Greetings to all FT developers...
First of all, I would like to say a few words about New Waxchester. This was a really cool update to the game! The first impressions of the "city" were very positive, both about gameplay and all location design. I remember that in the first days I spent a lot of time there, crafting things to sell and coming up with different game strategies. It was very exciting.
And even now, when there is an opportunity to "play" through various online services, I still go to New Waxchester, because you have made a really visually pleasing and high-quality product. Thank you for that!
Mini-disclaimer before the article. I think you already know about 80% of the problems/ideas for improving the game, I am sure that you have plans for the development and even some ready-made work. But I am writing this text as a player playing the current version of the game and describing situations that I see right now. All this text is not a criticism, but just subjective thoughts from an active player and fan of Farming Tales :) I hope you will find something useful for yourself.
I have divided the article into several important points as I think.
1. Maintaining constant focus and interest in the game
In fact a lot has happend for the last 2 months in game: new blends, interface improvements, regular crafting events, introduction of the tournament system, patches, etc. But lately there has been a feeling that the number of regular players has decreased, and the arrival of new ones has not happened. Plus the latest updates did not cause such a boom in activity as after New Waxchester.
Sneak-peeks and Roadmap
It is quite important to maintain constant development activity in blockchain games. It can be not only the release of new game updates, but also a simple "warming up of interest" through development demo videos, sneak-peek announcements. And now the last information in this section of Discord for February 8. And if we go to the Roadmap channel (where there was a cool idea with "Real Time Roadmap"), we will see that it's not updated too.
New contract info
Newbies and old players need to see constant development and understand what and when to expect next from the developers. For example, now all the talk is about a new contract, but there is no understanding when it will be - a couple of months, before the end of the year? What interesting things are planned with its introduction? Information vacuum and uncertainty cause various doubts. An small AMA with the team or just an announcement explaining this issue will be good.
Suggestions feedback
In my opinion, it is important to give feedback on each suggestion in the Discord Suggestions channel. Even when you do not plan to implement a certain idea, it would be worth writing about it, saying that this idea is not relevant for us.
Some suggestions have answers - thanks for that, but not all. It would be cool to see the reaction to all proposals from representatives of the FT team. You can use simple post "statuses": will implement, will think about this, not interested, already offered.
Constant small updates
Of course, the real updates of the game cause the greatest resonance. Therefore, it is important to constantly add new features, especially when they are really useful and in demand by the community.
Even a small update can make players happy. A good example of this is the recent launch of a Corn/Wheat seed blend. Nice job! It would be even cooler to add map view and inventory functionality to New Waxchester - those tasks don't require a new smart contract, do they? ;)
Services for community development
By the way, there are various social crypto-services that allow you to evolve community and popularize the game: Galxe, DeQuest, Layer3, Zealy. I see that some p2e projects actively use them, so it might make sense to pay attention to those webservices. They could attract more audience than simple retweets.
2. Additional options for burning/using tokens and resources
In fact, I really like how the game itself has evolved from one SEST token to two additional ones: for farm maintenance (CBIT) and game events (AUREUS). Also important points were the transition to selling goods instead of resources + inflation mechanism in game. All this has a positive effect on the formation of the game's economic model!
But at the same time, developers need to continue to look for ways to reduce the number of resources/tokens, which can be done by increasing the possibilities of their use.
In-game raffles
You could create in-game mechanics for raffles with valuable prices. Players will craft "participation tickets" by burning tokens, basic products and/or common animals. More tickets - more chances to win. There should be more than 1 prize, maybe 5-7 to attract more players.
Logic of this mechanic - you could buy 10-20 tickets for a chance to win valuable NFT by burning some of your resources rather than selling them for pennies or waiting forever for someone to buy them.
More quests
I think this direction should be actively developed in parallel with mini-games.
There is information in the whitepaper that users can earn CBITs by completing weekly tasks - it would be nice to implement this. You can add some thematic quests, for example, "tomato festival" and exchange Tomato Chests for CBIT/AUREUS for a week. This would allow to burn of resources that are not in sufficient demand on the market.
Customization
Developers definitely need to add the ability to customize the farm: characters, house and its surroundings!
