BlockTalks x REALM AMA Transcript!

Hello! BlockTalkers & Blockchain Enthusiastic!

We recently hosted an AMA with REALM, on June 16th at 2 PM UTC. Many of you might have participated or many of not. But we make sure no one missed out from the knowledge shared by Matthew Larby, Founder & CEO of REALM and Joban Thomas, Founder & CPO of REALM. So here we are up with the AMA transcript, for those who missed the live session, this blog post will be a saver & feeder of knowledge for them.

Introduction Questions Asked By Team BlockTalks!

Q1. Could you please introduce REALM to our community in layman’s term?

Ans — Realm is a metaverse made out of lots of little microverses, which we call Realms. Anybody can create a realm using one of our templates and display their NFT collection in it. Or you can just explore realms with your NFT pet and discover eggs that contain rare NFTs, $REALM tokens etc.

Q2. What are the advantages of REALM to other alternatives in the Blockchain field?

Ans — If you compare Realm to an NFT marketplace then we are better because we enable people to experience the artists creation in an immersive full 3D environment. Other benefits that artists are loving include the ability to stream their live audio into their own realm so when they do a drop they get to talk with their fans/customers and build a better relationship.

If you compare realm to a metaverse, well: We don’t charge for land because that stops creativity.

We don’t force you to use a single style like voxel. Instead we make everyone the master of their own realm, to create the virtual space exactly how they want.

Free to play games exploded because they didn’t charge people up front, we really think the Realm metaverse will become massive because we don’t charge.

The bigger the metaverse, the bigger the economy and the better for $REALM holders.

Q3. What are the major milestones REALM achieved so far & what are in the future pipeline?

Ans — We’ve made great progress from the technical side - smart contracts for our token and NFTs (Realms, Genetic Pets, in-game items) are completed and we’re building out a super user-friendly app for people to discover and follow content on the platform. Of course we’ve also been busy creating realms themselves, and the tools for users to build their own. We will launch with some awesome realms, and are also collaborating with artists and collectors to bring their work to life.

Questions Asked on Twitter For REALM Team!

Q1. Can you explain how REALM using an open source engine called Godot differs from other engines like Unity and Unreal?

Ans — So for those who don’t know, Godot is a powerful, lightweight, and community-driven game engine that is very different to centralised engines such as Unity and Unreal. Working Godot means the Realm engine is completely independent of any centralised entity who could impose censorship or control.

One of the advantages of using Godot is that it allows Realm to provide a wide array of creation tools for players and creators.

For example, non-technical players can choose from several Realm templates, such as Art Gallery, Cyberpunk, Samurai to easily create their own space. For skilled developers, Godot allows us to provide advanced tools for creation. Realm will ultimately contain a fully fledged gaming ecosystem hosting features such as physics, game mechanics, and monetisation opportunities.

Q2. We can create our own REALM, and there are so many options as plant trees. You sell a magical idea of what REALM is. but, what are the knowledges does a person need to create a wonderful realm? Is it easy and adaptable for all users?

Ans — Yes as you can see from my answer above, we’re making sure that all users can build something that is unique and their own microverse.

Yes, so for those who want to know more about trees: We’ve spent a long time thinking about how virtual worlds can impact the real world. We are using Polygon to be more efficient when processing transactions. So for instance, a transaction processed on Polygon is about 8500x less emissions than a transaction processed on Layer 1 Ethereum.

So to counteract the CO2 we emit, we have partnered with Eden Reforestation, who will plant trees in real life every time someone plants a virtual tree in Realm.

When you plant virtual trees in Realm, they make fruit which the pets and creatures that live in realms eat. This creates an economy inside realms that also fixes the real world.

It’s very important that we become carbon neutral using these mechanisms as it helps us appeal to a broad market and also means the mainstream press will cover our metaverse.

We really want the whole world to experience Realm, not just crypto people as it makes for a strong business and token.

Q3. The $REALM token is the primary cross-chain utility token within the Realm metaverse. Can you please tell us what are the different utilities of this token? What's the role of $REALM within your platform? What are the benefits for users of holding this token?

Ans — Yes, so, the $REALM token is the main utility token to be used in the Realm metaverse. It can be used to buy food, art, objects and get additional functionality into your realm. You can also use $REALM to buy NFTix, which are collectible NFT tickets that give you access to special events happening in realms.

So for instance, an artist could make a realm, exhibit their art inside it and then sell NFTix for when people visit.

Q4. I read that in essence, Realm is a collection of virtual spaces where you can exhibit NFTs, sculptures, music and connect with friends and launch events, i.e. it gives the common user the opportunity to create their own NFTs? What can we do with these NFTs?

Ans — When you make a realm you mint it as an ERC 1155, so the realm itself can be sold.

You are correct in many ways - Realm isn’t simply an NFT marketplace but a metaverse where artists and NFT creators will be able to import their NFTs into a realm and showcase and share them with their friends. There are so many ways we’re looking at how NFTs can be displayed right now and out of this world ideas on how to make them super fun and engaging, like underwater art galleries or exploring realms to find pieces of a NFT and put it together like a puzzle or a community gallery. We’re also open to any cool and wild ideas others have about how they’d like to see NFTs.

