FAQ
What Is Metropolis Origins?
Metropolis Origins is a tactical card game in which players must strategically outwit and outmaneuver their opponents by building decks of cards that are able to combat a wide variety of tactics and abilities that your opponent throws at you. Like other card games like Magic The Gathering or Hearthstone, you build a deck from the cards you own; each card has abilities and stats that work alone or with other cards to give you the best arsenal of abilities to win the game.
Who Is Behind the Game?
Metropolis Origins is designed by Graeme Devine (7th Guest, Halo Wars, Quake III Arena) and is the first project to come out of QXR Studios, a new gaming studio that was founded during the pandemic by a team of veteran game creators and storytellers, including comics creator Andy Lanning (Guardians of the Galaxy), game designer and writer Austin Grossman (System Shock, Dishonored), and a myriad of talented folks from media and gaming who previously worked together at Magic Leap and have variously worked at Atari, Microsoft, Blizzard Activision, Marvel, Kotaku, Gizmodo & DC Comics.
We are storytellers and world builders first and foremost, and this game is the foundation of a wider Metropolis Universe that we intend to build out across different platforms, including a PC-based augmented reality game, a Metropolis experience for Snap, and other manifestations of the storyworld like location based entertainment.
Why Are You Doing This On The Blockchain And What Does True Ownership Mean?
In Metropolis Origins, you need to create a deck of 35 cards to play; our digital cards are sold in 3 faction packs containing 50 cards, a 25 card random pack, or boxes of 250 as NFTs on Atomic Hub. By releasing the game on the blockchain, it enables you to collect, trade and sell your cards and the packs as you wish, and your ownership of the cards will be visible in the public record. Besides the game you can play today, we are building a Metropolis universe, and your cards will play a role in the PC AR game that will come in the future.
In the analog world, you could buy cards and trade them freely. That was harder to do once games became digital. The blockchain and NFTs make it possible to buy and sell assets easily, and to limit the production of assets so that there is a clear framework of defined rarity, identifiable ownership and transparent transactions.
We believe that taking this approach is a powerful way to provide lasting value to our community of players, and have them come along on the journey with us through the Metropolis Universe.
How Do I Start Playing?
To play the game, you will need to create at least one deck of 35 cards purchased in packs of 25 or boxes of 250 through Atomic Hub. You may buy as many decks as you like and mix cards to create your own ideal decks.
Once you have your cards, hop on over to the Metropolis Origins website and login (you will have had to create an account to do so; just follow the on-screen instructions). You will see a Menu button on the top line that says “NFT Sync”. Click on this to connect to your WAX wallet, which, once logged in to WAX, will then bring over the cards you own into your Metropolis Origins account. From there, you can build your own deck in the Deck Builder, or you can opt to use one of the existing faction decks.
Do I Need To Have Knowledge Of Strategy Card Games To Play?
No. Metropolis Origins is designed to be easy to understand and has a Tutorial to help new players learn the ropes and begin playing the game quickly.
Who Am I playing?
You can play the game against the AI, or you can opt to match with an opponent by clicking Multiplayer on the Play menu at the top right of the Home screen and then Begin Matchmaking.
Do I Have To Understand The Blockchain To Play?
Nope, you don’t, not truly, madly, deeply. You do need an Atomic Hub account and a WAX wallet to purchase the card packs, but despite the cards being connected to the blockchain, the only time you have to interact with it after that would be if you want to trade your cards with others on Atomic Hub. Once you have a deck, you can play the game itself without logging into any other account each time.
What is WAX? Do I Need It To Play The Game?
WAX or Worldwide Asset eXchange is an energy efficient blockchain, designed specifically for NFTs, video games and collectibles. It is up to 125,000 times more energy efficient than Ethereum and up to 320,000 times more efficient than Bitcoin. WAX is not required to play the game each time you play, but is necessary to buy card packs, interact with the market or trade with other players.
How Do I Get WAX?
First, you need to create a cloud wallet at WAX.io. Then, by exchanging other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ether for WAX, you may use the WAX you now have to purchase card packs.
What Is A Wallet? How Do I Set Up A Wallet?
A WAX wallet is an account which holds your WAX tokens, which are the currency in which the card decks are sold. Instructions on how to set up a WAX Wallet are here.
How Do I Get Cards?
Every player starts the game by creating a deck of 35 cards purchased through Atomic Hub in packs of 50 faction cards, 25 random cards, or boxes of 250.
Can I Only Play With The Cards In My NFT Pack?
You need 50 cards to build a deck, and can play with a 50 card faction pack or boxes of 250 through Atomic Hub. If you want to add different cards to your arsenal so you can build a different deck, you will need to buy expansion packs.
Will You Nerf Or Buff Cards?
When new cards are first introduced to the game they will be subjected to a live balancing phase where they will be tested and worked on to make sure they offer new strategies and play styles without being over or under-powered. The base cards that come with the game will continue to be worked upon to stay relevant in play as new cards become available. The major balancing will happen pre-launch. As with all CCGs we will be paying attention to player feedback and metrics and tweaking as we go.
