Wouldn't it be better to focus on the first product?
This is the first product, just more refined. When I initially built the auto battler, the context was completely different. It was planned as a new game mode for another ecosystem, Splinterlands, which would have a completely different monetization channel by utilizing their in-game assets and tokens. However, the community was not interested due to the struggles of their main game, so I had to pivot.
Now, the current game mode, which follows an auto-chess style, relies on having no pay-walls. This means that all playing cards in the game must be free, which significantly limits monetization options. We do have Heroes, which are collectible cards, but that's nothing compared to other TCG's with hundreds of new cards per year. Similar games like HS Battlegrounds or TFT depend on a small selection of cosmetic purchases to generate revenue. While there is the option to introduce a token, without carefully designed tokenomics, this can easily lead to an unsustainable extractor-driven inflationary spiral.
By expanding the game into an world-building MMO, a whole new set of possible rewards and monetization options opens up. Most importantly, rewards which make sense and aren't just about "number goes up".
I haven't evaluated it in depth to see if it's totally on-chain or just blockchain integrations (off-chain). And why not make it for Hive? Because of the zero transaction fees.
I'm not exactly sure about your definition of onchain and offchain, particularly in relation to your second sentence. Building onchain applications on Hive is not trivial unless it is a social application utilizing the "native smart contracts," since Hive was designed as an application-specific blockchain—essentially a social media blockchain. Most use cases that involve custom JSON rely on soft consensus, which, as the name implies, does not enforce onchain logic but instead allows applications to store and read JSON blobs on the blockchain. These JSON blobs are then used in offchain applications.
For example, when a user submits a market_purchase custom JSON, the application processes it, runs its own logic, and updates its database accordingly. However, nothing prevents the application from modifying its database directly, meaning there is no strict onchain enforcement. This is where Hive Engine and VSC come in, as they enable code execution in a decentralized and transparent manner. However, in both cases, the execution is not happening directly on Hive but rather on an L2 that runs on Hive, with its own consensus mechanisms. Applications can also build their own L2, such as Splinterlands with its SPS Chain, but this process takes time and requires developing an entire infrastructure. This is why smart contracts are typically a more efficient solution, as they allow developers to focus on building the contracts themselves rather than the entire framework around them. Another option is HAF (Hive Application Framework), which, hopefully, will introduce smart contracts in 2025. As far as I know, a significant part of developing application with it relies on SQL, which kept me so far from using it.
With this in mind, Ethgard Legends is largely onchain. Game items, pack openings, forging, and heroes, including their upgrades, are all fully onchain, meaning that players can interact with the game logic independently of Ethgard Legends’ centralized servers. However, battling and chests remain offchain.
For Ethgard, everything is currently offchain, as it is still in its prototype phase to test and refine the concept. The long-term goal is to bring as much of the game onchain as possible, ensuring that it can continue to exist and be developed and improved upon by the players themselves.
My goal is to build the best possible product, if that can be done on Hive, that'd be great.
You've managed to answer all my future questions. Thank you for that.
When I refer to only the ON-CHAIN and OFF-CHAIN context, I mean in general. Maybe developers should forget about fully integrating blockchain, in your case avoiding in-game transactions so the player doesn't have to pay a fee, nobody likes that. An example of this is certainly Axie Infinity (maybe only the Origins version, the classic is a bit suspect to say that). The game runs OFF-CHAIN, although NFT upgrades can be requested in-game, there is no internal market or trading of anything during the game, just the game.