Secret Sauce of The Damned Pirates Society

PJS reporting live from Tortuga

Ever wonder how The Damned Pirates Society (aka DPS) became the most successful NFT gaming collection in all of Dotsama and Arbitrum Nova? Well, sit back my friend and pour yourself a drink, 'cause I got a story to tell.

“It was a dark and stormy night…” suggested Steven Seagull, as he downed another glass of rum. While I’m an original member of the Steven Seagull Fan Club, I’m not entirely convinced by Steven’s literary abilities. Still, a parrot has to start somewhere…

The Curse of the Blackspot (BLKSPT) was first spotted on Twitter back in late September 2021. The origins of the curse and rules of the game it created were shrouded in mystery, but it soon caught the imagination of Dotsama’s social layer.

As the curse spread, a gradual drip of clues and rumours suggested that temporarily acquiring the BLKSPT token on Moonriver, and then passing it on to a willing recipient, would add one to the whitelist of a forthcoming NFT mint. The day that we, the formerly cursed and now damned, were able to confirm our eligibility for the mint was a joyous one.

And the art from the Gen0 mint itself did not disappoint. Sure, we all know that pirates often have parrots, but what if parrots were the pirates?!

Early days of DPS gameplay included ‘lazy staking’ for TMAPs that are used to buy Voyages, from which chests could be won and opened with the help of the Plunderers Guild to gain Doubloons. If you were very lucky, you could also land yourself an artifact that could aid your future voyages and win you the admiration & envy of your pirate comrades.

In June of 2022, the team released a preview video of the art for the Voyages v2 UI, featuring the deadly music of DPS OG Bowser Staxx. As more time passed and voyaging progressed, reports started to emerge of the strong ROI for DPS players. I’m also happy to say that my DPS Gen0 mints and subsequent gameplay have been my best performing crypto investment in the current bear market – and that’s before taking into account the recent ARB airdrop received by all active DPS players on Arbitrum Nova.

Disclaimer , with a nod to the maverick that is Zooeys: everything I say is financial advice, and it’s all TERRIBLE. #DYOR

Personally, I don’t judge the success of an NFT gaming project solely based on ROI, floor price, or other financial indicators. There are many other arguments for the greatness of DPS, including:

• The artwork

• On-chain transaction counts (no game has higher on Dotsama or Arbitrum Nova)
• Community-made merch

• The dangers of wearing DPS Merch at Polkadot Decoded – King dutchiekiwi representing
• Rewards for providing liquidity – pirates love RUM
• The continual presence and quick responsiveness of the team on Discord
• Masterrulax’s food pics
• TybibouneLolonnais’ mango buttshaker gif
• Hard working devs who regularly push incremental upgrades – the project has been wise to consistently under-promise and over-deliver
• The decision to go multichain, with game resources such as TMAPs and Doubloons currently shared across both Arbitrum Nova and Moonbeam on Polkadot, and with other multichain innovations rumoured to be in development. DPS was originally launched on Moonriver, aka Moonbeam’s ‘canary’ parachain on Kusama. The decision to migrate may have in part been informed by advice from fjagosti (Francisco at Purestake – also a DPS player), who in a Discord discussion pointed to the capacity of Moonbeam “to call functions across different chains to ultimately make up an application that may live across several layer 1s.” Such multichain interoperability is afforded by “general message passing protocols such as Axelar, LayerZero, Hyperlane, Wormhole, and Multichain which are currently all connected to Moonbeam”, in addition to XCM within the Dotsama ecosystem.
• DPS DAO was the only DAO to get an ARB airdrop on Arbitrum Nova – and not a small one at 386,311 ARB, currently valued at around 500k USD and earmarked for future game development + DAO owned liquidity. Any Gen0 (Moonbeam) or Gen1 (Arb Nova) pirate owner can raise a DAO proposal on Discord, which is then debated and with enough support can be selected for voting.
• The fun of playing the game itself!