In some other farming games, I've seen people decorate their land with various decorations that they buy with local tokens. And then they participate in a contest for the best decorated farm, which is also a cool idea.
Improved legendary NFTs
You can add improvements to the functionality of legendary NFTs, for example:
- Simultaneous staking of several legendary NFTs (as with Hive).
- Increasing the level of NFT and improving its performance (as it was done with Barn capacity update).
- Add worker NFT/character that will harvest for you when you are offline.
Additional Lands
You can add the ability to manage several farms (for animals and plants) at the same time, and all legendary NFTs remain as they are now.
Thus, all players by default have a base land (as it is now), but they can buy more, for example, 3 additional ones. Plus it's important(!) to provide some harvest boost to make buying land more profitable than running 2 separate accounts. Also, if you wish, you can allow the use of NFT boosters only with paid lands.
Getting offline goods or online services
You already had something similar - craft shoes with the FT logo. I don't know how that story ended, but I think that such mechanics can be used in the future - to distribute souvenir products or even goods from a real farm! Of course, this quest should "burn" a very significant amount of resources.
Speaking of online benefits, you've also already created a useful feature for Wax blockchain users - CPU rental. Something similar can be implemented for game automation services (ChainFLEX, Taco) so players wouldn't have to buy other tokens and could use SEST instead.
I can also remember interesting ideas from the game Cryptoblades, which I played a long time ago:
- There was an opportunity to receive rewards in partners' tokens. Thus, the native token will not be produced, but FT resources will be burned.
- The developers also had the idea to add a launchpad utility to their token. In the crypto-industry, this direction is quite popular + Wax/Atomichub itself begins to actively develop it. You can think about your own launchpad that users can access through SEST staking.
Of course, these are all very large-scale and difficult ideas, but it is possible that they can be implemented in the distant, distant future.
3. Mini-games, tournaments are an important component of play2earn niche
I think, all crypto games and maybe crypto in general (where tokens are not backed by real offline currency) are one big Ponzi scheme where old "players" get income due to the contributions of new "players".
But games and tournaments allow you to change this situation, because you can start to consider play2earn game as, for example, a card game, when several players put in their money (investment) and only one of them wins all the money. Player with the best strategy, skills or the most intelligent wins.
In fact, partly this logic of tournaments/competitions between players already works in FT through Quests. Players try to craft legendary NFTs to gain an advantage in the game or sell them on the market, someone tries or earn money by growing and selling certain products on Atomichub etc.
Mini-games will be a great additional opportunity to attract new players and increase the activity of existing ones. Plus, it will be an additional utility for your farm's resources.
Craft tickets for games participation
The only request to the developers is to make an additional opportunity to participate in tournaments using products from your farm! This can be realized by crafting "tickets" for participation in competitions.
For now users need to grow products, sell them for SEST or WAX, then either buy AUREUS or get it through staking. I think it would be cool to craft Tickets/Vouchers for competition right from your regular products (like a Barn voucher). It will be one more opportunity to burn resources and one more path of game strategy for players.
Using New Waxchester
By the way, you can do some "gaming activities" in New Waxchester itself, since you already have a multiplayer function + a large area of the city. It may be:
- search for treasures (some NFT) hidden on the territory;
- running a race to some destination;
- the fastest crafting of simple products (like you do before selling NFT Shares) - experienced players should know where to look for the buildings they need.
More players is better
It is very important that the mini-games will be accessible to as many players as possible. Big tournaments with cool prizes are good, but it will make sense when you already have a large number of active players who will definitely participate in these activities.
At the beginning, I would focus on an accessible game with a minimal participation cost: this would be a test of game mechanics, opportunity to search for bugs and will bring more participants. Or you can create several Tiers of tournaments - for beginners, intermediates and advanced players with different costs and prizes.
4. Development of the metaverse and cooperation/advertising
I think one of the best monetization opportunities in the metaverse is advertising. In fact, the metaverse is a new niche where brands can promote themselves.
This model is currently being used most successfully by the Sandbox game. They have a large audience of players among whom brands can promote themselves, there is an opportunity for brands to open their "representation" in the metaverse (buy land) and sell branded NFTs. Moreover, due to the sales of Avatars, I think both the developers and the brand itself have benefit from this cooperation.
