Author: Deep Tide TechFlow
In the recent crypto market, blockchain games seem to be out of sync with trends.
A generation of trends creates a batch of star projects, but after blockchain games fell from grace two years ago, they have gradually 'absented' in the flowing attention and even a trend of 'fearing to talk about games' has emerged; what happened to this track?
Short-lived is the stereotype that market participants have formed about blockchain games:
From the early chain's investment scams and soil dog flows to the new mini-games that can earn money with a click, launching a token is like peaking...
Longevity is a strong contrast exhibited by certain game themes outside the crypto circle:
For example, the Diablo series is a historical symbol of ARPG loot farming games and a testament to enduring gameplay; an IP spanning nearly 30 years, if you often check Elon Musk's Twitter, you can see him frequently live-streaming his gameplay of Diablo 4.
Thus, a new game genre has emerged—Diablo-like; a lively group of similar works: (Path of Exile 2) is about to be announced, (Titan Quest 2) is also on the way...
All are 10-20 year old IPs with sequels; why can they iterate repeatedly and have a continuous fanbase?
Overseas Reddit forums even have someone compiling a list of Diablo-like games; when will a Web3 game emerge?
In the stark contrast between short-lived blockchain games and long-lived IPs, can’t we really see a 'reverse walker' in blockchain games?
As a player who started playing Diablo 2 at the age of 10 and has now entered middle age + working in the crypto circle, I look forward to a loot farming game akin to Diablo emerging in blockchain gaming.
This category, currently, Seraph is a leader.
Coincidentally, this game launched a public test server activity on October 17; after the itch to play, a feeling arises:
Seraph has given me the 'legitimacy' to continue playing blockchain games.
As work and life pressures increase, playing games seems a luxury that wastes time; yet Seraph, while ensuring the dark flavor, seems not to force you to buy coins, not eager to farm gold, nor to hype NFTs, gives me a rationale to keep playing:
If you can't earn, then just treat it as an extension of years of dark-themed gaming habits; if you can earn, then it legitimizes the so-called 'unworthy time' spent on the game.
What I hope for more is that gold farming is not the initial goal but rather a bonus; a reward with a sense of surprise after maintaining gaming habits.
If you are eager to play games due to life pressures, while maintaining a hardcore gaming entertainment experience, the expectation of gold farming undoubtedly endows it with legitimacy—
It's not necessary to earn while playing; however, in a life rhythm where 'making money' becomes the main thread, if playing can also yield income, why not give it a try?
If you're curious about how this game develops and what gameplay and potential rewards are worth paying attention to;
Then let's press the game login button and start a journey of interpretation.
"Farming loot," an infinite game of growth and surprise
If you are busy and in the crypto circle, what motivates you to try a new blockchain game?
I think the motivation boils down to two:
First, the non-player mindset targets gold farming directly, caring little about what the game is.
Secondly, player mindset; the game itself overlaps with my past gaming experiences, which I am familiar with, making it worth a try.
Thus, persuading a somewhat 'playful' crypto circle person often hinges on the classic nature of the gameplay:
Trying new game genres can be hindered by inertia and energy, so a gameplay that feels familiar is a more persuasive way for the game to attract players.
The gameplay of Seraph can be said to be classic to the point of being identical to (Diablo)—farming loot.
Whether you think the gameplay is classic is not important; the market and sales will filter whether a gameplay is classic.
From Diablo 1 in 1996 to today's Diablo 4, the loot farming gameplay has continued for nearly 30 years, with a constant fanbase, even giving rise to Diablo-like gameplay.
What is loot farming?
That is, level up your character, constantly find more treasures and equipment, strengthen yourself, and challenge harder scenarios to farm better equipment, and keep cycling...
Why does this repetitive farming easily captivate people, even busy individuals like Musk?
A key point is that in this type of game, you never know what the next loot you obtain will be.
Curiosity and the sense of the unknown are the best antidotes to repetition.
At first glance, Seraph is bound to excite dark game players; the character design, art design/UI, equipment system, and gameplay in both early and late stages are all in line with Diablo.
The dark flavor is very authentic; the characters, visuals, and style are familiar, giving a sense of nostalgia.
(Left: Seraph character selection interface; Right: Diablo 2 character selection interface)
In terms of gameplay, classic close and ranged profession choices and skill combination setups allow dark game players to quickly get started;
By assigning characters + custom skill tree choices (build), embark on a journey of adventure and leveling up, while obtaining better loot along the way.
Players who have played Blizzard's Diablo and Warcraft series will find themselves smiling at the gradient design of the game:
From levels 1-60, experience the game's storyline, familiarize yourself with character traits and skills;
After level 60 is the later stage, which is a 'new beginning' (similar to Diablo and World of Warcraft), where you start the journey of loot farming, obtaining better equipment, and experiencing the core farming process.
