Seascape AMA with David Johanssen and Nicky Li
Introduction AMA
Eric: Welcome @Transparentz and @NickyLi ! How are you guys today?
David: Doing great, really excited to be here!
Nicky: Greetings all, I’m good! Thank you for having us here!
Eric: So let’s get to know the brains behind Seascape. network first! Please introduce yourself first. Would like to know your career background and how you discovered the blockchain space.
David: Sure thing, I’m David Johansson, founder, CEO, and creative director of the Seascape Network. I’ve been a game developer for the last decade working in studios such as Paradox Interactive, mainly working on historical strategy games. I started getting involved in blockchain in 2016, first as an investor and later as the creator of BLOCKLORDS, which was the first blockchain strategy game. Since then, we’ve received funding and grants from many major blockchain institutions and protocols, and we are ready to take the next step on our journey by developing the Seascape Network, a game platform designed around the Defi and NFT economies!
Nicky: Sure. I’m Nicky. Passionate about games and stepped into the Gaming industry in 2014. Experience at established Chinese game studios such as Yoozoo, Forgame, and Moonton.
Worked as a project manager of <League of Angels>, which won the ‘BEST FACEBOOK GAME’ in 2014. It was a huge success and led to very good market performance.
Also worked as a designer and operation team leader on <Liberators>, a WW2 strategy game that also won the ‘BEST FACEBOOK GAME’ in 2016.
Currently leading the development of BLOCKLORDS, an innovative medieval grand strategy blockchain game. And also Co-founder and COO of Seascape Network. Personally, I got into crypto because of CryptoKitties. Its success also gives me inspiration about combining the games with blockchain technology, allowing “play and earn” to become the next wave in the industry.
Eric: interesting background guys
So @Transparentz in your own words, what is Seascape?
David: Seascape is a gaming ecosystem platform built on Ethereum and Substrate. It is designed for the DeFi and NFT economies. With a focus on usability and quality, the aim is to create an environment that will allow users, developers, and stakeholders to play, earn, and share experiences in an incentivized way. We want to be a one-stop-shop for all gamers who want to earn and own real assets from their games. And we want to develop the best tools for game developers to reach these users and keep them incentivized!
Eric: Interesting so it’s both on Ethereum and Polkadot.
How big are the team and location?
Nicky: Our team consists of about a dozen people located in Shanghai, Singapore, Tokyo, and Sweden.
We also work with a variety of game developers across the globe in order to create future content for our platform.
Eric: So Seascape has a token, tell us all about it
David: Our core platform token is Crowns(CWS), designed to reward all key stakeholders of the gaming ecosystem. Crowns will be introduced to users via BLOCKLORDS, the first game developed by our team, as a way to reward all players who play the game. This token will be the primary way for most players to experience the true power of DeFi gaming and the NFT economy in a fun and user-friendly way.
Following its launch, the token will be a core pillar of a series of planned DeFi & NFT games, where savvy players will be able to increase their earnings exponentially through a variety of LP mining and NFT staking games. More details about these games will be unveiled soon!
Eric: What are the main functions of defi earnings that will be implemented immediately after launch?
Nicky: Players can look forward to LP mining, NFT Minting, NFT Staking, IN-game CDPs, in-game recharge. We will have more in-depth write-ups on how these work in the coming weeks.
In a nutshell, users can participate in Game #1 LP Mining by deposit Uniswap CWS-ETH LP tokens to consistently earn CWS rewards, and participating users can also earn a Seascape NFT bonus.
In-Game #2 NFT Minting, players can spend CWS to mint random quality Seascape NFTs. In the leaderboard, players can compete for more CWS bonuses.
All the Seascape NFTs can be used in Game #3 to stake and mining CWS with an attractive APY. However, there is always a consequence to gain huge rewards, staked NFTs will be burned when players claim the CWS rewards.
In other games, we will also implement CWS as an in-game recharge method and make it become the economic core of the gameplay.
Eric: How many games are planned in house? are there external games being integrated soon?
