The Treeverse is one of the most colorfully vibrant and anticipated adventure games of web3 gaming, developed by the Endless Clouds studio. Undoubtedly, part of the reason the title skyrocketed in popularity is attributed to the incredible influence the CEO of The Treeverse being none other than Loopify. The latter is an iconic personality in the NFT world, and managed to successfully leverage that to give the spotlight to the top-down MMORPG.

We got the chance to sit down with Loopify for an exclusive interview to dive deeper into everything the team at Endless Clouds has been working on for The Treeverse. We managed to unravel new information on how the classless approach will affect your character's progression, the thought process behind prioritizing mobile over PC, how excited Loopify is for the community to experience the rich lore set up for players to indulge in, and much more.

Let's dive straight into it.

We will start off simple for everyone to get to know The Treeverse first. If you can please introduce yourself, The Treeverse, and the Endless Clouds studio behind it.

My name is Loopify, I’m the CEO of Treeverse and primarily lead the NFT strategy and marketing for the game. I was in the eSports industry as a graphic designer for a few years before getting into NFTs as an artist, this was early on Q4 2020, before everything blew up. I began posting educational content through threads and articles on Twitter after understanding the potential of NFTs. Around this time I started to collect/trade and flipped my way into a decent portfolio size.

Treeverse is a top-down open-world classless MMORPG built for mobile with social features and an emphasis on cooperative gameplay. It stemmed from a project called Nftrees that I did with Aizea, the co-founder of Treeverse, back in February 2021.

Endless Clouds is the studio building Treeverse, it’s a studio we have built and not outsourced. We are currently sitting at about 50+ game developers and continuously expanding.

You described The Treeverse as a “reimagined Runescape or WoW” which brings us to what were the inspirations behind The Treeverse?

The team has many inspirations when building the game, art-wise we love games like Journey and Zelda Breath of the Wild. Combat-wise, Hades and as an MMORPG, games like Runescape and WoW are big inspirations for us in a few ways. But it’s more of the feeling of having an MMORPG with player-owned ownership as we have many features inside the game that are unique. Treeverse is not a clone of those games.

Treeverse allows players to freely allocate points to whatever they like. Why do you think allowing players to freely forge their own path is important?

Our classless move directly connects with our knowledge tree system, allowing players to freely forge their own path in Treeverse is very important to attract different kinds of players and give them a role in this evergrowing world. You can be a casual gamer who just wants to mine rocks and cut down trees, that’s fine.

People will need those resources and you will interact with other players. Same for combat, we aren’t limiting you to just be a healer or tank, pick a weapon and decide.

Another clear emphasis is socialization. Outside of guilds and parties, what other elements do you think will drive players unknowingly to get to interact with other players?

As mentioned above, our Knowledge Tree system is only possible by allowing everyone in different roles to have value. This encourages p2p socialization a lot.

You have prioritized mobile over PCs. Where do you think is the easier path towards onboarding players and the reasoning behind choosing mobile for The Treeverse?

We believe the mobile MMO market is lacking. When we say we are building an MMORPG, a lot of people get scared because it’s a very ambitious project and the assumption is that 99% of fail. We still have all aspects of MMO, and RPG, but we are focusing on small instanced dungeons where players on Mobile can jump on and finish in 5-10 minutes.

The world is increasingly moving to short content rather than long content (both can exist!) as we can see through TikTok taking over the social media industry. Games are leaning towards the same, although I don’t believe this means that people won’t play long games anymore.

However taking into account these things is important and building features in your game that supports the thesis that people favour small content is not necessarily a negative. I don’t think it’s a PC vs Mobile competition. Both will succeed. And Treeverse plans to hopefully release on PC around official launch, TBD.

One of the biggest reasons League of Legends managed to survive the test of time is its never ending lore. Can you elaborate on how important lore will be for The Treeverse?

Building a game takes a long time. We want people to be immersed in the game while we are creating Treeverse, and the best way to do that is allowing them to experience the story through different mediums like interactive websites, poems, novels, quests and more.

Will there be a clear story mode in The Treeverse with a story arc for players to follow?

The “story mode” is exploring the lore of Treeverse through our main quests :).

NFTrees will bear fruit used as consumables to give buffs to players. How are you approaching its balancing to avoid more fruits are powerful than others?

Fruits will all be unique, it is based on the trait of the tree. Think of it like another secondary collection, the rarer trait, the “better” the fruit will be. It won’t be a significant difference, but it will make sense so rarer trees don’t have the same utility as common trees.

How important do you think player-driven economies are for a game like The Treeverse?

Player-driven economies are very important for a game like Treeverse. We plan to have 2 in-game currencies and then one cryptocurrency. They all play their part inside of Treeverse. It’s hard to explain exactly how we are approaching it since it’s such a complex question that we can write documents about.

Long story short MMORPG economies, or virtual currencies, have existed for a long time. We look at the mistakes games have made and learn from them while having dedicated people building these currencies. It’s not impossible to create a player-driven economy that is sustainable, and we as developers will set parameters where we see fit to ensure they are valuable without ruining the game experience for an average user.

Personally, what are you most excited about for players to try within The Treeverse? Something they don’t know exists yet but is going to suck hours out of their lives.

Honestly I think it’s experiencing the lore of our world through our main quests. It sounds so simple but when our game releases, and we have been building alongside the community teasing the lore, the quests will explain questions that people may have had for years. No doubt they will get sucked in until they complete it.

How much do you think building your own recognizable brand as Loopify contributed to the popularity of The Treeverse?

At the start, it helped. To bring exposure to the project at launch without paid marketing. The vision itself helped it succeed with trust from the community members. It’s an ambitious project and most projects launched by notable people have fallen.

As Treeverse grows, and it’s already happening, people will enter because of the game. I am a small part of Endless Clouds, the studio building Treeverse, the team will make it one of the best games to come out with player ownership!

Clearly we are still far away, but what is your vision for Endless Clouds as a studio and you personally as Loopify.

The Riot of Web3. Now if you read that, it’s good because a few words like that helps attract eyes :). But, genuinely, Endless Clouds will become a massive studio. Treeverse is an MMORPG, an evergrowing world, however we plan to make more games in the future. The vision is long-term, not just a few years out.

I am currently building Treeverse and Interleave. At the same time, still on Twitter trying to educate and attempting to expand through a few ways (massive free course + podcast (?)).

Everything I am building is to attract more people to the world of NFTs, in a good way. I was lucky enough to catch the wave early on and make a decent sized portfolio so I am not just money-driven. I am certain these projects will succeed, and onboard millions of people to Web3. <3

We hope you enjoyed the interview with Loopify, and it was our pleasure as well to get a sneak peek at everything happening behind the scenes at Endless Clouds and the bright future of The Treeverse. It is good news that a PC version of the title isn't completely off the table as well.

Let us know your thoughts in the comments section down below and keep an eye out for more upcoming exclusive interviews from across the web3 gaming space. If you haven't already, make sure to check out our earlier interviews with Brent Liang, Founding Team Member at Fractal, and Grant Haseley, Executive Director of Undead Blocks.

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