Below is the transcription of the AMA—featuring Hong Nguyen of Starbots—that took place in the PARSIQ Community Telegram channel on the 30th of November, 2021.
PARSIQ recently became a strategic partner of Starbots. So, we were very glad that our community had the opportunity get to know a bit more their project!
Let’s get into the conversation…
PRQ: Welcome to the PARSIQ community for all of the new members joining us here for the AMA with one of our most recent partners, Starbots. A new NFT based game.
Thanks, Hong, for joining us!
To start off with can you tell us a little about Starbots? Where did the idea for this project begin?
Hong: Thanks for the intro 😉. I’m very happy to be here and talking to you guys about Starbots! I would be more than happy to introduce Starbots to you guys.
Starbots is the first-ever playable robot battle NFT game on Solana where players gain profit through strategically assembling their own robots, winning battles, completing missions, and conquering new lands. We get our inspiration from 2 main things: 🤖 +🐶.
1. Battlebots — the childhood game, where contestants control their armored and technologically-advanced robots through a remote control and battle other robots to win the competition.
2. Our love with dogs. The main avatar of the game would be a different dog breed with good taste in style.
PRQ: Robots and dogs sounds like a winning combo! 😄
Hong: Yes for sure! We’re bringing back childhood to both boys and girls ^^
Could you tell us a little bit about yourself and the Starbots team, do you have experience in other crypto projects before Starbots?
Hong: Sure thing! So, I’m representing Starbots team today. My name is Hong Nguyen, and I am the Head of Marketing & Communications at Starbots.
A little bit about myself: I have over 3 years of working as Marketing and Partnership Manager in the blockchain industry, most of my experience is associated with the name TomoChain, one of the biggest crypto natives from Vietnam.Throughout the years, I have been involved in many global projects. And now that NFT is taking the trend, I can’t stay out of that 😄
The Starbots team is also very interesting. The Starbots team is a combination of master traditional game creators & blockchain experts.
The gameplay itself is created by Gamee Studio, a studio with games on top of the U.S Google store. Thus, the developers of Starbots have years and years of experience in creating games and understand the main points to make a game successful.
The blockchain integration is supported by TomoChain, one of the reputable projects in the field as well. Thus, our transition into crypto becomes easier as we’ve already had that understanding regarding what the community really wants.
PRQ: Sounds like a team with a lot of experience in the field then, should be interesting to see the final product!
There’s a lot of NFT based gaming projects starting up in the space, so can you tell us what’s unique about Starbots compared to others?
Hong: For sure, the amount of NFT projects now are exploding! But Starbots does have its own unique taste. Currently on the gamefi market, there are too many projects with (honestly) tedious, dull gameplay, and most of them are card games and click to earn. The main reason for this is that incorporating traditional gameplay into the blockchain system is technically difficult.
However, Starbots will be built with an actual gameplay that will allow players to own as many NFTs as they would like, and also, use them all in the game play. Starbots’s uniqueness is to create an auto-battlebot game on blockchain, where users are able to constantly grind for new robot parts and switch them out continuously for in-game battles instead of having them lay around or be thrown back & forth on the marketplace. An additional fun factor include unpredictable combat results, in cartoonish notion action.
PRQ: Interesting, as you say NFT gaming is a very new development with many basic models around at the moment, it should be interested to see some more complex gameplay become integrated.
Hong: Yes, this is what Starbots is trying to prove! Despite the complex technology on Solana, we will still be able to build a playable game!
What can you tell us about the gameplay of Starbots – how will it work?
Hong: The gameplay is exciting! Let’s consider Starbots gameplay as an adventure to a brand new planet in the galaxy, where you’re surrounded by dogs and non-stop sounds of machine crashings.
To participate in a battle, you would need a robot with: a body, a weapon, a gadget, and a set of 2 wheels. Each body part has: A Tier & a Magic Level -> The higher the levels, the more powerful the robot.
The game will take place with 2 modes:
PvP
- Quick Battle: Random one-vs-one battle.
- League Battle: Starting at League 1, battle to win a position in the daily Top and raise your League rank.
PvE
- Story Mode: Follow the Map to different planets, complete missions, and defeat the Boss enemy on each one to earn extra rewards.
PRQ: Sounds cool! Will there be a team or 5v5 based mode as well ?
Hong: That’s a great idea! We will definitely have that planned for future events. 😉
PRQ: Great! Also, I can see how the mechanism of combining all these different NFTs into one machine could certainly engage the collectors out there, NFTs like this which add utility have proven some of the most popular to date.
Speaking of NFTs, could you tell us more about your tokenomics? You have both GEAR tokens and also a governance token, correct? Where will players be able to get ahold of these?
Hong: Yes, apart from GEAR, we actually have another token, which is called BOT. So, Starbots is going to have a 2-token model for our game. We’re planning to have our BOT token IDO in January of 2022, so please follow us to catch more information about this big event. 😄
In the meantime, I can introduce briefly each token:
GEAR is the in-game token. You can generate GEAR by: (1) completing missions; (2) winning battles; (3) selling body parts. And you can use GEAR to: (1) upgrade levels for the body parts; (2) open Loot Box.
BOT is the governance token. BOT can be generated by winning League battles. And you can use BOT to: (1) vote for in-game features; (2) upgrade levels at some milestones; (3) stake BOT.
PRQ: Cool, so users will be able to pickup BOT during the January IDO, and these tokens are both on Solana right?
Hong: Yes, correct! 🙂
PRQ: Great, there are a lot of cool projects starting on Solana at the moment.
Can we talk a little about your marketing plans, how do you plan to get awareness of your project out there, any partnerships you can tell us about?
Hong: Sure thing! Getting our name out there is surely a very important factor to push forward. We’re expanding our community and educating our players about Starbots, so make sure you give us a follow on our socials. We promise there will be a lot of events to come!
