BlockTalks x Zone AMA Transcript!
We recently hosted an AMA with ZONE, on February 8th at 1 PM UTC. Many of you might have participated or many of not. But we make sure no one missed out from the knowledge shared by Sayan Mukherjee, CBO at ZONE. So here we are up with the AMA transcript, for those who missed the live session, this blog post will be a saver & feeder of knowledge for them.
Introduction Questions Asked By Team BlockTalks!
Q1. Could you please introduce Zone to our community in layman’s term?
Ans — 🎮Zone, is the first gamefi ecosystem on the Algorand blockchain that combines on-chain gaming challenges, yield farming and NFTs to create a free-to-play and play-to-earn ecosystem.
▪️ Zone can bring any non-blockchain game onto gamefi through the ZONE protocol.
▪️Users can directly challenge friends on-chain in popular games like Dota 2, Clash Royale, CS-GO, League of Legends, etc., using ZONE tokens.
▪️Users can complete solo challenges in such games to earn tokens and NFTs.
▪️Zobo, a gamefi bot by ZONE, extends all the functionality of the protocol to Discord servers, bringing Discord’s 150+ million users to web3 gamefi.
▪️Zobo’s fee sharing model offers monetizing opportunities to 6 million sports/esports Discord server owners. Nothing similar even exists. Zobo is already in 5,000+ Discord servers.
▪️With Zone, users can form virtual sports teams and emulate their favorite fantasy leagues directly on the blockchain, completely decentralized.
▪️Zone bridges web2 games to web3 without requiring users to manage any complex wallets or keys.
▪️ZONE is cross-compatible with other blockchains making it the gamefi ecosystem for all gamers everywhere.
Q2. What are the advantages of Zone to the other alternatives in the Blockchain field?
Ans — While blockchain games with complex game mechanics are being developed at a rapid rate throughout the gamefi ecosystem, there is still no comprehensive solution or support for non-blockchain games to be placed on the defi stack. Furthermore, gamers are loyal to the games they love with some playing the same title for months at a time. It is imperative for the growth of
gamefi that non-blockchain be part of the gamefi phenomenon.
There's also high resistance in migrating large gaming communities and currently there exists no vehicle to transport value across games on different ecosystems.
Other common problems across the current gamefi ecosystem are
1. Huge waiting times for finality, slow-paced games.
2. High barriers to entry, skyrocketing transaction fees.
3. Inability to assimilate regular gaming communities with gamefi.
4. Focus on money-making strategies as opposed to actual gameplay.
5. The complicated nature of blockchain discourages participation,
alien UI/UX when playing even simple games.
ZONE is a community-driven GameFi ecosystem built on the Algorand blockchain. It is engineered to be the easiest, most versatile, and most adaptable GameFi ecosystem in the DeFi space.
We have built Zone on the Algorand blockchain which offers miniscule transaction fee, high TPS and instant finality with simple wallet configuration.
Zone offers a GameFi ecosystem that deals with the problems mentioned above with multiple products available in the Zone ecosystem.
Such as:
1. Zone Play
2. Zobo Bot
3. Zone NFTs
4. Zone Token
Questions Asked on Twitter For ZONE Team!
Q1. There is still no comprehensive solution or support for placing non-blockchain games on the defi stack in the Gamefi ecosystem. How will ZONE provide solutions to DeFi to solve this problem? How will you contribute to the growth of Gamefi?
Ans — Our products are built so that the users can capitalise on the opportunities present in the GameFi ecosystem,
products such as:
1. Zone Play - Zone Play bridges games and other front-end applications to the back-end gamified Zone smart contracts enforcing game-theoretic incentive models
rewarding good behaviour in the community. The platform supports multiple blockchains and is cross-blockchain enabled.
Features of Zone Play:
1. Zone Play can bring gamification to all online games with open APIs directly. Millions of possible game integrations.
2. Zone Play is non-custodial in nature. Users are always in control of their funds.
3. Zone Play’s cross-chain architecture facilitates interoperability with popular blockchains.
4. Simple crypto wallet management through email, social login, and SMS.
5. Zone’s cross-chain bridge can be used to move funds between completely independent blockchains.
2. Zobo bot for discord
Discord has the largest esports and gaming community in the world with over 6.5 million servers.
