Earlier this week, we hosted a live AMA in our Telegram community with Curran Mulvihill, Co-founder of Elementeum Games and developer of TCG Ether Legends.
Here’s what Curran had to say about the project’s recent transition to ERC-1155, developer collaboration, gas fees, and more.
Curran: First, I would like to introduce myself. My name is Curran Mulvihill and I am the creator and Co-founder of Elementeum Games and the Ether Legends project. I currently reside in Denver, Colorado. I am a hard core closet gamer and crypto enthusiast.
I have been in the crypto space on and off since 2009, with extensive professional experience in managing projects and portfolios of projects—some related to the gaming space and some distantly related in solving complex problems, both hardware and software related.
I have since been working with a small team to develop and bring to market a trading card game yet to be seen in the general sense, and definitely yet to be seen in the blockchain gaming sense.
The project and game title, Ether Legends, has been in work for a couple of years, is self-funded, and makes up of the second half of every day for me = really LONG days… 🙂
The challenge of blockchain keeps me personally motivated with knowing that we are all on the cutting edge of technology, trailblazing the path, and to see this game through is an absolute commitment from myself and my small team, which also reside here in Colorado.
And a little about the game: Ether Legends is a collectible trading card game that spans to both physical and digital trading card assets, backed by blockchain tech.
Powered by Enjin: Ether Legends
“After the dust settled from the first expansion of the multiverse, an ancient arena mysteriously emerged on an island in a distant land.”
Learn more about this unique, Enjin-powered TCG.
enjin.io
Made for both casual players and hardcore PvP enthusiasts, this game takes minutes to learn but a lifetime to master. Ether Legends offers thousands of ways to build your lineup of champions, incorporating player-owned, tokenized assets to battle within the virtual Ether Legends arena. Players and collectors abroad can participate in earning rewards in-game and out of game through engagement in the ecosystem.
The game concluded early alpha testing at the beginning of this year and is set to release before the end of this year, 2020. The Ether Legends digital release is to be available for download on iOS and Android mobile devices.
Curran: We have plans to extend the community outreach with collaboration of assets playable in multiple games. These networks are continually being developed to help bridge cross-chain elements, which to me, means the sky is the limit in the long haul.
A standard doesn’t prevent anyone outside of the multiverse to incorporate game assets however, custom work would need to be done, as with any collaboration.
Enjin has this ‘multiverse asset capability’ where provisioning exists for rapid deployment in the Enjin Ecosystem—meaning easier and more cost effective for collaboration, since the infrastructure is already present.
As the infrastructure of linking chains matures, this mechanism is bound to get easier and easier.
Curran: For years now, I have always been an advocate for community collaboration with the ultimate goal of mainstream adoption in mind.
I want to remind folks that a standard of a token should not divide the blockchain gaming community. There are benefits to both standards.
I see now, with the increase of gas costs, ERC-721 tokens do not stack, fees are more and the sustainability requires a 3rd party scaling solution to be cost effective.
To sum it up, Enjin is a one-stop-shop and makes the most sense for Ether Legends players, and community.
Curran: The Enjin Platform is powerful, and has the community and tools behind it to make a real difference for the player and developer. These tools reduce significant development costs, and in turn, offer players a one-stop-shop to play games and participate in multiple game ecosystems, under the Enjin umbrella.
Since joining Enjin, the most significant update includes the revamp of the Ether Legends game ecosystem, to leverage and use the cost savings elements of ERC-1155 to pass on to our players and the changes to help address the increasing gas cost situation.
One example, is in the digital game, when you win a game, you receive an ERC-1155 blockchain asset called “Token of Triumph.” Rather than sending a transaction every time a match is won, these items can be batched and stacked (thanks to ERC-1155) and sent in spaced-out increments, say “10 at a time,” thus eliminating 9x transactions, down to one transaction.
The example mentioned above are transaction fees paid by the company in this instance, and the reduction of those intervals and methodology applies across the board to players and developers alike, until full scaling solutions are realized.
Curran: ELET is our in-game currency and represents a virtual power-up as well a utility for various functions.
You will be able to purchase ERC-1155 characters with ELET once the ecosystem is implemented beyond its existence today. You can earn ELET by playing, and it can be used for the game forging mechanic to obtain new characters, that is also being adjusted to support the full Enjin Ecosystem.
