Notorious Frogs: The Essence of Frogland
How and Why The Notorious Frogs NFTs Will Retain and Increase Their Value Beyond the Fulfillment of The Original Promise of #BuyFrogGetLand
Introduction
As we hop closer to a day when each Notorious Frog will claim the device to their own plot of land, several Froghodlers are asking how Frogs will retain their value after land becomes as much a part of Frogland as the Notorious Frogs themselves.
At the root of that question is a concern that some collectors and speculators might have more interest in metaverse land than in the project’s avatars — a reasonable concern for those who are committed to keeping their frogs for the long term to see them accrue value and utility over time.
The Notorious Frog founders are making sure that the ongoing growth of the project will offer perks and benefits to community members who have committed themselves by owning and holding Frogs they know and love.
Several weeks ago we revealed some of the mechanics surrounding Land and Land Devices. Briefly: Land Devices allow players to exchange one land location for another, utilizing a game mechanic that is embedded into the Frogland entities called Planning Commissions. Each Planning Commission manages the process of land acquisition and trade for the Land Type that a specific Commission oversees. For example, if your land is in a heavily wooded area, the “Woodland” Planning Commission oversees the trades and ownership of those land tiles.
Each type of land has resources that can be extracted. Further, those resources will be renewed intermittently, and can also change over time depending on environmental conditions. Seasons, natural processes, cosmic events, and even metaphysical factors can change the land’s resources. Think of these variances as the same realities that early civilizations had to contend with when planning their lives. But instead of life or death, the fluctuations influence risk and possible reward.
Land resources will be extractable in the form of tokens that players can collect, exchange, and use in the world either as tradable assets, collectibles, or as components to craft new and special items only obtainable by combining specific resource tokens.
We recognize that explanations of this material can be complex and dense. As the technical details become inseparable from the buildout of the world, we’re writing this and future informational articles to be as clearly described as possible. We also will be as transparent as possible, so it’s essential we acknowledge that the core foundational code and related interactive experiences are under intense and active development. That means as we explain the design while building the world it will construct, some details may need to change as the layers are established, implemented, and tested. As always, our commitment is to design Frogland as experiences that are playable, fun, filled with compelling mysteries and answers, and that is sustainable over the long term as time and space expand forward, outward, and inward.
Non-Fungible Tokens
There are four non-fungible items: The Notorious Frog NFTs, (or a partner project’s avatar), the Land Devices, the LilyPAD/Land itself, and the Permit. All four are interrelated to each other, to the gameplay mechanics, and to the tokens each emits.
The Frogs and the Land Devices are individually tradable assets, whereas the Land is tied to the Land Device until it is reassigned by interacting with the Planning Commission. Similarly, the Permits will be tied to the Land for a set duration of time, just as real resources vary with seasons of the year (note that a ‘year’ in Frogland is not necessarily identical to an IRL year).
The Notorious Frogs and Essence
The Frogs have their own type of token emission — Essence — that can only be obtained from a Notorious Frog. Frogs have a strong attachment to their metaphysical selves — to an essential nature they attach to a past version of who they evolved from. The Frogs have a long history of believing they were delivered to Frogland by visitors who came from far beyond the sky — from the lights above that shimmer in the clarity of night. There are many Frogs who identify who they are by where they believe they came from.
The different types of Frog essence are based on the boost type of the Frog. Further, the level of the boost determines the quantity or frequency of the essence token emission from that specific Frog.
For example: a Frog with an Acidic +2 boost might receive Acidic Essence tokens at a higher rate or frequency than an Frog that has no boosts for Acidity.
These emitted essence tokens — in addition to any tokens emitted by the land — will be usable to craft in-game items. An important detail is that the essences themselves are NOT craftable. This means certain items will only be possible to generate via crafting that requires tokens which are obtainable only from a Frog.
Essence is available either by owning and gathering the essence from your own frog, or, if you are frogless, Essence can be traded or purchased from a Froghodlr. Land alone or a non-Frog avatar occupying land will not have access to items that require Frog ownership.
The Land Plot (also called a LilyPAD), Resources, and Token Emissions
The Land plots will have their own sets of traits, stats, and rarity. A plot of land can be on one of several ecological zones, such as coastal, grassland, wetland, mountains, forest, desert, metropolitan. The land’s zone type implies a dominant resource based on the ecology of its zone, but resources from other zones may also be present.
The resources of each plot of Land determine the tokens that land will generate. Further, seasonal changes re-roll those resources per season in a way that utilizes randomness but that is based upon the land’s ecological zone, and based upon the land’s detailed traits, stats, and rarity.
For any given season the resources for each land plot is fixed and finite. Meaning: during any given season a land plot’s resources can be depleted if fully harvested. In such a case the land holder would have to wait for the next season, when the re-roll of resource allocation will determine the abundance available to be harvested as tokens during that new season. Alternatively, a Frog could interact with the Planning Commission mid-season to move to another plot of land that has not been depleted of its resources.
