In this Q&A session, host Matt speaks w/ Zach Rice, Khaled, Director of Monetization & Economy at Bigtime, Brian, Head of Product at Bigtime & Michael of Openloot, to answer questions about the economy, NFTs & future changes of Bigtime.
Read our notes below to learn more
Q&A
Q: How do you plan to maintain a reasonable price for the token if the players will be earning & selling?
- Making sure that the value is stable is not something that we can guarantee completely but it's one of the biggest aspects when designing the economy.
- The more there are ways to burn the token & less supply of the token, that's exactly how we're doing it.
- Game token will be mostly used in crafting the cosmetic NFTs & also going to be used in other ways within the game.
- We’re looking into ways of adding the demand for the token through exclusive portals mechanisms.
- The more user base we have, the more demand will be for the token.
Q: What is the real argument to implement the Time Crystal?
- We’re writing an article to clarify everything about time crystals because it's one of these aspects that could be easily understood.
- We wanted to add a component that is backed by a stable value.
Q: After this change, will NFTs no longer be dropping inside of dungeons?
- We will have two times of cosmetic NFTs, craftable & non-craftable.
- Special non-craftable ones will always be droppable in dungeons.
Q: Do we need to have or sell our in-game items to be eligible for the airdrop?
- We are trying to reward people who are supporting us & the way to do that is we’re only going to look at items that are not for sale within your account.
- We still need to polish the little details on how we are going to do it & how we are going to look at the data.
Q: Will owning more spaces give more chances at getting cracked hourglasses?
- The way it works is we generally look at per space & there is a specific spawn rate per space.
- The more space you have, the more cracked hourglasses you’re going to have.
- There are no bonuses or multipliers for having multiple spaces.
Q: Will there be ways to get chest drops in game to get a forge armory or time warden chest, or are these only available by purchasing?
- Common utility NFTs are not found in any of the boxes & will only be gained either through airdrops or drops in-game.
Q: Is renting out spaces still in progress?
- There is a sequence of events we needed to set the conditions for the guild system & the renting of the space.
- We did not put out any information on it but it is coming.
- We’re trying to come up w/ something that the users need.
Q: Will it be possible to re-arrange space & utility NFTs after they’ve been placed or will they be locked?
- Players will always have the ability to change or shuffle their utility NFTs as long as they are not crafting something.
- We have a system that is called the set bonus which is related to the utilities that you connect to a particular space.
- We designed a complete system to encourage shuffling utility NFTs within a space.
- Space is very customizable.
Q: Will I get an airdrop if I own spaces but don’t have any legendary cosmetic in title?
- Any NFT from Bigtime is going to contribute to get points.
- We’re going to look at these number of points then that’s going to make you eligible to a specific airdrop package.
Q: How will players be motivated by burning the NFTs?
- We wanted to add a burning mechanism for cosmetic NFTs where if the price for a certain line of cosmetic NFTs drops below a certain amount, then, we might add a special vendor that would start to take that cosmetic NFT & turn it into some currency you can use in-game.
Q: Is the cracked hourglass a one-time thing or a recurring event? If it is recurring, how often is it?
- It is definitely a recurring event.
- Once we flush out all the values, we’re going to have a very solid answer.
Q: What will be the max token daily supply?
- We’re not going to put on a hard cap.
- Max daily supply = current hourglasses in circulation * number of time tokens they would generate on average per day.
Q: Can you explain the upgrading process of NFTs?
- The default is that it should require 3 identical NFTs of the same line.
- We might add exceptions if we want to add burning mechanisms.
Q: Are looted & purchased NFTs in early access upgradeable?
- All non-craftable cosmetics cannot be upgraded but they could be used in some recipes.
Q: Will weapons, armor & titles be rentable in the future?
- We have discussed it being a key part of renting & sharing but should there be other things that are unique to a guild, it’s certainly up for discussion for whether or not we include it.
Q: Will the time token, that is used for crafting, refining & upgrading, be burned from the circulation or will it just be distributed?
Q: How can common hourglasses ever be obtained?
- We have a common rarity time warden.