In addition to the above design, the operation-led seasonal system brings freshness.
Each season lasts 4-5 weeks, with different seasons featuring different equipment bonuses, new items, and new challenge gameplay; in other words, 'the ingredients remain the same, but the styles vary,' experiencing different loot farming fun in different styles.
In dark-themed games, each season usually starts completely from scratch, but for Web3 games, Seraph has introduced an innovative seasonal (semi) wipe mechanism (NFTs and some paid levels will be retained). This aligns with the gameplay and optimizes the economic cycle of Web3.
Thus, we can summarize Seraph's core gameplay:
BD (build a character style) + loot farming (search for different equipment) + season (BD and loot farming in different themes)
Why is this fun? Let me emphasize it again.
The first is the sense of surprise.
In the later stages of the game, loot farming involves random maps, random loot drops, and random loot attributes... This randomness in scenarios and drops creates a sense of surprise, as you never know what the next piece of equipment will be.
The second is the sense of growth.
Farming loot requires your character to have good skill combinations and build ideas, how to utilize existing equipment and skill resources to build the character, experiencing the positive feedback from character growth, transitioning from 'I can't' to 'I actually can.'
In the gaming experience, you can see mature and classic Web2 game designs everywhere; if you are a player of similar Web2 games, you almost do not need much learning cost to get started.
So, how far has Seraph come currently?
On game pace, the PTR test season has started, and anyone can enter to experience it (click here to download the game), supporting PC and Android phones;
In terms of data performance, BNB chain ranks third in active applications weekly, first in games, with over 1.5 million on-chain user visits; over 1 million active wallets in 30 days;
In terms of login experience, the game is linked to an ActPass account and asset management system. You only need to log in with an email/account, abstracting away the cumbersome management of crypto wallets and private keys, with an embedded MPC wallet, forming a model where the game is played in Seraph, while assets and transactions are managed in Actpass, a combination of the main game + a handy assistant.
Finally, in players' perception, you might not even feel it's a gold farming blockchain game—mainstream game accelerators in Web2 have even found Seraph to speed up to prevent disconnections; when have you seen blockchain games being accelerated by accelerators?
When 'farming loot' turns into a game of growth and surprise, why not give it a try?
Another key point that determines whether you will try it is how Seraph's gold farming actually works?
"Gold farming" is a rare thematic coherence
When it comes to gold farming, every crypto player is now weary of it.
Where does our disappointment and fatigue with gold farming stem from? In a word, it's the incoherence of the theme.
What does it mean for a theme to be incoherent? Most current Web3 blockchain games have an intentional gold farming suspicion—adding a dispensable gold farming setting outside the main gameplay and content, but in most cases, you could remove this setting without issues.
Thus, in terms of themes, gold farming is largely irrelevant in most games.
This irrelevance can be perceived keenly by any user; when a situation for gold farming arises, the game itself is merely a beautiful skin; what game it is doesn't matter.
Yet this skin clashes with the product category attributes of the game.
Games are interactive, content-rich, and emotionally engaging vehicles; the worst thing is to only have a skin. Gold farming in an unengaging game will inevitably reverse priorities, and over time, boredom is bound to follow.
Is there a game that can achieve this thematic coherence? That is, the game itself has gold farming as its core gameplay in the end.
In games like Seraph and other Diablo-like loot farming games, the contradictions of incoherent themes have been alleviated to the greatest extent.
Without talking about blockchain games, isn't the core theme and gameplay of dark-themed games about farming loot and equipment?
This is essentially a form of gold farming; it just depends on whether the gold can be put on-chain.
Level up your character; the gameplay process is very enjoyable, and finding treasure is even more delightful; all mechanical actions of farming are for the final treasure, and the rationality of this demand has been validated by 20 years of traditional dark-themed games.
So, the loot you farmed, from off-chain to on-chain, isn't so 'smelly' of copper; it’s just that the loot you obtained in your original game process is now NFTized, with stronger scarcity, satisfaction, and trading attributes.
Even if NFTs are not created, many Web2 dark-themed games have trading markets; even if gold cannot be traded, there are still off-market prices and speculation... The game theme has already determined the coherence of gold farming.
Because the pure purpose of the game is 'farming loot,' making the looted treasures more scarce to be put on-chain is merely a bonus, not a fundamental change.
Specifically, how does Seraph design gold farming in the game?
Like the main game process, Seraph also adopts a gradient approach to guide gold farming, from entry to output, meaning:
From familiarizing with the game to obtaining entry tickets, then to calculating input-output ratios.
First, from levels 1-60, play the game normally to farm in-game gold, that is, level up, gain experience, understand skills and gameplay, and acquire corresponding equipment and gold during the growth process; this portion is unrelated to NFTs and cannot be put on-chain, understood as the time needed to familiarize with game mechanics for gold farming.
