Sneaky Vampire Syndicate NFTs Revealed! š§
Drumroll pleaseā¦ š„š„š„
This weekend was the big release and subsequent reveal for the Sneaky Vampire Syndicate NFTs. Not only that but the project also got VERIFIED on OpenSea with that sexy blue checkmark! (see above)
In this post Iām going take an in-depth look at the project thus far and the road ahead. For those of you just going us hereās a quick re-cap of this very unique projectā¦ (FULL DISCLOSURE: I do currently own two Vamps)
**NOTE: If you donāt know what an NFT is then start with my previous post: āWTF are NFTs??
The easiest way to get started for newbies is with a Coinbase wallet.
CLICK HERE to sign up, new accounts get $10 in free Bitcoin with this referral link.
The Artwork
The art for the NFTs is created by Mig, who was one of the artists on the Bored Apes Yacht Club project. According to their #meet-the-artist Discord channel, Mig is āa full-time, almost no days off, nose to the grinder freelance artist and Iāve been a part of many projects in my life. From books to board games. Video games to animated films. Iāve worked as a storyboard artist and a corporate artist for large companies.ā The artwork for both of these is fantastic and worthy in and of itself to be an NFTā¦ but wait, thereās MORE!
The Goals
The SVS has a number of goals, which is what attracted me to the project over other NFT projects. Hereās a quick re-cap, Iāll dive deeper into these later in the post.
- First up is obviously the artwork/tokens. There are a totally of 8,888 Syndicate Vamps, each is unique and not two are alike. They are randomly generated with their own features and characteristics ā some will be more rare than others. Of those, 8 will be super rare and hand drawn Vamps and8 will be unique Bats (designs below). The ERC-721 tokens are stored on the Ethereum blockchain.
- The project will also feature a 2D side-scrolling video game. This will be a throwback to the old NES classic Castlevania. Only people holding SVS NFTs will have access to play the game.
- They are also planning to have the Vampire Lair as part of the Metaverse which will also be accessible only to those who own a Vamp token. The team currently has land reserved on The Sandbox platform and is still deciding what that will be but mentioned perhaps a feature where members can display their Vamps.
- There will also be a Generation 2 release, which means another batch of Vamps for you to sink your teeth into! (more on them later)
- SVS Merchandise is also on the horizon.
The Numbers:
- ā 0.08 ETH per SVS (roughly $275 around the time of the drop)
- ā Max Mint Qty was: 2 for presale, 3 for public sale Wave 1, and 1 for Wave 2
- āMax supply is 8,888
- ā Public supply is 8,000
- ā Presale supply is 800
- ā Gifted supply is 88 (reserved for giveaways and early supporters)
- āDiscord members at the time of the Drop: 45k+ (currently down to around 41k after people who were only there for a quick flip dropped out)
Why all the 8's? In an AMA, the Devs said because looks nice and cool, but also because eight is culturally a lucky number.
Now that youāre up to speed on the project , letās look at all the exciting stuff that happened this weekendā¦
THE DROP(s)
Presale aka The Whitelist
So first up was the presale Drop (the term for an NFT release), which was for the 800 NFTs reserved for the 400 Whitelist members (each was allowed to mint 2 tokens). These were slots given away to people who were active on the Discord group and helped other member, people who attended the Twitch streams and AMA sessions, and winner of giveaways like the Derivative Art Contest (which is how I got my WL spot) ā it was originally set for 8 winners but they enjoyed the art so much they bumped it up to 25.
These were my entries for the contest:
The presale went very smoothly, it opened on Sept 9th at 11am EST and closed on Sept 11th at 11am EST.
What was great about the Devs giving WLers 36 hours for the presale is that it avoided high gas fees (the term for the cost of the transactions ā more on this later). Of course there were some who eagerly bought ASAP and were fine paying the higher rate, but I waited until the price of gas went down and got my allotted two tokens around 3:30p PST for $533.92 (the price of 0.16 ETH at the time) and paid $73.25 in gas fees.
