Shane shared some key info about Essence, Resources, Website update and other things. He also promised to maybe drop another video tomorrow talking about 3D gameplay. Find key take-aways and full transcript of today's chat with Shane in the Earth 2 discord.
Key take-aways
Resources detection at first could be binary on a given land - Yes/No (whether that land has that particular type of resource or not)
Even if Earth 2 has more than 1 crypto, Essence will have the core utility
Focused on building more utility for Land and Essence
Confirmed that early holo-buildings will have retrospective access to resources
Working with a company on the Social Media Playbook
Captcha could be coming back to the marketplace to solve the prevailing issue of auto-buying by bots
When the 3D world goes live Earth 2 will be introducing more ways to get Jewels
Once Essence has a price (determined on crypto exchanges), the price to upgrade jewels may be adjusted to make it cost effective (E2 hasn't committed this 100% though)
Gameplay will involve usage of fractions of Essence
Shane wants the Earth 2 community to name fractional Essence (E2 News is currently running a thread about this on our Twitter handle - See this link or the end of article)
The Demo video (Earth 2 3D version) slated to be released this weekend will cover Distant Terrain System
The Earth 2 post removal from Mapbox site was due to the site refresh. Shane is invited by Mapbox to discuss Earth 2 strategy and public awareness
Community projects map ads will return, however in a more 'structured way'
Updated version of the holo-building module (incl. editor) is under works and should come soon
Resources: The first period will be focused on real world resource locations, at their exact locations
Full Transcript
I'd love to buy land with essence
Shane(S)- many T1 properties that are owned by other players have promised Essence. We did that to benefit the Player as much as the people who want to secure guaranteed Essence
Hi Shane. only 1 of the 2 egg money was paid out recently. Are you OK to check on that. People wanting to reinvest winnings, especially in these unlocked countries
S- I have asked the team to keep on top of that. I am not sure where they are up to
Have some prediction for resources heatmap?
S- nothing stable yet but it will roll out in parts (so not all at once). First will probably be binary gold / oil (yes / no) not exact amounts
Hi Shane, normally I wouldn't disturb you as CEO but please, could E2 now focus on E2 again and not on ScamTubers any more. Thx a lot
S- we are :)
It’s 2028, am I able to order a pizza via Earth2?
S- I certainly hope so .. just don't be the bitcoin pizza guy just yet
Shane in the future will Earth2 have more then 1 crypto currency?
S- maybe - but Essence is the core utility
Will we still get resource backpay for early holo-buildings?
S- yes - that will still go ahead as planned
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Shane shares a broad thought about E2 in response to a question posed by a relatively new user - Is there anyway to learn how it all works and comes together in a video or a document that breaks down the "gameplay" loop? I still don't understand how everyone can profit from this?
We will be releasing an updated landing page over the next few months and videos will help too. I started to share candid videos on thoughts I have as well that hopefully fill in pieces of the puzzle for people.
I will try to provide a quick answer on this anyway, for the Earth 2 community as well, I might even make a video on this perhaps too at a later date. When I launched Earth 2 my core goal was develop purpose and utility for virtual land. I thought I had an 18 month runway minimum before people even started taking notice on what we were up to. It went viral after 4 weeks and then hyper viral after 6 weeks, after that time it was just about keeping the servers online and stopping the project from crashing.
My long term goal has always been to add utility to land so that Player owned land becomes an integral part to building and facilitating almost everything inside of Earth 2. I introduced Essence early to benefit Players who believed in the project and bought land and it currently has a very simple game loop. Buy land, build a Mentar, detect E-ther on your land and convert it to Essence (daily). That is still how it works today, but will change soon making it more difficult to convert into Essence and as the 3D world launches there will be even more game loops involved (enter the EcoSim Player) making it more difficult or time consuming to get Essence. Some Players are focused on the short term gain, flipping properties, Jewels etc.. but I am looking long term.
