Summary

• Earth2 officially announced Raiding live on main site after having deployed it earlier unannounced to test stability.
• The Raiding game engine will set the foundation for tracking millions of objects across Earth2 in future.
• 1 million Cydroids already built across 5 different rarities.
• There are 30+ types of Cydroids and while currently all of these can be used for raiding, each Cydroid will have a different purpose and utility in future, which will be revealed in due course
• Early benefit:- Cydroids can be built simultaneously for a limited time only. When this promotion ends, Cydroids will revert back to Mentars only being able to build 1 Cydroid at a time.
• Users will be able to improve Cydroid performance and raiding efficiency with the upcoming Cydroid Management features, Jewel slotting and Civilians.

Full Transcript of the Press Release

Last week Earth 2 quietly deployed Raiding Version 1 to our production website, the first iteration of the Raiding Game Engine. It is important to point out that the primary purpose of developing the Raiding Game Engine was to test it in a live environment as a predecessor to the massive, upcoming EcoSim Game Engine which will track millions of objects, tasks and activities, in real time, as Players gather, process, craft, move, trade and build all over the world and on a much larger scale.

Though the primary purpose was to test our new game engine, one of the secondary purposes was to give Earth 2 Players something else to do, and even in the absence of an official announcement, many active Players still happily picked up on the covert release. As a result, we have already experienced a significantly high volume of activity from the new feature along with an overwhelming amount of positive feedback from the community!

WHAT IS RAIDING VERSION 1?

Raiding Version 1 allows Players to build Cydroids on any properties with 4 tiles or more and a Mentar, using Essence. Once built, the Cydroid’s primary utility is the ability to Raid other Player-owned properties for unstable E-ther and, if detected during the scan, to collect it and bring it back to the Mentar it is tethered to. Cydroids can also relocate between friendly properties, store the E-ther they collect, dispense that E-ther, as well as be Powered, recharged or De-Powered. They even come in over 30 different types, of varying rarities.

The core design of Raiding Version 1 makes it something that can be played casually so it is simple to play but difficult to master. It also has the clear potential to increasingly reward Players who choose to spend more time and discover more strategies pertinent to mastering the Raiding system.

With relatively little effort, some early Players have already doubled or tripled their daily E-ther, meaning strategically placed properties have the ability to not only generate E-ther using traditional Mentar detection methods, but Raid additional E-ther for a healthier-than-ever E-ther intake.

Whilst the official Raiding announcement was not released until today, by Friday last week over 1 MILLION Cydroids had already been built by Players, and over 280,000 of those Cydroids were built in the first 24 hours alone!

Many Earth 2 Players have already sent their Cydroids on scores of raids, testing out raid strategies that they had been planning for months in advance based on details released by Earth 2 in the form of articles and videos. Some of these strategies have been discussed publicly within our community and shared with others, whilst others are being kept close to their chests.

If you’re looking for a quick way to get started with Raiding, jump to our videos for How to Raid and How to build a Cydroid. Otherwise, continue reading to refresh your memory on what Raiding Version 1 is all about, including some hints and tips for our early Players!

While one team of developers have been building the Raiding Game Engine, some developers from our Phase 3 team have been simultaneously focusing on representing and visualising Cydroids Raiding inside E2V1. Here’s a little sneak peek for anyone interested!

A QUICK SUMMARY OF RAIDING RULES

Whether you are a new Player wanting to know what Raiding is, or an active Player wanting to learn more, the following information will give you some much needed insight:

1. E-ther is stable in the first 24 hours of its 48hr+ stability cycle. Stable E-ther cannot be raided by other Players, only the property owner can collect this E-ther.
2. E-ther becomes unstable after the first 24 hours of its spawning cycle. Once unstable, this E-ther can be raided by other Players using Cydroids.
3. Stable/Unstable periods are based on when the E-ther generated or spawned on each individual property, not from when it was last claimed.
4. The property owner can still claim their E-ther while it is unstable so long as another Player has not yet Raided it or the full cycle is complete and the E-ther disappears.
5. A property must have a Mentar in order to build and tether with Cydroids.
6. A Cydroid takes 24 hours to build (this time can be reduced by slotting an Orange jewel into your property’s Mentar). PROMOTION: Cydroids can be built simultaneously for a limited time only. When this promotion ends, Cydroids will revert back to Mentars only being able to build 1 Cydroid at a time.
7. You cannot destroy built Cydroids to recoup the Essence build cost, so build your Cydroids strategically if you plan to Raid with them and not simply keep them for other future utility.
8. The 5 Essence used to POWER up Cydroids can be recouped by DE-POWERING them. De-Powering can only take place when the Cydroid is 100% charged. Recharging Cydroids is free.
9. Cydroid E-ther storage, speed, and power cell efficiency can be improved using jewel boosts. Coming in the near future with the Cydroid Management feature.
10. Cydroid task automation and management can be unlocked by synthesising Civilians on your property. Civilians are also planned for release in the near future.

RAID MECHANICS: FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Q: Why is my Cydroid stuck on a raid with the scanning time as ??:??:?? ?

A: During a raid Cydroids may come across a Mentar that only contains stable E-ther. In this case the Cydroid will wait on the Property until it becomes unstable and raidable. If, however, the owner collects the E-ther before it becomes unstable, the Cydroid/s will immediately return to your property, and the raid will have been unsuccessful. When this happens, it means your Cydroid is putting in an extra effort to make sure it has a chance of being ready to collect any E-ther the moment it becomes unstable. This gives Players the biggest chance to catch even the active Players napping, who may be only a few minutes late in collecting their E-ther for that day.

Q: How do I know what rarity my Cydroid is?

A: All 30+ First Edition Cydroids have their own rarity which is shown by a coloured circle around the Cydroid:

White: Common

Green: Uncommon

Blue: Rare

Purple: Epic

Yellow: Legendary

For now, each Cydroid will share the distinct ability to raid unstable E-ther. However, over time, new individual skills and abilities will be discoverable or revealed as the EcoSim expands. The higher rarity will most likely mean the more special the Cydroid’s abilities are, which could also mean it will be more difficult to build via the EcoSim later.

Ultimately, each Cydroid will have both immediate utility and future utility which is very exciting.

Q: What is the difference between Charging and Powering?

A: To put it simply, Powering a Cydroid is the act of inserting an Essence Power Cell into your Cydroid. Charging a Cydroid is required when the power in the Cydroid’s Power Cell has been depleted.

When a Cydroid is De-Powered, it has no Power Cell and cannot function. When a Cydroid has 0% charge, it simply needs to be recharged (for free!) to be functional. You can charge the Cydroid in the Raid Menu by clicking the Property’s Yellow Icon leading to the Property Stats.

Q: What is the yellow screen icon for?

A: This icon is a quick access to your Property’s Cydroid overview, where you can see which Cydroids are Idle, Relocating, Raiding, Full of E-ther, or Dispensing. You can access this view just by deselecting any of the BUILD, RELOCATE, POWER, and RAID buttons too.

Q: I want to see more details about my Cydroids, where can I find this info?

A: Cydroid Management will be part of a future release and this is where you will be able to see more specific details about the Cydroids you own, including a more holistic view with additional ways to manage them.

Keep in mind that Cydroid Management will also give you the opportunity to gain more insight into your raids and the ability to slot your Cydroids with Jewels.

RECENT UPDATES TO RAIDING:

We have been meticulously recording all of your bug reports and suggestions and the following updates which will further improve your experience are now live!

1. Properties will not auto-zoom focus on map on selection now.

• Auto zoom was a cool feature to visualise on the map but it chewed up a lot of juice on the client side device so was removed to improve the overall gameplay experience.

2. Target properties can now be filtered by tile size!

• A super useful addition that will reduce time searching for the perfect properties to raid.

3. Target icons to allow manual auto-zoom for those who wish to visualise where the property is.

• While we removed the auto-zoom, there are still target icons in relevant places for when Players wish to visualise their property or target property during Raiding.

Summary

• Raiding and Cydroids may appear soon and without announcement on the main site. The announcement could follow much later when devs believe everything is stable.
• Players listing properties on marketplace will also contain all the tethered Cydroids to that particular property. To avoid so players must relocate their Cydroids to another property before placing it for sale.
• In case players sell a property with tethered Cydroids, the Essence within any power cells of any Cydroids will go along with the Cydroids to the purchaser. Thus this allows indirect trade of Essence but nevertheless players are reminded to be careful since Essence does not yet have an external discovered price.
• As soon as a property is sold, raiding dispensing and building will continue on the said property while relocating Cydroids will stop. Therefore the relocation must be complete before the property is sold.
• The details of stored Essence on Cydroids will not be appearing anywhere for listed properties and therefore there is no way to verify any claims; players should remain cautious and are not encouraged to enter trades basis mere promises (about stored Essence in Cydroids) made by other users.
• Cydroid will come in 30 different types and with various rarities - Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic and Legendary.

*Below is the press release by Earth 2

As we draw closer to the live release of Raiding, we felt it necessary to highlight some very important aspects for Players to consider, especially if you plan on selling properties that are acting as Raiding launch pads or have Cydroids tethered to them. Therefore, this article is incredibly important to read for any Player intending to Raid or build Cydroids and will also cover details about Rarities, how that will work and how it will provide early access privileges for active Players.

Property Trading Protocol for Cydroids

It is incredibly important for traders to understand that for a number of reasons, properties with Cydroids tethered to them will be sold collectively, with any Cydroid/s tethered to the property at the time of listing on the Marketplace.

Cydroids cannot simply disappear when a property is sold as they must be tethered to a Mentar at all times. Therefore, when selling a property that has Cydroids tethered to its Mentar, the Cydroids (including all of their assets such as Essence held in Power cells and raided E-ther in storage) will be part of the property sale.

Players do have the option to relocate their Cydroids to another property before they place their property for sale on the Marketplace, if they do not wish to include Cydroids and their digital assets in the sale. Care must be taken if you are currently accepting bids for your properties, that you do not accept a bid before checking for tethered Cydroids, as any Cydroids actively tethered to that property along with their assets will be transferred as part of the sale.

The following list specifies the activities that will continue and activities that will be aborted when a property with tethered Cydroids is sold:

Activities that will continue:

• Raiding
• Dispensing
• Building

Activities that will be aborted:

• Relocating Cydroids (Outbound)
• Relocating Cydroids (Inbound)

Consequently, any E-ther remaining in the Cydroids storage bay due to partially (in-progress at the time of listing) or not yet dispensed will belong to the new owner. Cydroids that have not completed their relocation will have their chartered course aborted and will return back to the property they are actively tethered with in preparation to serve their new owner, this applies to both inbound and outbound relocation routes.

We realize that some Players may look at this protocol as an indirect way to trade Essence, but we remind Players that Essence does not yet have a determined price on an external trading platform. Therefore, we highly recommend that both sellers and buyers take this into consideration before attempting to form any kind of deal which includes properties bundled with Essence in Cydroid Power Cells with other Players.

Earth 2 has plans to add confirmation of these specific details to the properties listed on the Marketplace in the not-so-distant future. This update will serve as an early Cydroid trading solution, predominantly for Players wishing to trade their Cydroids before the official Cydroid trading platform is released at a later date. Until such time, we discourage any blind trading of Raiding launch pads properties or attempted Essence “trading” and therefore will not be displaying Cydroids, their power status or other additional details about their digital assets on Marketplace listed properties just yet.

For now, please disregard advertisements or claims made by other Players regarding what Cydroids or raiding value their “for sale” property may have. Players purchasing properties from the Marketplace will not yet have any official way to confirm the included assets of the sale and therefore should conduct purchases solely based on the property details they can see.

Details on Cydroid Rarities

For a not yet confirmed period, Raiding Version 1 will provide Players with an early-access opportunity to build and obtain Cydroids directly from their Mentars via control on the Raiding panel before there is a requirement to adhere to future rules of the EcoSim. Only once a build is completed will Players learn which one of over 30 unique types of Cydroids they have received.

Each type of Cydroid will be grouped into its own distinct level of rarity, ranging between Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic and Legendary. Some examples are depicted in the accompanying announcement image. As part of a true continuation of core Earth 2 ideology, in the future, Players will be able to sell their Cydroids to other Players, though with the future external trading price of Essence and the trading price of Cydroids yet to be determined, Players should consider their options carefully. These version 1 Cydroids do present a unique opportunity, as they have the ability to directly recoup the cost of Essence used for production by raiding and collecting unstable E-ther.

The probability of generating Cydroids from the varying rarity levels is specifically tailored for this early-access feature as a special privilege to active Players on our platform. It is important to note that obtaining these diverse Cydroid types and rarity levels will be possible through alternative means in the future as part of the EcoSim, such as capturing a Cydroid’s Metasprite and refining their physical form during the materialization process. Having said this, the rarer the Cydroid the more difficult it will be for Players to obtain and build as a byproduct from participation in the EcoSim.

For now, all Cydroids will start with the same ability to carry out Raids, however, we’d like to emphasize that just as the Cydroids differ in appearance, they will also have varying special abilities in the future that have not yet been disclosed.

Other Notes

Finally, we would like to take this opportunity to remind Players that while Raiding is the current focus point due to it being the next scheduled feature release, it only represents part of the future Earth 2 Metaverse Platform. That being said, Raiding is a very important step which will lead to running the global logistics system of the EcoSim, the core game mechanics engine for moving Resources, Civilians, goods, trading, building, combating, and numerous other strategic initiatives.

A reminder that we will not be releasing an official announcement the moment Raiding is live in our production environment. It is a considerable software release and therefore the official announcement will be made once our development team is happy that the update looks stable.

Thank you for reading this update, we look forward to seeing how Raiding is received by our wider community very soon!

Earth 2 is pleased to announce an official “Green Light” for raiding on our pre-production server, Stage 2 ( https://stage2-app.earth2.io/ ). Players who have test accounts on Stage 2 are invited to use the newly developed Raiding feature and report any issues in the #raiding-stage2-bug-reports channel on our official Discord server https://discord.gg/earth2 .

A few guidelines for testing are listed at the end of this article so for those helpful volunteers who wish to test, please read those guidelines carefully.

Raiding is the First Step

Though the Raiding concept may look simple at first glance, it spans the entire globe and there are a surprising number of potential strategies waiting to be discovered in order for Players to experience the most success.

The Raid Cydroid’s base specs for the Raiding in Version 1 may seem quite limited to Players, but our internal calculations reveal that even at base specs they can be highly effective and achieve nice returns on E-ther gains. It is also important to note that these base specs are far from the true potential and capacities of the Raid Cydroid, especially once Jewel Slotting buffs become available.

We consider the Raiding game mechanics as a first step leading into the many anticipated moving parts of our EcoSim. Therefore, this release is not only to introduce something for Players to do, but also to test and improve the core engine that will be responsible for much of the game mechanic processing of the Earth 2 EcoSim.