- All rarities of utilities can’t be crafted from their rarity to a lower one.
Q: What would be the exact benefits of owning non-craftable NFTs from early access?
- We treat cosmetic NFTs all the same.
- Once we create these exclusive portals, it is going to require certain tags.
Q: Will the skip priority or bonus rolls allow a person to jump from getting a transcendent to unique? How many rolls will be allowed?
- A jump in rarity from common to uncommon is not a big deal but from transcendent to unique, it is massive.
- The pool of bonuses is related to the actual recipe that you’re trying to do.
- The slots bonus are tied to the utility NFT level which is capped by the rarity.
Q: Is there only one unique NFT per season & is it going to be an armor, weapon or random? If it is armor, how is it decided which class it’s going to be?
- During a season, we might have multiple lines & each line is going to have one unique.
- We’re going to try to balance it out depending on the classes.
Q: Are fashion tags already in the name of the items or will these items have a new name or tag?
- For tags, it will be like EAL cosmetics, season 1 or season 2.
- We might add something related to the art style.
- We’re going to use these tags using our exclusive portals.
Q: Why did you not choose to take a fee on each time token transactions instead of introducing time crystals into the economy?
- The way time token works is that whatever is spent should be burned.
- The big part of the economy relies on the token being stable.
- We want to embed some economic levers into the hourglass system to make sure we have flexibility if we want to adjust things w/ the token.
Q: Does the process of refining Tier 1 shard require the time token?
- Yes, refining will cost time tokens.
Q: Can we choose what we want to craft or will it be random?
- Yes, you can choose what you want to craft.
Q: How many exits will come off from the starter area?
- You cannot connect any NFTs to it but it will have a connection point where you can connect your space to it.
Q: Why are we reserving some special zones? Doesn’t that make the game pay to play?
- No, because the loot table will have nothing to do w/ power advantages, it’s only related to time tokens.
Q: What continues to drive the value of a season’s world-dropped NFTs?
- For those, we need to consider the tags.
- The portals will always shuffle the tags.
Q: Why did the team decide that early access cosmetics are not upgradeable?
- The upgrading is derived from having utility NFTs, then the craftable line & non-craftable line.
- It needs to depend on the way we integrate them into the recipes.
- We want to make sure they have value beyond purely holding them.
- We feel they are non-craftables because they can still be used in the crafting economy as inputs & still give them a ton of value.
- Non-craftables give them a uniqueness because they aren’t upgradeable & they are what they are.
- One of the things we had discussed w/ Gold, Silver & Jade releases was those items have very low quantity numbers & will never be dropped from in-game ever again.
Q: What is the impact of a free-to-play player in the economy since a MMORPG having a lot of players is critical?
- If the player doesn’t have an hourglass, the way they could contribute is through cosmetic shots that can only be generated through gameplay.
Q: Are there any plans for Binance mystery boxes & will they count towards the airdrop?
- I don’t think we’ve necessarily included Binance but we take that under consideration.
- We’ll follow up & see if that is something we can easily do.
Q: How do you guys intend to keep people that haven’t invested money into the game to be interested?
- The crafting economy is not the entire game.
- We are providing the tools to the economy to all of our players.
Q: Will the non-craftable NFTs scale with the craftable ones?
- For the non-craftable ones, we don’t need to follow a very rigid scale of rarity from common to unique, it could be depending on the line. Some lines might have three types only & some might have more.
- We’re going to have to see what would be the best balance for the non-craftable ones.
Q: How is the ownership of the item going to work if it’s going to take a bunch of guild members & their resources to craft it?
- The ownership should be owned by whoever crafted it.
- We need to gather some info to see what is the need for something to be implemented to handle this case.
Q: Will we be able to have an in-game peer-to-peer trading within a guild or something to prevent the taxes?
- For trading between family & friends, that is absolutely something we’re looking into.
Q: Are you unable to share hourglasses to other players & earn a crafting fee on them?
- Those are the most NFTs that would be easier to implement then allocate the percentages of the owner to the renter.
- They are part of the renting & we are also looking into that.
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