So Essence will become a token over the next few months and will have a Player / external trade determined price (that has nothing to do with Earth 2). Every existing tile on Earth 2 when that happens will have the guaranteed ability to harvest E-ther and produce Essence via game play over time (pursuant to the tokenomics system yet to be released). As the external price of Essence is traded, there is obvious value in that. Land will also be able to produce resources and much more in the future, so it doesn’t even stop with Essence (yes, my long term goal to add more purpose and utility to land).
The penny hasn’t dropped yet for many outsiders, they just think (or hear) it’s a scam and they believe stories pushed to them from people who only want to capitalize at the expense of our brand name because they know it is a highly searched project and they feel we are easy pickings to call a scam and make some $ for themselves. Ironically they are smashing probably the only real Metaverse chance that doesn’t have VC or corporate world influence. I’d like to see them in the same position as I was and turn down those opportunities, I doubt many would do that .. they say they would turn them down but let’s see what they do when the actually opportunity is there.
Anyway, then Earth 2 and the Players become completely aligned, of course we will generate revenue from new land sales, some in game purchases and transaction fees on Player owned or created content, to keep building Earth 2 etc. But the biggest aligned effort I believe will be on Essence, we will want to create more Utility for Essence which in turn will benefit the Players and in turn will benefit the platform which in turn wants to create more utility for Essence .. you see. Anyway, just a few thoughts for everyone to read through
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The chat continues
Any news on any new CMs?
S- Not yet unfortunately. We are working on so many things in parallel and waiting for this Social Media Playbook thing from another company to be completed
When E2 News interview… been emailing
S- I asked Dan to work it into my schedule (E2 News: Yayyy!)
When PvP for landowners? I want to invade my neighbors and steal their resources
S- I'm with you .. in fact I might make a little video on this soon. It might not 100% pass as PvP .. but in a way it will and it will come this year. The sooner the better. Will be simple but fun
Hey Shane, what you think about Star Citizen?
S- ok - so if I wasn't so busy with Earth 2, (and if I didn't have my wife watching over my shoulder) Star Citizen would probably be one of my dream games .. I just love the concept and it looks amazing. I think their team has worked through a lot of difficult times in the past yet they have proven themselves long term .. really cool concept and game
Hope all is well! You've been going at it like a boss! Lately (since the removal of captcha) there has been a lot of bots (auto-buying) active in the market. And support is not doing anything when reported. Is there a way to solve this? Maybe bring captcha back for marketplace but not new tiles
S- I have reported this to our COO already and asked them to add it back on the marketplace
When high-tier jewels for T1? This was said in January
I understand this but we have so many things we're working on, stopping to update that would mean delays in Essence trading as a token, delays in Resources and many other things. We are hiring more devs but it becomes very complicated when working on numerous features in parallel. I know it sounds easy but we have built a very intricate deployment system and we need time to test a lot before making those changes. I 100% assure you it has a ticket and it's not forgotten
I know everyone asks about Essence and how to get more of it, but I'm wondering about Jewels, will there be ways to earn more Jewels? I know right now there isn't a lot of utility for Jewels, but as time goes on and more features are releases that require Jewels, will the distribution increase or are there going to be other mechanisms to earn more Jewels? I've have 5969 properties and 107,712 Tiles and get around 90 Jewels a day, they are free, so surely not complaining, but it does seem that I'll need much more than that to do what I need to in the game
S- when the 3D world goes live we will be introducing more ways to get Jewels
Keep up the good work Shane. Honestly you've always delivered on anything promised. Dealt with scam accusing youtubers and anything else behind the scenes. It's very admirable to see you still holding strong and hope you know that we the community believe in your vision
S- thankyou so much
Any plans for allowing players to import their own custom avatars made in Unity/Blender in the future? I know this is a ways off, but just curious! I have several in the works for other games, and so on
S- it will likely be a way off, probably inside holodecks first, but the open world will likely support it later. I would say yes, very likely, long term (long term)
Also to note, egg hunt stuff is taken care of by Sydney office, yet support says to ping a community manager, and when you try to explain to support that they don’t handle it, they just continue to explain how to ping them. Could a new auto response be made to explain the Sydney office
S- I have already requested that note be updated from Support
Will you be playing with us when PvP comes out?
