In Gala’s earliest days, the only game on the platform was Town Star. As the ecosystem steadily grew, many other games entered the ranks, forming a vibrant and thriving platform for empowering games of all genres and interests. Town Star is now called Common Ground World, and to this day it stands apart as the root of the Gala gaming experience. Having come a LONG way since those early days. Common Ground World still holds a central role within the GalaChain ecosystem.
The transformative rebranding of Town Star into Common Ground World in partnership with Common Ground, the award-winning documentary from director Josh Tickell, introduces several new dynamics and features to the game, including both off-chain and on-chain assets. These new assets come along with fresh and fun ways to obtain and use them through competition and collaboration.
This paper represents an introductory list of all our exciting changes, the new mechanics to be implemented and their impact on your gaming experience. This paper includes tokenomics, a roadmap and features we will introduce in the near future.
All details shared in this document are inherently fluid as is customary with live service games; we always try to take our community’s feedback into consideration in the decision making process.
Recently Released New Content
Since Town Star became Common Ground World, we have seen players engage with exciting new features such as the first time user experience with Professor Chicken, Common Ground mode where you can build your own town and discover the wonders of regenerative agriculture, and Fast Forward and offline play, offering you new options to grow your towns. There have also been numerous quality of life improvements to the game along the way. As always, the Common Ground World team looks forward to making your gaming experience better everyday.
Roadmap
Guilds
Recently, Common Ground World Node operators received their Common Ground World Node Workload NFTs, first-of-their-kind fully transferable tokens that represent ownership of a Common Ground World Node. Common Ground World Node NFT owners will have the ability to create their own Guilds, inviting other players to join and participate in team-based competitions in order to obtain valuable Guild Resources!
Guilds can be improved to allow more member slots and more Vault space to store earned Guild Resources. These upgrades can take place by merging Common Ground World Node NFTs together through a crypto-crafting experience, combining these nodes with upgrade materials and DIRT/$SOIL!
In the continuous effort to evolve the gaming experience within Common Ground World, Gala is set to introduce two groundbreaking features: Bots and Library slots, further enhancing Guild dynamics. These additions promise to elevate the level of strategy and cooperation required, as they allow members to leverage their NFTs for collective benefits. Bots, such as the FarmBot (designed to speed up farming processes) or the TradeBot (aimed at boosting trading efficiency) can be assigned to specific Bot slots within a Guild. This strategic placement of Bots enables Guild members to optimize their in-game operations, fostering a more collaborative and efficient gaming experience.
Similarly, Library slots introduce a novel mechanism in which Guild Leaders can set their own NFTs, allowing Guild members to check them out and use them in their own towns, thus broadening the scope of strategic gameplay. Through this system, Guild members can share the benefits of specific NFTs, ensuring that every member gains from collective achievements and contributions. As Guilds evolve and improve, they will have the opportunity to acquire additional Bots and Library slots, further enhancing their capabilities and strategic advantages. This progression system not only incentivizes Guild development and cooperation but also deepens the game’s strategic elements, making the community and teamwork even more integral to success in Common Ground World.
Bots
In the early days of Town Star, the concept of Bots served a variety of future purposes within the world of the game. In the near future, these promises will finally be fulfilled to Common Ground World players. These Bots fall within two categories:
Major Bots: These Bots will have significant Guild-wide utility if equipped to a Common Ground World Node.
FarmBot: Speeds up farming processes across the whole Guild.
TradeBot: Boosts trading efficiency across the whole Guild.
BoomBot: Allows for the removal of a single obstacle by each Guild member daily.
Minor Bots: These Bots are deployed on the game board and serve their specific roles.
Cranebot: Transports resources
SaltyBot: Transports salt
Elfbot: Transports sugar
Bots are all created via crypto-crafting. On Ethereum, this is an incredibly expensive process from a gas burning perspective. This is why in the near future, all Bot parts in inventory will receive a 1/1 drop of the same parts on GalaChain, making the crypto-crafting process much more efficient and finally enabling people to build their Bots.
