[DAO:9cc1e0b] Worlds 2.0 - Long-Term Plan

Governance
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by 0xd11a019a70986bd607cbc1c1f9ae221c78581f49 (Yemel)

Introduction

Decentraland is an open protocol to power the immersive internet, also known as the Metaverse. It is compounded by different types of user-generated experiences:

Public Experience (LAND)

A group of user-generated experiences arranged in a map, alongside roads and plazas, creating Genesis City, the first public good of the Metaverse. These public experiences receive visitors by foot traffic. Access to publishing such scenes is granted by owning or renting LAND tokens. The content of the experiences is hosted and replicated in Decentraland’s content network.

Private Experience (WORLDs)

All citizens of the metaverse have the right to own a World, a private space where you can free your imagination. A place to build your home or private room, in which you can control your surroundings and have access control. The content of the experience is hosted by the official World Content Server or self-hosted by the creator in their own instance.

Portable Experiences (WEARABLES)

A user-generated creation that affects the player experience, such as a fancy hat attached to your avatar, or some sweet moves to make your avatar dance, or a compass that guides you to the next adventure. Access to such experiences is granted by owning an NFT. The content of the experience is curated by the DAO and hosted on Decentraland’s content network.

Worlds Beta

While LAND and WEARABLES have been around for a time now, Worlds was recently introduced in December 2022 by Decentraland Foundation with the goal of lowering the entry barriers for builders. Without this initiative, creators need to pay a high ticket to access LAND or go to competitor platforms.
The beta launch included the release of an open-source World Content Server and provided an official instance accepting deployments of Worlds. The summary of the released feature is:

  • Creator needs a NAME to deploy a World.
  • Experience size is limited by asset storage (100MB).
  • Players can teleport to a World or use a direct link.
  • Creators can spin up their own World Content Server.
  • Worlds are not discoverable via Places, Events, and the Explorer.

The beta had the goal to test the technical implementation and gather community feedback about how to integrate Worlds into the Decentraland ecosystem. The Decentraland Foundation hosted a special AMA and published two proposals in the DAO to address the discoverability topic.

The community expressed their support of Worlds and acknowledged the potential to accomplish the goal of lowering the entry barrier and unleashing the creator’s creativity. However, the feature generated some discomfort among LAND holders because of the unlimited nature of private spaces being created in Worlds.
The ideal solution to the barrier to entry problem also takes into consideration the long-term interests of LAND owners and overall Decentraland economics.

Worlds 2.0 - Long-term plan

Every metaverse citizen should be able to have a private space in Decentraland, however the size of a world should grow based on how much they are involved in Decentraland’s ecosystem.

The genesis of virtual space in Decentraland can be traced back to the formation of Genesis City. During the Terraform Event, LAND was auctioned and millions of MANA proceeds were burned.

Following this precedent, the creation of a World, as isolated spaces, should require some sort of skin-in-the-game. The strategy could be laid out in a way that is very friendly to newcomers but also incentivizes them to get more involved in the ecosystem.

Summary

Any Ethereum address can make a signed deployment to the World Content Server, the only requirement is to have an ENS domain name (as cheap as $5 USD per year). They will get a 25 MB limit for their experience and in order to make it bigger they will need a DCL Name or LAND or MANA.

  • ENS domain holders have access to 25 MB of storage.
  • Decentraland Name holders have access to 100 MB.
  • LAND and ESTATE holders have access to a 100 MB space per LAND.
  • Holding 2,000 MANA gives you access to 100 MB of space.

For example, if a creator holds a Decentraland NAME, 1 LAND, and 500 MANA, they will have 225 MB of storage available in the World Content Server. The creators can deploy one big world or many tiny ones but never use more than 225 MB of storage.

World Size Limit

The recommendation is to limit the total storage of a World Content Server for a particular address based on the assets it holds. To have a reference, the Decentraland’s content network limits Genesis City experiences to 25 MB per parcel.

ENS Names

Worlds deployments are associated with Decentraland NAMEs, which are based on the ENS protocol, one of the biggest and most successful projects in Ethereum. The recommendation is to allow deployments of Worlds to any ENS name holder, but limited to a 25 MB experience.

This will provide a value proposition for the 600k unique name owners and invite them to create their own (small) world in the metaverse.

Decentraland NAMEs

The current version of Worlds (beta) already accepts deployments from NAME owners and limits the size to 100 MB (equivalent to 4 parcels in Genesis City). The recommendation is to keep the storage quota as is.

LANDs and ESTATES

The recommendation is that a LAND owner will receive a storage quota in the World Content Server equivalent to 100 MB per parcel owned.

MANA

Following the same relation used in DAO’s Voting Power scheme: 2,000 MANA = 1 LAND = 2,000 VP. The recommendation is to give a quota of 100 MB per each 2,000 MANA held by the account.