It is worth noting that the raiding feature itself may seem like a quite ordinary feature to some. However, under the hood we have developed a lot of new core mechanics that are worth taking into consideration that have been built to permeate through many future feature releases going forward. A few things to consider are:

• Raiding is in fact a multinational logistics software solution that can track millions of objects / vehicles all over the world including their exact locations, amount of fuel / energy they have, how they interact with each other, competition between one another, numerous different statuses and more.
• Setting the 3D modeling of all Cydroids (As seen on the recently released E2V1 Tech Demo video https://youtu.be/5oo1SSZKjrI ) along with many other 3D assets being worked on behind the curtains.
• A set of complex energy models that most objects, ranging from Buildings, Vehicles, Cydroids to Equipment, will be subject to. This mechanic alone could see Players specializing in and supplying on a much deeper level later on. This entire system starts with the small and humble Micro Power cell for Cydroids.
• The RBAs (Rewards, Badges & Achievements Tech tree) are set to be released shortly after Raiding Version 1 is live. An RBA can come in many shapes and differ in: availability, type of reward and requirements. For Raiding we will both pilot a Reward, in near time, and later also Badges & Achievements. Some RBAs will be rare and can only be unlocked by a few while others will be possible to unlock for all. Some will be passive and others active, some permanent, some temporary. The RBA for Raiding will mark the beginning of the RBA tech tree which will become vast over time and encompass various secrets. We have a very interesting reward set aside for the Raiding RBA.
• Raiding and the upcoming EcoSim will start out in a Web2 based UX fashion but is simultaneously being prepared and tested for the next transition steps E2V1.
• In parallel to the Jewel Buffs Cydroids will soon receive as part of the Raiding feature, the Jewel system has been undergoing a further design rework where all current 41 colors will have their own unique characteristics, lore and utility. To say which one is better than the other will depend on the Player’s area of specializations, strategies and goals. This starts with Raiding but will expand with a much bigger scope over time. Gradually we will introduce new unique ways of the effects Jewels will offer.
• The introduction of Raid Cydroids as the first type of Cydroid was also considered to be one of the best options for kicking off logistics and conflict. Each subsequent type of Cydroid will come with its own very unique set of capabilities and specs. Players can also look forward to the next set of Cydroids being introduced with the upcoming Ecosim but should expect that it will become more difficult to obtain Cydroids in the future.

All of these core mechanics create a strong and expansive foundation for the EcoSim which, in itself, is only a single component of the broader Earth 2 experience. Raiding is not only an excellent feature to pilot new foundational mechanics, but it is another example of a feature which offers potential reward to our early and faithful Players, something that we feel very strongly about.

Deployment to Live Production Servers

This release of Raiding will be considered as Raiding Version 1 and our primary focus will be to identify and fix reported bugs on Stage 2 before deploying to our live production environment.

We will not release any public announcement when Raiding Version 1 is deployed and live on our production website but rather deploy, monitor for a number of days. Only after our developers confirm they are happy with the deployment will we publicly release an announcement confirming Raiding Version 1 is live on production. This may take days, or weeks, we cannot commit to a time frame but please rest assured we are pushing to get this live.

As with any new feature software release, there are numerous unforeseen issues that may arise. Our team does their best to mitigate these issues, but edge cases are sometimes unavoidable, especially with a larger release like Raiding. As with other releases where issues were identified and ultimately fixed, our team will be on standby to actively resolve any issues that may arise.

We ask for your patience and understanding during this period as negative and abusive comments do not help to fix or resolve anything.

Testing Guidelines for Community Volunteers

We are grateful for the community’s willingness to help in the testing of raiding. While all suggestions are welcome, our key focus is to get raiding live in a timely and stable manner.

Therefore, to help us focus on the more critical issues, please ensure you identify whether your listing is a #bug or #suggestion in the Discord channel. Internally, there are already improvements on our radar which will be rolled out over time, and while we always welcome community feedback, we will be predominantly focusing on fixing bugs blocking a production release.

Before reporting a bug or suggestion please scroll through the channel to see if your issue has already been reported. Be aware that Cydroids created on the previous version from December might display unexpected behavior. To avoid any doubt, build new Cydroids.

It is very important to mention that Stage 2 is configured to build Cydroids in 2 minutes to help volunteers test faster. When Raiding Version 1 is live on production, build time for Cydroids will be set at a 24 hour base build time.

We should also note that as a reward to early Raiding participants, we are going to allow concurrent building of Cydroids on properties. This means if you build 4 Cydroids, for example, all 4 will build concurrently as opposed to the Mentar only being able to build one at a time. We have not decided when this promotion will end.

Please use the following format when reporting to ensure efficient communication with our development team:

:

Example report:

Bug: Relocating a Cydroid to a property in Gibraltar is impossible

Description:

When trying to relocate a Cydroid to a property in Gibraltar an error is thrown. The target property is within range and has a Mentar.

Steps to reproduce:

–Select a property near the border in the Raid menu

–Go to the Raiding tab

–Select a charged Cydroid

–Select a target property in Gibraltar

–Click [Raid]

Actual Outcome:

An error is thrown

Expected outcome:

The Cydroid starts traveling to the target property in Gibraltar

Attachment:

[Error_message.jpeg]

To refresh your memory on Cydroids and Raiding or to remind yourself of other important points to consider when testing on Stage 2, please check out our previous article https://earth2.io/news/raiding-details

This footage was scheduled to be released just prior to the launch of the Essence token (Earth 2 platform's native currency), however since the token launch itself was delayed, Earth 2 decided to release the footage to share the progress it has made on it's 3D world release.

We take a walkthrough and decode the video:

Video

Expansiveness, Open World, 'Not a shoe box'

The video shows various real world locations and their corresponding terrain, emphasizing the magnitude of its scale, promising an unbounded open world. The footage is claimed to be directly from inside the game and not pre-rendered.

100% Player Built & Owned

It's noteworthy that while the terrain is replicated corresponding to the real world locations, E2V1 is a brand new world without any legacy structures/ buildings and hopes that the users will build a world of their own. We see a massive sprawling city in the video envisaged to be built by Earth 2 users themselves. Players can build by participating in the EcoSim and using Ether, Essence and Resources that can be farmed on virtual land. We need to understand how will Earth 2 influence or incentivize a build-up, else there is a risk of this process being extremely slow.

Avatar System

For the first time we see a close-up of an avatar inside Earth 2. This avatar system is powered by a partnership announced between Earth 2 and Ready Player Me. It also allows Avatars that have likeness to oneself, and the same can be achieved by scanning one's face using the Ready Player Me app, and then importing the Avatar inside Earth 2. We can only guess if we will see more such partnerships just for the Avatar system given that an Avatar primarily represents a user's persona inside a digital world.

Cydroids in Action

We see multiple Cydroids in action during the course of the video. Cydroids are supposed to play a key role in the gameplay within Earth 2. One can imagine an entire army of Cydroids traversing the Earth 2 terrain. We also believe that these coupled with NPCs (civilians) at a later stage is a smart solution for the filling the low player density that is naturally expected within such an expansive environment that E2V1 promises to be.

Newer Vehicles

We can see many newer vehicles roaming the streets or over the terrain, a train, and even tanks. The physics of moving vehicles look quite authentic

Detailed Indoor Areas

Users are shown a glimpse of potential indoor environments and with a high detail - storefronts, lobbies, elevators, apartments and offices - personal spaces that can be customized and populated with various virtual objects. Personal spaces can also be rented out to other users or used to house own civilians.

BEWARE, the Earth 2 elevator comes with a disclaimer ... xD

Immersive shopping

Metaverse shopping can be very immersive and not constrained by the physical space as in the real world. The Earth 2 virtual shops (Player owned or run by Earth 2) would cater to various in-game items that users may require - avatar gear, vehicles, cydroids and other digital items. It will be interesting to see what kind of SDK or editors Earth 2 comes up with to allow players to build and trade various digital objects inside.

We see 3 classes of Cydroids displayed here - Sandsekars, Myneghalds, and Naswatas

Even resources could be tradeable via virtual shops.

We also spotted the live game feed inside the virtual shop, and it's expected that virtual item purchases will be shown in the game feed, just how it currently happens with land and jewels.

Welcome to ShaneVerse!

Virtual objects will be available from Earth 2 as well as other creators

Even Land Deeds...

Additionally, besides digital items, Earth 2 claims that users will be able to buy physical goods as well! Thus, Earth 2 will enable anyone to run their physical or virtual business from inside Earth 2

It's the night that matters!

Earth 2 will have day night cycles. We also liked the lighting and the ground reflections shown when it turns dark.

Worlds within a World, within the World

• Earth 2 Portal concept allows teleportation to off-world experiences and games.
• DRONE will be the first such gaming experience that Earth 2 team is working on.
• Anyone will be able to submit games and experiences, that will be able to load from a portal inside E2V1. We assume Earth 2 may release some SDKs to allow experiences and games created by users.

So What is the Earth 2 Droid Craft (also pending a Trademark filed by Earth 2)?

We are excited about E2V1 as a scaled, open-world Metaverse, size of the Earth - which will eventually enable a multitude of activities and experiences.

Some Questions that come to mind (submitted by various Earth 2 users)

(special mention: Wizard Oz for contributing)

• Is there a ceiling limit on E2V1, how high can you zoom out? Will we be able to explore nearby space - at least low orbit? Will there be satellites?
• Do typical Earth 1 rules apply to an Earth 2 city - does it have sanitation, taxes, civic body, waste management, licenses to do things (party, public gathering, fireworks), police, prisons, courts?
• Can we customize asset names - objects, vehicles, street names? Can we name default streets provided by Earth 2 between plots? Who names them?
• Can we change the course of rivers or fill-up water bodies to reclaim land?
• Can Avatars fight each other, can they break into buildings or steal parked/moving vehicles?
• Do Avatars get injured or even die if a vehicle hits them, or they jump off a train, or if they jump off a building. Will they have health bars like in most games - or more detailed vitals?
• Can Avatars fly? Can they Swim?
• Will Avatars and/or civilians be able to express emotion at some stage?
• Are more avatar partnerships coming?
• Will all users be supported in the same instance? Won't that crash the game?
• Can you resize assets or holograms?
• Can personal spaces be secured via a lock so that others cannot come in?
• Can Civilians drive vehicles or operate other complex machinery?
• Will external objects like Nike NFT shoes be allowed inside Earth 2?
• How are collisions handled between vehicles or aircraft?
• Are Cydroids destructible or self-destructible? Can someone steal my Cydroid?
• Will EPLs have doorways like shown for DRONE in the video?
• Can Mentars' position be realigned, say if someone wants them at the corner of their plot versus in the center
• Will plot grid lines be visible in 3D world, can it be turned off for aesthetics?
• How will trains or overhead objects move over other people's plots?
• Will we have underground available on Earth 2? How deep?
• Can vehicles, ships or aircraft teleport. How do they gain access to a completely surrounded plot on all sides?
• How many concurrent Cydroids can raid a property in a 3D world - 100, 1000, 10000 or less?

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win!

ZEU$ out.

A long time critic and Scamtuber (a term used by Earth 2 community for Youtubers who claim Earth 2 is a scam, mostly based on half information) is back again with major and serious claims about an alleged security breach related to Earth 2 accounts.

The drama that unfolded in last few days had this Scamtuber posting a video that included screenshots of exposed email ids of some Earth 2 accounts. The video claimed that this was a major data breach and that several Earth 2 accounts could be affected, and that Earth 2 knew about this and did not inform the affected accounts. The video also slammed Mapbox, which has partnered to provide its product for Earth 2, as a Google earth knockoff.

Shane Isaac, CEO Earth 2 refuted these claims vehemently and said that this a malicious attempt by this Scamtuber to mis-state facts and malign Earth 2 just as it looks to release the footage of its 3D world in the next few days. Shane adds that the motivation for this video stays from this particular Scamtuber's need to stay relevant by posting hate videos around Earth 2.

Shane clarified that there has been no data breach to his knowledge and the email ids shown in the video could be affected by several phishing attacks that were targeted to Earth 2 users some months ago. Shane said that this Scamtuber is plain 'lying' and even as they knew this right away, Earth 2 has still investigated the said data breach claim and found no credibility to it. He added that "Earth 2 is getting hated on for building our own tech from scratch to performantly stream a 1:1 scale geographical replica of the planet Earth, with a tiny dev team when compared to some of these other projects. Anything to derail and now they really are scraping the bottom of the barrel. At least it used to be some what comical"

Shane assured that Earth 2 accounts are safe and that it has "security / penetration hackers that work for security on banks." It's believed that the exposed email ids could be a result of the fake Earth 2 app that appeared some months ago and which stole data from several unsuspecting users.

Shane pins the below message on Earth 2 discord to allay any concerns of Earth 2 users:-

"What better way to try and discredit or derail a project that’s obviously about to share something that will prove a lot of the critics wrong, including the one who posted the video, than to release videos on the platform being hacked? Very convenient.

And how convenient he couldn’t login with any of the ‘hacked passwords’ because “Earth 2 fixed it” before he could record. You’re telling me that when he ‘apparently’ logged in to one of these accounts he didn’t take any screenshots or screen record it? How surprising.

We did not fix any major security data breach under the terms he publicly stated.

I didn’t realise people were so desperate for attention .. but I guess that happens when the main reason you’re relevant in the public arena is for hating that one project, you need to keep finding ways to hate on it or your relevance starts to dwindle. Kind of removes that relevancy once that project starts proving you wrong. So instead of manning up and admitting it, why not double down and create content with double the lies, screaming for that little bit of attention – because these videos have certainly passed simple criticism.

But we now have this person publicly stating incorrect information as absolute facts. It’s one thing having an opinion, but another to state things as indisputably true. What I imagine has happened is they have come across a very old list of data, potentially from one of the many phishing sites that targeted Earth 2 in early 2021 OR from a ‘rumoured’ hack that apparently leaked some details, but again, that’s from early 2021 and we were never able to find the details of the apparent leak at the time. We were mainly using GraphQL at that point but we moved away from using it as part of our core stack over a year ago for that very reason, the potential security issues with GraphQL.

And EVEN if someone did manage to hack GraphQL at the time, the hashed passwords he refers to was in fact dummy data (for dummies), hence why he probably could not login to any of the accounts and just claimed Earth 2 miraculously ‘fixed the security break’ before he could record it.

I am fairly confident that the group he has constantly working with him to try and find ways to derail Earth 2 have perhaps come across a very old data leak (if this is even true) and if it is true, then surprise, surprise, he’s claiming the bragging rights on someone else’s work and is irrefutably stating that he was responsible for just a month ago. I mean either way, he is publicly claiming to be involved with attempting to hack a company website and share the data, even if obfuscated, publicly on YouTube.

For those worried about their accounts being compromised, it is extremely unlikely unless you fell victim to a phishing attack – but even then – we have 2FA (which could have been turned on a long time ago) AND we have KYC (photographic account verification) now for over a year so that IF an account was ever compromised, they would need to verify identity so we would know who was paid out anyway.

And for the record, when all of those rumours were spreading early 2021, I intentionally leaked details of an attractive Earth 2 account including the dummy hashed pw data. Someone has tried to hack that account hundreds of times (I get emails every time an attempt occurs) and has still failed – the account has never been breached.

So again, like we announced in February 2021 – if you feel you have fallen victim to a phishing scam then always change your password, but even if you did a long time ago, we don’t have any reports of accounts having funds illegally withdrawn likely due to 2FA and KYC processes – this is the exact reason we implemented those systems! Buy hey, it’s more fun to claim to have hacked Earth 2 a few weeks ago.

Just wanted to leave this message here for any Players that are concerned."

Shane advises,"By all means, change your password should you wish to, but it’s more than unlikely any of your accounts have been breached."

Earth 2 has come a long way since launching in November, 2020, with 0 Players, 0 publicity and a few hundred dollars budgeted for advertisements. From then to now we have become a team that spans across Europe, Australasia, the UK, Asia and America, and earlier this year we sold our landmark 100 millionth tile!

And the Winner is ….!?

Without any form of public announcement or forewarning that there would be a reward for the Player who purchased the 100,000,000th tile, this winner will be receiving a retroactive reward in all regards!

