Cardano NFT: Wolves of Rome

This week’s guest on the Cardano NFT Column is a project building a trading card game (TCG) reminiscent of famous TCGs like “Magic: The Gathering” and “Yu-Gi-Oh!”: Wolves of Rome.

Last week’s guest was an NFT and metaverse project that has the peculiarity of having its pieces handmade out of clay.

This initiative is a point of reference for NFTs on Cardano and every week or two we will invite someone to answer some questions and give us an update directly from within the Cardano community.

Considering that many of our readers are new to the crypto space, we will have a mix of simple and technical questions.

Cardano NFT project: Wolves of Rome

Hey, glad to have you here. Please introduce your team, where are you from, what are your backgrounds?

We have a pretty big team who hail from all over the world. Most of our team are based in Europe with some in South Africa and others in the US. 

I’d suggest having a look at our team page for more info (yea we’re all doxxed). 

How was Wolves of Rome born? What’s its story and why have you chosen Cardano for your project?

The world around WoR was first conceptualized a few years ago by our magnificent writer, Akira. He created an entire backstory to our universe and its different Empires; their history, their political agendas, legendary figures, religions and much more. 

Our reason for choosing Cardano was, firstly, because we were already present in the space ourselves, as investors, believers and community members. Secondly, we identify with the strength of being among the first movers on a blockchain like Cardano. And thirdly; we relate to the Cardano community’s steady and methodical approach to development & research.  

You’ve taken a different approach to many other projects by launching a playable version of the game before releasing NFTs, can you share more about this? How did you fund the initial development?

We felt that if you are a creator who truly believes in a product with the means to self fund to a point, you should. We 100% believe in what we are doing at WoR and feel that it is only right that we take on the initial risk as opposed to putting it on the community. Hence,  we quietly worked in the background to build a working game in order to present a proof of concept to our community before they are ever required to buy an NFT. 

Obviously we recognize not all projects are in a position to do this, but if you are, you should. The crypto community are no strangers to rug pulls and let downs, so we wanted to show before we tell.

After being in development since Aug. ‘21 with open alpha testing since Jan. ‘22, we are finally gearing up for our first utility NFT sale which will be stacked with rewards and redeemable items in-game. You can read about our Empires NFT drops here. 

You’re preparing an NFT launch, please tell us more. And please expand on how you’re integrating NFT technology in your game

The season 1 release of our Empires NFTs includes 2000 high quality, uniquely permuted, 3D Roman (Wolf) bust statuettes. There will be a total of 6 seasons, each released approximately 2.5 months after the previous. Each drop represents one of our Empires (Rome, Egypt, Carthage etc.). 

These NFTs will NOT be used in our game, as our game is not connected to the blockchain at all. We firmly believe that to bridge the gap between the regular gamers and the web3 gaming space, we need to make the “crypto” aspect as unnoticeable as possible. Hence, our Empires NFTs are purely for community engagement, but sticking to our principles they HAVE TO be stacked with utility (I refer to the previous link above to learn more). 

We have opted for a very simple method, the server syncing to the player’s crypto wallet, reading the existence of WoR NFTs whether they are cards, or our Empires Genesis series and then producing those cards or their utility in the game client. So if you buy a WoR card on the secondary market and hold it in your game registered wallet you will be able to use that card in game. Fairly basic, but we are firm believers in using the blockchain only where it makes sense.

We want WoR to be accessible to players regardless of whether they are on the blockchain or not so we adopted what we call the ‘choose-to-mint’ system, wherein players are only required to mint their assets if they want to sell them on secondary markets or interact with them on the blockchain.

Great stuff. Any final words? Where can people find you?

We’re not just busy creating a really fun to play game, we’re also building a community of like-minded people who are equally enthralled by the prospect of gaming in crypto – and especially TCG gaming. Anyone who wants to share in this vision, are welcome to come geek out the vision with us on Discord or Twitter. 

Disclaimer: The opinions and views of the people interviewed are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Cardano Foundation or IOG. Moreover, this content is for educational purposes, it doesn’t constitute financial advice.