Gm!
About a month ago, I began our exploration of the Realms ecosystem in “The Ultimate Guide to the Realms Ecosystem: Part 1.”
If you’re a loyal WASD reader, you may have noticed that Part 2 has yet to be released.
(Rugged!)
I’m happy to say that changes today, thanks to the legendary 0xAkina!
In Part 1, I focused on the history, vision, and entities operating in the Realms ecosystem. I also shared my thoughts on one of its first-party games, Loot Survivor.
As promised, in Part 2, Akina will look at Realms' flagship game, Eternum, the assets within the ecosystem, and share his prognosis on its future.
By the end, between both parts, we’ll have mapped out much of the (now massive) Realms ecosystem.
I hope you enjoy this piece from Akina, and I’ll see you guys tomorrow for The WASD Weekly!
Author: 0xAkina
It’s good to see you again, onchain gamers!
It’s me, your favorite nerd: 0xAkina.
All eyes are on the Starknet ecosystem with their upcoming token launch fast approaching.
However, we gamers have already been there for a while now.
Starknet has a robust onchain gaming scene – I covered it a few weeks back.
However, one project within it has stood out to me among the crowd: Realms.
Realms aim to build an interconnected ecosystem of onchain games.
You may have seen people talking about it on X of late, as some of its assets have rallied significantly over the past few weeks.
Ben first explored it, and now we’ll continue this journey into the Realms by discussing:
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It’s leading first-party title Eternum
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The assets in the ecsoystem
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Why I’m bullish on the future of the project
Let’s get into it!
Catching Up: The History, Vision, and Entities of Realms
It’s been a while since Part 1, so let’s get a brief refresher.
Realms launched in August 2021 with the release of their namesake NFT collection inspired by Loot (more on these later).
Since then, the ecosystem has grown under the stewardship of Bibliotheca DAO, a decentralized game studio and research lab.
The DAO has focused on developing “Realms World,” an autonomous world comprising of a network of interconnected onchain games.
Initially, the Realms ecosystem consisted of just Bibliotheca DAO and Eternum (formerly known as Realms: Eternum).
However, the ecosystem has rapidly developed since then as the project ambitions have grown.
Today, Realms consists of not just Bibliotheca DAO and Eternum but also:
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Loot Survivor: A roguelike survival game that’s live and playable on Starknet mainnet.
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Frontius House: An entity that provides funding and resources to other projects building in Realms.
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Dojo: A framework for building onchain games on Starknet using Cairo to which Bibliotheca DAO is a contributor.
There are also many other projects are building within the Realms ecosystem, including:
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Arcane Assembler: A spell-crafting game that will utilize a play-2-die mechanism.
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Loot Royale: A PVP battle royale game built by BladeDAO.
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Loot Underworld: A dungeon crawler underneath the Realms that’s a joint venture between Endless Crawler and funDAOmental.
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0xMississippi: A PVP rougelike game.
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Rising Revenant: An exploration game where players build outposts and try to win a jackpot prize.
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Loot Autochess: A (as the name suggests) chess-like auto-battler.
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Risk of the Realms: An onchain adaption of the board game Risk set in the Realms universe and built using Dojo.
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Call The Banners: A social engagement game where players form teams, attack, and hunt for treasure.
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Crypts and Caverns: A generative, onchain map for Lootverse NFTs.
Eternum
Now that we’ve caught up on the Realms ecosystem, let’s delve into Eternum.
Eternum is a strategy game built using Dojo.
It combines elements of imperial management and conquest, as players must gather resources, build an army, and fight to expand their domain.
To play Eternum, you’ll need to own a Realms NFT (more on this later).
I’m generally not a fan of this model, as it creates high barriers to entry (the floor price for one is 0.55 ETH as of writing).
Nevertheless, I expect the community to create extensions to make it more accessible.
Eternum is not yet live, but in the past held an alpha on a Starkent Katana L3 to test its economic system.
