Project Overview

Background

Funding the MMO and associated assets is by far our largest expense as a DAO and have commissioned great work such as our sprite sheets, MMO maps, and a prototype of a working game that we stress tested a few months ago.

Currently the MMO game server is not live because it needs a final push of work to leave running in a state where players can access it at any time without problems or lag.

The developer single-handedly in charge of this effort has moved onto other projects, and is not available for future work.

FACES and HPMNK are asking the DOPE DAO permission to fund a time-boxed investigation and remediation project to do the following…

1. Onboard developers who can work on the MMO back-end and front-end engine in the future
2. Swap out the non-standard authentication code for Sign in with Ethereum and Firebase authentication, which much more standard and portable across the MMO and Dopewars.gg
3. Investigate and report on issues to ensure players can join the game as their Hustler with all of their gear in their wallet without bugs and run around a quickly loading map

Responsible parties, Time & Rate

• Rate is quoted at $70/hr (100% OP) for bort#1339
• Rate is quoted at $60/hr (100% OP) for johntelman7x7#6819
• Estimates below bring cost to ~ $7760

ROI

• The DAO has invested in the MMO as the focal point to launch other experiences, such as the Starknet Game, RPS, Dope Frenzy, and other mini-games to be launched in the future.
• DAO members have spent time working on a quest module for the MMO, and planned revenue-generating items such as Turf and the Apartment Builder rely on the MMO functioning before becoming viable.
• DOPE DAO needs the MMO up and running before any of these other items are interesting to the community. It’s critical to the success of our DAO that the MMO is a high quality, always functioning service.

1. Onboard new developers

Background

The developer responsible for all of the coding work on Dope MMO has moved onto other opportunities and is no longer available to work on Dope Wars. We must bring new developers up to speed that are able to continually work on the MMO, just to get it up and running.

HPMNK has been working with two such developers on FrensLand that would like to build future experiences for Dope Wars – including the Apartment Builder. Other developers from the community have also expressed interest in working on the MMO, but have no experience doing so.

Scope

• Ensure the MMO Game Server is documented well enough for new devs to get running on their machines
• Work with new developers to answer questions about current game code structure

Deliverables

• Documentation and a script that can run the Go game server + React+Phaser front-end client on their local machine

Estimates

Responsible Party & Current Work

bort#1339 will be doing most of this work and will be the one compensated. He has completed much of it already with the Github PR request that was merged into the codebase as shown below

https://github.com/dopedao/dope-monorepo/pull/336

Acceptance

DAO members should verify that…

• A competent engineer with a few years of full-stack experience can get the game server and front-end client running on their machine after downloading the source with Github

2. Standardize authentication with Firebase

Background

The current game uses a non-standard authentication mechanism that requires a production server to be up and live at all times, even for development. This is brittle, and prevents developers from getting the MMO up and running on their local machines.

Additionally, performing authentication in memory does not allow us to scale the game service beyond one server, since authentication information is stored in memory.

On other projects, FACES has used a combination of SIWE (sign in with Ethereum) and Firebase to provide authentication across services. This is a more standard way of authenticating that is portable across games, chat, and other experiences.

Scope

• Remove custom auth code
• Enable SIWE
• Tie SIWE + Firebase auth together

Deliverables

• A game server that uses Firebase authentication, in dev and in production

Estimates

Responsible Party & Current Work

HPMNK’s developer johntelman7x7#6819 has started to work with the code, and is tracking the work in this thread in Discord. A Pull Request (PR) on github is to be submitted.

Acceptance

DAO members should verify that…

• They can sign into the game server available at dopewars.gg/game with their Ethereum wallet smoothly
• Developers can stand up the game server on their local machines and authenticate, viewing the tokens being created by Firebase in the browser Developer Tools

3. Investigate and report issues identified on the MMO

Background

Currently, logging into the game and loading the map are a poor experience. Hustlers do not load properly all of the time. Gear seems to be missing, and the experience isn’t smooth.

Loading of the map as you walk around DOPE CITY is slow, and somewhat jerky. This is not a great experience and should be optimized. We need to smooth this out to be a simple process to ensure Hustlers enjoy the experience of loading the MMO.

Deliverables

• A written proposal with time + cost to ensure Hustlers can…
  • Experience a smooth, bug-free sign in experience to the game.
  • Intuitively understand how to operate the controls of the social MMO game
  • Load their DOPE WARS inventory in game with up-to-date information from the API
  • Change Hustlers without performance problems
  • Wander around the map with up to 50 hustlers with no performance problems loading the map
  • Chat with each other flawlessly

Estimates

Scope

Investigation needs to be performed on the game server to understand what fixes we might need to budget for going forward.

With this in mind, a proposal to complete the work for stabilization should be created from the time-boxed investigation above by johntelman7x7#6819, with enough detail that another competent developer could pick up the work and complete it with specific time + cost estimates as outlined in the proposal

Acceptance

DAO members should verify that…

• A well written proposal with detailed time + cost estimates is produced that addresses the problems listed above in DELIVERABLES
• A set of minimum work is identified that can solve the problems explained above

Responsible Party & Current Work

HPMNK’s developer johntelman7x7#6819 has started to work with the code, and discovered the following items.

facesof.eth#0777 will work with him to create a proposal that addresses the most pressing concerns, such as

• Fixing slow loading of map tiles
• Ensuring Hustler inventory loads properly and can be switched easily by new players

Cost + Consultant Agreement

The work outlined above will be completed by RESPONSIBLE PARTIES contracted through the DAO. All work will be open sourced and available publicly through Github at https://github.com/dopedao. All rights, trademarks, and IP created as a result of this work will be property of the DOPE DAO.

IP & Contractor agreements should be signed by all parties as required by DAO operating agreement. https://www.notion.so/dope-wars/DIP-62-Initial-MMO-Remediation-work-a1706eb6a043410fa55510dac890a7a8#cb34ea4fbbd848c3ace26d2c8eeca533

https://www.notion.so/dope-wars/DIP-62-Initial-MMO-Remediation-work-a1706eb6a043410fa55510dac890a7a8#d5492fc150994d37930c9b83afc28d3f

Payment

Assuming THE DAO approves this proposal, the equivalent OP amount will be paid to contractors listed above.

It’s expected that payment of OP should be rendered upon Acceptance of each objective outlined above. This should result in 3 payments (or partial paymet as required) upon completion of items listed above.