👼Skybreach: Overview
The origin story of Skybreach Metaverse and the ideas behind it.
What is a "Metaverse"?
There are many definitions. Ours, one in line with decentralization and ownership of experience, is:
The metaverse is a connected, online experience where individual digital entities representing actual people in a reasonably unique way interact with each other and the world around them, and then forever own these experiences, even if the world around them disappears.
When building a metaverse, you typically have two choices: a gamer-optimized 1st/3rd person experience OR a casual experience.
Most metaverse projects today focus on 3D.
While we (RMRK team) as gamers do think 3D is fun, we don't think it's the way to go for two main reasons:
Graphics need to be inherently simplistic, so that it's easy for people to build for and GPUs to render. By forcing such an architecture, you're forever constrained to blocky visuals.
Because of the above, you always end up with the worst of both worlds: suboptimal graphics with hard-to-use controls for non-gamers. This is especially noticeable in browsers.
Add to this the user friction of putting on VR headsets in VR-heavy environments, or having to sit down behind a PC because a laptop or mobile device cannot run such an environment, and you shed a lot of potential users.
Don't get us wrong, RMRK will have an active presence in almost all of the 3D metaverses as well - but our world will be geared towards the hypercasual audience.
The Skybreach Metaverse
The goal is to have a metaverse that is just as easy to join and leave when waiting for a bus, as it is when sitting on the couch at home or behind the computer.
The metaverse isn't slated for launch until some time in 2023, but the playable prototypes will likely experiment with any number of engines in some way well before then, and there will be accompanying mini-games and experiences like Chunky Quests.
The main idea is to power the back-end of this metaverse through a decentralized architecture, arguably the hardest of the tasks, and something we're working with Phala on through the CypherMOD project.
Why RMRK is Perfect for the Metaverse
Kanaria Skybreach is the truest proof of concept of RMRK's capabilities for many reasons. Chief among them: multi-resource NFTs and standalone equippables.
In most metaverses, the way you add an NFT into the game is by contacting a visual art team who will develop this asset for this game specifically and then the game makers must add it into the game client (software).
Your Bored Ape doesn't simply become an avatar because you have it. Someone will need to commission a 3D render of the NFT, and following that, someone has to do the work of integrating the new asset into the game engine. Since 3D model standards vary across metaverse engines, these steps need to be repeated for every metaverse that is entered with that NFT.
This is hardly decentralized. Your NFT has no idea what "land" is, what a "building" is, or even what "equipment" is. In fact, it's not even in the game. What a modern "metaverse" does right now is:
checks if you own a wallet by means of a cryptographic signature
checks if that wallet owns a certain NFT
reads its database for a mapping between an in-game asset and that NFT
lets your avatar in game use that visual asset
The modern metaverse is just a multiplayer game which replaced username and password logins with NFT logins.
Your NFT is not actually in the game you are playing! The NFT remains in your wallet and can be sold from your wallet while you are using it in the game. This is a web 3.0 immersion breaking experience, and a failure of web 3.0 integration.
Additionally, if these servers go down, so does your metaverse experience. Quite antithetical to Web 3.0.
With RMRK, especially as more metaverses adopt the standard, a location in the game (land) is an NFT. An avatar NFT can only be in one location at any point in time because it is SENT INTO the land. If you have a piece of armor, it can be equipped onto one avatar at any given moment, across all the universes. All universes can talk, and scarcity is facilitated throughout all of them. Multiverse item economy in action. The promise of digital scarcity made real.
With RMRK, NFTs can embody not just resources and tools, but experience and achievements. These NFTs can be contained inside your avatar. They stay with it, for as long as you want them to.
Additionally, NFTs being multi-resource means a metaverse can stay truly decentralized. A single RMRK 2.0 NFT can contain all the assets needed to render it in a game environment - they are essentially the Swiss army knife of NFTs.
Once commissioned and created, the NFT itself can contain the 3D model (or several) of the avatar or asset, and this instantly tells a universe how to render it.
Have a Kanaria? Take it into Skybreach and it shows as 2D sprites, 8 of them (walking/standing + n/e/s/w). These need to be commissioned, but only once, and are then compatible with any metaverse of similar style.
Want to port it into a newly created metaverse? No problem, the additional 3D model specific to that metaverse can be added as an additional resource once created; your NFT is future proof. Take it into Bit.Country and it just shows up.
What if Bit Country or Skybreach disappear, the teams go defunct, projects are abandoned? Not a problem - your NFT still exists with all the render resources, and everything it achieved in the respective universes. Not only that - the fact that land itself is an NFT on-chain means anyone can build an alternative UI in which to visualize the metaverse, keeping it alive indefinitely.
All that time you spent on that character can now be monetised more easily. Will this be the death of the idea that gaming time is lost time? Each time you play you come away with a game asset that has increased in value, something you can sell immediately.
This is true ownership of experience.
Functionality
Each aspect of Skybreach and how RMRK2 facilitates its functionality will have a detailed and dedicated page linked below. Here we provide an overview.
Avatars
Because RMRK2 NFTs are multi-resource by default, an NFT can actually contain all the resources needed to render its sprite in a pixel-based universe as mentioned above.
Using the RMRK2 specification, a centralized service is no longer required to provide you with visual assets for a specific metaverse. The NFT itself can contain it all - decentralized and permanent.
This metaverse will be open to all avatars that are voted in by the World Governance. World Governance is explained in a later section.
Read more about avatars and their ability to flock in the page linked below.
Equippables
The assets (items) your avatar can equip per RMRK2 specification will also be represented in the world, but will have to be whitelisted by World Governance collection by collection. Current Kanaria items will be whitelisted and in Skybreach by default.
Read more about equippables in the page below.
Locations and Moving
Kanaria Skybreach will be composed of several different "Skylands", floating sky islands. Each will be composed of Land, and once other skylands launch, it will be possible to travel to them.
To get from one to the other, you must have a flying avatar (like a Kanaria), or you must use a portal, Vegvisir rune, or book passage on one of the airships. Transport will cost RMRK, payable to the driver (another player who owns an airship) or the game itself for the service of "public transport".
Just to intercept Martin's and Rich's thinking here, no, you will not be able to move an avatar across by putting it into a bird as a nested NFT and using it as free transport. Avatar NFTs within one another will not be able to travel across zones. 😉
As the universe grows in popularity and size and evolves over time, Kanaria Skybreach might shed some islands or gain new ones. The lore of the universe will explore this concept further.
Read more about movement in the page below.
Land
Land plots are NFTs, as described here. You will equip other NFTs into the lands you own in order to show them in the universe.
Land plots are rentable and sellable. Some land plots, like those near urban centers, portals, and airship docks, will be harberger taxed to prevent hoarding and to encourage real price discovery.
Read more on the dedicated pages.
Soulbound 2.0: Skills and Experience Cards
Soft skills will be created as a type of NFT that is non-transferable, "soulbound" to the avatar like Gems.
These NFTs can be purchased (e.g., in-game "train" or "learn"), and when your avatar contains one of these, it will be able to access certain functions of the world previously inaccessible to them.
Read more on the dedicated page.
Crafting and Resources
The universe will have a simple crafting and mining economy wherein any avatar will be able to mine base resources by putting your avatar(s) to work, disassemble existing NFTs into base resources, and use these resources to craft and build.
Read more on the dedicated page.
World Governance
Kanaria Skybreach is governed by a population of Kanaria birds, and only Kanaria birds: the ruling class. This ruling class has absolute autonomy over the world - from new blueprints being voted into existence to new avatar types and their assets being allowed to immigrate into the metaverse.
Read more on the dedicated page.
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