Hi, @jayplayco here.
I’ve got a personal message with concerns about the project Road of Rich, which is claming to be a Steem based SRPG game and in the moment in Pre-sale for their tokens on Steem-Engine.
I’ve written a posting a few days ago for the KR community and digged deeper into the team, as they were not well known on Steem, which resulted in a very fast sold out of their first pre-sale.
Link:
After the request I’ve decided to write a short post about my findings for the international community.
0. TL;DR
Road of Rich is a SRPG game based on Steem and a Steem-Engine token called RORS. The team behind the game is organized from members of different companies, which include a blockchain agency (Useb), a HTML5 game maker company (ziplab) and a company that is responsible for the illustration. (AI-Channel)
1. Are they real?
The Steem community has now seen a lot trials of games which partly resulted in disappointing or even runaway over night (like Magic Dice). A steady and continued player is @steemmonsters, now rebranded as Splinterlands and utilizing the advantages of other blockchains, using Steem as main layer and bringing therefore new Steem users on board.
As Road of Rich is a team based in Korea, the Korean Steem Community had also interest in the project, but was not sure because there was not a lot of information available about the team nor have been significant activities noticed before their announcement.
@ai-channel, the account who is responsible for the marketing activities on the Korean Steem side is active on Steem since 2017 but was also not well known nor well integrated into the KR community.
So I got in contact with the team to be able to get more information about them. Please find the interview translation, which I had on Discord with one of the Cofounders Nia. The interview happened at 4th of June 2019.
a. Please introduce yourself.
I am Nia and one of the co-founders of the project ROR. I am responsible for planning the game structure of ROR.
b. How is the team of ROR structured?
Link: http://roadofrich.com/team/
We are key members from different companies gathered together to make ROR possible. In total 5 members including Martin Kim from UseB and Oh-Hyun Kwon from Ziplab are driving the project but we are increasing the members based on the project needs out of our resource pools. (Based on the team introduction on @oadofrich, the team members had been increased since then)
The main companies involved are UseB (https://useb.co.kr/), which is a blockchain technic and marketing related company, Ziplab (http://zip-lab.co.kr/) which is developing the game and AI-channel (@ai-channel) which is the company responsible for our illustrations and also the national marketing on Steem. Additionially, we have VC’s on board.
c. If you create the game based on Steem, you will have speed issues.
Yes it is. We are also worried about the speed. When we experienced STEEM block chain based games, we felt it is a lot slower then conventional games. We are going to use Custom Json and use the Steem blockchain to relate to resource items and production related parts. Most of the parts to be utilized in the blockchain are likely to be included. In terms of speed, we are going to make it not too loose, but I think it is going to be unavoidable to centralize bigger parts. However, parts such as important item resource production facilities will use the STEEM blockchain.
e. Please explain your token economy.
First, we are distributing 100% of the game revenue and put in a dividend pool because we believe and rely heavily on the token economy. Our goal is to maximize the company's profits by increasing the token value. In other words, gaming is the most important factor for us. We may add advertisement, but only if it is not hurting the playing experience of the user.
We already started to develop the game with our capital and VC investment. In fact, it will cost more in the future. We want to overcome the shortage through sales. As you can see from the introduction of the game, the scale of the game is not much different from a regular RPG game, so it is also true that the expected development time has increased a lot.
Payment is made with RORS token and STEEM OR SBD. This is because users who use the STEEM block chain can receive immediate payments and dividends into their account. 100% of paid items will get back to game players and token holders. The game player can collect game money, transfer it to the daily dividend pool and get a day’s dividend. Token holders can stake(hold) their tokens to receive dividends, players will keep their game money in the dividend pool or continue to develop themselves within the game.
Edit: an updated version of their token economy
f. When will the dividend payment start?
It will start with the opening of the game.
g. Do you have a target for opening?
The alpha test is targeted for latest August this year.
2. Other Facts
a. Ziplab
If you look at the company developing the game, you can find that they have a few days ago launched a game named called "The heritage of Mayhem"
The game is only in Korean, but works on HTML 5 and is mobile optimized.
Link: https://mayhem.zip-lab.co.kr/
So it looks like that the developers are able to deliver a game based on HTML5 and are also used to RPG like games. To make sure that company is really envolved I have personally called the number on their webpage and asked if their CEO Mr. Oh Hyun Kwon is involved in a Steem based game called Road of Rich. The person on the phone confirmed it.
b. UseB
I have called additionally the CEO of UseB Mr. Martin Kim and asked him several questions about the project. He is closely working together with Nia and Ziplab and also answers questions directly on the ROR discord server. UseB as a company is in the moment working on a solution for KYC to make it possible for companies to engage in cryptocurrency related business. He reconfimed that he is also involved with his team and that they are preparing the launch of ROR. They are also in contact with @birdinc (David from Steemit) who is in the moment in Korea and it is planned to meet with him this Wednesday. As you can see the latest post from @roadofrich is resteemed from the birdinc account.
3. Personal thoughts
First of all, it is a great sign that an external team outside of Steem is seeing the potential Steem-Engine can give and trying to start a funding for their game with a Steem-Engine based token. As far as I can see, there is a real team behind the project and trying to bring the promised game to us. The mastermind is Nia Yoon, holding and pushing the project forward together with UseB, AI-channel and Ziplab.
I can not assure that the project will deliver as promised, as that is a risk that all kind of companies hold but based on the data I have got it looks good. I have asked to put additional Linkedin profiles on their key members on the Road of Rich page, so that international investors can also make their own picture about the team. The team is very responsive on feedback from the community and I hope also for the Steem economy that we can get the next blockbuster game on our Blockchain.
!! Disclaimer: I am not related nor involved with the team of ROR, but have invested personally into their token. This is not an advise for investment but only for entertainment purposes.