Wow! Sunday was such a blur. I can’t believe ZerpCraft is finally launched and in the hands of players. The turnout was amazing and I’m so excited to see the beginnings of what everyone is building. Thank you to all who participated. The community was a great support as we pivoted away from the meltdown of the first Launch weekend. I wanted to take some time to write down my thoughts in long form, so if you just want the project roadmap tldr, skip down to the XLS-20 section.
The RippleX Development grant that ZerpCraft was awarded was intended to be a 6-month project. End of March was roughly the 6-month mark, so I’m glad that we made it across the finish line! I’m sure Ripple wouldn’t be breathing down my neck too much if things took longer. In fact, they’ve been very hands off about the whole development process which is nice. Having said that, I wanted to push myself to launch within that timeframe and I’m relieved that was accomplished.
I’ve been working on ZerpCraft in some form for close to 2 years now. The pace picked up once the grant was awarded, and I’ve been running faster and faster, especially the past 3 months. The last month or more, I’ve worked on ZerpCraft every waking moment. Before I go to work in the morning, during my lunch break, and every evening until it’s time to do it all over again. I’m 100% aware that this is an exact recipe for burnout, and I need to be intentional about setting boundaries and finding ways to offload some of the ZerpCraft work that’s on my plate. I don’t have plans of quitting my job to work on ZerpCraft full time, but I am totally open to brining on more help to continue to build the project.
With that introduction, I get to finally announce that Lada from the Elite Realism team will be working as a Server Administrator starting April 1st. He already has been an immense help getting the project off the ground, but now he’s onboard in an official capacity.
I’m also open to some sort of Community Manager position. I would only want to onboard someone who has been involved with the project already. Working on setting up server events, Discord moderation, managing the Partner waitlist/onboarding are all things that could be taken care of by someone else to free up my time for software development. If this sounds like a fit for you, DM me.
So after I get through some Post-Launch Cleanup and the public opening on April 2nd, I should have more time carved out for the actual development of the ZerpCraft plugin. That’s what we’re all here for, right? So here is a general roadmap of how I’m thinking about developing the software into the future.
XLS-20
The public messaging from Ripple is indicating that XLS-20 will be up for amendment voting sometime in April. There’s no timeline for how long it will sit as an amendment until it gets voted in. I have to be honest; April was far earlier than I was expecting. My personal hunch was more like late Summer early Fall. That could still be the case with how long voting takes, but it could be much sooner. So I want to make sure I’m clear. Just because XLS-20 arrives on Main net, doesn’t mean that ZerpCraft will be ready to jump over day one. I’m a solo developer working on this on nights and weekends. XLS-20 is my top priority, but I’m not going to set an arbitrary date or push myself to burnout to accomplish this. I will roll out the migration in phases. Partners and Founders will get to migrate first. This will allow me to test and make sure everything is working as expected. A date will only be set once I’m 100% confident in the migration path and the code on the other side working as expected.
Once migration to XLS-20 is open. I will allow land purchases on the server for 3 more weeks. After that point in time, the maximum supply of land will be established and if players want to buy land on the ZerpCraft server, they will have to buy it on the open market. I’ll detail the specifics of this in a v2 of the ZerpCraft whitepaper when the time is appropriate.
ZerpCraft Plugin and Property Rights
The ZerpCraft plugin needs a decent amount of cleanup. I had to write some scrappy code to pivot away from the first Launch weekend. I also need to program a handful of admin tools to make our lives easier when troubleshooting and fixing technical problems.
But once code cleanup is complete, I can start enabling some more features to ZerpCraft property rights! The first piece I’d like to tackle is geofencing. Right now players can explore anyone’s property, but geofencing would allow for land owners to prevent players from stepping on without permission. Some new cool use cases should arise out of that. Private build exhibitions that players must pay a small fee to enter? Perhaps a clubhouse with an entry fee? I’m excited to see what players will come up with.
Official NFT Partner Program
Interest in the Partner Program has grown non-stop since February. ZerpCraft provides a great way for XRPL NFT projects to engage their communities in a “metaverse” and allows them to build together in a unique way. Frankly, it’s also nice to have something to do while we wait on XLS-20 to launch!
My current problem is the interest in the Partnership Program has outstripped Elite Realism’s and my own ability to onboard. Every time I announce a new Partner, I get three more projects interested in joining. Even at our fastest pacing, it would take us 6 months to get through the current waitlist. Obviously, that’s not a good experience, so we’re working on splitting the Partner Program into 2 offerings. The new offering will be cheaper, and we can onboard a lot faster. I’m hoping to get an info sheet finished this weekend that I can send out. The goal is to provide NFT projects an easier entry point where their communities can engage with the land they own, but at the same time still benefit from the build experience of the Elite Realism team. Stay tuned for more details.
Wrapping up
Thanks again for everyone who has had my back and supported me thus far. I can say at this point that the ZerpCraft project is a success and will have the support and backing of myself and the Elite Realism team for a long time to come. This is only the beginning and I’m excited to see what we build together.