Official World Content Server

Truth be told, the restrictions of the space limits can only be enforced in the World Content Server hosted by the Foundation. Anyone has the freedom to run their own instance and host private content there which will still be accessible through Decentraland Explorer.

The recommendation is the Reference Client should warn the user that is about to jump into an unofficial server. The DAO could eventually maintain a list of official World Content Servers that follow the limitations and moderation policies demanded by the DAO.

Discoverability in Events and Places

Discoverability of Worlds in Events and Places should be limited to LAND owners and tenants. This will encourage the connection between Genesis City and Worlds through in-world portals.

Conclusion

The proposal aims to address the discoverability and entry barrier problems faced by creators in the Decentraland Metaverse. By providing different storage quotas based on the user’s involvement in the ecosystem, the proposal incentivizes users to get more involved while also taking into consideration the long-term interests of LAND owners and overall Decentraland economics.

  • Yes
  • No
  • Invalid question/options

Vote on this proposal on the Decentraland DAO

View this proposal on Snapshot

2 Likes
2

Like overall spirit of this proposal. Some thoughts:

Discoverability in Events and Places

Discoverability of Worlds in Events and Places should be limited to LAND owners and tenants. This will encourage the connection between Genesis City and Worlds through in-world portals.

In Long Term strategy, I feel this goes against the nature of the Worlds as they were created to reduce the barrier to entry and increase the opportunity to create and engage, but this will reduce accessibility and put additional barriers.

  • ENS domain holders have access to 25 MB of storage.
  • Decentraland Name holders have access to 100 MB.
  • LAND and ESTATE holders have access to a 100 MB space per LAND.
  • Holding 2,000 MANA gives you access to 100 MB of space.

Maybe I am wrong but it looks like there is some unbalance with storage size - seems like LAND and ESTATE holders, as well as those holding 2,000 MANA, should have more storage space considering the cost difference compared to ENS and Names.

3

The Land and Estate holders already have additional utility that takes up server space.

This is a compromise, not everyone gets everything they want in a compromise.

Given the likelihood that the prop to allow only worlds owned by land owners to be populated on event/places page, I think the compromise is reasonable and there is no reason to try and get more value for land speculators.

4

This proposal hits like a breath of fresh air! Its great to see efforts to integrate all stakeholders into this. The uncertainty that LAND holders have had to deal with since the introduction of WORLDs is palpable and even quantifiable, so this will bring much needed respite.

As for the allowance each LAND brings, I find it acceptable that the limit is set at 100mb per LAND. The issue with giving too much storage space to builders is that it’ll extend load times, especially for users who have an average processing unit. I personally use VRChat occasionally, and with a scene that, say, uses 100mb, it takes about 10 secs to download. It might not seem like long but I live in a country that has one of the highest internet speeds in the world. We should ensure that builders optimise for as many worldwide users as possible to achieve mass adoption. With new technologies like 5G coming around, hopefully we can increase that limit down the road.

5

The Foundation services should not be prioritized over the rest of the community-run (Foundation is a member of the community as any other entity) services.
If a warning message is shown for some worlds, then it should be shown for all worlds.
Similar for the Events and Plazas pages. The Foundation imposing artificial limit will only lower the Foundation legitimacy in running those services.

I do not feel this proposal bring anything new over Worlds 1.0, it only describes the future plan for the Foundation-run World Server, with features that are already available in other community-run servers (such as https://www.decentralandworlds.xyz/ which already support ENS name and different storage sizes depending how much you pay).

I understand the limit of storage on the Foundation’s server as there is technical (and financial) aspects backing it, but I do not think it needs to be up for a vote.

6

This sounds well balanced, i’ll vote yes.

A detail that isn’t mentioned is whether the quotas for deployment only exist at deployment time, or what happens after deployment if someone changes their factors (sells or transfers the name, land or mana) such that they no longer meet the quota for that scene.

7

I believe a staking mechanism will work to ensure that builders adhere to the quotas.

8

The ecosystems are now deeply ingrained in the group, ensuring a well-balanced and healthy system.

9

The scene should match the land or name, but I am not sure about the mana

10

I agree with @HPrivakos , there is no need for the foundation to make this poll.

But is a good gesture towards the community, so I’m not voting “Invalid”.

I also agree that we should deprecate the notion of “official World Content Servers”. In the same way Internet has no official nor unofficial websites.

The client just needs to clearly state to what World, or Network of Catalyst is connected to. Like an URL always visible on the top.

1 Like
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Worlds 2.0 - Long-Term Plan

This proposal is now in status: FINISHED.

Voting Results:

  • Yes 86% 5,330,677 VP (100 votes)
  • No 1% 5,266 VP (4 votes)
  • Invalid question/options 13% 838,523 VP (3 votes)
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Worlds 2.0 - Long-Term Plan

This proposal has been PASSED by a DAO Committee Member (0xbef99f5f55cf7cdb3a70998c57061b7e1386a9b0)