[DAO:a804013] Soul Magic Game Development

[dao]

by 0xd91db432d98d80e9467206cab3b9c46081795f0d (Mazzak)

Should the following $72,000 grant in the In-World Content category be approved?

Abstract

Soul Magic is a popular magical RPG in Decentraland and the game has currently reached a player base of 20,471. Players can collect and trade resources, train skills, craft wearables, build Space as well as play Capture Game, our NFT trading card game. There are 4 locations in Genesis City and Arcania, developed in DCL Worlds, has 1.7k unique visitors in Dec 2023. With this proposed grant, we are looking to enrich the game play of Soul Magic, onboard new players as well as retain existing ones.

Grant size

72,000 USD in DAI

Project duration

5 months

Beneficiary address

0xd91dB432D98D80e9467206cab3B9C46081795f0d

Email address

hello@soulmagic.io

Description

Soul Magic is one of the popular games in Decentraland and our main scene is consistently one of the top 10 places in Genesis City. In Soul Magic, players can collect and trade resources, train skills, craft items, complete quests, build Space and play Capture Game, the NFT trading card game. It aims to bring users different virtual experiences including play, build and earn. During November 2023, Capture Game was launched in Arcania world, which brought 4,175 unique visitors during the month. Arcania has an average DAU of 200-400 since its launch in November 2023, with our main scene -29, 81’s current 30-day DAU sitting at 148 according to DCL metrics. Our user base grew from around 10k by the end of June 2023 to over 20k as of now. The 4 locations in Genesis City of Decentraland, including the main scene, Elswyth Magic School, Angkor Temple and Space, as well as Arcania, which is developed in DCL Worlds, have been upgraded to SDK7.

The following are the key features that we are looking to launch with the support of this proposed grant:

1. Enhancement of farming gameplay - Add plowing, watering, fertilizers, farm animals, additional plants
2. Adding new skills for players to train, including Breeding, Textile, Woodcutting and Construction
3. Setting up PvE arenas of Capture Game, our NFT trading card game, at 5-10 locations in Genesis City with unique NPCs partnering with land owners, where players can earn daily rewards. Adding XP and level system. Running PvP tournaments and Battle Seasons
4. Running 3 upcoming festive themed quests including Lunar New Year, Songkran and Easter
5. Expansion of map in Arcania World by adding new terrains, and develop an interactive map function
6. Allowing players to invite friends to their private Space and develop a mini-game with co-operative mode
7. NFT staking function

Official links of Soul Magic:
Website: https://soulmagic.io/
Main scene in DCL: Soul Magic - Decentraland
World of Arcania World in DCL: Soul Magic Arcania - Decentraland
Space in DCL: Soul Magic Space - Decentraland
Genesis Child Z NFT on Opensea: https://opensea.io/collection/soulmagic
Capture Game NFT cards on Opensea: https://opensea.io/collection/capturegame
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soulmagicnft
Discord: Soul Magic

Roadmap and milestones

Month 1:
-Setting up PvE arenas of Capture Game
-Launch PvE daily rewards
-Development of XP and level system of Capture Game
-Capture Game PvP Tournament
-Lunar New Year festive quest

Month 2:
-Enhancement of farming gameplay
-Capture Game PvP Tournament
-Adding Breeding and Textile skills
-Easter festive quest

Month 3:
-Adding Woodcutting and Construction skills
-Capture Game PvP Tournament
-Final test and optimize farming and watering system and also gameplay. Develop PvP tournament system and design PvE arenas. Level design of map expansion. Songkran festive event

Month 4:
-Enhancement of Space and develop a mini-game
-Capture Game PvP Tournament
-NFT staking function

Month 5:
-Expand the Arcania World map by adding new terrains
-Capture Game PvP Tournament
-Develop an interactive map in Arcania

Vote on this proposal on the Decentraland DAO

View this proposal on Snapshot

[OGContraBand]

I have tried this game several times and the first step is talk to Tasior. Clicking Tezior does not teach you about the game like he/she/them is supposed to. I have commented to all the people standing around in the game numerous times, commented in DAO and social media. I thought for sure with the Grant request it will be fixed - nope. This is such a turn off to the outsiders/normies/new users and legacy 2D users when the games are broken on the first step. KOA was broken on the first steps but at least KOA fixed the issue I pointed out and offered a 5 mana bug-bounty.