For anyone looking to maximize their token gain, owning a Notorious Frog in addition to the Land offers statistical advantage, because the MAX token harvest from land can only happen if a Notorious Frog’s interaction with the land is factored in. In other words, maximal benefit from the land requires both having a Frog occupant and “working” that land. However, it’s also true that the statistical resource advantage from being a Frog doesn’t guarantee that a frogless holder is excluded from having stats that might give them a very high yield. Superior gain is less likely but not impossible for a Land Device held by the frogless.
The Land/LilyPAD, and the Permit — A Way to Improve your Plot
While the Land does emit tokens based on the random assignment that happens at a change of season, the land might not yield its resources to their maximum if the land stays in its original state. The rate and yield of token emissions can be improved by utilizing a Frog to build a resource-harvesting structure on the land. That structure requires a Permit.
Permits can be obtained by direct interaction with the Land’s specific Planning Commission. (More will be explained about the Planning Commission in a later section of this article). A Frog with a Permit allows that Frog to build a device as an improvement to the land’s efficiency and efficacy of tokens available from the land — much like an oil derrick will pull more oil from the land than would ooze out naturally but very slowly. Once the improvement is built on the land, the device will begin harvesting tokens automatically. That Frog can then apply for a Permit to improve a different plot of land.
Players who do not own a Frog would need to either trade or purchase improved land from a Frog who had already improved their land. Another potential option for a frogless landholder would be to rent a Frog from another player to obtain a Permit for improvement, thus creating another income stream for Froghodlrs. Basically: Frogs are needed to maximize land value. This arrangement gives Frogs more utility.
Improvement Permits expire at the end of each season. Further, if a Land Device with an attached Permit is sold mid-season, both the Land and its Permit are sold together, as one.
The Land/LilyPAD and Land Devices
As described previously, each Notorious Frog and each Land Device are individual assets that can be separately traded, purchased, or sold. Initially, the Land Device NFTs will be claimable by Notorious Froghodlrs only. After that initial period of Land Device acquisition by Froghodlers, land devices will be available for purchase by the frogless public.
A helpful detail: The relationship between a Land Device and a Plot of Land is different from the relationship between a Notorious Frog and a Land Device. When a Land Device is assigned to a specific Plot of Land, the Plot of Land NFT and the Device NFT become linked and will travel together when sold — however not necessarily forever because it will be possible to reassign a Device a different plot of land by interacting with the appropriate Planning Commission.
The Planning Commissions
There are multiple Planning Commissions in the world. Each one manages functions that pertain to the plot of land’s specific type (coastal, forest, wetland, etc). Think of each Planning Commission as an overseer of different ecological zones. So, Planning Commissions have an effect not only on the issuance of land improvement permits, as described above, they also have influence on the ownership transfer processes of the land they oversee.
Planning Commissions might be among the most notorious organizations in the land of the Notorious Frogs, or at least among the most degenerate. Planning Commissions in Frogland are inherently and verifiably corrupt, and interactions with the Planning Commission can and will involve chance mechanics and volitional acts of bribery. Players can attempt to bribe and influence a Planning Commission, and, furthermore, players can collectivize their interaction with a Planning Commission through the use of Syndicates. This collective approach is one example of how the foundational design of Frogland accounts for a need to enable individuals and small groups to organize in ways that make it possible to compete with individual whales who otherwise could game the system based on an ability to control supply.
We have upcoming articles about how to think about the distinctions between Gangs, Syndicates, and on the operations of Planning Commissions, including possible ways that bribery can play out in a world where Notorious is The Way.
TL;DR
Notorious Frog land holders will have some advantages over Frogless landholders, however those advantages do not exclude Frogless landholders from trading and purchasing land, or from obtaining high-yield token emissions from the land held. Basically, all that a Frog can achieve with land is attainable to any landholder, but the process is more complex and will involve interactions with Frogs to an extent. Frogs themselves emit an Essence token that is obtainable only by being a Frog, or by bargaining with one.
Planning Commissions are regulators of Land Device sales and transfers, and are also in charge of issuing Permits for land improvements. Improvements make it possible for a landholder to maximize token harvesting of a land’s resources. The Land’s resources are determined by the details of the Land Device.
Planning Commissions are inherently corrupt and can be bribed. However, corruption cuts both ways, and it is possible to obtain greater gain from the corrupt system. Land holders can amass their influence by forming into Syndicates, for example.
The addition of a token emission sourced purely from the Frogs themselves make a Notorious Frog more valuable for both the narrative gameplay and the tokenomic speculation as well. Not holding a Frog will not exclude you from being able to play or speculate, as there are other options for building improvements and purchasing Essences, but having one or more Frogs will remove several extra steps and expenditures from your process.
As we continue to build in the open, we welcome feedback and critique from our community. Our objective is to build a social and gamified world that forms the basis for strange adventures — a world that is fun and sustainable, and, as has always been true, to co-create the Notorious Frogland Experience with our community’s talent and feedback. Hop into our discord and rrribbit your ideas and thoughts!
