Connected to the Bored Ape Yacht Club ecosystem, the Otherside Metaverse is a massive virtual world that has been developed as an online multiplayer game. Built by Yuga Labs, this Metaverse offers an immersive MMORPG gaming experience for users.
Yuga Labs is also responsible for launching the Bored Ape Yacht Club, and Mutant Ape Yacht Club, and has now ventured into the Metaverse space by raising $4.5 million at a $4 billion valuation.
Their previous projects have also been widely successful. The Bored Ape Yacht Club is considered NFT royalty in many ways due to its extravagant prices and ‘utilities’. The collection of 10,000 unique NFTs is sorted by rarity according to traits for each ‘Ape’. For example, laser eyes, gold fur, blue beams, and more are some of the characteristics that each ape offers. These traits determine the price of the Ape with an approximate current sale volume of $14 billion.
The most expensive bored ape sold to date, sold for around $3.4 million, purchased by Brandon Buchanan. The NFT collection is widely known for providing exclusive benefits to its holders such as exclusive access to new NFT collections, commercial rights to their NFTs, and more.
What is the Otherside Metaverse?
Similar to other Metaverses such as Decentraland and the Sandbox, the Otherside Metaverse is a virtual world that offers users the chance to build and shape their own experiences. Additionally, Otherside provides an opportunity to invest and earn through ‘Otherdeeds’, i.e. virtual land that can be bought and sold.
The platform uses $APE as its native currency, which can be utilized to purchase land and other items within the Metaverse. The massive demand for virtual land in the Otherside Metaverse also led to a massive spike in gas fees (up to $3000) during their land sale.
Yuga Labs’ vision for the Otherside extends far beyond the capabilities of regular metaverses, and aims at being “the new frontier of human interaction”. Their partnership with Animoca Brands has enabled them to expand their vision toward creating a massive ecosystem where NFT collectors can own their own land.
NFTs will now be turned into playable characters, as exhibited by the first Otherside demo in July 2022. 4500 Otherdeed owners were invited to be the first ones to enter the Otherside and see a glimpse of what it has to offer. The users entered the Otherside Metaverse as Avatars and followed a massive Bored Ape through a portal leading to the Metaverse. This led them to a Biogenic Swamp where users could interact with their surroundings, and explore different avatar options such as running, dancing, and more. There were also giant creatures in the surroundings that attacked if you were getting too close to them.
Yuga Labs also released a teaser in March, showing a brief introductory storyline featuring Cryptopunks, NounsNFT, Cool Cats, and more. The trailer starts off with a Bored Ape fishing while smoking a cigar. Suddenly, the ape feels a pull on his fishing rod and he hoists it up to see a bottle that says “DRINK ME”. In typical Bored Ape fashion, the ape shrugs and throws away his cigar, and downs the bottle in one. Suddenly the world starts spinning and a ‘Kodas’ (mysterious being that belongs on the Otherside) carries the Ape to the Otherside Metaverse.
While specifics are not publically available yet, the developers have announced that the game will feature natural voice chat and that they aim to solve bandwidth and latency problems using machine learning algorithms.
Yuga Lab’s belief in the power of its community is strongly depicted by the different development options it offers its users. By empowering users, the Otherside Metaverse seeks to tap into their creativity to create meaningful experiences within the virtual realm. Otherdeed holders will be allowed to participate in ‘playtests’ to determine the robustness of recent developments, in order to obtain constructive feedback from its users.
What Makes The Otherside Metaverse Special?
Yuga Lab’s emphasis on creating an immersive, engaging platform has led them to create an incredible storyline for the game to follow. To start understanding how the Otherside Metaverse is different from the others, one must first look into how their virtual lands ‘Otherdeeds’ are categorized.
1. Different Land Perks
Otherdeeds are categorized into five broad domains, i.e. Infinite Expanse, Cosmic Dream, Chemical Goo, Biogenic Swamp, and Rainbow Atmos. Infinite Expanse is the most common form of virtual land within the Otherside Metaverse, with Biogenic Swamp being the rarest.
There are a total of 200,000 Otherdeeds with 100,000 currently in distribution. 10,000 Otherdeeds were reserved for BAYC holders and 20,000 were reserved for Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) holders. 15000 Otherdeeds were reserved for the developers working on Cosmic Dream, Infinite Expanse, and Rainbow atoms.
