Review of Michael Wagner’s metaverse — Star Atlas. Potential, mechanics and prospects
Star Atlas: website and user interface design. Source: staratlas.com
Star Atlas is a new space metaverse built on the Solana blockchain. Here, the economy, management and development depend not on the developers, but on the players themselves. All ships, resources and even land plots belong to the users, because they are recorded in the blockchain. Everything that the player gets in the game can be sold, exchanged or used to level up the character. And players will be able to vote for the future of the project through the DAO — a digital community that makes important decisions on the development of the metaverse.
A little bit of history. The events unfold in 2620, where three factions — humans (MUD), aliens (ONI) and cyborgs (USTUR) — are fighting for power. Each player has the opportunity to choose any side, develop technologies, and explore space.
In the alpha version, the player can only play as Asha, the captain of the Council and instructor of the Academy. But in the future, the developers plan to create other characters of different races. For now, you can call your ships through Photoli terminals and view them in full scale. Although the textures are still in development, the models will correspond to the final version of the game.
Graphics and gameplay
The metaverse is built on the Unreal Engine 5, which makes the graphics detailed — like in the movies. Unlike other blockchain games with primitive design, Star Atlas is aimed at the level of ААА games, approaching photorealism.
Plus, the developers have opened access to the F-KIT toolkit for connecting the blockchain to Unreal Engine 5. This means that users will be able to create their own content, earn money in the game, and also personalize their character.
Although the game is still in the early stages of development, you will be able to:
- inspect the fleet in the Showroom and study your ships in detail, evaluate their design, test the functionality and even take cool shots in photo mode;
- explore the galaxy;
- fight the enemy: for this, there are different types of weapons in the arsenal;
- scan enemies and mine resources.
Game Economy
Although Star Atlas is at the alpha test stage, a full-fledged decentralized economy has already been implemented.
The $ATLAS (for operations) and $POLIS (for management) tokens operate within the game. Players can create coalitions and even participate in DAO, influencing the development of the metaverse. Resources, ships and other assets have real value and can be sold on the internal marketplace.
Prospects and possible risks
What is impressive:
- realistic graphics on the UE5 engine;
- well-developed gameplay with elements of strategy, trade and combat;
- the ability to own cryptocurrency that can be sold and exchanged.
What raises questions:
- the game is still in the early stages of development, and it is unknown when the large-scale release will take place;
- gaming is still unstable, there may be problems with token liquidity;
- high entry threshold — the project is aimed at players willing to invest time and money.
Lado Okhotnikov’s metaverse — Holiverse. Features and development prospects
Lado Okhotnikov’s Holiverse is a metaverse built on the Play-to-Earn principle. That is, this is a typical GameFi story: play-earn. It sounds cool, but fundamentally nothing new. Apparently, the company quickly realized this and began to revise the concept. Now the metaverse is not only about entertainment and earnings, but also about new opportunities in the field of personalized medicine.
Today, traditional medicine is developing rapidly, but its methods are still based on established approaches. Doctors rely on standard treatment protocols, time-tested methods and average statistical indicators. This works, but not always smoothly — because our body is unique.
Holiverse decided to reconsider this approach. Instead of fitting people into general schemes, they offer personalized solutions based on the data of a specific person. This was told by Lado Okhotnikov, the founder of the platform in his blog: How We’re Merging DNA and Virtual Reality. There he explained what personalization is and described how the body reacts to different loads, diets, or even medical procedures.
Holiverse features: health personalization
Someone can easily run 10 km a day, while others immediately start to have joint pain from such loads. Or, for example, you need a diet, but how do you know without experimenting on yourself which products will give results and which will just waste your time? The Holiverse company is answering this question.
Instead of experimenting on yourself, which can take months (or even years), the metaverse will use a digital avatar — an exact copy of the human body, based on the user’s data. The avatar will calculate how exactly your metabolism, muscles, and internal systems will react to different loads, diets, and medications.
This is how Holiverse will change the approach to health:
- personal recommendations are created based on scientific data;
- forecasting in medicine is improved by using user’s data;
- the system will be able to take into account the unique characteristics of patients, without relying on average treatment plans;
- users can anonymously share information about their health and receive a reward for it.
Prospects and possible risks
What is impressive:
- a new approach to data analysis that can help in diagnostics and the development of new treatments;
- gamification motivates users to participate in the program and improve it;
- accurate data will most likely improve diagnostics and reduce the risk of errors in making recommendations;
- merging virtual reality and science in one space.
What raises questions:
- will everyone be able to use avatars or will this be inaccessible to a wide audience?
- will users understand that an avatar is not a substitute for a doctor?
- will insurance companies or employers have access to users’ personal information?
Conclusion
We have reviewed two completely different models of the metaverse, each offers its own view of the future. Which of them will be successful and which will go down in history — time will tell.
At this stage, both projects are in alpha testing, so it is impossible to objectively assess their potential yet. However, it is already clear that they differ from the usual market giants, offering fresh ideas and new opportunities.
The main thing is that these projects do not simply repeat existing models, but try to go beyond the usual. And this already makes them worthy of attention.
