In this AMA, we will be joined by Karm and Sky, MetaDerby’s Co-Founder and Tech lead, and Marketing Lead, respectively. We’ll be covering the project at a high level. The focus of this AMA will be the business development, vision, road map, and post-IDO plans.
Dave| Avalaunch
Hello and welcome to the sequel, the due, the deux, part II of our AMAs with Metaderby. Yesterday, well, I have to say it, @misutelegram put on a clinic and set the bar perhaps unreachably high. Here to see if they can come close without pulling an Icarus are two fine members from Metaderby — @metakarm and @sky_harris. Welcome. How are you both doing today?
Sky| MetaDerby
Hahaha yeah we love @misuTelegram Thanks for having us! Doing great
Karm| MetaDerby
Hello everyone
Dave| Avalaunch
Good to hear and welcome. Let’s get into it and before we begin, I’d like to thank you for coming on board. Not commonly we have two esteemed colleagues.
Please tell us a little bit about yourself: your academic background, your previous experience and how you ended up being involved with MetaDerby?
Sky| MetaDerby
Hey there, I’m Sky- marketing lead at MetaDerby. I graduated from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, and have worked in a slew of Web2 companies including ByteDance (TikTok) and Lenovo doing digital media marketing and product marketing. Previously I’ve launched a couple NFT projects, as well as a DEX and a DEX-builder before coming to MetaDerby
Karm| MetaDerby
I am Karm and I worked at Binace.US for 2 years when Binance. US was just launched. Nice to meet you guys
Sky| MetaDerby
Karm is part of the former Binance mafia that runs our team. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. But here we are, Karm having developed the algorithm and me along for the ride at MetaDerby!
Dave| Avalaunch
Awesome and quite a ride it will be I have the feeling.
Why is MetaDerby’s team adept to build the web3 infrastructure to enable the first blockchain horse racing game on Avalanche?
Karm| MetaDerby
Fist of all our founder Mike is a big fan of horse racing. We also thought it’d be a pretty cool idea to buid a hourse racing project on-chain.With Metaderby we’ve combined traditional horse racing with innovative technoologies to make the whole thing more intersting and exciting, We are a team that understands both horse racing and blockchain, So why not buid a horse racing geme on the Avalanche blockchain?
Sky| MetaDerby
Yeah Karm has 10-years of development experience, which is more like 20 in the environments and pace he’s worked at haha. As tech lead previously at Binance, and with a fully-staffed development team underneath him, the pace and consistency with which we hit our milestones is pretty staggering.
As far as Avalanche goes, it became a clearer and clearer choice for us over time. Quick transactions, cheap transactions, over 120,000 smart contracts deployed and 20k unique developers as of fall last year. And subnets will be increasingly interesting for us and other AVAX projects.
Dave| Avalaunch
Excellent. Subnets indeed are interesting. When did the full team come together, how many full-time devs are there, and how long has the game been in production for?
Karm| MetaDerby
We come up with the idea in October of 2021 when we thought horse racing would be cool. There are just a couple of us at that time. Now? We have grown to team of over 20, with more than 10 full-time developers, We are actually still expanding and you are welcome to join, so send me your resume hahhahah.
We actually started develpment early on in November with two demos, We wanned to give your uses best experience and we ended up going with the second domo version of the game, That’s the current iteration we are implementing.
Dave| Avalaunch
How long did it take the team to develop the horse racing module prototype? What about building the marketplace?
Karm| MetaDerby
The horse racing module prototpy is a crucial part of the game. is’t the first thing we developed / it took us about 3 months to develop the 3D model of the track race, We have been working on ths fro a long thime and there will be more equipment and new race horses coming in the future, so you should definitely be paying attention
Sky| MetaDerby
The Mystery Box segment of the marketplace is finished. We’ve had that ready for a few weeks now. That took the product and dev team a few weeks to finish completely. Actually, a lot of the time spent on the Mystery Box segment of the marketplace was put into design. We went through a couple design iterations of the Mystery Boxes and ended up with models that we really are quite excited about. You can check those out now on our webiste.