Without further ado, we would like to give a HUGE CONGRATULATIONS to:

who has won E$10,000 – the largest single prize in Earth 2 history!

(E$1 – $1USD)

We’re not sure whether Samjogo will see this announcement, but once our accounting team adds the credit over the next 24 hours, Samjogo will have 10,000 reasons to smile when they see a little jump on their Earth 2 Player account balance!

We wanted to save this announcement for our 2nd anniversary month. We were under no pressure to reward the purchaser of the 100 millionth tile, but whether big or small, we enjoy rewarding Players that are active on our platform – so from the entire Earth 2 team, we hope Samjogo enjoys this massive prize and manages to turn it into something even bigger!

Fun fact: Samjogo changed their Player username so often, our concept art team stopped updating it on the announcement image after the 4th occasion!

700% increase in P2P Jewel Sales since Raiding Deep Dive Video

There has been a 700% increase in Player to Player Jewel sales on the Bazaar since the Raiding Deep Dive video was released earlier this week! The video confirmed that Jewels would have further utility inside the Raiding game mechanics by way of slotting to boost various attributes on Droids, and possibly more.

We can verify that there will be at least 6 pre-existing Tier 3 Jewels set aside with the unique distinction of becoming the first Jewels used to boost Droids. If you are new to jewel crafting, Tier 1 Jewels can be crafted into Tier 2 Jewels which can then be crafted into Tier 3 Jewels. It may be a strategy to hold onto your Tier 1 or Tier 2 Jewels before we release the names and exact boosts of the 6 Tier 3 Jewels planned to boost Droids. There are currently a total of 38 Tier 3 Jewels.

Update on E-ther and Jewel Spawn Rates

Our team is aware of a delayed rate in the spawning of E-ther and Jewels across most properties. We are aiming to have all delayed E-ther and Jewels spawned over the next 24 hours. We would like to assure our Players that this is not a sudden reduction in spawn rates, but an unforeseen delay issue when testing a new mechanic. We are working to resolve the issue but there may be further delays over coming days. Please rest assured it will not jeopardize or skip any E-ther or Jewels that Players would normally receive from their properties, only delay it.

Today Earth 2 deployed an update not only to facilitate new game mechanics related to the upcoming Raiding feature, but also as a pre-emptive adjustment for future spending scenarios for E-ther and Essence.

These adjustments will see E-ther receive two decimal points and Essence expand to 4 decimal points.

We’d like to share some details that Players may like to consider:

• Properties will retain the same potential E-ther yield, but instead some smaller properties may notice more frequent smaller detection of E-ther as opposed to the previous method which detected E-ther in integers every ‘X’ number of days.
• In order to keep the UI/UX clean, some locations may not always display Essence with 4 decimals places and E-ther with 2 decimal places
• These are plans for our progressive, step by step adjustment to various decimalisation updates
• As we get closer to the launch of the Essence token we will go through some final decimalisation updates
• You may notice all E-ther claimed today will end with .00 values. This is due to today’s spawning of E-ther operating under the previous backend server logic and should change during tomorrows new process
• You may notice that your Essence balance ends in .XX00. This is because your historic Essence balance is stored based on the previous logic. It should update to the more accurate decimalised value when you next transform your E-ther into Essence (we realise many Players are saving their E-ther in anticipation of creating Civilians).

Another update that went live was the landing page country price ticker which displays the cheapest available country prices. When you press on a country flag this will automatically take you to the last area in that country where new tiles were purchased. We will be adding an option in the future to allow Players to display different filtered results.

Shane says- There #has been feature creep over the past couple months, but I wanted to deliver a more robust v1. This has a bigger scope than what I hinted would be available in November, BUT, we're still working hard to release something as soon as possible. Remember the #Raiding concept will be introduced on the website then migrate to #E2V1. Though it's only the first iteration, I guess this video provides some insight into my personal approach to game design for #Earth2. #Raiding alone will allow us to open up some interesting 3D gameplay inside #E2V1 later. It's been refreshing to have a proactive, passionate & dedicated new game design team working around me!

User (U)- I am so excited for this! Thank you for getting this going so you/E2 team can take more time to get the initial release of E2V1 right and still give us something to do!

Shane(S)-That's the idea! And to make those 'things to do' relevant to the long term systems we intend to build anyway. Killing 2 birds with 1 stone so to speak. It may not look flash now, but in the future we'll put the Ferrari engine inside the Ferrari car and voila .. :)

Hey Shane, did you design this aspect of the game by yourself? Or did you bring in other experienced game designers to help? Is it a standalone game within e2 or will it be a core part of the bigger picture?

S- They are my ideas but I certainly didn't do it alone. I took over the game design temporarily & I have a new team I am working with who have been amazing. The concept links into core parts of Earth 2 & includes relevant systems we needed to build for the #EcoSim & #E2V1 anyway

Thanks for this Shane! I am so excited to get our first glimpse of game mechanics! LFG!!!

S- Thanks for the comment! But remember, this is not supposed to be a visually hyping video! We promised to release details on the game mechanics & that's what this video is about. A better visual glimpse might be the updated progress on #E2V1 end of month!

I’m more excited for the details!

S- Ahh ok cool - then you're in luck :) I designed this game mechanic not only because it has similar systems we need for #E2V1 & the #EcoSim, but because it's something casual Players can participate with (unlike the mayhem of #staking !)

Shane further adds more information about Droids and Raiding

(thread continuation)

... Raiding will be easy to play but difficult to master. It will be easy to build #Droids & raid for example; you'll get lucky sometimes, possibly with some streaks. But to master it you'll need to read your insight data to identify the best strategies. Remember a lot of E-ther comes in staggered on different properties!

Your #Civilians will help you when they become available & once P2P Contracts are released that will start #FreeToPlay on #Earth2. And this is only the first iteration of #raiding! We already have expansion plans for #Droid intercepting which will introduce attack & defense mechanisms & more + we will be actively reviewing improvements, especially early on. I am in control of the game design for now so things will be different from what you've seen to date & although I am still finding my feet, I hope some of you can see a change coming.

Already so much has changed behind the scenes over the past couple of months. Remember, initially all #Droids will be able to #Raid but over time you might find out your #droid has other Utility as well! So if there is less E-ther to raid due to more active Players then perhaps your Droid will have other abilities, but I'd say there will always be some who get lazy & miss detection, especially when things 'change' over time.

There will be different approaches, some might go for 4 tile #Raid outpost properties, but these may be harder to defend against #Droid interceptions & might have limited usefulness in the #EcoSim. There will be so many strategies that emerge over time & in many cases purpose built properties will emerge for different goals. We will balance & mold the mechanics over time, but with what I know with regard to what we have planned so far, I am very excited about where this will lead to & the interesting dynamics it will introduce to #Earth2 & #E2V1 as time goes by.

To start #Raiding, you'll only need a few #Essence & a small property in a good position. Recharging #Droids takes time, but it will not cost any additional #Essence for now. If you raid well, you should be able to recoup the 2.5 #Essence fairly quickly & if you don't want to start with your own land, then I'm sure there will be many advertised properties to control once P2P Contracts is released!

User (U)-are there to same amount of droids for Tier 1 properties as there are Tier 2 properties? Love the work you guys have delivered and looking forward to more info going forward.

Shane(S)- Thank you! And yes, T1 and T2 land will be equal in regard to number of #Droids initially. I am not ruling out any types of balances, but T1 and T2 land being equal is where we're at right now.

Also I'm guessing we can't see/detect if a property we're trying to raid has E-ther sitting there unclaimed before sending a droid? I'm guessing that's where the data, favorites list and such come in handy?

S- Most certainly not! That is part of the strategy with sending out #Droids to find out for you! Your #Droid will stay on that property for as long as possible to scan and detect whether any unstable E-ther becomes available and will collect it if so. Insights is your friend.

Will properties without Mentars still have radiable E-ther? As in will the land still be generating E-ther even if a players Mentar isn't detecting/claiming?

S- Mentarless properties are something we covered in detail numerous times during game design meetings. Initially the property needs to have a Mentar as the Mentar lures the E-ther out for detection & extraction. Mentarless properties are flagged for future raiding inclusion though.

This looks awesome Shane! likely to be live for the Xmas period? some downtime to build a droid army!!

S- I am pushing the team very hard for this! I'd like to get even a rough v1 live as early as possible. There are a lot of moving pieces but we're pushing to get it out!

(Unrelated)Any info from your EA on the egg icons ?

S- I know it might seem like an easy thing but all our FE devs are focusing on #Droids & #Raiding. I told them to keep focusing on that for now but when they have a spare moment they will be added to your profiles.

Wanted a quick clarification on raiding mechanics -- Ether available to be obtain is only tied to uncollected ether on a property correct ? IE if an account has been collecting (but not transforming ether), that balance is not at risk from raids correct?

S- Correct - once you have collected it, it is stored, and not open the be #Raided. Only E-ther that is yet uncollected can be captured during it's unstable state before it evaporates. Good question!

Looking incredible! Btw Shane, when will we have the new landing page?

S- The new landing page can only go live once we've released the new progress footage of #E2V1 as it will contain numerous screenshots & images of things that will be displayed in that video. So probably end of month or early December.

Can droids be bought and resold , like as NFT perhaps

S- Not initially, but yes, long term they will be tradable!

Email notifications Shane? (Raiding)

S- We're considering sending one, but otherwise in game notifications.

(if we have missed anything, please leave it in comments below)

The full video is posted on Earth 2's YouTube handle (below). However, this article covers the video as comprehensively as possible and allows the information to be available for ready referencing whenever needed.

Edit:- We have updated recent information around Cydroids and Civilians at the end of this article

The article assumes that the reader has basic knowledge about Mentars, Jewels, Ether and Essence and what do they do. Alternatively, please refer to 'How to' section on the Earth 2 website to understand these first before proceeding.

Introduction to first iteration of 4 key Earth 2 game mechanics

• Droids, Raiding, P2P Contracts, Civilians form the first of the many key game mechanics for E2V1. However, the current focus is on the first two while we may hear more about the latter 2 in a follow-on video from Earth 2
• It's emphasized that these game mechanics are NOT ALL that Earth 2 is, but rather just a start. While these are just the first pieces of gamification within Earth 2, there are several things that remain to be discussed such as - EcoSim, building experiences, internal environments, 3D commercial and retail solutions, trading systems among others.
• Raiding and building droids in the web version will not carry animations, these will be seen inside E2V1 rather.

Raiding solves 6 short term problems for Earth 2

1. Provides active players something to do during the waiting period along the journey to the 3D world
2. Rewards early and active players
3. Helps design and implement key game mechanics for the current web page interface, however are also relevant to E2V1, and therefore has long term relevance
4. Build and test the new backend game engine (calculations happening in the background), which will also be used inside of E2V1 later on. It includes things like - precise tracking of vehicles, power storage and drain, calculating roaming ranges, etc.
5. Light introduction to behaviors, process flows, core mechanics and ideologies which will be seen in the long term, particularly the EcoSim.
6. Adds more core utility to digital items that can be earned by owning land inside Earth2 such as Ether, Essence, Jewels, and some new upcoming items such as droids.

Thematically, raiding and all these other features are aimed to keep adding utility to the player owned digital land inside of Earth 2. One such example is Jewels which is P2P traded (with over $2 million worth already traded to date), improves the Ether detection for any given land that is slotted with them, and provides boost to relevant resources present on that land. Similarly, raiding is expected to add more utility to Ether, Essence and Jewels

Background and Lore - Droids

• As pop cultures, beliefs and factions emerge within the Metaverse, concentrated mental energies generated from these groups fused together to form something called as Metasprites
• Metasprites are incorporeal states of droids loyal to their origin faction's culture, and roam free through the Earth 2 Metaverse as ethereal beings
• A mixture of civilizations living in close proximity may inadvertently place pressure on a Metasprite. So once it begins to take shape as a droid, it defects and has no connection/ allegiance to any faction whatsoever preferring to spend its time as a solo but neutral being
• The ethereal droids have a powerful connection with Mentars, with whom they communicate, and roam the Metaverse seeking new Mentars.
• Despite its desire to roam, it is not unusual for a Metasprite to be captured quite close to where it was formed.
• With the use of Essence, these droid forms can be hacked and captured to reveal their binary composition data
• With this data available, the Essence and Mentar work together to fuse and amalgamate the Essence into and actual physical droid

In short, you can create a physical droid from a Metasprite by using Essence and with the help of Mentar

• As soon as the droid is created, it is automatically tethered to the Mentar with which it shares a special kind of bond
• Droids need to be powered using powered cells, especially when being sent out to 'raids'. Power cells are created using Essence, and the droids can only be charged while tethered to a Mentar.
• When first created, most droids will only be able to hold a certain amount of Ether, travel at a certain set speed, relocate a certain distance and consume their power cell energy at a certain rate
• Jewels can hack into the meta-code of the droid and recode their functions and abilities such as speed, storage and so forth
• A droid can only be relocated among the same network of Mentars, as these Mentars create a special connection that exists between Mentars owned by a single player.
• When droids are sold (to be discussed later), and once it arrives at the new Mentar it will have to undergo the tethering process where they are recoded to assimilate into the new environment, and form a new relationship with that new Mentar.

Raids for Ether

• Droids can be sent to raid neighboring properties of any uncollected ether
• Since the droids are at a distance from their own Mentar while raiding, they will use significantly more energy to venture onto enemy land, and follow owner's directions until the very last power cell has been used for scanning and waiting for the chance to hack into the enemy Mentar and capture any Ether (which evaporates from land tiles owned by players and is detected by a Mentar on that land)
• Due to slight unstable nature of Ether, Mentars cannot secure the E-ther for the last 24 hours. This unsecured Ether can be raided by enemy droids
• Droids follow owner's orders and depend on the owner's strategies to maximize raiding outcome
• There can be multiple droids at a Mentar at any given time. Each droid will have equal chance of obtaining Ether at the time it's unsecured. Some droids may miss out if the competition is too high (similar to the staking idea)
• This applies especially for droids raiding on large properties where a large quantity of ether is released, that would attract more participants trying to raid that property

While currently detected Ether vanishes in 48 hours, Ether left uncollected post 24 hours will be available for raiding to other players (droids)

• This is expected to become difficult over time, but in the beginning every player will be able to defend against raiding by collecting their Ether within the first 24 hours of it evaporating from a property
• The entire raiding game mechanics will migrate into E2V1. A droid inside E2V1 will be a flyable 3D model but its the same droid a user creates now. A separate video this month will showcase the potential look and feel of raiding/ droids inside E2V1.

Raiding UI/UX

Numbers/costs shown may not be final and some could be just for representational purpose

• Raid button - Opens up a list of their properties. You need to own a property with a Mentar to participate in raiding, and would have already built droid(s) and tethered to that property from where you are initiating the raid (see a previous section herein for info on building droids).
• Dispense all button - Shows how many of your droids are sitting in your property with Ether in their respective storage compartments ready to dispense that ether back into your Mentars and back into your balance.
• Border colors of property list - Related to upcoming P2P contract system (more to be explained later). It's purpose is to differentiate which property is under your control as the owner, which properties are under other player's control even when you own the property or which properties are under your control even as they belong to another user.

• When you click a property - Displays property stats such as - number of droids dispensing ether, number of droids full of Ether, how many droids being built on your property, how many droids are tethered to the property, number of droids raiding, number of idle droids, how many droids have run out of power. You can also relocate droids to other properties subject to some limitations.

Each stat has their internal drop-downs with relevant details

Building Droids

Users can start to build droids by selecting how many droids to build. Building droids costs essence and build time. Number of droids available for build will depend on the size of that property:- e.g.:- 750 tile property allows maximum10 droids, and the limit reduces gradually for smaller plots.