David: We currently have about half a dozen games in development in-house, ranging from defi focused mini-games to casual mobile games, MMORPG’s, and VR titles. We are also in touch with a few different studios across the world and are in serious talks to publish their games on our platform using our custom SDKs. The growth will be huge in 2021!
Eric: Very exciting. Blocklords looks great and fun
In-game economy is normally really strict, and looking at an advanced in-game economy Eve online, they have an economist hired to control the economy. How do you see Crowns can help with these, where players can create in-game economies within the economy?
Nicky: It’s important to distinguish between in-game economies and crypto economies, specifically in-game value vs real-world value. At first, we have to keep them separate and then gradually blend them together through different games. If the economies do eventually reach a sufficient level of complexity, we will take steps to address it.
Eric: Can you explain how the rebasing of Crowns will look from a user point of view?
David: Any amount of crowns spent in our own games will be automatically rebased back to holders on a weekly basis. Games developed by other devs will go to them with a fixed amount being rebased out of that as well, the so-called “Community Fee.”
Eric: What are the details of the airdrop and how has it been scaled for player activity? Any ongoing airdrops for in-game activities?
Nicky: We can’t give too many details about that at this time, but anybody who has played BLOCKLORDS (https://play.blocklords.io) before the incentive date will receive a reward proportional to how active they were.
Eric: Will we be able to stake or do anything unique on Seascape network with the NFTs we earned through related games?
David: Yes! Through our DeFi games, players will be able to stake and earn rewards on their LP tokens and NFTs, but claiming a staked NFT for rewards will have consequences (staked NFTs will be burned when players claim the CWS rewards).
We will launch more games and use cases for NFTs to stake or directly import into the game and let players play with it. Be sure to follow us to stay up to date on all these releases!
Eric: Regarding your flagship game, blocklords. Are you planning a dynasty? Having 2 NTFs — a lord and a woman, can I get NTF offspring? With a stat boost? Indeed, in many defi games, this is a very popular option.
David: Yes, in addition to adding female heroes to the game in the near future, we plan to enable NFT offspring with a breeding system where players will create their very own medieval dynasties. This is only one of many upcoming features we have planned is we work towards making BLOCKLORDS not only the most in-depth blockchain games but a competitive medieval strategy simulator that leads the game industry.
Eric: that sounds super fun lol
We will be opening the group for community questions. Please prepare to paste your tweets of claimed questions!
Community AMA
Q: Why will people choose your platform Can you share some key features of your platform that make it ahead of other competitors? What is the main advantage on your platform that you feel most confident?
A: Many projects out there claiming to have the best blockchain game or platform consist of devs who actually have little or no experience with the game industry. Our team is well-versed both in how blockchain economies are built and can make excellent games on top of those economies. We believe this focus on excellent quality and proper incentives to both our users and devs will set us apart from the competition and gain users, both from blockchain and traditional gaming. The defi mini-games we are about to release are a perfect example of how we plan to combine the best of gaming with core crypto mechanics.
Q: Am a game designer, can I put my game on your platform? How does it affect my project and what are the requirements?
A: Yes, we are happy to have a game designer and developers to join our platform. In the short term, we can help devs implement $CWS payment method into their games and grow users and revenue together with us. Next year, we will provide DeFi gameplay SDK, so devs can easily use it to add DeFi gameplay into their game.
If you are a game dev and want to join us, just simply email us: info@seascape.network and we will back to you soon.
Q: I saw that many gaming platforms will be launched which will require a payment In Seascape will be paid by your own coin or other currencies BTC ETH LTC
A: Crowns will be the core token of the platform, and users will be encouraged to use it when they play our games. That said, we will also accept other major coins (BTC, ETH, DOT, etc.), and most importantly, we will make it easy for developers to create their own tokens within their games, which are entirely backed by Crowns (similar to how DAI is backed by ETH in CDPs).
The payment method depends on the game itself. Let me explain this way: as we have already introduced, BLOCKLORDS online is our current flagship game. It is free to play the game. Which means you can play it without any cryptocurrencies or wallet. In our game, we will hold events and also through some gameplay to reward players with crypto and guide players to install a wallet. Of course, we will provide an in-game recharge option using crypto.
