Join the DFK community Discord | Kujo Twitter | DeFi Kingdoms Twitter
Note from Kujo
During transcription, my goal is not to produce a verbatim 100% representation of the conversation. Instead, I will remove any irrelevant banter or unclear statements and eliminate any unnecessary details. In addition, I may modify the language used by each speaker to improve the overall clarity of the transcription. My transcriptions aim for a 90%-95% accuracy rate
Please note that any underlined speaker names will be linked to timestamps in the recording. Any other underlined words are direct links to resources.
You can find the original recording here:
No recording. Summary is at the bottom of this article, courtesy of Samichpunch.
Speakers: Frisky Fox, Magnus Ironroot, Hubert Cumberdale, Dreamer, SunBear, Pieface, and Bolon.
Community AMA
READER NOTICE: This transcript is a PARTIAL. There was no recording (known to me) and I was present as best as I could be for as much as I could be. This is all I got.
Technical difficulties occurred due to the team traveling and moving about ETHDenver.
Keep in mind that I’m doing very little clean-up with this and there will be sections that are confusing.
Bolon Soron
Welcome to this week’s AMA, coming from Denver for several of us! We are going to get started, as always, with Frisky Fox.
Frisky Fox
Thanks Bolon! Hey everyone! It’s been a busy week. We launched duels last week and then another “surprise” release on Friday. I sort of liked that as things are ready, we release them. But, speaking of things being ready to be released, I’ve been working on a tweak with duels. So you can fight multiple duels in the same transaction. Not only will it improve the user experience it will also prevent changing the order at which they can fight duels in.
I’ve been trying to hop into the mix and now, I think, I’m Rare 1. It’s been exciting and fun to work on.
The other things I’ve been working on are: the unlockening and the splittening. The unlocking for Crystal is starting soon and that’s exciting. There’s a fair amount that needs to be in place first before that can go off without a hitch. Just stuff relating to upgrading that contract with griefing and unlocking itself. We’re currently working on that, hand-in-hand with AvaLabs. It’s all related to the splittening, so we’ll be able to kill 3 birds with one stone.
AvaLabs also launched RC-1 yesterday — come back
We are poised to start our testing on that today. That will start on our own local networks, then to an example contract on the Testnet, then upgrade the Power Token on Testnet … then after all that, we’ll schedule it for Mainnet. Probably 7 days lead time for the nodes. But, all of that will be out in time for the unlockening with their splitening.
I’m also working on the Auction House, rewriting it as a Diamond, and auditing it. That’s pretty much it for me. Magnus?
Magnus Ironroot
Hey everyone! I just got back from Interop, I’m at ETH Denver.
Magnus Ironroot
come back
Frisky Fox
come back
Bolon Soron
Ok, lets go to Dreamer!
Dreamer
Hey everybody! I’ll give a quick report on last week. Last week I traveled to Las Vegas to DICE and MGS. Then I’ll turn it over to SunBear.
In Vegas, the main goal was to attend a traditional gaming venue. The intent was to sit down at the main event and just talk with people. There were those that did buy the expensive ticket, but a ton of people were there just for networking.
Some themes we heard there, and at MGS where I spoke on a panel with the AvaLabs team. The term “web 2.5” is very common there. In previous years it didn’t even exist, really. But, this time pretty much everyone that I talked to is, at least, in the info gathering phase. Looking for partners that connect them with “web 2.5”.
They want a traditional game with some sort of connectivity to the Blockchain. There are some that focus only that, working with traditional games and getting them a profile or an NFT offering. We kind of stuck out, because we’re different. We’re a web3 native game with a very strong web3 presence with GamiFying DeFi — with Duels being 100% on chain for example — and we’re progressing into deeper
A lot of people are interested to talk and brainstorm with.
At the MGS side we got a lot of questions.
On the DeFi Kingdoms side, we got a lot of questions. Like, “are you guys open with other games working with you in the ecosystem?”
I felt like it went really well. I didn’t have one interaction where people weren’t uninterested in web 3 gaming or rolled their eyes.I’ll pause there to hand it to SunBear.
SunBear
Awesome, thanks Dreamer!
