Unknown “The World” Game Idea

Unknown “The World” Game Idea

Document version: 0.9

This document covers the initial “elevator proposal” ideas and scope. There is a great deal that is not covered by this document such as technical details or future development for after the game is in distribution.

Type of Game

The game will be free to play (F2P) and is based on the follow mechanics:

• Crafting
• Looting
• User Generated Content
• “Heroes” and “Legends”
• Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, and In-game Currency

Crafting

The crafting is not just a set list of creatable object and quality grades but is a collections of creatable components that can be assembled in an “open” way. Note: this is just a high-level description and a detailed description of the crafting system is not in the scope of this document.

Example: to create a rifle the player would have to first acquire the technology for metallurgy for crafting the metal components, optionally woodworking for any wood components such as the stock, basic chemistry to craft the propellant, and a basic firearm design. The user can then craft the components; note that each refined/manufactured component can be crafted as an alloy which can add special qualities – example: making the barrel component as an alloy that adds an electric charge to the bullet providing additional electrical damage to the “hit”.  The player can determine the size of the components which is what would differentiate a rifle from a pistol (aka: barrel length). The game will allow the player to attempt to combine components that will have catastrophic failure because these can be useful in gameplay.

The crafting system will provide a basic base cosmetic overlay that the player can customize.

Important: all crafted items are tracked through a blockchain that additionally tracks the life of the crafted object in relation to. A “rifle” is a “collection of crafted objects” allowing for the player to repair, upgrade, replace, alter, and tune each part of the “rifle”. The “rifle” is also tracked in the blockchain thereby tracking the history of the collection allowing for crafters to see its history and replicate past versions by reassembling the components (crafting these components as necessary). This allows for:

• Components gain “experience”
• This tracks the wear and tear of the object and affects its durability
• Allows for disassembly of a “collection” to reuse components in other collections (ex: disassemble a rifle to use the barrel to make a new rifle collection)
• Collections (and their subcomponents) gain “fame” for certain accomplishments
• The collection can acquire “titles” – ex: “Wrecked Wrasckally Wabbits” for a rifle that has killed 100 rabbits
• Certain “fame” achievements provide “bonus”; note that some bonuses are tied to specific subcomponents – ex: the “title” “Bearly Survived” given for killing a bear using only a blade provides a bonus to speed with blade weapons and is tied to the blade subcomponent; if the collection is disassembled and the blade is used in another collection this “title” and bonus (since they are tied to the blade subcomponent) transfer.
• Disassembled collections are functionally deleted… sorta. Disassembling a collection and reassembly with the same components doesn’t delete the component (and may confer some benefit to either the player’s skills, the item, or both). Only when the component is disassembled and meets specific criteria is it marked as “deleted” (ex: the destruction of a majority of the components).
• Component crafting and Collection assembly are different skills thereby allowing for crafters to specialize
• ALL crafted items are in the blockchain… and therefor are ALL technically “digital collectables”
• Allows for inter-player transfer (for money or as gift); the “value” of the object will be reset to zero upon gifting and with then accumulate value through use, this will not change the accumulated titles or bonuses

Looting

The primary focus of the game will be PVE but will provide for PVP engagements. Loot is based on inventory (players have limited “on body” capacity) and damage. Example: a strongbox contains a valuable item (and the strongbox is technically an item too) and the player can’t get past the lock (either they don’t have the skill to defeat the lock or lack the time to do so) and they can’t take the strongbox with them… so they decide to break into the box with explosives, this destroys the strongbox and severely damages the items with it (destroying some of the subcomponents of these items).

Loot able items can be resources (i.e.: wheat from a field), components (i.e.: a bowstring from a bow collection), collections (i.e.: a rifle)… and even a wagon (a collection… but a “large” collection).

PVE

PVE looting is straightforward looting with the variation that the AI running the NPCs also will generate crafted objects and collections (see ‘User Generated Content’ section for some additional info on this) and these objects and collections also gain “experience” and “fame” (aka: you could loot a NPC weapon that had killed 100 players and which had some “title” (maybe: “Dream Killer”) and has a bonus affecting PVP). As with player crafted items, all NPC crafted items are tracked by the blockchain.

NPCs will also loot and can therefore end up with player crafted items… which can be in turn looted “back” by players.

PVP

PVP is either “arena” based or through “faction conflict”.

Arenas allow for PVP with the player’s paying the arena to get into the competition and the arena posts a prize (either in-game currency or a loot item (see ‘Heroes and Legends’ section for some additional info on this)). Arenas also allow for player tournaments (see ‘User Generated Content’ section for some additional info on this).

Faction conflicts are predeclared conflicts for control of specific game assets (i.e.: a mine). These conflicts are controlled through the game NPC government and cost the factions a reasonable amount of game currency to do (aka: the players pay for the right to fight over stuff). These conflicts are also for a specific amount of time.

It will be allowed for “limited illicit PVP” where upon a player or player group can attack other players but once the NPC Heroes find out they will search for and “apply justice… firmly” to the offending player(s). The victim may get some to all of what they lost… but as players will have limited “on body” inventory this will only be a notable risk to those that are transporting goods by wagon and the like. This means there will be in-game employment for guards (both players and NPCs can hire or be hired - see ‘User Generated Content’ section for some additional info on this). As well, if a player is on a faction/kingdom “bounty” board then players can attack those players provided they abide by the bounty (aka: if it says “bring them in alive” and a player kills them… they will themselves get on the bounty – though the Heroes will likely ask such players to surrender before attacking).

User Generated Content

All “unique” player generated content will be tracked by blockchain and be “digital collectable” items.

