Nodes

Player-Run Nodes

Playing online with strangers and your friends is a fun experience, and the real fun in Cryptopia comes with playing and interacting with others in a complete virtual open world. Nodes help you do that by establishing a decentralized network where Cryptopia players can communicate with each other seamlessly. Cryptopia will implement nodes to improve the players’ experience with an incentive model attached. Here’s everything you need to know about using nodes in Cryptopia.

Why Nodes in the First Place?

Nodes make up a peer-to-peer mesh network on the devices that have it: computers, smartphones, and other IOT devices. The nodes create a decentralized network where each one can communicate with any other node in the network, without the need for a centralized server or router.

While it IS possible to play Cryptopia without ever using nodes, you will only be able to access the critical data of the game. Without nodes, for instance, interaction with other players can only be done on certain world tiles. In these areas, players may exchange messages with other players. However, the messages would need to connect to every player, and every player would need to connect to every other player, like a peer-to-peer web of connections. With thousands of players involved in the game, not only will this be slow, it will cost a prohibitive amount of gas each time.

To enable this feature in a feasible manner, Cryptopia will establish a mesh network that requires player-run nodes validated through node license NFT ownership.

Having nodes provides a better player experience. Firstly, due to the peer-to-peer nature of the network, players can interact quickly and more freely simply by walking up to and chatting with another player.

Secondly, nodes provide a player’s exact location. Relying only on the blockchain, you will only know which tile a player is on. With nodes, you can pinpoint a player’s coordinates in the tile, much like with a GPS.

Thirdly, nodes allow for overall faster processing of game elements. You will experience faster transaction processing, which means you get to complete quests and complete trades more quickly.

Finally, node operators gain rewards. By using a node, operators can obtain rewards for being online. Players play an integral role in making sure this happens and get incentivized for being honest. You will be asked to perform a quest to verify your online status. Once completed, 90% of the rewards will be distributed among the players while the node operator gains 10% of the reward. Apart from that, node operators may also charge fees for processing transactions on their nodes. In future updates, they will also be able to rent out their node(s) to outside projects for additional income.

How to Obtain a Node

Players can run nodes when they own a node license NFT. You can in theory run the node without an NFT license, but your node won’t be discoverable so no one will connect to you, rendering it pointless.

You can purchase this NFT license in Cryptopia. The license lets you add one endpoint to the blockchain, which means you're registering your node to the blockchain network. You will be guided through this process with an easy-to-use UI (user interface).

As a node operator, you play an important part in relaying in-game messages, so it’s best to stay online as much as possible. Of course, as mentioned previously, you get rewards for doing so. See you on the network!

P2P Mesh Network

Cryptopia is 100% decentralized without central servers. The complete game state is on the blockchain. Less critical processes are handled peer-to-peer via meshes. The mesh network consists of 10,000 nodes. Every node is a device that handles networking traffic for Cryptopia.

In the first stage, the nodes will handle real-time positioning. In the second stage, we plan to allow nodes to perform transactions. If a transaction is not urgent, a player has the option to submit the transaction to the node network (instead of the blockchain) to lower the gas fees. The transaction is then executed when the gas fee is lucrative for node operators. The transaction functionality also opens up possibilities for player organizations like guilds to offset the fees for their players. Imagine a guild that wants to onboard new players. They can cover the gas fees for a limited period of time. This allows new players to play the game without having to worry about the fees.

In the third and last stage, Cryptopia allows other projects on its network. Blockchain projects that want to be decentralized can reach 100% decentralization via our network. Node operators can opt-in to facilitate these projects.