Back on the Ronin Chain! - Issue #10

It's easy to talk about any project when the space is hot. Everything is going up and no one really stops to question how or why it's happening and whether or not it's sustainable.

I got into @AxieInfinity in '21 while exploring blockchain gaming. P2E was the biggest thing. I got some Axies, played the game, gave a bunch of scholarships, saw Axies go up in price, $SLP to 30 cents etc. and then saw it all come crashing down. My reasons for going into Axie Infinity were to understand the progress being made in Web3 gaming, and the fact of the matter was that it was SO far ahead of everything else.

When we talk about the “downfall” of Axie Infinity, and I use that word facetiously, it was due to a combination of events, and one can certainly not ignore what a huge impact it had on the space. People talk about publicity, and Axie got plenty of publicity for Web3 and Web3 gaming. It drew a lot of people in. Heck, I tried it out because I wanted to build games in Web3 and wanted to understand what the Axie model was.

The other part was also the fact that the entire crypto market crashed, so as Jiho put it very aptly when I asked him about what he thought would be a fair evaluation criteria, his response was “it can really understood with enough time behind us”, essentially after another bull.

Website updates, game updates. Updates everywhere!

Let’s talk about some negatives and positives. During the last cycle we saw:

Guilds essentially farming $SLP on a very large scale
A weak model around breeding that also led to large groups breeding and selling Axies

Counter points for 1 and 2:

Guilds drew a lot of people in, some extracted value, others lost out. Balances itself in the end
The breeding problem is not trivial to solve. Bridgeworld from TreasureDAO (personally a huge fan and a huge supporter of Treasure) has actively been trying to balance breeding/summoning and it requires a lot of input/adjustments. If Sky Mavis had done that early on, it would have hampered growth in a big way.

Personally, I think sustainable gaming ecosystem where you get "paid" to play the game only work when you enable everyone in the game to be a creator for the game, be it via art, streaming or something else. You need to have value creation as well as value extraction. You can't just have the majority of the community extracting value.

It all came to a head when the population spiked and folks realized that most people involved were speculating, not playing. The hack happened, and that was the last piece of FUD that really drove a nail into the Axie coffin during the last run.

So that's the history. What I wanted to do in this thread was revisit Axie and see what Sky Mavis has been building when less people are watching from the outside, and no one is writing to discord to increase the Axie server capacity. Are they still at it? Is Axie dead?

We’ll dive into the details through this article, but in short, no. It is not dead. In fact, it has grown. It has shown resilience. Community members are bringing their own games to life and Sky Mavis is supporting that as they said they would. Ronin Chain is here, more games are coming to Ronin that have nothing to do with Axie Infinity. Sky Mavis has been building more and more!

Let's APE in!

Progress

Before we begin, I will note that this thread/post will not be focusing on speculation or the play-to-earn aspects/potential. This is not a post intended to make it seem like "you might make your money back during the next bull run", and I have personally lost a lot of money on Axie. This thread/post is focused on documenting what has changed and what the Sky Mavis team has been doing during the bear. I am bullish on the future of the Axie Infinity ecosystem. I think A LOT is going to be built and I do think the next bull run will see a lot more people flock to it. Let’s see how this prediction ages :)

The first thing you notice is the updated Mavis Hub 2.1.0 - not only does it look a lot cooler, it's nice to see it actually becoming an actual HUB, and not just a launcher for Axie Classic.

From Theory to Practice

Before we jump into Axie Origins, we'll do Homeland in a separate thread, I want to call out Axie Defence of Lunacian Land (DoLL) which gained a lot of popularity via Twitter some months back. It was a fun take on survival using the skills of your chosen Axie. It became a sink for a lot of $SLP. I do not recall the exact numbers. I checked with the @axieDoLL team and they told me that over 1 Million $SLP was burned during Season 0 and Season 1.

You can take a look at the $SLP burn/sink details proposed for Season 2 on their Gitbook.

It was released with a small executable and their twitter blew up, because it was a fun survival game! It's good to see the progress the team has made, the features they are planning to add and seeing it housed in the launcher under the Builder Program. This was always the vision Sky Mavis had set forth and it means something that they're continuing to push it forward.

The game has had several updates. I'll touch on a couple of key points here:

Axie DoLL requires players to buy a shield for 40 $SLP in order to compete in ranked matches
The Axie DoLL sidekick collection has been live on the newly created Mavis Market where it has done 30K $RON in volume

Ronin Marketplace. Yes. With trading in $RON!

DoLL is an indie game made by a small team, but it showcases a powerful concept. One that was talked about during '21 but we didn't see materialize - because it takes time to build - using Axies across multiple games, creating multiple sinks for tokens and strengthening the Ronin chain!

This is not going to be the best game on Ronin, and yet it shows the power of a player created economy. The community needs to be invested and create great games (which historically, community of gamers have always done) and that is what will ultimately bring longevity and sustainability to Lunacia.

Another Quick Detour

Back to some core Axie Updates. Some we'll cover at high level and others we'll dive into a bit more.