Any tokens that were not minted (the term for first purchase) would be given out for an extended presale with new members being chosen for the list. Buuuut that didnāt happen and all were purchased. I feel really bad for the Discord members who hadnāt slept for days because they didnāt want to miss the announcement of the additional Whitelist spots.
They also launched the SVS OpenSea Collection during the time of the presale. It was announced that the minting would not happen until 24hrs after all Vamps were sold. So after you connected your wallet to OS, there was just a placeholder coffin icon displayed with the # of your Vampire.
Vamps instantly began to go up for sale, one of them (#5) even sold for 5 ETH. I still canāt believe people would blind sell (some at at very low prices) and blind buy (at high prices) before the Vamps were even revealed and their rarity was known.
What was unique about the SVS Drop is that it was done solely through the SVS website. All you had to do was connect your wallet (MetaMask, Coinbase and WalletConnect were accepted) and purchase through the interface on their site (seen above). Thereās other ways to do NFT purchases through the contracts but I donāt quite understand that much about the backend and am not going to pretend I know what Iām talking about. This is my first NFT purchase and Iām told this was a unique way to run a Drop. But if youāre interested in learning about the other methods, Google is your friend!
The Public Sale
Originally this was scheduled for Sept 11th at 1pm EST but out of respect for 9/11 it was moved to Sept 12th. This was such an amazing move on their part, I give them props for that.
One major announcement made by the Dev Team was that they would be implementing an anti-bot mechanism to prevent bots and change the limit from 10 tokens to 5 per transaction to prevent whaling. This was in response to a recent bot SNAFU that plagued the Drop for The Sevens project. (Read more about that fiasco HERE). This addition got the attention of the NFT community and will probably change the way Drops are handled in the future:
As the Drop day grew closer, a frenzy in the Discordās #lair-chat rose up over talks of the inevitable gas war. So letās take a moment to discuss gas fees and how they work (again, not an expert so Google for a better explanation but Iāll try my best!).
GAS FEES
Gas is the processing fee that you pay when buying or selling an NFT. This fee does not go to the seller, but the owners of the computers who process your transaction on the Ethereum blockchain. Now depending how many people are making transactions at a given time, the cost of gas goes up or down (Gas is expressed in units called Gwei). The bigger the transaction data the more gas you pay to process it. As a user you can set the price you want to pay for gas. Depending if you set your limit higher or lower than the current average determines your place in line. Basically, the servers are always taking the highest bidders and bumping the lower offers down in the queue. If you get bumped too many times, your transaction fails.
Whatās terrible about this is that it still takes processing power and although youāre not charged for the NFT youāre buying when a transaction fails, you still pay the gas fee. So when an NFT drops and a ton of people are trying to get a transaction to process the fees for gas skyrocket and everyone is fighting to get the top spot, i.e. a gas war ensues. In some cases people end up paying 3x or more the actual cost of the NFT, so if the NFT is 0.08 ETH they might pay 1ETH for the transaction, which is insane!
To better understand how gas works, check out this gas visualizer where you can see real-time transaction as theyāre actually taking place and even track your own transaction on the blockchain: https://txstreet.com/
A more detailed, technical explanation of gas can be found here: https://ethereum.org/en/developers/docs/gas/
Read all bout the SVS teamās explanation of the methods to defeat bots and mitigate gas wars here:
The Reservation System
With the growing size of the community, members had major concerns of high gas prices and lost money due to failed transactions. The community spoke and the Devs listened. They soon made a new announcement that they were doing something different for the Public Drop. They would use a Reservation System ā first come, first served. (*Note: I heard in the chat that The Project URS did something similar but a raffle instead of FCFS style).
Further clarification & changes to the above proposed method for tomorrows release. This is the final procedure/timings of minting your Vampires on tomorrows public release: ā Public release: 1PM EST, 12th of September (tomorrow).
