“In this day and age, you can actually Play To Earn, Dad!”
Emma’s voice had gotten louder and more exasperated, and I could no longer hear the soft scritch-scritch of my pencil on paper.
“Who’s going to pay you to play games? Where’s the money coming from? Sheesh, it sounds like voodoo, Emma, but I’ll take your word for it.” I turned my attention back to my artwork.
"Thank you...
...So will you help me get started with Farming Tales?”
“Honey, you know I’m happy to help, but no one’s stopping you from ‘playing to earn’ or whatever. I don’t get what the problem is, why don’t you just go to farmingtales.io and play? I may be old but I know how to use a computer, it’s a browser-based game, right?”
“Yeah, but it’s a pretty new game and getting started can be confusing! At least, it is for me. I asked Cassie and Mia, because we’re all already on at least one blockchain, but neither of them could figure it out either.”
Emma, my daughter, wanted to play Farming Tales, but was clearly having some trouble, so, it’s ‘Dad to the rescue’ once again, I guess.
“I’ll point out that you’re interrupting my art time. I could be creating the next Mona Lisa here, that would make us all rich and famous. Are you telling me you want me to put my pencil down and dedicate my afternoon to helping you play Farming Tales?”
“Yes, and I’ll counter with this:
Farming Tales is the only game that connects the modern power of crypto, blockchains, and NFTs to the traditional, tangible value of real-world farmers.
And many of these farmers have been struggling since the pandemic, so playing Farming Tales doesn’t just let me earn money, it lets me support and invest in real-life farmers doing the work of filling our grocery stores. Humanity’s food source is pretty important, right? So Farming Tales isn’t just a game, it’s a vital social movement, possibly rivaling your upcoming Mona Lisa.” Emma grinned cheekily.
“You make a compelling case, Em. Fine, I’ll help you. Let me explore Farming Tales and I’ll get back to you tomorrow.”
The sun’s golden rays lit up the breakfast table as I enjoyed my bagel, and Emma was animatedly asking for the results of my Farming Tales exploration.
“Em, dear, can’t you wait until I’m done with my bagel and newspaper?”
“No! I wanna play so bad, tell me how please!”
“Ok, fine. Here goes: First you girls aren’t even on the right blockchain.”
“We aren’t?”
“Nope. Farming Tales does plan to integrate with the Hive blockchain so that Hivers can play it easily, but for now…
…You must have a crypto wallet on the WAX Blockchain in order to play Farming Tales.”
“Ohhhhh, is it easy to get one?”
“Mostly, yes, but some people may hit some snags from what I gathered yesterday. For example, I easily registered for a free Wax Cloud Wallet at all-access.wax.io, just by entering a username, password, and clicking ‘Sign Up’ or whatever. But…"
“But what?”
“Some people’s browsers might have an ‘adblock’ plugin that causes problems with that. Some people don’t ‘trust’ cloud wallets (but they could use an Anchor soft wallet instead). Some people don’t remember their wallet address. And most people will probably encounter a similar problem to me.” I pointed at my chest and made a ‘serious’ face to emphasize my point.
“OMG Dad what happened?” Emma’s eyes were cartoon-wide.
“My wallet remained empty. I couldn’t buy any WAXP tokens for it.”
Emma cleared her throat. “I assume WAXP is the main token on the WAX blockchain?”
“Correct, smarty-pants.”
“Is it really a big deal that your wallet’s empty?”
“Yep, because all actions on the WAX blockchain (and in Farming Tales) cost tiny amounts of WAXP.”
“Oh, yeah, just like when I joined other blockchains, I’ll quickly run out of ‘resource credits’ or whatever and every time I click or type on that blockchain, I’ll get an error.”
“Exactly.”
“So how do we buy some WAXP?”
“There’s a few ways to do it. You can login to your Wax Dashboard and click the ‘Buy WAXP’ button. You can acquire some WAXP on a crypto exchange, then transfer or deposit it into your Wax Cloud Wallet. Maybe other ways too. But however you choose to do it:
You must get some WAXP tokens into a crypto wallet on the WAX blockchain…
…and I should mention people sometimes just shorten WAXP token to just ‘WAX’.”
“Well, you eventually got it done, right?”
“Unfortunately not yet honey. I logged into my free Wax Cloud Wallet Dashboard, saw my account was 0.00, and so I clicked the big ‘Buy WAXP’ button. It popped up a window with many different ways to deposit WAXP into my wallet. It gave me options like MoonPay, Crypto.com, and more, but even with all these options I still don’t have any WAXP tokens in my Cloud Wallet.”
“What?! It’s been an entire day and you couldn’t buy tokens?”
“You got it. Because we’re in Canada, many of the traditional methods of buying WAXP haven’t worked for me. People in other countries may have similar issues if they’re not familiar with the cryptosphere. For example, MoonPay or SimplePay are great services to buy WAXP, but only available in the United States.”
“Lame.”
“Bittrex is what I normally use since it’s worldwide and lists so many cryptocurrencies for exchange, but for most of December many of its currencies have been ‘down for maintenance’, so I can’t exchange HIVE for WAXP like I wanted to.”
“Seriously? A month-long maintenance? Right when I want to play? They’re a Digital Exchange! What if people want to buy or sell crypto?”
“Crypto is a new field, Em, and there’s lots of bugs to work out with new things. Don’t worry, it’ll get smoother. One day you’ll be able to join any blockchain or pay-to-earn game with a click of a button, but for now, let’s be kind, patient, and work through the growing pains, eh?”
“You’re right, my bad, I just really wanna play.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll figure it out. I was going to use Binance, because it’s a massively popular Crypto Exchange and if they ever have maintenance it’s kept quite short.”
“Sounds like Binance is perfect? Let’s do it!”
“Right, but unfortunately Binance has had regulatory issues in some States and with the Ontario government, and is being forced to close down in Ontario.”
“What?? One of the most famous crypto exchanges is unavailable for us? Is everything against us getting some damn WAX tokens?”
“Hey! Watch your tone miss, we just agreed to be patient and kind and work through this, didn’t we?”
“Sorry, Dad.”
“C’mon Em, I thought you’d been getting more mature and level-headed recently.”
“I know but Farming Tales looks so cute! I saw a teaser of it on YouTube and you have this cute lil 3D farmer running around on a 3D farm managing food and water for your animals and crops, earning epic yields, it looks so fun! I’m just over-emotional, I’ll be chill, promise.”
“Thank you miss. Now, rumor has it Binance will overcome this restriction and be back in Ontario, but I went back to Bittrex since it’s my favorite, most comfortable, most familiar exchange. Plus it’s one of the officially supported exchanges on wax.io.
Basically, I reached out to them and asked my digital exchange for help with buying WAXP.”
“You’ve always taught me that it’s ‘a blessing to the world when we ask for help,’ right?”
“Right, and Bittrex did help me! They told me to Wire Transfer some US Dollars from my bank into my BIttrex account, then use those funds to buy WAXP directly. That way I’d have some WAXP, and I could worry about transferring it into my Wax Cloud Wallet afterwards.”
“Sounds good, so did you do it?”
“Almost, wire transfers take 10 days and I have to visit the bank in person.”
“Ugh, who actually does stuff in person in 2022?” Emma rolled her eyes.
“‘I know, right?’” I mimicked something Emma often says. “But we’re creative. We need WAXP tokens to play Farming Tales, and all the digital exchanges have been making it tricky to buy WAX for us Canadians, so what does the Brown Family do when faced with challenges?”
“We solve them, fast!”
“Exactly. So I did. I contacted a friend of mine, @phage93 , and asked if he’d kindly trade me some WAXP for some HIVE. I checked the Hive-To-Wax conversion rate. I logged into my Hive Wallet and sent him some tokens. He logged into his Wax Wallet and sent a matching amount to my WAX Address (which I got from my WAX Dashboard), and voila, my Wax Cloud Wallet balance now says I own 341.00 WAXP.”
“Wait, how much WAX do I need to get started in Farming Tales?”
“I did a surprising amount of research on this just to find out. If you ask most Farming Tales players, they’ll just tell you ‘it depends on the market’, which is technically true, because by the time I’m done explaining this to you, WAXP prices and Farming Tales NFT prices may have changed drastically, just like any cryptocurrency.”
“Dad, I can’t tell Cass and Mia to play with me, then tell them I have no clue how much they’ll have to spend!”
“I know, my love, but ‘chill’, as you girls say. Since WAXP debuted as a crypto currency, its price has hovered around $0.50 USD. That may change, but you can ballpark the price of WAXP tokens at about two tokens for one US dollar.”
“OK, that helps a bit, but I still don’t know what to tell Mia and Cassie.They’re just students with part-time jobs…
…Do they need to be rich to play Farming Tales?”
“Nope. When I last checked you could buy a ‘White Goose’ NFT for about 66 WAX, and now we’ll test your grade 3 math: given our usual WAX price of $0.50 USD, how much money would a goose in Farming Tales cost you today, darling daughter?”
“66 divided by 2…” Emma muttered under her breath “...thirty-three US bucks!”
“Exactly, nice to see you learned something in the schools I paid for.”
“Hey! Be nice!” I stuck my tongue out at Emma, but let her continue. “So I can tell the girls they only need thirty-three dollars to get started?”
“Nope, because…
Getting started in Farming Tales requires at least one ‘animal’ and one ‘building’ to shelter the animal.”
“Ah, and how much does that cost? Wait, let me guess, ‘it depends on the market’ yadda yadda.” Em’s voice became nasal and high-pitched, a parody of a ‘typical geek’ you might see on Saved By The Bell or in the old movie Revenge Of The Nerds.
I ignored her joke. “Actually Em, buying a ‘Geese Shelter’ NFT to shelter your Goose isn’t much at all, just 69 WAX.”
“Which is about $34.50 USD at current market prices, so I could tell Mia and Cassie that the animal and building combo together would cost them about… thirty-three plus thirty-five… 68 USD!”
“Yes, depending on the market. And you should know that one Goose and one Shelter may not be the best investment, but technically they’re a cheap way to get started. Personally I highly, highly, highly recommend starting with a ‘rare’ animal and a ‘rare’ building combo, because ‘common’ animal/building combos can actually lose you money in today’s Farming Tales market.”
“Oh, good to know. Are there better ways to get started if I’m willing to spend more?”
“Yes, I believe a few ‘rare leghorn hens’ with a ‘rare chicken coop’ yields better results for beginners, but that animal+building combo costs about double the WAX–”
“--depending on the market, right?”
“Right, haha. And if you’re serious about Farming Tales you could invest in quite a few animals and buildings to start, Goats, Cows, Bees, etc. You could probably even go ‘vegetarian’ and mostly garden, but I haven’t really looked into it.”
“OK cool, so it sounds like right now, in today’s market, it’s about $70 USD to get started playing Farming Tales and get your first animal + building NFT, but I might want to invest double that to get a rare hen + coop to truly jumpstart my Farming Tales gaming experience and get better yields, correct?”
“Correct! You’re a quick-learner!”
Emma blushed adorably. “Yes, I totally am. But why did you have your friend send you 341 WAX?”
“Ah, good question, well a) because I wanted to ‘game right’ and start with a ‘chicken + coop’, and b) because it’s not just the animal and building that will be draining my Wax Wallet. Can you guess what else I’ll have to pay for in WAX as I click around and perform transactions on the WAX blockchain, Em?”
“Ummmm… I’m wracking my brain but I honestly can’t imagine what else. Food for the animals?”
“Yes! That’s one thing that will actually cost CBITs, an in-game currency, but you’re right because many players do end up purchasing some CBITs with WAX. Still, there’s something else WAX is vital for, and a Hive veteran like yourself should be able to guess it.”
“I’ve no idea!”
“Here’s a hint: ‘Resource Credits.’” I made ‘airquotes’ symbols with my fingers so she’d know I was hinting that WAX is used in Farming Tales similarly to how Hive uses ‘Resource Credits.’ I could see the wheels turning in Emma’s head and the a-ha moment when she got it.
Emma’s eyes lit up, “Ohhh, gas fees! Transaction fees!
Farming Tales, just like any dApp on the blockchain requires RAM, CPU, and Network Bandwidth…
…so everyone has to pay gas fees on every transaction on the blockchain!”
“Bingo. So I set aside some WAX for my animal, my building, food & water, and lastly, for gas fees that I’ll need to cover RAM, CPU, and Network Bandwidth.”
“That makes so much sense, and if we want a good gaming experience we’ll definitely want our Wax Cloud Wallet to be topped up so we’re not met with weird errors and transaction limits as we play.”
“Exactly, when I first started I got errors left and right, mostly because I didn’t have enough WAX staked into the CPU. I fixed it by going to my Wallet Dashboard -> Resources Section, and I went crazy. I probably only needed 50 more WAX staked, but I went overboard, staking about 500 more WAX into the CPU, just so I’d never have to worry about errors again, haha. Anyway, the point is, after I finally got a healthy amount of WAX in my Cloud Wallet to actually play and login to Farming Tales. I was ready to start my farm.”
“Hooray! Is it easy?”
“Well, yes and no. You have to realize it’s a very new game that just graduated out of ‘alpha’ into a ‘live beta test’ where people like you and I can play.”
“Oh no, you’re telling me there’s lots of bugs, right?”
“Not exactly. The game is pretty solid, but some things are unpolished or a bit tricky to navigate if you don’t have a teacher to guide you. Still lots of people are playing it and it’s player base is growing fast, so it’s totally doable. Sometimes figuring things out is part of the fun, and even helps you connect with others and make friends as you Google and ask around about Farming Tales. I bet you, Mia, and Cassie would bond over it.”
“OK, well can you make it easier for us?”
“I’ll do my best. For example, when I first went to the Farming Tales website, farmingtales.io, I clicked ‘login’ and it didn’t work. I was getting frustrated until I discovered it’s best to click the ‘Play Now’ button on farmingtales.io, which will then load the game and take you to the Farming Tales title screen, and that’s where you ‘login.’”
“Yeah, knowing little quirks like that makes it easier. So you bought your WAX and ta-da, now you’re ready to play! You’re in-game?”
“Technically you can click play now, then login, then ‘connect to your cloud wallet’ and you’ll be in-game, able to run around a 3D farm. You can do that part even without any WAX I believe, but you can’t actually do anything. And there’s no real point running around Farming Tales if you haven’t bought your first animal and building yet, in my opinion.”
“Oh, well you have enough WAX for those in your Cloud Wallet, where do you buy the ‘animal’ and ‘building’ NFTs? Inside the game?”
“You can buy them inside the game, but I’ve had issues with that sometimes.”
“Like what?”
“Well, I tried to buy something from the in-game marketplace instead of AtomicHub and once it said not enough CPU/RAM/Gas Fees, and another time it said ‘no wallet recognized’ – probably because I hadn’t set up the right wallet or something. Point is, I prefer to buy them on WAX’s NFT Marketplace, called AtomicHub. It seems smoother and easier.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, hol’ up. Are you telling me…
…I need to learn my WAX Dashboard, Farming Tales itself, and AtomicHub’s NFT Marketplace too?”
“Yes, personally, I keep all 3 tabs open while I’m playing Farming Tales. It’s way easier than it sounds though, and once you have enough WAX in your wallet and you’re happy with your animals & buildings, you could close two of the tabs. And it’s just a couple clicks to top up your cloud wallet or buy from the marketplace, no big deal.”
“Hmm, ok. So did you buy your animal and building from AtomicHub?”
“I did. First I went to wax.atomichub.io/market and I saw the big ‘login’ button in the top right corner. I figured I’d have to create an account, but I clicked ‘login’ and AtomicHub popped up a window asking me if I’d like to login with my Wax Cloud Wallet, so I did, it popped up an ‘approval’ window, I clicked approve, and bam– I was now logged into the AtomicHub NFT Marketplace.”
“Great, I hate having to sign-up for multiple accounts.”
“Same here. Anyway, now I was on the AtomicHub Marketplace page, and it presented me with a listing of thousands of random NFTs from the Wax Blockchain.”
“But we want Farming Tales NFTs, don’t we?”
“Yes, and AtomicHub makes this easy to find by giving us a ‘Filters’ sidebar.”
“What’’s a ‘filters sidebar’?”
“It’s where you can set filters for what NFTs you want the Marketplace to show you. Want only Rare NFTs? Click the ‘rare’ filter. Want only Farming Tales NFTs? Click the ‘farmingtales’ filter. AtomicHub has lots of other features, but the filter bar is basically all you need. Personally, I use the filters to find animals of 'rare' status, since common animals aren't too profitable.”
“Ah, makes sense. So I assume you looked through the list of filters, found ‘farmingtales’ and clicked it?”
“I did, and AtomicHub immediately displayed