Some neat things coming this week with partners. As I mentioned last week, HyperPlay is actually launching here at Denver. We’re going to try to work that into streaming or share some other media with that. It’s a game launcher where we’re their first web based game.Other really good news, next week, Tuesday, on the 7th, Blockpit, a tax reporting company for crypto. They’re going to launch their application next Tuesday. If you click through the link on the castle, you’ll get your discount. We’ll be working closely with them over the next few weeks, like in Chaos Cast, where they can walk us through the complexities of the game and how to interact with their service. We’re working on some Medium articles with them as well — planning on linking all of that through the Archivist.
Also, maybe a little bit more fun than taxes, we’re announcing our official partnership with Ethlas.
Dreamer
come back
Frisky Fox
Yah, I think you said most of it. Just, all along the way, we’ve been consulting with Ashbury and others, about what are the best steps to do? To set us up to be the most protected against future regulations. We’re trying to be in the best position possible. Our goal is to be the most well informed we can be. All along the way we’ve been making the right moves, I feel. We’re in a great spot for this because of those moves, especially with all the foresight given. It’s been a great partnership with them over the last year+ that we’ve been working with them.
We also brought up some things about what are the risks and benefits of opening the chain up to more validators — creating their own contracts, etc. They were very much in favor of opening it up on all of those fronts. That sort of confirmed our own thinking, but it was an important to step in progressing. We’re even closer now than we were in the past to open that up to validators and contract creators. The end goal is to make sure that Kingdom Studios only controls under 51% of the validators. Our end goal is to move to a more Decentralized state.
Bolon Soron
Thanks! I did want to add one thing as well with SunBear’s update. We are going to also be doing a Twitter space with Ethlas. If memory serves correct, it will be next Wednesday at March 8th at 7pm EST. However, keep an eye out in case the details change.
SunBear
I think it’s actually on the 7th at 7pm.
Bolon Soron
See! Check the details when they come out, but we will be doing a Twitter spaces with Ethlas. Now to Hubert!
Hubert Cumberdale
So, still kind of working on the same things as before. I do want to just mention that, Magnus alluded to this, we are looking to get the hero rerolling setup and out pretty soon! That will likely come out before the Level 10 profession quests and quests. There are a few things that need to be put in place with what we’re changing.
I did highlight those things, but with the trait rerolling
There’s a lot of little pieces that need to put in place first, which is why there is a delay in getting pet utility and Level 10 profession quests. We are getting close!
The first step is the hero rerolling, taking care of the crafting and tainted genes. We’re also preparing for PvP with that as well — one of the design decisions we’ve made with developing PvP has been with skillpoints. When we initially setup the system, every hero was born with 0 skill pointsAny new hero that summoned from heroes that already had valid crafting genes will also start with 1 skill point as well.
This is all a process of getting things setup for come back
Probably not next week, but we’re very close to getting that ready to go. Shortly after that will be the pet utility and Level 10 profession quests out. It’ll be a few weeks between those launches.
Bolon Soron
come back
Pieface
Hey everybody! My updates will probably be a little short.
I’m super excited for the partnerships that SunBear announced. We have some fun things planned for it.We’ve got Bolon, Rissen, DragonTea, SunBear, and Dreamer over in ETH Denver. We’ve got some cool things planned for everyone! If you’re in Denver, keep your eyes peeled for the team!
Bolon Soron
Ok, lets go with some questions!
Question #1 — Hubert Cumberdale
Q Is there a timeline in mind when we’re likely to release PvP?
AThe easy answer is that we’ll release it when we feel it’s ready. There is a lot of complexity being put into it. It was previously announced that PvP will be out by the end of Q1… however, we do have some things we can show as we move into Q2. That’s the first step, getting animations and sound. Then comes balancing, with equipment tuned in as well, so that no classes are way overpowered. There is a lot of work to do, we’ll likely do some form of
Question #2 — Hubert Cumberdale
Q Are cJewel or sJewel required to use pets?
A No, but we do have powerups related to pets. The first powerup is related to the quality of food that you give them. We’ll have more come out to assist with the management of the pet, otherwise, you can do anything you want manually.
Question #3 — Hubert Cumberdale
Q Does the pet you hatch generate after you crack the egg or when you make the first transaction to incubate?
A Yes, everything that happens with the generation of the pet occurs when you do the “open” transaction.