All of the above are key ingredients in the DPS secret sauce, which has fuelled a highly successful project underpinned by a robust community with strong leadership. The DPS crew is helmed by Davy Jones from the core project team (O Captain, my Captain!), with support from the DPS DAO elected Pirate Kings and the tireless Damned Mods (shout out to summershades, the secret bridgooor hero and crew3 rejectooor!).

Key Lesson: if you haven’t created a deeply loyal, open and fun-loving community as the foundation of your NFT gaming project, it probably won’t be successful in the long-term.

DPS is not your typical crypto NFT gaming community. You may be familiar with some of the worst kinds, where a sea of individuals grift as hard as they can while attempting to not become someone else’s exit liquidity. But DPS are pirates, right? Yes, but honourable ones. As noted by PNin in his Those Damned Pirates! video for The Kusamarian from back in July 2022, “Stories abound of community members helping one another out from scams, renting VIP tickets, and accidental purchases being reversed on pirate’s honour alone.” I’ve experienced first-hand the generosity of the DPS community (thanks King Remo!), and I’m inspired by how much the DPS community takes care of each other - games don't have to be zero sum.

Oh, and let’s not forget the Pirateverse, with minigames, customisable rooms at the inn, and other on-and-off-chain adventures in development. Currently you can play an off-chain version of Liar’s Dice, a game made famous by a scene from Pirates of the Caribbean. I spent many nights in my younger days playing this game with friends, so I was delighted when the new DPS version went live. I tend to talk a lot of trash when playing dice. For example, to the tune of Everybody from the 313…

Now, every pirate from the DPS

Put yer hands up like yer galleon's under duress

Ima win all yer dice, and I'm not always lyin'

PJS rules the waves without even tryin'

Or, in my more ‘philosophical’ moments:

“There is no Liar's Dice. There is only Liar's Dice-ness. That is, a specific disorder of the mind. A passion for ethnography that has been driven to extremes. Local lore full of blood. A maze instead of a dice game. The only question is if Liar's Dice doesn’t exist any longer or doesn’t yet exist.”

Basically, I’m all talk, as my actual winning record is far from consistent. Maybe see you in the Tavern sometime for a game?

As an outro, I will leave you with the rest of Steven’s story. Please remember he is an underpaid bartender who happens to also be a seagull, so don’t judge his fiction writing skills too harshly!

…It was a dark and stormy night at the tavern in Tortuga. Read “Unstable” Braxton had just returned from his latest legendary voyage with his flagship damaged by yet another undersea eruption, and he was now in need of a drink. “Ahoy! One extra strength Dark & Stormy, or I’ll murder the lot of ye!”, Braxton said with a smile. It seemed a fitting choice for the occasion, and he was still flush with doubloons from besting the dealer at last night’s Piquet table.

The seas had been particularly unkind to young Braxton these past few weeks, although despite his notorious bad luck he had managed to beat the odds in more than one onerous situation. Notably, he had remained undefeated against the Royal Galleon, and there are few things in this life that warm the heart like watching the king’s men abandon ship and beg for mercy.

Yet Braxton’s bad luck had a way of catching up with him, although it seemed he wasn’t the only pirate who had come on hard times during the recent fortnight of unseasonably tempestuous waters. The tavern was packed with drunken pirates who had decided (perhaps wisely) to weather the storm in port, a possibility Braxton had not even considered.

Braxton was inherently allergic to staying on solid ground for more than a day or two at a time, and with rumours spreading of calmer seas on the horizon it was time to drink up and get a move on. “Best get meself t’ the Plunderers Guild n’ get me ship repaired fer her next voyage. Steven, take care o’ yerself mate, and see ye on the other side!”

// WagMedia is the label that pays me. #KSMNFTG #NTFGA #BeMorePirate

Follow Infinity Room on PolkaVerse for more of my occasional Dotsama musings

Follow me on Twitter for what the cool kids these days are callin’ ‘Tweets’