S- of course lol
Any plans for tiring together the AR aspect and jewels or essence or a diff game loop?
S- when we have our social media app we will look to add more location based / AR stuff
So Essence is priority over all right now?
S- it has very high priority, but other things like Resources and Resource validation do as well. We're working on a LOT of things .. the 3D world is also huge .. a lot of focus .. EcoSim, EcoSim buildings, artwork, 3D models, man .. it's endless and there is a whole lot more
Sorry to be asking again, but my question got buried on a wall of text... @Shane I have an ear impairment... Do you think technology will evolve to the point where we are going to connect devices to the brain to simulate sound? Also, where does E2 stand for disabilities?
S- our lead Artistic Lead (also not on the team page) is very experienced in this area, always considering color blind, disabilities. Really experiences and talented guy. I also have meetings with someone in Canada for something related to hearing impaired but I don't know the full details yet (have not met yet, so busy). But yes, long term I believe there will be technology that helps in that area and hope can be used in Earth 2. We're building a platform and future hardware tech will simply compliment the foundation we are building .. if that makes sense
It cost 21 essence to upgrade to a T1 luminous jewel. Will the amount of essence change as essence goes up? This is the 6th time of me asking this
S- when we have a price for Essence (i.e. an external trading price) I believe we intend to use that to make things more cost effective in game. Not 100% sure though.
How are the 60 employees distributed in e2?
S- not sure what you mean? They are all over the world .. mostly in Europe. Is that what you mean ?
You already mentioned that small properties will accumulate fractions of Essence.. will future gameplay involve usage of fractions?
S- yes, I would think so most certainly
Fix your CM/mod problems please. A few regulars have been banned/muted for ridiculous reasons recently. They are extremely unprofessional
S- I do ask for reviews. The CMs and MODs spend their time moderating this channel and I believe they follow the rules quite closely. We are constantly reviewing things but I cannot stand here and say they are doing a bad job. I do ask for reviews when I hear things
Do you guys have a name for a fraction of essence yet?
S- we should let the community decide (if we do .. it had better be good .. I don't like second best lol)
Can you give any explanation of the relationship between the flat Mercator map that the 10x10 grid is on and the finished 'globe'? i.e., if tiles actually vary in size between the equator and the poles how will that effect the placement of buildings? I'm also curious how E2 are dealing with height map data in city locations?
S- oh boy .. that is too long to answer right now. But I can say you will learn how and our team came up with some awesome solutions for this
Can you explain more about the 2 different e2 engines?
S- much too long to explain today I'm sorry. But the tech we are demoing this weekend is our distant terrain system. That is where we needed to start and we're already working on bridging it to a more detailed close up engine
Any specific reason Mapbox pulled their E2 related posts etc.?
S- I have learned that the web team removed several pieces of content from the site as a part of a refresh ahead of our new VP of Marketing joining next week. " Their global VP for customer engagement and another senior member of their map team have recently requested meetings with me to discuss Earth 2 strategy and public awareness ... I think they might be on a panel I was invited to next month as well (or maybe it's later this month)
I was wondering, I can only imagine the amount of stress this all creates you, so what do you do to destress?
S- you have no idea
Shane there is a rule about the egg hunt that forbids people from sharing any hints about how or where someone can find an egg. IF that is still true, if we come across a case like that what are we supposed to do considering CMs are no longer responsible for the egg hunt?
S- email please. We have eyes on that email address
Shane can you explain why the E2 is aiming so high when it actually could be huge thing with less promises (even for start?). Example real earth is huge. What is the reason you want to create metaverse without loading screens ? I think this has been all the time the main key for ScamTubers to complain you never can't success. What I think is that e2 can be huge thing and number 1 metaverse even without such a targets. How you see this?
