Forgive me if this is all over the place, I have a ton of stuff I want to say about this game and it is bouncing all around my brain at once.
About a month or so ago I was made aware of a new game on the WAX blockchain called Metropolis Origins. The person who was talking about it mentioned that the team behind it seemed to be really on top of things and so I figured I would ape into it a little bit.
This is one of the rare cases where they are selling assets for a game that is actually playable right now. Most of the time we see assets being sold before a game is even created. The team just has a road map and they are looking for funding via the sale to actually bring the project to fruition. That is not the case with Metropolis.
As I mentioned, I aped into the project a little bit (without really knowing what it was), and started buying packs off Nefty Blocks. After you do your own research, if you decide to buy-in to the game, I encourage you to go to secondary markets like Atomic Hub. The prices are lower there now.
I focused mainly on the 250 card packs and I bought a handful of them. Then in dismay I watched as the prices of the packs started to fall below the original sale price on the secondary market. I decided to take advantage and I picked up another five to ten 250 card packs off of Atomic Hub.
The best way I can describe it is to say that Metropolis Origins is basically a clone of Hearthstone. The mechanics are probably about the closest thing I have seen to that game in quite some time.
There was a discussion in the Leo Finance Discord a while ago talking about how surprising it is that all of these Magic the Gathering people are not flocking to Splinterlands. I had to point out that mechanically they are two very different games. Yes, they are both "trading card games", and make no mistake I love Splinterlands.
There is a huge difference though. The majority of Splinterlands strategy takes place on the front end. You select your cards and then fate takes the wheel. With games like MTG, Hearthstone, and now Metropolis, you may know what cards are in your deck, but you never know what cards are going to be in your hand at any give moment. That requires you to form a strategy on the fly and yields more uncertain outcomes.
While we wait for games like Dark Country to become fully playable, Metropolis Origins is ready to go right now (with a couple of caveats).
Here you can see some of the cards that I own.
If you take a closer look, you can see that most of the cards have special abilities that come into play as you are battling.
The game also has a deck building piece just like Hearthstone does. There are 77 total unique cards in the Founders series. You can have 50 cards in your hand at any given time. The system does have prebuilt decks that you can use, or like I said, you can create your own.
Here is a glimpse of the battle screen. As you can see, it is very similar to Hearthstone. Heroes at the center that have 30 hit points which need to be depleted to win the round. Then you have the "field" where you lay your cards.
I will be the first to admit that I am pretty horrible at games like this, but I was able to beat the AI in my first ever match.
The game does feel a little Beta at the moment. There aren't a lot of people in the lounge and when I tried to start a head to head match with one of them it was kind of buggy and wouldn't let me enter the battle.
The group that I am a member of have become tired of the countless click to mine every hour P2E games that are on the market these days and have started playing Metropolis pretty heavily in the past couple of weeks.
Their opinion is it is the most fun blockchain game out there right now. I encourage you to form your own!
I do have a few small complaints about the game. The graphics are cool, but not quite as sharp as I would expect them to be. The interface isn't as intuitive as it could be either. You first have to connect to a Google or social media account to gain access to the game. Then you have to sync your Wax Cloud Wallet to actually bring your cards into the game.
Another issue I have is with the pack opener. The video sequence they use for it is really cool, but if you aren't used to it, it gives you the false impression that you are getting better cards than you actually end up with.
For example in the picture above, you didn't actually pull that Nanocloud card, that is just part of the sequence while it is minting your cards and getting ready to show them to you.
Finally, as of right now, Metropolis Origins is not a Play to Earn game. That could be a big turn off for a lot of people. In fact, the cards themselves are not even selling for much on the secondary market.
If you are looking at this as an absolute investment, then you might want to think twice.
That being said, I don't know if the team has indicated it, but I do see the potential for P2E and extra value to be added to the game. Taking Hearthstone as an example, it is totally reasonable to expect that crafting and upgrading of cards is going to be on the horizon. If they implement tournaments and things like that, the potential for earnings could be huge.
As of right now, I see it as a long term investment. Most of the stuff that I have invested in NFT wise have taken at least a year if not three to reach their full (or a portion) of their potential.
It is expected that the currently available Founders Packs will eventually be gone forever and new series will be introduced. Think about how many people who wish they had been able to buy Alpha Splinterlands when they were first available... This could be that chance for you.
Meanwhile, you get to play a pretty cool game while you are waiting to see if that happens.
That's part of the reason I encourage you to hit the secondary market if you are going to buy. With no guarantee of return, you likely don't want to pay full price for the packs like I did.
Then again, how many people dump(or have dumped) real money into Hearthstone and never really gotten anything to show for it. At least in this case you own the cards and you can transfer or sell them whenever you want.
I will reiterate, DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH, but if you like games like Hearthstone, you are really doing yourself a disservice by not checking out Metropolis Origins.
I'd love to login one day and see The Hub filled with hundreds of players looking to play a match.
