like 10 years of development

Riot also developed their MMO for like 10 years but then paused it cause they didn't wanna release another generic mmo

[gritty jasper]

By the way, in my opinion, I have not seen anywhere that it was written that Illuvium MMO-Lite will be similar to an MMORPG. There are other MMO options...

[frigid pine]

But ow is an rpg genre, turning it to mmo = mmorpg

[sterile raft]

it's more of an exploration game

[burnt salmon]

We will, we want to lean more towards "build in public" like project start times

Can't share everything for reasons like building hype moments and partnerships

[sterile raft]

can i test it? please

i think OG WoW players should get early access

and FF14 players

[burnt salmon]

https://tenor.com/view/giggles-ron-swanson-gif-13617442

Send me a cutting edge achievement or savage raid clear achievement

[sterile raft]

https://tenor.com/view/exterminador-do-futuro-gif-20118743

[void elk]

does discussing the game's economy really have anything to do with building hype moments or partnerships?

the point of building in public is to get early feedback and criticism so you don't waste time working on something that might need to be reworked later on.

[burnt salmon]

Not really, the reason we've not shared it is because it is not "the economy", it's the "current vision", in this thread alone I've seen so many confusing the difference between those two that it doesn't help me wanting to share it, even though I do
Not my decision in the end, but personally I want one particular person to have a look and shoot it apart before presenting it to the community and thats the new game director

[void elk]

yes looking forward to know the new game director.

[sterile raft]

i was a pretty famous party healer in nagrand

like 10 years ago

ok more than 10 years ago

[cloud tide]

Creature capture mmo has never been made? You sure?

[heavy vector]

People seriously, is gauntlet even doing okay? I know the announcement for updates had hype, but we do not even know when that will be released. Currently, it is very hard to get a gauntlet game to 8 players waiting 20min queue? I play gauntlet sometimes and it's a meh for me. I honestly gave it a shot. So many people say they do not even care to play gauntlet, and just waiting for OW improvements. Should it really take 2 years to improve OW???

Are we really going to sack OW and focus on another new game mode? Breach looks great, but we should be enhancing OW with quest and combat. Then add Breach later. Anything else and we are falling back into the sack Ascendant for Gauntlet when Gauntlet is honestly not doing very well.

And yes, It seem the plan is to sack OW as it currently is when talks grow on "auto-runs" I think it's a GRAVE mistake to pivot once again to build new game mode and neglect improve current games. OW hasn;t had update in over 6months!

[timber jay]

Perry, is there any update on the economy and fuel? We were all anticipating that the IMC minutes would be communicated by the end of '24.

[spring frost]

Nothing that's AAA style at least. But maybe it exists idk. I mean Poke MMO technically exists, but its a top down browser based thing.

Palworld took off because it was a first of its kind, so it leads me to the believe the same thing + mmo would be a first

[cloud tide]

Palworld + mmo would probably take off. I think that could be cool.

[spring frost]

Pretty much yep.

[craggy lantern]

Illuvium has been building OW assets that will be used in the MMO for around 4-5 years at this point haven't they? I would also imagine it has to be much more efficient to build an MMO using UR5 and modern day assets compared to when WoW and BDO were starting development. I'm open to being wrong, I'm not even making a point about being right about something, I just want to understand why it would take so long from our current point with current assets and vision for the MMO.

[timber jay]

Solid insights. After using Grok3 for two days, if I were Kieran & Danny, I would hurry the FCK up to get this IP positioned to see if they even have a product/market fit in the Asian market. Tesla bulls (people who attended the Cybercab reveal in Warner studios) that they already have a team of ~100 onboard in a gaming studio working at the xAI data center in Memphis. I would not be surprised if they could build Zero in 10 days and it actually reliable function. <@&814435151307866142>

[timber jay]

doubt that he is joking

[sterile raft]

there u go folks we got someone from wow

[gritty jasper]

The main thing is not to compare with WoW

[frigid pine]

We can close this topic now I guess. Best of luck to the new generals

[upbeat elbow]

With Elon and xAI going into games it is basically game over for Illuvium and most of the traditional game studios. Even NFTs or crypto won't save us.

