Author: Zen, PANews

After more than 20 years of development, online strategy games have continuously improved their graphics and art while exploring more novel ways of playing, and have accumulated a large number of players around the world. Although the overall scale of game enthusiasts in this category is far less than that of FPS, RPG and other types of audiences, the energy and money that players are willing to invest in the game are usually far more than other game types, which is why there are always game teams willing to develop such games.

Strategy games rely heavily on players to think deeply, including resource allocation, long-term planning, dynamic decision-making, etc., which is consistent with the research habits of crypto investors in formulating investment strategies and evaluating risk returns, and both are willing to spend a lot of energy and money on asset investment or games. Therefore, the challenge and sense of achievement of strategy games may be able to attract this kind of patient and enthusiastic group and convert them into deep users.

So, what about combining high-quality strategy games with the crypto ecosystem? In fact, the medieval-themed strategy game BLOCKLORDS has indeed demonstrated the potential of combining the two, and has attracted more than 1.85 million users through its web version BLOCKLORDS Dynasty alone.

It took 6 years to build a product that can survive bull and bear markets

BLOCKLORDS was born in 2018, when even Bitcoin was still considered an outlier, and blockchain/Web3 games were even more niche. However, BLOCKLORDS, an MMO strategy game, has always been designed entirely around Web3, and has withstood the test of time and survived multiple rounds of bull and bear markets.

Initially, the development funds of BLOCKLORDS mainly came from the prize money of developer competitions, and its development team successively received hundreds of thousands of dollars from activities organized by NEO and TRON. After the initial precipitation of entrepreneurship, in 2021, the development team formed a new studio and content team to realize game iteration. In addition, in order to successfully complete the development of BLOCKLORDS, the developer of this game, MetaKing Studio, began to seek to raise $4 million in development funds. Subsequently, MetaKing Studios announced in May 2022 that it had completed a $15 million financing round, which was led by Makers Fund and Bitkraft Ventures, and participated by many well-known institutions such as Delphi Digital, Animoca Brands, Shima Capital, WW Ventures, Spartan Group, Huobi Ventures, and YGG.

In addition to the fact that BLOCKLORDS has withstood the test of the market in its early stages, the core team of MetaKing Studios is also a key factor in gaining recognition from the above-mentioned VCs.

MetaKing Studios was founded by David Johansson and Nicky Li, both of whom have decades of experience in game production. Johansson, who serves as both CEO and creative director, worked in the Hollywood film industry early in his career and later switched to the game industry to engage in creativity and production. Well-known projects that Johansson has participated in include Crusader Kings, Liberators, and League of Angels; Nicky also participated in the latter two games as a designer, operations director, and project manager, and currently serves as the team's chief operating officer. In addition, most of the artists, designers, and developers of the MetaKing Studios team also come from well-known industry studios such as Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Paradox Interactive, and Creative Assembly.

Player-driven medieval strategy MMO

Drawing inspiration from the development of civilization and resource management in Age of Empires, adding large-scale battles and strategic command from Total War, integrating political intrigue and strategy from Crusader Kings, and absorbing some agricultural simulation from Stardew Valley, the main gameplay of BLOCKLORDS, a medieval large-scale strategy game, is now available in the Epic Games Store in early access, and is scheduled to be launched on Steam in the first quarter of next year.

Based on rich gameplay, BLOCKLORDS aims to allow players to make their own choices and shape their own stories. Every decision and action will affect the direction of the game, which mainly revolves around four core mechanisms: farming, combat, domination and conquest:

• Players who don’t have hero NFTs need to start the game as a farmer. They can collect, mine, process and craft various materials in exchange for currency. Farmers can also manage animals and livestock.

• By accumulating resources, players can transform from peasants to armed forces, including knights who defend peasants and villages and raiders who steal resources and destroy villages for a living;

• When players become famous knights, they will have the opportunity to advance to the ruling class and serve as lords and ladies. Their main responsibilities are to collect taxes and resources from peasants, provide rewards and salaries to knights, and manage and develop cities and infrastructure.

• Ultimately, players who effectively utilize their skills and conquer the path before them will have the opportunity to become the King or Queen, the game's supreme leader, whose responsibilities include managing currency, national policy, diplomacy, trade agreements, and research available to their armies and regions, with the option to start or participate in wars that change the course of their country.

BLOCKLORDS allows players to use blockchain technology without having to participate in it, and the game does not directly include any cryptocurrency. This approach of embracing the habits of traditional players is also the reason why it can be launched on Steam. In order to cater to the preferences of Web3 game players, BLOCKLORDS has launched a web strategy game BLOCKLORDS Dynasty in addition to the main game.