A majority of these groups focus on esports, gaming, traditional sports, and betting. Yet, most of them remain unmonetized.
Features of Zobo:
1. Game Challenges - Zobo allows challenging other players to games of skill, for example, a chess match, on-chain with tokens. Zobo uses familiar commands already used across gaming communities. The winning amount is directly sent to the players’ wallets after the match.
Any game can be plugged into Zobo and players simply play the game in their native environment, preserving the complete essence of the games. A number of games are pre-built into Zobo such as Chess, Clash Royale,
Ludo, etc.
2. Zone Fantasy Sports - Users can use Zobo’s Fantasy Sports features to form their virtual sports teams and emulate their favourite Fantasy Leagues on the blockchain. As fantasy owners, users form the best teams
and stack up fantasy points throughout the game, with the best performing teams winning the league and the ZONE token pool along with it.
3. Zone NFTs
ZONE NFTs express the spirit of gamefi where not only are the NFTs themselves gamified but they, in turn, gamify the ZONE ecosystem as well. They are multi-utility in nature with both cosmetic and gamefi features.
4. Zone Token
ZONE is the governance and the native utility token that powers the ZONE GameFi ecosystem.
Stakeholders will be rewarded through the usage of the ZONE token, establishing a system for community expansion.
4.1) Use cases
Players can use the ZONE token to
● Pay any fees on the platform
● Issue on-chain gaming challenges
● Stake to earn ZONE plus other tokens
● Unlock Fantasy Leagues
● Trade NFTs and other assets
● Buy loot boxes
● Vote on governance proposals
Q2. I noticed that you offer NFTs with boosters, so can you explain to me what are the differences or features between a boosted NFT and a regular NFT? Are all the NFTs you offer boosted or are there only a few of these? How can I power up one of my NFTs? Also, what benefits do owners of boosted NFTs gain? Can they earn more rewards or other incentives?
Ans — AFK Elephants are NFTs with multiple utilities and are upgradable in nature.
With upgradation users will be able to increase the power of NFT. This can be done by merging 3 same level NFTs and you’ll get 1 NFT of the upgraded level.
The upgraded NFT will offer higher powers.
The utility offered by the previous lower level NFTs will also be multiplied or upgraded based on the nature of the upgraded NFT.
Q3. Most NFTs games currently have a limited player base because of the high initial fee for a new player to participate in the game? How is Zone by XTZ drawing a big number of players? Can you discuss some of its distinguishing features that set it apart from others?
Ans — ZONE is built on top of Algorand blockchain on which the transaction fee is 0.001 Algos which is very low. With this, we are already ahead of all the GameFi ecosystem as they have a high transactional fee and huge transaction finality time. In the Zone, users can play games 100s of times and still won’t be paying much of Algos in the transaction fees.
Q4. To bring gamefi to the mainstream, Users should be able to play the same games they want with the people they want and be able to derive monetary value out of the experience. On the other hand, communities, and people that sustain them should also be rewarded. And I read that ZONE solution to this is Zobo bot, can you further tell us about it? What incentivization mechanisms have you put in place for server owners through this bot?
Ans — A lot of games on the blockchain take away the actual gameplay in GameFi products. Gamers should be able to monetize their effort and skills in the games that they enjoy playing.
Zone allows exactly this, in the Zone users can play from a variety of games they have been playing for their whole lives, with the people they want to play. Today, only 1% of the gamers are monetized and even though the rest 99% are grinding in the same games they are getting nothing out of it, Zone is monetizing that 99% of the gamers who presently are not monetized and providing incentive to the whole gaming community.
To bring gamefi to the mainstream, the primary focus should be on the games and communities that gamers already love instead of requiring them to abandon what makes them gamers in the first place.
Users should be able to play the same games they want with the people they want and be able to derive monetary value out of the experience. On the other hand, communities, and people that sustain them should also be rewarded.
