Today the Axie Infinity team put on a much requested live stream with Zyori and Philip La. The goal of the stream was to discuss Axie LAND, which has been arguably the most anticipated game mode in the Axie Infinity universe, especially among longer (and larger) asset holders.

The original stream can be found here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1452957302

Due to technical hiccups – they will be posting the entire thing on Youtube later.

Intro

• Phil thinking about Origin Launch feedback, Land, Builders program
• Wants to ensure people are aware of whats coming.
• Wants feedback from the community about how things are looking and what should be added.
• Everything is up for discussion. Community feedback is huge.
• Land is the next flagship first party game in the Axie Universe
• Will span numerous genres with elements across simulation, real-time strategy, and role-playing games
• ambitious multi-year project.
• Initial alpha launch will focus on building up one’s land, and later updates and phases being designed.

 

Anything outlined should not be taken as financial advice. Everything is subject for change.

 

Alpha Launch – Age of Pioneers

• First test phase will be focused around building Land in a town-building type game
• only available to land owners
• Invovles harvesting, trading resources as well as building and upgrading structures
• focus is making sure systems all work with a more limited group
• land items will not have any buffs active in phase 1. Able to be placed for cosmetic purposes
• Gameplay will not be tokenized

 

Gameplay Elements

• Gathering
• Building
• Production
• Crafting
• Player-to-player trading – trade through an auction house
• player-to NPC Selling – Can sell items to NPC’s for in-app currency, allows them to defeat monsters across land. Receive leaderboard points when they defeat monsters
• Different races of luncacians are considered NPC.

 

Worker Axies

• Worker Axies are Axies that are available for land owners to use and build up their land
• Not NFTs
• Necessary for important future gameplay and actions within the game.

 

Gathering

• Materials will spawn on ones Land for gathering, Nodes will have larger deposits

 

Land Tier Benefits

• Higher tiers will have numerous buffs around gathering, producing, crafting, building, and NPC’s
• Higher Tiers will have exclusive materials that can be obtained
• no SOLID plans for Lunas Landing. Some ideas include exclusive dungeons, exclusive events, etc. Open to suggestions.

 

Player to Player Trading

• Auction house system that allows players to trade resources and currencies within the game with each other
• delivery of resources will need to be moved across the land. The further away Lands are, the longer it will take. Roads helps decrease the time this takes.
• Fees for listing and purchasing items within the auction house.

 

Leaderboard

• Leaderboard will track monsters defeated by NPCs that Land owners sell items to
• This will be a Seasonal Leaderboard that resets every season
• In the future there will be rewards each season for top ranked players on the Leaderboard.

 

Land Items

• No buffs active to start, but can be placed on land as cosmetics
• Buffs may be changed to match the updated game design. Any changes will maintain the spirit of previously described buffs.

 

Game Loop

• Many more elements will be added to the below loop, but this is the core game loop:

 

Timeline – aiming for end of the year, Q4 2022. Lots of variables in development, but this is the current timeline they are looking at. Lots of work to be done still

 

Follow-up to Alpha.

• More in design and subject to change

 

AXS Token Gameplay

• Initial AXS Gameplay loop will be incorporated into NPC Game loop
• There will be various mechanics to increase the amount of AXS that can be earned through different parts of the game
• The benefits from Land Tiers will contribute to players’ ability to earn more or less AXS, in addition to their gameplay.

 

SLP

• Currently no solid plans to have SLP in Land, but very possible that it can have use cases in the future. 
• Very hard to balance resources in one game, not to mention many games. Can cause difficulties with game design.

 

In-App Purchase System

• Initial gameplay will be tuned to be able to progress much easier than its supposed to be. In full launch it will be retuned to be harder (what its supposed to be)

 

NFT Axie Navigation

• One of the goals is to have players to be able to explore Land w/ their NFT Axie and interact with other players NFT Axies
• Would have liked to add this to phase 1 (Starter axies will be used when the Alpha comes out.). It will take many months to convert all parts for NFT Axies into 3D. “Much Later”
• Once this is done, They want to allow players to walk around the land with their NFT Axies.

 

Future Ideas (Very early and subject to change)

• Avatar Axie – Free Axie that they can use as their Avatar to walk across Land. Players can substitute NFT Axies to use as their avatar as well.
• Free property – All players could be eligible to have a free property that has limited utility but they can decorate, upgrade, and craft at. Free properties would have minimal gathering and production capabilities and resources would need to be obtained from completing tasks for Land Owners.
• Jobs, Contracts, Services – Land Owners would have a variety of In-Game methods to allow other players to assist in their Land development and progression.
• Dungeon Battles – Players would be able to bring their Axies to battle Chimeras in Dungeons to earn resources and other loot. Land owners will be able to form larger battle parties w/ help from other players to take on tough Chimeras.
• NFT Axies – Many unique benefits and utility (ex. gathering faster than Worker Axies, able to defeat stronger Chimeras, able to find Land Tokens).
• Land Token – A token would be introduced that can be earned from NFT Axie Gameplay within land. These Tokens would ahve a variety of use cases, including crafting NFT Items/ Resources and upgrading to Advanced Structures
• NFT’s – New NFT Items would be introduced into the game with various utility or cosmetic value, including Rare Resources, Equipment Items for Axies to battle Chimeras, and new land items to place on ones Land. NFT items would require certain tokens to craft, be discoverable by NFT Axies, or earned as loot from Chimera Battles.