Each land parcel offers its own resources, and also may contain unique ‘artifacts’ that cannot be created normally. For example, volcanic or sulfuric land is very rare and some of them might even have a celestial being ‘Koda’ guarding them.
2. Intriguing Storylines
One of the most interesting parts of the Otherside storyline is the lore around ‘Kodas’. The Yuga Lab team claims that they’ve kept them intentionally vague. All we know so far is that they are responsible for bringing us into the Otherside Metaverse and that we have to ‘tread carefully’ around them if we encounter them during exploration.
3. Open Data Kits
The platform also offers users the option to design and develop their own lands and NFTs. Users can obtain an Open Data Kit (ODK) that they can use to further build games within the Otherside Metaverse. Similar to other metaverses, this Metaverse also emphasizes user-generated content (UGC) and allows users to shape their own experiences, by equipping them to customize their own Avatars, environments, games, and more.
The ODK gives access to different tools:
- Manufacturing Tools: Otherdeed holders (aka Voyagers) can collect resources from within the Metaverse to ‘manufacture’ objects. However, each object type has its own resource requirements which must be fulfilled to complete manufacturing. After Voyagers have completed the manufacturing process, the objects can be utilized within the game.
- Authoring Tools: To promote collaboration, Voyagers can exchange templates to create objects for the Otherside Metaverse. These objects can be designed in 3D, and animations can also be added to templates to include audio when users interact with the object. These tools also allow Voyagers to shape their own surroundings and build structures.
- Automated Detailing: The manufacturing process involves several steps to ensure that it meets the standards of the Metaverses. These include cool features such as automated optimizations to add details to materials such as shades, colors, and scripts are also tested to see if they’re compatible.
- Moderation Checks: Other requirements include a moderation check where the objects are scanned to ensure that they meet all specified community guidelines. Tags must be applied to content to restrict it from certain groups such as NSFW etc. Each Voyager will have control over what type of content is displayed within their world.
- Resource Trading: Resources for manufacturing can be traded within the game or earned through gameplay. There are not many details available on the gameplay earning aspect of resources. However, logically, to build large objects, there would be more resources required. During the final manufacturing process, some objects may receive special properties.
It is important to remember that since the world is currently under development, the manufacturing process may receive further tweaks from time to time.
4. Partnership With Improbable
With their strategic partnership with Improbable, the Otherside Metaverse will be developed on the M2 network that would allow users to create their own avatars and shape their own experiences. This network would enable the platform to support thousands of players playing simultaneously in one place.
Most current Metaverse systems cap the number of users to reduce system requirements, but with Morpheus technology, the Otherside Metaverse would be able to maintain more than 30 FPS with high resolution. This incredible software would allow over a thousand users to exchange information, similar to Battle Royale games such as Fortnite.
Imagine thousands of Avatars being rendered at the same time in different forms of animation. These capabilities will be passed on to creators as well through tools and the ODKs. Each user would be able to build their own game and environments that would be able to support thousands of users.
5. $APE Coin
APE holders have the authority to take collective decisions by casting votes. They can decide on various components such as project selection, funds allocation, and setting rules. These decisions are made by the community in a DAO-based model. APE holders can vote for a Board of up to 5 members that execute the visions of the community. These Board members are voted in annually by ApeCoin holders.
$APE holders get access to several utilities as well, apart from governance such as access to events, merchandise, games, and other exclusive features. The currency is accepted by most merchants due to it being an ERC-20 token. BAYC holders were provided with free $APE to utilize within the Otherside Metaverse. They also have the option to cash out instantly if they’d like.
How To Turn NFTs Into Otherside Avatars?
Similar to other metaverses, users will require avatars to explore, interact and enjoy the different features that the Otherside metaverse has to offer. Yuga Labs aims to allow users to transform their NFTs into ‘avatars’ or characters that users can utilize to move around and interact within the 3D world.
For NFT holders from certain collections, the 3D versions of their NFTs are already designed and ready to go. These include Bored Ape Yacht Club, Bored Ape Kennel Club, Meebits, Mutant Ape Yacht Club, and CryptoPunks.