BLOCKLORDS Dynasty is a full-chain game based on the Base blockchain. Players can lead a noble family in the game, create a unique family flag, and win reputation and expand the empire through strategic decisions. The heroes owned by players are essential for quests, duels, and building alliances through marriage. They can even be used to continue generating resources after the hero dies. In addition, Dynasty is not a completely independent game with the same IP. The hero characters and flags in its game are interoperable with the main game BLOCKLORDS, which can realize asset transfer.

LORDCHAIN: Paving the way for mass adoption

BLOCKLORDS Dynasty has been a huge success since its launch, attracting 1.85 million users who have completed more than 80 million transactions on Base. Faced with an increasingly broad player base, the BLOCKLORDS development team decided to come up with a more scalable and efficient solution to support a larger and more active community - LORDCHAIN, a Layer-3 blockchain solution built on Base, was born.

LORDCHAIN ​​is based on the OP Stack framework, ensuring compatibility and interoperability with the broader blockchain ecosystem. Its target throughput is 5 million gas per second, and higher capacity is available on demand to ensure that speed and efficiency are not affected when processing massive transactions. In terms of bridging speed, the bridging time between Base and LORDCHAIN ​​is less than 10 seconds, making cross-layer interactions basically meet the fast and seamless experience. In addition, as the exclusive blockchain for the BLOCKLORDS game, transaction fees on the LORDCHAIN ​​chain are calculated in game tokens $LRDS, thereby promoting a sustainable in-game economy.

Currently, LORDCHAIN ​​has just launched the first phase: the master verification node system, which is the core design of LORDCHAIN, aiming to maintain security and efficiency while improving user experience. Participants can lock $LRDS tokens and receive continuous rewards, and help the security and performance of the platform. According to the roadmap, LORDCHAIN ​​will soon introduce the testnet phase for extensive testing, community feedback and optimization, and its full version of the mainnet is scheduled to be launched in the first quarter of next year.

LORDCHAIN ​​will be responsible for the initial deployment of nodes. After the mainnet is launched, players can view their purchased nodes through the LORDCHAIN ​​official APP interface, participate in network verification, lock $LRDS, and enjoy related rewards. In addition, before the LORDCHAIN ​​mainnet is launched, a node subscription activity will be carried out during the testnet testing phase. During the activity, users will have the opportunity to obtain additional node computing power, and can use node computing power to subscribe to nodes of different levels on the mainnet.

BLOCKLORDS's economic lifeline $LRDS

As the lifeblood of the entire game ecosystem, $LRDS holders are not only granted in-game rights such as exclusive heroes and special rewards to unlock a better and more efficient overall gaming experience, but can also participate in the governance of the entire game. By holding and using $LRDS, players can participate in community voting, influence game development and narrative decisions, and directly participate in the development of the game. The launch of LORDCHAIN ​​further empowers $LRDS, enabling players to participate in the LORDCHAIN ​​validator reward program to earn $LRDS.

$LRDS is issued based on the Ethereum network, with a total supply of 100 million. It has been listed on many mainstream exchanges such as Coinbase, KuCoin, HTX, Gate, and MEXC. According to CoinMarketCap data, as of November 26, its price was about $0.6, and its circulation market value did not exceed $10 million. BLOCKLORDS's token economics focuses on long-term sustainability and value, so its LRDS token has a 10-year vesting cycle and issuance plan, and its token distribution mechanism is:

• Community and Ecosystem (36%): Working on community initiatives, gaming bounties, Gamedrops, LORDCHAIN ​​incentives, and overall ecosystem growth to ensure active participation and investment.

• Investors (31%): Give back to those who have contributed to the development of BLOCKLORDS.

• Marketing (10%): Support ongoing marketing efforts with high-quality partners to expand the BLOCKLORDS ecosystem and its games.

• Consultants (10%): Ensure that the consultants’ expertise in guiding BLOCKLORDS is recognized and valued.

• Liquidity (3%): Reserved to provide liquidity on the exchange, ensuring smooth trading and deep order books for $LRDS.

• Basic reserve (10%): Serves as a buffer to support future development and cope with unforeseen challenges.

Overall, $LRDS not only builds a bridge for deep interaction between players and games, but also ensures the long-term value of tokens and the healthy development of the ecosystem through multi-dimensional incentive mechanisms such as governance rights and validator reward programs.

Combined with a community and ecosystem-oriented token distribution plan, $LRDS takes sustainability as its core, not only carrying the mission of promoting the long-term vision of BLOCKLORDS and LORDCHAIN, but also continuing to create win-win opportunities for players and investors.