Steps:
1. At the time of release, go to https://svs.gg/
2. Click āConnect to Walletā, and connect your web3 wallet (Metamask, Coinbase Wallet etc).
3. Select how many vampires you wish to mint (5 max.)
4. Solve the challenge, that will be located under where you select amount of Vampires.
5. Click āRegisterā
6. You will receive a āSuccessā or āFailureā message.
7. If successful, the amount of Vampires you selected are reserved for 4 hours.
Extra information: ā To try and eliminate gas wars. At the time of release, you are REGISTERING to mint a vampire, you are competing for a SPOT. There will be no use of gas to register. ā If you are successful in securing a SPOT, you will then have 4 hours to mint these Vampires ā in this time they are reserved, and you are guaranteed them. ā If there are Vampires left after 4 hours (e.g. someone successfully reserves, then does not purchase). Another wave will occur. If this happens, more details will be posted. ā There is a maximum of 5 vampires per transaction. ā You will have to mint the same amount you pledge when registering 1ā5, you will NOT be allowed to mint any other figure than what you registered with. ā A change from earlier is that you will NOT be required to sign a transaction to enter. This will make it fair for those using hardware wallets; your connected address will simply be able to mint if successful.
What does this mean? To prevent any time wasting for all vampires, wallet balances will be checked when REGISTERING. Essentially if you plan to register to mint you will need to have the appropriate balance to mint the relevant amount of vampires you have selected (If you select 1, your wallet must have 0.08 ETH, 2 = 0.16 ETH, 3 = 0.24 ETH, etc.)
The way it works is like this. At the scheduled time of the Drop, you do exactly what you would do before except this time you would just be entering a reservation that would allow your wallet to purchase the set number of Vamps, currently limited to 5 Max. Since this would not be a network transaction, there would be no cost to do this and there would be no charge for those whoās orders did not go through. The Public sale would then begin 30mins after the reservations opened at which point those with a rez had 4 hours to mint their Vamps. Any unclaimed/unsold after that time period would go back up for a second wave of reservations.
This change was done entirely for the benefit of the community to save them money. Now whatever number you set to purchase in the reservation you would have to order exactly ā nothing more, nothing less. Also, you would have to have enough ETH in your wallet to cover the transaction (so 0.08 if you ordered 1, 0.16 for two, and 0.24 for three). *NOTE: The ETH for gas did not need to be in the wallet at the time of the reservations.
Then they pushed the Drop time by two hours and made some additional changes, most notably, lowering the purchase limit to 3 Max. Hereās the announcement:
Hello Vamps!
First things first, we are making sure the launch and registration process is as smooth as possible. This has resulted in us having to delay the launch by two hours. The official launch time will now be 3PM EST. This will be the NEW registration time.
We noticed that the community has experienced massive growth in the last 24 hours so we have decided to make some changes which have been heavily requested.
Here are the FINAL details for today:
ā The new MAX MINT per transaction is now THREE (3).
ā Nobody will be allowed to mint more than THREE (3) per transaction. ā At 3PM EST the registration will go live.
ā Minting will open 30 mins after (3:30PM EST) ā At 3:30PM EST you will be able to check on the site if youāre eligible to mint.
ā The users who successfully managed to register the 8000 slots will have 4 hours to mint (3:30PM EST ā 7:30PM EST)
ā To check if youāre eligible at 3:30pM EST, sign in with your web3 wallet, the button will either show āNot Eligibleā if you werenāt successful, or āPurchaseā if you were successful.
ā If there are any remaining Vampires at 7:30pm EST, we will release further details on the next wave.
Good luck everyone and all the best today! We look forward to building great things together
The Challenge Q
The other topic that was frequently brought up in the Discord lair chat, was about the anti-bot challenge. The Dev said it would be something simple for a human but not a bot and it would not be a reCAPTCHA. Despite them not revealing what it would be for numerous reasons (revealing the nature of it would allow someone to make a bot to circumvent it before the Drop).
I want to take a moment to give a shout out to the Devs who were asked the same Qs over and over again by last minute newcomers who didnāt bother to read the FAQ or the Announcement channels but instead flood the chat with the same basic questions non-stop before the big release and yet they still took the time to keep answering them patiently. That must have been mind numbing (it was to watch!). Luckily, the community they have built had taken the torch and helped answer a lot of these and direct people to the FAQ and such.