S- I don't think it's the main thing. For example, all of the due diligence they can do on Earth 2 (or claim to have done), they focus on things like what one of our devs wrote in chat without permission .. I mean not even published under E2. One of our devs mentioned in Discord chat that we were aiming for globe size with Red Dead Redemption graphics. . and look how much they focus on that? These guys have one thing on their mind, paint E2 in the most negative light as possible. No biased approach whatsoever. Also - we will be rolling out E2 in steps. Of course we want big, huge, the size of the Earth 2. But we're working on it in steps. That also never gets portrayed so I suppose you're getting your details from a bunch of youtubers who hate our project and this is a clear example of how they have influenced so many people
Can i request the white on the website be dialed back to a slightly sleeker grey? Opening the webpage at 3am is blinding
S- entire new site will be dark themed
Punk Rock or Country?
S- Punk rock .. but I can listen to country
Can you clarify the difference in what we say in the original terrain and easter egg hunt video and what we saw in your latest video? Is the the two different engines you talked about? We haven't seen close up terrain in a while
S- that's because we've been well .. creating a digital planet earth. I will drop a video on why we don't have 3D game play maybe tomorrow
Are the community map ads permanently gone or was/is that a bug?
S- we need to bring those back in a more structured way. Sorry, they will return later
Can you clarify the difference in what we say in the original terrain and Easter egg hunt video and what we saw in your latest video? Is the the two different engines you talked about? We haven't seen close up terrain in a while
S- and btw - what we have created in this 3D world is much more impressive than the close up terrain we showed last year. It may not look as flash close up right now, but the tech is MUCH more impressive
You said "That is still how it works today, but will change soon making it more difficult to convert into Essence" ... can you explain a bit how it become more difficult if already we might get 0-1 essence daily when e convert E-ther. I mean I just can imagine that players who has less land and jewels than me (I have quite a lot) does get already 0 essence daily? … will there be for example decimals with Essence? Right now it seems to be 1 or 0 but not 0.0025
S- yes, there will be decimals (fractions) of Essence coming. I think I mentioned this in a YouTube video I published on my personal YouTube recently (unless I dreamt it)
What are your thoughts on people saying this is a scam? What would you have to say about the longevity and legitimacy of this project
S- they have said that from day 1. I'm still here. Do you think I'd be putting my face out everywhere and publicly challenging scam accusers if this were a scam? I would literally be laying low and trying not to draw attention ..people overlook the most simple things sometimes
I mean considering the software currently is a simple bump map project that can be done in around a month, what’s stopping a copycat company from doing the same things
S- please ask someone to do it then. We're certainly successful .. surely many will be making what we have achieved in a month then and capitalizing on that success .. go go go
So from what you said it seems to mean that crafting jewels is a bad idea? It’s one of the only things we have had to do for months on E2. So I don’t know why deluding the value of crafted jewels is a good idea
S- Jewels do and will have future value in the game. It's like anything .. you make a decision at that point in time. We can't foresee everything
People saying its a scam should check out what can be done on this wonderful project. Or just ask for my Revolut receipts
S- for real
Will the upcoming white paper provide more info on Phase 2? Perhaps a tech tree for example
S- not sure on the full tech tree - that is more game design. But we might include it. And there will be a tech tree and it will expand
Some people here we think you have a very impressive last news this year you don't revealed yet and will be the highest one ever...right?
S- this year will be much bigger
I’m very interested in the inflationary/deflationary cycle you mentioned, is it expected to continue in a cyclic pattern?
S- I came up with it and I thought it wouldn't be that special. I mean it's not really that special I guess but the feedback I received from professionals was very positive and the simplicity / effectiveness of it seems to be spot on .. so let's see
Are there any features/big surprises coming that we're not aware of or did the draft paper cover it all?