Judging by the fact that there are already Rebus, Nefty, Taco buildings in New Waxchester, I think the developers also plan to develop this direction.
Houses in the metaverse
For partner buildings in New Waxchester, you can add various opportunities for cooperation:
- Integration of useful features/services for players - as implemented in CPU Rent Kiosk.
- Selling the partner's tokens at a better price or earning them for staking.
- Opportunity for FT partners to sell their NFTs in houses.
You can hold a "week-long festival" of a sponsor and promote him everywhere in the game: add banners in the city, encourage players to visit his house and somehow interact with it. You can even create a simple lottery, for which people buy tickets at the sponsor's house and then win some NFT from him.
You can also add the possibility of purchasing houses by the FT players, so that they can sell their NFT there or customize for themselves, etc.
5. Improving the game experience
Above, I already mentioned the expansion of NFT capabilities, however, there are several important nuances that I would like to highlight separately. I believe that the developers should pay maximum attention to creating the most comfortable playing conditions directly in New Waxchester and on the "farm".
The logic is simple – if you want players to spend a lot of time online and be as active there as possible, then you need to create a comfortable, efficient environment for them. Some proposals were already in the community: the possibility of starting from the other edge of the map, running for the character, inventory, moving between different areas, etc.
If you do not pay attention to the comfort of the players, then people will switch to various online automation services and will not spend time inside the game. In this case, it will be more difficult to use the metaverse idea with visual advertising for your active players community.
Therefore, it would be great to implement various UI/UX improvements as soon as possible, for example:
- Map and inventory in New Waxchester.
- Displaying the time until the next harvest without having to go into each NFT.
- Remove the sliders from the Geese Shelter when there are 6 of them (you can make smaller pictures).
- Better organization of seeds - group identical NFTs into one stack or something like that.
- If possible, make the harvest buttons directly on top of the animals so as not to go inside the "card" (through the right mouse button or small icons). In this case, entering the card will be required only for NFT stake/unstake.
Some "unused" NFTs
It was also cool to "finish work" with some existing NFTs to make them more useful: cats, dogs, wild flowers, boosters. If possible, make them more valuable, for example 2 CBIT/day is much less than other Legendary NFTs give.
I understand that this may require the launch of a new contract, but please do not forget about them, because after all, people spent money to buy them. Maybe you could update the information about them in the Roadmap - what exactly and when updates are planned for them. More info on this would be nice.
6. Real-Life part of the game
First of all, I want to say that this is a really cool idea that can be one of the key features of the game, so it definitely needs to be promoted and developed. However to be honest, I don't know much about how exactly this component of the game works and it is not clear what the situation is now.
Lack of information
It seems to me that there is not enough information in this direction for beginners and those who want to join this part of the FT. I've just looked through all the Discord channels that have to do with the real farm and I honestly don't understand much.
There are not enough guides, videos, instructions on what and how to do, where to start, what is the mechanism for obtaining products, no photo report on past deliveries etc. Therefore, few of the newcomers will want to take part in it.
You had a cool farm style promo for the NW launch. Similar content (of course in a simpler format) would be very helpful for the presentation of a "real farm".
More involvement of Real Farm in the game
I think the goods from the real farm (at least at this stage of development) can also be used for Quests in the FT game. Similar to the branded sneakers quest, you can allocate a small amount of real products from the farm as a rewards - for example, create a quest for 100 jars of honey.
Of course, this idea needs some calculation in order to interest the players and not be an overhead for the developers. The problem is I don't think people will want to pay shipping for 1 jar of honey, which is easier to buy from the nearby store :)
But "real farm" can be a powerful part of a promotional campaign - "look people play an online crypto farm and get real goods".
Conclusions
I fully understand that in the current situation of the crypto market and p2e niche, for most developers, projects turn into investing their money and working enthusiastically. Kudos to the FT developers for not abandoning the project over the past year, when many Wax and other games decided to shut down!
Perhaps a lot of time has passed since the launch of New Waxchester, and after the unsuccessful Valentine's sale, the enthusiasm of some players has fallen.
But I hope that this is temporary and with the launch of the new contract there will be more new opportunities for the development of FT game. Constant useful game updates and an active community will be the best advertisement for a project.
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