Dear Community Members, (cc @InJesterr)
The Grant Support Squad was created to support the grantees in achieving their goals and take care of the DAO treasury.
After thoroughly reviewing this project, the Squad wants to communicate that we recommend revoking the vesting contract of this project.
In that sense, according to the proposed roadmap, and after checking the information with us, this project had six months to develop (quote) an “ immersive 3D game for the Decentraland platform. Our goal is to provide players with a unique gaming experience that combines parkour, team games, and strategic battles.
During a monthly check-in on Month 4 (August 16), the grantee and we coordinated to test the game in the initiative Testing Tuesday to provide an opportunity for the team to showcase the grant progress and receive feedback from the DAO community.
Two tests (1, 2) were conducted to test the game’s development. Unfortunately, the first test could not be completed, and the second test revealed several bugs and poor game quality. These outcomes have led us to the conclusion that it would be highly challenging to address all the concerns raised within the remaining timeframe proposed.
Gather Project Concerns:
High-quality level work was promised, but the result is low quality.
In that sense, during the test 2:
- Surrender mode doesn´t work sometimes
- Walking during the battle mode does not always work.
- The abilities of Fire and Air do not work (however this is not in the roadmap until next month)
- Game performance: users reported that their computer’s performance might be getting impacted by continuous network pings to “web3ads,” possibly caused by a neighboring device or network. It’s advisable to investigate this situation further to ensure that the network traffic is legitimate and not affecting the performance or security of the network or device adversely.
- UX Experience:
- If the user walks over the teleport section, falls into a loop, and gets back to the map constantly.
- The image shown on the dashboard has poor quality. Hard to read it.
Nonfunctioning Build:
After two rounds of testing, the build remains largely unfunctioning. A lot of features were unpolished and broken; many of the spells were inoperable; all combat was AI/no PvP, and some actions would soft-lock the game (playing a session would drain energy; if you join a game without energy you are expected to sit for 2 minutes to recover two energy).
Despite attempts to demonstrate progress, the presented artificial intelligence index only included potential player names, misleadingly giving the appearance of live server functionality.
export const AiNames: string = [
‘Henk’,
‘Sjaak’,
‘Pieter’,
‘Dogman’,
‘Didi’,
‘Burak’,
‘Beatrix’,
‘Willem’,
‘Maxima’,
‘Amalia’,
‘Alexia’,
];
We are aware that the Grantee mentioned in the update#5 that “( Bot ) was added behind the names of the AI to know wether it is a online player or not”. However, this topic was discovered during a test, and a move like that doesn’t give trust to the community.
Unmet Expectations on Game Features:
Despite some improvement in functionality, the much-anticipated crossover feature and a unique game experience – both highlighted as remarkable aspects in the proposal – have yet to be realized, leading to further disappointment and concern regarding project completion.
Progress Update:
Despite these significant bugs and concerns, the team remains motivated to rectify the issues. The second test showed a slight improvement, showcasing their determination and effort to bring the project to completion. However, given the deep problems and the limited time remaining, it may not be achievable within the time frame left.
Budgeting
On the other hand, a concern was raised in terms of budgeting, and the grantee explained:
-
Development: (quote) 6,000 / 6 = 4333 monthly goes to game development. Meaning writing code back- end & front end, Designing Theoretical idea of the game.
-Surudoiryu gets 2500 monthly for developing the front end and backend
-InJesterr gets 1800 monthly for developing the gameplay theoretics & coordinating.
The rest is saved for transaction fees. -
*Game Design: (quote) 18,500 / 6 = 3083 monthly to game design: Meaning making animations, wearables, creating 3D structures & objects for the scene, shading, textures, 2D materials, 2D Icon Designs & 2D UI design.
-Emselada gets 1550 monthly in dai for this task being the lead for all 2D designs
-InJesterr gets 1500 monthly in dai for all 3D graphic designs -
Sound Designer: (quote) 2000 is spend at once for all the sound license to have a better game experience while gaming including music ost during exploring, during battle, soundeffects during gathering, clicking & skills etc. By multiple private soundesigners
-
Marketing And Advertising: (quote) Marketing will be done when the game is released which is only logical because no one is going to play a game that isn’t released at its full potential, but to satisfy the request, I will list all the events and schedules we have planned for this budget. We reserved 1,000$ to host events on release which includes livestreams, music & party. We reserved 3,000$ for giveaways, a payout system for monthly leaderboard giveaways along with brochures We reserved 500$ for brochures and giveaways on twitter & instagram, This money will go directly to DCL native promoters like oldguy. We reserved 3,000$ for a solid google SEO set- up for website, and this all to bring attention to the Duel Arena which means also Decentraland. After all this is done I am able to show all the engagement from stream analytics, land analytics, giveaway participant engagement count, and website engagement & traffic analytics.
Grant Support Squad analysis: These funds shouldn’t be necessary until the game is developed ($7.500).
- Server Hosting & Maintenance: (quote) “This 5,000 / 2 = 2,500 budget is spend accordingly to keep the game servers, databases, webhost/server & webmail alive for 2 years. The other half 2,500 is a budget we hold on standby for updating database, fixing occuring problems by our developer SurudoiRyu & website developer Kaan Aydin.
