Case Study: Plunder Quest
Plunder Quest: Building A Minigame On Top of an FOCG
What is Pirate Nation?
Pirate Nation is a pirate-themed fully on-chain casual RPG developed by a game studio and blockchain technology company called Proof of Play. The core gameplay loop at the moment is quite limited, revolving around gathering materials in the map, crafting items, PVE content with a card combat system, and most recently, a first look into PVP combat using crafted ships and customized decks.
Being a fully on-chain game, the Pirate Nation team places importance on decentralization through open sourcing their technology and empowering the creators and developers in their community to build on top of their product. Despite the current gameplay state being quite limited, creators and builders have been building on the game to remix and add content for the players’ appreciation. This includes tools that help players navigate crafting, a gauntlet (PVE) racing minigame, and more. On top of the openness of the team towards developers, they are also planning to have a $PIRATE grant-application process in the future for developers who wish to build in the ecosystem, proving their stance on others building on top of their product.
Pirate Nation has more updates rolling up consistently that will make the game more vibrant and enjoyable in terms of gameplay and content, but their aim of fostering a friendly environment for builders also helps not only the game to get more noise in the space, but also the player community in building a new and interesting culture.
Plunder Quest: Sovrun’s Contribution to the Pirate Nation Ecosystem
Plunder Quest is a simple game mode that involves the game’s gathering mechanics. Similar to treasure hunt games, the goal is to obtain the required materials as quickly as possible and within the time limit, while competing for the fastest time with other players. It is a simple minigame that adds spice and excitement to an otherwise menial task in the game.
A tournament of Plunder Quest consists of several rounds held in certain intervals. (The first iteration will have 2 rounds every day for the duration of the tournament) Interested players can register to join the round during the registration period. Every round, a list of items will be generated that participants will have to procure by gathering and harvesting resources in the world map. Only gathered materials during the round will be acknowledged, so players cannot purchase the materials on the marketplace, nor gather the materials beforehand.
Once the countdown for the start of the round begins, players can go to the game and gather the necessary items within the given time limit. As players go around the map to look for the necessary items, the gathered items will automatically be counted and displayed at the Plunder Quest hub. Points will be handed out depending on the completion rate, and in addition, bonus points will be rewarded to the player who finishes the list first, second, and so on. Points will be rewarded as follows:
Full Completion Bonus - Collected all the required resources within the time limit
Reward: 100 Plunder Points
Partial Completion - Incomplete collection of resources but still participated in the game.
Reward: Prorated points capped at 75
Forfeit - Did not collect any resources or have forfeited the round
Reward: 0 Plunder Points
Time-based Points - Awarded in addition to the above based on how quickly a player completes the Plunder Quest
1st to Finish → +50 Plunder Points
2nd to Finish → +35 Plunder Points
3rd to Finish → +20 Plunder Points
4th to Finish → +10 Plunder Points
5th to Finish → +5 Plunder Points
Plunder Quests also features a leaderboard that computes the total plunder points the players obtain in all rounds for the whole duration of the tournament. Whoever has the highest points by the end of the tournament is the winner.
By building a mini-game like Plunder Quest to Pirate Nation, not only is Sovrun contributing to the Pirate Nation ecosystem by providing more content to the game, it also showcases Sovrun’s understanding of blockchain technology as well as our ability to build on top of FOCGs. Through Plunder Quest, we want to show not only our expertise in blockchain technology, but also that we understand what player sentiments are regarding blockchain games. In any case, understanding the user is an important factor in building products. At the end of the day, no matter how technically complex something is, the product needs to actually be utilized by users and be useful or enjoyable for them. If the community finds good use in the product, then it can be deemed as a successful one. Players are, at the end of the day, gamers who look for enjoyable gameplay that they can also benefit from. Plunder Quest aims to cater to players who are looking for fresh new takes on the gameplay to increase the game’s enjoyability.
As an FOCG, actions in Pirate Nation such as gathering and harvesting are recorded on the blockchain in one way or another. In this case, gathering and harvesting are recorded as mints of the procured items. This is the reason why it is possible to detect if a participant merely buys the required items from the marketplace, or when the participants actually gathered the materials, which is important for Plunder Quest to avoid exploits. Another point to note is that Pirate Nation is currently under both the Proof of Play blockchain and the Boss Chain, requiring the minigame to be integrated into both chains to ensure that Plunder Quest is able to accommodate all players.
Possibilities in the Future of Plunder Quest and Pirate Nation
For the first iteration of the game, players are able to participate in the rounds freely. However, imposing an entrance fee, such as $PIRATE, to raise the ante is very much a possibility and one of the future updates that we are eyeing to make. An entrance fee and a prize pool makes the minigame more competitive, and makes participation more desirable for players in the long term. In addition to allowing the funding of an actual prize pool to reward the players for participating in the tournament, it will also provide more utility for the game token.
As the game is expanding and rolling out more updates, that is also an opportunity for Plunder Quest to evolve. For example, Pirate Nation most recently announced an update that involves skills that include gathering materials. The update also includes the introduction of new skills, and thus new materials to gather. These new materials can be integrated into Plunder Quest as new materials that can appear in the item list to procure. Another one is the expansion of the to-get list from harvestable items to craftable items. Plunder Quest is simple in its premise, but that allows for more flexibility and creativity in remixing the current version into future iterations of the product.
In the future, as more features become available in the game and onchain, we have come up with ideas that might possibly be built on the game’s ecosystem:
PVP Tournament Wagering System
The current state of PVP in Pirate Nation is very basic. Players can experience the first look on PVP by getting an invite code to send to other players for a match. Currently, this feature is off-chain. When more PVP features are introduced and integrated on-chain, a kind of wagering system for PVP battles would provide more thrill in what would usually be a one-on-one battle, giving players a different way to be a part of these PVP battles even as a spectator.
NPC Fights
This idea expands the lore of Pirate Nation as it will involve the creation of non-playable characters (NPCs) fighting against each other. Each NPC will have a background, character, and their own set of stats and decks for the fights, while players can spectate and wager on these NPCs.
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