Ronin is alive. The chain is there, the token is there, no more free transactions for regular Axies, which is key for sustainability and longevity
More games are coming to Ronin. This thread is all about Axie so I won't dive into The Machines Arena deeply, but that's a game on Ronin that is available on the Epic Games Store. PvP with pushing/stopping a push from a top down perspective. Not part of the Axie ecosystem at all, but Ronin always claimed to be a chain to unlock games. This is a good first step

The Machines Arena available on the Epic Games Store. Running on Ronin!

The game is in Early Access, there's a lot more polish needed, but the core mechanics are proven, and if the heroes are made interesting enough, there should be something there for the longer term!

Here's a quick video of the gameplay. I've just played a couple of games so far, so I need more time before covering it in more detail.

Origins and Homeland

And now back to the main event!

On the Axie Infinity front, the old Axie Classic, although still available, has made room for Origins. A game that attempts to add more depth and strategy to the original version of the card game. In order to walk players (such as myself) through the changes, a new campaign was created for Axie Origins.

As you progress through different stages of the campaign, you get rewards and unlock features in the client that allow you to begin using charms and runes. Effectively introducing you to the new game as you fight through the campaign.

An Overview from The Lunacian’s Blog Post on Origins

The core gameplay is still the same, so if you hated the Classic version you probably won't like Origins, but if you liked Classic, there's a lot more here. Customization being the key thing.

Finally, let's talk about the fabled LAND gameplay! It is here!

I've only played Homeland for a little bit. I got a Forest plot back in the day when ETH was over $3K and the cheapest forest plot was 7 ETH ☠️. The expectation in the market at the time was that land would create more "play to earn" opportunities and so prices were pretty crazy.

It felt good to be able to use my Axie Land and start to build it out. There's not too much excitement on the Homeland front just yet because it's super early right now in terms of the development. But if Sky Mavis plays their cards right, I don't see why this game can't become competitive with the multitudes of base building mobile games out there. The advantage that Homeland will have, that these other games will not, is the ability to offer incentives in game that would benefit Axies even outside of Homeland. Other NFTs that could be transferable.

Personally, there are a couple of other mechanics I would like to see in Homeland:

A way to reduce the Axie population OR have Axies less dependent on breeding for their final stats. There should be more thoughtful customization into your Axies.
$SLP and $AXS burn mechanisms that drive progress. This is obviously not rocket science because a ton of very profitable mobile games are already doing this.

I wanted to include some gameplay videos from the Homeland alpha but it is currently offline.

To Be Continued

It's hard to keep up with everything going on in Web3. There's always something new and it is a space that is on 24/7. Coming back to take a look at Sky Mavis's progress on Axie has been a lot of fun. It is definitely an ecosystem that is very much alive, and growing.

There were a lot of folks in 2021 who bought the top and are down horrendously on the Axies they bought fo $350 bucks a piece. However, it is important to separate the investment aspect from the gaming ecosystem aspect.

From what I've seen in terms of progress, I think we're slowly seeing a lot of things talked about in 2021 being built out, Ronin slowly becoming more than just a chain that runs Axie. Community built games, and other developers being onboarded to Ronin. Combine that with the growth of the Axie ecosystem of games as well, and I like what I'm seeing.

The gameplay needs to be more in depth, especially for a game like Homeland, and Sky Mavis definitely has the time and resources to do that. As I said in the beginning, I am excited to see what the future holds for Axie Infinity. The team is there, building, growing. Most importantly, it is nice to see that the community is there!

Here's hoping we see the digital nation develop in just that. A thriving digital nation for gamers!

Axie Infinity Links

Sky Mavis - Learn about Sky Mavis’s other products

Axie Infinity - Battle, Collect, and Trade Collectible NFT Creatures - All about Axie Infinity

Marketplace | App.Axie (axieinfinity.com) - Buy and Sell Axie assets

The Lunacian | Axie Infinity | Substack - All the latest Axie News is here. Subscribe to the Substack to stay in the know

Sky Mavis (@SkyMavisHQ) / Twitter - Sky Mavis Twitter

Axie Infinity (@AxieInfinity) / Twitter - Axie Infinity Twitter

Axie Infinity Discord - Axie Infinity Discord

Axie Infinity: Origin Is Live In Early Access! - An Intro to Origins

Introducing: Atia's Blessing! - by Axie Infinity - Atia’s Blessing is the latest mechanic that is part of Season 4, giving you rewards for seeking daily blessings

Origins Season 4: Mystic Era is LIVE! - by Axie Infinity - Season 4 Mystic Era is live with over 50K $AXS in prize money

Introducing Fortune Chests and the Filipino Fiesta Contest! (axieinfinity.com) - Another update!

The last three blog posts have happened over the last three days. A lot is going on!

DISCLAIMER

I bought a bunch of Axies in 2021, gave out scholarships, and bought a Forest Land. I think I have about 30-40 Axies, a bunch of $SLP at the moment. You can see most of it in my wallet on Ronin.

Grateful to Jiho for sanity checking the article. This was not a paid article/thread and represents my views on Sky Mavis and Axie ecosystem.