Mines of Dalarnia DEEPER DEPTHS AMA on Discord — Recap (10/26/2022)
Last October 26, Game Director Keith McCullough joined us for an AMA about Mines of Dalarnia 1.1: Deeper Depths on our official Discord server.
Below is the recap of the AMA with all the questions from the community about Deeper Depths and Keith’s answers.
Shamrock: Welcome, Miners! Thank you for joining us today as we talk more about Deeper Depths.
The channel will be muted during the AMA and it will start with a brief introduction followed by a pre-selected Q&A. If we have enough time, we will open the AMA channel for a live Q&A session.
Before we start, let’s all acknowledge our speaker for today. Hello Keith. How are you?
Keith: Hi everyone! Doing well, workin away at getting 1.1 all set for tomorrow.
Shamrock: Since Mainnet launch, we’ve seen continuous progress and development of the project with constant weekly updates.
For those who have joined us recently, could you please share a quick insight about all the progress and improvements that you and the team have worked on during the last months?
Keith: We’ve been adding weekly updates to MoD, adding features, improving quality of life, fixing bugs and overall making the game better.
This Summer we added the Sunken Swamps and hopper event, Elite Armors, Miner Ranks, Completely revamped the land and rent economies, Canar-Es, New user experience and Tutorials, UI and optimization improvements, the Halloween Event and contest, lots of stuff.
Btw the Halloween Holos will be all be up next week and they look rad.
Shamrock: We will soon be welcoming Mines of Dalarnia 1.1. Can you tell us more about this coming major update? Why are you excited about it and what people could expect from it?
Keith: Yes! So 1.1 is called Deeper Depths. It’s our first very major content expansion for Mines of Dalarnia. It comes with a lot of new features, new content, and balance changes that we hope will be good for all players, both long-timers and new miners.
It adds three new high level mines (we’re using the phrase Mine now instead of Depth since they will be increasingly non-linear). The Gilded Mine, the Storm Tunnels and the Crystal Caverns, each with their own rewards.
And the resources and armors and everything that go along with that. It also rebalances crafting and equipment upgrading with a new system called Dust that we think will be a lot better and more sustainable over time. We worked hard to make sure all these equipment changes took into consideration the work players have put in before 1.1 and not punish or remove things from them, while also looking forward at what’s going to work best for growing the game long-term. I’m very excited about it!
Shamrock: Same as we are! Thank you Keith. Now, let’s proceed to answer questions submitted by the community regarding these Deeper Depths.
Keith: I’m ready!
Shamrock: So here’s Question #1: Is it possible to obtain basic resources in deeper mines? If not, why?
Players need to earn from all resources in the same way as all resources are used in the refill cost.
Keith: No, the deeper depths only drop the new high end resources. Gold from Gilded Mine. Aquarite for Crystal Caverns, etc. Plus catalysts and shards.
We want mining to occur at all levels of play and resources to be useful from many sources including lower level miners. If you only want to exclusively dig the top end resources you will need to purchase the lower ones to supplement replenishment from the market.
We will add additional value for miners in higher depths with more XP, Contracts (quests) and other supporting features over time.
Deeper Depths mines was designed carefully with the goal of avoiding the situation we had previously where most players only cared about Depth 3 with very specific resource configurations. Imagine if from the start it was not possible to get Copper or Iron from Depth 3, how that would have changed the economy. Since we are dedicated to not changing anyone’s land or items retroactively (that would not be very blockchain of us) we work forward instead.
Shamrock: Now, let’s proceed with the next question. How will this auction work? Is there a limited amount per wallet? Are the 1000 Gold injector going to be this way? How are you gonna prevent prices from dropping in the future due to the availability of more supply?
Keith: The auction will be held on the new Dalarnia Marketplace. It’s an “English” auction meaning there’s a set a starting price and after a certain amount of time the auction closes. Any bid extends the auction by 30 minutes.
We’re auctioning the first 6 Gold-Plated Injectors this week.
A second round of injectors will not be released until Thursday Nov 3rd, at the soonest (though the auction may begin before then). This second release may involve a different number of injectors.
We’re not definitely limiting injectors to only be available via auction forever, this is just how we’re introducing them.
