Devlog 3

November 7 Update

Nov 08, 2022

The increased visibility into the roadmap of development of the metaverse has helped us determine the staffing plan over the next 12 months. With that plan, we have determined the highest priority hires and have placed those job postings and descriptions at this LinkedIn link. If you are or know someone who fulfills the requirements, we encourage you to reach out!

The prioritized roles are:

Senior Unreal Engine Developer
Game Producer (3D Art)
Gaming UI Artist

Development Contractors

Netvrk has secured a contract with Terraform Studios to augment our talented concept team. We are excited to be working with this experienced group and are already incorporating their work into our vision.

Development Overview

Design Offsite/ Land and Vehicle Utility Document

A group from the Design, Development, and Leadership teams met for a two-day offsite in the last week of October. The agenda built leading up to the event centered around the land and vehicle utility in the metaverse, but also allowed for some long-term studio planning and general team building.

From the discussions and notes generated during that on-site, the Land and Vehicle Utility Document was created and posted for our community and partners to review. We are currently soliciting feedback from the community, to answer any questions the document may have raised and align expectations among all stakeholders.

Unreal Team Update

Mining Game

Alpha 3

Bug fixes have been the sole focus on the Alpha3 build of the Mine Runner Game’s live version, which are also merged into the Beta branch to solidify that build. The Alpha releases have been a success in this way, providing data and testing to allow for a solid release of the open Beta.

Beta Progress

The timetable for the first Beta release has been adjusted to the last week in November for a number of reasons. First, and most importantly, the Blockchain integration team requested more time to be certain that there would be adequate testing time of the functionality under their umbrella. We are dedicated to blockchain transaction security and testing, so the development team absolutely supports that request.

With the added runway to the first Beta release, the integration of partner projects NFT avatars is less rushed, allowing both the Netvrk and the partner technical art teams the time needed to do touch up passes on avatar models that will be available to community members and to the general gaming audience. Our current list of partners in the pipeline include Martians v. Roughnecks, Jungle Freaks, Dino Dawgs, Sparkles, Creepy Creams, and Jurassic Punks. More partners are working through some technical hurdles, so we hope to include even more before the Beta launch. In the coming days and weeks, preview videos of these partner avatars will be making their way to marketing posts on ours and our partners’ social media.

The Mine Runner Beta expands the depth of the game as well as the complexity. Where the Alpha builds only contain the first 10 sectors, the Beta build contains all five unique biomes made up of 25 different sectors. We’ve made a change to the nomenclature, from “levels” to “sectors”, to avoid any confusion between in-game sectors and player level. Each biome feels distinct from one another and convey a sense of discovery as you progress through each sector.

Mines are populated with new and returning enemies that now have additional attacks to make each combat encounter more interesting. As an example, some enemy spiders now have the ability to shoot sticky silk webs that temporarily immobilize the player when hit. As these enemies become more challenging, rewards become greater.

Entering the mines is easy. Getting out alive, well, we will leave that up to you!

Metaverse/Social Spaces

Server Room

The Server Room serves as the launching point for new players entering the Netvrk Metaverse. This space will have all of the social features expected in a metaverse, such as world chat, voice chat, and emoting.

This central space will include a general introduction to the metaverse, tutorials that explain the functionality, and some features that introduce users to our partner projects. The fully realized experience will include the ability to ‘test drive’ an avatar from our partner projects, to get a feel for existing in the various forms. There will also be the function of showing off the NFTs you possess in an emote, allowing players to flex their collection. And if players are entering the world before understanding what NFTs are available, the onramp to purchasing their first will be available from here as well.

To make this space feel alive and inviting, we have populated it with aquatic life below the glass floor and plant life around the space.

Metaverse Environment

Outside of the Server Room, the first Beta release will give players access to larger areas in the world. Our current plans include opening a section of the Desert area to allow for some amount of driving, and the Moon area to give players more exploration in a world of creatures. More about these features will be discussed in further devlogs as we gain confidence in the scope and schedule.

We do have confidence that the Alpha release of the Metaverse will include larger foliage and environmental art than can exist in the Server room. This work has been underway during this past month. See the human figure in these images to understand the scale of these 3D plant/environment objects, and the scale of the exploration that is planned. The images below are actual game assets that will be in the world.

Modular Room

Key to feeling at home in the metaverse is the need to have a home, one that is customizable to each individual community member. In the fully realized experience, homes will be large, situated on land parcels, available for entertaining friends, and able to be sold. The initial scope of this functionality for the first Beta release will be a simple studio apartment. Each visitor to the metaverse will be gifted this small space, single player only, with some limited customization. With this as a starting point, and with the asset creation tool online next year, user generated content that can be monetized is just one of the ways the Netvrk metaverse is built to support creativity and entrepreneurship.

A tech demo was created in the past four weeks that has proven out this feature in both functionality and in scope. A video demonstrating this functionality is being prepared to be shared to the community soon.

Avatar Customization

Soon into the Metaverse release the ability to customize the player’s avatar, for self-expression and to allow for the variations available in all of our partner NFT projects, will be online. The initial work to build that system is underway, and our design and art team is underway creating assets for the development team to use when building this function. The fully realized system will vary from developer created assets to partner project assets to real world brands, rendered at the fidelity that only Unreal5 will allow.

Blockchain Team

Mining Game Beta

Mine Runner is a traditional web2 game with an optional web3 activation. Providing an optimal experience for both traditional gamers and play-and-earn gamers requires some synchronization between our database and the blockchains supported. Last month during testing it was recognized that there were edge cases related to this synchronization that absolutely needed to be addressed. Though challenged by the need to delay the release, the security of the community’s digital assets is extremely important to the development team. Our previous sprint and the two sprints this month will be focused on addressing these edge cases.

Marketing Department

Netvrk has created a Brand Guide with main font, color, and formatting guidelines. Pairing this with our mood boards and visual inspiration, we have been developing our aesthetic and creating new graphics. Our media library has been established with backgrounds, vector assets, accent fonts, symbols, and visual effects. Our studio art boards have been the foundation of our new visual language, which will continue to be developed and refined.

The marketing department has developed a digital photography studio in Unreal Engine 5 for the purpose of rendering out high-quality images of our 3D assets. This asset has been adapted to create lighting set templates, complete with various studio setups and color changing animations. This will enable our marketing team to produce renders needed for upcoming releases and featured content.

The website is currently being redesigned and will be updated very soon. Our new graphics will be showcased on the website, social media and will be utilized in the Netvrk Metaverse Server Room.

Social Media Update

Netvrk welcomes a new social media assistant, Paul A., to our team. Paul assists the marketing department with content creation & publishing logistics. This added team member frees our graphic artists up to do what they do best, create branded content to share with you.

We have created a new LinkedIn account where we will host job postings & long-format content, such as the Devlog posts & other news.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/netvrkofficial/

Compliance

A new section for the devlog, we have contracted a compliance agency to assist our legal team with understanding and navigating regulations beginning to focus on web3 and the NFT space. Initial conversations have given us confidence that our project is structured to be compliant, and any changes that might be required are ultimately helpful for the project. The Netvrk team wanted to keep the community abreast of how we are protecting our long-term vision with the assistance of a dedicated compliance team, and we expect more details about this work in future devlogs.

Netvrk Substack