P2E ON DEFILAND
“Don’t just stare at your virtual farmland all day, have fun while making some money too.”
Before we deep-dive into Defi Land’s P2E features, one needs to understand the PlayToEarn (P2E) phenomenon that has taken the gaming industry by storm, all thanks to the crypto revolution.
P2E has allowed gaming enthusiasts to turn their gaming hours into a mode of earning and investment. Usually, when you choose to play a game, you’d first purchase it to gain access on your device and then spend even more on upgrades weapons, gear, cards, etc. Say after a few months you decide to quit that game and move on to the next big thing. What you lose in the process are your time, money, and effort. And all the upgrades you purchased have no real value since you don’t own them.
Now, compare this to an NFT game scenario, much like Defi Land, where you don’t just spend on upgrades, you earn them. The key difference is that you own those items which are of limited quantity and in most cases, those items can exist and are deemed valuable even outside of the said game.
For instance, some gamers purchased the Gen-0 NFTs, let’s say fishing rods from Magic Eden to play Defi Land games. Ownership of that fishing rod is tracked on the blockchain and the group of people who purchased these NFTs is the rightful owners until it is sold or traded.
The game could shut down and they would still own that NFT fishing rod in their wallet. Even if they decide to quit playing that game and sell all his upgrades, odds are the assets have increased in value and he could make good money on that sale. This is just one of the many probable scenarios of the P2E mechanism.
Another way of looking at it is in the form of investments. Many gamers invest their time and money in securing NFT items. They hold these inventories until more users jump into the game. Since they’re usually limited supplies of these items, there will be a rise in the demand for the available upgrades which can then be sold at a higher price.
This way, they eventually end up making more than they spent on acquiring these items. It is also interesting to know that some of these people may never actually play the game, and still make passive income by lending and staking NFT items.
The rewards definitely exist; so does the risk because the market has only just boomed, not matured. Case in point: the biggest success of the crypto gaming world, Axie Infinity is robbed of ~$625million. Hackers infected the Ronin blockchain on which the game was hosted. Of course, with the advent of new tech interfaces, measures are being taken to protect user funds and build systems that are robust and secure. The risk-to-reward ratio see-saws either way, so it is always wise to tread with caution.
Now that we’ve fairly understood the core of P2E, let’s deep dive into every aspect of this fascinating world of Defi Land and the changes in Beta Phase 2. The vision of Defi Land is to give every crypto gamer the leisure of learning about Defi in their “crypto farm” and its use cases while having fun and earning tokens and assets that have a monetary value. I highly recommend going through the onboarding process to familiarize yourself with Defi Land.
WHAT’S NEW IN DEFILAND’S BETA PHASE 2?
After the Beta Phase 2 launch, not all buildings especially the animal buildings are seen on the land. You’re expected to rearrange your environment to your taste by heading to the edit section and then selecting inventory. Previously, the edit was located at the bottom right corner. You can locate it in the edit by clicking on the drop-down menu at the top right corner of your screen.
After adding any animal house, it will still be empty. You have to select the house and add your pet. Besides, you no longer click on farmlands to pet and earn XPs. The team has done well to provide a more realistic experience which you’ll notice soon as you read on.
ANNOUNCING FREE TO PLAY ON DEFILAND
Free to play games (F2P) refer to online games in which the game developers do not charge players to have access to the game. These kinds of games center around gamers’ willingness to purchase items or pay for access to new content once they have tried out the game and become familiar with its mechanics.
The idea of purchasing new content after playing a game, such as access to new areas or characters, or levels, allows designers to create many games on the same platform and then focus on expanding those versions. Defiland has decided to make the game a F2P by providing in-game tools and NFTs to those who are yet to purchase the Gen 0 for them to have a similar experience. They include animals such as cats, dogs, chickens, and cows, and tools such as fishing hooks, harvesters, and guns to take part in their Defi Land games.
Players don’t have to purchase a Gen 0 NFT to play. Players who don’t have Gen 0 NFTs are given in-game tools and animals to start with which they can use to acquire XP in various Defi Land games but will rarely receive $GOLDY as rewards .The higher your XP, the higher your rewards.
You can now view your DFL NFTs by clicking on the NFTs button close to the drop-down menu. NFTs are categorized in this section for a better navigating experience.
With that being said, let’s add the dog house from our inventory and add the dog from the list of NFTs.
You can see the energy and HP of your pet. You can show a maximum of 5 animals per farm but you can add as many animals as you can on the same farmland. There are also options provided to add and remove animals too.
Currently, you can only send dogs and cats on errands. The longer the adventure, the more $GOLDY you earn.
For the chicken, you can’t send it on an errand but you can claim rewards from it. Before claiming rewards, you have to feed them.
For the chicken, clicking on the feed means you boast the love meter by 2.04 points as seen below. Animals of the same or different classes possess different points depending on their respective levels. The higher the love meter of your pet, the more rewards you get when you claim rewards. If you desire to claim more rewards, feed the pet consistently to take the love meter higher before considering claiming rewards.
You don’t also want to have huge delays when feeding your pets because the love meter drains gradually which implies that the pets are starving therefore, you have to feed them often. Read the description above the claim button in the image below.
Ducks and cows have similar mechanics to chickens.
IMPROVED GRAPHICS
Gamers can now adjust the graphics options available in the settings to suit their PC specifications and increase their framerates while playing.