Shamrock: Got you! Moving to the next one. Are those who have already made elite blades and elite armors not allowed to enter pl15 for a month before upgrading? Those who made the elite set in advance have to spend money again to match the golden set. It seems unreasonable.
Keith: It’s true they will need two pieces of gold maxxed out, so one piece of Elite would need to be sidelined temporarily. We wanted to have Elites Upgradable for 1.1 launch but the feature is not ready.
When the Elite item is upgraded it will be PL18 and retain their unique perks, making them top-end gear.
Keep in mind it will still be expensive to upgrade Elite items since it has to be in-line with creating other PL18 equipment.
Shamrock: Ok, let’s proceed to the next one. Would be interesting to know the thought process behind choosing that Injectors be rolled out in stages and also that they would be auctioned for DAR instead of crafted with resources.
Keith: The number of injectors was chosen based on our active digs per day metrics + number of PL12+ capable players. We want to make sure the new content is available, but not flooded or oversaturated.
These first 6 injectors add 1200 digs of the Deeper Depths every day. When we add the next round that number will increase.
We considered crafting but we don’t have a way to control distribution like this via crafting. We don’t feel it would have been a major resource sink given the one-time nature of the crafts.
Shamrock: Noted. Here’s another one. What contingency plan is in place to prevent a person or persons from acquiring the injectors who don’t even play the game and hoard them, preventing anyone from mining those deeper depths?
Keith: It shouldn’t be profitable to hoard the injectors. The benefit to having one now is to use it immediately and get access to the new resources, be able to dig the resources or charge higher rent for miners seeking new resources, new gameplay, more XP, etc.
Shamrock: I see, thank you! Now let’s move on. The Deepest depth gear by all accounts looks the most appealing to the eye but what incentive is there to pursue those depths at launch of 1.1. Please clarify if the resources obtained from the deepest depths will be the most valuable and, if not why? Shouldn’t it be more profitable to dig above than below.
Keith: To gain in power, get cool looking equipment, have new gameplay experiences, get more XP, have new resources to trade, etc.
Will the deeper resources be the most valuable? Probably, since they make the most powerful stuff. But it’s also important we don’t make all lower resources become useless either. The goal is for everything to have value.
As we continue to add endgame content and multiplayer features there will be more powerful as well.
Shamrock: That’s more than exciting and curious! Looking forward!
There’s another interesting question.Will gold injectors have the exact same effect on everyland type ? (i.e. gilded mines/crystal caverns/storm tunnels will give the exact same rewards)
Keith: There are only a few variants.
Gold 8 / Rag or Aqua 6
Gold 6 / Rag or Aqua 8
And of course each depth is aspected.
Shamrock: Ok let’s go on. What is the difference between upgrading +3/+4/+5 ozy pick/armor to ragnarite or aquarite?
Keith: This is a tricky one. The move to Dust was made to give us more flexibility in upgrading items over time. Since we now require previous tier dust to craft the next tier (ie. need Silver to make Gold) it was becoming exponentially insane to craft high end things. If 32 Silver picks were needed for each Gold Pick… think what it takes to make +3 Gold Picks! So the system had to change.
However it was also very important not to punish players who had massively upgraded stuff pre-1.1
So we made the “Original” items. +5 Original items give back their full 32 dust — effectively no loss at all!
Original items can also be upgrade directly if the owner loves their perks, but since upgrades start at +3 there is no benefit to upgrading a +4 or +5, it’s a pretty uneconomical decision. That’s awkward but we didn’t want to take awaythat option either.
Shamrock: Interesting. Thank you for this detailed answer. Moving forward. Do you have a plan to benefit Mining apes holders from getting gold injector as well?
Keith: We don’t, this auction is for everyone. The ape holder reward claim is live now though!
Shamrock: Yes, it’s live! Happy Anniversary!
And the next one is. What does the team intend to use the auction proceeds for?
Keith: This auction is small and not intended to draw major revenue, it’s really about staging out distribution. That’s why the starting bids were very low. The proceeds will go into the game fund DAR pool.
Shamrock: Got it! Here’s a big one:
Each Depth should have a Maximum PL to play, i mean, a PL 10 player, shouldn’t be able to play in PL 3 for example, because it gonna be immortal , same as the new depths, a PL 14–18 , shouldn’t be able to dig on plots PL 9–10 , players should change their equipment to do so…
Keith: We don’t want to force players to downgrade equipment. It is easier to play at lower depths with higher tier gear true, but that’s okay.