There is a slight chance to create gambling/wagering games with AI and crypto, but even this market will probably be covered by Elon's X Universal App.

I would focus on the assets and the IP and see if it can become popular e.g. as Unreal assets, Roblox or web3 metaverse platforms.

[timber jay]

One of the smartest comments I have read since entering this world of pure imagination. I have been appealing for 'fight for fuel' to make Zero viable and its non-ER20 token (another undelivered material promise). This might make Arena relevant (otherwise, it has proven to get minimal player adoption). Then, a player would need to make another 'arms-length transaction' to get back to USDC, such as converting to an NFT piece of game art and selling that on the NFT store we call a "DEX" that was built on the last cycle with MoonPay for fiat onramp. And we wonder why, over four years in, we generate almost ZERO revenue outside of hyping Beyond.

[upbeat elbow]

Something along these lines. The irony: I was always against gambling, but I have been proven wrong.

There might be a reason why Beyond is the most popular Illuvium game (besides Zero). It is closest to gambling and can be "played" passively.

With "Automated Runs" we are already widening this approach. Add some more gambling with a touch of AI (e.g. AI rangers we can control passively by setting their behavior and fighting for us).

We have to think completely out of the box, a MMO Lite (on PC!) won't save us. Even Arena will only be played by a few. These games are from the old world and just adding NFTs won't make them better.

We need true Crypto+AI degen games. Maybe Memecoins will become regulated away, but gambling will most likely still be allowed and sports gambling is already becoming an addiction.

The future is millions of games created by gamers with the help of AI and played in Fortnite, Roblox or Yuga OtherSide metaverses.

One of these might become a hit and Illuvials along with it. But the chances for MMO Lite or Arena to become that hit are low.

https://x.com/marionawfal/status/1891749691580109278?s=46

Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) on X

🚨🇺🇸SPORTS BETTING IS CREATING A GAMBLING CRISIS IN THE U.S.

Since the Supreme Court cleared the way for legalized sports betting in 2018, gambling addiction has skyrocketed.

Millions are searching for help, and states with online sportsbooks are seeing the worst spikes.

X · Feb 18, 2025, 7:20 AM

[cloud tide]

Eh, I agree with some of what you said, but I don’t think all traditional game studios will die.
Studios like Ubisoft are failing when they should be succeeding because they aren’t listening to gamers. If they did they’d succeed.

[upbeat elbow]

A bit exaggerated, but the big winners will most likely be the ones, who grow their games into metaverse platforms, that allow smaller game studios or Indie to run their games inside these metaverses.

I just don't see Illuvium in a position to develop its own metaverse platform or game franchise and rather see it getting squeezed in between the few big players and the mass of AI assisted Indie developers.

https://x.com/ign/status/1891839103164911644?s=46

IGN (@IGN) on X

Rockstar is allegedly interested in creating the next metaverse-style gaming experience, within GTA 6, according to a new report. https://t.co/JBCJkfIy8C

X · Feb 18, 2025, 1:16 PM

OtherSide should be considered by Illuvium as a platform for the MMO and for making the assets available for other game developers.
https://x.com/brennanswain/status/1893367725537309057?s=61

Brenswa ☢️☢️🔻 (@BrennanSwain) on X

Over 2000 of us set an official Guinness World Record on @OthersideMeta today! 2,197 concurrent players in a FPS battle. Previous record was 1,530. @GWR Tagging some friends I saw out there! @guccheetah @professordilly @CakeProphet

X · Feb 22, 2025, 6:30 PM

[cloud tide]

Rockstar finds a new way to milk kids for money. Sigh

Edit: I’m excited for GTA6, but goddamn

[tight sage]

What about Genshin Impact. A lot of young people play this. The story is forever evolving, deep and it's possible to grind and level up without paying.
There was also baldars gate, popular with teenagers.
I don't play these games, yet I have teenagers and from what I'm told these are popular, along with Roblox and games like Yandere and funny enough the Sims is still getting action from young players.