Now as the countdown fell closer to zero people wondered if they could connect their wallet before (Yes) and if they would have to refresh the page after it hit 00:00:00:00 (No). For me the clock struck zero and ā¦ nothing. I waited ā¦ nothing. Refreshed and the Challenge Question finally showed up, it looked like this:
The numbers varied randomly from 1ā20. For me it was the number 20. So I quickly typed ā20ā andā¦ Challenge Failed! I realized I needed to SPELL the WORD ātwentyā and that worked! It said āRequest received. Please wait while we filter the results.ā I thought this was a good sign because a friend got the message āEntries closedā and another friendās browser completely froze at 00:00:08:01.
But alas, the time I spent needing to refresh the page (even though they said we wouldnāt have to) and the typing vs spelling error cost me valuable seconds and I did not get a spot.
The chat erupted with rage. People all agreed, it should have said SPELL the number. Other complained that the Challenge was not fair for everyone ā the number ātwoā is less letters than āeighteenā and quicker to spell.
Despite that hiccup, the Devs stuck with it and continued with the Drop, 30 minutes later the Vamps began flying off the shelves. People were pissed, but it mostly felt like they were mad they missed out. Some claimed shenanigans stating that people who entered at 3:01pm go tin over people who entered at 3:00p and that it was rigged. But what people fail to realize is they would be a lot more pissed had they not done a raffle and they lost out on gas money.
Surprisingly, 198 Vamps went unpurchased and a Wave 2 commenced at 7:45pm EST with a Max 1 limit. This time they has another SNFU happened when the Challenge Question failed to appear. They called a ādo-overā and reset the timer to 15mins. This time the question clearly stated to SPELL out the number and everyone has the same number (3 this time). I had the same problem with refreshing the page at 00:00:00:00 and missed out again.
With the Vamps all sold out, the chat burning with rage, they announced the reveal would happen tomorrow. In the meantime, username began to appear in Orange and they opened a new #verified-chat for Vamp owners. Which was perfect timing because the chat was so overloaded they lowered the Slow Mode on Discord to 2 HOURS! That means you had to wait two hours between each message you sent (previously it was 15min on Drop day and before that a mere 15 seconds). I verified my Discord account and got the hell outta Dodge. The chat became super salty and went all Lord of the Flies claiming a rug pull aka a scam. Eventually, those who didnāt land a Vamp got to the Bargaining stage of the 7 Stages of Grief and began making offers to buy a Vamp from the second market.
During all the the Floor Price was all over the place, at one point I say it peak at 3.7 ETH. Then it dipped down below 1 and bounced around 0.6ā0.9. But the craziness was over and all the was left was the reveal.
Now the Public Drop wasnāt flawless, but I would mark it as a major success. There was no major bot infiltration, no whales buying up large chunks (though some would sweep the floor and acquire over 100 Vamps on the second market on Open Sea). Overall a very impressive accomplishment given that there were about 50k people trying to get their hands on 8k Vamps (and your odds were less because each person could snag up to 3 per reservation!). I have to applaud the Dev Team for pulling it all off and putting the communityās needs first even if it meant staying up for hours before the release to code the new security measures.
Thereās not a ton of coverage on the SVS project yet, but hereās a video I found that summed up the Drop quicker and in much less detail that my account:
Whale Sighting! šš
So during all of this, one mysterious community member, known as Superman, began sweeping the floor and gathering over 100 Vamps into his possession. We donāt know what his plans are but I would assume his long-term strategy is to amass a large collection for a big auction after the project blows up. This would be similar to the recent $24M Bored Apes Sothebyās auction that happened recently.
He did chime in on todayās AMA and verified that he did not use bots, he just had friends help make legit purchases and kept sweeping the floor as other holder panic sold their Vamps for low prices. Superman heās in it for the long haul and going to keep buying Vamps!
