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Building the Next Metaverse with Metropolis World
by Limarc AmbalinaJuly 13th, 2022
Too Long; Didn't Read
Metropolis World is a 360-degree curated metaverse experience that blends physical and digital realities through gaming, events, experiences, and eCommerce.People Mentioned
Companies Mentioned
Coin Mentioned
Metropolis World is a 360-degree metaverse experience, one that blends the physical and digital to curate a metaverse experience that is unique and bespoke in both design and quality.
Metropolis is a metaverse built from the ground up with each object and building being entirely hand-drawn. Thus, Metropolis world provides an ever-engaging environment to fit the daily lifestyles of its users.
Similarly, the metaverse also features rich lore and backstory alongside a marketplace and other content-rich experiences.
In this AMA, we hosted the team from Metropolis to talk about their metaverse.
Hi, @channel, please join me in welcoming the founders of Metropolis World, Rashid Ajami & Rania Ajami, Joby CTO, and the head of community.
Metropolis World is a 360-degree curated metaverse experience that blends physical and digital realities through gaming, events, experiences, and eCommerce.
It is a new metaverse experience unlike any other.
You can ask the Metropolis team anything about:
1. What is Metropolis World?
2. Why is Metropolis World unique from other metaverse experiences?
3. Who are your investors?
4. What is your team's experience?
5. In what ways are you incorporating physical experiences into your digital world?
6. Many projects of some semblance of "lore", can you explain yours and why it's different?
7. Can you talk about how you plan to be interoperable with other platforms?
8. Can you explain the $Clay token you mentioned in more detail? How will it be used?
9. When do you plan on launching?
10. How can we see more of your art?
Hi Rashid Ajami, Rania Ajami, and Joby a pleasure to have you with us for this AMA. To start can you each provide a brief description of your role at metropolis and how you got involved with the project?
Rashid Ajami
Hey Jack. Absolutely. I'm one of the founders along with Rania. We are actually brother and sister! My background is in electronic music as a producer and I found myself heavily into NFTs last year. We felt that the market was missing a fully-fledged metaverse project that is built out and interactive from day one.
Rania Ajami
Hi Jack, my background is in world-building, and prior to Metropolis World, I worked on a project called Pip's Island. We created entire immersive worlds that people could visit. Prior to that, I made films. Metropolis World really plays on over 15 years of creating universes that people can explore from the ground up.
Joby
Hi, Jack Boreham I am the CTO at Metropolis World, I write all the smart contracts and oversee all the tech aspects. I joined the protect after Rashid and Rania reached out to me, I think they found me on a NEAR job board.
My background is not very typical, I have had a varied career, from professional cyclist to stock broker to entrepreneur to AI engineer to web3 CTO.
Zack Hinson
Thanks for having us Jack Boreham I'm Head of Community over at Metropolis World. Since being at Metropolis I've been working on Discord community engagement, including event planning and execution, and community interaction.
My prior background varies, from being a part of the U.S Army, as well as working with other NFT and Web3 Projects as a Community Manager.
Hi Rashid Ajami, Rania Ajami, Joby and ! It's great to have you here! Your metaverse is super intriguing. You've said your vision for Metropolis is to combine physical and digital realms to offer an excellent metaverse experience. What partnership/initiatives have you been able to establish until now to deliver the physical experience? And are you currently present at any art exhibits and events?
Rashid Ajami
Hey Mónica Freitas! Nice to meet you. Digi-Physical is at the heart of our concept. We have partnered with well-known musicians, visual artists, brands, and more to provide a multitude of digi-physical events. Ranging from products that can be used in the real world and virtual world, to events such as art exhibits and music performances, and much more. Some of our partners include musicians like Steve Aoki, Blondish, Diplo, and artists like Fvckrender, RAC and Ryan Thank You X. One of our investors is the chairman of the Tate museum. We have really focused on bringing the right partners and investors in to make this epic!
Rania Ajami
Hi Monica, We are also working with artists like Chad Knight and fashion brands like The Hundreds. We are looking to create a vibrant city experience that you can have at actual places e.g an art gallery, concert hall, e.t.c, or virtually...
Hey Rashid Ajami, Rania Ajami, Joby, and Zach! Glad to have you guys here. I’m curious, how does the Metropolis World stand out from other Metaverse experiences?
Rania Ajami
Hi Sara, Why is The Metropolis Project unique?
1) The Art: Our artwork is painted digitally by hand and every property in our city is a unique 1/1 artwork. Unlike the majority of NFT collections out there we are not utilizing generative art to create the cities. We believe the artwork can stand up in the contemporary art world in terms of quality, skillset, and craftsmanship.