Is It Pay To Win?
Metropolis Origins is not a pay to win game, nor play to earn. It is just like CCGs you have played in the past in the analog world.
Do You Have Tournaments?
We do not have tournaments at this time, but we love feedback and suggestions for future features - send us an email at feedback@qxrstudios.com or add your ideas to our Discord channel.
What Platforms Is Metropolis Available On?
Metropolis Origins is a web application that runs on Chrome, Firefox and Safari 15.
Can I Play The Game On Mobile?
At this time, the game is in beta and is not available on mobile devices.
Do I Get Anything For Inviting Friends?
You don’t get anything in particular for telling friends about Metropolis Origins, but you will probably get a smile and a thank you from them for introducing them to something new and super fun!
What Is A Balancing Phase? Why do one?
A balancing phase is a period where we test card abilities and work to make sure that cards offer strategies and play styles that work well with all the other cards, without being over or under-powered - which is no fun if you are on the losing side. We do it for many weeks to make sure that our card play is robust and fair.
The in-game cards will not have stats on them; we do this so we can decrease health and increase attack and change the cost of the cards in the game with the ability system and show it visually. We will always need to make a version of the cards like this for the game to use.
For NFTs, we will eventually make the cards with stats burnt in. The numbers we burn in will be the numbers we die by. Your NFT with your stats on it will forever be those stats. You own that card, so it should play by the rules it states on the front of the card.
What Kind of Card Packs Do You Offer?
Initially, you will be able to buy Founders packs of 50 faction cards, 25 random cards, or a box of 250 cards. You will need at least 35 cards to play. However, if you want to own more cards in order to make up a better deck than the one you have, you will be able to buy expansion packs in different sizes in a future drop.
Why Do I Have Founders Cards? Will the Stats on My Cards Change?
Founder cards will not have stats burned in, and will have a limited release. This is so we can balance the game when more people play by changing the stats on the cards. We will need more data in multiplayer to make the final call on the stats and numbers to put on those cards.
This makes everyone who has Founder cards an even more important part of our community, because they are helping to shape the game. In return these cards will always be seen as the “original'' cards, and they will still be usable when the game goes from beta to 1.0.
Whenever a player brings out a vintage old school Founder card, you will know you’re playing against someone who has been with us since the beginning.
Will There Be Future Editions?
The first drop will be of our limited Founders edition, with just 1337 boxes of 250 cards, 999 packs of 25 cards, and 500 packs each of 50 Faction Deck cards (Government, Corporate, and Underground). We will add new editions over time, with expansion packs that come in other sizes like 5 or 10 or 15 cards, and new sets that have original artwork and new cards. The cards will have the same abilities in the future, but stats and numbers will be burned into future editions, once we have finished the balancing phase.
What Is A Drop?
An NFT drop refers to the release of a new NFT project for sale. A drop refers to the exact date, time, and generally the minting price of the NFT. Many drops have purchase limits which restrict the number of NFTs you are able to buy in one transaction, and many NFTs are issued in limited runs. Being signed up for notification of an upcoming drop and then purchasing at drop time means you are buying in at the very beginning of the project.
What is Card Raity and Why Does It Matter?
Our rarity in the Founders pack is based on card balance, so that powerful cards don’t overwhelm more basic cards. More powerful cards therefore are more rare. There are four categories of card rarity: Common, Uncommon, Rare, and Legendary.
How Do I Trade With Other Players?
Cards can be traded in the secondary market on Atomic Hub. We have no control over this process and do not set prices for cards.
Can I Sell Cards For Real Money?
You can list your owned cards and unopened packs for sale at any time on Atomic Hub; the price in WAX will be determined by the market. You are free to do so, and turn that WAX into cash as you like. Secondary sales, and therefore prices, however, are not managed by us - so we can’t tell you what your cards might be worth in the future.
Where Can I Learn More About The Game?
You can read the Tutorial to understand the gameplay.
I Purchased A Pack But It's Not Showing Up in the Game; What Now?
Before you can use the cards in the game to build a deck, you need to unpack the NFT on Atomic Hub, by double clicking on the pack in your inventory where it says “Open Pack”. You will see a menu button in the game called NFT sync; when you do this it will bring the unpacked cards from your WAX wallet into the Deck Builder.
Where Can I Report Bugs?
You can report bugs by sending an email to bugs@qxrstudios.com or by posting in our Discord channel. We appreciate it :-)
How Do You Make Money From All This?
We make money by selling card decks for you to play the game. We also make a small royalty percentage (8%) on sales of cards made through a secondary marketplace. Revenue will be used to build out further features of the card game, and long term, to build out the Metropolis Universe; our Roadmap includes other Metropolis games, such as Metropolis 2287, an AR cross-platform PC and mobile game.
More About WAX and NFTs
Nefty Blocks has a very good primer on this in the General WAX section of their FAQ.