Question #4 — Hubert Cumberdale
Q Outside of duels, what will the role of hero elemental affiliation be?
A Right now, definitely crafting … we have other ideas, but we’re keeping them to ourselves for now. I can say, for sure, that it will be involved with crafting
Question #5 — Hubert Cumberdale
Q In regards to token mining with Fishing and Foraging vs Gardening and Mining. Are we doing anything to change the balance of return?
A Good question, I hadn’t been thinking about it. But, I agree, there are a couple of things we can do, at least on the front-end, to give you some “chances” chart. Your chance of finding things does increase as you increase your relative profession skill. I guess we can show something simple like catching something specific. That way you can compare between Level 0 to level 20 or Level 20.
Question #6 — Frisky Fox
Q About performance optimization. Is there a way to lighten the load of running DFK?
A We’ve been releasing a lot of updates around performance. Any low hanging fruit that we see we’ll get it fixed, Typical is the GOAT with improving this. He just recently cut out a ton of bloat — about a month ago, the front-end team optimized how many times it was hitting the API and the RPC.
We have a switch to turn off animations and some other lazy loading options. We’re thinking of doing a list view for heroes as an accessibility for lower hardware or phones — an option to reduce rendering. There are things in mind that we’ve talked about.
Question #7 — Frisky Fox
Q How does locked crystal unlocking work in the UI?
A In the Jeweler, where you can see all your cJewel, xJewel, vested Jewel, etc. You’ll see that again for Crystal once we complete the splittening for it. For claiming the Power Tokens, our thoughts are to put it there with the rest of them. We might make a shortcut in the menu or profile as well.
Question #8 — Dreamer
Q In terms of Centralized Exchanges, are we looking at a CEX that has access to the US? And, is it a top 5, or, what level of exchange?
A Good questions. Current update on that is, we are targeting Tier 1 and Tier 2 Centralized Exchanges, globally. We’re only really looking for max 2, but it could be 1. If it was 1, it would have to be a global exchange, US included. It would be more cost effective to get a top 5 global, but there could be some strategic advantages with others to have a well dedicated Asian exchange, or European exchange. These all have a variety of requirements to list. Like the legal opinion, you have to have one with some, vs not with others.
There are a lot of factors here, how much money is it, are they pocketing fees, what’s our deposit return, etc. There’s a lot to consider with the top tier 1 or 2 exchanges. But to focus on if it will focus on the US? Yes, that will be a part of it.
Question #9 — Dreamer
Q Do we have a time line update or goal?
A Yah, this is a moving target as well! Lets just say in 4 months from the end of this week we have an opinion. Then we have calls leading up to these exchanges. We’ve gotten different answers on the process, when everything is submitted, there’s a 2–3 week turn around on average for approval. Implementation then comes in, which will have two options,
So if you add everything up,
Question #10 — Dreamer
Q Borrowing and lending: Is there a possibility to use Heroes as collateral for lending?
A When we’ve mentioned lending in the past, it’s really looking at proven models that have been tested in the bear market. With the overall market caps being much lower, there can be manipulation with the collateral. So, we’re being very cautious with the next steps in lending, but all of this is based off of ERC-20 tokens.
Samichpunch summary:
Summary:
- Fox Update:
o Duels:
§ Tweak to fight multiple duels at the same time in one transaction. Improves user experience and fixing issues where people choose what order their duels occur.
§ More duels at this point in this season than the same point last season, its easier to queue this season.
o Still working with Ava labs on the update that would allow for
o Avalabs had a subnet release that implemented DFK’s ideas for the state upgrades. Stuck it in the RC for the subnet EVM repo, should be coming out next week. DFK will be testing that on their local networks, then a test contract on testnet, then upgrade the power token on testnet, then after all those tests, schedule the mainnet.
- Blockchain Pillar Updates (Magnus):
o Magnus has been in Denver, spoke on a panel about web3 gaming – check out his video.
o Testing upgrades to DFK Chain
o Adding some functionality of hero bridge so that reroll history will follow with you between DFK Chain and Klaytn.
o Gene rerolling contract to address the tainted genes.
