"Starter Packs" Proposal on the Splinterlands Website. Thoughts.

I postponed writing about this topic for a while. The pre-proposal passed and we are now with a full proposal in-game.

This is the full text of the proposal.

While there is an improvement compared to the land "potions" proposal, I had questions about this one.

Some of these questions were addressed by Matt in this week's town hall.

I already figured out that for every plot deed, we'll be able to buy any or all of the starter packs. It will probably be a check box for each starter pack we want to buy with every surveying operation we will do, may it be for individual deed surveying or bulk deed surveying.

That is good, because at first reading, after missing the word "EACH", I started to think that it didn't make sense. I just thought we would have to choose one starter pack per deed.

What did Matt clarify for me:

• that even for building a level 1 building, regardless of how rare and leveled up your workers will be, there will still be at least a few days until the building is finished, maybe even a week+ if you don't have quality workers
• for production, the level of workers is more important than their rarity and foil; the latter will have other benefits too
• there will be an intermediate land 1.5 phase going out probably by the end of Q2 (more on this later)
• there will be a high-level whitepaper out before surveying is released

Regarding land 1.5, Matt said it will have card staking and some buildings, but not all of them. Also, likely, the whitepaper will lack specific numbers.

Let's say we have a tract or region. Obviously, we want an early start, since the speed of development is really slow, especially at first. So, I suppose many land owners with a tract or more will have at least the "Building in a Box" starter pack for every plot, if this proposal passes.

And we would probably want to deploy those 1-level buildings as soon as the land expansion allows it, for increased resource production, refining, and what else will be needed to upgrade the buildings to the next level.

So, in the case of a tract, we would have 100 1-level buildings deployed more or less optimized.

And that's in land 1.5. When only some buildings are introduced.

When land 2.0 comes, will need more space for new buildings? Does that means we'll have to destroy some of them to clear the plot(s)? I know Matt mentioned the possibility of repurposing buildings, but he talked about that in a different context.

If that's the case, the question is: will it be better to have plots that have buildings level 1 on them that will eventually be destroyed, that give a few months of boosted productivity, or empty plots waiting for new buildings to be introduced in land 2.0?

Or will we be able to build multiple buildings on every plot? That would make more sense.

Before land 1.5 comes out we will likely have a more complete whitepaper published, but that doesn't seem to happen before surveying is released when starter pack choices become important.

Just one of the questions that come through my mind that are relevant sooner rather than later, and for which I agree with those that commented on the pre-proposal post, asking for a whitepaper to better understand the implications of their decisions.

Matt promised a whitepaper in this week's town hall before the surveying is released, but if it's a high-level one, and no numbers are presented - I understand his reluctance to disclose numbers early that might change or commit -, I hope it will be helpful for drawing some conclusions that influence our early decisions (choices of starter packs, if they are approved, for example).