Mint a free* NFT of this story at mirror.xyz on the Optimism Ethereum network. (*must pay for gas)
Ney began playing against her brothers on console games when she was 8 or 9 years old. They would often “wreck” her. “They were so much older and more skillful.” Just before entering high school she got her first PC. Since the internet and internet games came late to her country, many of the titles she could play were from 10 years earlier. One fateful day she discovered a title that later inspired some of the game play in Wilderness. “I just now realized that I was throwing fire balls when I was a little kid,” said Ney.
That game was “Little Fighter II”. It’s a side scrolling, fighting game that can accommodate up to 8 online players. “Oh my god I’m so in love with this game. I can talk about it forever. Basically a wrestling game but with magic.” said Ney reminiscing about it. “I had never played against ppl on the internet before.” It was her entry point into an online community centered around a game.
She went on to tell me how pivotal an experience it was, “That’s the beauty about online player vs player. You’re finally able to see, okay, you might actually beat this person you have never met before. I also had my first chatting experiences with people from all over the world because of that game(Little Fighters). And I learned a lot. I was finally able to beat my brothers on it. I grew up through that game. It was amazing.”
The chat rooms are as important now to Ney as they were then. “Having this social engagement among users, whether it’s a game or parties, it’s absolutely important. It’s good for economic generation, it’s good for people to interact with each other about new wearables or anything new in the market. At the same time it also makes you feel closer to the ecosystem itself. I think that’s why chat rooms were such a big thing in games. There was a time when there were no chat rooms. They were added to enable that feeling of belonging.”
Reaching Out
In Wilderness, a game she co-created with her partner Ryan Pal, Ney has worked hard at creating this feeling of belonging, “He was doing exactly what you were describing. Like trying to disappear and being incognito,” she said about Old Guy’s initial shyness. “But I would not let anyone do that. He was staring at the wall in the old Wilderness building. He was literally staring. I kept calling him out on the stream. People (in-world) talked to him in the chat, ‘Hey, there’s this streamer. She’s from Wilderness. She wants to talk to you.’ That’s the first time he and I talked. He always kept coming back and visiting me on my stream. And now we are so close. It’s hilarious.”
She will often go out of her way to talk with someone “in defaults”. She recognizes them as just starting out in Decentraland. “Talking to them like a real person. Asking them about their day. So they feel like the metaverse life is very similar to the real world.” She told me about meeting a “default” user at a recent event, “I loved showing them the Hershey’s place myself. By showing them one build it would be easy for them to navigate the others. I told them the basic controls and basic details.” She continued, “That’s how I would recommend to onboard users. Tell them it’s home. There’s everything here. It’s a completely sustainable ecosystem. There are parties. There is a way to earn. And you can actually build your own world now.”
All of these in-world interactions have helped her become less shy and more accustomed to Decentraland. “I feel like I have finally adopted living in the metaverse now. I feel one with it. That’s why the shyness has disappeared because it became home in all its essence,” she said. “I started feeling so comfortable being in my avatar and moving around. Talking to all the community members. Partying with them.”
The first few months in Decentraland Ney did not have a warm welcome like she now provides to others. She said, “I did not speak to anyone. I also saw it like a game. Usually when I’m on Call Of Duty or Fortnite, I hardly talk unless I have to trash talk someone. I was just in my own zone chilling.” Soon after, Ney was busy building Wilderness with Mr. Pal, “We deployed the game after 3-4 weeks. Me being a builder and associated with a project has kind of made me miss out on what it would be like to be a completely new user who’s casually visiting the Metaverse,” she lamented. “That is something I missed out upon. That’s why I want to be my best self when I see a new person. So that at least they can have a good time.”
The Gift of the Bear
Being in a bear market has given Ney the time to go to parties and welcome new daily active users. “I’m kind of thankful for the bear market. We are getting to make the game as enjoyable as possible. The importance of being with the players has been a driving element of Wilderness.” said Ney. She and Mr. Pal regularly interacts with the players in the game and on its Discord server.
It was through their Discord that Ney and Pal requested help on their whitepaper. Said Ney, “We tried to be as perfect in English as we could be. But there’s always going to be some things we won’t catch.” Both co-creators speak English as a second language. They appealed to the “English first” speakers in the community to help them write a better document. “Septimus helped a lot in editing the whitepaper. They were even helping us out with grammatical errors. That’s the day I realized, Oh my god, we are actually in this together. We are making something for the game together. We are literally building it with the community.”
Ney and Pal built the Wilderness game with feedback and ideas from the players. It has been a fast-paced, iterative process that required a good deal of spontaneity. “We are not a plan focused company,” said Ney. “We focus on solutions and deployment. Nobody knows the algorithm of play to earn. Wild nights just came to me and we deployed it the same week.” Wild nights is a weekly social gathering at Wilderness on Friday nights in the U.S. market. People can request songs, set off fireworks, or buy a round of drinks for all their friends.One inspiration led to “Bob” an AI powered Non-Playable Character(NPC) who greets all new players entering Wilderness.
Not all of their improvisations were an initial success, “The parkour launch didn’t work. I was about to cry. We deployed it in a week. I invited everyone. It just did not work. All the people I invited and how much I hyped it; it just didn’t work.”
The Future of Wilderness
Ney and Mr. Pal are constantly innovating and improving Wilderness. At times it can be difficult because of its decentralized nature. “Everything you are doing,” said Ney, “it’s on the blockchain. If you hit someone with lava and take away their $WLDY coins or points, it’s on the blockchain. And the bugs will be there until we reach a timeline where we can solve them.”
I asked her what is in store for the future of Wilderness? She talked about ASMR sounds and classical music playing. She described a very immersive, technical experience but she soon got back to the topic of social interactions. “There would be someone talking to you all the time. Ideally it should be me.” Ney also wants people interacting with each other like, “just speaking to people in the voice chat. The lake should also remain.”
She spoke of portals to different worlds and magical houses. It was quite a comprehensive vision. “You can always hear the stone grinding or something and there’s hustle, bustle in the marketplace. It will be a complete whole new world with wizards. I’m also really interested in adding some space concepts to it.”
Ney’s Return to Streaming
Among her future plans is a return to streaming on Twitch. “I would like to roam around more outside Wilderness on other streams. Crash parties. Or just randomly talk to people. It would be more outworldly. Not just constrained to Wilderness.” Ney said. She kept her options open, leaving room for spontaneity. “If it helps in onboarding I would continue. If it scares them away I would not. I would use this time to talk to people about the new changes that we are deploying. Wilderness would always remain a part of it but I would not stick exclusively to it this time.”
She has a big concept for involving other streamers. “We’d meet each other in-world. It’s never happened that Roach and I meet in-world while we were streaming. That crossover has yet to happen. That would be funny. Then one of us could raid the other.”
Whatever new concepts she tries out, she wants to keep the things that worked when she began streaming. “The streams used to be hilarious. I would fuck up playing my own game. I’d get wrecked live on stream. Things used to be quite funny and interactive.”
I asked her if instead of being shy, as she mentioned at the start of our interview, perhaps she was simply looking for genuine interactions. “Oh my god. This hit home. Absolutely. I want conversations with people. Not gonna lie. I love to meet new people.”