Secondly it’s bizarre all the sleeping bot characters in here. With the game broken it makes it more obvious. Every time I cross in here doing air drops for a game called weed farm robbery and laser tag which are the ones that truly deserve the grant I ask “any body awake here?”, “what’s going on?”, “Tasior is broken please fix this” everyone is asleep AFK or bots. Now if I’m a new users not only is the game broke there’s tons of sleeping bots gathered around a caldron - seems like crypto cult.

Third there is already games for farming if I want to vote yes on a farming game Prawn is lovely peaceful everything works. Weed farm robbery is working great and so action packed. While Tasior is broke Weed farm that has yet to get a dime not only teaches how to play, but react to each user’s game state at that time. Will this be - use socialism grant for insiders just to destroy competition of weed farm and prawn farm?

4 - not every game needs logs. It’s getting to the point this is weird, why every game here has logs?? We can change the name logLand.

Lastly with PVP is that going to be where the insiders of DCL who all vote 1/2 mill against me just make an imitation copy but using a communist free money grant handout while I’m expected to be profitable with zero assistance from day 1? Maybe cutting all in-world content spending is the correct answer if it’s just going to attack and destroy new users, new devs and creative ideas. Every developer in the world is going to see if they come to DCL with a great idea, spend all their investment money to implement the game DCL will just steal the idea and push them out of town. Socialism for me and capitalism for thee classic DCL. If I want a world where the only real business is printing money for insiders I just go outside in the real world where the only real business is paying 0% taxes and receive billions in printed money like Elon Musk while saying “boot straps worked for me”.

[PunkPink]

Of course, YES

Soul Magic is an iconic scene in Decentraland that has provided great value to its users, and its team is very complete, diverse, and professional.

Moreover, the budget for this grant is very tight.

We’re talking about just $72K being enough to cover a team of 9 professionals specialized in their field for 5 months! This would mean a salary of only $1,600 per month for experienced personnel with a high level of performance, and that’s not even counting the giveaways, the cost of the equipment used, infrastructure, and fixed costs like hosting.

[HPrivakos]

I see no plan to be sustainable, and this is already their THIRD grant.
If we pass this one, we are going to keep paying them forever for a game which is nearly not played. (Decentraland platform fault, but it’s not a reason to keep spending money recklessly.)

[PunkPink]

@HPrivakos, currently the scenes that are sustainable are so because their teams work for free or under minimum conditions, the flow of people in the scenes is low not because those are bad, it is low because the traffic in Decentraland is low.

We have to increase traffic, and we will not achieve that if we leave Decentraland without activities.

I think we are at a point where if we stop financing these scenes or reduce spending for fear of running out of funds there will be nothing to save.

[Soulmagic]

Hi @OGContraBand ! The headmaster does not teach you, it is not a bug. You can go to the class room and complete the admission quiz to claim our Sunstaff wearable Regarding “sleeping bot characters”, players are meditating, which is one of the 8 skills in Soul Magic

[Soulmagic]

Hi @HPrivakos, we do have plans to be sustainable, however the first step is we need users to become sustainable. DCL depends on creators to onboard users and funding is needed for development and marketing in doing so. There is no clear plan on how DCL will incentivize creators, and grant is needed for fueling creation at this moment. Moreover, although it is our third grant, the amount of funding we received is still low compared to other projects in DCL.

[HPrivakos]

@Soulmagic

the amount of funding we received is still low compared to other projects in DCL.

Other people wasting money is not a reason for you to do it too

The platform is not ready to onboard more users, we need to improve the platform before perfectioning content.