For example, here it shows it takes one day to build one droid.

There is an option to pre-power droids as well. Droids need power to be able to do anything. Selecting the pre-power option allows powering up of droids while they are built thus saving time. One reason for such a mechanism is that during P2P contracting, in the first iteration the contracted player will have limited capability to be able to spend the essence of the owner, as a protection mechanism. So in the beginning, owners will have to at least build all the droids on their properties before another player can take over a contract to start operating on the property.

If you select the pre-power option, it will show the Essence cost it will take to enable it...and thus 'Essence is Power'

Essence is retrievable when you de-power your droid.

This process of building droids is the 'easy process' available to early active users. Once the EcoSim is launched, there will be different steps that will be required for building droids. All droids built in the current web version of Earth 2 will be usable inside E2V1 as well.

It will be possible to build different types of droids which will have different rarities. The user will only know which kind of Metasprite the Mentar has managed to capture and what rarity is assigned to a droid only after the droid is completely built. Currently, over 30 such droid designs have been designed by the Earth 2 team. While later on different types of droids may serve different purposes, currently all droids will have same functionality esp. as far as raiding is concerned.

Relocating Droids

This option allows players to relocate droids between their own Mentar properties, and based on some restrictions. Clicking this button will show all the droids on that property and their respective status, and a droid must be idle for it to be relocated. Here we can also see the stats of each droid - how fast it can move, amount of ether it's carrying, power available, its potential range, how economical that droid is which is influenced by how the jewels have been slotted onto the droid and some other things.

After selecting the droid the player wants to relocate, it shows which properties are available for relocation. For example, in the image below, it shows that the Banana island property is 1000 km away, has a max capacity of 10 droids, has 6 droids at the moment while 2 are incoming

Once selected which property to relocate, the droid is going to begin its journey to relocate and then tethering to the new Mentar on the destination property

Power Option

You can power droids or depower them

On clicking, it shows list of droids on that property that are not powered currently. Player can select droids to power or de-power and we can see the corresponding Essence cost or retrieval available.

Raiding

Player can select the droids to be sent on a raid. Raiding consumes more power compared to relocating a droid and therefore the range of a droid for raiding is lower comparatively to that of relocating it to a similar distance.

Once a droid is selected, select the property you want to raid. For the first raid, you can go to the map and select which property you want to raid. Once a property is raided, you can add it to your 'favorites' list or access it from the 'recent' list to be able to re-raid it easily. It also shows the distance of the properties that can be raided.

Droid Insights System

This system is a useful tool that presents the player with raid related statistics and trends that can help strategize and plan their gameplay.

Insights interface is available via the 'Raid Management' section. Insights is an unlockable feature and is available for properties and tethered droids. Under properties the player can see the list of properties that have unlocked this insights functionality.

The player can also view a list of droids tethered to the property

Droids insights contains 5 sections such as - power stats, performance history, success rate, properties that have raided and a comparison against the player's highest performing droids.

While the power stats (first section) depend on the Jewels slotted, the droid's performance history (second section) provides a visual representation of the raids performed over time and the Ether obtained either from 'all raids' or from only the 'successful raids' which resulted in at least some Ether collected by the droid from the raid.

There are other overlays available as well, such as relocations, upgrades/ downgrades (basis jewel slotting/ unslotting).

The third section tells us about the droid's success rates and what % of its raids were successful in gathering any Ether. Other useful information is also available in this section

The 4th section displays properties the droid has raided. Players can select whether they wish to view the properties they have raided the most or properties they have gained the most Ether from via the filter in top-left corner. The information is presented as a multi-layered interactable pie chart.

The 5th and final section compares the best performing droids of the player with the droid currently selected. This comparison can be made basis Ether collected or successful raids.

Property Insights

Property's insights will contain 5 different sections - an overview, a statistical comparison, graphical display of raided properties, a pie chart depicting the Ether contribution of its tethered droids, and a graphical display of property's raids.

A property's overview shows information pertaining to the droids and raiding performance by droids from that property

The statistical comparison is an interactive line graph that illustrates the property's daily obtained Ether or success rate over time

The graphical display of raided properties allows the player to compare their raided properties against each other and determine how profitable each property is

Players can also see how much Ether each droid has collected

The final section shows all the raids they have from the selected properties. This could help players understand the competition at the said property from other players' droids.

Droid Management

The droid management section helps a player analyze and micromanage their entire droid fleet whether by accessing droids directly or by filtering out particular droids on certain properties. Droid management is accessible via Raid management section.

Here each listed droid has 4 of its power stats displayed - speed, ether hold capacity, energy efficiency and number of jewels slotted. The droid build date is also shown, while for new built droids a 'new' tag is shown. The droid build date could be important over time.

On selecting a droid, its general information is displayed on the right hand side of the list

Droid Jewel Slotting

The droid jewel slotting is accessible by selecting the Jewel inventory tab within the droid card of the selected droid. This will open the droid's slotting feature. The quality, quantity and combination of jewel slotted into each droid can significantly improve the effectiveness of the droid's abilities during raid missions. These include - droid's speed, max ether hold capacity, max relocation, raiding travel range and energy efficiency.

The jewel slotting on droids works similar to property slotting using the same drag-and-drop mechanism. Different jewels impact different stats.

Droid Basic Stats

Droids are little less than the size of a small car and number of power cell sockets determine how many power cells a droid can hold and therefore its base performance. Also, the size of the power cell determines how much essence is required to charge that power cell and ultimately determines how long that power cell can last. In a scenario, where the droid runs out of power before it makes back to its base the only way it can get back is via the Mentar which pulls it back very very slowly, almost at a snail's pace.

Most other stats here are discussed above earlier and are self explanatory.

While not straight-forward by any means, the understanding of insights and droid management system will mean more profitable raids and efficient droid management

Shane adds that things will become Harder and Riskier:-

• We can expect more direct PvP like intercepting other player's droids, distill ether, ability to defend against other player attacks and other interesting additions yet to be revealed.
• Jewels will be harder to collect
• For larger accounts (more properties), first iteration of raiding will be too time consuming and thus can use this initial time as a learning curve on how the mechanics will work. Later, once civilians and P2P contracts are released will make life easier for larger accounts.

Earth 2 Gradually building towards Pre-Alpha E2V1

• E2V1 Sometime in 2023
• Initial focus on showing game mechanics such as raiding inside E2V1 in real-time
• This will be followed-up by player avatars inside E2V1
• The resulting world being almost like an RTS game you can jump into as First person
• Further additions include gameplay to explore, loot, PvE, etc.
• E2V1 will be massive and expansive
• Scratched only the surface even as Earth 2 is building multiple other systems at the back-end related to Raiding, EcoSim, Logistics & Transport and Trading

Final comments from Shane

• Want to release game mechanics that are directly related to long term goals of Earth 2 the platform, and specifically having direct and relevant use inside the 3D world E2V1.
• Droids and raiding only a part of what the new team has designed so far, and more will be revealed in coming months
• Amazing team around that gets things done, which is very refreshing. Have different phase dev design teams, all working closer together than ever.
• Looking forward to release footage of E2V1 showing some of the cool progress and how phase 2.5 is coming together.

================================================================ ADDED UPDATES

Jewel Boost for Droids

Do you think the Brilliants effect is looking strange? It is not a typo! Expect to uncover new effects never experienced before! With the right conditions COPY will show just some of the additional power Brilliants hold! Over time, Brilliants will receive more additional powers and special abilities given they are the rarest form of Jewel on Earth 2!

RAIDING & CYDROIDS GUIDE OVERVIEW

1. Properties of 4 tiles or larger with an existing Mentar can build Cydroids and launch Raids on other properties nearby with the objective of gaining E-ther that has become unstable due to not been collected within a 24-hour period after it spawned
2. Players can build Cydroids for 2.5 Essence each and a default build time of 24 hours. Cydroids are tethered to a Mentar during the build time.
3. There are over 35 different types of Metasprites a Mentar could capture to build into Cydroids, grouped with different levels of rarity. The type of Cydroid will only be visible once the Cydroid build is complete.
4. Cydroids will have a default Raiding distance of 1km and a default speed of 20km/h
5. Cydroids require a Power Cell to operate. Power Cells are currently located inside the Cydroid but will later be a separate standalone unit.
6. Power Cells require Essence to be Powered and operational. Cydroids will require 5 Essence to be powered which is fully regainable (see point 7).
7. All Essence used to Power a Power Cell can be 100% recovered by the Player if they Depower the Power Cell in a fully charged state.
8. At present you only need a Mentar and time to recharge the Power Cell inside your Cydroid. You do not need Essence to recharge the Power Cell inside the Cydroid.
9. Once your Cydroid is Powered, you can send your Cydroid to Raid a property that is within raiding range and it will scan that property for any unstable E-ther as long as it has enough Power to do so
10. If the Cydroid is unsuccessful in collecting E-ther, it will return back to the Mentar it was sent from
11. If the Cydroid is successful, it will collect as much E-ther as it can hold or has enough energy left to collect and return back to the Mentar it was sent from. The default storage bay on a Cydroid will hold 3 E-ther.
12. If there is more than one Cydroid scanning on the same property when unstable E-ther becomes available, they will split the E-ther loot evenly
13. The smallest particle of collectable E-ther is 0.01, therefore, if there are multiple Cydroids simultaneously present at the time E-ther becomes unstable and an even split is impossible, a random algorithm will determine which Cydroids win the available loot
14. When a Cydroid returns to the Mentar, it will become available to dispense any E-ther it has collected and stored in its storage bay. Cydroids may raid again without Dispensing E-ther but this may reduce the amount of E-ther they can collect if their raid is successful. The default time to dispense E-ther is 30 seconds per 0.01 E-ther.
15. A Cydroid can only be recharged at the Mentar. If a Cydroid runs out of power at any point during a Raid, the tethered connection with the Mentar will allow the Mentar to use this connection to pull the Cydroid back, albeit at an extremely slow pace
16. A Cydroid can be relocated between inter-networked Mentars (Mentars that belong to the same Player)
17. Travel between inter-networked Mentars requires less Power than Raiding, therefore Cydroids can travel longer distances to relocate. The default relocation Range for a Cydroid is 300 km
18. Cydroids need to re-Tether to a Mentar once they relocate in order to sync with the force and knowledge of the Mentar as part of their preparation to Raid in that area
19. Cydroids have numerous different energy consumption states that drain different amounts of Power cell charge. These states are: Idle, Recharging, Dispensing E-ther, Scanning, Collecting, Travelling to a Raid, and Relocating between Mentars.
20. Cydroids can be slotted with various types of Jewels to give them various types of Boosts across most of their various attributes

Civilians - Quick Guide

Civilians will help automate the operation of various Raiding tasks from the Mentar, removing the requirement of the Player to carry out each task manually

1. In the near future Civilians will be synthesizable via the Mentar on properties of 4 or more tiles and above using E-ther.
2. Civilians will require 20 E-ther to be synthesized
3. The Mentar picks up transmissions of DNA which are diverted to the Synthesis Chamber inside the Mentar and fused with the E-ther to create 1 Civilian over a period of 24 hours
4. There are initially 3 different factions, each with 5 civilian characters
5. Civilians will have different levels of rarity. The type of Civilian synthesized will only be known once the synthesizing process is complete.
6. Civilians are always synthesized in the same order based on their default profession. That order is Data Analyst, Cydroid Technician, E-ther Dispenser (Reckoner), Raid Commander and Cydroid Pilot.
7. The Data Analyst will unlock Raid Insights for the Property on which they reside and the Cydroids tethered to that Property.
8. The Cydroid Technician can automatically recharge any idle Cydroids inside the Mentar.
9. The E-ther Reckoner can automatically dispense any Cydroids carrying E-ther in their storage.
10. The Raid Commander can send Cydroids to automatically re-raid properties.
11. The Cydroid Pilot will be able to fly Cydroids on special types of missions with various objectives.

The above high-level summary was a quick and easy introduction into what Raiding is, what Cydroids do and how Civilians will fit into the mechanics. In the future we plan to allow Players to trade their Cydroids and Civilians for E$ on an open marketplace, much like we do for Jewels and HoloBuildings. For those of you who would like to read more details, some of which are already covered above, please feel free to read on!

FURTHER BACKGROUND ON RAIDING, CYDROIDS and CIVILIANS In the current Earth 2, E-ther is considered a valuable resource – a resource that can be transformed into Essence, the currency representing power within our metaverse, and a resource that will be able to create virtual life. Raiding is a feature that enables players to rely on tactics and strategy to benefit from inactive players and take E-ther that they fail to collect in time. The overall concept of raiding relies almost entirely on one of Earth 2’s upcoming features – Cydroids.

Cydroids are semi-sentient machines that are created by the Mentar. They are constructed from the likeness of Metasprites, which are ethereal beings that roam the lands of Earth 2. This is because the Mentar essentially uses the Metasprites as a blueprint for the construction of the sprite’s physical Essence-based form. Once its Cydroid body has been fully manufactured, the meta-sprite is able to reside within its new form and implement a range of unique and useful abilities. Metasprites appear to have an unexplainable connection to Mentars, which give Cydroids the unique ability to hack into a Mentar to detect E-ther on a property. An important thing to note is that Cydroids can only detect E-ther on a property if it evaporated at the start of the previous E-ther production cycle. After being constructed at a Mentar, Cydroids are ‘tethered’ to that Mentar. While at the Mentar, each Cydroid is able to recharge, go on a raid, and dispense E-ther. Each Cydroid also has the ability to relocate a certain distance, and tether to other Mentars that the player may own. Additionally, Mentars appear to have different capabilities for supporting Cydroids depending on the size of their properties – a Mentar on a property with less than 4 tiles cannot support any Cydroids, and one on a property of 750 tiles can support 10.

The capabilities of Cydroids essentially allows players to build Cydroids on their properties and initiate raids on nearby enemy properties, taking E-ther from all targeted players that fail to collect their E-ther in time. Players who have built Cydroids will thus be able to treat the world as a chess board and strategically maneuver fleets of Cydroids to skyrocket the rate at which they obtain E-ther.

There are many types and appearances for Cydroids within Earth 2, determined by the ‘skin’ of the Cydroid that is crafted. Not much is known yet about the differences between the Cydroid skins – except from looking cooler than others. As more features start to be included in Earth 2, be prepared to find out that your plain looking Cydroid is actually classified as an interceptor or your classy gold Cydroid is an exploration Cydroid! Whilst current Cydroids are only fixated on the raiding system, there is much more functionality to be implemented in the future, both as expansions on raiding itself, and as an introduction into PvP and other features relevant to open world exploration.

The second feature relevant to raiding are Civilians. Civilians are synthesized lifeforms whose sole purpose is seemingly to obey and serve the player by carrying out tasks assigned to them. In the initial release of the raiding feature, there will be a maximum of 5 civilians per property. These properties will require a minimum of 4 tiles if they are to be populated by civilians. The tasks in question heavily depend on the occupation assigned to each civilian which will currently be determined by the order in which the civilians are synthesized on a property. For example, the first civilian synthesized on a property will always be allocated the data analyst position. These occupations are:

1. Data Analyst
2. Cydroid Technician
3. E-ther Dispenser
4. Raid Commander
5. Cydroid Pilot

Depending on the occupation of the civilians, they will be able to unlock certain raid related features such as providing raid insights, auto-raids and more. This only marks the beginning of civilian utility, and as more gameplay features are released, there will surely be a higher demand and opportunity to automate various additional tasks that come with land ownership. Players should not grow too accustomed to managing only 5 civilians, especially as these new features are only scratching the surface of what’s to come. Civilians also belong to a range of different factions each with their own unique cultures, beliefs and aesthetics. For the time being, it appears that civilians have no meaningful recollection of being associated with these factions. It is assumed that the loyalty of Civilians to their owners and their properties will never waver, and they can be relied on by the player to carry out their appointed tasks dutifully.

