Over 7,000 players successfully converged in Yuga Labs’ Otherside Metaverse ‘Second Trip’

Yuga Labs conducted a successful Second Trip this past Saturday, giving community members a preview of what’s to come in their Otherside metaverse world that is scheduled to launch later this year.

According to Yuga Labs, around 7,200 players participated in the 90-minute test run. Holders of Otherdeed non-fungible tokens (NFTs) – a collection tied to lands in the Otherside metaverse – were invited to join the experience, along with one guest each.

CoinDesk attended the closed event as a guest and was able to interact with other “voyagers” and participate in the action-packed story.

From the start, the experience was designed to transport players into a sci-fi fantasy world that combined elements of popular MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) and NFT culture.

Users began their journey by entering “Infinity Space”, an empty arena where travelers could learn to control their avatars and send messages to other players. Voyagers were able to gather in small groups and talk to each other directly — a feature meant to mimic a “real-world event,” where players could only talk and hear others when they were nearby, Yuga Labs chief creative officer Michael Figge said.

After about 20 minutes, large screens appeared over Infinity Space and broadcast a message from Bored Ape Yacht Club mascot Curtis, who was “hosting” the experience.

The ape character divided the group into four teams based on color and announced their respective captains: Luster (yellow) was led by Yuga Lab’s community program manager Lowbellie, Crimson (red) was led by Twitch streamer Brycent, Veldan (green) was led by Snoop Dogg’s son and NFT collector Cordell Broadus, and the winning team, Glacia (blue), were led by player Jimmy Wong.

Voyager’s outfits transformed into their assigned team colors and the players began to gather in groups. Moments later, a wormhole opened to the “swamp”, transporting players to their team area to complete tasks and earn points. The game involved several wacky directives, including collecting “magic blobs” to give to digital toads that shot flames from their mouths. All the while, travelers could run, jump, fly and explore the multidimensional space.

The winners of the game received “winged helmets” like Yuga Labs so would be airdropped to their wallet.

While some existing metaverse experiences are paired with poor graphics, laggy speeds, and hard-to-navigate virtual spaces, Otherside’s user experience was relatively robust and easy to use by comparison.

In particular, the experience was incredibly detailed and didn’t seem to have widespread problems with congestion despite thousands of players converging on the square at the same time.

Feedback from players was generally positive, with many sharing optimism for the platform’s future.

Still, some users complained about connectivity issues and questioned the significance of several in-game artifacts that remain shrouded in mystery.

The gamification of the Otherside platform is part of Yuga Labs’ broader strategy to build excitement and allow holders to familiarize themselves with the experience before the official launch. Yuga Labs hosted the first tour in July 2022, welcome 4,600 players to the other side for the first time. Players who returned to the Otherside for the second trip are eligible to claim an Obelisk, a digital collectible to commemorate their adventures.

According to data from secondary marketplace OpenSea, Otherdeed NFTs have done 568,607 ETH in trading volume, or just over $1 billion. At the time of writing, the collection has a floor price of 1.67 ETH, or around $3,000.

Figge told CoinDesk that several tours are planned ahead of the platform’s official launch. In the meantime, he has focused on building out an ecosystem that will eventually be available at all times to token holders.

“We’re doing these big theater experiences right now with First Trip and Second Trip, which are basically 90-minute big Broadway shows,” Figge said. “But we’re taking all the technology we’ve built and funneling it into a version of Otherside that will be built and available at a higher cadence level.”

Each trip conducted by the team provides feedback on the parts of the experience that worked and those that need fine-tuning. Spencer Tucker, head of games at Yuga Labs, told CoinDesk that the biggest takeaway from the second trip was that players want more intimate “breakouts” and community-building experiences to strengthen relationships with other travelers.

“As we build in the future, that’s something we definitely want to take into account because you can have persistence, but you also need the ability to have your own kind of identity and form your own clique,” Tucker said. “As we explore what persistent space looks like, we want to let people stop and smell the roses sometimes while still having really cool experiences that they can dive into.”

Yuga has yet to set a date for its third tour. However, Figge and Tucker shared that in the coming months there will be more advanced experiences and opportunities for token holders to enter the Otherside.