2) The Content: Most metaverse property worlds are empty lots. People purchase the land prior to anything really existing in the world. We are different in that from day one there is ich mythology and lore embedded in our metaverse cities. Every property has a well-thought-out story surrounding it.
3) Digital meets Physical: We are bringing the physical and digital worlds together which allows for a more tangible experience of the metaverse. Users will be able to access our paintings via art galleries, events in the real world. They will be able to redeem digi-physical NFTs that live in both the real world and digital world. For example, wear your limited edition t-shirt in the real world or dress your avatar with the exact same digital version. Interoperability between the real world and the digital world.
4) Traditional Business approach
Our team has years of experience in building real world businesses from the ground up. We are taking a traditional approach to the launch of our project with strategic investors, advisory board, legal structures and a long term strategy all in place. Unlike many NFT projects where the teams are anonymous and lack accountability we believe transparency and accountability is key for our long term success in this space.
5) Team with experience in world building and immersive long before the metaverse existed. Our team has over 15 years experience in world building and immersive experiences. Back then, we called it the multi-verse and were building across many platforms.
Cryptostarlight
Hello my friends 😃My question is. who are your investors?
Rashid Ajami
Hi
Our investors include, Outlier Ventures, Max Stealth Ventures, Billy Levy and Zack Zeldon from Virgin Gaming, Roland Rudd (Chairman of the Tate and CEO of Finsbury PR), Henrik Aslaksen (the ex chairman of Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs).
Cryptostarlight
Also, I love 💕 Metropolis world design and art 🎨. Rashid Ajami great thanks for answering 🙏❤
Rania Ajami
Thank you!!!
Cris Silva
Hi everyone! I'm curious about your avatar series. Could you tell us a bit about the citizens of celeste and nomads? What are your goals when it comes to avatar design? To bring in diverse artists, to achieve an extensive panoply of characters...?
Rania Ajami
Hi, Cris Silva The Citizens and Nomads each have their own lore. Citizens were born from the earth/the cities whereas the Nomads come from the stars. Each tribe has its own special powers, features, and story narratives. We are working with a fantastic female artist called Puks to design very unique-looking avatars. Within citizens, there are groups e.g the givers, the dynamics, the renegades, e.t.c So we are really fleshing out the different personality groups within the main two tribes. Also, when we launch our website, you will be able to read the stories behind each unique property including the characters associated with them.
Rania Ajami
Also, in Metropolis World, there is no distinction between human, animal, and machine. These lines are merged and so our characters reflect this new kind of species so to speak....
Rania Ajami Rashid Ajami, oh, that's amazing! How have you established your digi-physical marketplace? Do the brands you're currently collaborating with a part of that marketplace?
Also, as you've mentioned, you have a lot of musicians as founding citizens. Has that affected your metaverse in any way?
Rashid Ajami
Yes, Mónica Freitas so all our early partners will contribute products and content to the marketplace. We have a great mix of people from different industries but definitely, the musicians will allow us to have a vibrant nightlife and music scene in our first city :)
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Cryptostarlight
These ideas and plans are truly unprecedented and interesting in their kind and I am very excited to experience this wonderful world.
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Cris Silva
Rania Ajami, thats exciting, a bit of a high fantasy metaverse. Is there lore you'd say Metropolis is more influenced by?
Rania Ajami
Cris Silva Definitely! We love blending the fantastical with more reality-based themes. So Miyazaki, Blade Runner, games like Zelda, genre-bending films like Brazil and sci-fi, post-apocalyptic narratives.
Rania Ajami Rashid Ajami fascinating! One thing I'm curious about is how both your backgrounds have helped in cultivating and creating Metropolis. What have you learned from past experiences that have been useful?
Rashid Ajami
Jack Boreham for me it's been understanding how to build strong partnerships that are authentic and collaborative. I think Rania's world-building experience plays directly into this!
Rania Ajami
I would say our art is stylized and so is the story-telling... Murakami the writer is also a great reference for us. We want people to have different access points within the lore and mythology... so we are not going full on fantasy like Lord of The Rings 😜
For you Joby what sets Metropolis apart technically from other metaverse projects?
Joby
Well, Jack Boreham from a technical perspective we changing the way we interact with NFTS and making parts of the once-chain data updatable and dynamic. So the NFTS grow with the users and have the context of what values the other NFTS hold which allows for users to develop and grow the NFTs they hold in the world. I want to move away from the idea of buying NFTs and hope you got the one with the best traits and into a world where you can work to make your NFTs better.
How are you cultivating a community around Metropolis? What initiatives are you putting in place?
