Sipher — Crypto NFT Game Analysis
In this article, I will analyse Sipher based on 7 conditions, which I believe are quality determinants of a good NFT game.
When you get to a certain age, you’ll soon realise that a hearty bowl of Shin Ramyeon in the middle of the night is not just a bowl of noodles. It puts a smile on your face. It is happiness. It is pleasure in its simplest form. It is like tasting candy for the first time when we could barely walk. You know what else rekindles the kiddo in us? Games. The gaming industry will never die, and it will only continue to evolve quicker than we can ever imagine. This is why I’m excited about NFT games. In the past, we don’t truly own anything in the game. Now, we own the characters that we play. We own the equipment that we use. Best part of it all? We own what we earn in game. Enough rambling, let’s dive straight in, shall we?
Intuitive
When we take a first look at Sipher, specifically the video teaser (You gotta scroll down to 3/4 of the website to find the video), the art is extraordinary. Yes, I’m certain there will be Illuvium fan boys out there saying that if Sipher’s art is extraordinary, then Illuvium’s art is beyond extraordinary. No doubt, Illuvium’s art is insane, and by all degrees, that is an understatement. However, the point that I’m trying to bring across when it comes to analysing NFT games, is that the art style should click for you. In this case, Sipher’s art style definitely works for me.
Somehow, it reminds of a Dystopian version of Team Fortress 2. Unfortunately, we still do not know what kind of gameplay the team is planning to launch. They mentioned that they’ve got plans for a open-world MMORPG. I’m thinking along the lines of Guild Wars 2. If they can make that happen, especially if they can make that happen soon, it will be interesting to see how it competes against the likes of Axie Infinity.
Founder and Team’s Past Experiences and Successes
One of the major red flags of a NFT project is an anonymous team. It is cool. It is mysterious. I get it. But if you’re gonna invest thousands of dollars into a project, it feels safer to see a human face and know that you can actually hold someone accountable if something goes wrong. Furthermore, if the team has 1 or 2 charismatic community managers, it can push the team by leaps and bounds when it comes to interacting with the public. For Sipher, the team is not only public and huge at the moment, they’re pretty experienced. You can stalk each one of them here.
Roadmap, Whitepaper, Vision and Tokenomics
From my understanding, Sipher do not have a whitepaper. But, you can find out a lot about them from SipherHQ, FAQ and Roadmap. Timeline wise, the team has been meeting deadlines consistently. One thing that I find uncomfortable with is not knowing about the game’s tokenomics. We do not know what the governance token do. We do not know the burning mechanics put in place. We do not know if there will be a healthy economy, at least in theory. I guess it is fair since the PvE playable demo is only set to come out within the periods of January — March 2022. It coincides with the Sipher token public sale. Let’s hope we can find out more about this as time lapses on.
Community
Hop onto their Discord for a couple of minutes, and you’ll find that almost everyone is pretty friendly in there. There is a reason for this, though it only accounts partially for it. Community members who participate in conversations actively and help out newcomers have a chance to earn Charms. Charms are required to enter into Sipher’s whitelist. There is an incentive to be friendly and help out people in the chat. It is a smart move as the whitelist do not encompass any Tom, Dick and Harry, but only people who have shown substantial amount of interest in the game.
Genesis Characters
I sincerely believe that the first batch of genesis characters should have unique attributes or tangible benefits to holders. One of the simplest example is Galaxy Fight Club. You earn at least $5 GCOIN passively per day for having a Genesis Fighter in your wallet. For Sipher, each genesis Sipher allows you to have an early access to the game. Personally, this isn’t a big thing for me. However, it is a good opportunity to find out more about the game. Perhaps, you’ll be able to figure out what are the better equipment to look out for when it is officially launched for sale.
Next, you’ll be put onto the priority list for future presale. The medium article said that you may even be able to mint future Sipher Race NFTs for free as part of the Guildmaster Program. Next, as a genesis Sipher holder, you will be able to mint limited edition parts of a spaceship, which is a flying mount your Sipher characters will be able to use in-game. I don’t understand why it has to be parts, why not the full spaceship?
Moving on, you can also mint a free Sipher Comic Mint Pass. The comics will be about the story of Sipheria. The team is also looking to provide other benefits, however they also stated that we may not see an immediate return on investment. From the looks of it, it appears that there isn’t much direct benefit to being a genesis Sipher holder. However, we can’t rule out the fact that gameplay isn’t out, and much of the benefits have to do with gameplay. Until the gameplay is out, we’ll never know enough of the perks of a genesis Sipher.
Lending
From the Guildmaster Program, we’re able to create an income source for ourselves and others by lending out our Sipher recruits to other players. We can also create our own guild to connect lenders with those who may not have the resources available to recruit a Sipher to play the game. In short, the team has plans to include the lending mechanic in the game. Even though there isn’t much information on this, it is definitely a good start. I sincerely believe that all NFT games need to have a lending feature to increase mass adoption. Not everyone is willing to spend hundreds of dollars to try a game, especially for players in emerging countries such as Philippines and Vietnam. Lending is definitely a win-win solution.
Dynamic
I need to find a better word to replace this term. My personal belief is that I don’t believe in turn-based (auto-play) games. Sure, there is a huge community behind Hearthstone and Gods Unchained. But, turn-based games are fundamentally not as entertaining to watch as compared to games such as Counter Strike, Fortnite and DotA 2. The reason why I believe dynamic games will turn out to be a better bet is due to the fact that it encompasses more possibilities for things to happen in a game. The element of unpredictability tied together with individual skills and a team’s personality makes it more fun and entertaining. It seems highly unlikely that Sipher is a turn-based game for now.
Closing Thoughts
We’re still very early onto Sipher. We don’t know much about its tokenomics, lending system and how a Genesis Sipher is gonna completely melt the face off the 2nd generation Siphers. I believe when the team releases a video of its functional gameplay, things would be a lot clearer. Decisions would be a lot easier, and that will be a game changer.
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