Introduction

It’s hard to conceive that we only minted our first apartment on September 14th this year. Already so many exciting things have happened here at Ethereum Towers and this update will serve as an overview, ‘round up’ if you will, of some of the big news so far as we look forward to the new year and the launch of Tower 2.

Appointments

As you are most likely aware, the Senior Leadership Team up until now has consisted of the three founding partners; Jason, Shane and Brandon and for start-up purposes this model has served us extremely well. However, as the project is expanding it has become obvious to us that we needed an extra set of hands to help us with the day to day running of the community (Discord etc) as well as management of the team of mods and supporters that work tirelessly behind the scenes. 

As it happened someone with the perfect skill set for the role was already within our midst adding value and support before our very eyes. Someone that could keep our community thriving and fun but with softer skills to understand the idiosyncrasies and needs of the individuals that we care so much about; our stakeholders. With this in mind we are pleased to announce that Emma has joined the team as Ethereum Towers Community Admin, and will be responsible for community support and events. We hope that you will help make her feel welcome and help her to embed herself in this key role. 

Game Development

As the project has gone from strength to strength it has dawned on us the responsibility and enormity that has been placed on our relatively new startup project. In the first instance we began our journey working alongside small companies and sole traders to undertake the design of the software used to power Ethereum Towers and the surrounding world. It has become clear to us that this was unsustainable for ourselves and the developers to deliver the quality that has come to be expected of us within such a short space of time. This has led us to reach out to larger and more established players in the market. 

After several weeks of interviews, discussions and deliberations we are finally pleased to announce that we have signed a contract with Argentics as our gaming studio for the pre-production design of the Metaverse and towers. All of our shortlisted choices were of a high calibre but Argentics’ responsiveness to ideas, previous testimonials and blockchain experience clinched the deal and we look forward to working with them.

Packets of work that they will be undertaking over the next 6 weeks include:

• Game Design Document (GDD) – mechanics/ theme/ art style/ core game loop
• Technical Architecture Document – technologies/ tech stack recommendations
• Web3 Integration Analysis – tangible visual elements
• 3D Environmental Model Visuals – standard and luxury (not penthouse)
• UI sketch – in game screen

All of this will then be amalgamated into one document which will form the proposal of the Minimal Viable Product (MVP). Keep your eyes peeled in the Discord and future blogs for outputs from this work. We will also be verifying this with third parties to ensure that the model is well thought out, future proof and costed accurately. 

Smart Contract

Similar to the circumstances of the game development journey,  we’ve investigated more established experts in this area and we have appointed a partner to work with moving forward. We have chosen this partner due to their extensive experience and relevant skill sets such as security stabilisation as well as having an impressive portfolio including work carried out for Volvo and DHL. It is worth noting that this company has key knowledge and experience on token development as well as deploying bespoke market places for other endeavours, something that we visualise will be valuable for future rollout. 

Digital Occupancy Map

Since the project’s inception it has been our desire to disrupt the standard horizontal metaverse model. By building vertically we believe that the access to community and amenities will be in closer proximity and in logical locations which will increase the user’s experience exponentially. As with any disruptive ventures there are challenges to overcome and our main challenge so far has been to display the space/ apartments that players will own in a meaningful way. 

It was clear to us that a 2D model would be inefficient from a UX perspective so we have engaged with a bespoke software design company to help us build a 3D rendering of the occupancy map. This will have similar functionality to real estate apps, where players and potential buyers can explore the buildings and navigate different floors via a series of filters e.g. show only apartments that are up for sale. It will be based on the industry standard; Playcanvas over the coming months. We believe that this exciting visual will help to engage residents and spectators alike as well as adding value to the usability of the apartment itself. 

Collaborations

Tower 1 is currently at 2/3 its total occupancy and from this we have generated over $1million on OpenSea despite most of the apartments being free to mint. We believe that this level of success has only come about due to our members that are actively involved within our Discord. This community is only thriving because of the many collaborations we have undertaken over our relatively short lifespan. To date we have had over 25 official collaborations (of a potential 70) with prominent NFT projects from Dapper Dinos to Space Punks Club to Boss Beauties. Each of these opportunities has brought new and interesting members to our community as well as providing the backbone to the free mint initiative by obtaining apartments and floors for their members. One of our most recent collabs is with the highly respected Twitter influencer Zeneca. Their ZenAcademy is designed to be a knowledge base to educate newcomers into the NFT space on all aspects of NFT ownership. We are very excited to expand on our partnership with ZenAcademy in the coming months and years. 

More exciting collaborations are on the way and we look forward to welcoming their community members with open arms into the Ethereum Towers family. For more information on a potential collaboration with us please contact Shane via email shane@ethereumtowers.com. 

Outro

This is just the tip of the iceberg of what has happened so far and what is on the horizon. Stay tuned for future updates where we will be covering topics such as our native token and the tokenomics that surrounds it, the charity framework we are developing to give back to causes close to our and communities’ hearts, and the architectural design and how we arrived at our wonderfully designed towers. Until next time.