The Damned Pirates SocietyAMA Feb 18th 2022 — Moonriver Unofficial Telegram group

The AMA was hosted in the $MOVR Unofficial telegram group (https://t.me/moonriverunofficial) on Feb 18th 2022.

Lucky: Hey there captain @DavyJonesDPS! How are you doing today? Thanks a lot for being here with us for today’s AMA!

Halaster (Hal): A good time to walk the planks, Davy!

Davy Jones: Hey everyone thanks for having me

Lucky: Here he is! Awesome to be hosting this AMA and seeing DPS being covered here! Could you tell us a bit more about your role at DPS?

Davy: I’m the project lead over at the DPS. It was my brainchild initially starting with the BLCKSPT game which generated the whitelist for the project. I’m currently running the overall strategy, organisation and marketing of the project.

Lucky: Ohh, the $BLCKSPT! Feels like yesterday — no one really knew what it was about, but everyone wanted to take part!

Davy: It was really good fun, everyone getting on bored really kickstarted the project.

Lucky: I think most of us here have heard at least a bit about the pirates at the damned pirates society. How would you briefly describe the project?

Davy: We are an #NFT profile picture which has it’s own game and soon economy. We try to keep as much on chain and decentralised as possible. Key drivers are allowing people who are busy in the crypto space to still play, idle style games were real inspiration.

Lucky: Straight to the point, like a true pirate

Halaster: It was a long road until implementation of the Voyages V1 and the gamification of the Pirates NFT. Can you please tell us about the community feedback of the published Voyages V1 and how you consider this for the upcoming updates?

Davy: The community feedback was generally positive with key frustrations being in the efficiency of playing. Certain limitations were caused by our on-chain random solution. Going forward we are looking to implement key QOL improvements such as minting multiple voyages at once, these kind of batch transactions will speed things up.

Halaster: Ah that is nice! I was kind of struggling with minting voyages one by one!

Lucky: Awesome, batch transactions will certainly make the experience even better. I’ve been seeing really good feedback from the community on the voyages — seems like everyone is having a blast

Hal: I heard a lot of people are asking about how to upgrade their pirate to be more successful. What’s your opinion?

Davy: So upgrading Pirates is something we considered but with voyaging launching post #NFT launch we didn’t think it would be fair for people who bought high skilled pirates hit a cap and the cheaper lower skill pirates slowly catch them up. We use flagships, which are upgradeable to counterbalance this. You will be able to purchase upgrades for your ship, increasing the overall strength of your fleet on the voyage

Hal: So V1.5 will bring more support for our ships? Or will this be implemented at a later stage?

Davy: v1.5 will bring in these upgradeable flagships, the composable cosmetic upgrades will come later (wen RMRK)

Hal: Wow!

Lucky: Sounds fair honestly. Introducing those dynamics on the flagships instead of the pirates might be a nice way to do it

Hal: So now we are talking!

Lucky: Everytime we read composability and RMRK’s logic we all get excited haha

Davy: It’s just a great way to build an NFT that you really love / want

Lucky: It would suit DPS perfectly

Kusama Maxi: Not sure if I can pop up like this, but since we’re nearing the subject can you tell us about the plan for the game economy? Any hints on what we can expect from these chests?

Lucky: If you’re having some rum while talking to Davy Jones, then you should be alright

Kusama Maxi — Polkacita: Aye aye

Davy: Chests will contain doubloons, we also plan for them to contain the rare captains lockbox. This will contain artifacts, cosmetics and other potential rewards. WIll these be in 1.5? You’ll have to wait and see.

Hal: Coming back to the NFT integrations: So aside from cosmetics do you plan to integrate further items like pets, weapons or is it just planned to customize your Pirate in a cosmetic manner?

Davy: There are so many things that we can do with the pirates, it’s unlikely we will change them visually because changing rarity at this stage is probably not a good idea.

Hal: Understood! Kusama Maxi raised a good questions. Let’s elaborate further: Tell us more about the implementation of $DOUBLOONS and how they will fit in the overall concept. Will those tokens be tradeable on the market and what are further plans for the token?