The horse market segment of the marketplace is still under development, and estimated to launch around the end of May.
Dave| Avalaunch
Thanks for this. I’m always into a good mystery box segment. Color me curious. 😀I have to say, there are many well-thought mechanics at play that make MetaDerby a unique, competitive game, ranging from races and breeding to NFTs, as well as intricate earning mechanics. Can you give us a high-level overview of these different aspects and how they interlink together?
Karm| MetaDerby
Yes, we have the bloodlines, breeding, the marketplace, comeptitions and daily race rewards, etc, And there is very clever connection between them that constitutes our system, Briefly, a horse’s pedigree affects the performance poins of a hourse and the amount of money you earn through the market where you can buy a horse that you can then go on to breed, From there, customize and level up your horse for more rewards and racing.
Sky| MetaDerby
Let me break it down like this:
Horses are split into 6 classes -> Starter Horse, Class V, Class IV, Class III, Class II, and Class I, with Class I being the strongest, and the starter horse being the weakest. Horses will race within their class.
Dave| Avalaunch
Out of the range of mechanics that make MetaDerby unique, which one has been more complex or required more time and effort to build from the get-go? What set of challenges do you expect once in their beta version?
Karm| MetaDerby
Essentially, having so many factors related to each other and intricately interwines is a very challenging thing, We think we have truch a good balance between the rac matching algorithm, gam logic, reward output, etc. one common problem is this space howere is token inflation, but we have taken steps to ensure that there’s a balance between experience gained, rewards gained, cooldown periods and more to stifle inflation issues, thre’s elements to wining that include not only your horse performance, but also its properties, and a decent amount ofRNG as well
We also have plans to introduce a customized lobby mode that allows your to play with your friends , witch will then increase the social and community felling of the game
But for now with the beta game, we are prepared what we hink is a pretty good user experience to reward those who have supported us and participated in our activities in their early stages
Sky| MetaDerby
I’d say probably our breeding logic. We put a lot of thought into how we were going to handle breeding and how that would affect the game economy. There had to be controls on breeding as not to have a rampant number of new NFTs being created and causing the game economy to inflate out of control. Also, our breeding logic mimics real life, in that 2 parent horse NFTs breed a new offspring which has a chance to be of better quality and stats of either of its parent NFTs. The concept seems simple enough, but it is not a logic used by other games.
Dave| Avalaunch
Looking at the roadmap there are so many corner-stone developments on the way. Among them is a mobile version of the game. Will this have the same accessibility as the DApp version?
Karm| MetaDerby
Yes we will launch a mobile version so that users can join the competition at any time, We are designing our account system for it now You will of course be able to sign in with your wallet address, but we are also considering adding login features via facebook, phone email, and other third party to login features, we wanna make the agem as accessible and easy to play as possible
Sky| MetaDerby
There’s less GameFi projects than you might think launching a mobile app version. There’s some reasons for that, including the chokepoints from web2 tech companies and the fees they take for launching your app on their platform.
Dave| Avalaunch
Later in the year, VR integration is posed as the first step to leap into the metaverse. Can you describe this integration, what it will entail and how long do you see this in the development phase before players are able to immerse themselves into the MetaDerby metaverse?
Karm| MetaDerby
Yes we plan to support VR versions. VR provides a real user experience, imagine that you can watch the real game at home at a different angle from what you’re used to with the game previously. We’ll start development after the mobile version of the game, around the fourth quarter of this year. Support for watching the game in VR is not actually as difficult as you might think, but we are aiming to provide more functionality in the VR version of the game.
