Quick take:
- The game leverages blockchain and NFTs to allow players ownership of their assets.
- Garriott and his partner Todd Porter previously mentioned that players can help build the MMO with the creators.
- The MMO will support multi-player, party-based or solo adventures.
American video game developer, Richard Garriott, has named his upcoming Web3 MMORPG Iron & Magic. The NFT and blockchain-based MMO was previously code-named Effigy.
Iron & Magic now has an official website with videos of select fantasy locales players can expect to see when playing the game. The site also features a shop that is under constructor, which would sell plots of land and buildings, according to PCGamer.
The game leverages blockchain and NFTs to allow players ownership of their assets. Garriott and his partner Todd Porter previously mentioned that players can help build the MMO with the creators, though they did not specify how.
Iron & Magic is inspired by the Ultima series, an open-world fantasy RPG that propelled Garriott to fame in the ‘80s. The new game also draws inspiration from Minecraft and Roblox.
Like Ultima Online, Iron & Magic will feature a central, mono-scale map where players will be able to purchase land and stake a claim in the world that Garriott and Porter are building. The game will also feature “adventure zones”, that support multi-player, party-based or solo adventures.
Garriott told MMORPG.com that one of the challenges of Iron & Magic is to create fresh and ever-changing content, which is where the game’s similarities with Roblox lie. The game’s developers will provide the tools for user-generated content that others can take part in while earning some income in the process.
As Web2 games that have integrated or plan to integrate blockchain and NFTs have faced backlash, leading to some shelving NFT plans, Porter told PCGamer that NFTs are a subpart of Iron & Magic.
“There’s going to be those people who want to get involved at that level, and want to own a piece of land or a building, they’re going to want to customise that, they’re going to want that to have real value. And what NFT delivers to them is the ability to sell that thing with value. That’s really all we look at when we think about NFTs, provenance alone, this is kind of a closed ecosystem,” he explained.
The blockchain element of the game serves as protection against player transactions. If a server rollback occurs, the blockchain technology underneath it would allow the team to track every transaction recorded on-chain.
Having researched the recent hacks of blockchain games, Garriott and Porter are working with their head of technology, Chris Spears, to ensure that the game’s protocol is built to protect players’ money, though they have yet to reveal which blockchain it will be building upon.
The game is built to be frictionless for non-crypto natives. Not only will it have its own wallet where in-game NFTs will be stored, but the NFT feature of the game is also optional, meaning that players can participate without ever buying an NFT.
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