I think it would be interesting to research what games are being played. It doesn't need to be the most played, a significant audience and long term player base I think would be sufficient.

Also interesting is that teenagers who like these styles of games yet didn't like fortnight will now play fortnight due to the extra game modes they introduced. Like playing in a band together, lol.

[spring frost]

None of these are a traditional MMO. Which is more reason an MMO-Lite makes more sense 😂😂.

[tight sage]

Indeed. Genshin impact is heavy on one player mode. There is also Elder Scrolls. Not as old as Warcraft. Yet I prefer Elder Scrolls.
I don't think MMos can really be classed as only being one way. There are definitely consistencies to how they work yet I think it's okay that they are broad. Having lived before computers, games have always been changing and evolving.
For me as it stands for Illuvium I think an Mmo lite is a perfect start for all 3 games combined. It only needs to add more, it's an element that was missing. Resource collection is a part of MMos not usually the main game. Except for Minecraft maybe. That has changed a lot too.

[spring frost]

Yeah my line of thinking was more that 'traditional mmos' are outdated.

I like ESO too but I don't think it's very popular. But Final Fantasy did well as someone said, and the crypto audience is much older, so some traditional elements could work well

[tight sage]

Yeah I think look at the elements.
Questing, crafting, Boss fights, gear hauls, housing, town centres, guilds and shops.

[tight sage]

ESO has a pretty solid play base. Not a number one yet it's not nothing

[spring frost]

Oh I'm sure it's decently popular. Just wasn't for me. It made me feel like I was playing Skyrim, but they stripped all the fun out of it 😂😂

[tight sage]

And there in lies the crux. Our personal preferences are different, so we can't take what we like or determin as fun as a bench mark.
Here are some numbers. I was actually surprised by them.

Even though it's gone down, it's still a large number.

This is pretty interesting

[upbeat elbow]

By the time the MMO Lite goes public, everyone will be able to create worlds, lore, NPCs, boss fights etc. just with a few AI prompts and can then invite friends for a social meeting in these worlds.

The metaverses with a strong player number and a good tech platform to execute these worlds will win.

Unfortunately Illuvium has neither. Illuvium needs a new strategy.

[sterile raft]

unsure if UGC will do well in web3 tho

[upbeat elbow]

Not saying that professional game developers won't be needed anymore. They can fine tune and improve on a user generated prototype.

But there will be a proliferation of millions of MMOs and other games and the platforms will win, and just a few MMOs/games that become a real hit with players.

Developing a game is not enough anymore, the bar has been raised.

Illuvium should use the ODK to build the MMO on Otherside. I am not saying this, because I own Otherdeeds, but because it is a real web3 metaverse with a great tech.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1893352974002356251

The Bored Ape Gazette🍌 (@BoredApeGazette) on X

“WE ARE THE GUINNESS NOW” » @OthersideMeta Just Broke The World Record For Most Players In An Online First Person Shooter!

Watch Curtis’ Victory Speech Below:

X · Feb 22, 2025, 5:31 PM

Being first on a new metaverse platform could be big for Illuvium. Way more web3 eyes and hopefully soon mainstream would see Illuvials and our biomes.

Being on the Epic Store just isn't enough.

[sterile raft]

they broke the guinnes record of most login

[upbeat elbow]

It was a real game and everyone could join with their own NFT avatar or as a generic robot.

OtherSide is based on this platform tech https://x.com/msquared_io/status/1893391552405221481?s=61

M² (@MSquared_io) on X

Congratulations to @OthersideMeta for smashing the Guinness World Record for most players in an FPS battle with a total of 2,197 players 🎉🎉🎉

X · Feb 22, 2025, 8:04 PM

[sterile raft]

2k players shoot each other in a FPS match or was it a gathering

[upbeat elbow]

It was both. It starts as a gathering with a moderator (Curtis) and us jumping and twerking, chatting or using spatial audio chat.