Under the hood, while the game will run on Starknet, state changes will be recorded on Ethereum for increased decentralization and immutability.
Bibliotheca DAO chose to build on the network for its unique features like Cairo, STARKS, and native account abstraction to help improve UX.
Another interesting aspect of Eternum is its philosophy and aim to build an “Eternal Game,” which Bibliotheca DAO explained in their recent Black Paper.
In that vein, some design principles Eternum is using to help reach that goal include:
- Persistence
While players will have set goals, Eternum will not have a definitive endpoint, and aims to persist indefinitely.
- Player-controlled governance
Governance over Eternum is carried out by Realms holders, aligning incentives and ensuring the world is not controlled by any single entity.
- Fully Onchain
Eternum’s logic and state reside onchain, providing transparency and immutability.
Overall, despite my concerns about the entry cost, I can’t wait to see Eternum on mainnet and these principles put into action.
The Assets Of The Realms
Now that we understand Eternum, let’s dive deeper into the assets that power it and the broader Realms ecosystem.
Realms NFT
Realms is a collection of 8000 NFTs on Ethereum mainnet.
Each Realm has its own map that illustrates its regions, cities, rivers, and topography while holding deposits of different resources.
Realms NFTs play a critical role within the ecosystem, as it's used for:
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Governance over Bibliotheca DAO
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Gameplay within Eternum
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To provide early access to ecosystem games
Realms NFTs can also be staked to earn $LORDS rewards.
These can be earned at a rate of 43.75 or 49 per week depending on if you choose to be able to claim your rewards after a 7-day epoch or post-Starknet migration, respectively.
One interesting aspect of the collection is their potential use within other Realms games.
For example, per a message in the Realms server, BladeDAO may look to integrate the NFTs by using them to generate maps and items in their game Loot Royale.
LORDS
$LORDS is the utility token of the Realms ecosystem.
Today, aside from being emitted as a reward for Realms stakers, the token is primarily used within Loot Survivor.
Loot Survivor operates with an “onchain arcade” model, as players must deposit 25 $LORDS ($7.75) to play a round.
A portion of these tokens are then redistributed to the game's highest-scoring players via what’s known as the Play-to-Die (P2D) mechanism.
However, per the Black Paper, $LORDS may undergo a significant transition through the launch of the Lordship Protocol.
Should these proposed changes be implemented, holders will be able to lock their $LORDS tokens for veLORDS, giving them the right to direct emissions to different liquidity pools across the ecosystem.
In addition, the proposed design will replace emissions with that of a new token, dLORDS, that can be burnt in exchange for $LORDS.
As you may have seen on X, $LORDS has rallied considerably this month, rising 220% since December 1.
In my view, along with general interest in Starknet, this rally is due to the migration of DAO-owned liquidity for the token from Ethereum to the Ekubo DEX on the L2 itself.
Other Collections
There are currently two other NFT collections within the Realms ecosystem.
These are:
- An onchain art collection that you can mint if you’re the first player ever to encounter a new beast in Loot Survivor.
- An NFT collection that grants holders one free game of Loot Survivor per 24 hours.
Bullish Realms
Overall, I’m bullish on the future of Realms.
To me, the project represents a unique experiment in the AW space, as it enables teams to build within an interconnected ecosystem of games, while players get a say in how its governed.
Although the cost to do so is quite, I’m hopeful to be able to play Eternum, and at least very curious to see how it performs post-launch.
In addition, I’m also eager to see how Realms NFTs and LORDS tokens are utilized as the ecosystem continues to grow.
However, the biggest reason as to why I’m optimistic on the future of the project is its community.
Onchain games need a strong community of builders, players, testers, and more.
Realms certainly has this, with a very active Discord, and, of course, numerous projects and people building within it.
I’m excited to see what they continue to cook up over the coming months.
Disclosures:
Akina does not have positions in any of the assets mentioned.
FaultProofBen owns $LORDS and Realms NFTs.
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