And we’re very grateful because up to this moment, we’ve welcomed onboard many reputable partners & investors. Some of the names include: DeFi Alliance, Impossible Finance, TomoChain, Solscan, OKex Ventures, Solar Eco Fund, Good Game Guilds, Kyros Ventures, Kyber Network and of course, PARSIQ! 😉
PRQ: Right, save the best ‘til last. 😄
Speaking of PARSIQ, we announced a joint partnership last week for future cooperation. You’ll be using PARSIQ’s monitoring capabilities and onboarding Starbots onto IQ for use in renting NFTs and fungible tokens. Are you able to tell us a little more about how you plan to leverage that to improve Starbots own platform?
Hong: YES! I’m so hyped that our joint partnership has been receiving a lot of positive attention! Through this strategic collaboration, PARSIQ will be assisting Starbots with in-game development, go-to market strategies and community expansion.
Particularly, we look forward to integrating the ability to rent different NFTs from others for the utility in the game, and PARSIQ would have the best knowledge to help Starbots execute this mechanism. We love the idea of renting out NFTs for players to play. Because sometimes you just want to test out a game to see if you really like it, and having that option to rent NFT would be great. Would save them a lot of time and energy.
PRQ: Cool, we’re seeing some pretty interesting use cases centered around NFT games come up both for unlocking items etc through PARSIQ’s monitoring and the prospect of NFT rentals. It is exciting to see projects beginning to integrate this kind of thing.
So what can people look forward to in the next 6 months, what do you have planned for Starbots?
Hong: We’ve got the full roadmap for you!
To have a solid plan for the future is what drives trust in a project. Starbots makes sure that we are clear about how we’re moving forward. Some of upcoming highlights include:
12/2021: NFT Sale (16th of December to be specific — so, mark your calendar guys!)
1/2022: BOT token IDO
Q1/2022: PvP Mode on Testnet
Q2/2022: PvP Mode on Mainnet
Q3/2022: PvE Story Mode Release
PRQ: Sounds like a busy few months! 😄
Hong: You’ve got that right!
It seems that one of the most important aspects of a gamefi project is its relationship with gaming guilds, as they can help to significantly boost numbers at launch. Do you have any guild partners lined up for Starbots?
Hong: Yes, game guilds are a crucial part for any NFT games. Currently, Starbots has cooperated with Good Game Guilds, Unix Gaming, Real Deal Guilds. There are a few more names, but we want to keep it a little secret first 😉. Make sure to follow our channels for more updates!
PRQ: Awesome, looks like a promising launch ahead of you then! I’ve really enjoyed hearing more about what you’re building, and before Iopen questions up to the community, can you tell us all:
Where we can follow Starbots development on social media?
Hong: Of course! We’re recruiting Starbots lovers from everywhere!!! Please join us as we’ll be releasing a lot of exciting news! You can follow these links: Website | Twitter | Discord | Telegram Announcement | Telegram Chat.
PRQ: Thanks a lot Hong! Now, I’ll open things up to the community. If anyone has questions about Starbots please do drop them in the chat. Hong—feel free to pick whichever ones you like to answer 👍
Will you just stay on the Solana chain? If not, what other chains will you look at expanding to?
Hong: Very good question. As for now, our initial plan will be to build on Solana. In the future, we will look forward to integrating a Metaverse platform, meaning we’ll onboard different NFTs from other projects and plug them into our game play 😉
I’m interested in the BOT sale. How many rarities and how many bots will be available for mint? I assume that because it’s on Solana there will be no gas war?
Hong: You’re damn right about the no gas part!! That’s why we chose to build on Solana, because that would eliminate a lot of gas problems for our players. Regarding the rarities, we’ll be releasing more info on this soon 😉
NFT’s and Metaverse are definitely the hot topic at the moment. How do you plan on capturing the Metaverse hype if at all?
Hong: We’re gonna follow the hype!!! 😉 We’ll be adding other NFT projects onboard, meaning, they can use the avatar of the other projects and plug it in Starbots gameplay 😉
Lots of people have struggled with integrating Solana due to the shrotage of Rust Developers. How have Starbots overcome this issue?
Hong: Very, very good question!!! That’s the main problem, including for us. But we’ve got the right support and employees to deploy a solution regarding smart contract and things around it. So have faith in Starbots, we’ll show you! 🙂
What is the game NFT, the bot or its parts? As players could build their strategy and logic by putting parts together in garage, I think the parts will be NFTs, am I right?
Hong: Yes, the game NFTs would be the body parts. And you can use up to 5 body parts to assemble a complete robot for battle.
PvE beside PvP is great, can’t wait to see the game. I get how the bots will play a role in the game, but what part will the dogs play in the game?
Hong: The dogs will be inside your robot during battles. You’ll see your dog peak out at the beginning of each one before the battle starts.
So the strategic partnership with PARSIQ is about both tokens and NFTs? Any plan to use Bot token such a subscription service in IQ protocol pool?
Hong: We definitely have a lot of plans to integrate PARSIQ for our tokens. We’re talking about more potentials as well. 🙂
Besides being able to create custom builds, will players get random rewards with rarity assigned to the GEAR? Do you plan on having themed exotic Starbots like having a pre built 1/1 PARSIQ Starbot?
Hong: That’s the plan. You can earn GEAR through winning the battles actually.
Hong: Alright guys, gotta hop. For any more questions regarding Starbots, please feel free to drop them in our channels. Again you can find them here: Website | Twitter | Discord | Telegram Announcement | Telegram Chat.
PRQ: Thanks a lot for joining us, we will be sure to keep an eye on Starbots 😎👍
Hong: Thank you! It was lovely being here with you guys today!!! ❤️