View Supermanās collection here: https://opensea.io/superman.eth
Giving Back
One thing I want to also shout out my huge respect for the Devs is after the sale, they announced that theyāll be making a 45 ETH donation to charity! The charity/charities will be chosen by the Verified Vamp holder on the projectās Discord page. Damn I love these guys!!
THE REVEAL
The big reveal of the artwork was set for 24hrs after the public sale closed, so sometime yesterday afternoon. This was a rough estimate because it depends on when the computer finishes running itās randomized generations ā which the Devs provided the source code of for total transparency.
Morning everyone, today is the reveal day. We will be revealing the 8,888 beautiful unique and randomly generated Vampires to you. We expect this to happen at around 6ā8PM EST as my computer has been crunching out image s for hours now.
The artist behind SVS is Mig. He previously worked on the team for the Bored Ape Yacht Club, as well as the Hall of Fame Goat Lodge. According to and article on Decrypt.co:
Migwashere told Decrypt that, unlike with The Bored Ape Yacht Club, where he was part of a team of artists, he feels like heās in control this time around. āThis one feels more like something Iāve created,ā he said, though he said that he still bounced ideas off the team.
For those curious art nerds, Mig uses a tablet, Photoshop and a PC to create his artwork. And the Vamps specs are 600 x 600 for the png files, and 1242 x 1242 for the high res. Both have a version without a background. All of the artwork took him about 3.5 weeks to complete.
*NOTE: Iām still trying to figure out how to download the High Res versions, right now the thumbnail image download is 631 x 631 and underneath that thereās a button to access the one with no background (a transparent png file) but I havenāt seen anything about unlockable content on the OpenSea page for my NFTs.
*UPDATE: High-res versions are now available!
#OnlyFreddy ā Today at 8:27 PM
Hey @everyone!
You can now download your full-res versions of your Vampires on https://svs.gg/collection
Simply login with your Metamask or other wallet, by clicking the login button next to the address search bar. You will then see your Vampires and can click the download buttons. For the first download, a request to sign a message will popup. This is to ensure only you, the owner, can get the full resolution images.
The template Vamp character went through many iterations but ultimately landed on the one they used which was based on the style of Batman: The Animated Series drawn by Eric Radomski. On an AMA, there was talks of possibly releasing the concept art down the road. So keep an eye out for that on their Twitter or Instagram pages.
The Super Rare Hand Drawn Designs:
So I mentioned that 8 of the Vamps would be super rare and not computer generated but hand drawn by Mig. Below are those 8 sexy Vamps. These are the rarest and most highly priced Vamps of the bunch. At one point last night I saw The Impaler had an offer of 30 ETH ($98,769.30)!!
*NOTE: Follow the SVS Price bot on Twitter here for real time sales updates: https://twitter.com/SVSBot
The Bats
And here are the 8 Bat designs as wellā¦
There was a hiccup with the attaching the metadata for the 16 Vamps above. But they got it worked out (see below). Some art wasnāt being revealed but a quick click of the āRefresh Metadataā button took care of that and all of our gorgeous Vamps climbed out of their coffins.
#OnlyFreddy ā Yesterday at 5:03 PM
Hey @everyone, we were rushing to get the reveal out as fast as we could for you guys. In the madness that was the lead up to the reveal I mistakenly forgot to add the 8 UNIQUES + 8 BATS into the metadata.
EVERYTHING IS EXACTLY THE SAME! NOTHING HAS CHANGED. All this means was that the 16 āUniquesā had no images attached to it. Nothing else has changed.
New IPFS Image folder: bafybeibltrk5hoi5p3swpiw5wnthqxh7z5xvker6xlqjqjfvqdpgbb4asi Old IPFS Image folder: bafybeidu55bitkbrspktwei4m5b2qzsx2fe35rgz2thjl3jgbxbo4ikkia
All members can check the metadata is the same, if you download all the metadata and replace the new IPFS folder with the old one. The provenance hash and metadata IPFS folder is then the same. Simply said, I just had to re-insert the images for the 16 that were missing.
Itās been a crazy last 48 hours and I would like to sincerely apologise for this blunder. I hope everyone can enjoy their Vamps regardless!