Context:- Few hours ago, Shane jumped in Earth 2 discord offering his explanation on why he decided to seek suggestions on the Earth 2 marketplace only recently - a feature which has been live since the beginning. Earlier, Shane had tweeted from his Twitter handle asking Earth 2 users feedback/suggestions on the Earth marketplace. His response to the said question highlighted that unlike previously he has now taken full control of game design. Key take-aways and full transcript below:-

Key take-aways:-

• (Shane) Asked suggestion on marketplace to ensure earlier missed suggestions from community are revisited or re-captured, especially in the backdrop of a new design team. Marketplace is just a small update and will not impact any on-going larger development. Will continue to seek suggestions from community/ user if it saves time for the design team.
• (Shane) Have taken control of game design; users should be able to see the difference over the next 12 months, when compared to last 12-18 months, from the game design perspective.
• Raiding concept is much larger than PvP, and will introduce multiple core facets of the EcoSim + utility to existing and new key digital assets.
• Most delays result from a combination of factors - inherent complexity of the task, evolving priorities, external market conditions, team hiring, etc.
• Different teams for frontend, backend, E2V1 and more. There are some overlaps between teams.
• (Shane) Shocked at the terrible HB journey, little things being improved and others will be reworked.
• Priority is to first achieve stability for the PvP as we build toward an Essence launch. Once Essence launches and has an external price I think we will see a lot of interest in different ways.
• Post PvP release (birthday month i.e. Nov), CAT will finish processing Claims, figures will be published before the EcoSim starts and before Essence launches.
• Didn't comment on speculation whether expensive countries will produce more resources or more Essence or not.
• Think EPLs will be very important.
• Reiterated more utility for jewels when PvP comes, slotting 'new things' will be part of PvP.
• earth 2 will have a new landing page in November.

Full transcript:-

User:- How at the end of 2022 Shane asks for marketplace filter suggestions in twitter. He has been sent every suggestion possible already since last year. And that tweet reads as if NOW he understood there might be something wrong with the official marketplace..2 years later. Not like we haven't cried enough about it, or made a big deal out of it last year.

Shane (S):- We’re very busy focusing on many different things. Just because I tweet about one thing does not mean something else is not happening, or has stopped happening. I simply received some feedback and screenshots recently of people in the community talking about how difficult it still was to use the Marketplace. I thought this had been resolved in a previous update by the previous game designer, but obviously that was not the case so I decided to throw out a little, what I thought was a fairly inconsequential tweet, to engage with the community and collect some suggestions that would then provide a central location for someone from my game design team to later review, collate and compare to our own internal documentation (which I am sure will include things provided from CMs/MODs that may have been ignored by the previous person who was responsible, not sure, but obviously whatever happened in the past, the updates didn’t make it to the website – right?).

Would it have been better to assign a team member to the task without asking the community for suggestions and then potentially miss something? Spend more time brainstorming and not bother asking Earth 2 Players that were happy to respond? And just because something has been suggested in the past, does that mean there is nothing new or worthwhile hearing from another person? I just took a quick look through some of the responses to my tweet and there seems to be many good, reasonable suggestions which is exactly what I was looking for. It’s also a way of me showing that I am aware of something and I’m planning to fix it. This Marketplace update is a relatively small update, we have much bigger things we’re focusing on first so by no means does it suggest it’s now a big ticket release replacing other things we’re working on, that’s why I pointed out it will be something in 2023 so people don’t expect it to happen next week and then ask about it every day.

It seems the Marketplace was partially improved during its last update, but it seems to have been updated without really taking a lot of community feedback onboard and I wanted to ensure I had some of that community feedback to direct my team toward when improving the section does come up on our radar.

I have only recently taken control of Game Design and myself + the new team have been working around the clock not only to design and then guide this Raiding concept through development, which is extremely time consuming alone, especially considering the Raiding concept is much larger than just PvP and will introduce multiple core facets of the EcoSim + utility to existing and new key digital assets, but also to fix and complete key areas of the EcoSim which were previously neglected and this has been a massive, still ongoing task (but it's going very well). I am extremely proud of what we as such a small team has achieved in a very short period of time and you’ll see that difference over the next 12 months when compared to say the last 12 or even 18 months, from the game design perspective that is. Additionally, these are the first game design team members I have directly hired for the project and who were not directly introduced or hired by other internal team members and I must say it’s been very refreshing. It’s really difficult to find the right people at the best of times, and especially so when you have so much dramatized & misleading external noise and negativity being conjured toward the project.

At the end of the day, creating a game takes a lot of time, and the challenges Earth 2 has for creating a metaverse platform with foundations based on various types of gamification is arguably even more time consuming – especially with what we aim to deliver long term. Many decent games take even established studios over 5 years to deliver and more often than not, they still don’t release features or things to do along the way, so you don’t often get this raw connection like you do with Earth 2 and the ability to access, buy, trade various key digital assets of the game along the way.

We are literally coming to an end on year 2 with 12 months of that time being mayhem after hypergrowth scaling and the past 12 months slowly putting a better team together and parting ways with members who didn’t genuinely care about Earth 2 and were causing more harm than good. So forgive me if I disagree with your statement of it being ‘just pathetic’ for me to ask for some community feedback. And I’m sorry you’ve been so disappointed in the Earth 2 and openly critical of our little Egg Hunt to give Players rewards + something to do, and which personally gave you $2,400 in winnings. Perhaps if I hadn’t I would not have pushed for the locked country listings to be filtered out, most of which have already been filtered out now. My tweet did not delay PvP, or E2V1 or other areas, it was just a little of my time working with a free dev to at least get those locked listings out of the marketplace for now.. it might even mean ‘something else’ happens for those who look carefully enough over the next little while.

Anyway, I am back to focusing on more pressing matters but I do appreciate those who just answered my tweet with their own suggestion instead of complaining about something that was supposed to be positive, thank you. Later this year all suggestions will be reviewed and taken into consideration by the team member responsible for drawing up the detailed doc for the Marketplace update and I will try to fit in little, obvious quick fixes on improvements if I get a spare chance along the way.

What happened to marketplace

S- I spent a little time today working with a dev to get some of the locked country listings removed

Engaging with the community is a good thing

S- that's what I thought

I see you guys are talking about delays and things like that, what is causing the delays exactly? Is it a lack of devs or just inaccurate estimates of when things should be ready or something else?

S- it's a mixture of many things. What we are building is not such an easy thing to build and we're doing so in quite testing conditions. Also, things that were important at the start of a year might not be so important toward the end of the year if we make better or less progress in various areas. External market conditions also affect decisions etc. Finding the right talent is definitely an ongoing issue for any start up but we're slowly onboarding the right people

Do you have 3 separate teams (frontend, backend and E2V1) or are there overlaps between these?

S- yes, there is a kind of 4th team as well and yes, there are overlaps

Its sad that you have to ask basic questions about the marketplace. All it takes is looking at it for about 5-10 mins to know what should be done.

S- 5-10 mins? I highly doubt that. I probably saved hours of research for one simple tweet that people have the option of responding to or not. I am not sure how you could still suggest it's sad that I asked the question after reading through what I wrote

Yea 5-10 mins. You can highly doubt it all you want but the marketplace fixes should of been done a long time ago

S- I think this might be where the problem is, people assuming something takes 5-10 mins when it simply doesn't. Anyway, I don't have time to argue the point, it is what it is and if I want to tweet a question, whether you or anyone else agrees with it or not, I will. Especially if it saves my team a bit of time and allows the community to provide some feedback

Yea I'm selling on the next pump. This man really ab to sit there and tell me something when I've been the one on his platform for 2 years

S- sometimes you need to look at the result, not the how you arrived at it. I appreciate your support and anyone's support of the project, but it should be clear we have significant work ahead of us and that takes time. I cannot control what you want to do I'm sorry, I can only keep pushing the project forward

What we need is a suggestion channel in here. We need to be able to vote on all suggestions

S- yes, we've already discussed this but again, it's prioritizing. So it will likely come later. I also want the staking system to be used for suggestions in the future.

Why is that you have to work with a Dev? Aren't the other devs aware to get it done ? We don't want you to interfere in such small aspects of the project. You should be leading the project.

S- I thought it was pretty bad seeing those locked listings in the marketplace so used a bit of time to get it fixed, I don't mind, I am fixing things every day as a CEO, takes up a lot of my time but is quite normal.

There is a common pattern on UI/UX experience that is lacking (I know deprioritized at the moment). But it may be helpful for honestly a deep look into UI/UX the site as a whole. For example, look at the user journey currently on say holo building. There is no way to even easily figure out what properties remain that do not contain a holo building. And agreed, takes time and you have competing priorities

S- yes we are, the HB journey is terrible .. I was shocked when I tried it myself. There are little things being improved and others will be reworked

Shane don't forget to drink some good coffee or tea

S- I like your username (blackcoffee), but I don't drink coffee! I used to

Tea?

S- sometimes - no sugar

With the PvP will you push a little more sal marketing? PvP can attract a new type of users and that is gamers. Will you be marketing?

S- I think we'd like to get it stable first. So will be a good opportunity to launch, balance, fix bugs over ensuing months as we build toward an Essence launch. Once Essence launches and has an external price I think we will see a lot of interest in different ways that will actual(ly) exist by that time, for new users to earn Essence

But why don't you work daily or weekly to improve the user experience? it would take so little .. filters as Earth2Stats had when it worked for example (PPE - 1Tile selection) and a GUILD SYSTEM! It’s so hard to implement some of this stuffs?

S- I was not involved with this area previously. There were others in control and believe me, many things were passed onto them and that's basically where it ended. I have some more direct involvement myself now and I will be replacing those positions with people I know can do a better job (and people I actually hire, not introduced via internal members)

When will we find out the amount of resources each property produces? will it take weeks or several months? Furthermore, the amount of resources produced on a property will depend on: 1) jewels 2) level 3) class 4) new land value

S- we will release PvP, CAT will finish processing Claims, figures will be published before the EcoSim starts and before Essence launches. I am not locking in a date / timeframe sorry

What's the PvP like?

S- you'll not need to wait long to find out. I want to talk about it during the birthday month. There are many different key parts to it, it's quite complicated. I would love to have the first part live toward the end of next month, I am pushing for this, but nothing is 100% in software development. What I can say is that many of you will have a very decent idea on how everything will work by the time the month is through and should be quite interesting

Now is difficult to extract essence from properties with huge new land value (such as the US and South Korea). But perhaps properties with huge new land value will produce more resources? Otherwise I don't understand what sense it made to buy a 750 tiles in the USA and not in a cheap country

S- shhh

Do you have a plan for an internal EPL/ keyword search on the long run?

S- yes, I think I've mentioned that before. They will be a key tool for Players to teleport / jump to key locations. Let me tell you this, do you know how hard it is to find an exact specific spot inside E2V1? Even if you know the general area, good luck finding it again if it's small! EPLs will be very important I imagine

Why did you choose the acronym CAT? Is a partnership behind it? There is a crypto project that works in metaverses and deals with cats and the logo is very similar to your CAT logo. Just a coincidence?

S- coincidental I would say. The team we hired came up with the name themselves, which was pretty cool

Will jewels be used in PvP? It would be nice to have some more utility for them

S- 100% they will. I wanted to add Utility to Jewels and PvP was created, in part, to allow for that. Slotting 'new things' will be part of PvP

I have worked countless hours on some of my HB designs and would love if some of my best ones were used in the EcoSim. I submitted a collab ticket a couple months ago but heard nothing yet. Not sure if you have seen some of my recent designs yet. If not I can drop you a DM with the images.

S- I receive so many emails and messages on LinkedIn, I rarely read them. I think I have around 1,000 unread messages or more there. I just don't have the time. I am sure there will be ways to collaborate in the future when we have better structure in place

Can you make somebody on the team who is working for the PvP, to present somehow some specific mechanic of the PvP before the release of the game? Would much be appreciated since I'm a player and I'm curious of how is gonna work and where i can improve (reflex, aim and so on)

S- well, it's my idea. I am trying to psych myself up to talk about it .. sigh

Another resource will be released by mid-November? It's possible ?

S- unlikely, we already have too much on our plate as it is

Is the PvP similar to clash of clans style gameplay?

S- I think I have pointed out before that it will start off web based and just text etc. The key is it will be built into E2V1, so it's kind of using the mechanics before the visuals come into play. I think a few people will like it as it's related to Earth 2 and is relevant to the long term goals of the EcoSim + E2V1

Will anyone be available for Enter the Metaverse? Your attendance was definitely a highlight of the event last year

S- is the last thing on my mind right now, but I'd love to attend. Let's see if I'm still breathing by the end of Nov .. a lot going on

Will the new site be launched by the end of the year?

S- the new landing page I have scheduled for Nov

Anyway, coming up to midnight and I still have things to do. Hope you all enjoy your day ahead and keep safe

Shane leaves chat

To say the past 3 months has been anything less than intense for Players participating in the Earth 2 Resource Validation System would be a massive understatement. In the past we promised to provide a minimum of 3 months for Players to create Resource Validation Claims and we have now almost fulfilled that promise.

Just shy of 3 months ago, we released the first version of our player validation and Essence staking system; the E2PRV (Earth 2 Player Resource Validation). Since then, players have submitted over 56,045 claims for resource validation on their properties and almost half of these claims have already been processed by the CAT.

PLAYER VALIDATION SYSTEM TO BE PAUSED

Some Players, in particular, have dedicated an enormous amount of their time to this E2PRV Essence staking opportunity, with reports of some Players going as far as taking annual leave from work to focus on staking! We considered leaving the claim system open for a little longer than our 3 month promise, however, the health and well-being of our Players is important to us and we realised many of those participating have done so consistently with little to no rest.

Therefore, we will be pausing the ability to create claims at a random time during Monday the 17th of October, 2022 until further notice. This slight extension will provide Players with one final weekend to submit claims under the current Essence bonus system. We trust this pause will give Players the opportunity to take a well-earned break after 3 months of hectic staking.

Well done to Players who spent a great deal of their time participating. Rest soundly knowing you are not missing out on any staking opportunities, at least for the next little while. The 100% and 50% Essence rewards that were up for grabs over the past 3 months have been very unique and it is unlikely we will ever see such Essence rewards for future staking opportunities again, most certainly not over an extended period, as has been the case these past 3 months. This truly was a unique and special staking opportunity that we believe many will reminisce about in the future.

There are plans to reopen our validation system at some point in the future, but you can expect key changes such as rewards, types of claims or uses, and adjustments to the approval guidelines which have been quite lenient for the initial E2PRV. Any changes will be announced prior to the reopening of the validation system.

We are aware that some Players, especially those with larger accounts, may not have been able to validate resources for all of their properties, even though we made adjustments based on community feedback. It is our plan to allow some additional Resource Validation opportunities later on, under a new set of rules and a new, significantly lower, reward system. In the meantime, Players should focus on enjoying their break from creating claims and staking Essence, as the CAT continues to process and evaluate the remaining active claims when the paws is in place.