Note: Because the new parts will be dropped on GalaChain, your Bot parts MUST be in a GalaChain linked wallet in order to be indexed to receive the GalaChain Bots parts.
Upgradeable NFTs
Spend DIRT (off-chain game currency) or $SOIL, and a combination of three different types of upgrade materials of different rarities to improve the abilities and effects of this new category of NFTs through all 20 levels!
Here is the list of upgrade materials you will be able to obtain:
Red Common Material
Red Uncommon Material
Red Rare Material
Red Epic Material
Red Legendary Material
Blue Common Material
Blue Uncommon Material
Blue Rare Material
Blue Epic Material
Blue Legendary Material
Green Common Material
Green Uncommon Material
Green Rare Material
Green Epic Material
Green Legendary Material
Scheme showing relative cost of upgrading Upgradeable NFTs through each level.Compost Factory, a type of upgradeable NFT.
Daily Challenge
Obtain DIRT every day by collecting Town Points with your Earning NFTs*! Fulfill the daily requirement using your eligible Earning NFTs*, claim your Town Points when the challenge is complete, and receive your daily allocation of DIRT based on your performance!
*Earning NFTs include all NFTs with the capability to participate in earnings activities.
Consumable Boosts
These off-chain items can be obtained through competitions, Guild events and on the Gala Store by spending DIRT or $SOIL! They can be spent (burned) to provide time-limited boosts to one of your towns.
Common Ground Academy
This upgradeable NFT can be placed in-game to temporarily provide one or more chosen buffs to one of your towns in Common Ground, Casual or Competitive mode to maximize your strategy!
Common Ground Academy NFT image.
Schedule
We aim to deliver quarterly new features and mechanics into the game, including quality of life improvements.
Looking back at Q4 of 2023:
Common Ground mode: This brand new game mode features a persistent unique wageless town that players can customize however they want. (Delivered)
First time user experience: New users can learn the basics of the game by studying with Professor Chicken. (Delivered)
Q2 2024: Guild system & Daily Challenges
Q3 2024: Upgradeable NFTs & Common Ground Academy
Q4 2024 and 2025: Consumable Boosts, Referral Program, Town Visits, additional Guilds features including Library and Bot slots, and more!
Tokenomics
The premier fungible token to be obtained and used in Common Ground World will be $GALA, which can be obtained through PVP Competitions. $GALA can be used to obtain NFTs with special abilities in the Gala store, which can then be used inside all modes of Common Ground World. $GALA obtained in this way comes from Gala’s portion of the daily distribution.
A new off-chain in-game currency named DIRT will be introduced into the game as well.
Scheme showing Tokenomics flow.
Obtaining DIRT
Players will obtain DIRT by either operating their Common Ground World Nodes as exchange for their contribution, by collecting Town Points everyday using Earning NFTs in the Daily Challenge, or by participating in social competitions that reward this currency.
Daily Challenge
By the end of every day, a pool of DIRT will be distributed among every player that completed that day’s challenge. The amount received by each player will depend on the amount of Town Points the player contributed to the total pool of points of the day.
For example, let’s suppose only two players completed a day’s challenge. Player A contributed 800 Town points and Player B contributed only 200 Points. Player A, contributing 80% of that day’s Town Points pool will receive 80% of the DIRT pool and Player B with 20% of that day’s Town Points will receive the remaining 20% of the daily DIRT pool.
Guild & Regular Competition Rewards
Some competitions, whether they are solo or Guild-based, will grant DIRT as reward, depending on your position in the leaderboard.
Social Activities
Visiting other users’ Towns or engaging in community activities will also reward you DIRT!
