Meta Residence Tower Grant Draft Proposal

This is a revised proposal of a previously accepted grant. After discussions with GSS, we decided to re-propose it under the correct category.

The Meta Residence Tower (MRT) project seeks to address the hurdles that Decentraland users currently face when trying to access or create customised virtual spaces. The present method, which requires the costly and time-consuming hiring of developers, needs an alternative. MRT offers a simple, no-code solution for the citizens of Decentraland.

Through these problem-solving features, the MRT project aims to revolutionize the way Decentraland citizens access, create, and interact with virtual spaces, offering a cost-effective and user-friendly alternative to the current process.

The Meta Residence Tower represents a virtual skyscraper with 10,000 NFT apartments (spaces). Access to an apartment is provided with an NFT key, which the user can purchase on the website or in the building itself.

The building offers four types of layouts: Studio, 1BHK, 2BHK, and Penthouse. There is also the possibility to make it an open space.

Each apartment includes an interior design constructor with more than 700 furniture items (from bedroom to bathroom), along with options for ceilings, floors, and wallpapers. Users can create unique furniture arrangements with this tool.

All project features, including the builder, smart-items, and upgrades, can be found in the last proposal. Of course, we've made a lot of additions since then. Please check out real-time development changelog where you can see about a hundred of pull requests from the last proposal.

The progress since last proposal:

New upgrades (10 in total) & Smart Items (30 in total) include:
Open Space: The ability to remove all walls and create an open, flat space.
A ticketing system allowing users to sell tickets for events they hold, either permanently or one-time.
A subscription-based video streaming service.
An event system: Space owners can highlight their events on an internal Event board.
Teleport from flat to location
Teleport from flat to flat
Custom text
The ability to enter the tower and user's flat WITHOUT WEB3.
Dozens of UI elements
Scene animations (doors, elevators, NPCs)
Numerous CI/CD additions
Several team and user-made interactive experiences (mini-games and quest-like stories) showcasing the possibilities of creating games with MRT's easy to learn integrated builder.
We also hold a Mini Game Jam event for game makers
Scene optimization for more than 100mb of space.
Asset optimization to improve scene loading times and performance.
Tutorials on using features.
$5k in sales even during this bear market and despite currently limited userbase.

While we've already built a substantial feature and technical base, I'd like to highlight the Community part and UGC. The Tower hosts many community events. Babydolls live from Penthouse is a weekly event, DJ-Trax has held numerous parties, Dcl Brazil Birthday Party, We were a venue for BeatTrekker events, And dozens of other residents. Over 80% of our 800 tweets are user-generated content.

All these events were hold without our help only with build-in features.

Our plans for sustainability

Sales of apartments & spaces in MRT.
An in-game store with more than 40 items.
Fee for interacting with Smart-Contract (donation, payable access, shop).
Video-streaming service (Subscription model).
Advertising income.
Public & Dedicated private Worlds.

We ask the DAO to allocate $110,000 for current and future development. Since this is a commercial project, we want to repay the grant.

The payment plan is as follows:

30% of the sales of apartments, smart items, and upgrades will be transferred monthly to the DAO until the total amount is repaid.

Budget Breakdown

Frontend Development: $30.000. This includes frontend for MRT & different versions of the Meta Residence Worlds
Backend Development: $30.000. Server backend, DB, Video Server, CDN, Actions, CI/CD, Testing Environment.
Smart Contracts: $15.000. This allocation is for contracts for Worlds, enabling the sale of NFTs, wearables from the space, and shop contracts.
3D Modelling: $15.000 This includes updating existing models, creating new building models & furniture packs for the Worlds, and optimizing models
2D design: $10.000. This is for UX/UI, visual content, website, and new design for the Worlds
Community management: $7000. This covers social media management, collaboration, ticket support, content creation, tutorials, and onboarding new users

The Team

The entire team has a background in game development. The team developed 5 projects in Decentraland: 8MetaBalls, 8MetaPawns, Oasis Arcade, MRT, MRW

Anton Manakov: Team Lead. Core developer of 8MetaBalls, 8MetaPawns, Meta Residence Tower. Frontend, Backend, Smart Contracts.
Khristoforov Timur: Backend, Frontend, Smart Contracts, CI/CD, Servers. (Oasis Arcade, MRT, MRW)
Alex Rymar: Frontend, Backend, DB (Oasis Arcade, 8MetaBalls, 8MetaPawns, MRT, MRW)
Ampilov Victor: Frontend developer (Oasis Arcade, 8MetaBalls, 8MetaPawns, MRT, MRW)
Nik: Frontend developer (Oasis Arcade, 8MetaBalls, 8MetaPawns, MRT, MRW)
Krinitskii Vitaliy: 3d modeling, operation, co-founder. (8MetaBalls, 8MetaPawns, MRT, MRW)
Alex Babkin: 3d modeling, optimizing. (8MetaBalls, 8MetaPawns, MRT, MRW)
Alena Arutunyan: 2D designer. Visual content, UI/UX, Website design. (8MetaBalls, 8MetaPawns, MRT, MRW)
Mithra aka INVOKER: Community management, collabs, game design. (8MetaBalls, 8MetaPawns, MRT, MRW)
Several others who perform various part-time roles.

Our future plans

Decentralization:

Our main goal is to eventually make the project fully decentralized, allowing users to own their spaces in perpetuity. Steps towards this include:

Representing smart-items and upgrades as NFTs.
Ensuring all smart-items & upgrades work without a webserver. We aim to implement two modes, with and without a server.
Establishing a DAO & Multisig wallet.
Transferring land to a community wallet (we will transfer 15 parcels of our own land to the Tower DAO).

Upgrading to SDK7:

This will enhance the user experience & possibilities for new features

Flats in Worlds:

This feature will allow users to deploy a space with full functionality to a separate world by NAME. Once implemented, up to 100 worlds with different content could be deployed immediately

Visual improvements:

We plan to beautify the entire Tower, including the main building, indoor areas like lobbies and corridors, flats, furniture, and the UI.

In conclusion

The Meta Residence Tower (MRT) project presents an innovative and revolutionary solution to the challenges faced by Decentraland users, allowing them to access and create customized virtual spaces without the need for coding expertise or purchasing expensive land. As a fully-functional, no-code solution, MRT empowers users with features previously limited to developers and landlords, democratizing the virtual space creation process in Decentraland.

Moreover, our proposal sets an important precedent as a commercial project that commits to fully refunding the granted funds to the DAO, ensuring a mutually beneficial partnership.

Finally, our future plans include expanding the MRT project to Decentraland Worlds, offering versatile and user-friendly solutions for expanding Worlds.

I would be happy to answer any question here, or privately on Discord Tony7474, or we can arrange a video call.