What is treeverse?
Treeverse is an upcoming free-to-play, play-to-earn (P2E) MMORPG built on Ethereum and developed by Endless Clouds (previously Mooner Labs). The leader behind the project is Loopify, an NFT artist who first gained prominence through the NFTrees project. Loopify announced Treeverse in Summer 2021, and mints for Founders’ Private Plots and Timeless Avatars occurred in Fall 2021.
With the explosive growth of Axie Infinity and Defi Kingdoms, there’s been a lot of hype recently around metaverse gaming and P2E. While Treeverse aims to capitalize on these narratives, its team insists their priority is building a compelling game first, while also implementing NFTs and P2E elements.
Let’s dive into what milestones Treeverse has hit so far and what the road ahead looks like.
Gameplay: MMORPG inspired by Runescape
Treeverse is still in development, and as a result the only version accessible to players now is an alpha on play.treeverse.net that will look nothing like the final game. Here’s what we know so far, based on limited available public information.
The vision for Treeverse is to build a P2E MMORPG inspired by Runescape and Stardew Valley. The game will be fantasy and sci-fi themed with a MOBA-style combat system (think Starcraft or Dota). Furthermore, while gameplay details are again minimal thus far, the team has provided some color on what skills will be available: melee, ranged, magic, crafting, mining, woodcutting, and fishing. According to the team, gameplay will be available sometime in 2022.
Still, despite the limited available information on gameplay, the team occasionally drops snippets from development hinting at what the game will look like. While a few seconds of good-looking footage doesn’t mean much in a game’s development cycle, the clips that the team has released indicate their ambitions to build a game more complex than any existing P2E games.
Obviously, as a P2E game, Treeverse will incorporate NFTs. Every in-game item will be an NFT exchangeable in the game’s marketplace, and the team has already released three main NFT collections that will play a central role in the game.
NFTrees, Founders’ Private Plots, and Timeless
The first NFT collection associated with Treeverse is NFTrees, a collection of 420 pixelated trees. NFTrees launched in February 2021 and are the genesis collection. Holders of NFTrees received a Founders’ Private Plot airdrop and a free mint for Timeless avatars.
Within the game, NFTrees can be placed inside the map and players can interact with them. NFTrees will bear fruit, which can then be sold to players for $SEED, which will be the ERC-20 tokens earned by playing. $ROOT, the other announced ERC-20 token within the game, will be the governance token.
Next, Founders’ Private Plots are a collection of 10,420 pieces of virtual land within the game. Plots can either be used as private homes, or placed on a public map. Having a private home will allow you to flex your NFT collections and have extra storage space.
Finally, Timeless are a collection of 9.4k anime-style PFP avatars. Timeless are not just a PFP project, but instead will function as unique in-game characters. Holders of Founders’ Private Plots had the option to claim a Timeless avatar for .222Ξ, while NFTree holders received a free mint. Additionally, there are five 1/1 custom Timeless avatars that are uniquely rare and valuable. The team hasn’t disclosed any utility for the Timeless yet beyond cosmetic value.
Note that none of these NFTs are necessary to play the game because Treeverse will be free-to-play. Ultimately it’s up to you to determine whether an early investment in the Treeverse ecosystem is worth it.
Treeverse Team and roadmap
Currently, there’s a team of over 20 working full-time on Treeverse. In October, the team also closed a seed round at a $25MM valuation, led by IDEO Ventures and Animoca. The driving force behind Treeverse is clearly Loopify. He has laid out an ambitious vision for a full-scale P2E MMORPG, and has emphasized his goal to make a fun game first, not just a P2E game.
In my view, any investment you make in Treeverse is an implicit bet on Loopify’s ability to execute. There’s inherently a lot of execution risk here, especially given the ambitious scope of the project. Designing a compelling MMORPG in itself is challenging for game devs, not to mention integrating fair tokenomics and NFT integration.
Still, the combination of the success of the three existing NFT collections, Loopify’s great reputation in the NFT space, and the promising development updates from the team are some reasons to be bullish. After the NFT explosion in 2021, many expect NFT and P2E gaming to be the next frontier, and the Treeverse team has a solid vision of what it could look like.
Disclaimer: I own Treeverse Founders’ Private Plots and Timeless avatars.
