[DAO:a91210f] Enhancing Exodus: Goodbye World - Transition to SDK7 and New Game Features

Governance
1

by 0x5117571b0bec00372ce00870ad8e523c704a78b7 (ExodusGBW)

Should the following $100,000 grant in the In-World Content category be approved?

Abstract

The purpose of this proposal is to support the expansion and improvement of the Decentraland RPG “Exodus: Goodbye World”. Exodus is a multiplayer RPG experience in which players can hone their skills, gather resources, trade with each other, participate in multiplayer events and earn NFTs.

With this grant, Exodus will support the development of new content as well as place a focus on user acquisition and retention. Exodus will add skills like potion making and farming while also refining the user experience by porting the game from SDK6 to SDK7, refining the game’s scene and designs, and expanding already developed content (like mining and fishing) to support more engaging mechanics and multiplayer interactions.

Grant size

100,000 USD in DAI

Project duration

6 months

Beneficiary address

0x5117571b0BEc00372CE00870ad8E523C704a78b7

Email address

exodusgbw@gmail.com

Description

Introduction

“Exodus: Goodbye World” (Exodus) is a multiplayer roleplaying game (RPG) aimed towards providing Decentraland users with an engaging as well as rewarding in-world experience. In Exodus, players have a large choice of skills and activities in which they can gather resources, produces new items, earn experience points, earn in-game currency, earn NFTs, trade, and interact with other players. Exodus provides hundreds of hours of activities and content, making it a valuable asset for user retention and engagement.

In 2023, Exodus has reached a net of 8000 all-time accounts created, having a current average of 75 weekly unique users. During that same time, Exodus released a variety of content and hosted several in-world holiday events. To give some examples, in 2023 Exodus released: Player-to-Player trading, Multiplayer Item Dropping, Workshopping Skill, Combat Alpha Content, Player Owned Pets, UI Overhauls, Scene Overhauls. As well, Exodus hosted multiplayer in-world events for: Valentines Day, Easter, Business Week, Exodus’s Birthday, and Thanksgiving. Exodus’s holiday events always offer a boon to player engagement, with past events averaging in around 500 new accounts created per event and 2000 NFTs given out as gameplay rewards. We believe that Decentraland needs engaging games like Exodus in order to retain DAU and drive organic growth. Exodus provides a fun experience where users play can interact with each other for a large number of hours without running out of activities or things to do. Moreover, consistently hosting interactive holiday events helps retain existing and returning users by providing them with consistent updates and content to look forward to.

Check out our socials at: https://X.com/ExodusGBW

Play at: Decentraland

Enhancements

Expanding Exodus by introducing new skills and multiplayer mechanics will further refine Exodus’ ability to attract new users and retain them. With this grant, Exodus will focus on a few primary objectives: SDK7 Migration, Potion Making, Farming, and Multiplayer Enhancements. With SDK6 reaching its end-of-life, we are migrating our already existing code to SDK7. Given the size of our codebase, this is an extensive task, but will ultimately allow us to integrate many exciting and appealing features that are offered by SDK7. The introduction of our Potion Making and Farming skills will provide even more hours of content for our players as well as prove our commitment to releasing new content for already existing players. Lastly, we intend to enhance already existing content, like fishing, mining, and woodcutting, to have multiplayer features - this will help make our content more engaging and interactive.

In addition to these enhancements, Exodus plans to be a regular and continuing host of in-world events for a variety of holidays. In the upcoming future, Exodus will be hosting events for Christmas, Valentines Day, and Easter.

Roadmap and milestones

Our intended content roadmap for the 6 month grant period be as follows. Note that development of features may overlap based on our development and release cycle.

SDK 7 Migration

  • Estimated 3 months timeline. Goals include migration of: 3D scene asset spawning, NPC dialogs and interactions, UI for inventory, bank, store, equipment, skills, animations for all skills and activities.

Farming Skill

  • Estimated 2 months timeline. Goals include creation of plants and seeds 3D and 2D assets, animations for growing plants, backend programming for skill, front-end integration.

Potion Making Skill

  • Estimated 2 month timeline. Goals include creation of potion 3D and 2D assets, backend programming for skill, front-end integration.

Pet Cosmetic Skins

  • Estimate 1 month timeline. Goals include creation of alternative pet appearances and integrating the ability of player to choose appearance.

