The title may be a bit funny to one person, a.k.a. @holovision who's been on hive in forever and made it clear he's not part of the project when we announced @holozing, just a coincidence :D
Anyway, found some time to post after a week. I have to admit I've felt a bit burnout-ish this past week as well which caused for some slower days. With things moving faster ahead now there some times comes a feeling of getting overwhelmed, I'm not sure if this is something I can handle for too long but there's vacation days coming up and some of our devs are going to take a short break while some others will use the free time to work full-time on zing which is great. That usually means not much free time for myself, though. :D
Anyway, it's been quite a weird year but with things opening up in terms of funding through curation rewards on @zingtoken and purchases of alpha vials there's been a sense of relief and new motivation coming into the scene. I mentioned the other day when someone stated that the recent hive pump was an important one and more people should've said something rather than being quite in the particular chat that maybe most people are just busy building things and aren't looking too much at prices. Devs don't care about prices as they say. What I followed up with however was that I've been so focused on holozing the past year that seeing hive do better gives me a bigger sense of relief for its funding rather than my finances, you know, being all-in hive in forever.
With this post I'd like to lay down some potential futures of where I'd see holozing in and potentially start to work at in 2025 and beyond. Keep in mind however that we're going to approach this quite respectfully, if these markets have told us anything is that they continue to be unpredictable - even when btc and eth were doing better, most including hive did not up until the very end of 2024.
First and foremost, we hope to launch the beta of the game in early 2025, this will however be a soft-launch with potentially only a limited amount of daily wild creature encounters. This means that players will be able to set a time when they want their encounters to occur based on their timezone, say for instance if I'd prefer my daily encounters to happen between 6 and 8 pm (there'll most likely be a minimum to prevent back-to-back encounters), I could have them happen then at random times between those two hours rather than stressing about missing out encounters when I should be focusing on other things - okay not me personally maybe since I mainly sit at home but for instance students and people working real jobs not to get distracted or in trouble. :P
For this soft-launch to happen, we still need to enable opening of vials and minting of healers. With healers our current plans are to "copy" how splinterlands minted Runi's, meaning the minting would occur on ethereum and open us up to more traffic and visibility by for instance being able to mint and view your assets on opensea.io. This of course will mean a little inconvenience from hivers having to use another chain and wallet extension to mint a holozing healer, but with generative nft collections it's important there's only one copy of them and easier for them to exist on one chain - however who knows what @vsc will allow us to do once we're able to connect hive to other chains through them. Either way, I've asked @yabapmatt for some connections with devs to assist us on minting there and to figure out leasing/deleegations on hive by "staking" nft's on eth to allow for it - shouldn't be too difficult and hopefully not too expensive. This isn't us trying to say Hive doesn't have what it takes to handle the healer mint, it does and there's so much more advantages to do it here when it comes to fees, transfers, etc, but we have to face reality that Hive is quite small and launching those here would not attract as much volumes for them to have a chance to hit supply cap. Not to mention the opportunity it can give Hive in terms of traffic to bring collectors and players to this blockchain through our game and being able to earn zing and hive by participating further here.
For things between chains to work smooth we will also have to revamp holozing account creation by offering an easy signup while allowing for referral registrations so new players can quickly get an account, mint a healer on eth and link them to their holozing account, then receive a free hive account from us to also connect to take advantage of passive zing collection rewards and of course to play the game once we get there. This'll allow players to easily create an account and be able to restore passwords/login info and potentially even use fiat to purchase a healer and alpha vial or things from the marketplace while remaining a web2 account. For this to work and to make it fair for fiat players we will also have to simulate their earning experience, for instance if someone purchases an alpha vial with fiat or other crypto than hive through a payment service, and they open the vial up to have their creatures and items, they should still earn zing like everyone else despite not having a hive account connected yet - that zing can't just be "extra inflation" so it'll need to participate in the same distribution as current zing while remaining "virtual zing". This can be done by having a specific account we create claim zing and note down who it belongs to and how much, other things would still work the same such as unstaking or burning/using zing in-game, except that they won't be able to trade it for other crypto or fiat - for that they'll be required to "upgrade" to a hive account. For accounts that only have metamask connected we'll allow them to trade zing and receive it in different coins/tokens on their metamask.
As you can tell there's still quite some stuff to do but these are just things on the horizon, so let's dive a bit into the future if things go well popularity-wise for holozing.