Davy: $Doubloons are an ERC-20 so there are no limitations on what can be done with that. Doubloons will be the in-game currency and will be used to repair the flagship, buy support ships , buy cosmetics and upgrade your ship.

Hal: So $TMAP will be still at the core of the project to get voyages running? Or will $DOUBLOONS be more important

Davy: Just like earning gold in Runescape or World of Warcraft, they will be crucial to your progress. $TMAP is designed to be a way for early adopters to share in the growth of the project, as we onboard new players they will need $TMAP to earn doubloons, rather than this been minted by the team or just the contract, its held and created by Gen0 pirates. $TMAP is your ticket to play, but everyone gets to share in that growth rather than just us.

Lucky: Nice point there. I was also wondering — will there be additional usage for $TMAP tokens other than minting voyages? Or will it keep on having this instrumental value whereas $DOUBLOONS will encompass many other use cases?

Hal: So the reduction of the $TMAP emission to 1 per day was done via governance. Will you furtherly raise decision via votes or are there things the community is not allowed to decide?

Davy: Changes to TMAP emmission will always be voted on, as we increase new players TMAP price will likely rise, stifling growth, when that happens we will request a vote to increase emissions, rather than having 1 tmap a day worth $10, gen0 pirates might have 10 tmap a day worth $1. If something is felt to be unfair or needs changing, bringing it to the attention of the kings and we can discuss, make a proposal and vote.

Hal: How does the concept of kings work?

Davy: He’s on his deathbed with covid right now, couldn’t support a bar right now.

Lucky: Haha good question from your side

Hal: Get well @L0ngJ0hnSilver!!

Davy: The Kings are community liasions, as we are small right now we can listen to the community and make changes, but as we grow we need people to help support the community and make sure their voice is heard.

Lucky: That will probably come as a natural step forward indeed

Davy: How many times I’ve tried to speak to project leads and just been ignored was super frustrating, we want to try an mimimise that angst.

Hal: The Pirate Kings had organized a raffle. Is there more to come you might already share with us?

Davy: The kings are trying to bootstrap liquidity something that is hard for us to do from a legal perspective, its a great initiative from them and I’m hoping they can get a deep liquidity pool set up.

Hal: We are on it! Okay, let’s get back to the future roadmap of the Damned Pirates Society! I am excited for the V2.0 update as we will have finally more characters for Tortuga with specific characters. You wanna sneak reveal one of them?

Davy: The artwork for the characters has just been finished and its awesome (it’s the wallpaper for most of the team rn) but it’s better viewed in context of the whole website, so no reveal today, sorry!

Lucky: Please do sir!

Hal: Get the planks ready, Lucky! I heard you plan an update and overhaul of the website and UX. Tell us more about it

Davy: We’ve hired a specialist UI/UX team that have just started their 2nd month on the project, they’ve taken our initial art and concept and streamlined it into something that looks amazing and is super easy to use. Rather than just a basic functional UI, you will be able to navigate to the different stores on Tortuga, interact with the difference characters that run the shipyard, docks, plunderers guild and use these to run your voyages. It’s a point and click adventure that builds on the basic game and gives the world character and life.

Hal: Monkey Island feeling incoming

Davy: 100%

Hal: Yarrrr! Lets talk about Dotsama! Any plans to collaborate with other projects in the Dotsama ecosystem?

Lucky: Wow this sounds insanely cool. Any rough projection as to when all this might come?

Davy: We are looking to add to the contracts so that other collections will be able to voyage if they buy a flagship. So if your a Moonsama and grab a flagship, you will be able to go earn some chests. Whether this is ready for 1.5 we are not sure.

Hal: Donnie, are you listening?

Davy: 4–6 Weeks is what we are hoping for, but it depends on how the contract works progresses.

Hal: I like the integration idea you just presented!