Multiplayer Resource Gathering

  • Estimated 2 months timeline. Will make resource gathering a multiplayer experience. Goals include backend updates to keep track of resources and respawning, front-end updates for triggering animations.

We will update the community on a monthly basis as to the progress of each feature. Once completed, we will release the content to be deployed in world within the following month.
We will host in-world events for: Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Easter. We will report user engagement metrics in our grant updates for each event.

Vote on this proposal on the Decentraland DAO

View this proposal on Snapshot

2

The Exodus Team has truly done an amazing job. There are only a handful of development groups in DCL that I believe deserve a grant like this, and Exodus is definitiely one of them. We, as a DCL community, HAVE to support the groups that are dedicated to developing in Decentraland. This team has overcome the ups/downs (including a rough bear market) and continues to put in the work to build a great game.

I remember almost 2 years ago the plan was to have a simple “woodchopping” activity in Decentraland. And now Exodus has turned into a full out RPG with tons of great skills and events to participate in.

I truly believe the success of Decentraland relies on the games/activities being built for the next “bull” market. The current events happening in DCL are awesome, but I believe we need more consistent games/activities for players to participate in to retain daily active users.

My philosphy:
Daily active users = In-game transactions
In-game transactions = In-game economy
In game economy = Decentralands success

IMO we need to continue to support games/activities that will bring in/retain users in order for DCL to be successful.

That is why I am voting YES in support of the Exodus Grant Proposal.

3

0% SHARE OF GLOBAL VISITORS
17 daily unique visitors average over the last 90 days, most of which stay less than 30 minutes, the rest stays over 16 hours (afk and bots)

Let’s just cut the expenses already. It might be a great game, idk, I didn’t play, but it’s not worth another freaking 100,000 USD…

4

From the bottom of my heart I think it’s wiser to spend on in world content or experiences for when the next bull run comes and DCL becomes a hype again.

I think game creators should get funding for this and to be honest the price to have a game with alot content deserves to have a little over 160-200k for the time and effort to keep their work up and people entertained, although I do advise exodus to host more events to build a bigger community for the money they have already had but I believe that it will be done in this next run.

also note that SDK7 conversion can be hard, I dont agree that it should be expensive like 15k and could be lower but still if @ExodusGBW says that they need this amount I can agree to disagree.

Overall the project is being worked on and going great Just more events and maybe price reduction would help alot! Voting Yes!

5

Im voting YES but we need to find new ways to fund game development. It does us no good to let projects die that are bringing people in but also at some point have to figure if they ever will bring more or not.

6

We all know this a Yes from me. We need to continue to expand in world content to keep people live playing and loving Decentraland. A lot of people have left and JTV and the Exodus team are still here dedicating their lives to doing their best to make it a reality the best they can. Open to all feedback but that is where I am at with this now for sure.

7

100%, spent like 12+ hours there yesterday skilling lol.

8

We should not be paying any scene to migrate to sdk7, nor should that be on the roadmap of any current or future scene. It’s required by everyone going forward.

Once we start paying for sdk7 upgrades on scenes, it’s Pandora’s box for everyone asking for funding. It’s so hard to judge a dollar amount per project. How much of this migration is part of the grant? It says 3 month timeline which is the longest timeline on the request. Does this mean it received the most % of the funds requested? — edit , the forum doesn’t show your cost breakdown, but the grant request page does. This prior sentence in italic is amended to be irrelevant. —

If Exodus receives funds to migrate to sdk7, should DG as well? Or what about sugar club? Or what about anyone’s 1x1 scene? Or Vroomway (which already got rejected for asking for migration funds), or golf craft, or koa. Or angzaar which is ALREADY converting sdk7 for free and is the largest single development in the space? Where does the gatekeeping start and end for scenes being able to receive funds for migration?

I think the discussion, if any, should start with receiving back pay for the migration once it’s complete. And this amount should be set based on multiple review sessions with technical people to assess the amount of work to convert to sdk7. I also think a cap could be set on how much is available for migrating your scene.

TLDR, we shouldn’t subsidize migrations to sdk7 for any scene.

