Let’s introduce Observooor Mode (Request for comments)

Game Mechanics
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Hey frens, this month we are hard at work preparing the Fake Gotchis + NFT Display release, that aims to introduce the world of art into the Gotchiverse in a big way.

One main use case of the NFT Display will be allowing people to purchase NFTs from the display case itself, which opens up a lot of possibilities (much more on this coming in a blog post soon!).

We expect a lot of new frens to be experiencing the Gotchiverse for the first time through the NFT display, Fake Gotchis, and the Paarty Portal (an event-creation installation).

However, we are acutely aware that the process of getting into the Gotchiverse is quite friction-heavy at the moment, something this proposal aims to solve.

We propose introducing Observooor Mode, a new way of entering the Gotchiverse that gives the player limited access to the Verse, with the following abilities:

  • Can move around the Gotchiverse (still bound by the physics of the game)
  • Can place installations, tiles, and upgrades on parcels they own
  • Cannot interact with harvesters, altars, or any other yield-generating installations
  • Cannot pickup Alchemica

Essentially, the Observooor would allow players to join the game, participate in NFT Display art events, and even build on a parcel that they own, but they would not be privy to the yield-generating aspects of the Verse.

“Well can’t they just rent a Gotchi?” you may ask.

Yes, but renting a Gotchi is not always an easy process, and adds a layer of friction that could be potentially demoralizing to a new entrant to the ecosystem.

First, they would need to get GHST. Then, they would need to compete against bots to get the Gotchi. Finally, they may not have a long duration to play, and for non-yield-generating activities, they would consider it a waste.

So I believe it’s essential to the growth of the Gotchiverse that we have an easy way for new players to onboard, directly from clicking a tweet from Twitter (generated from the Paarty Portal), and jumping into the game.

(We’ll have more info on Paarty Portal in an upcoming blog post — this proposal is just for Observooor Mode).

So what do you think frens? Should we open the Gotchiverse to hordes of Observooooors? Would love to get some feedback on the community on this idea. If there are no major disagreements, we will likely introduce it alongside the NFT Display and Fake Gotchis release.

19 Likes
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I do like the idea of giving players with little to no Aavegotchi assets a way to enter the Gotchiverse to at least experience and see what’s possible. Bonus points if they can use the text chat as well.

I’m assuming that players in observooor mode will be visible. If not, that could be a problem in the future for spying i guess like during a great battle. (maybe monitoring onchain activity is already stealth enough though) Also, in observooor mode, is it necessary for them to own land to enter? That may be a good way to stop someone from making tons of bots to enter and slow down the servers. I’m all for giving access to everyone as long as it isn’t abused.

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No there would be no requirements for entry, but it would still be 1 wallet = 1 player like it currently is. There’s no financial incentive for someone to spam accounts so I doubt it will be a big issue, but if it does happen we could restrict things a bit more.

Yes they would be visible in-game and have the same physics as Aavegotchis.

Yep they could use bubbles and the chat

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I like the idea very much. We need exposure to the outside world. Gotchiverse will be very much about aestetics, and the art needs crowd to be appriaciated.

Going forward we should always think about what we allow observooors to do with new features introduced to Gotchiverse. When we introduce particular daaps, we need to think if observers are able to use them.

In the future, if usage is in demand, we could “turn on” alchemica sink on observooors. In order to enter gotchiverse with observoor you would have to pay some alchemica for entrance…. But thats the future.

My 2 keks.

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Looks good from my perspective, as long as you disable it during alchemica drops (because obvious reasons).

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I think it’s an excellent idea. Once the NFT displays and all the art are taking place, it will be even more important for anyone to be able just walk around the verse to experience it. Anyone who seamlessly can enter to explore the verse and get hooked all the things related to aavegotchi can jump into the rabbit hole for finding about yields, renting, farming etc. But for getting the feet wet observer mode would be great to have.

It would also bring liveliness to gotchiverse just foot traffic wise, we have a lot of space(lands) but not matching amount of gotchis even every gotchi was live at the verse at the same time :slight_smile: eventually it would lead to more interaction, more volume for art purchases via the nft displays and list goes on. I strongly support the idea.

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Why would you need to disable it during alchemica drops? Observooors cannot pick up Alch

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You should cap the max number of observers though, so that they can’t nuke the server. It might also make sense to make maxObservers a dynamic value between two extremes, in order to allow less observers onto the server when the server is close to capacity (i.e. prioritize Gotchi-logins over observer-logins as the total number of logged-in users gets closer to being at capacity).

People don’t need financial incentives to nuke a service. Also, you guys recently did a big token swap with the DAO, partly because of your server costs. So this is a good opportunity to show the DAO that server cost and load is handled responsibly.

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The backend refactoring we’re currently working on should eliminate all lag issues throughout the Gotchiverse, as it’s a true horizontal-scaling solution. I.e farming your parcel won’t be affected by anything that’s happening in a parcel two districts over.