I've already done some groundwork and planning for a physical card collection for holozing and have some contacts in wait for us to pull the trigger on a web2 crowdfunding campaign. Being diverse and in many places is a good thing I believe, especially if all roads lead back to Hive eventually. I'm not going to go too deep into this, but the idea is quite simple. Create quality physical card collection - initially non-playable, just collector's edition - with amazing artwork in different formats and rarities of our creatures and healers. Limited supply edition which will come with certain perks - pulling rare cards will grant you a digital copy of healers and creatures that you can lay claim on our website. In simple terms, collector's of the physical cards would be able to get much of the same advantages as players on web3 do while allowing web3 to be opt-in. Don't want to sell your zing you've collected by claiming your digital copies from your rare cards? That's fine, don't. Changed your mind? Upgrade to a hive account to remove the limitations of trading zing and your assets. The idea is that the digital copy versions of the cards will have to be rare enough so the cost of the physical cards would match what people on hive have paid for an alpha vial and healer mint. I.e. if a pack of cards costs $10, you'll most likely need ~5 packs to average out on getting a rare healer card or starter creature card to get a digital copy from it to let you play the game. There's still some things to iron out here with this idea, primarily what happens to your digital copy if your physical copy gets stolen/traded. Simply idea is that whenever the qr code card that's in every pack gets rescanned on a new account we have to assume it was traded - but potentially have a time window to allow for reports saying otherwise available - keep in mind the digital copy from the cards won't be an actual nft, just let you do what the nfts do, i.e. play the game while collecting real or virtual nfts and tokens until you opt-in for them becoming real.
Lastly what I want to bring up today, would be that Holozing will be a media franchise. We'd want it to flourish in many different mediums all the while encouraging players to become socially active on hive and take advantage of the things we've gotten used to here. I already have a second smaller game in mind to allow players to use the same assets from the first game there as well - while this one won't take as long to create we haven't started on that yet as our focus currently is our flagship game.
We'd also like to co-operate with others in creating official merchandise for holozing while allowing buyers to register for an account and trial of our games. Along with looking for story writers and artists to start us off on our very own manga/webtoon which may then open up doors for anime/other and cover as much ground as possible while making the experience of our players more valuable than things existing in web2. I believe that having launched the project the way we have has given a lot of unique people the chance to participate and take advantage of having skin in the game while at the same time the risk having been quite low since most of the early distribution has occurred through hive power delegations. There are for instance many earning zing I know personally have earned their HP by being social and now have quite a lot of zing which seems very low-risk to them and they're quite excited for the future of the project. Compared to say web2 where only venture capital and angel investors are able to get in early while more often than not selling onto the people wanting to get in later with propped up prices on exchange listings who also receive a big supply along with founders and team having a big supply they've given themselves.
We have a lot of advantages when it comes to that based on how we've started and we want to keep it fair and focus on the value staying with people that crowdfunded it and continuously stay vested and active either by being social, playing or trading and in the future potentially more ways to get involved.
Anyway, just some thoughts and wishful thinking at best at this point in time, but I truly believe we have quite a unique proposition with the project, a cool idea that's different to many other games and projects along with fairness and web3 advantages that have never been seen before by players and collectors, all made possible cause of Hive. I'm quite excited for 2025!
and please, don't take this as financial advice, stay safe and earn some by simple hp delegation which has been profitable since we launched, meaning you would've been able to earn most of the Hive you forfeited to zingtoken through missed curation rewards back had you traded your zing + had some extra zing leftover for the game. Or just stay active being social on chain and earn your rewards to participate that way, Hive is unique as it creates some cool circular economies that way, make use of it but stay within community etiquette!
#HoloZing has really caught my eye among the games on Hive - not as a game, obviously, since it’s not out yet, but as a community. There’s a confidence in how people talk about it, this creative momentum that shows up in the discussions and the fan art. I bought a vial, and seeing this kind of thoughtful post makes me glad I did.
The plans you laid out really highlight how much care is going into this. Minting Healers on Ethereum makes sense as a way to broaden the audience, and I appreciate the thought you’re giving to onboarding people from Web2 and fiat without messing up the Zing token’s economy. The physical collector cards are a cool idea too, especially since you’re thinking about how they’ll tie into the game economy instead of just being a gimmick. And then the announcement of HoloZing as a media franchise—that’s big. Starting with manga and moving into anime shows you’re not just building a game, you’re building a world.
You must be exhausted keeping all these moving pieces going, but posts like this remind us why the wait’s worth it. Take care of yourself, and thanks for all the work you’re putting into this.