9

Gatekeeping for people receiving funds starts and ends with people voting like it always has been. I think the discussion if any shouldn’t be comparing who’s doing what for “free” as we are all not in the same situation to allow that. It’s not a gracious hill the stand on. Also I see no difference in a team asking to be funded to migrate vs a team asking for funding to build on sdk7 from scratch. The pay back is good though just takes some honour from the grantees and communication with unbiased technical people.

10

Migrating something current is not the same as building something from scratch. We are all required to use sdk7, therefore, we shouldnt be subsidizing “required” parameters for scenes.

As mentioned, one possible option is for back pay once the migration is complete; but paying for a migration prior to that is again setting a dangerous precedent for allowing ANY sdk6 scene to receive funds to migrate to sdk7. If you do it for one, you must do it for all.

11

Any sdk6 scene is allowed funding to migrate. The road block is the voting not the right to ask. If all scenes asking for funding to migrate get declined then so be it. If a few pass and a few get declined again so be it. It is down to the outcome of the vote not the right of access. “If you do it for one, you must do it for all” has never been the case in any instance. It has always been down to the vote.

12

This type of funding decision is completely different from any other decision making. It’s tied to a required development specification for ALL scenes.

If you allow anyone to ask for migration funds, the DAO will be drained with people voting for their friends etc. Someone with a 1x1 can ask for $50k in funding and have 2-4 people vote on it and it passes. The migration might only cost $50.

This is setting a dangerous precedent to deplete DAO funds further. We cannot allow blanket requests for migration funds. There needs to be a process and review in place.

13

From day 1 the dao has been getting drained from people voting for their friends and back end deals. At least with migration funding you already have proof of commitment to the platform with a team that’s already trusted. The fundamental problems of the dao shouldn’t hinder progress of actual content.

14

So just continue to proceed as normal just because it’s happened in the past? Tough viewpoint to support.

No one is hindering anyone from migrating to sdk7. Yes, it costs time and money; that should not come from the DAO. Again, if it does, then it’s pandora’s box.

15

I have talked about ways to combat what you mentioned multiple times with vp whales ect. But thanks for your assumption of MY viewpoint :')
The DAO is a vote, what should and shouldn’t be funded is decided by that vote. Anything else is an opinion of yours.
Also a migration grant doesn’t open any flood gates, from day one 2-4 people have always been able to pass whatever and from day one everyone has had the equal opportunity to ask for whatever.

16

I’ve already mentioned a way to use DAO voting for migration funds → 1) once the migration is complete 2) a technical group reviews the workload required and potential funds required (you even alluded to an agreement on this in your first reply to me)

But the way this is currently structured is not good and should not be implemented. SDK7 migration funds should not be given out prior to the migration and/or a technical review.

17

Please, take this to any real world scenario. Here’s a simple one.

  • Renovating a house (upgrades)

When you hire a contractor, they say “it will cost $15,000 for your kitchen” - do you get a second opinion? do you ask for an itemized list of cost breakdown including labor + materials?

this above scenario would be akin to going in front of a technical review team first to vet the time and cost required for the upgrade (migration).

Also, once agreed upon the SOW (scope of work) for your contractor, do you just give them $15,000 up front and hope they do the work? Or do you pay them in installments as the work is complete?

this scenario highlights not paying for work until its complete or paying for the work as you go to make sure it’s done properly.

This isn’t rocket science. Common sense should not be thrown out the window just because this is a metaverse and we all have a say in it.

18

Although I like the idea not everyone is in the same position to allow this which means ultimately EVERYTHING comes down to the vote and that is where the gatekeeping is, not the access to opportunity. But yep we for sure all have a say!
Also here funding can get paused if the amount of output is not up to par, it’s not a risk to allow opportunity when there’s measures against no output.
I don’t get why these things are issues now and here with this specific request. You’re talking against the way funding has always been done here but using it against this specific ask. Peach to a wider audience not try fud someone else’s opportunity to ask.

19

This isn’t to fud someone’s project. I mentioned nothing else about the grant request. I am being very direct in my statements. No one should get sdk7 migration funds. If that’s the case, then everyone should.

However, I’ve suggested alternatives to how we could possibly approach migrations and costs associated to it with DAO funds.

20

I understand what we say are opinions but It’s literally down to a vote, It’s not a no one gets it or everyone gets it thing. This is a dao with a free right to vote.
Your alternatives are interesting but not everyone is able to commit then hope to get funding.
Anyways, thank you for the conversation.