Just one more thing that I want to add to this:
Incentivisation mechanisms in Zone:
1. Given zero revenue sources or monetization options and burdened by the
operation cost of running huge communities, owners will be incentivized
to install Zobo for daily payouts.
2. Simply hosting the bot on their servers/channels makes community
owners, admins, and managers eligible for daily payments according to
the size and amount of active participation from their communities.
3. Since the payout is dependent on the size and participation of the
community, owners will be incentivized to promote the usage of the bot
and grow their communities at the same time.
4. Since Zobo’s Fantasy Sports feature can be used to emulate any league,
the community can choose FLs centric to their interests.
5. Winners receive payouts immediately. No lock-in period or a minimum
winning amount.
6. The community managers can opt-in to share the revenue with their
members further incentivizing participation.
7. There will be no minimum member requirement to host the bot.
8. Zobo is free and easy to use.
Q5. I read that just by owning an AFK Elephant the user can do everything in ZONE Metaverse. So what does everything mean? What can we do with these NFT with the most intelligent species in the metaverse?Are all elephants algorithmically generated with varying degrees of weird traits?
Ans — AFK Elephants are the most intelligent species in the metaverse, currently chilling in the Zone. The Elephants are all algorithmically generated with varying degrees of rare traits. Owning an AFK Elephant enables you to do everything in the ZONE Metaverse.
AFK Utilities:
- Tiered Access for investment opportunities in world-class web3 projects for owners of AFK Elephants in Z-Pad (Zone Launchpad).
- AFK NFTs as pseudonymous identities in the Zone metaverse and across the Algorand blockchain.
- AFK NFTs as access pass to exclusive Zone Events across the world with a chance to meet celebrities and superstar athletes.
AFK NFTs act as power-ups in the Zone gamefi ecosystem such as:
- Solo challenge winning multiplier — Multiplies the solo challenge winning amount.
- Tournament payout multiplier — Multiplies the tournament winning amount.
- Discounted loot boxes — AFK Elephants holders receive discounted loot boxes containing ZONE tokens and other NFTs as rewards.
- Staking reward multiplier — Receive boosted staking rewards in certain ZONE pools.
- Transaction fee nullifier — Upto 0% fees for all games on Zone.
- Rewards airdrop — Receive weekly Zone rewards through airdrops for holding AFK NFTs.
Rarity
Every AFK Elephant NFT will have all utilities outlined above. The extent of those utilities however, will be defined by its rarity category.
The rarity category itself will be defined by the rarest trait present in the NFT. For example — Even if the Elephant has only one Mythic attribute, it will be considered as a Mythical AFK NFT.
The categories are:
- Common
- Uncommon
- Rare
- Super Rare
- Legendary
- Mythical
Besides the rarity category, each NFT also has 3 levels namely, Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3 as defined below:
- Common & Uncommon = Level 1
- Rare & Super Rare = Level 2
- Legendary & Mythical = Level 3
The NFTs are upgradable in nature. NFTs can be upgraded by merging 3 NFTs belonging to an immediately lower category.
Questions Asked by our BlockTalks Community Members during live Session to ZONE Team!!
Q1. I understand that I can "Play to Win" on your platform, as you offer chain play challenges, does that mean that Zone is a gaming platform? Is it totally free to play or do I need any of your tokens, NFTs or tickets? For convenience can I play from any device, for example a mobile? What differentiates Zone from other major gaming platforms? What are the most important features that represent them?
Ans — Zone play has two main aspects to it:
1. Free to Play and Play to Earn
Users can just come on the platform and start playing with bots and star playing games to earn ZONE, ALGO and other rewards.
2. Gaming Challenges
Here users can start gaming challenges with their friends in communities on Discord, Telegram or any other social media platform by putting skin in the game with some challenge amount based on their confidence in their skills.
Q2. Just a few hours ago they have been promoting the integration of ZONE in Algorand in addition to the fact that the white list for the launch of AFK Elephants is already active. So why did you decide to settle with Algorand? What are the requirements to be met to enter the whitelist?
