Technically, this isn't really a first look at R-Planet as I had mentioned the site as early as mid January. Until now, though, there was no actual gameplay available and you could only stake NFTs from other games to earn Aether. This has changed today with R-Planet launching the first phase of their own gameplay - Evacuation. I gave my first impression last week and to tell the truth, I wasn't that excited about the announcement. But then again, R-Planet did manage to sell out their presale within less than 3 minutes, so there's certainly a larger audience for the game than what I expected. After some initial issues with the launch, I've managed to buy my first elements and now feel confident enough to answer the ever important question - Is It Worth Your Time?
So what exactly is the first stage of R-Planet gameplay looking like? Simply put, it's an alchemy game. You buy the 4 basic elements with Aether and then use the Generator of Materials to try and combine different quantities of these elements with the hope to hit one of the recipes for new materials. Each time you do that, the basic elements used are lost and you also have to pay a small amount of Wax. If you guess wrong, you try again, if you guess right (and are among the first few hundred do to so), you win a stakable NFT which in turn will boost your Aether production. You also get the material you just created which then can be mixed with other elements/materials again. This should allow for some complex recipes which probably will take a while for players to discover.
Buying these Elements is surprisingly expensive with each element costing 10,000 Aether. Even though I've got into the game a month ago and have close to 100 NFTs from Alien Worlds staked, that meant I could only buy a total of 3 elements.
I got two and tried to combine Earth and Water. Well, what can I say? You need to combine exactly 4 pieces to create anything. I really wanted to try this thing, so I've bought another 50,000 Aether for like 70 WAX, combined 2x Water and 2x Earth and got rewarded:
Afterwards I've combined 2x Air and 2x Water and got Rain as well. I'm quite happy that worked and I didn't just blow all my Aether and a lot of my Wax through the roof, but even then, I'm not exactly sure how to feel about the whole thing right now. For what ever reason, staking these elements has not been implemented yet and I had to inspect the NFT itself to discover that. Apparently, it will be implemented in 9 days but really, that should have just been a prominent part of the announcement.
Anyway, right now, that's all there is to the game. That's not to say it's bad, though. I don't think we've seen anything like it before, having an alchemy game with real value at stake is certainly something fresh and interesting. I might feel different about that had I not discovered a new element both times I tried, but the process certainly was somewhat enjoyable to me.
Nevertheless, there's not much game beyond what we've seen so far and recipes are going to get spread fast across the crypto world. So unless you want to be the first to discover anything, it's probably best to just wait for somebody to publish a recipe for an element you are still missing, check whether its NFT is still available and then just mint it. All things considered, this whole thing is not terribly interesting unless you are prepared to risk a lot of Aether for potentially being the first to discover one of the higher tier elements.
So... Is It Worth Your Time? Honestly? I have a hard time answering that question. It certainly can be enjoyable if you have a lot of Wax and Aether available to compete for the mint #1 NFTs. But in order to do so, you'd have to already be out there, combining like a mad man right now. If you are not competing for that, your best bet is to play it safe and just wait for others to figure out the recipes for you. It's obviously cool that you'll be able to stake these NFTs to increase your Aether gains but what's the purpose of it all? To collect more Aether so you can mint more NFTs to just stake again? To me, there's something missing in that loop and with what's available to us right now, I don't see myself interacting with it much more, if at all. R-Planet does have a vague roadmap hinting at the possibility of more stuff coming to the game later:
Thing is, there's nothing on that list that really makes me believe that we'll see considerably more than just more iterations of minting and staking. It's the same old issue so many blockchain projects have - a lack of communication/information. If I knew there was all that cool stuff coming to the game later, I might be more inclined to interact more with the current alchemy game. But without any real information available, it's just not enough to keep my interest.
So if you are anything like me, no, it's probably not worth your time. Me personally, I'll stake my 2 elements as soon as it's possible and just switch to dumping all my Aether for now. I'm sure there are a lot of people out there that totally will enjoy R-Planet so there just might be a market for Aether, even long term. The great thing is that I really enjoy Alien Worlds, so I can just keep staking the NFTs I get from that game and still increase my Aether earnings. It's a form of passive income and I do like passive income. R-Planet and me might not become best friends, but that doesn't mean I can't profit from it. We'll see how things develop and I just might come back to it later, but for now, I won't play it any more.
And that's all from me for today. Thank you all for reading and see you next time!