Then the moderator starts the first game round and we choose were to spawn and what role to play.

During the game the moderator also talks and modifies the game rules sometimes.

Then we gather again, look at the leaderboard, and a new round is started.

In the end the winners can enter the Club House and chat.

I chose to stream it in the browser, but there is also a Windows client (and soon Mac).

[sterile raft]

wow GG

fyi <@&814435151307866142>

[upbeat elbow]

There is an SDK (called ODK) for creating game worlds with Unreal 5. Currently in closed beta, but soon available for Otherdeed holders.

For this record we had the Wayfinder AI community join us. The idea is to make this platform open for all web 3 communities.

[sterile raft]

wayfinder ai is from prime?

[upbeat elbow]

Yes

[spring frost]

It's 'estimated' but yeah fair enough.

[spring frost]

Total players I'm not sure matters. But 60k for ESO probably means maybe 200k+ for WoW which makes sense.

Not tiny by any stretch, but nothing too crazy either, unlike some recent games in other genres

[tight sage]

Do you think with the AI colab this might be able to happen?

[tight sage]

I get this, I'm thinking it might be a combination, people who have passion for art and game dev that study and hone their skills, like you mentioned, will always produce a better product. I think there will be room for people like this to develop the product then people who aren't that skilled or interested, can use tools to create, as you mentioned, using their platform. Kind of like next level modding I guess?
I agree with you though. I think the future is this kind of platform. I think it is still early days. Though. Not so much the tech yet people shifting to a different perspective.

[tight sage]

This is all pretty cool. Otherworld are not the only ones looking at this though.

For sure. I guess for me the good thing about Illuvium is that it can do multiple things. It can provide for all.
Not to many separate, yet in one universe that can connect through story to appeal to the RPG Mmo crew yet can also be played separately.
Kind of like how in ESO there are people who only play PVP and the Imperial city wars, yet it still ties into the story.

I think looking at the data of all them, discovery what it is about the different genres that people are hooked by, then looking at how that can tie in. Also looking at what the current player base wants, as it's hard to get people from established games. The long term players vs the flit arounds ect.
AI can help go through all this data. I think Illuvium could utilize it more than they do.

[cloud tide]

If discovery and adventure is the goal then is there a large enough world full of encounters and other goodies to keep players’ attention spans?

[tight sage]

Good question, I don't know. I think the Mmo lite is sufficient to start with. It's additive.
What would you like to see?

[runic briar]

We haven't made any projections?

[runic briar]

@frigid pine this is why MMO, so much is already built. Don't get me wrong, there were other genres that we could have reused stuff for but none as much as an MMO-lite. Remember, we had already started developing combat, multiplayer (it's literally being tested now), and quests + bosses. That was from 12 months ago.

I'd argue to build a good city builder, one that you're describing that can compete with proper web 2 games that generate mass revenue would take longer. Additionally, its built in unity, we had 4 unity devs. What do we do with the 20+ unreal devs we have? It would take time to hire, teach the world and IP, the systems, the blockchain stuff.

If we didn't make a big fuss about it being a brand new big shiny MMO, and just continued saying what we had been saying for 6-12 months about Overworld needing Combat, Multiplayer, Progression, Storyline, Bosses, Quests then I doubt you would have an issue. You would probably say "well of course we need to do those things, that's exactly what is missing!" That is literally what we're doing.

Except now, we have positioned the Overworld as something new, that people will want to try out again once we release it. Not just the same game with new features. Investors are excited about it. Content creators will want to get their hands on it to re-review it, community is more excited. You posting this is literally proof of that strategy working.

[frigid pine]

But that's why I asked in the OP if there is a possibility to offsource the zero build to some young hustler Gs indie studio while we work on our stuff.