Other collections such as Toadz or World of Women can be transformed using the ODK provided by the Otherside Developers. There has also been a successful NFT conversion test run by Yuga Labs, where thousands of users were running around in 3D with no lag complaints by users.
The process of converting NFTs into playable characters takes up to 25 minutes and requires verification of Otherdeed land with a signature. Landowners were extremely happy with the test and were excited for new developments in the future.
How To Join the Otherside Metaverse?
Similar to virtual real estate in other Metaverses such as Decentraland and the Sandbox metaverse, the virtual land in Otherside has also gained immense popularity in the past few months. Each land parcel is registered as an NFT in the Blockchain, thus signifying sole ownership. Land is referred to as ‘Otherdeeds’ in the Otherside.
To join the Otherside Metaverse, users must first obtain Otherdeeds NFTs. This can be done by purchasing from the secondary market such as OpenSea, where the floor price of Otherside Metaverse is 2.05 ETH.
According to Yuga Labs, an Otherdeed is a representation of more than just a piece of land. It provides users the ability to be a part of a digital revolution and to participate in co-creation. The Otherdeed also signifies a plot that provides access to resources that you can utilize to build within the Otherside Metaverse, such as:
- Root Resource: Woodhttps://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/twice-baked-potatoes
- Shard Resource: Stone
- Anima Resource: Research
- Ore Resource: Metal
Users will have full ownership and control over their plots and can utilize these resources to build and shape their environments. Each Otherdeed provides its own artifacts and facilities and also provides the ability for users to utilize their external NFT collections to turn them into playable characters within the virtual world. It is important to remember that the concept is still under development and there are a lot more exciting features to come for Otherdeed holders.
If you are already a BAYC, BAKC, or MAYC holder, you may get a chance to mint Otherdeeds NFT lands. The first minting period was in April 2022, when a total of 100,000 Otherdeed NFT lands were auctioned. These lands were sold within hours of their launch for over $317 million. The remaining (100,000 Otherdeed NFT Lands) will be distributed amongst individuals contributing to the development of the game.
While the teaser of the Otherside Metaverse does show a lot of potential, it is important to remember that this project is still in its infancy. There are several hurdles that Yuga Labs and Improbable will have to get through, such as the rising concern around high gas fees during their last auction.
Another exciting option that developers have, is to join the Otherside ODK program to be able to build exciting mini-games, artifacts, character skins, and more! Creators can use their inner creativity to create their own worlds and objects that can be traded within the Metaverse.
Things To Look Out For in The Otherside Metaverse
Gas Fees
Due to massive demand, users tried to outbid each other to ‘jump queues’. This led to a massive spike in gas fees, where one user paid up to $44000 in gas fees to mint just two Otherdeeds.
Because the Ethereum Blockchain framework allows miners to be paid regardless of whether a transaction goes through or not, there were instances where users paid up to thousands of dollars in gas fees only to find out that their transactions were not recorded in the Blockchain.
However, Yuga Labs acknowledged the bottleneck and put out a tweet saying that they would refund the gas of those affected. They also apologized for ‘turning the lights off on Ethereum”, acknowledging that they would eventually have to move to their own chain to scale properly.
Scams
It is very important to remember that if you see NFTs of Kodas or Otherside artifacts for sale on secondary marketplaces, it is most likely a scam. These resources cannot be purchased as they are part of the Otherside perks for Otherdeed holders. Users can only obtain a Koda through purchasing an Otherdeed and playing the game. There is no word yet if Yuga Labs plans to release these Kodas as an NFT collection similar to the Bored Ape Yacht Club, but it is definitely clear that Kodas are going to play a major role in the Otherside Metaverse storyline.
Conclusion
This exciting Metaverse project still has a long way to go before completion. With issues such as bottlenecks on the Ethereum network, the Otherside Metaverse might find it extremely difficult to scale.
However, current performance tests and teasers have proven the project to be very promising and with Improbable leading the development behind the scenes, we may see this come to fruition much sooner than expected.
It is also important to note that this is not only a platform for Bored Ape Yacht Club users. Any individual is welcome to join, provided they purchase an Otherdeed. Yugo Lab’s initiative to open up a new virtual world within the Bored Ape Universe has been supported heavily by their community, as proven by their successful first auction.
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