Zack Hinson
Jack Boreham We just launched our Discord in early June, we've been focusing on organic growth so far, so using Twitter and other Social platforms to grow our community, right now we're focused on growing the "core" community as we call it. Individuals who joined based on the art, lore, or community itself. The goal with this is to ensure that we have a great base before any kind of rapid growth starts to happen. As for initiatives at the moment, the focus is to keep the community engaged and try to locate our "community leaders" that will be put in place in the different districts of Celeste later on down the road.
Rashid Ajami, thank you for your answer! I'm curious about what nightlife in Metropolis would look like. I have a tricky question: what communities were the most significant in boosting Metropolis?
Cris Silva
Rania Ajami players must go crazy with all the references. How do you structure your metaverse so that the lore references are clear and engaging? Is it by having each house dedicated to one?
Cris Silva
And as that crosses with Metropolis' beautiful artwork: what was the inspiration for your artwork?
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Rania Ajami
Cris Silva, We have set rules and we create clear definitions for the different character traits, powers, and possibilities of the different groups.
Rania Ajami
We are working on a lore book so our community can really read about the different features, e.t.c for each group.
Rania Ajami
We also play with contrasts, conflicts, and the differences between different groups e.g Nomads vs. Citizens
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Rania Ajami
Cris Silva, We also have our over-arching story/plot and the sub-plots. It's a lot of work building out and fleshing out the world, but by creating structure, we are hoping that community members can take our lore and expand upon it within the greater narrative.
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Cryptostarlight
When do you plan on launching?
Zack Hinson
Mid to Late July is the goal as of now, we have to keep an eye on the market and community to make sure everything is falling into place
Cryptostarlight
Good idea Because a dynamic and informed community is the most important part of a big project. Great 👍🔥 When will the site be launched?
Rania Ajami
In 2 weeks. And the site itself will be ever-evolving as the rest of the properties are built and come to life. We are very excited about the launch of the site!
Cryptostarlight
In total, how much capital has the project attracted so far?
Cris Silva
Rania Ajami, the lore book will be super helpful in getting the complete picture of all Metropolis influences. I'm excited to read it.
How easy is it for someone who's never been part of a metaverse to enter Metropolis and play it (fully experience it)?
Rania Ajami
Cris Silva, Quite easy because we are building everything out in stages. The first city is a 2.5 experience with the properties. Then come the nomads and citizens. And then the second city, e.t.c. On day one, you'll be able to mint your passport, explore the City of Celeste, join our discord community, and have access to special events. When we build out our marketplace, you'll be able to purchase both digital and physical products. Also, depending on your interests, you can experience the city at a high level or you can go deeper if you want to be more involved with quests, hosting experiences, collecting assets, e.t.c We want our ecosystem to be open and fun for everyone.
Rashid Ajami can you talk about some of those partnerships that you are building?
Rashid Ajami
We have around 50 launch partners. Many have custom properties in our city that are based on their brand, values, and creative input. This makes it much more authentic. Your neighbor could end up being Steve Aoki, Time out food market, or an artist warehouse! The partnerships have taken time to build but we are really excited to see them come to fruition!
Cris Silva
Rania Ajami, that's a great strategy. It doesn't scare newbies such as myself right off the bat. What has been the biggest challenge in attracting new players to Metropolis?
Zack Hinson
Cris Silva, I'll answer that one since it's community-directed. So far we haven't really had a challenge in attracting new individuals to our project, the art and lore have made the process different than most other projects I've seen. I will say, the market conditions at the moment have pushed a large group away from the NFT and Web3 space. As of now, we're starting to see some recovery though 🙂
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Rania Ajami
We are an unknown IP and a start-up so we've had to build a lot more and with fewer resources. The biggest challenge is we are taking on the role of 4-5 people each in order to really raise the bar and produce next-level content and partners.
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Rania Ajami
But so far, the community has been terrific and people are very supportive. It's a fantastic space to be in.
Rania Ajami
Show business/Making movies was WAY harder 😂 We are happy to be creating and working with people from around the world in something right at the start.
Rania Ajami from a more generalist point of view, do you think web3 offers a greater level of interoperability than the web2 days and how will Metropolis integrate with other metaverses?
Rania Ajami
Jack Boreham Absolutely! We see ourselves as the capital cities of the metaverse! And we want to be a destination where people can bridge over to other ecosystems e.g Aokiverse. Our CTO, Joby is working on ways where this can happen easily and where partners feel both connected to Metropolis world, but also able to exist in their own mini-world.
Cris Silva
Thank you for your answer. What would you say it's causing this fear of web3 and NFTs adoption? The crypto instability?