Regarding the mmo, the leaks do look fun, we do need all of these features for ow, but my question was on the timing. With a few key features like an album collection with incentives for completing & competing, fully operational leviathan Ascendant and then Gauntlet, and a game like city builder zero that creates a ton of demand for illuvials, even the current version of OW could have worked for a few years, probably only with a monetization touch. The extra demand from all these systems would have increased the nice feeling of catching something rare to counter the boredom. Then a simple combat patch + drone runs could've cruised the ow for several years while we build the next project and expanding the current ones. And standing on stable ground doing so.

My worry is we pivoted into the niche of tft autobattler, to now possibly overextend into another niche with the MMO.

We also have to take into account most MMOs fail on 100% revenue while we have to achieve success on 30% revdis. This is literally hardcore mode and why we need a cash cow like a mobile city builder (ontop of the fact it fits our asset pool perfectly).

In any case now that we have recruited the 2 new generals this topic is pointless to discuss. All we can do is try to give them the best fighting chance.

[upbeat elbow]

Whatever we do: We need a first, that no one has ever done before. First MMO with 2.000 concurrent players as NFT avatars, social gathering and hunting for NFT Illuvials could be such a thing.

But a Lite version of a MMO in the Epic Store is the opposite of a standout feature.

[runic briar]

We definitely could outsource Zero, would need to lock down costs, possibly offer a rev share model, and ensure it doesn't pull on our art resources too much, then it would definitely be possible

[frigid pine]

Cool, you are the top G in this area, from my research it shouldn't take more than a few months worth of runway (could be wrong, no idea). If proven true and we can outsource zero while working on the mmo lite simultaneously, we can blast in 2026 with gunz blazing content like never seen before.

[heavy vector]

I think the biggest point made from OP is why is the leviathan modes are not being propped up as the pinnacle game mode. Right now all resources are going to f2p Gauntlet (only you know how that is doing) and all features are being withheld for a new MMO product.

Now it seems the conversation is shifting to also how to make zero viable.

Introducing Multi-player and boss battles into OW will not take away from future MMO playtest and updates, but instead it will provide a positive feedback loop to ensure all features are implemented in the best way.

Make leviathan matter. We win. Wait 2 years for a relaunch, and your loyal base is to far down the street to turn around. Imo.

[upbeat elbow]

My prediction: MMO Lite will only be played by our small community.

[heavy vector]

Illuvium is like Star Wars mixed with Pokémon. No other game can make that claim, they can go anywhere from there regarding story line.

I'll put all my rep on the line with this next comment...

The features needed for MMO is progression and storytelling and advance raids.

Until the MMO is ready, they should drop that Kylo Ren lookin mf (from the game trailer) on the map anywhere with a buffed Umbre team and a rare helmet drop and i would play that over and over again for months.

If they implement ranger to ranger combat with single illuvial with weapon comp. I would play that over and over for years.

If this idea doesn't make sense please let me know. Am I crazy?

[upbeat elbow]

I will play the Illuvium MMO. I think it can be real good. But someone else has a choice of thousands of other games or MMOs. Why would they play our MMO ?

[frigid pine]

I would say this is true, but in a different timeline order. Before we do an immersive MMO into the universe, in my opinion we should first release some sort of FPS - no illuvials, just good ole fps, located on the planet Arlin and the bald general are coming from, before it all went to shit or smth. Nuclear explosions = rhamphyre omega flashbacks in the present. We also need something like a moba or other type of active strategy into the current timeline.

After we have millions of people immersed into the universe, lore & characters - arrives the time for the MMO which does have a massive potential, especially with other IBG events, but to pull it off properly, on the epic scale it deserves, other pieces of the puzzle come first (already mentioned most). i m o

[upbeat elbow]

Illuvium has no chance of going it alone.

[frigid pine]

Yes they do, or at least did.

