OKRA SPACE

Progress

Things are still shaping up for a “soon” launch, currently most of the core services are developed and the main focus atm is finalizing the art and card stats. Some work still needs to be done on the services, but most of them are functionally complete and are just in need of deployment testing on testnet, to make sure there are not in unseen bugs or issues that will pop up when under heavy use. Testing on this will commence in a week or two, as I will simulate asset movements, card pack redemption and various things to ensure everything work correctly when under full use. Everything does well in limited tests, but once I integrate all the services I need to make sure that there are no issues that arise. This does not need to all occur before an alpha launch and likely won’t, as the alpha is going to be handled without on-chain assets for a few weeks, as to focus on validating functionality before hand….this doesn’t mean that you won’t be able to earn rewards, just that assets will not be required to play. Another thing that needs deployment testing is the back end in a non local environment, hoping this will go easy but this could also cause some delays. Looking to deploy properly from the start, which involves make sure there are systems in-place to curtail any malicious activities against the server like ddosing.

Alpha

Still hoping to meet the target of an alpha by the end of the month, but there is still a 50% chance it may need to be delayed by a few week. Currently the main barrier to release is art and finalizing the animations and full testing of the client with the art integrated. This process should go fairly fast but could face some slow downs. Right now the stats and functionality of cards is being rough drafted, and this needs to be tested some for balance and the final stats decided (What will the numbers be for the actual pawn stats vs cards stats, how long will a game take to play with various combinations). Atm the goal is for each game to take around 8-12 minutes to play, as I feel this is a good time period as its not too long, but also allows for more advanced tactics to have time to play out.

The alpha will launch public to all and will not require any assets, I was going to skip authorization in the part, but have decided to also test the auth system during this as well. Players will be rewarded for playing at a fixed rate, and will be given random cards to play with. This will allow for testing of the systems, insight into how balancing will play out, and allow for some stress testing. Looking to run the alpha for 10-14 days.

After the first wave of alpha testing is over, it will transition into a 2nd wave which will integrate asset testing and change the reward system to a performance based system.

Rewards

Players will be rewarded for winning and hopefully will also be able to get a small reward for losing on a few games per day. I really don’t like the idea of only the winners getting rewards as I feel it is unfair to those just looking to play casually. Though this also provides more vectors for people to try to exploit and game the system. This wouldn’t be taken too far, just say you can get a small reward chance for your first 3 losses in a day, that is less than the rewards one would get for winning. Hopefully the overhead of moving assets between wallets to try to exploit this, makes it not worth it. If it becomes an issue, systems will be put into place to monitor and temporary prevent rewards from those transferring same assets constantly between the same accounts. If someone wants to have multiple accounts with full assets needed to play, they can do as they please, only concern is people transferring the same assets between multiple account to game the reward system.

Winning rewards will be various things, either OKRA tokens, random cards, or potions. In the future there may also be various contests that one will be entered into by winning a set amount in a period of time. These rewards will have some variance and will likely taper off to some extent after a certain amount of wins (This will be a fairly high threshold), to keep people from massively sinking time and receiving more than others who cant due to linear rewards. This is similar to what other games do with their reward systems. This likely will take form of earning more random card drops vs tokens as your wins progress.

Asset Acquisition

Assets will be purchasesable with both OKRA and XCH, with funds from XCH purchases being used to buy OKRA back off the open market or from the reserves. This is needed to keep a balanced economy and price around OKRA as outline in the tokenomics section.

All new players will be able to purchase a starter kit, which will provide them will a lower-mid level Pawn Set. A Pawn Set can be considered kind of like a deck, it has 3 pawns, each with their own ability deck, action deck and weapon. As well as a power deck that is shared between them. The starter kits will provided lower-mid level cards and give a basis to start playing and building off of. Anyone who has been collecting OKRA from airdrops and definitely those who receive okra from supporting via NFT will have more than enough to get one and some card packs, They will be in the 10k-20k OKRA range, likely on the lower side of that estimate.

Card packs will be able to be purchased for smaller amounts of OKRA in the 2-5k range, I haven’t fully ironed this out, as I want them to be easily acquirable, but also contain enough cards as to not increase the overhead of distribution too much. There will be a few different ones, likely a smaller one a larger one, a special pack around new card releases and a large box set style pack.

Assets will have rarity with higher level cards being more rare, there also will be queue balancing where players are matched with other players with similar level Pawn Sets. This will be outline in a later blog.

Tokenomics

Though some may disagree with this in the Play-To-Earn space (I actually hate this term, I like the semantics of earn while playing better), the goal is to maintain a fixed price around OKRA, as from watching other crypto based game’s tokens have a huge barrier of entry at their peaks, to quickly fall into a recession and lose much of their held value. While everyone like the idea of getting rich off of tokens and playing a game, it’s has not at all shown to be a sustainable model, and at its worst creates a high-risk barrier of high entry costs, and high risks of losing chances of any fair returns on those entry costs outside of small windows. As stated from the beginning the goal of the project is to maintain a fair barrier of entry and to avoid what I can only describe as Crypto Bullshit, where a few insiders who timed their entry right earn off the backs of those who come after them.

