I don’t know what’s with 2019, but we have seen an increasing rise in sci-fi themed MMOs. Well, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Take Virtuverse for example, a unique spin on most modern MMOs on the market today. Recently we wrote an article over the exciting MMO covering some of it’s groundbreaking concepts such as tying real-world currency to in-game currency. Today I’m joined with Fin the founder and CEO of Virtuverse.
Squishy: So Fin, I think the most appropriate question is, can you tell us more about this kind of groundbreaking economy system that you have in store for Virtuverse. How will the process work in withdrawing these “virtuverse” credits back out into real-world currency?
Fin: So to clarify somewhat, while we’re in “Alpha” we’re not looking to monetize the platform at all. The in-game currency that players will be testing the game with will be provided as a monthly stipend, though players can request more. We’ll be using these systems as a way to benchmark the balance of the economy over the course of the Alpha. When we release the Beta version, that’s when we’re looking to tie the in-game currency to real-world cash. That process will require us to fulfill some legal requirements on AML (Anti-Money Laundering) and KYC (Know Your Client) checks on the withdrawer. So the process will end up looking like:
- You request a withdrawal
- You provide information that lets us know that you are you
- We check the system to make sure there hasn’t been any abuse of other players or the system, and all the funds are fine to withdraw
- We initiate payment to your elected account for the withdrawn amount.
Squishy: Can you go more in-depth about these “Dynamic Dungeons”? It sounds similar to WoW’s “Flex-Raiding” system. Is that sort of the direction for the Dynamic Dungeons?
Fin: Yes, it’s something we’re very excited about! We’re planning on doing a more in-depth spotlight as we get closer to the next content release cycle. We’re far more inspired by how Path of Exile did their mapping system.
The dynamics of our dungeons comes under a few different areas:
- Layout: Dungeons are built programmatically with a few scripted rooms or encounters. If a player has a quests within a dungeon, it might have a hand-crafted dungeon layout by our level designers.
- Difficulty: We have a 5 tier of difficulty for each of our dungeons. Each of these tiers will have a different number of enemies which spawn and effect their overall difficulty. There’s also scaling rewards based on the difficulty.
- Modifiers: Each dungeon has a ‘Key’ required to enter it which is an uncommon drop from themed enemies, most of the time near the dungeon location. These Keys can have a number of modifiers such as ‘Flame Infused’ where enemies will also do more fire damage, or ‘of Shadows’ where enemies will have a lower aggression radius.
These modifiers can be added to Keys dynamically by players with a unique profession within the game itself, allowing for someone to make a job out of customizing dungeon experiences for other players.
Squishy: What kind of content can we expect in Virtuverse? Will there be raiding or PvP Guild territory wars? What can we expect at the “end-game”.
Fin: There’s a great deal that we want to add! We have a public Trello which details the more immediate part of our roadmap: (https://trello.com/b/EayTyXmW/virtuverse).
We do want our focus to more revolve around the development of your character and the evolving story within Virtuverse. We’re planning an epic story arc within the game to span multiple genres of Planets and have community-wide objectives where the players need to work together to advance the story. In an RCE the usual model of an end-game loot grind doesn’t translate as well, so we plan on keeping the world growing as the player advances with their character.
Squishy: Most people are referring to Virtuverse as Entropia 2.0, is it safe to assume that a lot of Virtuverse’s systems and mechanics were inspired by Entropia?
Fin: It’s going to be hard not to be compared to Entropia primarily because we’re going down the RCE model. We’ve taken inspiration from a wide number of games the team has played, but want to put our own unique spin on the Real Cash model.
At release, the systems will be quite bare-bones, but we’re looking to add to them and build on top of them as we go.
Most of the team had never even heard of Entropia prior to joining Virtuverse!
Squishy: What is the most exciting feature that you believe players will enjoy the most in Virtuverse?
Fin: I think personally, I’m most excited about the dungeon system, as it’s one where all the professions within the game can come together to overcome more and more difficult obstacles. And lets players create eclectic builds to tackle content solo or in a group. I believe players will have a lot of fun with the system!
Squishy: This is just a personal question of mine, but will we be able to tame the creatures of Virtuverse?
Fin: It’s something we want to add, but it’s not on the immediate roadmap. We’re focusing on the core mechanics of the game initially.
Squishy: Is Virtuverse more focused on the PvE aspect or PvP or entirely the survival MMO model?
Fin: Our focus is definitely more centered around the PvE aspect of the game, there isn’t a huge interest in PvP in our current community. That said we will be adding both world PvP and instanced PvP at a later date.
Squishy: As you may be aware, modern gamers today are shifting towards a solo-playstyle. Will Virtuverse be friendly to that notion, or would you heavily incentivize the classic MMO-Group play mindset.
Fin: I completely agree that the MMO industry has seen a shift to a more shorter play session and solo-play being more common. We want to encourage group play but not penalize players for not participating that way.
An example of how we’re looking to accomplish that is the tiered dungeon system: It should be possible for players to complete low tier dungeons solo with minimal gear investment. At higher tiers, the rewards will increase but the content becomes much easier when you attempt it with a group.
Thank you so much Fin for joining us here and talking more about your upcoming MMO Virtuverse. We wish you the best of luck
For more information check out the links below
reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Virtuverse/
twitter: https://twitter.com/virtuverse
facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EnterVirtuverse/
gamejolt: https://gamejolt.com/games/virtuverse/423325
indiedb: https://www.indiedb.com/games/virtuverse
Discord: https://discord.gg/GEErt4e
