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For today's #AVAX gaming feature, we take a look at Eldarune, a third-person medieval RPG game that features a rich gaming experience and realistic storyline.
Our format will be as follows:
🤖 Gameplay
🌐 Web3 Aspect: NFT and Tokenomics
👩👩👦👦 Team, Advisors, and Roadmap
💡 Concluding Points
Gameplay
Eldarune is a AAA medieval, fantasy, action, arena-RPG game with 4K graphics, based on a very engaging storyline. Set in a fictional medieval world called Elymnias, the story revolves around the protagonist Alec, who was separated from his family to become a Justiciar - privileged travelers who go all over the world to fight injustice. Alec is set to conquer his way to defeat the strongest monsters in the Elymnias world across 21 islands. Its Campaign and Dungeon Mode testnet is currently available for PC, but will be playable in mobile in the coming months.
To start playing the game, players choose across four game modes: Campaign, Dungeon, Clan Boss, PvP Arena, but it is mandatory to learn the basics of the game in Eldarune's Campaign Story Mode. The fundamentals of the game are necessary to understand the other modes fully and have a much enjoyable experience. There will be free-to-use champions in the game, and there will also be other champions available for purchase through the marketplace, or airdropped from higher-tier dungeons that have rarer yield.
The Dungeon Game Mode gives players the chance to farm items from conquering dungeons, either solo or co-op. There are different weapons available: swords, axes, maces, and more for close combat, or crossbows for ranged battles. Better gear strengthens the players' champions, as well as profession skills, alchemy, potion crafting, weapon mastery, magic and more. A cleared dungeon unlocks a more difficult one, with better quality item drops, but participating in Clan Boss Battles and PvP Arena is the best way to earn better quality weapons and gear. Engage not only in man-to-man combat, but prepare also for aerial wars while riding dragons, and naval wars with battleships. There will be 21 pre-determined seasons for Eldarune, each with new islands that are waiting to be explored by players.
The first testnet version of the Campaign Mode was released last June 20, 2022, and the most recent update was pushed just last November. Below is a 4k gameplay video of Eldarune (Campaign Story Mode) in its most recent testnet version.
If you are interested in participating in the testing phase of Eldarune, follow the steps below:
1. Login to your Metamask account, and register / login to https://digard.io/
2. Choose between Avalanche and Polygon network
3. Click on the "Download DGM" button on the navbar and download the Digard Client
4. Once setup is complete, login to Digard Client with your credentials and download Eldarune
5. Claim your testnet rewards from https://digard.io/inventory
Eldarune has done a great job in implementing the functionality to be able to track user metrics and engagement data in the Campaign mode testnet. This is an extremely important aspect of the game as this will provide the developers real data regarding their users, to help them shape the development and roadmap of the game. Users are encouraged to participate in the testnet, as there will be incentives for those who will be providing their feedback and suggestions. There will be a $100,000 reward pool of $ELDA tokens, and players with the most playtime and interaction with the game have the greater allocation.
Web3 Aspect
NFTs
Eldarune has utilized the benefits of decentralized blockchain technology and digital asset ownership. They have addressed the problems with in-game assets in traditional gaming: controlled by a centralized server, no true ownership, and not valuable. All game assets in Eldarune will be NFT-based: gears, skill books, weapons, armors, characters, and champions. There will be select champions that are free-for-all by default, but players also have the option to purchase NFTs in the secondary market to improve their gaming experience. Eldarune has designed their NFTs to be upgradable to a higher level with better stats in battle - this increases the earning potential and opens the idea to rent their NFTs to other players at an agreed period of time and revenue share. NFT renting is particularly useful for players in the game who need power-ups for a limited time in a dungeon or PvP arena. Dragon and Ship NFTs are extremely rare and hard to acquire, and these could be made available in the market for rent.
Tokenomics
There will be an $ELDA token, packed with a lot of utility. The token will be used to:
- Purchase chests that can either be a Skill Book chest, Item chest, or a Champion chest
- Utilize the autoplay function for idle grinding in dungeons
- Create clans which is a requirement for Clan Boss mode
- Purchase PvP battle arena tickets for participation
- Buy limited supply NFTs (Dragons, Ships) mandatory to participate in aerial fights and naval fights in PvP mode
It can be acquired from defeating a Boss in Clan Boss mode, winning a PvP arena fight, special events, or from drops in quests, objectives, and challenges.
Every three months, there will be a new season. This season-based approach will keep the community engaged and highly speculative. With the start of a new season, more players are expected to come in with the assumption that the new players who want to come in the game but have missed the previous cycle / season can join at the upcoming season
Team and Advisors
Eldarune is headed by CEO and Co-Founder Tarik Ziya Yalcin, a veteran full-stack game developer. He is highly skilled in coding games using C#, 3D modelling, rigging, animation, character, environment, and gameplay design. He has been providing freelance services for VR simulations since 2012, which led to him being recognized as one of the Best Indie Developers in 2016 by Games.com. In 2021, he received the Crystal Pixel Award (Mech Wars).
Co-Founder and Blockchain Team Leader Riza Soylu is a seasoned software developer with over 14 years of experience. He has worked on a number of individual software projects globally. He is also a long-time gamer with over 18 years of experience starting with Counter Strike.
