Otherside is a metaverse world designed around the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT collection.
“The Otherside” will offer a massive role-playing game where over 10,000 players can interact, complete missions, and voice chat simultaneously.
The Otherside NFTs were originally sold to BAYC holders and went on public sale on April 30, 2022. 55,000 land parcels were sold for over $300 million, though not without controversy. Due to high network usage, transaction fees were extremely high, and some transactions failed altogether.
In this article, we’ll look at what The Otherside is, how it works, its founders, how you can buy an Otherside NFT, and what happened during the land sale that caused a stir among Crypto Twitter.
What Is The Otherside?
The Otherside is a 3D massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) focusing on the BAYC community. It’s designed to help expand the utility of the BAYC project, combining the benefits of BAYC with a range of other NFT projects.
Like other Metaverse projects, players can explore an open world, venture out on quests, buy, own and sell land, and harvest resources to potentially generate passive income.
There are four unique resources in the game: Anima, Root, Shard, and Ore.
Players can also find and collect “artifacts,” rare in-game assets.
The Otherside ecosystem consists of a marketplace for materials called The Agora, a unique arcade machine, and The Codex, which works much like a book telling the tales of The Otherside. In its basic form, The Codex describes the Metaverse. However, it continues to change and can be added by players describing their in-game experience.
As of January 2023, The Otherside is only accessible to landholders who own Otherdeed NFTs. These can be purchased on OpenSea and have a floor price of around 1 ETH – 1.5 ETH.
How Does The Otherside Work?
The Otherside operates using several components:
- Unique playable NFT characters
- Otherside Land NFTs
- Kodas
Here’s how each works.
NFT Characters
To create diversity in The Otherside, a wide range of NFTs can be used as playable characters as long as the owner holds an Otherdeed NFT. This increases the number of players, as BAYC NFTs would price out many holders.
Otherside Land NFTs
Otherside land NFTs, also known as Otherdeeds, come in a wide range of unique land types offering a diverse range of terrains for players to explore. Land types include castles surrounded by lava, bone-chilling glaciers, psychedelic realities, and thousands of other options.
Each piece of land will have unique sediment, including rainbow atmos, biogenic swamps, chemical goo, cosmic dreams, and an infinite expanse. There are 200,000 land parcels, each of which will have one or more resources (Anima, Root, Shard, and Ore.)
Alongside its sediment, each Otherdeed land parcel will also have a range of unique traits, such as:
- Environment
- Resources
- Artifacts
- Sediment tier
- Environment Tier
- Kodas
This makes each plot unique, with resources determining the value and rarity of the land NFT.
Kodas
Kodas are a new series of NFT characters and will play an important role in The Otherside Metaverse. Initially, there will be 10,000 Kodas for every 100,000 Otherside Land NFTs, meaning players will have a 10% chance of owning one.
As of January 2023, Kodas remains somewhat of a mystery. There is currently no information on how players will interact with them, and their storyline remains a secret. Nonetheless, many investors believe the value of Kodas will surge in the future.
Who Created The Otherside?
The pioneer of The Otherside is Yuga Labs, the company that created ApeCoin and BAYC. They are supported by three developers: Andreesen Horowitz, Animoca Brands, and Improbable.
Andreesen Horowitz, also known as “a16z crypto,” is the venture-capital firm that led the first seed round for The Otherside. One of its partners, Chris Lyons, has since become part of Yuga Lab’s board for the project.
Animoca Brands is a venture capital and gaming software company. It already has prior success in the Metaverse, having helped build The Sandbox, and is now working on the funding and technology for The Otherside.
Improbable is a UK-based company pushing the boundaries of Metaverse technology. Using funding from Animoca, Improbable aims to create the largest, most secure, and most interactive platform across a range of virtual worlds.
How To Buy An Otherside NFT
You can buy Otherside NFTs on OpenSea.
Begin by creating an OpenSea account and connecting your wallet– MetaMask is the best option.
Once connected, search for Otherdeed for Otherside, ensuring the collection has a blue verification tick.
Search through NFTs based on traits and click “Buy Now” to make your purchase.
Land Sale Disaster
Despite being a highly anticipated project from a well-known NFT project, the initial Otherdeed NFT drop was a disaster for many investors. Before release, the majority of the 200,000 land plots available were reserved for the BAYC community, which immediately monopolized the market.
Only 55,000 land plots were sold publicly, with a mint value of over $300 million. This made the mint one of the most expensive of any Metaverse projects and immediately priced out many collectors.
Before the Otherdeeds sale, Yuga Labs announced they wouldn’t rely on a dutch auction, which is known for creating “gas wars” where fees are driven up until only the richest investors can buy into a project.
Instead, Yoga Labs planned to use a wave system to release their NFTs. Unfortunately, this was even less successful than a dutch auction. Upon release, thousands of investors swarmed the platform to buy an Otherdeed NFT. This resulted in extremely high minting fees, and several transactions failed as collectors couldn’t afford the gas fees. Consequently, investors who experienced failed transactions lost thousands of dollars.
By the end of the sale, only NFT investors with large amounts of capital could buy. Yoga Labs apologized for the incident and stated that in the future, they might need to move the BAYC ecosystem to another blockchain network to prevent similar problems.
Final Thoughts: Exploring Otherside’s Potential
The Otherside is an exciting spin-off of the BAYC brand and has the potential to take the community to new highs.
With many exciting features, interactive gameplay, and a storyline that will continue to develop, The Otherside could change how we interact with blockchain gaming.
However, despite its potential, The Otherside may be too expensive for everyday NFT gamers to get involved.
The fact that almost 75% of the total supply went to BAYC holders and investors were priced out of the remaining supply during The Otherside auction means that only a select few collectors can participate. If the project wants to thrive, it needs to consider the wider NFT community and create new ways for collectors to enjoy the Metaverse without a large initial investment.