CLICK HERE to view the whole collection!
Below are the two Vamps that I got (#635 & #636).
At first people were checking the rarity states via Intermezzo but eventually they got the Rarity Sniper up and running. *NOTE: the results on Rarity Sniper differed from those on Intermezzo, my Rarity numbers actually improved which was exciting!
Our Rarity Ranking is ready!
We worked closely with the Rarity Sniper team to create an accurate ranking. Use the following command in their Discord server:
!rarity sneakyvampire id [ID]
Check your rank here: https://discord.gg/raritysniper
When you do your Rarity Sniper check, it spits out results as follows:
Rarity Tools NOW LIVE!
Sneaky Vampire Syndicate has now been added to Rarity Tools. Iām not sure why but the ranking # changed again. When you search on Rarity Tools the results look like this:
Copyright
Iām not sure if the copyright transfers to the holder the way it does on other projects like CryptoDads, but Iāll update this section when I find out.
***Sept 15th UPDATE: In todayās AMA someone asked if we own the IP for our Vamps and they confirmed yes, you do it.
Royalties
I also havenāt found an answers about whether or not Minters can also apply a royalty to their sale, but someone on the Discord told me that the Dev royalty is 2.5% of all sales and that OS has a 2.5% royalty as well. Still need to confirm this also.
Also of note, Sneaky Vampire Syndicate was also one of the Top NFTs on OpenSea!
WHATāS NEXT?
The Bats
As per the SVS Roadmap, the next milestone will be the Bat Companion NFT airdrop. So any wallet holding an SVS NFT will get an animal companion to their Vamp. The Devs said this will happen closer to Halloween i.e. Mid to Late October. No design teasers have been released yet. They did say on the recent AMA that some bat companions have a higher probability with sharing the traits of their owner Vamps. And some might match completely which will be rarer, but the traits on the bats will be totally random still. Iām not sure how they work on the technical side i.e. do you have to sell them with you Vamp ā like are they forever linked or are they completely separate tokens. I assume separate tokens.
I also remember reading thatā they were gonna airdrop some free Vamps to random wallets in the first week, though I canāt find where I read that. Perhaps there are going to be giveaways of some sort (possibly in conjunction with Rarity Sniper so be on the lookout!).
UPDATE: @SVSNFT tweeted: āLove at first Byte 0x0, soon to come mid October.ā
**UPDATE: During the recent AMA someone asked if the 8 special Bat Vamps are also getting Bat Companions or something different since theyāre already bats. Sounds like there might be something special for those but itās still unclear.
The Merch
Not much info has been released about the Merch, so designs and drop date right now are all TBD.
Though they did say in the AMA, the first week giveaways is going to be Merch related and it sounds like they will be giving away A LOT! One thing they did say they were working on is an SVS baseball cap to match the one that some Vamps received as a trait.
UPDATE:
Hello,
We are glad to announce we have now finalised our merch plans, which also finalises our plans for our 10% Roadmap special giveaway for all holders within the first week.
EVERY Vampire Holder will be able to claim a FREE piece of merch of their choice from our store, when it launches within the coming few days. We will take a snapshot of all current holders (tomorrow at 19th September, 4PM EST).
Within the next few days, we will post a further announcement. This will allow you to connect your wallet and be given a claim code to order your free piece of merch via our merch partners website. (One Code per ETH Address holding a Vampire in the above snapshot).
At this same time, the merch website will go live ā should anyone wish to purchase additional merch, or if any non-SVS holders want to get in the Vampire spirit.
Note: these are just mock up images for the final product.
***UPDATE: The Merch Store is LIVE!!
Visit the SVS store here:
https://maddies.co/collection/sneaky-vampire-syndicate/
- Vamp holders, instructions on how to claim your FREE merch is here: https://svs.gg/merch Youāll get a coupon code like this:
The Game
The project will also feature a 2D side-scrolling video game. This will be a dreambaby between the throwback to the old NES classic Castlevania and a modern-day roguelike similar to Spelunky. Only people holding SVS NFTs will have access to play the game. Theyāre expecting an open beta release for NFT holders sometime after Halloween 2021. It is being developed by Static City Games.