Spending DIRT
DIRT will be extremely helpful to accelerate and customize your gaming experience. Users will be able to spend it on things like the following:
Improving their Common Ground World Node NFTs for Guilds
Leveling up all varieties of upgradeable NFTs
Exchanging DIRT for Consumable Boosts
Exchanging DIRT for quick in-game Cash(soft currency used to buy in-game items)
Purchasing Upgrade Materials or Crafts in the in-game store
Much more to come
Turning DIRT into $SOIL
All the DIRT collected will eventually be able to be turned into on-chain $SOIL, which will feature all the same capabilities as DIRT.
Conclusion
The team would like to deeply thank the incredible Common Ground World community for their outstanding support, whether you joined during the earliest days of Town Star or if you are recently starting this adventure. Your enthusiasm, feedback and passion pushes us to provide the best game everyday; we invite you to keep discussing, sharing your perspective and always challenging us to make the best possible gaming experience. We make Common Ground World together!
Common Ground World aims to transcend entertainment into global sustainability, promoting values and principles of environmental impact while providing a fun experience for players.
Our goal is to put power in the hands of our community to let them decide the future of the game through new content and features based on a collective mission: Organizing through Guilds, improving NFTs and enhancing the node ecosystem, among others.
Welcome to a new era of conscious gaming; welcome to Common Ground World.
The purchase or sale of any digital asset involves risk. The information in this Litepaper is provided for informational purposes only, and we urge you to read this material carefully and ask us any follow-up questions that you may have before joining the Gala Games platform. You should also consult with your legal, accounting, or tax advisors regarding any applicable laws, rules or regulations that might govern your purchase of the digital assets discussed in this Litepaper or your participation in the Gala Games platform, and regarding the tax or other financial implications of any purchase or sale. By your purchase or sale of any digital assets or tokens offered by Gala Games, you agree to assume the risks of such participation, and Gala Games disclaims any liability thereof.
THIS DOCUMENT IS PROPRIETARY TO GALA GAMES BOTH FOR PURPOSES OF COPYRIGHT AND AS RESTRICTED BUSINESS CONTENT AND IS INTENDED FOR PLAYERS USE ONLY. NO PART OF THESE MATERIALS MAY BE REPRODUCED OR DISTRIBUTED TO ANY THIRD PARTY EXCEPT WITH WRITTEN PERMISSION.
Echoes of Empire is a web3 space MMO that combines deep strategy, engaging gameplay, and a dynamic economic system of player ownership. Set in a vast universe consisting of quadrants of space, players can explore, trade, and fight to expand their influence and claim territory. This litepaper outlines the core gameplay mechanics and interactions, providing a comprehensive overview of the game’s design, mechanics, and economic plans.
Overview of Gameplay
Homebase
The core of Echoes of Empire gameplay takes place on a massive scale, larger than any simple planetary inhabitant can comprehend. Each player is the leader of a noble house or family that controls a huge Homebase space station with the capacity to explore known space, mine resources from Celestial Bodies, craft thousands of ships, and battle with enemies. Players are far too important in the grand scheme of the game’s narrative to be relegated to a single planet or habitable moon; therefore, the Echoes of Empire board is the entirety of known outer space. In fact, within the game’s Galaxy view, players and Celestial Objects are represented as tabletop gaming tokens.
Players interact with the game in either Homebase view, where ships, base buildings and blueprints are upgraded and resources are collected, or Galaxy view, where Celestial Bodies and enemy Homebases are viewable for things like harvest deployments and raids.
Your Homebase is HUGE–Big enough to build and manage entire fleets and military operations.
Gameplay
In Echoes of Empire, each player explores the sprawling remains of the crumbled Empire, whose holdings are all up for grabs. Players explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate their way to intergalactic notoriety, using technology from the 3 galactic factions (Arbeiters, Royals and Garrison) which led to the Empire’s downfall. The player’s primary role is that of curator/collector, using resources and strategy to maximize efficiency and growth.
Echoes of Empire is built around various gameplay interactions that drive the player’s experience. These interactions can be broadly classified into the following categories:
Exploration: Through exploration, players can discover and navigate new Celestial Objects. A Celestial Object is anything marked on the Galaxy map and given a rarity.
