The Guild of Guardian Diaries — Edition #10
Hey Guardians! It’s been a red-hot minute since our last update, and we can’t thank you enough for your ongoing patience. While things may seem quiet on the surface, we have been hustling non-stop behind the scenes, dedicating our time and energy to some very epic developments.
In this edition of Dev Diaries, we’re beyond excited to give you the lowdown on some major happenings. From our fruitful visit with Mineloader in Shanghai to enhancements in game design, economy, art, and most excitingly, a freshly revamped roadmap, guiding us towards the launch of GOG!
A heartfelt thank you, Guardians. As we forge ahead with these monumental developments, your steadfast support and patience continue to be our guiding light. We couldn’t do this without you ❤️
TLDR:
- New roadmap, who dis?: Let’s cut straight to the chase! The long-awaited roadmap is finally here, with four exciting milestones towards the highly anticipated launch of GOG!
- Evolving Gameplay: Guild of Guardians is evolving its gameplay focus as a Roguelite Squad RPG.
- 10-week progress update: After a productive trip to Shanghai to visit Mineloader, we are thrilled with the progress and changes made after just 10 weeks! Progress leaks incoming!
- NFT Staking: In partnership with Guardians Guild Limited, we’re launching GOG NFT Staking as part of The Guild’s Treasure with 6 million $GOG in total rewards and planning a special airdrop for loyal NFT holders. See deets below!
- Economy Design: We’re enhancing strategic gameplay with new features, including match & merge mechanics, a tiered hero system, more content for free players, expanded crafting components, and broader item crafting opportunities.
THE ROAD AHEAD
We want to acknowledge the patience and dedication that this amazing community has shown during these past few months. We understand that waiting for updates can be challenging, and we appreciate your understanding as we’ve been diligently working behind the scenes to deliver a gaming experience worthy of the Guild of Guardians community.
But without further ado, we’re thrilled to unveil the highly anticipated Guild of Guardians roadmap! Crafted with precision, this roadmap zeroes in on our chief objective — the launch of Guild of Guardians. Although we have a myriad of community events in the pipeline, this roadmap is designed to highlight the key milestones we’re aiming to reach as we journey towards the much-awaited launch of GOG. But stay tuned, as this is an evolving roadmap, and we have some exciting things in the works on the community side!
MILESTONE ONE: Mineloader Partnership
You may recall our recent move to join forces with the esteemed game development studio, Mineloader? Well, after an intense and productive ten weeks of joint game development, and the creation of innovative game loops, topped off with an incredibly productive visit to Shanghai, we’re ecstatic to share that we’re surpassing our first roadmap milestone objective!
We have never been more assured of this partnership and are thrilled with the exceptional progress Mineloader has achieved thus far. Mineloader has brought a blend of passion, expertise, and creativity to this project that has truly exceeded our expectations. Their commitment to bringing our shared vision to life is evident in every aspect of the game’s development.
MILESTONE TWO: The Beautiful Corner
In this phase, our team will be laser-focused on bringing to life innovative game loops, engaging battle mechanics, immersive dungeon systems, and captivating equipment crafting through merge. To make sure everything is just right, we’ll be extending an exclusive invitation to a very select group of playtesters to test the game and provide valuable feedback. Stay tuned for more details!
NFT STAKING
We want to recognise the unwavering support of our dedicated community. Thus we’re thrilled to announce — in association with Guardians Guild Limited, the launch of GOG NFT Staking for The Guild’s Treasure, Season 2! This marks a new chapter in our journey, one that brings exciting rewards and opportunities for our ardent supporters.
Guardians Guild Limited has earmarked a substantial total of 6 million $GOG for Season 2 rewards of The Guild’s Treasure. This $GOG allocation will fuel both the newly introduced GOG NFT Staking and the continued $GOG Active Staking, intertwining the two in a synergistic reward system.
Over the course of six months, these rewards will become available. A major portion, 4 million $GOG, will be allocated to Active Staking, while the remaining 2 million $GOG will fuel the NFT Staking.
As a special nod to our longstanding supporters who have been interacting with the GOG ecosystem, we’re planning a retroactive reward airdrop for all NFT holders who meet the set criteria. This is our way of showing appreciation for your continued loyalty and to commemorate the launch of NFT Staking.