Yeah I think they understand that the idea itself and how the game('s) are going to work will stand out and it's something I've planned for a very, very long time. Honestly even before splinterlands was created (I remember telling @aggroed about it as he was talking about creating a tcg). Maybe they also like that aside from having put a lot of thought into it they can see that I myself as the founder am also delegating and investing in it myself and not just getting free tokens out of thin air, etc, along with having been here for over 8 years now and active pretty much daily it may build trust that it's not just another rugpull or vaporware as 99% of the space (although maybe not on hive).
I guess they're also excited to see something come out with more funding going towards artwork and the first game being 3d which we don't really have on hive yet.
But yeah, I don't plan on stopping but need to make sure I take breaks here and there and live a healthier lifestyle to see this through with a clear mind and vision. ^^
Hopefully long-long term the project evolves into something that can exist and evolve on its own as well, even if I'm no longer in the picture. For instance multi-sig access to the account and a trusted party to handle payments towards contributors similar to the DHF.
Man, you need an assistant. I’m not saying this because I doubt your ability to handle everything (quite the opposite), but because having someone to manage the smaller coordination tasks could free up your time for planning, strategizing, and, most importantly, getting the rest you need (don’t underestimate that).
Holozing as a media franchise genuinely excites me. With the quality of work you’re putting into the art, design, mechanics, and overall theme of the game, I’d say it has the potential to be the next big thing (and not just on Hive).
The one thing that gave me some doubt or concern is the minting of Healers on OpenSea. It’s not because I think it won’t work, but rather because I’m so accustomed to Hive that I get a bit lost when using other chains, lol. That said, I believe this is the right approach for generative NFTs because ETH has the liquidity and target market. That’s why I’ve kept an open mind about this strategy. Maybe everything will become clearer once all the information or tutorials are available for us to review and the interface is ready for us to use.
Wishing you all the best!
To me it's completely fine and understandable that everyone has burn outs every now and then and it's frustrating when things take longer than expected.
But I still only have bullish eyes for Holozing, just yesterday bought 2 more vials even :)
Gz on passing 2000 vials sold btw!
I need to take a break from buying here soon but bought most when hive was sub 20c so had to DCA a little. 😅
Interesting that you are going to follow the Splinterlands Runi model. I got one Runi, all in all Runi didn't seem to make a splash on Open Sea or Ethereum in general. Hopefully your launch is more successful as it can bring new eyeballs to Holozing and to HIVE ecosystem.
I hope you are able to deal effectively with the mental & psychological burn out. I have learnt that breaks and rests are necessary for maintaining our wellbeing and avoiding being overwhelmed. I hope you get a good chance during the vacations to unwind. The soft-launch you've announced is eagerly being expected and I hope it goes well. The Holozing team is really trying.
I really like the idea of healers on opensea because it could be a way to attract Eth gamers to Hive even if it will mean that I will have to open an Eth wallet for the first time.
I think it will be very useful to provide tutorials on site to do the operations on Eth related to healers because this way those who don't know Eth
sounds like your sentence got cut short :D
The minting in Ethereum is a milestone and this can help the game to grow larger and Hive will have more interaction from outsiders. I also like the timezone management concepts in the game which will help everyone to play the game accordingly. But when there are enough players, will it be the same or the time management task solely depend on the player's perspective.Thanks for letting us know about the longterm goal of the game.
Beta 2025 POG! Excited to see this happening and getting my hands on the game. Goal is at least 1 million zing that will hopefully put me in a good spot for launch.
Interesting on the whole opensea thing. I have to admit I've only built and sold things on there never bought but that may change here. I just don't like giving up my ETH etc. However it could in fact provide more funding and build sources of income for the game outside of just hive. The general APR staking rewards of Ethereum could bring funds in.
I would like all printing etc. to be done on the Hive blockchain. If it is something that interests people, they will come and explore it here.
But.
You can follow a strategy similar to the Stepn game. You can design it to be played on different blockchains. (Solana, BSC, Ethereum)
Moreover.
It is not easy to finance such a quality game. For this, players need to buy something (Energy Vials etc.). What do you plan to do if you start having difficulty with financing? Will this be new in-game purchases? I think the holozing game deserves a proposals even if it hasn't started yet.
Yeah handling txs on other chains is quite a pain dev-wise,not just costs but trust as well and being able to find them to begin with. We hope VSC will be able to help out quite a lot there to make it easier not just for us but any project on hive to easily connect to other chains.