Grant Support Squad analysis: These funds shouldn’t be necessary until the game is developed ($2.500).
- Tweaking & Assets: (quote) This is 4,500 is probably one of the most important thing for our core, as many people know Duel Arena was a 2D game and to tweak this entire world and logic into a 3D scene limited within decentraland we had to re- work alot of things from our previous game ui and theme, even the website had to be tweaked entirely by our webdeveloper to add the Decentraland twist to it which is done by Kaan Aydin from Aydev into the scene we worked hard on this as a team and wanted to compensate for all the time and effort the team has done for this particular important task.
Names that are compensated for this are:
** Burak Ucar*
** Drenk0monster our 2D game developer*
** Askin Aydin*
** Dilara Sert*
** Kaan Aydin*
Grant Support Squad analysis: The funds should be gone to improve quality and development, not for compensation. However, at this point, the payment should have already been made.
- 10 Wearables: (quote) This entire 4,500 budget covers all the fees we are reserving for creating, testing & publishing the 10 different wearables. Made by InJesterr
Grant Support Squad analysis: These funds shouldn’t be necessary until the game is developed ($4.500)
-
Collaboration: We proposed to the community of AstroMust to create 1 wearable for them and cover all the fees in testing and publishing it for them + adding utility in our game for their wearable we created for them, this way we get them to do the promotion to their users in order to sell their wearable which also automatically onboard them to Decentraland. reason why this is not in the roadmap as the request showed is because its a minor task and we thought mentioning all the details in the breakdown would be enough.
All we calculated for this is expenses of publishing fee, testing, coding and creating fee for the wearable which is also why its low and seperate from the 10 other wearables. 4x4 Estate | -86,47
This budget breakdown has slightly changed to different coordinates, because that way we could have a longer period of time (1 year) and bigger estate which is 4x4 + 3 which is perfect to have extra room for the parkour, I apologize that its not exactly on the estate we showed on the breakdown but using the DAO budget for something that is a much better deal and bigger in size was the more responsible thing to do and its not like other projects don’t do this. New coords: 98,-116 -
Moderators: This budget of 2,000$ is reserved for all the moderators monthly. Many times we have seen in the past that people like to use the open- source codes from multiple grantees to abuse API in order to hack in a game, Many people that are fudding projects and have discussions & fights about a subject. There are many people that are going to have questions about our game. There are many people that are wanting to collaborate with Duel Arena. To monitor all this we have set- up a team of 5 moderators that are going to get compensated for all these factors and moderating. Moderators are currently on stand- by but on release we will deploy them to their duty for the sake of the project.
Grant Support Squad analysis: These funds shouldn’t be necessary until the game is developed ($2.000)
Conclusion regarding budget:
- The Grantee has released $50.000 DAI and $25.000 DAI left.
- $16.500 ($7500+$2500+$4500+$2000) are funds that the grantee needs after the game has been done.
Conclusion:
After a comprehensive review and assessment of the project undertaken by the grantees to develop an immersive 3D game for the Decentraland platform, the Grant Support Squad has identified numerous critical issues and challenges. The project, unfortunately, has demonstrated a lack of high-quality development, resulting in several bugs, unpolished features, and unsatisfactory game quality during two rounds of testing. Several features and expectations laid out in the proposal remain unmet, further adding to the disappointment and concern regarding the successful completion of the project.
During the tests, non-functioning builds and unachieved game features highlighted the development difficulties facing the project, and despite the team’s motivation and attempts to rectify the issues, the limited time frame remains a significant concern.
The various budget allocations have also been questioned, suggesting that a considerable amount of the funds, totaling $16,500, should be utilized post the game’s successful development and not before, emphasizing the need for improved quality and development at this stage. In other words, this is something that the Revocations Committee could arrange with the Grantee, for example, recommend creating a new vesting contract with the rest of the funds ($25.000 - $16,500) and, if the project is completed, release the rest ($16.500) to accomplish the tasks that are scheduled post development. The project is built under SDK6. We are aware that when the proposal was submitted, the SKD 7 wasn’t released, but would be great if this be included in the roadmap/agreement because keeping funding projects like this is not beneficial for Decentraland.
Given the above findings, the Grant Support Squad recommends the revocation of the vesting contract of this project. According to the funds released, the multiple issues in game development and quality are not expected. Also, the overall lack of project progress emphasizes the necessity of this action. The recommendation is grounded in the commitment to uphold the standards and expectations of the Decentraland community, ensuring the optimal utilization of the DAO treasury and fostering an environment of accountability, excellence, and advancement within the ecosystem.
We recommend to the Revocations Committee (@dax @bay @maryana @MetaDoge) that they revoke the vesting contract. According that the vesting contract is paused, there is no need for the DAO Committee to be involved in until the Committee takes the final decision.
The grantee will have the opportunity to release a public statement explaining the work done, the issues that they had, and any other relevant points to the Revocations Committee. Also, if more information appears, we will send it directly to the Revocations Committee.
The Squad remains supportive and willing to provide the necessary assistance and guidance to the Grantee. The hope is that this decision will pave the way for more structured, transparent, and successful project undertakings in the future, engagement, and excellence within the community and platform.
Warm regards,
Grant Support Squad