Keep an eye out for an upcoming Medium article which will provide more in-depth information about the airdrop and the exciting new season of The Guild’s Treasure.
MILESTONE THREE: Limited Beta
Following the Beautiful Corner, we’ll charge ahead towards the Limited Beta phase, where we’ll implement the valuable learnings and feedback from the Beautiful Corner and begin the development and implementation of new game features, including:
- Auto-battler mechanics
- Hero equipment and NFT integration
- Merge Crafting
- Summoning system and Story mode
- Web3 integrations
MILESTONE FOUR: Open Beta Launch
The pivotal Open Beta Launch will see the launch of Guild of Guardians on mobile, where players will experience the integration of all core game features, including an in-game storefront, leaderboards, gem rewards, and key NFT integrations. But that’s not all — expect further refinements to elevate your user experience, alongside crucial improvements such as device compatibility.
The launch of Guild of Guardians is on the horizon, and we’re thrilled to have you join us on this journey!
VISITING MINELOADER IN SHANGHAI
A few weeks ago, members of the Guild of Guardians game design team visited the Mineloader studio in Shanghai, China. The goal of this trip was to establish a unified vision for Guild of Guardians, while strengthening our relationship with the talented Mineloader team we’ve been working with for the past 10 weeks.
In the weeks leading up to the trip, we worked closely with the team, familiarising them with the existing art, style guides, and sharing our vision for how we wanted to push the visuals even further, and we are thrilled with the progress we have made!
Working directly with Mineloader’s Art Director, Darwin and Game Director Li Wei, we honed in and aligned on the overall look and feel of the game and iterated on art, animation, lighting and visual effects.
Another major focus was the redesign of the new core loop of Guild of Guardians, where we iterated on the roguelike aspects and merge crafting. When it comes to the web2 game meta systems, we left with a clear path to what we’re calling the beautiful corner of Guild of Guardians. An initial playable demo offering a full moment-to-moment gameplay experience, including -
- Exploring dungeons in the roguelike
- Advancing your Guardians
- Upgrading their equipment via merge and crafting.
The trip concluded with an in-depth exploration of web3 integration for core gameplay systems. As there’s still more work to be done in this area, we’re planning a follow-up trip with our economy team in early July to finalise details and ensure a seamless implementation.
The Evolution from Action RPG to Roguelite Squad RPG
Deciding to overhaul a project is neither a simple nor a casual choice! After thoughtful deliberation with some of the industry’s foremost game developers, we’ve determined that the optimal path forward for our community and the ultimate triumph of the game lies in transforming Guild of Guardians into a Roguelite Squad RPG. This significant resolution is grounded in three fundamental reasons:
Prioritising Long-term Sustained Engagement: For a game to be successful in the long run, it needs more than just a solid economy. When it comes to mobile games, in particular, it’s important to keep players interested and engaged over time. Action RPGs can be tricky as they often demand a lot of attention, and the gameplay doesn’t change much. In most games, the bulk of the player base loses interest and quits the game after a month or so.
As a Roguelite Squad RPG, GOG is poised to captivate players for the long haul, thanks to the introduction of parallel play. The revamped GOG experience will enable players to seamlessly adapt their engagement level, allowing them to enjoy the game while simultaneously partaking in other activities. Whether it’s playing GOG during a Netflix binge, sneaking in a session during a work video call, or indulging in the game over a meal, the innovative core loops make it all possible — something the previous playstyle didn’t accommodate.
Larger Player Base, Higher Chance at Success: While the mobile APRG market is large, the Squad RPG and Roguelite genres are experiencing high growth, and attract hundreds of millions of players. By focusing on a genre with a larger player base, we increase GOG’s chances of success and broaden its appeal to a more extensive audience.
Strong Development Expertise, On Track for Launch: We want to stress that a timely and reliable delivery of Guild of Guardians is paramount. Leveraging our new partnership with Mineloader, a studio with proven expertise in developing this specific genre of game and a seasoned familiarity with the game engine, we can deliver GOG with greater precision and predictability than ever before. The past 10 weeks of collaboration with Mineloader have yielded remarkable progress, a testament to our streamlined direction. As we share this progress with you, we believe you’ll gain a clear understanding of the robustness and dependability we now operate with.