After level 60, you can choose to engage in on-chain gold farming or not; however, not engaging means you can't continue to experience the core content of the game.
If you want to farm, you need to obtain the entry ticket for gold farming, presented in the form of equipment and resources.
Equipment: Chaos Treasures, on-chain NFT equipment; holding it equates to having a 'gold farming entry ticket,' which can be purchased in the ActPass NFT market or wallet, equivalent to the startup cost of gold farming.
Resources: Soul Crystals, consumed resources within the game; wearing the aforementioned Chaos Treasure equipment, completing challenges in specific scenarios will yield Soul Crystals.
Value equals labor crystallized: because time is required to obtain Soul Crystal resources, this endows the subsequent production of equipment with value—good equipment is 'farmed' and reflects the embodiment of value and scarcity.
With the aforementioned entry ticket, you will need Soul Crystals + Chaos equipment consumption to start your gold farming journey; a simple process is as follows:
First, wear Chaos equipment, consume Soul Crystals, and you can enter the dedicated gold farming map dungeon—Chaos Secret Realm, similar to the Greater Rifts in the Diablo series; secondly, challenging the energy of the secret realm equipment will reduce crystals, meaning there is a cost to each gold farming attempt;
Finally, after completing the secret realm challenge, you will receive various treasure chests, which can yield NFTs or NFT shards of stronger equipment to further enhance your abilities.
Since the main process of the game is to farm loot and improve oneself to farm better loot, thus generating market demand for powerful equipment, which can be sold for profit or enhance oneself, further increasing one's gold farming capabilities.
Due to space constraints, the specific effects of Seraph's equipment, market prices, and input-output ratios will not be elaborated here; interested parties can follow more professional gold farming strategies.
In conclusion, after experiencing both gold farming and non-gold farming game content, I generally feel this game is a blockchain version of Diablo, allowing for a satisfying loot farming experience while engaging in Play to Earn.
To farm better loot, you need to initiate a gold farming route; NFT equipment brings better attribute bonuses; and to farm better equipment repeatedly, the core gaming experience is completely consistent with dark-themed games, with no cognitive burden.
Indeed, it's a delight for loot farming game enthusiasts; farming loot might even lead to making money.
However, it should be noted that gold farming requires consideration of input-output ratios; the unit price of Chaos Treasures is relatively high compared to Web2 games, requiring further careful weighing.
Current participation opportunities: Test season activation codes + Enyu airdrop
Currently, Seraph's PTR test season was launched on October 17; interested players can visit here to download the game. It is important to note that this round of the season is open to all players;
Additionally, the official S1 season is about to start, and PTR seasons can generally be seen as low-cost training in this type of game; take advantage of currently free equipment to familiarize yourself with gold farming gameplay and rules, preparing for the official season to avoid detours.
To play the game, you need to activate a code. A limited number of 600 codes are issued daily, which can be reserved via email. Players who successfully reserve will receive the activation code to enter the game.
Regarding airdrops and token expectations, although Seraph has yet to announce its token TGE date, the RUSH Season 1 event is running concurrently with the PTR test, allowing players to earn activity points through task completion to enter a lottery to win 'Enyu.'
These Enyu can be exchanged for $SERAPH tokens in the future. Players can win Enyu treasure chests through point-based draws on the event page.
Enyu can be immediately minted into NFTs, and players can choose to trade or save them for future token airdrop rewards. All activities, including Enyu minting, will be managed via the previously mentioned ActPass wallet.
Blockchain games need outliers; longevity is key to the future.
Finally, in the super cycle of meme barbaric growth, talking about blockchain games seems a bit out of place.
But in this wave, you may have seen too many memes and meme-like mini-game tokens. They peak and then are forgotten in airdrops, as if everything is just for expanding the market.
Thus, in such a major trend, discussing game mechanics and playability has become an outlier.
Gaming is a mature industrial category and should bring joy for the time you invest. The popular mini-games now, conversely, do not align with the original design intent of gaming.
As entertainment products, blockchain games need outliers (if viewed from a perspective beneficial to the industry). Thus, some products must stand out to prove they can survive not just because of short-term airdrop stimuli, but due to the game mechanics themselves allowing longevity.
Seraph and other dark-themed games may have such potential—there's always someone farming in the new season, and new equipment and clearance mechanisms always attract players willing to play... Just like the traditional gaming circle claims Diablo is dying while many continue to play, having the attribute of gold farming and longevity doesn't seem so unreachable.
If they can survive into the future, games like Seraph can evidently use assets to grant new ownership of game equipment and broader trading spaces, extracting the essence and discarding the dregs.
For individuals, earning a bit while playing can attract players transitioning into middle age, finding rationality in playing games; this category is not without merit.
The consumption ability, experience, and attitude towards games of this part of users may all influence the spread within and outside the crypto circle.
Let's give it a try; play and observe.
