Blockchain gaming never looked more exciting. Today we uncover some details on how our real-time blockchain crafting and enchanting mechanisms will work.
Integrating decentralized gaming assets in The Six Dragons was not a decision based on the blockchain hype or a short-term monetization opportunity.
It was a statement.
We create a game where players are the protagonists as they constantly shape the game but also retain the opportunity to capture value from their progress. The vision of The Six Dragons is that the community will adopt various gameplay roles (e.g farmers, merchants, workers, etc) and will freely run a decentralized blockchain economy.
Following the first implementation, as shown in the Games Developers Conference (GDC) 2019 in San Francisco, the game development accomplished an incredible sprint, leading to significant gameplay additions and of course the finalization of the blockchain integration on the Ethereum mainnet using Enjin platform.
However, blockchain gameplay in The Six Dragons goes way beyond just tokenizing loot and skins. Instead, we transformed the blockchain wallet of the user into his real-life inventory, giving the opportunity to create in-game brand new blockchain items with unique characteristics that can constantly improve as the game experience progresses.
A few days ago we internally launched the first fully blockchain integrated build of the game after six months of hard work 🙌 🙌. Today we introduce the real-time and fully transparent blockchain crafting and enchanting mechanisms.
Blockchain Crafting
Crafting is arguably one of the most exciting gameplay elements of RPGs, and one of the pillars of The Six Dragons. To craft an item, the player needs to know how to create a new weapon/armor/jewel (by owning the blockchain recipe of the item), and also hold all the necessary materials for the creation (both blockchain and centralized in-game assets). When you are ready, you can visit the crafting station in the nearest village, and the magic starts……
So the question is what happens in the blockchain side of things when I craft an item? Let’s see how this works….
- The game checks your inventory and looks for the necessary recipe and materials.
2. If you hold what is needed in your wallet, the crafting proceeds. At this point, you will be asked to give your consent to the game to start the blockchain crafting process.
3. You engage with your blockchain wallet and safely transfer the blockchain materials to the game ethereum wallet. After the confirmation and receipt of the items, the crafting starts.
4. A new blockchain item is created and sent to the player’s wallet. It is important to note that this is not a typical minting process of an already created asset. Blockchain asset creation gives a brand new token, with a unique ID and supply of only 1.
In the example case, the transaction with hash: 0x7d55a624513b1088483afc77d1bb66f699b1aae8abdc503952272f7e3e92bd2d
created the token with ID: 1800000000000e42
to the user wallet: 0x84c7e260fa3355426cce7808ba86be783db18e8b. Following this process, the weapon goes straight to the in-game inventory of the player.
We are not over yet though. By integrating the asset creation process (instead of minting or asset transfer) in the game, we introduce a brand new dimension to the game economy. Every craftable item has its unique identity. All the items have a possible range of stats(based on the rarity level and the item type) that are randomly assigned during the creation of each item. After that, the stats stay inside the player’s token forever and can only change if the player enchants the item in-game. Moreover, if you are lucky enough to achieve a critical craft, your item will be blessed with significantly better (still random) stats. This is one of the first blockchain gaming experiences that include the ability to dynamically change the characteristics of the players’ blockchain tokens, as a reflection of their gameplay performance.
Last but definitely not least, EVERY crafted item carries proudly the name of the crafter in the token. The name on the token is not only a unique element of vanity but creates an opportunity for ambitious blacksmiths. Since the name of the crafter is shown, players that don’t own a rare recipe and looking for a specific item can look for the right person and ask for their valuable service.
Blockchain Enchanting
Enchanting is another legendary RPG aspect that gives the chance to the player to level game items (up to enchanting level 15) or gives them the power of fire and thunder (fire, thunder enchants).
The blockchain process of enchanting has great similarities with the one of crafting, yet carries one important difference.
When the player decides to enchant an item, it is necessary, apart from holding the item, to own a “scroll of enchant” blockchain token. Each of those tokens has a specific success rate, meaning that you have a specific chance of getting your item upgraded, but also the possibility of breaking (destroying) your item (except if you carry a legendary blessed enchant scroll which has 100% success rate).
The process is as follows. The player uses the scroll of enchant from the in-game inventory and initiates the enchanting process. The game checks the player’s wallet thoroughly and sends the request to the gamer’s blockchain wallet. This time, however, the player sends the scroll along with the item that is about to be enchanted. In a successful outcome, the player receives back an enchanted “King’s Legacy +1” item that as you can see from the title has been enchanted to +1, with increased stats, which again, can be seen in the blockchain token as well as in-game. Also, the +1 sign is carved in the photo of the blockchain token. If the enchanting fails, however, the weapon is melted in the daily melting process, the scroll of enchant goes back to the pool, and the player receives some of the weapons’ blockchain materials back to the wallet.
Transparency, Security & Performance
Integrating blockchain features in critical game interactions enable us to create a totally transparent game economy, where each player can see the origin of any in-game item. Put simply, every item in-game will move through the very same process and everything can be audited on the Ethereum blockchain. There will be no other way of creating or developing items in-game. At the same time, players will be able to see the fate of the “used” items in the game, such as the used materials, scrolls, broken weapons, etc. On a daily basis, items will be melted so players can be confident about the value and scarcity of their item as well as the balancing of the game economy.
For those that might be concerned about the performance of this process, our tests showed that the crafting and enchanting process last on average 90″ (in the video some parts were skipped for time-saving purposes) for the transfers needed to fully complete, but of course, this is contingent with the ethereum network condition at the time. All the game mechanisms have been designed around efinity, and all the blockchain interactions are expected to be dramatically faster when it launches. It was our utmost priority to honor our commitment to the community for a Q4 2019 release so we made the necessary adjustments to start the alpha testing even before the efinity release.
And most importantly, can you put a price in the creation process of such a beauty?
Stay tuned, gameplay updates are just around the corner…
About The Six Dragons
The Six Dragon is the first Open World RPG built on Ethereum Blockchain. The game features a huge open world of 64km2, 1 billion dungeons, real-time blockchain crafting, enchanting and a huge decentralized game economy.
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