Post-processing has to do with filters and effects on an image of a game. In this process the game renderizes its images, however before it is sent to your screen another rendering process will occur about the original image, then a lot of effects and filters will be applied directly on it.
Anti-aliasing is the smoothing of jagged edges in digital images by averaging the colors of the pixels at a boundary.
In Defiland, environmental details consist of the trees and objects places beyond the boundaries of your farmland.
$GOLDY
With the play-to-earn model successfully implemented, existing in-game mechanics are poised to change. Defi Land players will earn the platform-native $DFL tokens as a reward alongside a new in-game currency titled $GOLDY. Players can use both of these currencies to upgrade their in-game NFTs and access other Defi Land ecosystem features. Defiland has a devoted discord channel to allow players to showcase their rewards.
REMASTERED GAMES
Remasted Fishing Game
“Sharing the fun of fishing turns strangers into friends in a few hours.” — Eugenie Clark
Once you click on the fishing building, you will be able to select from the fishing rod that you have and wish to use. Before you use a fishing rod, you should have available energy on the rod. Once you click play, you are to wait for some time for the fish to get attached to the hook. You can either tap or hold through the appropriate direction when the indicator reaches the green area. The better your fishing rod, the better your accuracy, and the easier you fish.
The differences between the remastered and first version of the fishing game are in earnings, different types of fish that require different strategies to catch them, visuals, the new mechanics of needing to hold down the key sometimes, and more to come.
Remastered Shooting Game
First Person Shooter games are very interesting. Once you start the shooting game after selecting the gun, you can customize your shooting experience by adjusting your sensitivity, crosshairs, colors, and so on. Use the scope when shooting for better damage. Headshots cause more damage to help you eliminate the prey faster and they also increase your bonuses and your earnings.
Asides from the earnings, the obvious differences between the first and the remastered version are in the customizations and environment.
Harvesting Game
The goal of the harvesting game is to collect the crops from the field and deliver it to the supply market on time as orders keep coming. You will need to have fuel to keep harvesting. It gets interesting that you’re watching to refuel your truck when you run out of fuel which causes delays. You do this repeatedly till you run out of time.
The harvesting, shooting, and fishing games are considered ACTIVE game mechanics while taking care of your pets is viewed as IDLE game mechanics.
IMPROVEMENT SUGGESTIONS/FEEDBACKS
Unable to adjust to aspect ratio on switching displays
I noticed that once I switch from my external display to my laptop screen during the gameplay and vice versa, I will have to reload the defiland page again. It doesn’t automatically adjust to a suitable resolution. I think this can be worked on.
Integrating Ultrawide resolution
Ultrawide monitors deliver a much more immersive gaming experience. The 21:9 aspect ratio offers more horizontal screen space so you can see more of your game at once. Ultrawide gameplay settings or resolution is currently unavailable but I propose it should be added for gamers like myself who would like to take advantage of this experience and it would be suitable for simulation games like this.
Defi Land games Weather conditions
The weather conditions should be experienced in the Defi Land games too. For instance, when I switch to rain or thunderstorm, it doesn’t apply to the Defi land games (shooting, fishing, harvesting) but instead, it still maintains the default market condition.
Improving the harvesting game
The harvesting game can be more challenging. I came in contact with multiple objects while trying to navigate my way in the game. There should be damage on the truck as to how many things one can hit before the game ends. For instance, there should be a life bar for the truck so the game ends once it is damaged X number of times.
Again, I also suggest XP should be used for refueling. I can quit other Defi Land games by pressing the ESC button. In the harvesting game, I can’t seem to have an exit button or option till the timer runs out.
Improving the fishing game
I noticed that the fishing rod bends in the direction provided but it could be hard to tell sometimes, especially when the directions are up and down. Food for thoughts:
Why don’t you either eliminate the directional hints provided or add another level in which players would have to use their instincts and intelligence to input the appropriate directions depending on the fishing rod?
FPS drop
Sometimes, I usually have my FPS drop drastically in the game especially when I move my cursor around the farm or try to zoom in. I am using a high-end PC so this shouldn’t be so. I recommend including 30 to 60 FPS options in the settings.
Land expansion
At the moment, with the number of inventories available in the edit section, I will have to sacrifice removing one thing on the land for the other. Therefore, as more features keep coming in, the land will become congested and there will be a need for expansion of the virtual farmland.
FINAL WORDS
The game will have all the features that traditional platforms have, but it will be gathered all in one place. Defi Land gamifies decentralized finance by turning investment activities into games. It is important to note that each NFT type unlocks Play to Earn for its distinguishing gameplay and consists of 4 attributes which consist of energy, reward, repair, and game mechanic that provide a distinguishing advantage depending on their rarity and level.
All of your NFTs will require maintenance, and repeated use will affect their respective energy levels and health points. It was necessary to implement these strategies to control and limit individual earnings who think they can keep playing without any restrictions. The only way to minimize these limitations is to own many of these NFTs i.e. purchasing and owning many fishing rods because you want to play the fishing game more often than usual.
Meanwhile, anticipate the launch of the Defiland community-driven NFT marketplace in which players won’t just trade NFTs the basic way (buy and sell), but you will be able to rent out your NFTs too. The Play to Earn section in the Defiland Documentation has been updated. You can get to know more by reading about the rarities and attributes of Gen 0 NFTs, and formulas for calculating the energy, health, and rewards of your Gen 0 NFTs.