I foresee not many financial troubles in the near future, it's not based on me thinking we will blow up and get a lot of new money coming in from new players (although of course that'd be great), but it's mainly at this point in time where we have a 3d team focusing on our assets that we're a bit tight with funding. Since that's a one-time thing, however, once that's done we'll be back to having extra funds we can start planning on using on other things.
#holozing will be first game of web 3.0 'm really excited for the game to be launched soon.. #holozing team is really working amazing to be bring out yhe imagination into reality.. this game to be one of best game of web 3.0....
That second game sounds interesting,,, haha, I didn't understand the rest, but what really excites me is that it's very close,,,,the game
a lot of things boiling over your mind, if you can make that all it will be impressive, and eventually the most famous hive game
one thing bothers me...will i need to have an eth account for the healer? i don't atm, afaik is not free to make one, nor will be mint the healder i guess?
This was a question I meant to ask, too. Reading between the ideas, I wonder if the plan is to let folk virtually mint their healers, the way Web2 folk will be "minting" things?
(Finding 'virtual minting' very funny as a term, because all of this is virtual!)
:D
eth accounts are free to create, unless you meant minting the healer, no that one won't be free and I realize it may be an inconvenience for hive users, we'll see what we can do from our side to assist there.
Yea i mean to mint the healer too... Would be convenient have a mint ingame which does converts hive/hbd to eth and does all the mint automatically, otherwise it's kinda a pain
Is there a possibility that we pay Hive or HBD (instead of ETH) to mint a Healer?
I think they will create a bridge between hive and eth chain using vsc network for smooth transactions. I'm not very technical in this area. I remember asking about this in the discord chat. You can still find about it if your scroll a bit in there haha.
I remember Acid mentioned VSC some time ago but never really thought about it because I am still not aware of the minting of Healers in ETH.
Now it makes sense why we may rely on the VSC network. Okay, at least there's a way to make it convenient for Hive-based players. That's cool!
Yep it's very important that transactions should be made easy. I don't expect it to happen soon but I'm sure something like this will happen in the future for sure. This is one of the things I love about hive. Take nft showroom for eg. It's so simple to mint there. I had to rely on others to mint an artwork on other chains because it was super technical hahaha.
minting is quite straight forward tbh, I'm sure people will create tutorial posts etc in the community, but you simply just create an eth wallet which is one with "random" numbers and letters similar to bitcoin, so no fees/verification/wait time, probably easiest to just install metamask (similar to hive keychain) and create wallet there, then store keys somewhere safe.
After that u can simply send some hive through a swap service directly to the eth address, go to opensea/website and press mint, approve a tx or two, pay some network fees and you'll have your healer - after that just signing another tx on our website to link your eth address to your hive one so we know it belongs to u and can check the address does indeed hold a healer and you can then use it in the game once it launches.
But yeah, we'll also look into how we can make it easier for people who don't wanna handle eth stuff at all and prefer us to handle it for them, it's just that that's usually a security risk as it puts a target on us if bad actors find out we're storing many nfts of other users.
I think that's something I can manage. I already have Metamask wallet extension but I haven't done anything on it so Holozing NFTs will be the first to use it :D
I believe once I sign in my ETH address to the Holozing website and my address is recorded, every NFTs I mint will be automatically reflected in my Holozing inventory. So, it's going to be a one-time transaction only.
This I understand. I also think that NFTs should be under the self-custody of the players themselves.
Thanks for the reply!
That's awesome to hear that players can use the same assets in other games. I think, you are brainstorming a lot bringing many opportunities to the project.
I liked the idea of physical cards. If Splinter had done something like that, I'm sure I would have some. Regarding healers on the ETH network, I hope there's an easier way for the Hive maximalists. Otherwise, good luck with the project's progress. I don't know how to get chosen to play in the Alpha, but I'd like to be one of the chosen ones. Or at least have a representative from the Brazilian community.
Thanks for the update! Looking forward to 2025!
woahhh 😲
Thanks for the update, we're excited for opening of vials and start of beta. Seems things are moving along fine.
!BBH
!PIZZA
$PIZZA slices delivered:
logen9f tipped acidyo
@danzocal(2/10) tipped @acidyo
Sorry to hear that. Meanwhile, people want HP delegations, lol. The last impressions contest: https://peakd.com/hive-197333/@x-rain/hiveposh-impressions-contest-8
Getting to that now :D
!PIZZA