Sky| MetaDerby
Our current testnet version already has 3D camera angles viewable from all angles with zoom in and out capability. To move this one step further, we want users to be able to enjoy the game in VR and have a first-person view of the race. So in the first iterations, it will be the point of view of the horse, but we plan to add Jockeys in the future, so the view will be from the rider perspective. Also we want to build the VR function in with the NFT land creation as well as spectating. We want users to be able to view races, make predictions and maybe even catch a live concert combined with one of the tournament events.
Dave| Avalaunch
What sets of technical challenges did your team encounter while building the early infrastructure for the game? How were these overcome?
Karm| MetaDerby
This is a good question We have a strong technical team, for our users- fund and account security/safety is the most important thing. We did a lot of protection in this aspect, including encryption, SSL signature strategy management, in-game wallet design. Having the courage to make such decisions is a challenge in itself, and we have designed coping strategies that include preventing robots and deterring any bad actors in potential extreme situations. Safety is key for our project, our users, and our team at Metaderby
Sky| MetaDerby
Our first demo version that we built for testnet was too laggy because many functions were waiting for on-chain results. In order to overcome this we had to do a rebuild for better scalability. It’s a combination of centralized gameplay with decentralized blockchain aspects. The important parts like user wallets and assets will of course still be on-chain.
Dave| Avalaunch
Why did the team decide to build on Avalanche as opposed to the earlier blockchains? And how has your experience been developing in this ecosystem?
Karm| MetaDerby
We investigated a number of chains including BSC, Polgon, AVAX, etc. But we believe that AVAX is a fast-growing public chain with a large user base. Most importantly, AVAX continues to maintain the ability to scale and innovate. We plan to develop support for a subnet base on AVAX which will be vital for development of our DerbyVerse.
Sky| MetaDerby
You just flat out can’t build on Ethereum with transaction costs and snail speeds. There are a bunch of other newer, high throughput chains, layer 2 solutions and EVM chains. Ultimately we decided to build on Avalanche because we saw how passionate and supportive the avalanche community is. Also its rapid growth with subnets an attractive future upgrade for us.
This community really is amazing. Lots of projects and people supporting each other across the AVAX ecosystem. It’s a choice we made that’s continue to give and give as time goes on.
Dave| Avalaunch
Appreciate this. Are there any last thoughts or comments you would like to share with the community today?
Karm| MetaDerby
We’re really excited about this project. We’ve put our whole heart into the development of this thing. We’ve had a couple challenges along the way, but have found solutions for it all and have become much stronger as a team because of it.
Horse racing is now in our blood. The metaverse is next, And we are really excited to have you with us
Sky| MetaDerby
At this point it feels like there’s nothing we can’t do. We won the Dora Hacks Avalanche. Asia Hackathon our DerbyTicket NFT collection sold out in 5 seconds, and our IDO is currently underway which we expect a sellout performance in.
A huge thanks to our community. The groundswell of support we’ve received over the last few months has been astounding.
Check out our socials on Twitter, Discord, Telegram, Medium, and Reddit. And go to our IDO page on Avalaunch to participate!
Check out MetaDerby socials!
Twitter: @metaderby
Discord: discord.gg/metaderby
TG: t.me/MetaDerby
Website: https://metaderby.com
Avalaunch IDO Happening NOW!
Excited to have you join us! Can’t wait to race together in the DerbyVerse
Twitter Questions
From @CryptoKhangng2
Looking at your investors, you have an incredible investor base. We are excited about the interest of these investors in this project. Any more exciting news?
Karm| MetaDerby
Thanks! We feel quite confident in our investor base too. We’ve reserved some allocation for a big new investor actually. We can’t tell you who it is yet, but we’ve been in talks for weeks with them and we are excited at the potential to leverage their resources and market for MetaDerby
From @Boredbull1
What strategies will you employ to prevent DBY token from having long-term liquidity problems?
Sky| MetaDerby
Staking. Staking and derbyverse land purchases. Staking is going to give you a couple benefits- an APY of course. But we’re also developing referral links that are generated from staking, as well as game governance features that will all incentivize users to stake $DBY.