Davy: It’s kinda stolen from Donnie and the VIP tickets, you might not be a fully fledged member, but you can still have a taste

Hal: Which is a fair deal to participate in the DPS! And enlarge the community and involve more users

Davy: Yeah and there is no reason we can expand this to others, neon crisis for example

Hal: Really interesting news! The DPS is deployed on Moonriver. Will you remain solely on Moonriver or do you plan to expand/deploy to $GLMR Moonbeam as well

Lucky: Definitely a good approach. Onboarding more people/users in the game and community really propels growth

Davy: There is no reason we can’t go multichain as long as they are EVM compatible, we want DPS to grow to something huge, crosschain is a way to move into non saturated markets and as it doesn’t really matter if there are 100k players on 1 chain, or across 10 for economic perspective, it’s 100% in our consideration. $TMAP will need to be bridged from the Gen0 birds of course

Hal: So the Pirates plan to conquer Dotsama ecosystem! Or even beyond?

Davy: No-one is safe

Hal: An interesting question came up on Twitter which I like to share to you: Is it true that in the future some chests might contain #NFTs from other $MOVR projects?

Davy: It’s something I wanted to do from the start and is something we should easily be able to put into the code. The main issue is how do we finance purchasing those projects? Once the doubloon economy is booming this may generate the funds we need to add others to the loot pool. This supports other projects and give users the chance at getting something really special. Win win.

Hal: Definitely! I love the idea. One more question which came up: When will you drift down @MoonriverNW with the fine folks over at #Huckleberry?

Davy: They seem a friendly bunch, do they have enough pirate in them? Maybe they should jump in the discord and we will see!

Hal: This sounds like an invitation, Huckleberry!

Lucky: Yes exactly. I think it can definitely be made possible that way. Moreover, we all know how united the whole dotsama community and specially NFT projects are. Collaborations are where it’s at around here. Make them scrub the decks first and then decide! Haha @Huckleberry_DEX you’re being summoned. It would be a really cool idea to do something together! Awesome round of questions we’ve had. Davy sharp as usual.We’ll now open the chat to community questions. Ask Davy anything you want — don’t give the captain a very easy time too!

Hal: He has to earn his $Doubloons!

— —Q&A SESSION — —

Vonyi: You mentioned batching transactions does that mean we get a ‘finish all voyage’ button similiar to ‘repair all’ one?

Davy: Finish all won’t be possible due to gas limits within contracts, as we process a lot of transactions internally, but we are hoping for finish 3 (the average number of pirates per holder)

FrostXtreme: How is this going to work? VIP tickets get a very very small taste of what moonsama’s get. So I think it would be only fair to do the same thing. If you are not a moonsama holder, you basically wont get anything. What will the skill sets of these moonsama’s be? And what about the rewards they get, will they be the same?

Davy: It’s all up for discussions, we are thinking that non-official collections will get basic skills. The more people that play, the more TMAPs will be needed as they won’t generate this, so that is part of the balance.

Hal: Will the amount of Pirates always remain the same? No further Pirates?

Davy: We will be dropping secondary collections but they will be different to the parrots, it will likely be a larger, cheaper collection. Growth is the goal.

FrostXtreme: What do you mean with basic skills? We paid for pirates with good skills. Would be weird if moonsama’s get free skills which outperform our own pirates

Davy: Basic skills, as in less than current pirates.

FrostXtreme: Ok. And what about the rewards they get? will the rewards they get get split between the real pirate community? Just like moonsama is doing with ticket holders? 90% gganbu

Davy: Most likely not, whilst the concept is from moonsama, its not the same system. Again its all just concept for now, it’s a minimum of 2 months away and plenty of time for community discussions and votes!

FrostXtreme: Ok I really hope Moonsama’s will not be kings of this project aswell. Moonsama’s are getting kinda cringe because all the free stuff they get for being early…

Davy: No they won’t :) but we don’t want to create a walled garden, inclusive communities and NFT’s with multiple uses are super key to us.

Hal: I am not worried at all as Davy and the team surely concentrate on their core community

Ace: Future collections will be released after 2.0?

Davy: Yeah future collections are in the planning stage but funds and efforts are 99% into delivery of 2.0 right now

FrostXtreme: Are these voyages going to be the only way to earn chests and earn doubloons? Or are you guys planning on adding more features to get some rum?