Hey Vampires! We have contracted a indie game development studio to build us a fun and interactive game only playable by holders of SVS; The game will be in development in the comings weeks and there is no ETA as of yet. Weāre aiming for a rogue like infinite survival game, moving up in difficulty after every wave. Everything will be themed the same way as SVS and there will also be custom soundtracks done for the game. There will be leader boards which will be public, showing your Vampire along with your score, which might be used in the future for some cool stuff! We wanted to keep this as a surprise but weāve received so much support over the last 24 hours so we thought we would give it to you earlier!
Another update for you guys: Static City Games is officially developing our indie SVS game; Static City Games is an independent video game publisher and developer near Philadelphia, PA. Development will occasionally appear live on SCGās Lead Programmerās Twitch Channel. Make sure to tune in to see some of the development of our custom Retro Castlevania-esque Sneaky Vampires Syndicate game, make sure to give feedback and suggestions over at https://twitch.tv/krassenstein. https://staticcitygames.com/
The game will have two modes:
- Endless Random Seed ā in this mode the game keeps generating the level until you die or reach the end boss (if they add one)
- Weekly Challenge Seed ā in this mode, the game will generate new challenges each week and track playerās scores based on progress.
During the AMAs, the team said theyāll most likely include some sort of Leaderboard where youāll be able to see High Scores and such for ultimate bragging rights!
People without Vamps are also wondering if thereās still a way to get access to the game. The Devs sound like theyāre considering an option to allow non-Vamp owners to play as a bat but it will be a Super Hard mode where you die after one hit or something extra difficult.
According to the gameās developer, Krassenstein, theyāll hopefully have an Open Beta around 11/2021 in which all the Vamp owners can participate.
The Metaverse
The SVS Devs also plan to launch the Vampire Lair, a metaverse accessible only to Vamp owners on The Sandbox Platform, which reminds me of Roblox or Minecraft but for an older/wider ranging audience. Thereās already some heavy hitters involved with it including The Walking Dead, Atari, and over 160 existing partnerships including Deadmau5, Richie Hawtin, The Smurfs, Care Bears, ZEPETO, and CryptoKitties.
And on top of that, The Sandbox just spent $2.9M on a Bored Ape!
According to an AMA, theyāve already purchased land in The Sandbox and are still figuring out the best way to utilize, but are considering some way for owners to display their artwork for others.
Theyāre already working with someone to allow for your Vamps to be converted into the Sandbox skins so you can actually be your character in the Metaverse.
I have to say, the SVS Discord is already a super fun community, so Iām very excited to see what their Sandbox metaverse will be like! Hereās a little preview of the platform:
Gen 2
During the reveal, they dropped the above teaser image on us. From the looks of it, Gen 2is going to be Vampiresses!! (Vampirettes?)
That right, female Vamps! Which leads me to believe the project will be announcing a breeding element where wallets holding 2 Vamps can create a baby Vamp! Now this is pure speculation based on what Iāve seen other projects doing, such as CryptoDads announcing Gen 2 will be CryptoMoms.
The big question will be if, like CryptoDads, the gender of the Vamps will not matter i.e. you can create a baby Vamp with 2 Male Vamps, 2 Female Vamps, or 1 male and 1 female Vamp ā which is what CryptoDads is allowing to create CryptoTots. In todayās climate, I think itāll most likely be this option as forcing the breeding into āgender normsā of only a male and female Vamp will cause a lot of unnecessary backlash. But again, all of this is mere speculation.
They did mention in a recent AMA, that Gen 1 holders will get some sort of priority or discount to get Gen 2 Lady Vamps, which is another reason to hold or buy one on OS now! No mention of when the āsnapshotā date will be but stayed tuned to the Discord #announcements channel.
