What is Ethercraft?
Ethercraft is a decentralized RPG running on the Ethereum blockchain. The game and its development can be divided into three main components:
- Items: Buying, selling, and trading.
- Crafting: Combining items according to a recipe, breaking items down into raw materials, building increasingly complex items from these materials, etc. Opening loot crates and rolling other chance items are also part of the crafting system. More of this functionality will be available soon.
- The playable video game: A core game loop consisting of equipping a character, choosing tactics and sending them off to plunder dungeons and slay enemies. This is under active development, and will be available on mobile and browsers. (more information)
This post will briefly touch on items and how to buy, sell or trade them with other players. For news and updates, read the Ethercraft Medium posts, check out the Ethercraft Discord, or read the community wiki.
How to Buy Ethercraft Items
Ethercraft has launched a shop selling a variety of items that will have in-game utility. These include "free" items which only cost a transaction fee to obtain (view this video to learn how to claim free items), as well as powerful and rare items. When you purchase an item from the shop, the shop smart contract mints an ERC20 token for that item directly to your address. Owning and controlling your virtual items is important and already a part of Ethercraft, and this post details why true ownership of virtual items matters.
Series of items are only available in the shop for a limited time and after that they must be obtained from other players either through:
- The secondary market (the focus of this post)
- Looting it in a dungeon where another player died (Ethercraft is permadeath and you drop all items being used by that character if you die)
After this initial inventory offering phase, there will be a permanent shop that only sells cheap items to help new players get started, and they will also have the option to buy from other players if they want to pursue greater challenges and rewards. You can earn Ether (ETH) as loot for successfully defeating a dungeon, and with greater risk comes greater potential reward.
The Ethercraft Trading Floor and Auction House functionality is progressing smoothly, and there are also 3rd-party options that allow you to trade with other players. Etherbay is currently the recommended exchange for most cases, and the Wyvern Exchange is another option, which currently supports dutch auctions. Using these exchanges will not result in receiving a fraction of a token (which would be a problem in-game), and they make it easy to buy and sell items, especially Etherbay.
How to use Etherbay
Buyers
Simply go to the Ethercraft Listings page to see the most recent listings, click the BUY NOW button for the item you want, and complete the purchase on the Check Out page. You will need MetaMask to complete a purchase.
You can also search for a specific item, or view the listing of all Ethercraft items.
Sellers
Sellers can list an item and specify:
- Price Per Item (Token)
- Quantity Available
- End Date
You will need the browser extension MetaMask, and it takes two transactions to list an item (one-time approval for the item/token, and then adding the listing). There is a 1% fee for the seller when an order is processed.
You can manage your listings with the My Account button on the top right, and you can share out your listings with the URL:
https://www.etherbay.com/user/[Ethereum address]
Upcoming Features
Ethercraft's Trading Floor feature with support the trading of multiple different items at once. You will also be able to make offers and counter offers, just like making a deal in the village market place, but without ever needing to trust the person you are trading with (due to the transaction being processed on the blockchain).
The Ethercraft app will also be able to support trading through 3rd party options like Etherbay. As a decentralized game, the goal is to allow players to have the flexibility to use what best suits their needs.
A robust in-game economy is a vital aspect of an RPG, and the current development is building the support for the interactions between trading, crafting, and dungeon crawling.