Player Generated Content

Businesses

Players can own shops (think stores), crafting stations (think a smithy), farms, schools (think dojos), and even banks. Each of these have a “space” where the owner can post a job (i.e.: “will pay 4000 gold for 10000 units of iron ore”; “sword lessons 1000 gold per level”).

Banks are special and can store items or currency for fee… and are also locations where players can exchange in-game currency for the game’s cryptocurrency (see the “Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, and In-game Currency” section for more information). Banks are responsible for all goods and currency stored and therefore liable if they are lost, destroyed or stolen (and yeah… players can try bank heists). Most banks will have at least one Hero there at all times to prevent the nefarious from stealing from the bank.

Banks can additionally act as auction houses with each bank setting their own fee for the sales.

Husbandry

Users can breed the animals in the game with the goal of breeding either unique animals or specialized subtypes that “breed true”. These can be sold through the in-game businesses, though the unique will likely be sold through auctions. (see the “Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, and In-game Currency” section for more information)

Crafting

Like players that breed animals, crafters can craft unique items (think high quality components that may contain very rare resources) and create unique collections (think collections containing hard to acquire components or unique collection designs). Crafters can sell their stuff with the unique items being sold through auctions. (see the “Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, and In-game Currency” section for more information)

User Generated Content

Quests and Stories

Real worlds users can generate their own in-game quests with tools from the game creators/producers. These quests are accessible to the players for a fee paid with in-game currency to the Real worlds users that created the quest… with a small percentage going to the game creators/producers. The tools for creating User Generated Content will be free.

Such user generated content can include quests that are hours long in play and will be fully voiced (see the Skyrim modding community for examples of fully voice story quests that are many hours in length).

Meta quests that combine multiple User Generated Content quests but initially will be limited to content from the same user or the game content.

AI

The game will provide and allow for users to create AI that play the game. These will be known in the game as Heroes. These Heroes can be hired by NPC and players alike to act as guards (i.e.: “guard the wagon for this trip”, or “guard the workers as they go get such-and-such a resource”) or for bounties.

Cosmetics

Cosmetics and vanity items can be created by users in a way similar to crafting (there will be filtering for duplicate items to protect the originator’s ownership). Such content can also be set at the time of “publishing” as unique (aka: only this one exists) or not.

“Heroes” and “Legends”

Heroes

Heroes are unique NPC with “strong” AI and tracked by blockchain. Heroes are the functional equivalent to Legends but are not controlled by a player. It is possible for Real world users to get the right to create an AI for controlling a Hero and these will get all the earnings the Hero gets (with a percentage going to the game creators/producers). Heroes can own in-game assets including digital collectables (aka: crafted items, unique animals and cosmetics). All the benefits of being a Legend apply to Heroes as well.

Legends

Legends are human players that have reached a certain level of prestige and have become recognized by the kingdom/nation they are in as Legends. Some of the benefits of being a Legend are:

• These players can create their guilds and factions without the normal “player group” requirements
• All items that the Legend uses gain “experience” and “fame” faster
• Player’s in a party gain additional experience and fame faster
• Legends are shown a large amount of respect by the NPCs

Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, and In-game Currency

Blockchain

Blockchain will be used to track all “digital collectables” and for User account details that are public.

The blockchain will additional allow for transfer of the “digital collectables” from one game to another that either uses the same “type” of asset or that can “import/convert” the asset to the games format. This allows for a rifle with the “Wrecked Wrasckally Wabbits” title to show up in a game without rabbits or a unique horse to be converted to a unique car.

And it its more “base” considerations, the blockchain will allow non-players to own and trade in game “digital collectables”… think a stock broker that has a 3D printed dagger on his desk with the words “Bearly Survived” on the stand.

Cryptocurrency, and In-game Currency

Cryptocurrency and the in-game currency are linked… tied together… in a marriage from the nether reaches of forbidden places.

The relationship and balance between the cryptocurrency and the in-game currency will require careful attention… though it may be that the in-game currency ends up just being a case of smoke and mirrors to allow players to more easily use in-game currency without having to cope with how a sword costs $0.0000000187 instead of 100 gold (this is ONLY and example and not a value statement).

Regardless, this cryptocurrency/in-game currency allows for:

• Players can earn in-game currency and then transfer that to the real world
• Content creators to get paid for players accessing their content in-game with real world value
• Non-players to buy “digital collectibles” from players

Note: At this time there is no accessible way for people to buy the cryptocurrency in the real world and transfer that value into the game. This is to protect the value of items within the game and to prevent a “pay to win” situation from developing.

Banks play a special place in the process of getting value generated in the game to the real world. In order for a player to own a bank they must have a cryptocurrency master node for it to be linked to. All master nodes ownership will be controlled by the game creators/producers (technical details to be determined at a later date). Basically, players that own banks will have a reason to keep it secure, functional, etc… basically, they will ‘have skin in the game’.

Cryptocurrency Mining

The game will be free to play for the following reason:

• The game will make money on all transactions between the cryptocurrency and real world money
• The game will make money on all transactions tracked through the blockchain with the exception of user account public information; this includes:
• Digital collectibles
• User Generated Content
• The game client will perform “light” crypto-mining
• This will be cited in the game use documentation and this “light” crypto-mining will be used for both the blockchain and the cryptocurrency
• It will be adjustable so that a user/player can give up some game visual detail for more crypto-mining which they will benefit
• Base “light” mining all goes to the game
• All levels above this result in the user/player getting 95% of the value generated (based on current player base estimates)
• The game client will act as a cryptocurrency wallet which will add to the development costs but remove the hurdle of needing users/players to be able to set up a cryptocurrency wallet and link it to their game account… etc; one possibility is for the game to partner with a company like PayPal to reduce the development costs