A snapshot date is where they record who is a holder and eligible for the benefits ā if you buy after or sell before that snapshot your wallet wonāt be recognized for the TBD Gen 2 drop priority/discount. (It works the same way as stock dividends)
**UPDATE: During a recent AMA someone asked about the breeding possibilities with the Gen 1 male vamps and Gen 2 females and the Devs coyly responded, āWhy is everybody so smart.ā So it looks like this could be in the future. Not sure yet if itās only a M/F breeding situation or if M/M and F/F will also be included.
Future Gens
This is 100% pure speculation but I could easily see them adding more character and āmutationsā down the road. For instance that would add Vampire Familiars or even Humans that you could ābiteā with one of you Vamps and convert them to a Vampire akin to the was the BAYC gave users the ability to āmutateā their Apes with special serum.
During an AMA, someone asked about Werewolves but the Devs said āFuck werewolves!ā Now this may have been in jest or totally serious but I could definitely see them adding a line of foes in the future.
Thereās also a possibility for more Vampire Hunter characters. Right now thereās just the one in the super rare category, but who knows, there could be more on the horizon and that could integrate with the game in different ways, allowing you to choose to play as a Hunter or a Vamp.
I donāt know how the blockchain works entirely but Iām curious if itās even possible to do crossovers between other projects. Imagine if someone holding a Vamp and a Bored Ape could ābiteā the Ape and make Vampire Apes. Not sure if these is possible on a technical level but Mig has worked on both projects so there is potential connective tissue there.
Press Info
On the recent AMA, they said there will be a number of articles, interviews, and podcasts coming out soon in the media. And not just the crypto outlets. A lot of people have been asking about a rumored Forbes article so weāll see if that happens or not but some big press releases sound on the horizon.
They also mentioned theyāve been talking to some major influencer (unnamed at this point) to get involved with the project. They are doing a special Honorary Collection for these new members of the community that will be separate from the 8,888 original Gen Vamps. This could be huge and really put the spotlight on the project!
***UPDATE: Four Honorary Vamps have showed up on OpenSea!
#1 is owned by Cryptopathic
#2 is owned by CryptoCobain
#3 is owned by Keyboard Monkey
#4 is owned by Ad_Infinitum
#5 is owned by āØ888āØ
#6 is owned by Bagsy
#7 is owned by notsofast
#8 is owned by CryptoCred
#9 is owned by fxunction
#10 is owned by Crypto ąøæitlord
#11 is owned by Ledger for Senate
#12 is owned by Altcoin Psycho
#13 is owned by Gainzy
#14 is owned by bender
#15 is owned by K A L E O
#16 is owned by Unihax0r ~
So as you can see thereās a lot on the horizon to be excited about. You may have missed the Public Sale but thereās plenty of opportunity to grabs a Gen 1 Vamp on OpenSea while theyāre still relatively affordable or wait for the upcoming Gen 2 release. Thanks for reading, and Iāll see you in the Metaverse!
Sneak long and prosper!
š
For more helpful links, check out my previous posts:
Sneaky Vampire Syndicate
Buying My First NFT
WTF are NFTs??
SVS Official Links
Socials
Website: https://svs.gg/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/svsnft
Discord: https://discord.gg/SVSNFT
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sneakyvampiresyndicate/ OpenSea: https://opensea.io/collection/sneaky-vampire-syndicate
Deployer: https://etherscan.io/address/0xdcf7b7da5ac4f1b0e1a28935c523e9929c9134fc
Contract: https://etherscan.io/address/0x219b8ab790decc32444a6600971c7c3718252539
The Team
Mig (Artist): https://twitter.com/migwashere2
Topkek (Project Lead): https://twitter.com/purchasable
Woof (Lead Developer): https://twitter.com/boosts
Ryan (Community Management): https://twitter.com/upulag
Freddy (Developer): https://twitter.com/copbud
Krassenstein (Game Developer): https://www.twitch.tv/krassenstein
OTHER LINKS / RESOURCES
Sneaky Vampire Syndicate NFTās Has Over $35 Million in Sales in First Week
Sign Up for a Medium Membership: https://spocktradez.medium.com/membership