We thank all our Players for their participation and dedication to the E2PRV system thus far. You have demonstrated your strength as a community to collaborate with and support each other, which was especially evident with those who worked closely together. Having said that, many solo stakers were also able to stake hundreds of thousands of Essence collectively. Drop into our Discord if you’d like to talk to a few!

Your collective utilisation of the E2PRV system to validate and stake Essence has helped to inform our next steps towards modifying and expanding the system to encompass other areas of Earth 2, as has been the plan from the very beginning. We can’t wait for you to see what other opportunities this expanded validation system brings to Earth 2 Players over time.

INTERESTING E2PRV STATS TO DATE

• Over 2,100,000 individual stakes have been made (including Active, Approved & Player deleted) – that’s over 23,500 unique / individual stakes per day on average!
• Over 26,000 Claims have been reviewed and processed by the CAT and our Claim Approvals System
• Over 58,000,000 Essence has been utilised (used) by Players for the purpose of staking.
• From which over 31,000,000 Essence is actively staked or locked up, pending approval or rejection.
• To date, more than 27,000,000 Essence has been earned by Players who staked Essence on successfully approved claims.
• There is a total of 124,037,593.07 Essence in circulation on the Earth 2 Platform today (this does NOT include Essence actively staked).

Interesting Player Facts:

The Top 10 Players who submitted the greatest number of claims (some of the Players you stakers should be thanking!) are:

• Seychelles with 1,100 claims
• 나만믿어ㅡ프론트형이야 with 1,078 claims
• OPHRY with 1,034 claims
• ㅡ7point5percentOFFcodeㅡ7point5 with 1,029 claims
• you1 with 926 claims
• Aldabra with 888 claims
• CRYPTOAPE with 875 claims
• FirstPro with 848 claims
• cardcard with 822 claims
• MansourUAE with 809 claims

The Top 10 Countries for claims submitted were:

1. Estonia with 1,770 claims
2. Rwanda with 1,635 claims
3. Azerbaijan with 1,414 claims
4. Mozambique with 1,309 claims
5. Seychelles with 1,278 claims
6. International Territory with 1,208 claims
7. Suriname with 1,081 claims
8. Iran with 999 claims
9. Sudan with 937 claims
10. United Arab Emirates with 782 claims

The first Players to receive successful claims for each resource type were:

• Fontaine with Claim #2 for Gold
• gacha with Claim #4 for Coal
• Fontaine with Claim #69 for Oil
• Fontaine with Claim #81 for Iron Ore
• Chratastrophic with Claim #4432 for Limestone

UPDATE ON MENTAR QUESTS AND NEW COUNTRY RELEASES

Our weekly Mentar gifting event has been extremely successful since kicking off in July, with 24,746 Mentars gifted to 18,802 unique players! While the event has helped these players to gain instant Mentars on their properties throughout Spain, Mexico, Chad, France, Egypt, Canada, Singapore, Ireland, New Zealand, Germany, Australia and the Netherlands, we have brought an end to this event in preparation for the upcoming PvP + EcoSim-intro feature.

We will be sharing more details soon, but until then, this is a friendly reminder to collect your E-ther!

We have not forgotten about the 5 remaining countries left to open: Turkmenistan, Algeria, Paraguay, Hong Kong, and Saudi Arabia. We will be continuing to open these progressively, with the next release set for November.

Along with more updates on the Earth 2 validation system, our birthday month is fast approaching and we will be sharing more news on our project during that time. If you haven’t already, be sure to keep updated by following us on socials!

Key Take-aways

• On PvP:
  • Light version with PvP elements
  • Non-animated
  • The game loop will have representation inside E2V1
  • The idea is to give players a little something to do as we wait for E2V1
  • The game can be played casually and will work on hourly / daily loops
  • Will have Essence rewards in a 'round-about' way
• E2V1: Has come a long way from last year, including from where last footage was released and seen by Earth2 users. Some kind of alpha access in next 6 months
• E2V1 footage: Still mulling whether to release footage during anniversary month (Nov) or closer to token launch. Leaning more towards releasing during token launch.
• E2RV staking: Updates today.
• Player contracts: Will work similar to scholars, but relatively more complex and allow more freedom to chalk arrangements between land owners and land operators.
• Token launch: No specific date to share, but would announce later and it should be within the 6 month mark.
• Social media platform: Updates will be announced next month.
• New Website: Worked along with R/GA to re-design landing page and content to convey better goals and vision.
• Resources: Pushing for a staking based replication.
• Jewels: Disappointed how jewels were structured, more utility coming starting with the PvP.

Full Transcript

It is finally Drew's real birthday and even Shane couldn't help but wish him as he starts off the chat.

Shane(S)- Happy Birthday @Drew !!

Hey Shane, how are you?

S- I'm ok thanks. Just getting my little dose of stress reading through every possible negative scenario some people can think up and decide to come and share on Discord lol. Nice to see the speculation and positive comments though!

Shane are you proud, we even past the point of asking when

S- then my plan has finally been realized

I’m just curious what the “website-based” PvP 2D will look like?

S- I've tried to point this out a few times on Twitter, and maybe once in Discord, but basically my game play concept is an introduction to the EcoSim, a kind of light version with some PvP elements, but a lot more. It's going to be completely based in the website, so nothing animated. One of the keys here is that it will be a game loop that can lead directly into representation inside of E2V1. So we are still very heavily focused on E2V1, and though my game / PvP idea is complicated to develop, we're not spending time with any animations or diverting resources away from E2V1, we are using the BE And FE web teams to implement on the current website. Additionally, we're expanding our BE game engine (kind of building a new one) which will be the motor / powerhouse for E2V1. So the idea, while something new, does not really divert much away from our goal to get game play on E2V1 at all, it's just a little step to introduce and give Players something to do. One more comment, the reason I designed this game the way I have is so people can play casually, so it will work on kind of hourly / daily loops, as opposed to staking which is kind of at the other end of the spectrum. Anyway, just a few bits of information. There is 100% scope creep, but I am pushing to have the first part out in Nov still even if it means things like Player Contracts and Civilians follows a little later. Though it's on the website, it's actually a pretty complicated concept to develop with many moving parts.

Most of us sit outside gen chat these days in other groups

S- yeah I understand, but there are still many positive supporters in here. I think most just don't speak out, though there are those that do. It's nice to see those positive messages so thank you to those who do speak up daily and keep things positive

Can I steal peoples essence though?

S- I think there are some people in here who have given it a great deal of thought and have some speculation that is on point. But that is only the concept, you won't know how it works until we disclose more details. Though it's definitely stressful, this is the first time I have had complete control on the game design, it's something I should have done a year ago .. but hindsight is 20/20, better late than never and E2V1 has come a long, long way since last November. Even with what you guys have seen you can see it's come and long way since then

Are we going to need to do some loops tasks in every single property in the ecosim? Considering production and logistic? Once every x hours in each property? (This would be great, and give reason to start using player2player contracts later on)?

S- well, this is where things get really complicated. You're asking the right questions, just imagine how difficult it is to solve these kind of issues

Any visual sneak peak you can give?

S- we will start releasing some visuals through Nov, but as I said, this will start 100% web based, having said that, there will be visuals for different things you can build / create, and these will be visually represented (move etc.) inside E2V1 at a later date

How long should we expect staking to continue?

S- you'll probably find out later today

Wen are we gonna see new biomes close ups? Like that video from last year. Feels like ages since then. That was a high quality video. We were kinda promised more like that but haven't got any.

S- our team is working all of this, around the clock. There are MANY moving parts to E2V1. One thing you have to understand is that the original demo we showed last year was more like a POC, applied to a limited area. The engine we've built for E2V1 is 100x better and covers the entire planet. We've made awesome progress, but sometimes you can get stuck on the smallest thing, something you expected to take 2 weeks ends up being 2 months. There is a lot more to show though and I am kind of contemplating showing some through Nov, which will be great for you guys to see if we release it, but it would then mean we have less wow factor for closer proximity to the token launch. I am yet undecided on this. I understand people want to see progress, but if you look back at what we've released this year, you can see we're working on things. It depends, should we keep that type of footage for the token launch or should I just release it

Save it for the wow factor closer to token launch

yeah it's a tough one, because the footage would also give a pretty clear picture on what we are planning for Earth 2. A nice visual representation on the future, and plans. And as much as I would love to release it during our b'day month, I do feel it won't be nearly as effective as it would be closer to the token launch

Is player contracts scholars?

S- it will work in a very similar way, yes. The difference is our system will be a lot more complicated over time and allow a LOT more freedom for land owners and land operators to build agreements between one another

Just to clarify something. Will E2V1 be web based, or a downloaded .exe or .apk

S- we are looking at various solutions, at the moment it runs as an exe file, but we are looking at solutions where it could even run in browser or via a client

How is the beard? Still growing?

S- yes, it remains untrimmed

All the ones who are still here are HODLers.. we will stay here till the end regardless of more proofs

S- possibly true - good point. Even more reward for those who maintain the belief I guess!

When do you plan to launch the token? It’d be nice to get an update on that

S- that is something I would announce to everyone, I don't have a specific date to release to the public right now

Any news about social media platform?

S- will be announced next month as well. A LOT of work into that one, but will launch as an MVP we plan to build on

Can you get someone over to speak at enter the metaverse conference in London with all the other metaverse leaders this November? I think the community enjoyed our last interview

S- if I'm still sane by then, I could probably do a video interview or something. I won't have time to fly over there unfortunately

Will the PvP system have any essence reward system?

S- yes, in a round about way

Will resources cost essence as 1:1 transaction or can we stake essence to produce resources?

S- we are looking at ways to allow staking for this. It's too complicated to answer simply and I don't want to throw too much information out there. What I can say is that I have been working with a new talent who is just absolutely amazing, it was unfortunate what happened previously, but sometimes faces change for a reason and in this case I am very happy with how things worked out.

I think this is what the community were hoping for and more are interested in staking rather than spending for resource production:)

S- I also felt this, which is why I was pushing for that approach. We are working on an incredibly interesting system, in fact multiple systems, I think many of you will be pretty mind blown with how different parts of the EcoSim are going to work and how much structure there will be. It will all start with my PvP concept .. I just wish I had become involved like this with game design a year ago and done this, but I guess at that time I already had too much on my plate. Anyway, it's going to start soon

What is the time frame on the token launch? 3 month? 6 month? Another year? The least you can do is tell us a time frame

S- I would say within the 6 month mark.

You mentioned a website rework is being deployed in November; curious is it an entire overhaul or mainly focused on the landing page content? Curious since UI changes are being pushed on the current layout still this month in stage2

S- mainly landing page and content, it looks very nice. We worked on it with R/GA. It's something we've been meaning to do for a long time and gives us a nice new design to convey our goals, visions etc. I really wanna iterate again a desire for people to see E2v1 progress. You have no idea how beneficial this is to both the community and E2 support receiving bug reports from the community to get everything ready. I really hope you decide to launch early

S- well that's what I was openly deliberating on above, if you care to check later. I want to release footage too and show how many amazing things we've made progress with, but if I do it would come at the expense of losing a significant promotional digital asset at token launch

Footage on EcoSim progress is fine, but get players in the E2v1 world flying around and putting out bug reports will really help. No matter how good your QA team is there never going to find all the bugs on a world. This is the best possible way to get the world ready in a timely matter. This also shows the community that all the videos are real, that the world is real and will blow away the critic community for sure

S- yes, when we're ready for that we will setup an Alpha and Beta environment. We're not ready for that yet

I wish we had more utilities for luminous jewels….I mean they were on the draft paper and there is a leaderboard…but we can barely do anything with them. Can we expect something to change with that?

S- trust me, there is more utility coming for Jewels in my PvP and then we will also go on to review the Jewel section. I have been extremely disappointed at how Jewels were structured

I did too. Have crafted a total of exactly 10k now, an excellent stopping point, with 4 brilliants. Can't wait to see the utility

S- yes, I feel brilliants should have a lot more utility

You have no idea how many hours I've put into the riddle

S- sometimes you need to step back and rethink. I wouldn't say it's easy to solve, but stepping back and looking at possible ways to solve it which you may not yet have contemplated may help

Do I have to travel irl somewhere specifically to solve it?

S- No

What is the timeline for initial access for E2V1? If token launch is 6 months out - would E2V1 be ready around the same time? E2V1 is very exciting

S- I am learning about giving timelines so I would just say I am hoping for some kind of alpha access in the next 6 months. For the record, we could have released E2V1 with an egg hunt this year, but it would have meant we lost a lot of progress on a playable E2V1. These are the decisions that happen in the background and are made in the best interest of the project long term

If you HAD to compare your soon to be released PvP game to either: 1) command and conquer Or 2) prospectors.io Which one does it most closely resemble?

S- it's like neither of these. I tried to spell it out clearly in my first lengthy message above. It will be 100% website based, in the current website form more or less, however, it will be using an engine we're building for E2V1 and will be representable inside E2V1 once we connect the two systems. It was a lot to write out above so please go back and read that comment for more details

Anyway, I know you guys don't like hearing it but I slept 2 hours last night and I want to try get another nap in before my meetings / obligations start again later today. I just saw people wishing Drew a happy birthday when I opened the chat and responded, didn't intend to reply to so many questions but hopefully it was useful for you all!

Shane leaves chat

Players of the Metaverse platform Earth 2 have banded together to show support for the Iranian community and Mahsa Amini. Some very well known names within the Earth 2 community have shown support by changed their profile flag to Iran.

One of the Earth 2 community members brought attention to the issue, and also pledged a significant giveaway to users participating in the show of support. However, many users have declined the associated giveaway, choosing to show selfless support for the cause.

#E24E1 is one of the stated values of the #Earth2 Metaverse by its founder Shane Isaac, and such initiatives from within the community prove that these values go beyond mere lip-service.

We are so proud of this!

Earlier this week the CAT (Claims Approval Team) reached a goal of having processed over 50% of the total open Resource Claims created by Earth 2 land owners. Overall, the Earth 2 Player Resource Validation system (E2PRV) has been rewarding for those Players who have remained dedicated toward taking advantage of this very unique opportunity.

In this article we will be sharing :

• a general update on E2PRV
• some key statistics so far
• reminder on limestone, Essence reward reduction and more
• a timeframe on when retroactive Essence rewards will be processed for Players who missed staking their own claim; and
• we will also take a first hand look at how much dedication and effort the CAT puts into reviewing and processing resource claims.

GENERAL UPDATE AND STATS

Many Players have already improved future access to Resources on their properties, and increased their Essence balance, by receiving approvals for successful claims or staking Essence on approved claims for free! It has been inspiring for the team to see our community and sub-communities come together to collaborate, submit, and stake their Essence.

We know that many in the community have been curious about the ongoing stats for E2PRV, so we’ve listed out a few below! Since the E2PRV system was launched:

Over 620,000 unique stakes have been made – that’s around 10,000 stakes per day on average!

Over 14,000 Claims have been reviewed and processed by the CAT and our Claim Approvals System

A total of over 32,000,000 Essence has been utilised by Players for the purpose of staking

From which over 18,000,000 Essence is still actively staked pending approval or rejection

To date, more than 20,000,000 Essence has been earned by Players who successfully staked on claims which have been approved

There is a total of 126,000,000 Essence in circulation on the Earth 2 Platform today (this does NOT include Essence actively staked)

REMINDER ABOUT LIMESTONE CLAIMS, THE ESSENCE REWARD REDUCTION AND MORE

On the 31st of August, 2022, we announced that the limestone resource would no longer be claimable and that the Essence bonus rate would be lowered from 100% to 50%. Again, we would like to reassure all participants that any claims submitted prior to the time our servers updated will receive the 100% bonus rate. All subsequent submissions will be processed based on the 50% bonus reward rate.