10-WEEK PROGRESS UPDATE
We’re eager to share a glimpse of the significant strides we’ve made in collaboration with Mineloader over the past 10 weeks. Your patience has been invaluable as the team has been ardently dedicated to ensuring Mineloader’s seamless integration and momentum.
Economy Part 1: Increasing Economic Depth
As mentioned above, GOG is doubling down on the strategy elements of the game. As such, we have been reworking parts of the economy to increase its depth and strategy.
Below are some of the changes that have been planned. Please note that these are not exhaustive and are all subject to change. The intent of sharing this is to try to give the community concrete examples of what to expect, but as things evolve, we will keep you updated.
- Adding a match & merge crafting systems to GOG. This allows us to provide players with more rewards and choices in merging and crafting as they play. It also connects naturally to the web3 marketplace, where players can create items that are required by other players and trade them for the items they specifically need to progress.
- Adding a hero star system so that there are tiers of upgrades for heroes in addition to just their level. This star system will require players to burn heroes (a mixture of web2/web3, and duplicate or of the same faction) in order to “star up” the heroes, and create deeper progression vectors. See below for an early example
- Expanding content to free-to-play players so that they can play with heroes of all rarities. This is done by allowing some heroes to start as web2, with the option to spend gems to convert into an NFT and gain unique bonuses.
Note: Founders heroes by default, start with more stars (and god power) than non-founders heroes. - Adding many more components, consumables and recipes for crafting, so that there are more tiers of upgrading to go from dungeon reward to final equipment crafted. For example, instead of going from Cubelets to Equipment, equipment will require materials, advanced materials, blueprints and potentially other equipment in order to be created. Some of these components will be NFTs, while others will be web2 resources. This will allow us to create a rich possibility space in GOG’s meta economy.
- Expanding item crafting to be available to individuals to increase production and trading of the economy. Guilds will still be able to craft exclusive items, which we’re currently picturing to be “Heirlooms” (items which have power that scales with hero level, and thus are always relevant for progression), and guilds will be the exclusive producers of Heirloom equipment.
Overall the goal of the above changes is to enhance the depth and accessibility of the economy, so that it’s thriving even more than before. A summary of the changes to expect:
Economy Part 2: Improving web3 onboarding & trading experience
The second major update on the economy front is that Immutable has been solving tough technical challenges that are required to improve the web3 onboarding and trading experience. The overall plan is for a two-track economy system: Both web2 and web3 progression are viable, however, the web3 progression is optimal. Web2 players will naturally and organically find that web3 provides solutions to their resource constraint problems and feel motivated, but not forced to engage with the web3 economy.
Some of the things we are designing together with the Immutable Passport team:
Obfuscation of transaction signing, so players do not get ‘turned off’ by too many clicks, and can easily do web3 actions
- Pre-approvals or in-app signing rather than browser pop-ups, so that players can still have the security of their assets but also have the option to enable simplified processes for certain actions to create a better experience
- Easy on-ramps of crypto for web2 players, which is particularly important for mainstream gamers who will have a hard time getting $GOG or ETH to participate in the economy
- Ensuring all user flows are compliant with applicable requirements
There is a lot of complexity here — and Immutable is doing a LOT of user journey mapping to craft a great game experience:
As we forge ahead with Guild of Guardians, our mission stays unswerving — we’re set to introduce millions of players to the exciting world of web3 games. We’ve mapped out a clear route to tackle the hurdles that stand in our way, streamlining the web3 experience until it seamlessly dovetails with the needs and expectations of gamers. The journey might be challenging, but we’re ready, and we hope you are too.
Stay tuned for our upcoming Discord town hall on Tuesday, 23rd May, 2023 at 9:30AM AEST where we will be joined by:
- Chris Clay — VP of Game Design
- Daniel Stephens — Director of Production & Engineering
- Andrew Friday — Mineloader Representative
- Ryan Tadveen — Community Manager
Unsurprisingly, we expect many questions regarding our exciting game development updates and upcoming milestones as we make our way towards the road ahead.
Thank you for your unwavering support and conviction.
Until next time, Guardians.