Ether Legends Forging Guide
Forging enables players to interact with Ether Legends blockchain collectibles by fusing items to items, items to characters, companions to characters, and the creation of unique NFTs.
tcg.etherlegends.com
Curran: What differentiates Ether Legends first and foremost is the artistic flare with rarity and scarcity of assets.
The Ether Legends game play mechanics are very different from your traditional trading card games, where each champion is defending their own health for survival, while trying to eliminate your opponent’s three champions.
Ether Legends Gameplay Guide
Learn to play Ether Legends! This guide is tailored toward the Physical game, however the online digital game shares the same base game mechanics
tcg.etherlegends.com
The Elementeum power-up offers special abilities that make the game more about choice, and skill rather than numbers, although there is still an element of luck (roll of the dice) that determines your ability effectivity.
The foundation of the mechanics are scalable to allow the continuation of adding new mechanics and abilities, which include things that we have added since alpha; such as the aiding of playable companions.
Companions can be played in conjunction with a champion’s base ability, providing further in-depth game play and of course choice to the path to victory and even survival.
Curran: My thoughts on Enjin’s scaling solution (“Efinity”) is that it is an absolute game changer for games built on the Enjin Platform and the Ethereum Network.
The reason is that Efinity will offer free, or gasless, transactions within the Enjin ecosystem, eliminating network transactional costs from both the developer and player perspective, allowing assets to move freely without compromising the safety and security of what blockchain has to offer.
The importance of Efinity is to me, the most crucial factor to further blockchain gaming and mainstream adoption, and I’m really excited for it.
Rest assured, the ERC-721 assets that exist today will remain and be supported in the Ether Legends game now and always. As we migrate to the Enjin Ecosystem, new assets that are created will be ERC-1155.
The current ecosystem aspects that include ERC-721 like forging will remain and be adapted with new forging paths that are in support of Efinity and the future Enjin-powered Ecosystem.
With gas transaction cost increases outside of our control, ERC-721 has become much more expensive in terms of transaction fees then that of the current Enjin ERC-1155 assets.
The team has done extensive research (and even deployed smart contracts to test various solutions), and I believe Enjin has the best solution for now and the future.
Curran: Temporary workarounds, yes, but the ultimate answer to the rise of gas costs, affordability and onboarding is Efinity.
In the interim, changes need to be made (for games) as the Enjin community awaits the release of Efinity. Workarounds that our team have developed are intervals in which items or assets that are sent out, by building server side infrastructure to have hybrid systems of databases to help store different game elements to help offset high-fee gas micro-transactions.
I believe you will see more of a hybrid approach from many games and creators to help minimize the impact of the gas crisis and then a reduction in hybrid solutions to adjust to Enjin’s scaling solution, once available.
One other suggestion in the current environment, is for players and developers is to take a close look at the utility of Enjin’s ERC-1155 fungible tokens. Whether you create or send 1 token or 1000 tokens, the transaction costs are the same because these assets stack, similar to ERC-20.
As we bridge the gap, all rewards received or sent out to users will NOT have transaction fees for players.
Curran: Scaling solutions will be key ? as they serve the community without compromising security. So with scaling and “free,” more and more will be rolled in with those features, which we are well on our way.
Curran: Blockchain in general, is safe, reliable and at its base-level, kind of slow and clunky.
The point of the blockchain, again especially with scaling solutions, is for players to tokenize and own their digital content. For developers, it reduces infrastructure, which reduces costs by eliminated middle men (and women).
As this tech furthers, it will be just as easy as accessing the internet today! Will take some time to get through it 🙂
Curran: Any wallet – using Metamask, and working on the Enjin Wallet linking as well!
Curran: Physical is an entire market of its own, and we didn’t want to leave out the 20M people who still play physical card games! And what better way than to tie the two together—allowing for physical to become digital, totally owned and controlled by you!
Curran: Yes! I think gaming is being overshadowed by DeFi, but I think gaming is soon to blow up on blockchain in a similar way.
Curran: MTG, Pokémon, actually many comic books too, World of Warcraft, and Hearthstone.
Curran: Ooo yes.
Curran: Yes! Let me leave you with this and we can answer in more detail any time. Feel free to ask questions in our Telegram channel!
We’d like extend a big thank you to Curran for taking the time to join us, and to everyone who participated!
Until next time—see you in the chat room.