S- always. I am not sure who will think they are big though. you'll need to wait for the full paper. I might make a video closer to that time. It would give too much away to say it now and might cause some FOMO... which I don't want to go into now
Today I found some insulting purpose made tile-art like. I reported it to support. Hope its something you would like us to do and e2 takes actions about it
S- we have removed many insulting things like that over time
The Holo-building editor is really buggy lately, any news on an update? (No big creations can be placed)
S- there is an updated version coming. We have been focusing on something else for HBs because we plan to open the HB marketplace soon where players can start selling their creations. So there was something else we needed to do first, but I can tell you team members are focused on that full time regarding HBs right now
I hope you're aware these ScamTubers and trolls pay sites that provide services to dislike YouTube content, comments, and like their own comments to make it look like their opinion is relevant. Those sites are very easy to find and to pay for their hostile services, viralyft.com is one of them
S- yes I am aware of this. And they delete comments on their videos. Was quite funny actually .. I heard about this and tried it and it was true! They literally delete comments, then accuse others of deleting comments. Maybe we should look into this more .. ty
What is your favorite drink? whisky? rum? gin? or just a beer? just to make sure i will have all ready in phase 3
S- I honestly rarely drink .. rarely .. like I can't remember the last time I was drunk. I grew up with a lot of alcohol consumption around me so tend not to drink very much. That said .. when I do let my hair down . .. look out. To entertain your question. I would prefer whisky or just beer
A good Scottish whiskey from my homeland would be best LOL
S- actually, sounds good lol .. I like Monkey's Shoulder
Do u smoke?
S- no. Was allergic .. found that out as a teenager lol
You look more like mushroom person :)
S- definitely not. I am boring in this sense guys .. I played games to get high .. very competitive
Thank you for all your recent engagement with the community. Some of our CC have been asking for that for a long time and your really coming through recently with communication and sharing your thoughts and i want to say thank you very much. I hope you keep up with this level of engagement with the community. Please do take care of your mental health. Being overly busy and dealing with the trolls can really take a toll on you
S- thank you. Your message means a lot to me. It's frustrating to be accused of something on such a public stage, at scale, when you're trying to do the right thing. And then when you do something good, or show progress, or prove them wrong, they double down. But hey, we're doing the right thing, we're building the right thing at the right time and we'll have the last laugh. Appreciate your message
Can you give us a bit more information on the distribution of resources? will it be based on the country or will areas such as goldmines etc. generate more gold?
S- the first period will be focused on real world resource locations reflected on land inside Earth 2 - we are fulfilling that promise
Will all resources be based on real-world ?
S- to start with, yes. We need to fulfil that promise to our Players. So say on the exact gold mine at first.
How the distribution will work? will there a center with top resources? Will there a delighted area?
S- we have mapped data already and players will have a chance to challenge if they don't receive the resources they expected. From there exact figures will be assigned based on different data sources
I hope it's based on this site mrdata.usgs.gov
S- we have multiple sources
How will the User Resource verification work? What happens if a large group of people worked together to say X location has Gold everywhere? Will the system have a human decision ultimately at the end or will the system implement this based on the amount of 'upvotes' as such?
S- does not work like that. You can read our news article, there are more details there. Basically we will allow X number of validators per request. Those validators can be rewarded or penalized for correct / incorrect validations. Our internal system will review and have final say
Is there a date in mind for the egg hunt to end?
S- not yet
As much as you want to answer a lot of questions right now, I think you will want to be a bit less open with it as you know things can change between now and launch and you will have to back peddle if you say the wrong thing now
S- I give accurate answers because I know what we are doing. I won't answer something I am unsure of or if I do I will always say I'm not 100% sure
All tiles will generate resources? What if I have one tile in a causal area in the world?
S- all tiles will have some ability to generate resources. This will allow trade
Will gold, for example, be capable of spawning on tiles that are not a gold mine?
S- we will handle the real gold mines first and check the data before we make those decisions
S- Night guys - or good day. Hope you all have a good day ahead and keep safe
Shane leaves
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