[OGContraBand]

9 professionals specialized making $1,600 per month, still can’t handle 1 click event to show dialog after many complaints??

[Soulmagic]

The platform of DCL has improved with the launch of social log in, which makes onboarding easier. However, traffic of DCL dropped by 50% to around 2.2k DAU at this moment, compared to 6 months ago, meaning that content creation is shrinking.

[HPrivakos]

Because the platform is not ready, that’s why we should limit funding on content and focus on improve the platform itself first (graphics, performance, a proper builder).

[OGContraBand]

Previously used to tell you specifically to talk to this guy user was not allowed to meditate. I see now the quiz is not required, now new user allowed to meditate large pool added and more people are playing today. I guess if can’t make the click event work, disable the quiz is the 2nd best option.

“COME TO PRAY TO CULT, I AM THE NEW PREACHER OF DARK MAGIC HERE”

[RDixon]

It seems very short-sighted for people to stop supporting in-world content projects because the “platform is not ready”. It is not a zero-sum game. Depriving the world of good content will not make it easy to “reboot” DCL when the platform improves. It creates a huge loss of confidence and goodwiil, not to mention the loss of talented OG developers and players, and people who invested in the project since the early days.

Soul Magic is a solid game that has delivered in the past and can continue to deliver if they get more support. As usual we will support developers and content creators who do their best to improve the player experience in DCL.

[HPrivakos]

Talents OG developers already left. That’s too late to try to keep those. The best we can do is keep improving the platform, do massive changes that will hopefully bring them back.
Check the hackathons and contests done by the Foundation in 2019/2020 and tell me how much of those people are left and still building in DCL.

[Soulmagic]

Hi @HPrivakos , may I know what massive changes in the platform are you looking for? And how much time is needed for those changes?

[OGContraBand]

Answer => they just cut the budget and buy eth it seems. This now a crypto hedge fund. Maybe I didn’t have a good experience in soul magic but I do support those in-world content creation. Trade mana for eth without doing projects will be terrible for mana and DCL. It’s a big sell Mana just to lift up Eth. Eth don’t need our help that’s not what the DAO contract was for to benefit eth, no to benefit DCL.

[LandlordDao]

Soul Magic is a fast growing game in Decentraland and has demostrated high conversion, which is being able to attract larger amount of users with relatively lower cost. The game does not only pool players within Decentraland, but also brings new players from outside. Its player base and DAU grew despite the fact that DCL has a significant decrease of number of active users. In addition, Soul Magic is also collaborating with other communities in DCL, which brings awareness and users to them. Its impact metrics is among the best in DCL, and I would like to support the growth of this project, which will contribute to the success of DCL as a whole.

[MetaDogeisme]

It is a Chicken and Egg issue, we can easily say chicken is more important or egg is more important, but the reality is they are both important. That does not mean we should split 50-50 our resources to both of them, but also we cannot put all the resources into one spot either.

With the current budget allocation (considering what GSS proposed recently), which platform takes the biggest share, i think it is totally reasonable, but saying In-world content is not sustainable since the platform is not ready, and so we should not spend here, this is too extreme. Besides, the platform is not that that bad as we still got thousands of Daily users, even though there are millions of things to improve

[Soulmagic]

Hello all, I would like to add further comments regarding sustainability. Typically gaming projects will sell NFTs and earn royalty fee from secondary sales in order to generate income. Soul Magic is able to sell some of our NFT cards when the card game was launched. In addition we are applying for incubation programs in order to have additional funding source. However the top priority is that we need players to become sustainable, and DCL depends on creators to onboard users. If you are aware, the traffic of dcl dropped by 50% during these few months, meaning that content creation is diminishing. I believe funding should be put into creation in order to bring more users to DCL

[Morph]

Not against this grant, but as it is their third grant I would really like to see some more self-development and growth before a third round.

I think this would be a solid proposal to revisit after our grant freeze and new platform developments are completed.