The Guild of Guardian Diaries — Edition #8

Guardians — welcome to the eighth edition of the Guild of Guardians Dev Diaries. With the festive season upon us and 2022 quickly drawing to a close, we want to thank each and every one of you for your continued support ❤️

This year alone, we’ve shipped two highly successful demos, a live staking program, and history-defining partnerships that will pave the next frontier of gaming.

We’ve pivoted plans for the greater good while leveraging bear markets to build. Despite the tumultuous twists and turns, we continue to experience rapid growth. And with 850k pre-registered players, we are well on our way to 1 million!

Market shake-ups and setbacks only deepen our commitment, and we couldn’t be more grateful for your shared conviction.

TLDR

• The ups and downs of the bear market 🐻
• The Guild’s Treasure — $GOG active staking updates 🪙
• Exciting game updates 🎮
• The evolution of the Guild of Guardians team ⚔️
• Community updates 🚀
• The world of Elderym 🌎

Current Market Outlook

The recent events surrounding FTX have unfortunately impacted many, but please rest assured that Immutable and Guild of Guardians don’t use leverage, and we, fortunately, remain unaffected by the market’s impact.

Bear markets are painful, but despite market conditions, we still have 3.5 years of runway. We are grateful that our position has allowed us to truly leverage this time to build and focus on the long-term success of Guild of Guardians. The Guild of Guardians team continues to grow. In fact, we recently onboarded ten new members across all game functions. We strongly believe that those who continue to build will make it to the other side as winners.

The Guild’s Treasure — $GOG active staking

In case you missed it, $GOG active staking is live, and we’ve seen a significant 4x increase of $GOG ready for staking (from 6m to 24m) since we announced The Guild’s Treasure! (source)

So what’s the annual reward rate, you ask?

If 100% of all $GOG currently on ImmutableX is actively staked, the annualised reward rate will be 50%+

This will be even higher if not all $GOG is actively staked (e.g. not all $GOG holders on ImmutableX satisfy the eligibility requirements), as the reward becomes concentrated to fewer holders. Based on similar staking programs, the amount that is actively staked tends to be closer to 10% (e.g. the rewards would be 10x higher).

But if more $GOG becomes actively staked (e.g. more $GOG is added to ImmutableX and satisfies the eligibility requirements), it will be lower.

Game Design Updates

When it comes to great gameplay, you know it when you see it, and the road of taking a game from playable to great can often be winding. Quick iteration cycles help you hone in on what’s working, but more importantly, give insight into what needs to be cut or is holding you back. We’ve been working with Stepico over the past month on quick iterative cycles and playtests, to really push the game forward in a single key area: Making Choices Matter.

We’ve put considerable effort into two main spaces:

• Moment to moment gameplay — Experimenting with movement attacks, out-of-movement attacks into movement, and everything in between. Expanding player’s options with heavy attacks, improving the way using ultimate attacks feel, and the overall UI/UX.
• Metagame possibility space — What are the choices players make to get them through a dungeon? What challenges do the different Guardians excel at? and what choices do players have access to, in order to solve those challenges?

The GOG team’s evolution and expansion

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again — We have bold ambitions here at Guild of Guardians, and bold ambitions require relentless focus, teamwork, and the best talents in the industry! Over the past few months, we’ve begun merging talent across the Immutable studio and business to further enable the success of Guild of Guardians and web3 as a whole.

We’re leveraging the varied and focused expertise of core leaders, which will further enable us to reach our goals. These people have already begun focusing on GOG to make the team even more stacked than before. Please welcome…

Cameron Dayton — Our Studio Creative Director, who is hard-focused on developing the GOG narrative while telling our story in a creative and dynamic way.

Roberto Vieira — Recently appointed Head of Technology who has led full development and operation units in the games industry for over 20 years. Robert will boost our engineering team as we look to deliver a world-class, seamless gaming experience where blockchain is invisible.

Daniel Stephens — The Director of Production for Guild of Guardians, Gods Unchained and Immutable Games Studio, who has shipped over 25 titles and counting. Daniel will keep the team in check and help us maximize our output.

Chris Clay — There’s a good chance you already know Chris Clay from Gods Unchained, whose role is expanding across the Studio leadership team to level up our game dev. Clay is joining the core leadership & design team to ensure GOG is creating meaningful core experiences that players will love for years.

Stay tuned for more!

Wen launch?

Currently, the team is working incredibly hard on the game and is excited about the improvements that will be made following the delays, as previously announced. Some of the recent upgrades that we have made include improving the ‘feel’ of the game, upgrading our internal processes and ways of working, and beginning to go into the details of planning *every single thing* needed for a smooth but big global launch.

We understand the community’s eagerness for a new confirmed launch date. But we’re no strangers to the ever-changing nature of web3 and will share a confirmed timeline when we are confident that we can deliver a history-defining web3 gaming experience. In the meantime, we are committed to transparency and providing regular progress updates as the game evolves closer to launch.

Community Update

Since our last update, there have been several initiatives we’ve rolled out within the GOG community, many involving both Bigturnz #2787 and Ryan #1962, as well as our amazing Mods and Ambassadors. These activities are among many we’re looking to trial as we collect data on how to best activate the community (i.e. what you enjoy most) while we build out one of web3’s leading mobile games.

