VulcanVerse: A Fantasy Metaverse with Player Economy

Part of the billion dollar metaverse revolution

VulcanVerse has been in development for quite some time, but the player-driven blockchain gaming metaverse recently started getting more attention. In the past 30 days the number of active users doubled on their marketplace. 

VulcanVerse is a big MMO game that brings the gaming world to the blockchain. Before we dive a bit deeper into the world of VulcanVerse, let’s take a step back. This Greco-Roman-inspired virtual world is part of a bigger ecosystem called Vulcan Forged. Here developers have access to a range of tools, while gamers can buy NFTs on a public NFT marketplace and use these in different games or dapps across the ecosystem. 

What’s interesting about the VulcanForged ecosystem, is that NFT ownership is registered on the blockchain. Because VulcanForged is sponsoring all gas fees required for every day business in their ecosystem, gamers will never have to deal with gas fees. Gamers can trade their NFTs freely and use the native PYR token however they want.

Taking a look at PYR

PYR is at the center of the ecosystem’s entire play-to-earn economy. Gamers can earn PYR by playing dapps in the Vulcan Forged ecosystem. They can then spend their tokens on FIRE, which can then be used to acquire items from the marketplace. In addition there are various staking options available. 

However, inside the flagship game VulcanVerse gamers use PYR to upgrade their NFT land or NFT god characters. Each level increase requires a certain amount of PYR, while players also need to stake extra PYR into their NFT. Upgraded land gives players a share of the monthly PYR rewards from the staking pool. 

Furthermore, staking PYR in god NFTs will for example increase the rewards with 10% per level increase, and the LAVA rewards players receive while playing Vulcan Forged games. In addition there are NFT farming activities that require players to stake their PYR in order to grow a seed into a full fledged NFT item.  

What is VulcanVerse

Now you know a bit more about Vulcan Forged and the PYR token, let’s take a look at VulcanVerse. This is one of the games in the dapp ecosystem, alongside for example the trading card game Berserk. Just on a side note, Berserk is already out now on iOS, Android and the web.

VulcanVerse can be best described as an open-world massively multiplayer online role playing game, or MMORPG. The game is set in a Greco-Roman setting and references mythology a lot. However, VulcanVerse stands out from other MMORPGs, because players truly own game assets such as characters and land.

In VulcanVerse the primary assets players can own are land, Vulcanites, Gods and items, like for example weapons. Gamers can buy and sell these on the public marketplace, and each of them is limited in supply. 

Even though VulcanVerse defines the setting, players are free to create their own quests and adventures. The game world consists of four quadrants, each with its own unique characteristics and qualities. In the top left of the map are the Mountains of Boreas, clockwise followed by the Gardens of Arcania, Desert of Notus and the Underworld of Hades. In the middle of the map is the neutral area, Vulcan City. Landowners can decorate their land the way they want, but are limited to certain attributes based on the location of their land. 

Vulcanites are primary creatures with unique skills, lore and home to a certain quadrant. Players can use Vulcanites to forage NFTs, battle with each other, spy on neighboring plots or defend land against intruders. The Gods aren’t creatures, but provide all kinds of buffs. Their looks and powers change based on the PYR locked inside them. Furthermore, items can grant players perks and abilities to help them inside VulcanVerse. 

Building the metaverse

Adoption of blockchain technology in the gaming sector will give gamers ownership over in-game items, ranging from land to swords and from characters to resources. It’s this future of video games that projects like VulcanVerse are tapping into. Digital ownership is becoming fundamental for the future of the internet.

In April the entire NFT market saw in drop in NFT trading volumes, except for virtual worlds. Investors, gamers, believers keep spending money on virtual land to build their games, virtual workshops, online conventions, social gathering and art galleries. The Sandbox, Decentraland and Cryptovoxels are the most common examples of this trend.

However, there’s a lot more happening in the mainstream gaming market. Roblox went to the stock market in March with a $38 billion market cap. With 60 million users per month Adopt Me is one of the leading games on the platform. These valuations open up lots of potential for platforms like The Sandbox and VulcanVerse, where landowners in these virtual universes can create their own games and challenges.

This move into virtual worlds and user-generated content is big. Very big. In April Epic Games received $1 billion in funding to work on their vision for the metaverse, which would benefit their Fortnite platform among others. In addition Animoca Brands, the biggest games publisher in the blockchain space, got valued at $1 billion earlier this month.

Even though these online metaverse games don’t have one million players yet, they do have the funding to actually build the metaverse. VulcanVerse, The Sandbox, Cryptovoxels and many others are part of a new wave of gaming universes where players contribute and also own a part of the virtual world.