Zack Hinson
In my opinion, I think it has to do with the overall market conditions in and out of crypto. I think with the things going on outside of web3, such as shortages, higher interest rates, and the talk of a recession, many people are trying to keep their money safe and away from assets that have high volatility, this applies to individuals as well as companies.
I don't think the fear is directed completely at web3 and NFTs, I just think we're taking the biggest hit 🙂
Cris Silva
Hopefully, we'll start seeing some signs of economic recovery soon. What's the biggest lesson you have learned from managing a community in the web3 space?
Zack Hinson
Cris Silva, I think the biggest lesson I've learned is, that things can and will go wrong in web3, so when it happens, make sure you are transparent with the community. In the end, the community is there to support the project so transparency is key.
Cris Silva
That's excellent advice. At the moment, I imagine the Web3 community is way more passionate about the projects they participate in than people in the Web2 space are.
SuperSaiyanProgramming
Hey team! This sounds cool. Do you plan to make this metaverse accessible in VR?
Rashid Ajami
Yes absolutely SuperSaiyanProgramming
Cris Silva
My last question goes to all of you: what are the next steps for your metaverse?
Rashid Ajami
In terms of the next steps, we will launch the 3 NFT collections: passports, properties, and avatars. We will launch our gamer profiles, digi-physical marketplace, and tons of cool events will kickoff. Whilst this is all happening we will be building out the 3D metaverse to make it truly immersive. Lots to come 🚀
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Zack Hinson
Cris Silva Absolutely, I really don't think many people have had the opportunity to be a part of a community in Web2, at least I didn't, so web3 is really going the length to include everyone.
I'll let Rania Ajami and Rashid Ajami Answer that question 🙂
Cris Silva
Thank you for answering all my questions so openly!
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Jimmy L
Rania Ajami Rashid Ajami, what kind of events are you planning to hold physically which will link to Metropolis?
Rashid Ajami
Music events, immersive art exhibitions, workshops on a range of topics, commerce experiences with brand partners, and a lot more!
I love that you're a community manager. So I can use this chance to learn from the best 😁 from your experience, what have been the most effective strategies in creating more engagement within a community?
Zack Hinson
Mónica Freitas, I think knowing the project is the key to this, so with Metropolis Specifically, we knew that our art + lore drew a lot of our traffic to Discord. So we've focused a few of our events around just that, we have Fan-Art competitions, Lore writing competitions, AMA's with our artists, etc.
As well as being active myself, communities are there to be a part of something so it's key that, Rashid and Rania show up and speak to the community. I'm constantly in Discord talking with the chat and making sure all questions are answered.
I guess in a shortened version, build off what you know works. For us that's Art + Lore
Zack Hinson
Mónica Freitas Thanks for the kind words also 🙂
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Rashid Ajami hats off to you. How are you able to do so much with such a small team? It must be chaotic at times.
Rashid Ajami
Haha yes, it's very chaotic but we enjoy it. We are all doing the job of 5 people but that's the startup life and we are really passionate about the project
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Rashid Ajami, I’m SUPER interested in VR also! Any idea of what plans you have in the VR realm of things?
Joby
Hey, Limarc Ambalina at the moment we are working out how the specifics will work but we plan to have a VR version of the world that can be explored via the major headsets.
Rashid Ajami
I think Joby can answer this the best Limarc Ambalina!
Rashid Ajami on the Steve Aoki front how did you get him on board?
Rashid Ajami
We have been finding that when we present the project people are really drawn to it. This has really helped us secure partnerships. @
Jimmy L
Joby, what about AR integration?
Joby
Yeah for sure AR as well particularly in cases where we crossover from digital to physical
How will $clay come into all of this? How will this link the digital to the physical?
Joby
Well, $clay is a tricky thing to get right so the details are not quite there yet. But that said $clay and its little brother $softclay will act as an in-game currency and some governance elements. Still to be announced.
Cryptodragon
Hi all. Nice to meet you. I'm absolutely fascinated by your project. I would like to ask. From a gameplay design and world-building perspective how will you try and make your game design interesting for players, so they keep coming back?
Joby
We have a few ideas on this, I think the key is to be varied and offer options for people. So for example we plan to have a storied option where you can follow along a predetermined narrative with quests/challenges/tasks along the way, but also offer much more explorative options that are about making your own journey.
Perhaps the biggest driving of continued engagement is the events and general economy of the cities, much like a real-life city has loads going on, in Metropolis World there is always a place to go and see some, art/music/entertainment or a place to hang with friends.
Thanks for your detailed answer, Rania Ajami! You mentioned how your art is unique and how your content is well thought out. Can artists from outside your team also share their artwork in the Metropolis World?