 

SDK

• Further down the line. A lot of ways to integrate it.
• Way for people to build map builders, ways for people to add experiences to land. Builders program could be integrated in land as well.
• Possible some of these experiences could only be discoverable on certain plots.

 

Q&A

• Q – Why is this taking so long. People have been holding for years.
• A – Its a huge long term project. In the early days the team only had a few engineers. It was a bear market. Most effort was going into battle at that time. As the team grew, they allocated a few engineers to build the demo, and they were testing concepts. They had no game designer or art director. Additional demos were build and didnt meet their standards. Eventually hired an art director in mid 2021 and developed the concept that we have now – we are moving forward and building on top of that new vision.

 

• Q - Why did you move from 2D to 3D?
• A – 3D unlocks a lot more gameplay and ways to scale. 3D objects can be manipulated in a different way than 2D, can be manipulated and built upon much quicker and easier. 2D requires each asset to be drawn.

 

• Q – Opportunity cost. Is there anything going to be done to make up for the delay that long term holders have had to wait through?
• A – Delay will be something they consider as they start releasing AXS and tokenized rewards. Purchasing game assets comes with risk. Creating a fun and engaging game is going to be the most important thing for Land holders, and rushing it and putting out a game that isn’t as good would not be beneficial. 

 

• Q - Will there be earning on my plots before the full game comes out?
• A – Other features that he has discussed before, badges, larger implementation of the Axie Score, could be provided before Land is released. 

 

• Q - Communication. Why didn’t they communicate anything while changing from 2D to 3D?
• A – This was just a miss on Sky Mavis’ part. They take responsibility. Philip is now here to discuss land and is open to it any time, with anyone. This presentation is a step in the right direction 

 

• Q - Are you confident we’ll have something playable by EOY? When do you expect P2E mechanics.
• A – He is confident that they will have an alpha out by the end of 2022. This is a pretty reasonable. AXS rewards he would like to get out early next year.

 

• Q - Are there any plans to utilize any sort of staking mechanic to give Land rewards early?
• A – They want to make sure that they are rewarding active gameplay and contributions to the ecosystem. Staking Land is not part of that. 

 

• Q - Do we have any ideas of what earning could look like? What might a savannah, artic plot, etc earnings look like?
• A – They havent decided yet. They have a breakdown of what the play to earn allocation looks like and a portion of that will definitely go to land. It will be tuned based on the different plots, initial prices, etc.

 

• Q - Will there be a free to play version, a paywall, etc?
• A – The current vision is that there will be free to play land, similar to free to play Axies.

 

• Q - Will we be able to talk to our friends on Land plots?
• A – They want to create a full game loop and are focusing on that in the first version. Eventually they want to add the metaverse elements on top of that: talking, hanging out with friends, concurrent gameplay, etc.

 

• Q - Multiple plots, estates, any light that you can share on buildings and estates?
• A – They don’t have any plans to have structures that span multiple plots right now. They are looking to have structures that are unlockable based on having certain configurations of connected plots. They will be having discussions about this w/ the community and gathering thoughts.

 

• Q - How do we play Land with our friends. Is there any way we can collaborate?
• A – Initially players will be able to trade resources in the Auction House.

 

• Q - Can you trade without the auction house?
• A – It will all have to go through the auction house.

 

• Q - Land items and effects – Will it apply to single plots or all my plots?
• A – It will depend on the item and their effect, but generally they will apply only to single plots. 

 

• Q - What benefits does being close to a road bring?
• A – Roads will be beneficial for trading, and for getting places faster. Additional speed boost is still TDB, but it will be significantly faster

 

• Q - Anything you can share about Genesis plots? 
• A – Not too much to share. They are looking at exclusive content and specific features and abilities that genesis plots will have.

 

• Q - Will players have to walk across Genesis plots to access Lunas Landing?
• A – Players will have to walk through/around a lot of types of plots to get where they are going.

 

• Q - Is there going to be fishing, or boats in the river?
• A – Not yet, but potentially in the future.

 

• Q - Plot management – Some landholders have 300 savannah plots. WIll you be able to functionally play on that many plots?
• A – It will be tough to manage that many plots as there is a lot of gameplay and management of those plots. They will be creating systems in the future to lease and share their land, but that is more in the future. It will be difficult in the initial alpha.

 

• Q - Are they thinking about scholarship type tools for land?
• A – Not initially, but they are thinking about guild tools.

 

• Q - Are diagnally connected plots still connected?
• A – To be determined still. Possible that different configurations unlock different structures.

 

• Q - Will there be real time events that rally everyone in Lunacia to work towards shared objectives.
• A – Probably in the future. Co-op things like this are key to games.

 

• Q - Collectible Axies – Origins, Mystics, Japanese Axies. Will any of these do anything special in Land.
• A – To be determined. They havent locked down anything specific for any of these types of Axies. Open to discussion.

 

• Q - What will happen to the remaining 75% of land that hasnt been sold yet? When, how will it be sold?
• A – Their focus is to get gameplay out for people who have invested already. Possibly once the main gameplay is released and they can provide a better view to new players about what they are buying, they will then consider another land sale.

 

Philip wrapped up the call by saying that a lot of this is still TBD and that they want to be able to provide more info and be more transparent about what people can expect about land gameplay. He wants to be more collaborative and iterative and work with the community as they continue developing the game.

 

Zyori said that they want to prompt us for feedback and ideas.

 

Philip thinks they have an amazing direction. They have played around with recent versions of land gameplay and it is heading in the right direction. 

 

 

Update:

After some immediate negative feedback from the larger Axie Infinity Community on Discord and Twitter, an updated post was made: