Milestone: MVP-A

In the last update post, I mentioned how development has begun, and outlined the milestones we'd aim to reach, with a two-part MVP and the last stretch of a 1.0 release.

We've outlined what would be developed in each milestone, and how the funds would be used to complete the remaining development of the project (design and frontend, which I am handling, wouldn't be getting those funds).

The estimated cost of each phase has been communicated in the previous post, and it was apparent that the community funds raised at the of writing that post weren't enough, where I mentioned I'd use personal funds for the remainder of what's needed to reach least the first milestone, which would've taken a bit of time to acquire, however, this was alleviated by one returning backer, Merlin, who double-dipped and backed the project again, with the second time providing double the amount compared to the first time, which secured the completion of the first milestone.

Thanks to Merlin (🤜🤛) and their passion for DEG Mods to see it go live, they even spread awareness too by poking Melonmancy Podcast to mention the project, which led them to become backers as well as having set up zap splits on that episode of their podcast, funneling that split towards this project. Thanks guys!

DEG Mods MVP-A is out!

Because of all of this, and after internal testing, I'd like to announce that DEG Mods MVP-A is now live for testing on degmods.com (Drink up! 🤘).

Passing this milestone means a few things:

1.  The core function of what DEG Mods was trying to deliver is now live. Login, publish, and edit a mod, have a page for it, download the mod, and bonus: Zap (tip/donate) the post/creator.
2.  The first censorship-resistant game mods platform has been created and is now live, with a censorship-resistant financial tipping system that has zero-enforced financial cuts from the platform's end.
3.  Neither this project nor I have thankfully not failed your initial trust.
4.  It can only get better from here.

Keep in mind that this is still very early, and very rough, and there are still a lot of placeholder pages and elements. So, when you give it a try, send over your feedback and bug reports when they pop up.

With that said, here's what has been achieved in this first version of the platform/client:

•   The project has been reconstructed into a React project.
•   You can now log/sign into the site with your Nostr keys via a browser extension.
•   We decided not to include logging via private key or having the ability to generate a key pair. There are safety concerns with this along with custodial bunker logins. Later down the line, we'd implement mobile app remote signing when possible (Example: Amber login), and potential Bunker login but without suggested domains (the idea here is that people would input their non-custodial/self-hosted Bunker to login).
•   You can sign out over at the settings page (I know, a drop-down from the profile picture in the navbar would've been better).
•   You can publish a game mod, view it, edit it, and see it on the games mods list page. You can of course also download the mod from within a published mod's page.
•   During the game mod page creation process, when you add a download link, you can add a link that leads to a website or a file, and it should behave as expected.
•   What's not working on the published mod's page is the commenting system, the web-of-trust rating system, the reacting system, and the profile box on the side.
•   It's also worth noting that there's now a games DB, a file that would be updated every now and then to add new games so that you can select a game from it during the game mod creation process/page.
•   An important note as well: The published mods are replaceable events, which means if you edit a mod post and then publish it, the previous version "should" not be saved. In the future, we'd look into having a historical record if possible, and look into somehow having a static URL for each mod post (as everytime you publish a revised version, the URL gets changed).
•   Bitcoin Lightning Network has been implemented, where you can now zap the site or zap a mod creator's mod post/page.

These are the results achieved with the campaign funds to date ($1,577 - 4%), which now has been depleted, along with $1,600 of my personal funds. I'm sure you've noticed that the total funds spent, which is around $3,200, is lower than the estimated cost of $4,000, so that's a bit of bonus good news.

Speaking of estimation...

Road to MVP-B

For now, development for MVP-B won't start until I've acquired the funds for this phase, or at least close to it, and an updated estimate for that is $2,700 (rather than the previous estimate of $4,000 for this upcoming phase).

What would be developed for this phase are the following:

•   Reporting & moderating system
•   To report posts or users, which we'd then review to determine if we'd add them to the block list, resulting in posts and profiles not being visible on the site (of course, because of the nature of nostr, people can still access these profiles and posts).
•   The games list page
•   A page to view games, where clicking on them would result in a search for mods made for the game you've clicked.
•   Search system
•   To search up game names, game mods, and potential users
•   Basic commenting system
•   So you can comment on a game mod's page. The "basic" part of it means that you'll only be commenting and reacting/zapping comments (an advanced version would have a reply functionality with how we've designed it specifically).
•   Profile box
•   So you'd know who posted a game mod, fetching the creator's profile picture, banner, name, nip-05 handle, bio, and the ability to follow and zap them.
•   Reactions
•   The ability to react to a mod post (heart or poop)
•   Home page modification
•   This is an admin-side function, where we'd be able to change what's featured on the home page (currently, everything there is a placeholder).
•   Settings page
•   The ability to edit your profile
•   Manage your relays
•   Basic preference edit of enabling/disabling NSFW by default.

Marketing

It'll probably take some time before the funds for MVP-B are acquired, so in the meantime, I'll continue trying to market the site where I can and how I see fit, and it should be a lot easier now since I can show something functional, and considering that, I've taken the liberty of creating a new nPub with the goal of re-posting game mods on the site, focusing on ones that have been censored (deleted page, banned creator) from other mainstream mod hosting sites, where I'd, of course, credit their creator, as well as hiding those pages when their time comes (as in when their creator comes over and posts it themselves on DEG Mods). You can already see a few examples of that live on the site.

So now what?

Well, since MVP-A is done and the site is technically live for usage, delivering on its core functions, the immediate things to do, some of which were mentioned above, and some of which you could've probably guessed, is to:

•   See how the site performs with you guys and others, where I'd take in feedback and see what can be fixed or improved, where some can be applied in a short period of time for the current version, and others would be applied later during future phases.
•   Start marketing the site somewhat properly now, where I can provide a link that leads to a functioning site so users, gamers, and creators, can extract value from it. The major friction here would be the registration process, considering that the site is built on top of Nostr and the compromise for the best way to do this is for users to install a Nostr browser signing extension.
•   Monitor the site and see how well it's performing at its current stage, as I continue to see where I can get more funds to move forward with the next phase of development. More funds might come from me trying to get more work and use personal funds, seeing if users gain enough value from the site to a point where they start tipping the site enough or get attracted to its funding campaign page, and/or see if I can somehow get an investment from someone, where the leverage in negotiations would be the data (tips/zaps) coming from the previous potential funding source point.

Bonus note

I took the opportunity to add nPub addresses of backers who chipped in at a value above the first tier, to the DEG Mods domain, permanently. So, now you guys have another place to switch your NIP-05 handle/address to if you desire. You can check what your name is on the DEG Mods domain, and if you'd like it removed or changed, just send a DM/PM to DEG Mods on Nostr.

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Final thoughts

I'm very happy and extremely excited that we've finished the first part of the MVP, which delivers the core functions and officially makes this the first censorship-resistant game mods platform.

Pandora's box has been unsealed. 

For all the supporters of DEG Mods so far, thank you (🫂), and I hope that this release is not underwhelming when you give it a try. I'm looking forward to celebrating with you again once we pass the second milestone.