We are also going to launch 3 DeFi mini-games as soon as we launch our token. These games will require players to have and use our token, $CWS to play. This is because they are more like financial games and we want more and more users to buy our tokens and earn profits along with us.
Q: How do my NFTs retain their value over time? Is there a deflation mechanism inside #seaescapenetwork? Is there an NFT limit for each object
A: Seascape NFTs can be staked in several of the games on the Seascape networks for guaranteed Crowns revenue over time. That means that each NFT will have a set value that can be redeemed when staked. This will guarantee a minimum price floor pegged to Crowns values.
On top of that, whenever staking rewards are claimed, the used NFT will be burned and destroyed forever, meaning that the more staking rewards are claimed, the higher each NFTs share of the staking pool will be. With this, we aim to create a balance of value between Crowns and Seascape NFTs that will benefit the holders and users of both.
Q: Why does Seascape include a rebasing mechanism? these technologies are sometimes not understood and their success is questioned. What role does this play in an NFT-DeFi platform?
A: The rebase feature of Crowns was devised as a way to reward holders of the tokens with the Crowns revenue the platform generates. By redistributing all the revenue to the users, we give each holder a direct incentive to stay involved in the project. We feel this is a much clearer way of doing rebasing than other projects are since it will only redistribute what has already been spent, and never create any new tokens out of thin air.
Q: You want to simplify the DeFi platform for real-life users, but the majority of real-life users don’t know what blockchain is all about. How will bring the adoption and education on blockchain and consequently DeFi to these?
What is your strategy for marketing and Mass Adoption?
What message do you want to send to the community through AMA today?
A: This is a good question. You see, blockchain game or DeFi platform is so small right now compared to other online games DAU. But our team is good at this and this is why we developed BLOCKLORDS with Free to play and no wallet login model.
Our strategy is players don’t need to have knowledge about blockchain and just simply register and play, get normal players inside of the game first. Then we reward and educate players with events and crypto rewards, teach them things about the wallet, crypto, blockchain tech, etc. A good example will be the last event we worked with MakerDao in BLOCKLORDS. Every player who create a wallet (Metamaks)and link with our game will get 25 $DAI reward. Turns out we get more than 500 players did it and 30% of them did this for the first time.
We will keep doing this and make games good enough to attract normal players worldwide.
Q: Currently we all know recently a game called cryptokitties launched Ethereum network was congested and now due to defi/ dexes a cost of Ethereum per transaction takes up to 10$per transaction sometime do you have any plans to fix these problems? Or using other scalable blockchains etc?
A: Our team has a lot of experience developing on a multitude of chains and layer 2 solutions (eth, neo, matic, loom, tron, icon, etc), and while there are a lot of scalable options, so far none of them have the reach or value within that Ethereum has. That is the main reason why we are starting on Ethereum; because it’s where all the value is, both for our users and our developers. The key to creating a successful project there is to make the potential rewards higher than the gas fees, which a lot of projects have been able to do.
For the long term, and as mass adoption arrives, we agree that scalability is key, which is why we will also develop our platform on other solutions such as Polkadot. We are also taking a close look at layer-2 solutions such as xDAI and BSC to handle the ethereum transactions more efficiently on the backend.
Closing Remarks
Eric: Okay. So that’s a wrap!
@Transparentz @NickyLi thanks for taking the time! Please invite our community to your official channels.
And do tell us WHEN we can buy or trade CROWN!
Nicky: Sure, welcome everyone to join our TG channel:https://t.me/seascapenetwork
and our Announcement channel: https://t.me/seascapenetworknews
Follow our Twitter: https://twitter.com/seascapenetwork
David: Thank you so much for having us, Eric. Still can’t give you an official date for the token release but it will be very soon on a DEX or exchange near you! Be sure to join our community and play BLOCKLORDS to be in on the ground floor and be one of the first incentivized users of Seascape 😁
Eric: Alright. Thanks, everyone!
An AMA transcript will be posted at medium.com/exnetwork soon