Combat: Players engage in strategic battles with enemy fleets to achieve strategic objectives or to protect their own assets. At launch, combat will take place only at players’ Homebases and at Celestial Objects that contain resource mines. Future updates will expand the locations where combat can take place.
Trade: To fulfill individual needs or advance their in-game goals, each player may trade resources and assets with other players, but full trade features will not yet be available at launch.
Progression: By advancing their character, fleet, or assets through various activities and mechanics, players can unlock new abilities and features.
Questing: Players participate in narrative-driven missions or tasks, challenging them to achieve specific objectives and receive rewards.
Landholding: Players may acquire and manage their own Celestial Objects via Celestial Claims in order to control resources, access services, and establish strategic presence.
Provisioning: Various items known broadly as Featured Holdings may be obtained through transactions, crafting, or other in-game methods to build and maintain a player’s inventory.
Management: Through resource allocation and strategic decision-making, players can optimize the performance of holdings, such as Fleets and Celestial Objects.
Maintenance: Players must keep up their Homebases and stay competitive by maintaining the functionality and durability of their holdings. Examples are repairing and salvaging ships or managing Homebase operations.
Player Goals
The player’s primary goals are to increase their prominence and influence throughout the Celestial Objects in the various ways described below.
While elements of PvP contention exist and form strong parts of the Echoes of Empire narrative, they are not central to the player experience of upgrading and expanding one’s empire.
Economic System
The economic system consists of several key components, including resource generation and consumption, sinks and faucets, and the role of the game’s web3 elements made possible by GalaChain.
Resource Generation and Consumption
Send multiple fleets to harvest resources from multiple mines on a single Celestial Object like this Epic planet.
Resources are in-game (non-minted) tokens necessary for various interactions such as crafting, trade, and progression. There are 3 main resources (Ore, Vapor, Composite) that can be generated through multiple means (faucets):
Harvesting: Players can collect resources from mines on various Celestial Objects scattered throughout the universe.
Production: Homebases produce resources over time via the 3 upgradeable Extractor buildings. Each Extractor also has a corresponding Vault that allows a certain quantity of the designated resource to be protected against raids. In order to maximize Extractor resource production, players must regularly harvest extracted resources. Upgrading Extractors increases maximum time between claims while maintaining efficiency.
Salvage: When a player has upgraded their Capital Ship Blueprints and unlocked higher tiers of ships, old ships may be scrapped for resources.
Achievement: Players can acquire resources through trade or other in-game interactions such as quests. This includes the new player tutorial, in which valuable resources are awarded for upgrading Homebase buildings.
Trade: With a future update, resources will become tradable between players, or with NPC “vendors.”
These resources can also be consumed in several ways to benefit the player experience, including (sinks):
Crafting: Players use resources to create items such as ships
Trade: With a future update, resources will become tradable between players, or with NPC “vendors.”
Upkeep, Upgrades and Maintenance: Players must spend resources to upgrade and maintain their fleets, Homebases, and owned Celestial Objects.
$GALA Integration and Rewards
Echoes of Empire is powered by GalaChain.
By leveraging web3 tech, Echoes of Empire provides a transparent and secure environment for economic and social interactions. The use of minted items enables players to own in-game assets, such as Ships, Blueprints, Celestial Objects and more. These owned items can be bridged off GalaChain or traded through the in-game marketplace (in a future update).
Many owned items can be permanently upgraded on-chain, allowing active players to use both gameplay and secondary market commerce to find opportunities to increase their in-game holdings.
A designated in-game (non-minted) currency called Stardust is central to the reward structure for Echoes of Empire.
Stardust
Stardust is a special in-game token that can only be obtained by harvesting the mines on Celestial Objects that are owned by other players. When a Celestial Object is unowned, it does not produce Stardust, but if it gets claimed by an owner via a Celestial Claim Token, it will begin producing Stardust.
