…AND will it be the next big thing in virtual worlds and non-fungible tokens?

I’ve been playing around more than a little with a site called MegaCryptoPolis, and, so far, I like what I see. The creators have taken the Sims, ratcheted up the look and feel, built virtual cities, thrown in economic incentives like scarcity and supply and demand, and…well, we’re thinking this one could take off. BTW, that up there is AN AFFILIATE LINK – so if you do sign up and buy stuff, we’ll get free stuff for referring you.

And it hasn’t really even launched yet: presale mode means you can still be one of the early adopters.

It will be interesting to see how this site answers a couple questions:

• Can it take hold – like Decentraland once did – and will it bring scores of Chinese game players with it?
• Will it explain to the world what people mean when they say “#NFT” in a way that doesn’t make people look at them funny?
• Is the timing close to perfect – in that people are getting back into crypto after last year’s…uh…questionable performance of pretty much every coin?

So we’re going to come at this with a simple two-step plan – this will help you get started and dive in if you’re so inclined. Later – watch this space for more – we’re going to be a little more analytical: what parts of the game might take hold? Where should you be focusing your time? Does anyone with an “Astronaut” want to show their face just yet?

Let’s Take a Closer Look…

First up, though, ANOTHER AFFILIATE LINK: if you HAVEN’T gotten your free crypto from Coinbase, what are you waiting for? And, if you have already gotten it, maybe you’ll want to learn about Stellar Lumens and get more free crypto?

Okay, back to #MCP3D. It’s a game that has been around for a year or so, and appeared to be in build mode during last year’s Crypto Winter. Now that the world has warmed up to the concept of real projects and has thumbed its collective noses at scams and s**tcoins, projects like MegaCryptoPolis have a real chance of getting it right – and leveraging things like Chinese users (!!!) and virtual worlds (Fortnite without the fighting) to create real economies.

You buy real estate and, when the game launches, you get your Citizens to manage that real estate. Our sense, a couple weeks in to our experiment, is that both are pretty important. But you can’t even get started in the game without Citizens, so let’s begin there.

Step One: Get Started in MCP3D with a Citizen Pack

You’re going to get at least three things in a pack – one is a Citizen, and that’s someone with scores in the big six properties (Strength, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, and Luck) on which citizens are graded. If you luck out, as I did in my first pack, you’ll end up with a Professional.

You’ll also get a couple other things in your pack. The basic 3-pack includes a citizen and a couple random items, but if you buy the higher-priced packs, the guarantees make it more worthwhile; my last purchase was a Mayor pack, and here’s what it guaranteed me.

And here’s my pet:

Anyway, the key here is that without citizens, you’re not in the game. Once you have citizens, you can get real estate. [EDITOR’S NOTE (APRIL 29): We’ve been told on the Discord Channel that you DO NOT NEED Citizens to buy real estate.] The other big thing: these are “Generation A Citizens,” so they are rarer. “Generation A Citizens have maximum stamina,” per the website. So there you go – if you’re going to get Citizens to make your time in MegaCryptopolis worthwhile, you’re probably going to want to get them now.

Pro Tip: Use Airdrops That You Forgot About to Get ETH.

I spent about a week, off and on, going to various sites like Poloniex, COSS, Binance, and ForkDelta to find some of the really random coins that were sitting there unused. It paid off: I’m not out of pocket more than a few bucks from my actual wallet.

In other words, I can build a house with house money. Which brings us to Step Two.

Step Two: Buy Real Estate

Time to become a Real Estate Equity Baron!

Let’s look at a house in one of the Districts in the game: this one is District 43 and it’s a high-tax District – so properties here pay more into the tax revenues; those revenues then pay more into owners’ pockets.

The owner of this particular lot – it’s not me, by the way – has a pretty good location, near a lot of green space and what looks like a public reflector pool or some such.

Here are the particulars on this property:

Here’s a smart game player, we think: he acquired this property for less than 0.02 ETH (around a latte in the States) and he’s looking to sell it to make a profit. So there could be a little “pump and dump” here – or he could be looking to move the proceeds into another district of strategic importance.

Where Should You Acquire Property?

Great question: we don’t know yet. District 43 looks smart for the tax-friendly reasons we talked about above. Other districts may have better location, some of them could make sense if they’re cheaper but you can acquire more property. We don’t know.

We do know that property seems to be acquired rather regularly in a District called “Bounty Island.” And if you enter the Bounty Campaign, you could end up with some of that property for free – or you could take it off the hands of a willing seller.

And…WHAT NEXT?

We’d invite you to study the White Paper – there’s much more to come from this game. But the big things are these, from our vantage point.

1. The game itself hasn’t really launched. So acquiring assets NOW gives you a potential strategic advantage for when it does.
2. The 3D game, on mobile phones, being used by millions of Chinese players, could make it REALLY interesting.

Watch This Space for More

We’ve had some fun interacting with others who are early adopters in this game – and it is, for now, just that: a game.

But the potential is rather large. So MegaCryptoPolis might just take off.