Previously, I thought that I was going to write a post comparing and contrasting the reward types and reward opportunities of EXODE and Splinterands -- but I got seriously side-tracked (Economics & Rewards in EXODE and Splinterlands and Three Fixes to Improve the Collection Power Fix). Now, I'd like to get back to the first half of that -- reward types. I'll do a separate post on Reward Opportunities/Events in the next day or three.
EXODE and Splinterlands are both digital collectible card games built upon the Hive Blockchain. I'm pretty thoroughly addicted to both. Other than that, they are nearly as different as they can be.
EXODE
Splinterlands
Genre
Space Colonization
Fantasy Battle Arena
Primarily PvP
No
Yes
Bots
No
Substantial % of players
Length of Game
Months
<5 minutes
Pay for Best Play
No
Yes
$$$ Requirement
$10-$20
$1000s
Rewards
Cards, In-Game Assets (including New Assets) Card & Asset Upgrades (including Experience Points, conversion to Elite, etc.)
Cards (including Potions) DEC cryptocurrency
Reward Mechanisms
Mission/Quest/Epic QuestLine Rewards; Research, Discovery & Crafting Rewards; Weekly Rewards; Season Rewards; Legacy/Post-Game Rewards; and Tournament Rewards & Contests
Game-Winner Rewards; Daily Quest Rewards; Season Rewards and Tournament Rewards & Contests
Pay For Best Rewards
No
Yes
Rewards
Splinterlands gives out two basic types of rewards -- cards and the DEC cryptocurrency. Sometimes the cards take the form of either a) potions which improve the odds of getting better cards (legendaries or gold foil) from your next pack or b) packs of cards (booster packs, orbs or dice). Cards are improved outside of matches by combining cards of the same type (capped by a maximum level based upon rarity) -- and each card of a specific type always has exactly the same stats at the same level (unlike EXODE where players get choices as to which abilities and bonuses that they gain at each level).
Booster packs, orbs/dice and potions can also be bought from the Splinterlands shop with either DEC or Splinterlands credits which can be bought via PayPal or a variety of cryptocurrencies. Most often, there are three specific and finite sets of cards that are available from the store and as rewards at any given time: booster packs (currently Untamed edition), promo card packs (currently transitioning from orbs to dice) and reward cards (where about a third of the set rotates out and is replaced by new cards whenever they reach their print limit). Booster packs and orbs/dice can also be tokenized by players and bought from them on Hive-Engine (or its twin that shall not be named). Individual cards can be sold by players and bought from either a) the Splinterlands Market or b) third-parties like Peakmonsters -- using either DEC or Credits, but the seller always receives DEC.
DEC can always be sold for Hive on Hive-Engine (or for another garbage cryptocurrency on its twin) which, after paying a withdrawal fee, you can use normally. You can "cash out" any or all of your Splinterlands assets (except credits and potions) by selling your tokenized assets for Hive on Hive-Engine and/or selling your cards and selling the DEC obtained. In order to cash out credits, you must purchase packs, orbs/dice or cards which you must then sell and then sell the DEC obtained. Potions can't be cashed out except by using them on new packs/orbs, then selling the enhanced cards and finally selling the DEC obtained.
Rewards
EXODE also gives out three basic types of rewards -- collection cards, in-game assets and improvements to both collection cards and in-game assets. Collection cards are permanent unless burned to improve other cards of the same type (similar to the Splinterlands method) or to "drop" the card into the middle of an ongoing game. In-game assets, not surpisingly, last only until the end of the game -- unless they are placed on the in-game Supply market).
Collection cards are used to generate the initial in-game assets (ship, equipment, crew, passengers, cargo) and are then "locked" and unusable for as long as the game continues. Note that while the vast majority of collection cards (the notable exception being Emergency Order!) generate in-game assets, there is a tremendous variety of additional assets (many researched and developed by players) that exist only inside games or on the Supply Market (and I will describe their creation in the next post).
The most common type of improvement rewards come in the form of "experience points" which cause the cards and assets with Quality Levels (QLs) to "level-up" in experience levels -- much the same as characters do in Dungeons & Dragons and other Fantasy Role-Playing (FRP) games. In EXODE, when a card or asset is "leveled-up", the player gets to choose among several new abilities and/or bonuses to determine which one(s) will be added (again, like a number of FRPs but not D&D). As a result, unlike Splinterlands, higher level versions of the same card can be tremendously different from each other.
When receiving experience for an in-game asset, players can opt to apply it either a) directly against the asset (advancing it more quickly but losing it at the end of the game except for a small fraction that is passed back to the collection card) or b) against the collection card that generated it, which will then be advanced by a lesser amount which greater than the amount that would be passed back at the end of the game. Note also, that the same lesser amount of experience (and any benefits that it causes) is also immediately applied to the in-game asset.
Another less common form of card improvement is to convert it to an "elite" form of the same card. Elite cards generally can achieve higher levels or statistics, have extra abilities and may be able to improve/advance more quickly. There are also rumors that specific abilities or bonuses may be added to cards and assets as part of specific rewards.
Collection cards also come in starter packs, booster packs and special limited-time packs which can be bought from the EXODE shop using either PayPal or Hive. There are also special collection cards cards which are "dropped" weekly by "contracts" that are occasionally available from the shop. Players can buy player-sold packs, contracts and single collection cards via the Starbase Market using Hive which is passed on to the seller. In-game assets can be sold on the Supply Market for EXOFUEL which can be "burned" in-game for a variety of purposes or sold for Hive via Hive-Engine in exactly the same fashion as DEC is.
You can always "cash out" any or all of your EXODE assets by selling your packs, contracts and collection cards in the Starbase Market for Hive and/or selling your in-game assets on the Supply Market for EXOFUEL and selling that on Hive-Engine for Hive.
Note: I'm continuing my Special Offer: Double your money back if you try eXode and don't like it. If you are interested, details are at the bottom of my Economics & Rewards in EXODE and Splinterlands post. For more information about the awesomeness that is EXODE, check out the short (five minute) introductory video and the wiki. There is also the EXODE Pilots Hive community (which has a bunch of terrific tutorial videos as well as many posts entering and detailing the results of recent contests) and a Discord Server. Oh, and the game itself is at https://exodegame.com/.