[frigid pine]

In my head the timeline shouldve been:

1. game launch with f2p gauntlet + album collection incentives for competing in the f2p gauntlet (that take into account level and stats of your collection's illuvials)
2. Leviathan only Ascendant mode
3. Drone runs + burning tech + ow combat
4. Leviathan Gauntlet + arena modes on mobile
5. City builder Zero
6. set 2 illuvials
7. announce next game title - a mainstream one for onboarding a ton of players (fps, moba etc)
8. only then we can start planning for an MMO. Some sort of Avatar atmosphere.

*Edit: insert battle pass tech around 1&2. We have/had great artists able to pump cosmetics continuously. We also need the constant revenue due to the revdis model. Win win

[upbeat elbow]

They did, but they missed their chance. Now it is way more difficult to be noticed.

[heavy vector]

Believe it or not, all eyes are still on illuvium. However, these are wandering eyes, and once a similar IP comes out with better replay ability this claim will be made true. If real attention is not paid to the original product that came out, not one investor or gamer will care about any new product. This is coming from a person who has put over 1,000 hours into this world.

[upbeat elbow]

It would have to be extremely good to get any attention.

The market has become insanely difficult for any game studio that is not Epic, Take Two Interactive etc.

In 2 years it will be almost impossible to get any attention at all, because AI has enabled the creation of millions of new games.

There is always a chance of course, but there is almost no chance to make enough money to repay the development costs, because it has become so cheap to create new games.

Gaming will go the way of newspapers and TV stations. They are all replaced by X, AI, other social media platforms and specific metaverse platforms. Even mobile games will be dominated by a few franchises with great established IP like Pokemon, GTA, Fornite.

Establishing a new IP is extremely hard. NFTs should have been the door opener, but they have become the exact opposite. Illuvium tries to do what would have worked a few years ago, AI has changed everything.

[runic briar]

We haven't focused on bringing any new players to either Arena mode for over 6 months. We will start marketing from next month. And yes, there will be a large focus on Leviathan. To get people to leviathan though we need people playing the F2P version. Once they like the game then we can slowly push them to purchase assets or play Overworld to build their team.

[runic briar]

Regarding adding multiplayer and boss battles if the community decides to keep the OW open while we turn it into an MMO then we will have testing periods for those features

[upbeat elbow]

You need more crypto games like Beyond and Automated Runs with AI features. https://x.com/fchainxyz/status/1894831045268119832?s=46

FCHAIN (@fchainxyz) on X

Get ready to get down and dirty. 🏇

Degen Derby lets you enter high-stakes horse races, where speed and AI strategy determine the winner.

All winnings paid directly to your Agent Treasury Wallet.

X · Feb 26, 2025, 7:25 PM

This will get crypto, gambling and sports betting people excited. Maybe the focus on traditional gaming was wrong in the first place.

[upbeat elbow]

I might be wrong, but I see the future of gaming as lots of legalized (AI) bots.

So instead of fighting bots (some bot behavior will probably still be punished or prohibited) we create a meta layer on top of the existing game economies and let the best bots (AI) fight each other.

Investing in specific bots could democratize access to bot revenue and make it a new game of AI robots fighting each other.

With AI getting better and better it will reach a sophistication when there is no point for a human to play a game, because even action games can be played by an AI interpreting the local display and controlling the mouse.

It might become a new sort of entertainment, where we bet on the best AI to win a game or give the AI bots strategic instructions, while we hang out in social spaces and watch.

[void elk]

• "With AI getting better and better it will reach a sophistication when there is no point for a human to play a game"
  lol how about simply playing a game just to have fun?

[upbeat elbow]

Yes, I knew someone would say this. And yes, while it is true, as soon as we make it a crypto/money game with rewards, we will get AI bots playing our fun game.

[void elk]

and?

P2E meta is dead, you should give rewards to the best players/bots wtv.

you guys seem to forget games are meant to be entertainment.

[upbeat elbow]

That's what I try to solve. The triangle between AI/Crypto/Fun.

Pretty soon there won't be a human player who can compete against AI.