Plus, with the development of the DerbyVerse, land sales are going to be made in $DBY. So holding the $DBY token will be paramount to building into the future of MetaDerby.
From @CristianDaro19
How many team members do you have? Do they have enough experience in the blockchain field?
Karm| MetaDerby
Let’s see…we’ve got 10 full-time devs on my side. For marketing?
Our dev team is really experienced in blockchain development. We’ve got JS guys, Golang, Solidity, Haskell, all the skills that we need really.
Sky| MetaDerby
Marketing we have 6 full-time. Plus the founders. So it looks like we’ve got about 17–18 total team members.
Yeah and our marketing team is full of NFT nerds. Our head was Global PR at Binance for years and years, and members of our team have plenty of experience launching NFT projects, DeFi projects, Dex-builders tools, SocialFi projects, and more.
From @Ramachari110
Does the game allow player to player interactions? Will MetaDerby game have special rewards for the most outstanding builders/players of the week?
Karm| MetaDerby
Yes. Customized game lobbies is the first one that comes to mind. Regular race winners will be invited to weekly tournaments, where users can actually earn $DBY tokens! So we do have some of those features built in.
From @AkihisaMori45
who asks — Looking forward to the future of Metaderby — Now I want to ask what do you want from the public?
Sky| MetaDerby
Your support! We couldn’t do any of this without our community. Come join us, be active in our ecosystem, our socials, our game. Give us suggestions on what you’d like to see, and come along for this awesome ride with us!
Telegram Questions
From @LokiTwoSpirit
Marketing is a central element for every project, so that everyone knows the potential that a project can bring is vital to achieve the goals set. What is your strategy to attract new users and Investor to your platform and keep them long term. @Sky_Harris
Sky| MetaDerby
Yeah great question! Our big push right now is to be involved and cross-promote with AVAX projects and communities. We just announced our token listing and parternship with Trader Joe, the 10th biggest DEX in the world by TVL. We’ve partnered with Kalao to list our DerbyTicket NFTs. From there, we’ll keep pushing to collaborate with awesome projects and teams to gain more visibility.
From @jerilynberry
Are you planning to promote your project in countries / regions where English is not good? Do you have a local community for them to better understand your project??
Sky| MetaDerby
Yes! We have huge communities in HK, Turkey, Japan, Vietnam, Europe, Indonesia, and really all over. We have dedicated community moderators, as well as some Twitter personalities and YouTube video influencers who help us reach those markets and interact with those communities.
From @Lashandaik
Do you allow suggestions and feedback from the community? Are we allowed in decision making, do you put community into consideration ?
Sky| MetaDerby
Definitely! Come join our Discord community, provide your suggestions, communicate with us directly. Plus, with the launch of $DBY, stakers will have governance utility and will help decide the future of the MetaDerby project.
From @Chinta111
What strategies does your project use to position itself and grow its community of players and strengthen it?
Sky| MetaDerby
We’re the first free-to-play-and-earn horse racing game in the metaverse, and the first horse racing game on Avalanche. Those are really big selling points for us.
Community growth is actually pretty organic when you have an interesting product that’s needed. People love working with us, making content about our game, and joining our activities. We expect that to continue well into the future for MetaDerby and our community.
From @roseanne_graham_74
What’s your main focus right now, are you focused on the community or market/Exchange or the products?
Sky| MetaDerby
IDO is happening tomorrow! Along with that, we’re focused on the beta game launch in about a week or so.
Next is the alpha game launch in early May. Those are the big milestones for us. So product development and marketing will be working hand in hand to knock those out of the park.
Dave| Avalaunch
@Sky_Harris and @metakarm as you know you had tough act to follow. @misuTelegram gave us his heart and soul yesterday but you have fared just as well. We truly appreciate your time today and we got a two-headed metaderby metaverse monster for the price of one. A treat having you both and I as well as our community look forward to your launch and the great things that clearly lie ahead.