- Business Updates (Dreamer):
o Traveled to Vegas for DICE and MGS. Purpose was to attend traditional gaming event as an attendee, take meetings and talk to people. This was the strategy of a lot of people. Lots of networking.
o Most are looking for partners or some type of Web 2.5 connectivity. So people with traditional games with minimal connectivity to the blockchain. Some he met only focus on that, getting these traditional games to have some blockchain aspects.
o DFK sticks out in that its web3 native, strong web3 presence and gamifying DeFi. Duels 100% on chain.
o Will see where discussions go, but DFK with its foundation could serve as a good launchpad.
o Did a panel with Avalabs at MGS.
- Partnerships (Sunbear)
o Hyperplay
o Next week the partner BlockPit that will be able to help with tax reports will launch. If you access them through the archivist you will get a discount. There will be a Chaos Cast AMA with them.
o Announcing a partnership with Ethlas. They’ll be integrating DFK into one of their games. The DFK portion will be integrated on the 10th. There will be a Chaos Cast AMA with them.
- Legal Matters
o Met with attorneys to make sure they are up to speed on all the features.
o Got priced out on an opinion from Ashbury, will take about 4 weeks. Taking legal risk side seriously, but don’t want to rush anything.
o Risks for chains for more validators and opening up for contracts – Legal counsel confirmed it would be a good thing to do.
- Game Update (Hubert)
o Working on hero rerolling. Likely coming out before lvl 10 profession quests and pets.
o Have to be able to track reroll across chains, so bridging is being upgraded, which will also support bridging heroes with their equipment etc. That has to be resolved before pet utility.
o The rerolling will take care of tainted genes and crafting genes.
o PVP developed with skill points and lvl 1 had 0 skill points, but intent is to have 1 skill point when summoned, so at reroll all heroes get one more skill point and after the update all summoned heroes will have 1 skill point.
- Pieface Update:
o Magnus panel at interop summit in Eth Denver – represented DFK well in pioneering Gamefi.
o Set apart by most games from Web3, where gameplay is isolated from blockchain.
o New moon event winners – 14 winners. Check out the tweet or discord announcement channel to see if your wallet was there and you won.
o Bolon, Rissen, Sunbear and Dreamer are in Eth Denver. Keep your eyes peeled for them.
- PVP Timeline? Hoped end of Q1, but looking at somewhere in Q2. Looking good. Balancing and equipment built into the system need to be fine tuned. Will likely have an early access form v0.5, that will be updated a lot at the beginning and which may not have all classes available at launch.
- cJewel or sJewel required to use pets? No – but there will be powerups for them. 1 will be related to quality of food you give them. Another will be related to management of pets (I read this as automation).
- Outside of Duels, element has impact? Crafting, the other ones are not disclosed yet, but they have plans for more.
- Chances of finding something in fishing/foraging improves? Yes, as you improve your profession skill and the applicable stats.
- Web Page Optimizations? Always trying to optimize, its an ongoing effort. May consider a list view for heroes for people on lower end hardware.
- Locked Crystal Unlocking in UI? Jeweler shows you your rewards for cJewel, your Jewel from the splittening is there, and your crystal once that gets issued will be there. Also claiming from the power tokens they’d like to show there as well.
- CEXl, any indication of tier of exchange? Targeting what is categorized by market makers as Tier 1 and Tier 2 exchanges. Only looking for max 2, but could be 1. If 1, want it to be global (US users included). If 2, at least one to be US.
- Timeline or goal on CEX listing? Moving target. Opinion, then onboarding, integration to DFK chain, integrating with an already supported chain would be 2-3 weeks for eth mainnet. Straight to DFK chain could be 2-4x of that. Would like to have an integration directly to DFK chain. If it’s the different of 6 mo vs 1 mo, maybe take short term solution than the big term solution. Nobody has given that big of a discrepancy yet though. If adding everything up could be a few months. There could be a sooner option, but if trying to do this the right way with right market maker and integrating directly to DFK chain, these are some high level thoughts.
- Borrowing and Lending using heroes as collateral? Worried about someone coming in and manipulating the value of collateral. Cautious about lending and have partners that can do that. Lending they’ve looked at is based on ERC-20 tokens, not NFTs. Larger market caps are hard to manipulate the value of collateral. NFTs are another level of difficulty to lend against.