We do have some equipment scaling in place… I’m not sure how obvious it is. If you exceed a depth PL by a certain amount your effective PL is capped for that dig. Maybe we should make that more explicit in game.
I think limited PLs would make more sense for a competitive mode with leaderboards.
Shamrock: Good. Cheers! Here’s another interesting question and important one:
Will the combine catalyst still be useful in-game after 1.1?
Keith: Yes, Combine Catalysts are used to upgrade along with Dust! That was left off of the article inadvertently.
We’ll be changing the name to Upgrade Catalyst at some point as well.
Shamrock: Do you plan(and when) to release the in game client marketplace?
Keith: The new web-based Dalarnia Marketplace will be reached from a button in the client in 1.1. It’ll minimize the client and launch in your browser. We plan to add more integration in to the client such as buttons to directly sell items out of the client to the web market.
We don’t have plans to develop the marketplace fully within the client any time soon, the web market is more usable and makes more sense.
Shamrock: A follow up question. Will there be a buy it now on our marketplace (instead of auction only)?
Keith: Yep! We will add more features to the marketplace over time including instant buys. I’m impatient with auctions and prefer Buy it Now too.
Shamrock: Same as we are! And what about promised formulas for players, will they be changed after 1.1?
Keith: Yes! Sorry about the delay on these. We did not want to release the new formulas until we were certain we wouldn’t be tweaking them further.
We’ve been gathering data and feedback to make sure all the permutations are working.
I very much appreciate our fansite community and want to give you guys what you need as soon as we can.
Shamrock: Thanks for clarification! Looking forward to it! And the next one, pretty interesting:
What do you think about having a teeny tiny probability for getting cool gear (f.e. injectors) for anyone from a crate? So let’s say you announce “x amount of injectors are raffled in crates” and players rush to “mine” them even if the digs aren’t profitable by default for them, until the last one is available in the pool?
Keith: Love this idea! Maybe not an injector but limited-distribution rare drops that are unique and have special value. It’s something that’s been discussed for a long time and we want to get into the game in some form.
Shamrock: Great! This is pretty exciting! And the next one. Will there be the function to dust multiple pieces in one transaction?
Keith: Yes, this is a Quality of Life feature we’re working on for a weekly update some time after 1.1.
Reducing transaction is a big part of the Dust system in general
We’d like to do mass upgrades as well (ie: burn all the durst and do +5 at once).
Shamrock: Ok, going back to the serious note! Thank you Keith! We also received some questions which weren’t related to the Deeper Depths, I will share to you some.
And the first question is, Are there any plans to release rewarded Leaderboards or PvP features in the near future? Or some other feature that makes upgrading to top PL really attractive for Landowners and Miners alike?
Keith: Yes absolutely! Multiplayer is very high on the list of major features under active development, starting with shared spaces and leading to competitive play modes. Get ready to start seeing more updates and videos on this shortly after 1.1.
Shamrock: This is huge! Can’t wait to see it! :dragonfire:
Moving forward to the second one. The slippage when trading resources on DEX is too large. Is there any solution to this problem?
Keith: DEX Slippage is configurable on the Settings Menu.
Shamrock: And last but not least. When will be the companion app released, so I can fill my land from there?
Keith: It’s a real mess on mobile for blockchain apps right now. Apple and Android keep changing their guidelines and limitations on how much blockchain is allowed. Just this week they changed a bunch of rules.
We decided the web-based Marketplace was higher priority so players can trade equipment and land for DAR directly, so we’ve been focusing on that.
At this point we’re leaning towards web-based solutions for companion app style features that work on the phone but also in a browser.
Might be best of both worlds, plus can integrate with metamask more easily.
Shamrock: Thank you Keith! The questions are now over. We planned to open the chat to everyone but It’s been late already. Do you still have some time or we should keep it for a next AMA?
Keith: It’s an hour and a half now, I need to go. Tomorrow is a big day for MoD!
Thank you for the questions everyone! I hope we hit on all of the biggest topics.
Shamrock: Thank you for joining us and providing clarity to the community Keith! We hope everyone found this AMA session helpful and valuable.
See you all in the mines! ⛏️
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