Maintaining a stable price is also an important factor when it comes to future regulatory compliance, OKRA is mean to be a utility token, not just in name, but in practice. It is meant to be liquid and to provide utility in the ecosystem, not to be held for gains. This doesn’t mean players won’t be earning while playing, but that they will get predictable rewards and not lose out by not being in the right place at the right time. Crypto gaming should be about fun, not monitoring markets and holding bags hoping to dump them on others at a peak price. This doesn’t mean that player can’t hold or do what ever they please with their tokens, just that holding for asset appreciation isn’t going to work. This maintains status as a utility token, while also supporting the circularity of the economy.

OKRA emissions are going to begin to be scaled back, this is due to the fixed supply, and concerns around how much of that will actually be liquid and not lost to airdrop hunters. Currently around ~30m of the 500m supply have been release, airdrops will still continue though these will be scaled back. Depending on how successful the game is, there are concerns around how to maintain a circular economy. This was a known concern going in with a fixed supply and can be adjusted through emissions over time. A fixed supply is a core tenet of this project, as I don’t feel it fair for the project to just be able to mint more at any time. If supply does become an issue, it will first be adjusted through emissions(which will also in turn scale the price of card packs accordingly) and worst case the token could be reissued with a higher fixed supply, though this is to be avoided as much as possible and would only happen in a situations where liquidity is being held in high amounts and not being put back into the game itself or the market.

Profit Model

To maintain the services, support and expenses of the game it does need to have a profit model. There are several ways this will be implemented with the goal to be transparent and fair. At no point will the barrier to enter, play, or participate be more than lower double digit figures. Entry into the game will be around $20 with card packs being a few dollars each, with card packs and other assets easily earn-able solely by play, outside of the entry set needed to start. Those who have supported the project with NFTs and those who have been collecting OKRA already have all they need to begin. The project also will keep the existing ecosystem mantra of supporting charitable causes, these may change over time, but the starting focus will be charities that support programming in children, marginalized communities and the developing world.

There are two ways the project will make profits.

1. Royalties on assets

Assets will have a royalty fee attached, with the hopes that people use offers and traditional markets to buy/sell/trade. Other crypto space games use their own markets to enforce this, but the main goal of the project is letting people fully own and control their own assets. After alpha launch there will be a marketplace inside the client, but users are free to do what they want with their assets.

The royalty fee currently being consider is 10% with 2.5% to charity and the other 7.5% to the project.

2. Periodic releases of okra reserves to the market

Most other project in the space seem to rely on adding other barriers of entry or assets needed to come solely from the project developers themselves and/or holding a reserve with vague terms around how it can be released to the market.

The approach the Okra Project will take, is 12.5% of all tokens from the original mint and those received through asset purchases will be held in the projects reserves, with the other 87.5% going back into the community reserved to be distributed via reward, airdrops, etc. The projects reserve will never account for more than 12.5% of the total supply, if the Reserve is full all incoming tokens will be reverted into the community fund.

At various times the project will release funds of these reserves onto the market in non-impactful ways. These releases will be limited to a set percentage of circulating funds. This will take the shape of no more than 10% of the open market at a given time (amount circulating in offers or open to purchases). These funds will also take precedence on OKRA buy backs of card packs purchased with XCH as to avoid entering them into the open market at all. Since the reserves also start full, while distribution of the community tokens will also start limited, there will be limits to the amount of the reserves able to be released also based off of total circulating supply. This will be in the form of no more than an amount up to 10% of the circulating supply of tokens can be released to the market in a given month.

The goal is to do these releases slowly, over time and only when needed as to blend with the market and not have an impact. This combined with a more fixed token price due to allowing XCH as an alternative with an adjusted by market value XCH price on assets protects the OKRA economy from the impact of these releases. Once a market is implemented in the client, these releases will likely be blended with users offers in the client market. This way there is little price competition, offers from the reserve will match existing prices. This will take some experimenting with how it plays out, as to avoid under cutting of token prices buy sellers trying to compete, but through practice other measures will be put in place depending on how things play out. OKRA from the reserves will not be undercutting existing prices and the goal is to slowly and seamlessly blend with the market supply.

A percentage of the profits from reserve sells will also go towards a charity contribution fund. This amount hasn’t yet been decided on but should be in the 5-10% range.

All actions around the reserves will be taken transparently and easily auditable.

If there are any concerns with the model outlined above, please reach out as I am very open to peoples opinions around it.

Rewards For Okra Folk Holders

Okra Folk NFTs will function like a premium in the game, they will allow users to Store more pawn sets (10 vs 5), and holders will be given a free potion allocation daily or weekly. Airdrops will continue for the time being, but may be scaled back over time or changed to a system where Okra Folk holders get higher rewards in game. This is still an area being iron out and will be elaborated on more later.

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Filed under: Uncategorized - @ November 13, 2022 11:09 pm