Can Illuvium attract millions of players?
There are many Web 3 projects making large moves in the space and it begs the question, is Illuvium behind or can it still maintain a first mover advantage?
This will be a really fun read where I go over some of the big things I have noticed in the space as well as diving deeper into what Illuvium’s PvP might actually look like.
Here is what I will be covering in this newsletter:
Cards of Ethernity and Gods Unchained go live on the Epic Games store
Things I wish I knew before playing Illuvium Zero
What do the new PvP leaks look like for Illuvium
Do I think Illuvium PvP could attract millions?
We will cover all of that here and more so please keep reading. I am excited to share this journey with you.
Please don’t forget to subscribe below! It really means a lot and together we can tackle the Illuvium metaverse better than anyone else.
Gods Unchained and Cards of Ethernity
Gods Unchained and Cards of Ethernity are both web 3 card games, and more recently they have both gone live on the Epic Games Store which is extremely exciting for web 3 and I will discuss why.
Firstly I should mention that both of these games do a really good job at hiding away the blockchain especially since they can reach mainstream audiences with the Epic platform. This means that they have very few barriers to accessibility similar to Hearthstone. The hard part is also integrating self custody, which they seem to have done quite well.
Them going on a mainstream platform such as Epic Games allows them to be retweeted and talked about by major Web 2 brands and influencers. Take this tweet from IGN for example.
https://twitter.com/IGN/status/1666992443869339649
This proves that being on mainstream platforms starts to break down the barriers where everyone assumes you are a scam. It also tells us that Epic Games is very receptive to even Web 3 games. Given Illuvium is built on the Unreal Engine it bodes for a very bright future. Although I cannot even guess as to how the fuel and other systems would be integrated to make the blockchain side of things less intrusive, once those problems are solved its full steam ahead.
Things I wish I knew before playing Illuvium Zero
I am just going to be honest, I royally messed up my T1 land plot. Let me tell you exactly what happened so that I can make sure you don’t make the same mistakes.
T1 land plots are at a significant disadvantage because they don’t have a multiplier unlike T2 plots and beyond. This means that your converter needs to be level 2 and you need enough power plants before you can start to really benefit from conversion. The caveat here is that before Nexus VII you don’t have enough building capacity to truly utilise converters or power plants in conjunction. What I would instead do is prioritise the passive generation of Crypton converters, go for the Nexus VII and then use the mass construction of power plants to build enough converters to support upgrades on the other buildings. The lack of fuels hinder progress a lot, especially as you start to go for those singularity scanners. It starts to become clear that mass producing converters is paramount.
I will now list off a bunch of other things I would be better considering if I were to reset my plots.
Once fuel converters are level 2, get them to 126% efficiency, they will produce 1.5x as much when converting.
Prioritise converters early on after your extractors are level 3, extractors to level 4 are a big investment on T1 and T2 plots, once your plots are sufficient don’t sleep on extractors.
Build all singularity scanners first, gather all the biodata then sell them and mass produce material labs. From my experience you don’t need more than 6 singularity scanners to gather the biodata in about a week. If you don’t overshoot this then u can use the saved credits to get the material labs faster.
T3 and T4 plots rely on power plants way less, maximise the other adjacencies and build tall rather than wide. Higher level buildings play a larger role on these plots. On T1 and T2 getting to Nexus VII and mass producing converters is way more helpful given power plants have a bigger impact.
Although playing every day is helpful the amount of plants that grow when you don’t play help offset all the time missed. The exception is gathering the fuels on T1, playing catchup on that is harder given you can’t speed it up. Collect it often and don’t waste it like I did.
These new PvP leaks for Illuvium are amazing
Illuvium Arena PB3 feels closer than ever before and given these new leaks it feels like it could really turn heads in the entire web 3 space.
In the image above you can see the updated UI for the Illuvial cards as well as the new UI for an in-game chat system. Not only is UI typically the final thing the team works on before bringing a new Beta to launch but it shows that they have thought out several aspects of many major social systems.
These things might not seem like much but not only is this great from a marketing and influencer point of view, it will help make other aspects of the game such as the Overworld feel less lonely. I have many fond memories of messaging random people in World of Warcraft and using those conversions to help alleviate any boredom during particularly dull MMO quests.
Simple additions like these will also make new players feel more welcome as they join Illuvium for the first time. Having direct access to other players offers speedy answers to answering ‘noob’ questions that is unmatched by other forms of communication. It doesn’t take much to make a player lose interest forever so enabling a system like this can have a big impact.
Could PvP attract millions of players?
Although the game excites me and I haven’t seen the core competitive gameplay loop in action, I do have a few things that I’d like to see added to the game quickly after launch to ensure it can maximise its player base.