While stalking the Dotsama space, I ran across EVRLOOT and was immediately engaged. While things remained vague, the team was present, excited, and they seemed to have a clear vision. With the launch and interest being so organic--I started to dig in more.

What I discovered kept me excited and hopeful for the future, so I asked for an interview with one of the team members, Deckard, who has seven years experience in portfolio management and has been into crypto since 2012.

The rest of the team is composed of Hoff, artwork director and video/sound design, Luuu, computer scientist focused on gaming, Seppo, moderator and crypto veteran, and Elen, full time lore writer.

After throwing the interview questions at Deckard, however, talking with fellow Wag Media writer Csaint, it seems we both saw the potential behind Evrloot, and both had asked questions at the same time.

So this is a combined interview.

If you would like to learn more about Evrloot, however, I'd highly highly highly recommend reading Csaint's summary here.

https://app.subsocial.network/6110/behind-the-nft-evrloot-31656

He does a better job at describing the project than I would've so--make sure to go there to read up on this ambitious project!

Combined Interview Questions and Answers

by Pnin and Csaint

1. Could you tell us how Evrloot came to be? I saw in discord that you were inspired by the Loot project, but how did the team come together around this idea, and why did you choose to launch it in the Dotsama space?

We were inspired by Loot a long time ago, but the real kickoff was Bruno’s Podcast, where he explained the problem with the current implementations of jpeg-based NFTs into games, and how RMRK solves the issues through multi-resource NFTs that don’t need to be forced into a single use case.

Skybreach showcased this nicely. So we decided in December to set up a core team and create some content. In January, we were in contact with Donnie, talking about integration and other use cases, and we both agreed that it was too early to not have our own use case with the only aim to be picked up. That is why we have focused on a mixture of Characters, Loot, World, and especially Lore. RMRK 2 / 3 gives us all the basics to do something really big.

2. Tell me more about your inspiration for Evrloot. I know you have mentioned Diablo; maybe dive a bit into the team’s passion for this style and why you chose it for this NFT project?

We are a group of early crypto investors who joined, not for making an initial sale, but for filling a void we didn’t see being filled within dotsama. That void is a dark, medieval classic RPG that gamers love. Besides donkeys, monkeys, and colorful animals, we think that there is space for something more serious, gamified, and lore based. When opening the discord, we saw how people thrived on our stories and that’s what drives us. Being part of an epic journey and combining that with what RMRK is capable of is exciting. From a gamification perspective, we also took a lot of inspiration from the World of Warcraft progression system and mini games like covenant missions, where you send troops out for you.

3. From what I understand, a lot of the project has to do with creating equippables across several different metaverses and collections. The physical items are unique, any idea how these may be packaged with NFTs? Also, I’ve seen you mention an interactive map, could you elaborate on this as well?

We aim for cross compatibility in Stage III in Q3+. For now our main focus is on lore integration of our own world. There will be very rare drops from missions going forward. We will send out physical drawings to the community through missions, riddles, and community engagement. One of them could have a system where you have an item that gives you the right to burn the item in exchange for an NFT that can be sent to a mailbox of your choice. The map is the starting point for future missions, lore, and global progression.

4. The lore indicates a lot more to Evrloot coming, as does the art. It would be interesting to hear how the team envisions the future. In your dream scenario, what would Evrloot become? How do you plan to, well, not become like loot ended up on ETH? (To my knowledge, Loot has not fared well. Maybe they've dug themselves out of their hole, but it didn't look good last I checked).

Indeed. We aim for April to have an initial character sale. It will be quite similar to what Kanaria did. Randomized classes (incentivizing trading between people for the "right" class) and a chance for items being already equipped to their characters.

These characters are then the starting point after the Prologue "The Voyage" for Act I "The Dunes of Trakan".

Our vision is that the game will be played mostly through a browser based interaction, sending your characters on missions in the respective ACT. So in a desert world in ACT I, you have to find out about the epic lore (we have a full time lore writer), and you can send your character on missions to earn rewards like items, experience, and lore parts to progress the game globally.

There will be hardcore features available optionally for greater rewards, but at the risk of your character NFT dying and being burnt. So these should be taken on very cautiously. There will be an active item economy as well as an economy for mission specific improvements like mounts, potions, healing, as well as companions. We have great visual city artworks and are planning on integrating ownership and housing.

5. Can you reveal any partnerships? How are you approaching collaborations? What metaverses are you already targeting?

We have a big collaboration, which I don’t want to reveal yet. As for cross compatibility, that has second priority.

6. Innovation is key in this space, and to my awareness, you have that in plenty. But is there any alpha you could share?

I guess there was a lot of alpha already. So here is a funny alpha. There will be a boat cat, named by the community, and someone will own it after descending the boat 😉. I guess we will let the community decide how to name the cat. Who knows, she might be useful down the road

7. There's a bit of mystery, as with all good NFT collections, but for the readers--what hints would you drop for people to get involved? Your whitelist system seems to have a limit of about 100 people, where the guidelines are rather vague. Do you have more hints to share on how people can get on the inside track?

Being vague is part of our strategy. We aim for first sales in April, and as you might have noticed, we are in for the long run. We have no trouble with financing, but will use the initial money directly for re-investment into the project. People on the boat right now will be amazed by how much has happened 12 months from now.

8. What is your timeline?

Our website is releasing anytime this week. There is a rough timeline on it.

Cornerstones are that we aim for a character system and initial sale April/May, Missions in Q3/4, Act II Progression next year.

9. What is an exciting vision you have of the gameplay of Evrloot?

Imagine deciding if you should send your slightly wounded Berserk into the Level 14 Scorpion Cave that is only accessible in hardcore mode. If you die, your character is burnt with the equipment, and only your chest remains. You decide to heal up for a few hours and re-evaluate. Maybe you duel another player to test your strength. You want the loot, as no one has been to the scorpion cave and returned safely. So you are sure you can sell the loot in town for an epic price - or keep it for the upcoming act.

10. How do you aim to keep the community engaged and the entry point low for new sailors?

Interacting with the world will be mainly casual. There will be hardcore lore fans, that are dedicating hours into the story. But there is also the random NFT buyer, who wants to stroll around and experience it 1h a week. We have mechanics to not linearly progress with time, to give people access that don’t devote hours into the project. On the other hand, the most unique features will be only accessible for people that push the boundaries.

11. Is there anything else you'd like to share? Could you provide me any images for publishing that you haven't released before? Any last thoughts?

We are not here to make a quick buck. We are working on content for the year to come already.

We are super hyped and focused and want to help get RMRK on the map, as it is a key differentiator of Dotsama.

After our community setup, and the first elements of interactions are done, we will aim for item integration into other projects as well.

One last thing. We have a lot of real drawings like this one, which will be part of the lore and game. They will be distributed to the community. Obviously they are super rare!

Check out their website here: https://evrloot.com/

For KSM donations for this article, please send it to: D8WrK1jsFy9zpFwFZStaDTmX32pMZVdwXTm5rt9LsRKBQrz