Interoperability in Lucid Realms
Intro
Last week, we posted an article about some of our core values here at Lucid Realms, which you can read here if you haven’t already. Of the values discussed, we emphasized two in particular: Composability and Interoperability. We explained that composability means that a system’s components can be reused and repurposed by other systems and interoperability is a characteristic of a system to work (or “operate”) with other systems. But what exactly does this mean for Lucid Realms? Rather than try to explain our approach from scratch, I’ll go over one of our biggest influences: Loot!
Loot
From their website, “Loot is a randomized adventurer gear generated and stored on chain. Stats, images, and other functionality are intentionally omitted for others to interpret. Feel free to use Loot in any way you want”. Loot took a radical approach to composability, omitting the “utility” traditionally associated with NFT projects, and leaving it up to creators to create and capture their own value by building utility atop the Loot-verse.
Loot encapsulates the core values of composability and interoperability quite perfectly, and has attracted numerous builders to use Loot bags in their own creative ways. As of now, there at least 15 different projects officially building on or alongside the official Loot project. Some of the notable examples are character builders to equip your loot and quests/games for your character to explore.
Composability in Lucid Realms
Lucid Realms will be building off the core principles outlined in the Loot Project, but with a couple of modifications.
For starters, we will be building on Solana, which we feel to be the most accessible and user-friendly blockchain due to its low fees and fast block times. Such a chain naturally attracts builders and users, evident by Solana’s vibrant NFT and DeFi ecosystem. That is not to say that we cannot go cross/multi-chain, but for the time being our efforts will be dedicated to the Solana community.
Additionally, rather than strictly optimizing for decentralization and interoperability by releasing blank-slate, utility-less NFT’s, our NFT’s will have utility from the start since they will be core components in the Lucid Realms MMORPG. However, these NFT’s will still be cross-compatible with other experiences in the Lucid Realms ecosystem. For example, one would be able to use a Genesis Wanderer NFT to redeem an NFT with the same attributes, but tailored to the specific project (like a character in a 3D shooting game).
Our key difference from Loot is our incentive system, which is arguably the most important component of an NFT project. Loot started as purely an NFT project, meaning only the holders of Loot bags had an incentive to build on Loot (to add value to their bags of Loot). The community decided tokens were needed, and eventually chose $AGLD (the first fungible token built on Loot) to be the core currency of the Loot-verse. Unfortunately at first, it was still undecided what utility these tokens would have (see this forum post), a consequence to the radical decentralization approach they took. Lucid Realms tokenomics have not yet been revealed yet, but builders are of paramount concern and therefore will be provided clear token incentives to build on Lucid Realms. The utility for our main token is clear, as its value is derived from the governance and revenue across the Lucid Realms ecosystem. Builders can leverage the community, liquidity, and assets of the Lucid Realms ecosystem to their advantage when creating their own projects, while strengthening Lucid Realms as a whole.
A Teaser Example: Lore Manga
While we have been quite vocal about building the Lucid Realms MMORPG, but haven’t yet revealed our first sub-project: a manga depicting the events of the Lucid Realms lore. The MMORPG involves lore and storytelling anyways, so we thought that having a manga depiction would be a cool way to provide another medium of expression for the Wanderers and their journeys in the Lucid Realms while separating the lore-building from the game itself. The lore will be used throughout our ecosystem, but it shouldn’t be tied to 1 specific game or project.
We are very interested in decentralized, crowdsourced world-building and storytelling, so we will be involving the community along every step of the way, giving holders the power to dictate how the lore progresses. Rather than decentralizing all at once, we will be progressively decentralizing after building out the foundations for the community to grow. We feel that this is the next evolution for NFT projects and are grateful to be paving the way for the Solana community!
interoperability