Not too long ago we reported that the in-development free-to-play blockchain sandbox MMORPG Ember Sword will be migrating to Immutable X, a layer 2 scaling solution built on Ethereum. After several hiccups that resulted in halting the migration process, things are starting to move along on the migration front. We chatted with the Ember Sword team to hear a little more about the migration.
Ember Sword has had a pretty busy year so far. They’ve released their pre-alpha technical test, and made good on their intent to migrate from Polygon, to Immutable X. The reasons for the transition were multifaceted as outlined by the blog post that accompanied the announcement.
“We have many great reasons for this partnership — massive speed and responsiveness for transactions, increased accessibility, improved security, the ability to pay with a credit card, and more. Additionally, upon migration, badge holders will benefit from changing their ERC-1155 to non-fungible ERC-721, making each of them fully unique. All in all, this is another step towards making Ember Sword secure and, more importantly, accessible to as many people as possible.”
-Ember Sword Team, Ember Sword Medium Blog Post
Immutable X boasts instant trades, zero gas fees, carbon neutrality and a secure framework as it’s built on Ethereum. The transition began June 8th, and was halted on June 9th due to the Immutable X migration system getting overwhelmed by transactions. Those that had attempted to migrate were told to wait 24 hours before their transactions could be seen on Immutascan, a block explorer where transactions through Immutable X can be viewed and tracked. The timeframe was then extended to an additional 48 hours before players would see their assets on Immutable X. Despite many players receiving their land after following the migration process, an ongoing issue related to the Badges players bought, is still ongoing.
“…A small percentage have provided feedback that you have experienced that your badges are invalid and not shown.
This happened due to a technical issue and we are happy to report that this issue has now been resolved. We wanted to reassure those who have experienced this issue and let you know that you have nothing to worry about. We know this creates frustration, but rest assured your badges will be reissued and visible in short time.”
-Hirikari, Ember Sword Discord Announcement
Many potential players and asset investors were wondering how integral it is that they migrate their land and badges. “Moving forward, only IMX assets will be usable for testing.” The team told us. They also provided rewards of the IMX utility token for those that migrated early. Up to 20,000 IMX tokens could be earned, and they were providing 1 IMX token (the equivalent of about $0.84 USD as of this article) for every asset transferred. The token is used to power the Immutable X protocol, for governance (voting power of the protocol), as well as for transaction fees. The token is also available for staking rewards, which means players can earn an incentive, such as more of the token, as a return for locking their tokens with the intent that they won’t be trading it.
Now that the Immutable X migration is moving along, the conversation turned to the recent Ember Sword technical test. As technical tests go, it wasn’t meant to set any expectations on what players should glean from the Alpha, or Beta tests of the future. The tests were planned for three separate testing dates, but after the second test concluded, Bright Star Studios decided they no longer required the third test. “Since this was a technical test, our primary goal was to gather as much statistics as possible on server stability, performance, client stability and as well as things like latency. After 2 sessions we were pleased to have gained the information we needed to improve our server infrastructure and engine.” They stated.
The tests were initially pushed back from the end of 2021, to April of 2022, and when asked when we could expect the first Alpha test, which was originally planned for Q1 of 2022, we were told that they can’t comment at the moment, and to keep our eyes peeled for the next testing phase announcement. There is no telling when that might be, but for the moment, the team seems to have their hands full with a few technical difficulties related to the Immutable X transition. Hopefully, once players have their newly minted Immutable X assets safely in their wallets, we’ll hear more about the next development phases for Ember Sword.
Steven owns one plot of land in Ember Sword and less than 100 $IMX