[void elk]

and why can't AI play games without crypto/money rewards? It's the same problem for the entire industry.

[upbeat elbow]

Yes, it will be a problem for the entire industry. But more for games with rewards.

Illuvium should have an answer to this "Why do you think we keep making them?"

With crypto and AI we have opened a completely new chapter of what it means to be a game.

[void elk]

asking AI about AI problems, makes sense 🤣
games are not only a way to have fun but also an engaging way for us to compete against each other. If we introduce a godlike figure into the game like AI is. It defeats that purpose doesn't it?

[upbeat elbow]

We don't introduce it by our choosing, AI dominance over humans will happen very soon. We have to deal with it.

[void elk]

build an AI to fight against the AI. And let the games be for humans.

[upbeat elbow]

But how do you prevent an AI from playing the human game ? All the AI needs is a HDMI output and a mouse.

[void elk]

I'm sure someone will find a way when the time comes

[upbeat elbow]

There isn't even a good solution today. Fighting bots is difficult today. With AI it will be impossible. There will be ways to identify humans, but you can not detect AI assisting a human.

We don't know the future, but a future in which gamers play a MMO Lite and Illuvium makes money is pretty unlikely.

[void elk]

for example ravenquest is using battleye to fight against bots, and if there's demand for these things more software like that will appear in the market.

obviously you can't detect AI assisting humans... Cause it's still a human playing at the end of the day. But then it just gets to the point where every human will be assisted by an AI and it'll still be a level playing field.

[upbeat elbow]

Good points, but it kind of supports my initial point: We should have games that let AI play against each other and we just control certain aspects.

Kind of like IRL robot fights, but our robots are software defined AI robots.

The chances for Illuvium to succeed as a traditional game studio with the help of NFT ownership are zero.

[craggy lantern]

Maybe not as an official announcement but I've heard guesstimates through town halls/AMA's over the last couple months, along the same time of discussion focusing on 1 game at a time and gauntlet being priority until it's fully polished and tournaments are running. Pretty sure I've heard 6-12 months from April at a minimum.

[craggy lantern]

This would make the wait for the MMO much easier, new features added for us to get excited about and to try. MMO can still be branded as a big new launch while leaving OW open. I hope it stays open and grows with time.

[cloud tide]

I could see web3 possibly going route. Web2 gamers still enjoy playing games as I’m sure many web3 players do as well.

[cloud tide]

Agreed. If you are just betting on bots and not playing is that even a game at that point

[upbeat elbow]

Is Illuvium a web3 gamestudio or web2 ? Is it a MMO for web3 or web2 ?

[cloud tide]

Is a genre of game web2 or web3? That’s like asking if fps’ are web2 or web3.
Point being, many players (less in web3 games, but still) play just for the fun of gaming. Wild thought I know

[upbeat elbow]

How will Illuvium make money from this MMO ?

[cloud tide]

I never said it will make money or won’t. The only thing I’ve said is that I disagree that gaming will devolve into solely betting on bots.

[upbeat elbow]

If a game is web3, which means money and since Illuvium is web3 and therefore about money: AI bots will play the games until all money and fun for humans has been extracted.

@runic briar Kieran still hasn't explained how Illuvium wants to make money with this MMO ?

He probably thinks that by making it a fun experience millions of players will pay to hunt for Illuvials.

[cloud tide]

Fair question

[upbeat elbow]

And I am not a hater, I love Illuvium. But I see issues.

[runic briar]

Lot's of ideas, battle passes, trading, buying Illuvials, Cosmetics. The key is getting lots of players.

[upbeat elbow]

So the MMO Lite won‘t charge players per run like the OW ? Because I don’t think this will work.

[runic briar]

Nothing is confirmed. We have thought about this internally for 6 months now, but the new game directors haven't started yet. But if they agree with our thoughts then there won't be "runs" the game will be free to go into different regions. Possibly a battle pass, so not exactly "free" but not implemented in the way Overworld currently works.