Co-Founder and Blockchain / Full-stack Developer Gokhan Uludag boasts 18 years of experience as a Distributed Systems Architecture and Software Development Specialist. He has also provided consulting services for telecommunication and e-commerical systems.
Reda Semmah and Efe Buken are the Advisors for Eldarune. Reda is the Managing Director of Venture Capital IconPlus Capital. He has 7 years of blockchain experience, 4 years fund management experience, and over 16 years experience in various commercial roles ($120M annual revenue) and regional leadership roles (EMEA and Sub-Indian continent at top 500 fortune companies). Efe, is the Senior Partner of Muhabbit and CMO of Kalao. He has 6 years of experience in blockchain based marketing and blockchain community campaigns.
Thoughts on the Team
CEO Tarik's expertise in full-stack game development is certainly impressive, from 3D modelling to character and environment special effects, to coding on the backend using C#. But, technical skills do not equate to leadership skills. His LinkedIn account does not include any leadership positions from the past. This is crucial as a founder because the vision of the project must be effectively understood by everyone in the team with the leadership of the CEO. Despite these factors, this is not enough basis to say that he cannot lead.
The core team lacks an experienced blockchain expert. Although they have veteran software developers from Web2, I'm not sure how experience in developing information management systems will translate to game economy design. To add, Riza, the team's Blockchain Team Leader, has only been researching and working on solidity smart contracts and blockchain technology for about 1 year, his LinkedIn profile mentions.
Below is the list of partners of Eldarune:
Roadmap
✅ 2021: Foundation, Campaign Beta, Dungeon Alpha, Clan Boss Alpha, PvP Arena Alpha
✅ Q1 2022: Upgrades on Game Engine, Graphics, and Gameplay Mechanics
✅ Q2 2022: Blockchain Integration, Closed / Public Testnet for Campaign Mode
✅ Q3 2022: Dungeon Mode Testnet, Alec and Champions NFT Sale, Dragon and Ship Sales
⬜ Q4 2022: Clan Boss Mode Testnet, Full Game Release, Guild System Integration, $ELDA Public Release
⬜ 2023: Season 3 Mainnet Release, New Champions, Gameplay Updates, New Items
Concluding Points
Comments (Gameplay)
Eldarune resembles most of the usual game mechanics that you'd typically see in traditional action RPG games like The Witcher. However, from a traditional gamer's perspective, the overall quality of Eldarune is far behind its Web2 counterparts. Although it has only released its testnet, some suggestions worth noting are:
Better character voices. The current voice-over of the characters sound like generic text-to-speech voice. It would be nice for each of the characters have a real person do the voice over so the message and emotions can be properly depicted.
More visual cues and indicators. The Campaign Story Mode is the game mode where players learn the fundamentals of the game, but it lacks visual cues and easy to follow instructions. More indicators in the player's screen while in-game will be beneficial as it makes the gaming experience more user-friendly.
Character movement and physics re-calibration. After digging deep in their Discord, there were several bug reports on bugs and glitches in player movement / control after some certain actions like: getting stuck in the air after jumping from a high place, after trying to dismount a dragon; being able to penetrate and go through walls, etc.
Glitches in game mechanics and visuals. Other identified issues include: some indicators staying persistently in the screen even after a finished event, game not saving and pausing correctly, King not showing during the Boss mode, character not correctly showing the right preview based on items and equipment currently equipped.
For someone who has never played any third-person ARPG before, it will be very easy to get hooked to the game as the quests are fun, challenging, and interactive. The game mechanics are very simple and easy to understand, although more indicators would be better and more useful especially for players from the younger age group. If you have played related ARPG games before like The Witcher or God of War, you'll realize that there's a lot of catching up to do in terms of smoothness of gameplay, sharpness of graphics, crispness of voice, and quality of the game over all. There's a lot to expect from Eldarune. Hopefully, the issues raised above will be addressed in the next update.
Comments (Web3 Aspect)
Eldarune is not just a game on the blockchain, it is complemented by the blockchain technology. Eldarune did a great job in eliminating the capital pre-requisite to start playing their game. This approach has increased the earning potential of the game as there is a much larger player base to accommodate for microtransactions. The NFTs were well integrated in the game, from representing all in-game assets as NFTs, to purchasing arena tickets to participate and get access to exclusive tournaments. The ways that you could also earn from the game are well-integrated, and this makes the game even more enjoyable not because of the monetary value of the rewards that you'll be getting, but the sense of ownership that players get when they get rewarded for their efforts in the game and something they really deserve and could provide future value.
The intention going of multi-chain at launch is a bold, risky move. The more the chains, the more problems you will encounter e.g. network congestion, security risks. In addition, if a game is going multi-chain, might as well have a dedicated bridge so users won't have a difficult time bridging their assets from one chain to another.
To know more about Eldarune, you can reach out to them via the following links:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PlayEldarune
Discord: https://discord.com/invite/dEJAVjjVdC
Website: https://www.eldarune.com/
Whitepaper: https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/62422e90317fc63b5def21b9/6372c138e6b274be9cf6643e_N_Eldarune_Tome%20of%20Knowledge.pdf (Litepaper: https://digalabs.gitbook.io/eldarune-whitepaper/5-business-model)
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