Davy: Definitely new avenues. We want to create a real-time game eventually so users have a choice, idle style or hands on.

FrostXtreme: When you buy a ship support with $Doubloons in update 1.5, will the ship support get consumed whether or not the ship got damaged, or only when you fail a challenge?

Davy: You’ll only lose a support ship at a failed strength or navigation interaction

FrostXtreme: Woah. So there will be a second game? One kinda afk game and one real time game?

Davy: That’s the goal.

FrostXtreme: Cool!

Yoyo Bla: I wanna buy an island. Is that going to be possible?

Lucky: Davy, you’re killing it sir!

Oozaru Sama: Yeah, we want $RUM

FrostXtreme: What kind of advantages do you get from the artifacts?

Davy: So there are plans for Pirate Hideouts, a user own island where you can build a and display your nfts or other rewards. Artifacts are single skill stat boosts that are not consumable

Hal: Wow!

Davy: $RUM might be in the works. Unconfirmed yet though.

FrostXtreme: Ok so they are upgrades for your pirate?

Cryptox: That’s sick

Davy: Not for pirates, but as part of your overall voyage. A voyage might consist of pirate + flagship + support ships + artifact. Everything gets added up vs the enemy rng.

FrostXtreme: Cool! Will we be able to make money by playing this game?

Davy: It’s impossible to say really

Yoyo Bla: Great stuff!

FrostXtreme: Oh that would be problematic… What will be the point of paying for a pirate and a ship when you dont get anything in return?

Davy: We want the game to be fun to play and rewarding, grow your fleet, improve your ship, buy composable cosmetic to improve it visually. Build you pirates lore.

FrostXtreme: So we will not be able to earn money? That is going to make this project lose a lot of it’s value to a lot of users probably

Crixus KSM: Will it be possible to send a pirate along with multiple ships?

Davy: You will be able to buy and receive other #NFTs from within the game eco that will be tradeable. If there is demand for these cosmetics then …

FrostXtreme: People aren’t paying 1.5k for a good pirate just for fun or a lore

Davy: 1 flagship, multiple support ships.

FrostXtreme: $Doubloons will be tradeable right? We will be able to sell them for Moonriver tokens?

Davy: $Doubloons are ERC-20 so yes tradeable

FrostXtreme: So the game is profitable? I’m geting kinda concerned ngl

DarkHorse: Yeah it’s sweet

Crixus KSM: The posibilities are endless in my opinion, is there a posibility of missions with more players? like start the mision and pass to the next participant the product in progress signed to your friend and he can finish signing with his birds too?

DarkHorse: Lots of people making bank and it’s fun too

FrostXtreme: It’s not sure yet… I payed $3k for lore lfg

Davy: We think multiplayer voyages are a really cool idea, sea raids and defeating bosses. It’s something we are exploring for sure.

Crixus KSM: Never can be promises of returns

Hal: Think out of the box, you earn $TMAPs, $Doubloons and further stuff

FrostXtreme: I just want to know if we will be able to get any returns at all. A way to get money by playing the game. I know. But I just got told that making money by playing this game isn’t a sure thing yet. That’s a big deal. People aren’t buying pirates to create lore. It’s a cool idea, don’t get me wrong

Crixus KSM: Like public temporary missions or raids would be nice

FrostXtreme: But the main reason is to get some sort of income

Lucky: @DavyJonesDPS you’re amazing man! Thanks so much for stopping by, this was some quality time!

FrostXtreme: I think I speak for a lot of other pirates

Lucky: Really happy with all the info and opinions shared here

Hal: Thank you so much, Davy. It was a pleasure having you with us! You escaped the planks but you are free to answer further questions of course!

Davy: Thanks for having me, some really good questions and hope it’s given people a bit of an insight into what we are doing and what we want to achieve! Going to go put the baby to bed!

D: Davy, The Damned Pirates Society
LL: Lucky Luciano, Admin Moonriver Unofficial
Hal: Halaster, Admin Moonriver Unofficial