There will eventually come a time where we will cease the ability to submit new claims to give us time to clear the backlog and move forward with future steps. At that point, all claims currently marked by the CAT (Claims Approval Team) as invalid will be officially rejected.

We are leaving all invalid claims to be processed at the end in case any such claims happen to fall into approved resource areas while remaining claims are processed after the first cut-off date is activated. We earmarked a generous 3 month period for Players to be given a more than fair chance to claim resources they believed they were entitled to access on their land.

The CAT is updating all claims to “Under Investigation” as they move through the review process and this includes claims that are tagged to be rejected. We remind all Players that once a claim status is updated to “Under Investigation” by the CAT, it can no longer be removed or cancelled by the owner and the assurance fee plus any staked Essence on that claim will be locked until it is either approved or rejected.

As the E2PRV system was designed to benefit and reward Players who submit legitimate claims and stake to support legitimate claims, we want to be rejecting as few claims as possible. Our team has been impressed with the high level of detail, research and structure that has gone into the clear majority of most claims, so we look forward to rejecting as few claims as possible.

After the first claims cut-off date we may reopen the validation system for the submission of new resource claims. The validation system may be expanded to include other aspects of Earth 2 that will be relevant to various future Earth 2 plans.

RETROACTIVE REWARDS

During our E2PRV server update around the 31st of August, Players were provided the option to stake Essence on claims they created before the claim was published.

We understand that due to the popularity and highly competitive nature of the staking feature, some Players missed out on the chance to stake Essence on their own claim before this update was implemented.

At Earth 2, we strive to act with fairness, so after we reviewed how the previous process worked and took on board community feedback, we decided there will be a retroactive reward for all Players who created valid claims before the ability to stake Essence on their pre-published claims became available.

There are some important requirements that need to be met to receive this retroactive reward :

• the Player must not have successfully staked Essence on that claim
• the claim must have been approved
• the amount will be the maximum amount of Essence a Player would have been able to stake on that claim based on the size of the Property the claim was created for
• the Player must have had that maximum amount of Essence available in their Essence balance at the time the claim was created

These Retroactive Rewards will be processed between the 19th to the 23rd of September and will appear under “Retroactive Personal Claim Reward” on the Essence transaction page. Our calculations predict a little over 280,000 Essence will be Retroactively Rewarded as a result of this initiative.

AN INSIDE LOOK INTO THE CLAIM APPROVAL PROCESS

Have you ever wondered what process your claim undergoes from the time it is submitted by you, to the time it is approved by us? Each E2PRV claim is reviewed by our Claims Approval Team (the CAT for short) and the validity is rigorously checked by at least 2 team members before being officially approved or rejected. Due to the steep competition to stake Essence to the best claims, many interesting claims go unseen by the public.

Below, we have compiled just a very few of the interesting claims our team wanted to share with you. Each approved claim is categorised into various groups depending on numerous details provided in the claim and based on our internal category system:

(Please note that we are sharing these out of interest and Earth 2 reserves the right to approve or reject all claims which may be based on more details than what is provided below)

Legitimate, approved:

Claim #5693 – Mt Everest – World’s Tallest Mountain

Username: PLANTER (a3d929a1-6de1-4f5a-a46a-ca9ebc18b0df)

Location: Mt Everest

Resource: Limestone

Reasoning: The summit of Mount Everest was actually the seafloor 470 million years ago.The rock that comprises the “summit pyramid” or uppermost part of Mount Everest is gray limestone that was deposited on the northern continental shelf of northern India during the early to middle Ordovician Period of the Paleozoic Era, long before India began its northward journey towards Eurasia and the eventual collision of tectonic plates that uplifted the Himalaya and Tibetan Plateau. Called the “Qomolangma Limestone” by geologists, the summit rocks are well-bedded limestone.

Internal Category: 1b

Notes: Cross Referenced with internal Earth 2 Map, Resource map + External Mapping system

Verdict: Provided sufficient evidence

Status: APPROVED

Claim #5421 – Muruntau Mine – World’s Largest Gold Mine

Username: (e94eb09d-2b5b-442a-9c11-854a2e6b9c06)

Location: Uzbekistan

Resource: Gold

Reasoning: Muruntau gold mine located in the Kyzyl Kum Desert of Uzbekistan is one of the world’s biggest open-pit gold mines. It has been in operation for more than 50 years. Discovered in 1958, the surface mining operations at the giant open-pit gold deposit started in 1967. The mine is 100% owned and operated by Uzbekistan’s state-owned Navoi Mining & Metallurgy Combinat (NMMC).

Internal Category:

Notes: Cross Referenced with internal Earth 2 Map, Resource map + External Mapping system

Verdict: Provided sufficient evidence

Status: APPROVED

Claim #7361 – Cacique Guatavita Lagoon – The legend of El Dorado

Username: FROMCOLOMBIA (bc143288-b4f5-439e-90a1-beb6ae1672e1)

Location: Columbia

Resource: Gold

Reasoning: The lagoon was one of the most sacred for the Muiscas , since the investiture ritual of the new Zipa was performed there ; according to legend, he was on a richly decorated reed raft; he had the entire body covered with gold dust; At his feet they placed a large amount of gold and emeralds to offer to the gods. The new dignitary was accompanied by four caciques and when the raft reached the center of the lagoon, the people who were on the shores threw gold objects and precious stones into the water. This is one of the origins of the legend of El Dorado . The famous Muisca Raft that is exhibited in the Gold Museum of the Bank of the Republic of Colombia is evidence that this type of rituals were celebrated in the lakes of the region.

Internal Category: 2

Notes:

Verdict: Provided sufficient evidence

Status: APPROVED

Claim # 6329 – Aruba – Useless Islands

Username: hisheaven (2294832c-294b-4b98-be11-952ecf259277)

Location: Kingdom of the Netherlands

Resource: Gold

Reasoning: A common misconception is that the name Aruba came from the Spanish Oro hubo which means “There was gold”. However the Spanish found no gold on Aruba during the time of their occupation, nicknaming Aruba “Islas Inútiles”, meaning “Useless islands” due to the lack of gold. It was not until much later in 1824 that gold was found on Aruba by Willem Rasmijn, starting the Aruban Gold Rush. In 1824 gold was discovered in Bushiribana, giving place to the extraction of about three million pounds of gold in 1913.

Internal Category: 2

Notes: Cross Referenced with internal Earth 2 Map, Resource map + External Mapping system

Verdict: Provided sufficient evidence

Status: APPROVED

Claim #9368 – Santa Domingo Mine – Tri Mineral Mine (Gold/Iron/Limestone)

Username: PurpleGro (175e341c-b0f5-4a35-b27f-4c6ba1504085)

Location: Chile

Resource: Gold/Iron/Limestone

Reasoning: Santa Domingo Mine is an historic mine which leads back to Roman times. This mine produced mainly Copper, Iron and Gold, however it has been proven that limestone can also be found through multiple links provided. About 25 megatons of ore had been extracted when the mine was closed in 1966 due to the Portuguese government threatening to bring in legislation making companies, especially mining companies, financially responsible for cleaning up their mistakes. This added another level of devastation in the region, as there was now an excess of people out of work due to the mine closure.

Internal Category: 1a

Notes: Cross Referenced with internal Earth 2 Map, Resource map + External Mapping system

Verdict: Provided sufficient evidence

Status: APPROVED

Mythological, Under Investigation

Claim #302 – Lost City of Paititi – “the lost world”

Username: HandspringGuy (312c6f72-068c-4049-89a6-5922721a7d30)

Location: Peru

Resource: Gold

Reasoning: In the document, which dates from 1600, Lopez describes in great detail, a large city rich in gold, silver and jewels, located in the middle of the tropical jungle called Paititi by the natives. Lopez informed the Pope about his discovery and the Vatican has kept Paititi’s location secret for decades.

Inca traditions mention a city, deep in the jungle and east of the Andes area of Cusco which could be the last Incan refuge following the Spanish Conquest. The Spanish conquistadors pillaged Cusco for its gold and silver

Internal Category: 3

Notes: –

Verdict: –

Status: UNDER INVESTIGATION

Claim # 4848 – Cal Orck’o – Jurassic Park Limestone

Username: e2travelagency (cb6ce533-58fa-4962-8d82-ad31902ae6f5)

Location: Bolivia

Resource: Limestone

Reasoning: Cal Orck’o is a fossil bed in Bolivia. It is located in a limestone quarry approximately 4.4 km northwest of Sucre.The bed is composed of oolitic fossiliferous limestone, associated with large, freshwater stromatolites and nine levels of dinosaur tracks (trace fossils). The high-resolution mapping of the site from 1998 to 2015 revealed a total of 12,092 individual dinosaur tracks in 465 trackways. Nine different morphotypes of dinosaur tracks have been documented. Amongst them are several trackways of theropods, ornithopods, ankylosaurs and sauropods, with the latter group accounting for 26% of the trackways.

Internal Category: 4

Notes: –

Verdict: –

Status: UNDER INVESTIGATION

RANDOM TRIVIA FROM E2PRV CLAIMS:

Q1. In which country were flying foxes found to have been exposed to Cadmium, causing bone lesions and renal dysfunction?

Q2. Which Island off the coast of Western Australia was visited by over 40 vessels in the 19th century to render oil from the Elephant seals they killed?

We thank you for your ongoing support of the Earth 2 project and congratulate Players who are taking advantage of this unique opportunity made possible via the Earth 2 Player Resource Validation initiative.

As promised, since launching User-to-User HB Trading on our platform just over two weeks ago, our team has held an internal review of the feature while taking community feedback on board. For information on this, the HB Trading Withdrawal Protocol, Downloadable 3D Models, Accusations of a Security breach and Other News, including final updates on Egg Hunts, please read on below.

We have begun working hard on major updates to the U2U HB Trading System with some already in the pipeline as a direct result of our internal review and community feedback. To those of you in our community who have provided feedback on this feature, we thank you.

We are particularly grateful for your support as we continue to improve our platform.

HOLOBLUEPRINT TRADING v1.1 IS IN THE PIPELINE

U2U HB Trading is the first iteration of our future User-Generated Content (UGC) Trading system being built on the Earth 2 platform. We’d like to share the core scheduled updates for version v1.1 of this feature which include significant improvements to the U2U trading mechanics, the usability of HBs in general, the rewards for HB Content Creators and improved copyright protection for all HB creations listed on the Bazaar marketplace inside Earth 2.

SCHEDULED UPDATES

Our design team has finished reviewing and updating the DDD (Detailed Design Doc) and our UI/UX team have subsequently finished the necessary visual updates to the relevant pages.

One of our smaller development teams have now started implementing the FE and BE changes for Limited Edition HoloBuildings and will then progress onto other scheduled updates in the list.

We expect to have this full list released within the next four weeks over 1 or 2 deployments.

Below is a very brief description of each scheduled update.

Limited Edition HoloBuildings: This update will provide Creators with the ability to set a restricted number for Limited Editions of their HoloBuilding in the Bazaar marketplace. The number will determine how many copies of that HoloBuilding can be sold from the Creator to other Players on the platform.

The Ability to Resell Holobuildings: This update will allow Players to who purchase a HoloBuilding, the ability to resell it again on the Bazaar effectively introducing a secondary market for HoloBuildings.

Royalties for Earth 2 HB Content Creators: This update will see the introduction of Royalties to HoloBuildings and Blueprints. It will ensure that the original creator of a design is rewarded for their hard work and creativity every time that design is on-sold. We are proposing to set this figure at 3% for individual resales.

For resales that include multiple copies of different HoloBuildings from different creators, this figure will jump 3% for each new HoloBuilding used from different Creators, being capped at 12% at 4 creations.

Any new design that includes over 4 pre-existing HoloBuilding creations in it will see the 12% split between all original HB Content Creators whose designs were used.

Bazaar Listing URL: Players will be provided the option to share their Blueprint or HoloBuilding via direct URL.

HoloBuilding Duplication Detection: Earth 2 is working on a system that is designed to protect original HB content created and listed by Players in our community. This system will analyze and in some cases automatically block the listing of creations that are significantly similar to creations already listed on Bazaar by other creators. It will also flag potential copycat listings for our team to review.

Personal Portfolio: The Player Profile page will be expanded to display a gallery of all HoloBuildings that Player has created and has listed.

We can’t wait to get some of these updates live and we’re committed to making future improvements to this marketplace system as we slowly move toward allowing other digital assets and User Generated Content to sell and trade between Players!

In the near future we will also look at improving the placement process of HoloBuildings making it more intuitive and easier for Players to place them on their properties.

HB TRADING WITHDRAWAL PROTOCOLS

One of Earth 2’s core concepts for its metaverse platform is to support the ability for Players to sell or resell digital assets they own, build or create. It is our goal to develop a safe system for all Earth 2 Players to achieve this, something which is embodied in our initial HoloBuilding creation and trading system.

While we strongly believe that Players should have the power and freedom to generate earnings through Earth 2, we also have a duty of protection to HB Content Creators and Players who purchase those creations.

Therefore, we have implemented an internal 14-day delay for withdrawals for those who have participated in the selling of HoloBlueprints on the Bazaar. This delay gives HB Content Creators the opportunity to become aware of, and report, HB listings which they feel infringe on their rights as the original owner and creator of a HoloBlueprint or HoloBuilding.

We understand that those who have become accustomed to virtually instantaneous payouts on our platform may be inconvenienced by this procedure. However, it is first and foremost our highest priority to fulfill our duty to protect Earth 2 participants by following the above procedure.

Our team will be monitoring and restricting HB Content Creators who continue to abuse the system and negatively impact the experience of others by blocking them from being able to sell on the Bazaar and depending on the extent of the wrongdoing, potentially more. Players who set a good track record of participating in the HB trading may experience increasingly faster listing approvals and payouts.

A delay of payment is routine practice across many established platforms and we ask your understanding of this measure, especially during these initial stages.

USER GENERATED 3D MODELS and ACCUSATIONS OF SECURITY RISKS ON EARTH 2

Protecting our Players on any level is very important to us and when a potential risk to Players arises, whether it be a public accusation or a privately reported risk, our security team and developers will always conduct an investigation to eliminate the possibility.

Earth 2 hires one permanent security specialist and relies on Quality Assurance to pick up and mitigate against potential security weaknesses being pushed to production. As with any software company, the potential for security issues is always possible and fixing such issues is an ongoing commitment.

Below are some responses to the recent public accusations made toward the ability for 3D HoloBuilding models being downloadable from our website and an apparent version of our Front End code base + API keys being acquired.

3D Models

GLB files are files that are downloaded whenever a 3D model is shown in a browser, including when a HoloBuilding is shown on our map, or previews in the bazaar. This is normal browser behaviour and if it were not possible to some how download the 3D model, it would not be viewable by anyone in a browser.

The downloadable version of the GLB files would require significant time and effort to re-uploaded and would be close to impossible to re-import these downloaded GLB file into our holo editor due to the data processing mechanism we have in place, let alone use it or resell it on the HoloBlueprint Bazaar.

Were someone to go to all of this effort to do such a thing would be a question of plagiarism, not a security issue.

Accusation of a Security Breach

We want to reassure all Players that there was never a security breach or leaking of customer data and if anyone in the community has additional feedback or concerns, we welcome you to share them with us so that we can continue to make Earth 2 better for everyone.

We have reviewed the contents of a zip file a YouTuber claimed proved a security breach and discovered the file was captured from one of our small test servers as a downloaded dump file in early August. It was not from our production server, did not link to any live data on our production server and did not contain any API keys linked to our production server or data.