Also, an open Metaverse world is a great concept. However, we start to see news about trolls in these spaces. Do you use any method to avoid this issue? Like monitoring for example Rania Ajami Rashid Ajami Joby
Zack Hinson
Sara Pinto We’re currently working on building out our core members within the Discord, people we see as assets to the community as well as potential community leaders in the future. We’re taking steps within the community to remove members who have negative effects on the community. We have Mods in place during most time zones, and as the Discord / Community grows, so will our team.
Joby
Yeah, we have a zero-tolerance for abusive behaviour.
Rania Ajami
Sara Pinto Thank you for your question. Of course, we love working with artists and we have a channel in discord where we encourage artists to share their work. With time, we will curate exhibits of upcoming artists within the Metropolis World venues. We are really passionate about bringing in a community of creators who can share and learn from other Metropolis World members.
You also mentioned that you wish to combine the physical and the digital world by allowing users to redeem digi-physical NFTs and have your art in art galleries. When can we expect to enjoy this part? And how can we see more of your art until then? Rania Ajami Rashid Ajami Joby
From creating content to your business approach, what have been the challenges that you have faced while creating Metropolis?
Joby, can you speak about what kind of narrative gameplay might be included? What themes?
Joby
Well, Jack Boreham you'll have to wait and see on those. 😁
Having a space where your community can be creative and showcase their tales is a great strategy. It's good for you and those who enter your contests. I know existing communities were super important to a growing Metropolis. Was there any particular community that really changed the tide and fostered a jump in growth?
Zack Hinson
Mónica Freitas, So far we’ve been keeping the community small in order to really be able to engage with early adopters. If I had to pick a community that seems to really help with growth, I think so far our Art community has been heavy on the project, in any event, we’ve put out they have responded well and also invited a few friends each.
Zack Hinson
As for communities like other projects, we haven't really announced to much on that side of things, we’re saving most of it for our full launch 😁
Do you showcase your contest's entries anywhere? Can everyone participate and try their luck? And do you have a next contest planned?
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I think we're all curious. Do we have a date for the big launch?
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Zack Hinson
Mónica Freitas Everyone is able to participate - I believe the Discord link was shared here + it's on our Twitter, we show off our contest winners on Twitter as well 😁
We’re projecting July, however, we want to make sure we uphold the community value and launch when the market is secure. We’re still confident under current conditions we will launch in mid-late July.
Joby damn nearly got you! Will it be RPG based or more linear? 😉
I think I might try my luck with portuguese inspired lore (if that's allowed) 😁
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Zack Hinson
Mónica Freitas, we just ended our lore comp 4 hours ago, we will be doing more in the future, if you go ahead and write and submit it you can enter it in the next contest 😁
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You're so close to the launch. Is there something you think is important/interesting for us to know about what's coming our way? A little inside scoop?
I'll keep an eye out for the next one :crossed_fingers:
Zack Hinson
Mónica Freitas, I can't give specifics, but if you're not in Discord yet, I would join soon. We have some plans to make out Discord more “lively” than others 👀, we will be having more complex events outside of Discord for users to enjoy 😁
We will have more art and lore contests - I can tell you that for sure 😁
Guess I'm going to have to join Discord now 🤔😁
All scoop is a good scoop. I'll take it
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Are you prioritizing any community platform or using them with equal measure?
Zack Hinson
Jack Boreham Discord has prioritization, due to its functionality, it's really easy to put out an update, and the users that want to see Metropolis Specific information can come there, all platforms are used pretty equally as far as the information that we put out.
Discord just gives us a bit more room to add activity to the community 🙂
Blocklawd
Rania Ajami Rashid Ajami, what have been the major challenges you have faced with creating Metropolis?
Rashid Ajami
I wouldn't say this is a major challenge, but I think our approach with creating custom 1x1s and creating lore and stories from scratch has been a huge undertaking and one that usually requires a lot of capital and teams that are five times larger than ours. It just means that everyone is managing the work of several people. We love the challenge, but we certainly haven't made things easy for ourselves 😂
Melissa Brown
Rashid Ajami Rania Ajami How will you get the mainstream to adopt your project?
And that's a wrap on this AMA! Thank you Rashid Ajami Rania Ajami Joby and for partaking in this AMA. On behalf of the team at HackerNoon, it was a pleasure to have you. We hope you enjoyed it. Any closing remarks to round off the discussion?
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Rashid Ajami
Thank you so much, Jack! We really enjoyed all the amazing questions. Please come find us on Discord and Twitter. We are always available to chat and discuss the project.
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