GOG Trivia

The first inaugural event of GOG Trivia Night was hosted by some of the most passionate members of the GOG community, Stepfam and WT. Along with this dynamic duo, we had our Senior Community manager, Jai, make an unplanned special appearance as he came to the rescue during some technical difficulties! The competition was tight, and the anticipation of who would be crowned as the trivia master only got deeper as GOG Ambassador Tomahawk and GOG moderator Bedu crushed each and every question. However, there was only one clear winner by the end, as Tomahawk was crowned the undisputed GOG Trivia Master as he delivered a flawless performance with zero incorrect answers. In third place, we had community OG, MythicChef, followed by Tomahawk’s brother himself, ToadManSam, in fourth and Palmito in fifth.

The second GOG Trivia Night was hosted by Stepfam and Jai, where Tomahawk was tasked with defending his title as GOG’s Trivia Master. Like the first trivia night, the questions related to all things GOG featuring questions that would be difficult even for the most diehard of fans. Unsurprisingly, Tomahawk was maintaining the first position for the majority of the quiz until the very last question, when community member TeddyPerkins overtook him for first place. In third place, we had Keejee, followed by Stormex in fourth and Toasties in fifth.

GOGtober Thriller Dance Contest

The contest for this year’s GOGtober was spearheaded by WT, where the GOG community was tasked with filming a dance video to the song ‘Thriller’ by Michael Jackson. There were a number of amazing entries, including Firebolt’s video, which featured him wearing a mask of Varik and his show-stopping dance moves. Like always, Tomahawk delivered a creative entry along with Bedu, who added his own wild twist! To see the full montage of all entries from the #GOGtober dance contest, check out the video below!

Community Campfire

We had our first-ever Community Campfire on via a Twitter space, where we strive to feature notable and important people within the GOG community as guests. In this first iteration of the community campfire series, we had special guests, Stepfam and Tomahawk, join hosts Jai and Ryan. Although GOG is our central focus, we pride ourselves on being thought leaders within this industry. This led the discussion to include topics outside GOG, such as other web3 games and the broader macroeconomic environment. Expect more community campfires as we roll out more initiatives and developments across the GOG universe!

What’s next for the GOG community?

Stay tuned for our upcoming Town Hall hosted by core GOG team members, where we reflect on the massive year that has been 2022, insights into the game direction, and a $GOG staking overview. The community will have the opportunity to ask questions, so be sure to keep your them handy!

Tis’ the season, Guardians! If you were here last Christmas, you might have been airdropped an exclusive GOG avatar, and this year, we’re excited to share a cheeky sneak peek into something we’ve been brewing.

No matter how you celebrate, the holidays are a special time of year. Spirits are high and gifts are often exchanged with loved ones. However, there is one Guardian that simply doesn’t understand the festive vibes. As part of this character’s journey in understanding what this ‘time of year’ is all about, the GOG community may need to partake in certain tasks to help them understand what being festive is all about… 👀 🔥 🎅🏽

Finally, as many of you are aware, Guild of Guardians has partnered with eight of the world’s most prominent teams in esports! With playable characters that have been heavily inspired by each team’s brand. There’s still much to be revealed, but the community can expect to be at the forefront of our plans as we start rolling out more information in the next few months. Stay tuned!

Meet the Team — YouTube Series

With a range of impressive talent behind the development of Guild of Guardians, we would love to introduce you to some of the brilliant minds behind your most beloved web3 mobile game!

As of this week, we’ll be launching the first interview of many from our ‘Meet The Team’ series. Our Senior Community Manager ‘Jai Turnor’ will be hosting an interview with our very talented Studio Creative Director ‘Cameron Dayton’ as we delve into his impressive career and what he envisions for GOG!

The World and Lore

The creative team has been spending time gathering Guardians and exploring the ways in which their stories will be told. When it comes to how we approach narrative and design, web3 enables us to think outside the box, so we are hard at work experimenting with new systems that will allow us to take advantage of our web3 roots.

The lore of Elderym is rich with tension, mystery and triumph, so the systems used to tell those stories must be keenly honed to ensure no stone is left unturned.

Here’s a cheeky little snippet…👇

‘As the Dread bloom within the cracks of the world, a desperate Guardian hears rumours of long-forgotten summoning stones. Legends say they can be found scattered across the realms of Elderym, buried deep within the Darkwood and consumed by the forges of Hearthfire.

Hearing this, Kwitare sets off on a quest to track them down. She carefully navigates the swamps of Madfort, the silent halls of the Barrens, and spends long and restless nights shivering herself to sleep among the snows of Frostmire. Slowly, one by one, she finds them until a single stone remains hidden deep within Ringstone.

Thus begins her final journey into the Dread-infested bowels of Requiem, the tombs of the fallen…

Closing comments

Thank you, Guardians. We appreciate each and every one of you and are grateful to be sharing this wild journey with you all. We are laser-focused on building and delivering a history-defining product and firmly believe that those who stay true to their conviction will reap the wins of their efforts.

2023 will be a BIG year and to say we are excited about the future of web3 is an understatement. So stay tuned because we have so many exciting things in the works, some of which we will be sharing with you very, very soon. But in the meantime, here are some cryptic emojis for you to decipher… Can you guess what they mean?!

1️⃣ 2️⃣ 🎅

🦸 🏆 🎮

Finally, we hope you and your loved ones have a restful festive break. The Guild of Guardians team will be taking some time to rest and recharge for the epic year ahead, so we may be a little less available. Happy Holidays, Fam!

Until next time Guardians.