We will continue to take any such accusations seriously and our team is committed to reviewing any reported security breaches that may exist in our website. We understand that some people can be very convincing and use their knowledge of software development to misconstrue issues to the public, but we would ask that anyone reporting such issues might follow an unspoken code of conduct between proactive software developers and quietly report potential security risks as opposed to broadcasting it across social media, luckily incorrectly in this case.

OTHER NEWS

Accidental Early Release of Martinique

We would like to take this opportunity to apologize for the accidental opening of Martinique, ahead of its scheduled opening time, which was a result of human error (setting the release time to 12AM instead of 12PM UTC). We understand any disappointment or confusion caused by this honest mistake and hope that those players who missed out on Martinique were able to be present for the opening of Comoros instead 24 hours after the intended release time of Martinique.

Opening the next new country on Tuesday the 13th of September was a decision we felt was best and fairest to all Players affected.

The next country release will be on the 19th of September and the following one two weeks later on the 3rd of October.

2021 Egg Hunt

Thank you to all Players who submitted their proof-of-entry for the 2021 Easter Egg Hunt! We have finished reviewing and updating the final winners and runners-up lists for all hidden 2021 Eggs, which are now available for you to check here. Our team will aim to award prizes over the next 2 weeks:

https://earth2.io/news/2021-egg-hunt

2022 Egg Hunt

Our team has continued monitoring social media for evidence of unfound 2022 Egg Hunt eggs, but unfortunately three of the Eggs from this year’s Egg Hunt have still not been found. The 2022 Egg Hunt has officially ended now. The remaining eggs will be rehidden in the next scheduled Egg Hunt which we expect to take place inside of E2V1.

Shane took to Twitter today to share his thoughts on the upcoming web based PvP in November, and how its being designed with an aim to add a lot of utility to not just Essence but also Jewels.

Shane has raised the expectations of the Earth 2 community as he claims, "The PvP model we're working on has been expanded over the past 2 weeks & will in fact form a light introduction to parts of the EcoSim & core ideologies of Earth 2".

We could sense his excitement jump off the page as he adds:-

"This is the first game design that I've been fully involved with since launching ,#Earth2 & while it might not be a masterpiece, I'm really excited to get it out there"

To achieve this Earth 2 has allocated significant resources and manpower to deliver the web based PvP on the Earth 2 platform by November. Shane was quick to add that since all spare resources are allocated to the PvP development there wont be too many announcements or feature updates over the next couple months.

Earth 2 is soon planning to launch the $ESNC (Essence) token and is keen to add as much utility to the token before its listing, and doesn't want mere speculation to drive its price. Shane elaborated further on this thinking:-

"Previously our plan needed #Essence to have an externally traded value before introducing more utility, however, with this PvP concept we've worked out a way to safely introduce utility without affecting the future plans of the EcoSim. This will be done in a way that we feel will add value to the token through added utility & purpose while mitigating against the potential risk of Players spending #Essence before an external value has been determined."

We can't wait!

Announcements

1) Ability to submit Limestone claims will be halted later this week

E2.News comment: We suggest that if you have any pending claims please submit for validation sooner before this window closes. To be honest, we were surprised when Earth 2 allowed limestone claims given how abundantly the resource is found on Earth, including entire soil formations.

2) Some more changes can be expected, something Shane says is requested by the Earth 2 community

Apparently, Shane seems not too happy with some of the details of these concerned areas

Shane stayed back to interact and answer some questions

Egg-hunt update

This comes on the back of acknowledgement that there was some sort of communication break-down earlier with respect to the Egg hunt process

Jewels Update

On Holo-buildings

Also do check-out a very cool video of a holo-building creation below

And just to remind, Holo-Buildings will be tradeable in future

Resource Staking update

And finally, Golden Plates still remain elusive

It's good to see Shane taking a hands-on approach. However we feel its also important to not fall in the trap of micro-managing everything inside Earth2. Otherwise, he runs the risk of not being able to crate an empowered team which is very crucial for Earth 2 to scale up. Someday Earth 2 will have hundreds or even thousands features, and it will be very difficult for Shane to address everything. The answer probably lies in getting in the right people who share his vision and are aligned to these principles as these features are designed or updated.

Key take-aways

• Token launch is aimed this year but may or may not get get delayed or pushed to Q4. 'Strong reasons' cited to delay the token launch.
• Earth 2 will be watching the Ethereum merger closely.
• A property needs at least one Prime to produce the corresponding resource.
• Country countdowns to remain in near future for now.
• Claims are first pre-approved and approvals are then released in batches.
• Claim rejections: Genuine mistakes may get warning rather rejection. Spam/Troll claims are the ones most likely to get rejected outright.
• E2V1 could have cool functionality for EPLs
• More details about holo-buildings and backdated storage will be released
• Holo bazaar is coming soon, already live on test site (stage-2)

Full transcript

Shane(S): Game Activity Feed is LIT. just watching the approved claims roll in. Looks really cool

Hey Shane Q3 on your twitter bio is still Q3 2022?

S: I am definitely aiming to have it released this year. We have a couple of features just hitting the pipeline that will add more utility to Essence. The EcoSim is getting really close too. I mean, in addition to what's been happening in the market, internally it just makes sense for us to hold off that little bit longer, have more utility. We can release the new website, the whitepaper, the video footage, the social media app will be pretty much ready to go in Q4 too, all leading up to the end of year period. And we're pushing E2V1 really hard, I mean really hard. I realize you guys can't see what's going on internally, but irrespective of what's taking place in the market, there are strong reasons to wait for the token launch.

More utility is a really good idea. Or maybe even create some minigames

S: that's a cool idea, but we want to get E2V1 out before creating mini games. This is the big key for us. We have a few more things planned for the web page over the next couple of months, but that gameplay will transition over into E2V1 (or will be able to transition over in time)

Should we be collecting ether and holding off on clicking transform to build up a large amount of ether or clicking transform to essence daily

S: it's up to you. There will be a use for E-ther relating to life. I am not sure saving now would be a massive advantage, but I don't want to say either way in case you don't agree with me later.

Hope you are enjoying your weekend

S: thank you - it's almost 5am and I really need to sleep. I have a big family day ahead of me .. but I will try to answer a few questions here first. It's good to see everyone in here

Wen new candid thoughts (video)?

S: my schedule is just too crazy right now. I'd like to create some too but I literally can't find time to sleep. Then I make a video when I'm dead tired, get criticized for how I speak etc. I was making that effort before but right now I am just too busy. I look forward to making more though when time frees up a little.

Any thoughts on next month's Ethereum merger?

S: we're watching it closely. Should be interesting

Shane has no idea about crypto lol

S: I heard it can moon. Is that right? Though I feel that cryptoland project ruined the word "moon" for good

When will I get my E2 Egg NFT's... that's the real question

S: after we launch the token and being applying NFTs to various digital items inside E2. Around that time I mean

Everyone here is enamored with Essence they're receiving. I just want to know how they are approving claims this fast

S: they were vetted, pre-approved, assigned, (and about 3/4 other steps) then final approval and released

Scenario, would my Oil (HF) land produce oil with: (Y/N to each will tell us exactly how this system works)

a) no jewels

b) one single color black prime

c) one multicolor T3 catseye (no black prime slotted)

S: a) no - needs at least a prime Jewel (that primes the Mentar)

b) yes

c) I don't believe so. Need at least one prime

Give us a spoiler whilst you're here?

S: sorry, no spoiler planned .. or did I already give one?

Will you keep the countdown for the openings or will you change back to the random openings? To be honest I liked the random openings more. It's happened that I missed a few (especially during the night), but with countdown it leads to a lot of frustration if I am prepared and get the processing issue and get nothing. When I think about Saudi things will get even worse (a bit like Dubai) and an opening without countdown will be smooth and fairer. Please think about it

S: I realize there are some that want it random again, however, there are more reasons to keep it as countdowns for now.

They're pre-approved by the team then released in batches. That's the impression I got anyway.

S: Yes, batches

To be honest that should not really matter as a CEO if he has a good team around him to deliver

S: it takes time to build a good team. Have certainly learned this

Fantastic tech @Shane I like how you and E2 are all for innovation

S: it's a pretty cool system. Can be adapted for E2V1 too

When are we expecting to see denial, its all validation so far

S: there are a few things that need to happen before the rejections start .. but trust me, there are a few. For genuine mistakes I do want to give some Players one warning too. We have a lot of Players who speak English as a second language so I want to allow some room for understanding the first time round. But some claims are obvious spam, trolling .. those will be in trouble initially I'd say (100 claims cancelled?)

Why didn't you do a better job at resource mapping (rather ask users to validate). Did you always intend you "charge" $5 (for claims)

S: then we wouldn't be here. Things happen for a reason. We also refund the $5 for successful claims btw. This feature was not created to make us revenue, we're definitely losing profits on this, but it's about keeping a promise (yes, maybe running behind schedule), but still keeping a promise and it's allowed us to create an interesting system that can be used for other things in the future.

How long is the beard now

S: I'm not sure, I don't measure it. But I do tuck it into my shirt now so I guess it's quite long lol. My barber phoned me the other day asking when I would come in to see him, and I told him the last hair cut I had was with him. He thought that was over a year ago .. anyway, it's quite long I guess

$5 for automatically approved claims seems like quite the money grab

S: they're not automatically approved and successful claims are refunded. We're not making money on this

No, I just think it was too much to ask one team to do in that timeframe and the community (myself included) were impatiently asking for resources. So Shane gave them to us and this is what we have... Now we make the best of it

S: I'm glad you note we are giving the community what they wanted. Yes, I know it's a bit late

They need to make staking for verified users only with a 1 min cool down and a captcha. They're going before I can even open

S: I think as the reward % drops, people will be more careful. We're building other things right now so have limited time on too many updates

I have a question about our future E2 wallet. Shane are you planning to support a function of swapping crypto assets to E-Dollar ? Once essence is launched on an exchange, potential users will be actually joining into the E2 World. but hard to imagine credit cards are the only option to charge E-dollars. Would you support swapping system in our E2 wallet?

S: not initially

I hope now e2 team can focus on the important parts... which is the remaining 3 '22 eggs and the '21 eggs too

S: I believe an update is coming next week on this. Both issues. There was definitely a massive breakdown in communication internally our side on this

Hi, Shane. Do you have any update regarding EPL soon? EPL gangs are really thirsty for it

S: you will see some pretty cool functionality on E2V1. We also delayed any renewal costs until the functionality is in action

This system is really unfair for larger accts. Small investors can double or quadruple their power in the game while large investors can increase their power by maybe 1%

S: I am sure larger accounts will have some pretty massive advantages long term .. I mean you could almost control your own empires. Let's let the smaller accounts get some benefit this time around .. there will be more cases in the future where we have things aimed at benefiting smaller accounts too. Long term I think larger accounts will already have some pretty massive advantages

Update us on Earth2 card please. Cannot wait to flex my limited edition to the haters

S: it's just sitting there. We probably should release it

This CAT hand tool for selecting tiles freehand for resource claims could be very useful for users purchasing property. Also, a de-select tile function by holding CTRL and/or clicking on a +/- icon onscreen

S: yes it could, but we're probably using it more internal right now. We should have some cool things on E2V1 in the future. We will release a very basic version initially then build on it

Shane is there a way to check faster if I am surrounded by any claims?

S: I am not sure. I think claims turn up on the heat map every 24hrs? I could be wrong

Anything on the storage space for holo buildings? I've asked several times and you were going to check with the team. At what rate have they been stored in the background?

S: it's pretty complicated, I don't know enough to explain it here. Details will be released though and from what I understand all previous information released is relevant

Can you share the feedback from partners and companies after you demoed E2V1 ?

S: NDAs I'm sorry

Can you tell us why luminous jewels cost so much essence. But they don’t do anything? What will they be used for?

S: I am not the Jewel guy, but as you know, I'm not shy of tweaking things as development progresses.

Can we expect some better marketplace 'structure'? Even earth2.market was better a year ago. Search options / parameters are very limited.

S: we have made a number of updates to the marketplace and will continue to do so

Can you give any insight into the delay of the holo building market? The top builders who had been planning for the release last month have been... a bit upset if not demoralized by it not being released. We've asked questions in social media but the questions haven't been responded to

S: did you check stage2?

Holo-building bazaar is coming soon!

For screenshots follow and see @E2News Twitter thread

(Shane leaves the chat) - sorry guys, it's really nice to catch up and see so many familiar faces. I do need to get a few hours sleep as I have a family day ahead of me. Nice to catch up and thanks again for the ongoing support. Keep safe and will chat again shoon!

(If you don't know what Resource validation or Essence staking is about, first read this https://earth2.io/news/e2prv )

Everything is getting staked, and sometimes in the blink of an eye

While in the early days users had enough time to validate the proof submitted, the validations are going through within couple of seconds. While a 750 tile resource claim allows upto 75 users to stake (2250 Essence, 30 essence cap per user), a 100 tile and below claim allows just 10 users. These 10/10 claims are the hardest to catch by even seasoned stakers.

I have staked now over 50k Essence, and I thought I'd share some tricks for speed staking to those who may find this useful and want to grow their staking. Below tips will help you get in on the 10/10 claims as well.

Tips for Speed Staking

Tip:-1 Spotting the claim early

While this may appear obvious, this factor alone is 95% responsible for success. So how you can spot the claim early. By watching the feed? Yes but how to do so where it saves you valuable microseconds. Simple - either watch the feed on the same screen as staking or watch it on a separate device. For example you can watch the feed on your mobile and stake on your PC/Laptop

Tip:-2 Do not refresh or press F5

After spotting the claim, many users have to refresh the page in order to see the claim on the claims page. A better way is to just press the filters and the claim will appear without refreshing the page. This also helps you with avoiding the dreaded '403 error'.

Tip 3:- Use keyboard and mouse together

• Use the mouse to click the 'Insight' button to access the claim. Click 'Stake Essence'
• Then you can either hover mouse to access the text field to input the staking amount or you can simply use the keyboard key 'Tab' to access it.
• Then enter the staking amount - to enter the max staking amount just press '3' two times and it automatically sets to '30' or the max permissible number
• After you have entered the staking number, rather hovering the mouse again to press 'Stake Essence', simply press 'Enter' key

That's it! You are now equipped to be a speed staker!

Disclaimer:- Speed staking can be extremely risky as you are not taking any time to examine the evidence and proceeding straight to staking. If you end up backing wrong claims you could lose a lot of Essence in the process. So tread cautiously and its not for the faint hearted or risk averse stakers.

Tip 4:- Time-Zones

Staking is a lot easier in non-prime hours. Its no secret that certain hours in the day see less activity on Earth2. Submitting your own claims or choosing to stake in those hours could lead to better results

Happy staking Earth 2, may the ping be with you!

ZEU$ out.

Hidden inside Earth 2's code is a reference to 'SparkGeo' - the company E2News now understands as Earth 2's secret partner firm for Resources. The Earth2 'Landfield Resource Model' shows SparkGeo as helping out with the distribution (and possibly validation) of Resources.

Found by user Ronald, the code also has a reference to 'High Frequency' resources which have been appearing on users' properties the past few weeks.

The existence of differing resource abundancies can also be found on the Stage2 site, where the letters 'HF' have now appeared next to resource confirmed properties. From user Open24hrs:

SparkGeo is also a Canadian firm (based in British Columbia), which aligns with Shane's previous mentions of such a company

Learn more about SparkGeo's tech here: https://sparkgeo.com/services/

Article by Toba with help from Ronald