$GALA is earned and distributed daily from a reward pool (described in detail below) to all eligible players, and Stardust is the sole determining factor for daily $GALA distribution rewards for players.
Raiding for Stardust
Players may raid one another and steal Stardust, and a certain amount of Stardust is protected according to the Homebase level of their Command Center.
Stardust to $GALA Rewards
Each day at 2pm PT, 50% of the Stardust stored in each player’s Homebase is burned and replaced in the player’s Gala account as a $GALA claim allowance. The amount of $GALA available in this reward pool is determined by the total spent on purchases made in the Echoes of Empire store from the previous day.
The percentage of Stardust contributed to the daily burn is directly proportional to the percentage of $GALA from the reward pool that player will receive. $GALA reward tokens will build up daily as a Claim Allowance, to be claimed when the player chooses through their account.
Owners of Celestial Objects also automatically receive a portion of the Stardust generated from other players’ mining of the mines on that Celestial Object. Owners of Celestial Objects set the percentage of Stardust that will be shared with them when the mines on their Celestial Object are used by other players.
“Ownable” Items
Several types of items in Echoes of Empire can be owned by players as GalaChain minted items. This section of the Litepaper outlines the different types of ownership available to players within the game.
Credit Packs
Players can complete upgrades and builds at FTL speed when using Credits!
Credits are a special in-game currency that is sometimes rewarded for achievements. Resource packs (Composite, Ore, Vapor) may be purchased in-game directly for Credits, or Credits may be spent to expedite (eliminate wait time on) upgrade and building processes.
Credit Packs are sold as expendable minted items in the Gala Games store.
Special Blueprints
Capital Ship Blueprints are upgraded in the Research Lab of a Player’s Homebase. Some special Blueprints are only available as GalaChain minted items, purchased from the Gala Games store.
Skins and Cosmetics
Players can use minted items such as Homebase Skins, Ship Skins or exclusive Avatars to create a personalized experience within the game.
Celestial Objects
Celestial Objects come in many different sizes, types and rarities.
Celestial Objects are in-game locations that offer resources, services, or strategic opportunities. Many Celestial Objects may be claimed for ownership by players through the use of a Celestial Claim token for the object’s corresponding sector and rarity.
Essentially, every marked location in the Galaxy view is a Celestial Object, but not every Celestial Object is owned or has the option to be claimed by an owner. For example, no Common Celestial Claim Tokens have been sold via presale, but there are many Common Celestial Objects throughout the Echoes of Empire Galaxy.
Claiming a Celestial Object
By owning a Celestial Claim Token, a player gains the ability to Claim any Celestial Object of the Claim’s specified rarity in the specified quadrant. This Claim action is permanent and may be taken directly from the game’s Galaxy view.
When you claim a Celestial Object using a Celestial Claim Token, your Claim Token is burned and a new Deed token for that Celestial Object is minted to your Gala account, immediately accessible in-game.
Celestial Object Upgrades and Maintenance
Depending on its rarity, your Celestial Object can be upgraded to unlock more mines or additional resources.
By understanding the different types of ownership in Echoes of Empire, players can make informed decisions about how to engage with the game’s economic systems, social interactions, and strategic opportunities. This dynamic landscape of ownership creates an immersive and player-driven experience that lies at the heart of the Echoes of Empire universe.
Prepare for Launch
Echoes of Empire combines engaging 4x gameplay with a dynamic, player-driven economy to foster a rewarding and immersive player experience that always puts quality of gameplay first.
There are many more details and strategic nuances to Echoes of Empire than have been shared in this litepaper, so look out for updates from the development team as we prepare for launch before the end of January 2024.
The rush for galactic glory begins on Tuesday, January 30th!
Subject to Change
Any and all details in this litepaper document are subject to change without notice and for any reason. This document has been presented in good faith to the Gala Games community to assist Echoes of Empire fans in their early strategic decisions.
Any substantial edits to this document will be announced to the community in Discord and logged at the bottom of this blog.