But a cap on observers could be useful and could be easily tuned, so I think it’s worth exploring, if only to prevent a random DDoS attack.

It costs money to spin up VPS for each Gotchi to enter the game, so they’d be losing money by doing that. I do agree it would be responsible to have a cap so someone couldn’t DDoS us into a $100,000 AWS bill though!

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I really like the idea of Observooor Mode. Reducing friction is very important for growth. Features that I think are winners.

  • Direct links to the gotchiverse, only force signing in if they initiate a transaction to build or buy something. This would allow sharing on social media, need a preview image so it looks legit in twitter and IG.
  • Fast load to observe parcel, NFT display, …
  • Mobile friendly is a must

I see this feature as a “Getting the word out” for aavegotchi, it will leverage all the great work parcel owners are doing on their parcels and all the great NFT work that is going to be displayed in the gotchiverse.

The observooor gotchi should be a shell of a gotchi, very boring and bland. Needs to pale in comparison to an actual real gotchi.

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I agree with the no wallet required until a transaction is initiated feature, it needs to be as fricitionless as can be. Having to install metamask and connect to polygon might be enough for some to not enter, but if they were to do it what they’d see could motivate them to do it. Great for onboarding! I am not sure I have seen a web3 metaverse do that yet, I think it could be game changing.

Also agree with the generic naked gotchi logo in transparent mode for the observooors avatar.

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This is a great idea! But think also about the people spamming bots around the Gotchiverse to attack the project and slow down the servers and ruin the parties.

Maybe could be a solution receive a free invite to partecipate like a gallery, and each Gotchi has 5 invites each, so we can create interacts on Twitter.

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Good point on spammers. Could put up a ad wall, super annoying but could bring ad profit. Ads would have to be tasteful and ofc work safe.

Could have ads for aavegotchi merch blended in, as well.

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This is a great idea!

My design for an observoor - carefully crafted to induce gotchi fomo :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

image

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Yes.

Require a wallet connect, at min, and track conversions and sales.

Use the pink loading gotchi for the avatar?

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a carefully crafted strategy would use observooors in a high enough number to get enough information where the alchemica is. Don t understimate the botting help this feature can add.

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I love eMM’s observer gotchi, they should be transparent and without an aura/collateral. However, I’d like to see a more obvious difference between observers and gotchis…

How about pets?

Basic observers could be like a ghost of a rofl, a sus butterfly,… a cactus…

Screenshot from 2022-09-04 09-33-17
Screenshot from 2022-09-04 09-33-17310×555 817 Bytes

They’d just be some cute free-ranging wild gotchi critters. They should probably be transparent, to show they are different to other “real” pets. Maybe an observer could control a gotchi’s wearable pet too, as a sort of guided tour of the verse… This also opens the door to a whole new free-to-play option where gotchi pets can be played as a sort of scout…

In any case, this is an excellent opportunity to flex our epic gotchi lore! Even some gotchi owners still don’t understand that gotchis are born from liquidations… Should observers involve similar lore? Maybe, in order to observe, you’d have to claim a liquidated position (one observer per unique liquidation, it wouldn’t have to be their money lost). It would be fun to pay as an observer with some CT influencer’s liquidated BTC on my observer-gotchi’s forehead.

I loooove this observooor idea! Bring in the lore!

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You can simply use eitries channeling map or better, set your own listener up for any reservoirs or altars that trigger near land you have access to. It wouldn’t be too extreme to set it up to tell you which gootch to send in to which parcel and the coordinates of the place you’re headed. There’s no need to use eyes on the ground. The info is all on chain.

I fully expect there to be token gated 'professional UI’s available within weeks of the release of UI 2.0

There are no secrets in blockchain, once action is taken… if you are wanting to maintain control of the spice flow, you’ll want to bring frens with you.

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agree. It is best to airdrop Observooor to active nfts address.Both ethereum and polygon are airdropped on the main battlefields of NFTs.Then the gotchiverse will be lively. This airdrop is equivalent to an invitation to the nfts world.

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1 more thought on observoors, with the intent to drive them to really want to become gotchi owners or at least renters:

Could observoors be subject to slightly different physics?

Maybe if Gotchis can manoeuvre through installations and potentially waalls, perhaps observoors couldn’t, and would have to walk the long way around installations/waalls.
Or perhaps they couldn’t teleport and have to walk through the verse to explore in order to get anywhere? This could be something that deters spotter observoors per HARDKORs botting point.

I guess it’s a balance between turning people away by annoying them vs inducing fomo to get more people invested in gotchis and land.

Maybe the opposite idea is better - observoors could free fly around and through the map with no collisions - bad, as it’s an advantage for spotter bots, but perhaps really good for server load and ddos/spam protection?