Goes without saying I'm optimistic about the future of crypto gaming (just see my bio on Twitter), so I wanted to review one game that I believe is taking the right approach to crypto game dev. Welcome to my article on Treeverse!

Intro

Treeverse was founded by @Loopifyyy and @__aizea and first presented to the audience in 2021. It is a new MMORPG based on Ethereum blockchain, although they have plans to migrate to ETH L2 (specific L2 is TBD).

Treeverse is in the active development stage by Endless Cloud studio. The team is comprised of veterans of gaming industry that worked on titles such as League of Legends, Rainbow 6 Siege, Horizon Zero Dawn, Dark Souls 3, Marvel Spiderman.

The game is designed for mobile, but it's planned to be ported to PC too. On top of that, it will be free to play. The team stresses that they are trying to avoid P2W (Pay-to-Win) mechanics. All players will be treated equally regardless of the size of their wallet.

Official Release is at least 2+ years away, however, there were no exact dates confirmed. Its not all bad though for those who can't wait as Pre-Alpha and Alpha dates will be out soon.

The background story of Treeverse starts from NFT collection “NFTrees” launched by Loopify in February 2021. As Loopify further elaborates "It was mainly our sale in August that led us to create the fully-fledged MMORPG"

The dedication to building out fully-fledged MMORPG was further propelled forward after team received seed round funding at $25M valuation co-led by IDEO Ventures and Animoca Brands, with several other investors.

Gameplay

The information is constantly updated but here’s what we have for now about the game mechanics.

In Treeverse, like in any other MMORPG, players will be able to explore lands, form guilds, complete quests, interact with teammates, defeat dungeons, level up their skills, etc.

The team has already provided some info on what skills will be available: melee, ranged, magic, crafting, mining, woodcutting, and fishing. Inspired by such games as Runescape and Stardew Valley, Treeverse opens fantasy and sci-fi themes with a MOBA-style combats.

Players will be able to fight either by themselves or in collaborative mode with teammates.

Here’s the first combat trailer released just a few days ago. Looks great!
As an ex-LoL semi-pro, I absolutely love fast paced, skillshot based gameplay

How NFTs tie into the game

Since Treeverse has blockchain elements, it will incorporate NFTs. Each item you get within the game (weapons, armor, pets) can be turned into an NFT, available for exchange in the game’s marketplace.

There are already three main NFT collections released: NFTrees, Treeverse Plots and Timeless Characters.

NFTrees - a collection of only 420 randomly composed pixel trees. NFTrees produce unique fruit depending on the traits of the tree.

Holders can place these trees in the game, let them bear fruits, and sell them to other players. ATM they are the most valuable relic in the Treeverse.

• first minted in February 2021 with the base price 0.2 ETH
• now floor price (FP) of the NFTs is over 15 ETH

Treeverse Plots- a collection of 10.4k NFTs that give you access to public homes, better customizability, teleport destination, and extra storage space. Holders can also choose to rent out their plots.

• first minted in August 2021 for 0.12 ETH
• atm FP is 1 ETH

Timeless Characters - a collection of 9.4k anime-style PFP avatars that can be used as skins and be equipped whenever a holder wants to. No utility has been revealed by the team, so for now these are purely cosmetic characters.
Pic4

It is planned to create multiple designs associated with Timeless NFTs so that they can be used within different metaverses.

• first minted in November 2021
• atm FP is 0.44 ETH
• community members can mint avatars for 0.22 ETH
• free for NFTrees holders

The team is consciously distancing from P2E, PAE, and other buzzwords in their communications. The reason is that they are first and foremost aiming to create fun and engaging game, the earning aspect will naturally emerge later as a product of NFT ownership. Loopify mentioned that it is all about playing a game because of exciting gameplay and other features that make you enjoy the process of playing that game. Here you can also get some rewards but it’s not about that in the first place.

Developing first and foremost fun games haven't been the main focus among crypto games but it’s exactly what Treeverse team is up to. According to @Loopifyyy, the goal is to create a game that people will actually want to play. By people, he means himself & the team.

Probably because of the above, there’s so little information about tokenomics. At first, two native tokens were expected to be released, $SEEDS and $ROOTS but right now it is said that there will only be $ROOT tokens available in the game.

Current priorities

According to the monthly updates posted by the team, right now they are extremely focused on creating a fully comprehensive and pleasant visual design which will service gameplay perfectly well.

It is also important to keep things structured and standardized (files, art assets, naming, etc) in order to make a firm foundation for such a large-scale game as Treeverse.

A lot of attention is paid to technical aspects like UI and AI systems, tooling, improvement of combat layer, profiling, and performance optimization.

The fact that Treeverse team constantly shares updates, keeps in touch with the audience, and is always open to new ideas, makes it even more attractive and trustworthy.

The transparency they give to the community totally pays back. People feel the dedication of the team. That’s why the community is active, supportive & responsive.

You can witness how enthusiastic and excited about the project they are on all Treeverse in Twitter comments and on Discord server!

Summing up, we can consider Treeverse a full package. They took great UX, exciting gameplay with well-thought-out details, and combined all of it with tokenized assets which bring ownership and, hence, more opportunities to players.

There might be some concerns regarding falling crypto prices and NFT volume but according to the team, market volatility won’t be a problem for development. Treeverse team is well funded as most of their ETH holdings from NFT sales were sold at $4k+ so treasury is currently comprised of $5.5M - $6M in stablecoins excluding ETH. https://twitter.com/Loopifyyy/status/1530144996388745216?s=20&t=8rOYqpflQLZ_gjs3muqJyw

Needless to say, Treeverse is one of the most anticipated projects in GameFi Space right now. Building a fun, engaging game is by itself a very complex endeavor, adding NFTs and serious economics multiplies the complexity. For this reason, I’m cautiously optimistic about Treeverse. It's almost like an immovable object (successful blockchain game) meets unstoppable force (the exceptionally good team behind Treeverse). Let’s see if the team got what it takes to create a great game.