It’s been a long month of delays and discussion, but your patience is about to pay off.
Don’t get me wrong — there’s still a lot to do. But that’s how it will always be on Mars, so it’s good to get used to it now.
Also, before we get to the week’s progress, I want to put your minds at ease about something.
There was a lot of discussion this week about last week’s announcement and the confusion it caused. Lesson learned, but going forward I need you all to know that we will not change core parts of the project without extensive discussion with the community first, and without majority support.
That said, everything is fair game to talk about. We can’t have a DAO if you’re going to panic when we start a conversation about something you might not like.
Price drops are one thing, that’s fine. Bad news preceeds sell-offs, and that’s normal. The price of CLNY is NOT an indicator of market sentiment (nor of the health of the project), especially when just a few people hold so much CLNY. Pumps and dumps will both come, and it’s important to remember that the price doesn’t matter for the game we’re building, and it only matters for your investment at the moment you decide to sell. And that’s a personal choice.
But conversations are an indicator of sentiment and health, and it’s important for us to be able to disagree openly and kindly.
I will not tolerate any more death threats. Many have tried to kill me and failed. You won’t be the first to succeed.
But honestly, I’m proud of you.
Despite the intense couple days (during which Mediators were on the front lines helping people, for which I am eternally grateful), we pulled together as a community and learned a lot about what it means to be building a society.
Every community will have its problems. It’s how we pull through them that matters, and you didn’t disappoint.
I’m grateful.
But anyway, enough of the mush. Let’s get to those updates:
Development/Design
— The SPEX (MC DEX) is in review, and I had a conversation with a prominent Harmony team member about applications for the SPEX, during which he made some interesting points we’re reviewing internally. I know that’s vague, but it’s all I can say for now. More on that soon.
— Avatars are in testing. They’ve been finalized, randomness has been codified, and logistics (secondary markets, security, mint schedule, etc) are in place. All we’re doing now is making absolutely sure there will be no bugs at launch, which will be at the end of this week.
Every 8 hours on launch day, 7,000 avatars will be made available for mint. You will have two days advance notice of the mint schedule.
— The lore surrounding the formation of the Colony and the plot for the first stage of missions has been decided. They are being built out alongside avatars, but will take longer and release some time in the weeks following launch. The future of Mars Colony will soon be in your hands.
— We’re planning to revamp the UI of the app (make it prettier and easier to use), the specifications of which are currently being decided.
— Guild capabilities are being built on the backend.
— We passed the latest audits!
— We reached our second and third Harmony grant milestones!
Community
— Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars (some people are saying it was all planned since no one cares about the Oscars anymore after the last two years made us all rethink what was really important in life, but I’m not one for conspiracy theories. Except the ones that are true).
New Mars meme format:
— We held an AMA with many core team members (though few of us spoke). Marx said a few words though! If you missed the call, you can listen to the recording.
— We published a small bit of lore.
— I was a guest on the Harmonize podcast, but the episode hasn’t been published yet. I will announce when it is. In the meantime, give them a follow:
— Marx shared a sneak peek with you all in Discord after the AMA:
(it looks this good and it’s not even finished)
— On Thursday, I will be speaking with Harmony DAOs at a virtual event and promoting MC. I have already done so with Africa and India DAOs.
— The Mediators formed 3 focus groups that are serving as trial-runs for MockDAO. They’ve come up with some great ideas for missions incentives, and are helping us find bugs in community governance slowly. More details on MockDAO in April.
Speaking of missions incentives, what’s the deal? Are we reducing land emissions?
Not technically.
Last week, my announcement tried to cover too many topics at once. As a result, I didn’t fully or properly explain what it is we were proposing.
Instead of explaining that here, I will soon make an independent forum post about our proposal, as well as each proposal from the 3 focus groups that have formed.
You will be able to informally vote to support your favorite of the proposals on the forum once they’ve been published, and discuss them in depth in the replies.
The more popular ideas will then either be combined (if they’re similar enough) or go to an official vote by landowners (if they’re competing ideas).
The idea that you choose by a majority will shape how mission rewards function, and the way the game as a whole is incentivized going forward.
From talking to the focus groups, I think you’ll be happy with all of the proposals, and we’ll just have to figure out together which one we like best.
It’s exciting to get to build this society with you all. Keep up the good work.
Forward.
— brother.
. Extra kudos to Marx for the neat visuals on the Avi control panel. 