Ans — We decided to built the Zone ecosystem on Algorand because of the following advantages it offers:
1. Miniscule transaction fees - High transaction fees have long been a nasty barrier of entry to defi services. The Algorand chain topologies require minuscule transaction fees. Usually $0.001 per transaction — regardless of the transaction size. Ethereum’s extremely volatile gas fees
can go up to $50 per transaction.
● https://www.coindesk.com/high-gas-fees-prevent-ethereum-from-b
eing-ethereum
● https://cointelegraph.com/news/ethereum-fees-are-skyrocketing-bu t-traders-have-alternatives
2. High TPS and instant finality - Compared to Ethereum which can achieve TPS of fewer than 15, Algorand can process more than 1,000 transactions per second and Algorand’s block finalization time is set to shrink from the current 4.5 seconds to 2.5 seconds in the future. All of
this directly translates to a faster, fluid-like web app experience on the front-end with the backend defi layer taking advantage of Algorand’s unique layer-1 smart contracts.
3. Simple wallet configuration - Engaging gamers who are uninitiated with blockchain technologies like non-custodial wallets is another barrier that prevents mainstream adoption of GameFi services.
4. Gamers expect seamless onboarding without dealing with complicated wallet generation processes, seed phrase storage, or installing third-party extension.
If you want to get whitelisted, the AFK Elephants are dropping soon on Algorand. We are dropping 1600 NFTs.
To participate in the sale you can get yourself whitelisted in our AFK Elephant discord here by simply interacting with the community.
https://discord.com/invite/kvBNj4hHYx
Q3. Can you provide info on the partnerships ZONE has made so far?
Ans —
We have had wonderful partners in this journey.
We closed our private rounds with top investment ad VCs firms such as:
Borderless Capital (VC Arm of the Algorand blockchain)
GSR
Altonomy
Dao Maker
Parachain Capital
ZBS Capital and many more.
We have partnered with Gate.io for our CEX listing.
Q4. What is the strategy you would use to engage traditional esports enthusiast the next generation of esports on the blockchain? Can you explain this function to us?
Ans — Discord is the main platform for gamers.
For this we have Zobo with which we can monetize over 6M discord servers.
Features of Zobo:
1. Game Challenges - Zobo allows challenging other players to games of
skill, for example, a chess match, on-chain with tokens. Zobo uses familiar commands already used across gaming communities. The winning amount is directly sent to the players’ wallets after the match.
Any game can be plugged into Zobo and players simply play the game in
their native environment, preserving the complete essence of the games. A number of games are pre-built into Zobo such as Chess, Clash Royale,
Ludo, etc.
2. Zone Fantasy Sports - Users can use Zobo’s Fantasy Sports features to
form their virtual sports teams and emulate their favourite Fantasy
Leagues on the blockchain. As fantasy owners, users form the best teams
and stack up fantasy points throughout the game, with the best
performing teams winning the league and the ZONE token pool along
with it.
Incentivisation mechanisms:
1. Given zero revenue sources or monetization options and burdened by the operation cost of running huge communities, owners will be incentivized to install Zobo for daily payouts.
2. Simply hosting the bot on their servers/channels makes community
owners, admins, and managers eligible for daily payments according to the size and amount of active participation from their communities.
3. Since the payout is dependent on the size and participation of the community, owners will be incentivized to promote the usage of the bot and grow their communities at the same time.
4. Since Zobo’s Fantasy Sports feature can be used to emulate any league, the community can choose FLs centric to their interests.
5. Winners receive payouts immediately. No lock-in period or a minimum
winning amount.
6. The community managers can opt-in to share the revenue with their members further incentivizing participation.
7. There will be no minimum member requirement to host the bot.
8. Zobo is free and easy to use.
Server owners will receive 15% of all fees paid across every game played on their servers.
Q5. Where can I buy your tokens now, what are your current contract address and what are the benefits?
Ans — We have closed with for our TGE on the 11th of February.
We will also list on Tinyman on the same date.
Please follow us on twitter for regular updates - https://twitter.com/XTZ_ESPORTS