And there will also be pets and a load of other really interesting 3d, living genetic NFTs that will be your companions throughout the realms.

We are also releasing "Realmies", creatures with genetics that people will be able to breed, which makes new Realmies NFTs.

Q5. I read that you have partnerships with very large NFT brands, can you tell us a bit about these partners and how they are contributing to the creation of the REALM metaverse?

Ans — Sure the Realm metaverse is open to all NFT brands to do 2 key things: 1) If they have NFT pets, or objects etc they can bring them to life in Realm, eg now your Polkamon can explore realms with you. 2) NFT brands can create their onw realm, which matches their exact style. What they do inside that realm is up to them.

On the art side we are also partnering with some very prominent NFT (and traditional) art collectors who will be exhibiting their collections in realms. Finally, we have some world class artists who are coming on board as partners and advisors to Realm.

Questions Asked by our BlockTalks Community Members during live Session to REALM Team!!

Q1. How to get rare NFT? Can you tell the steps?

Ans — We will place some of our rare NFTs into procedurally generated eggs that are randomly located around realms, you go and explore the realms and you just might find one.

Q2. At your website I saw Realm combine music, art, and games to create the perfect realm and mint it as an ERC-1155. is there a reason why you decide to work as a ERC 1155? what are the benefits of this?

Ans — ERC-1155 is the token standard developed for more general use in metaverses and games, and allows us to do interesting things like mint an entire Realm as an NFT that contains other assets, both fungible and non-fungible. It is also better for consumables such as fruit, which we need to feed the Realmies.

Q3. Not all people in the world have high-end mobile or desktop devices available, so can you give details of whether the Realm game could work on devices with the minimum specifications required to run this game?

Ans — We are trying to allow people with fairly old devices to also be able to explore Realm. We will launch on web (where an average laptop will be fine), Android and iOS devices from the last 3 years, and also on desktop.

Q4. A basic feature that Realm has to have is "gameplay", so can you explain how efficient is the gameplay that Realm has and could people play on mobile devices or computers?

Ans — Our lead concept designer worked on outer wilds for Riot games and brands like Avatar, so we have spent a lot of time thinking about how to make realms fun and entertaining. We use standard techniques that you might see in gaming but then some very unique ideas, where we often blur the lines between what is digital and what is real. We are building microgames inside realms and also allowing you to progress and build your Realmies over time.

Q5. From my understanding, social interaction is a key feature of Realm as community driven open-source project for creatin personalized metaverses. What are these metaverses? Are my friends permitted to visit/visualize friends visit my personal metaverses?

Ans — Correct, socialising is a key feature of Realm. Since we are using multiplayer game servers you can party with your friends or just meet strangers and chat. You can send your friends a link to your realm and meet them there, or all go together to see an event in another realm, or just explore.

Q6. Is partial ownership of NFT available, and is successive commission for every trade of NFT on your platform?

Ans — We have something in the pipeline for partial ownership, it will be different to what you expect and some world class artists have said they think the concept is extremely exciting and experiential. A key part of this is successive commission and we have made sure our commission is structured the same as opensea’s for this reason.

Q7. I understand that the "Rarity" is a very attractive and entertaining feature for collectibles, but is this really the most important thing in NFTs? If so, really, what guarantees will we have that with Realm we can get that rarest NFT of all?

Ans — We are using Chainlink VRF to supply the random attributes of Realm pets (or Realmies) - these will be able to be verified on-chain as one of a kind, and then when they breed with each other, say two genesis creatures then the offspring will be even more unique.

Q8. Can you tell us about what NFTix are, how can I use them? What is their function and why would I want to have one?

Ans — Have you ever been to a concert or an event where you paid money to go inside, maybe because there was some cool music playing or some people there you wanted to meet.

To recreate this functionality in Realm we created NFTix, they are collectible NFT tickets that have their own art and get you into a realm at a specific time. Eg friday night a 9pm in Beeple's realm where Steve Aoki is playing music and Beeple is dropping a new NFT. by selling NFTix the artist gets to make additional revenue and all the people that attended get a collectible which can be resold and make the artist more money, it's a whole new revenue stream for artists.

Q9. Do you have any plans to attract non-crypto investors to REALM who are still not in the crypto world specially as a new project entering to crypto. What are the plans to increase awareness about REALM around in non-crypto space?

Ans — We are introducing fiat on ramp so non crypto people will be buying $REALM tokens.

Q10. Do you have any coin burn / buyback systems or any token burn plans to increase the value of token & attract investors to invest?

Ans — We have a lock up system where as you make a bigger realm with more functionality you need to lock up $REALM tokens, which limits the supply. We will also give a % of all $REALM transactions to realm holders.

Here are some important links of REALM👇

🌎 Website: www.realm.art
📱 Twitter: twitter.com/enter_realm
📢 Telegram: t.me/Enter_Realm
📚 Medium: enter-realm.medium.com