Another season ends on Splinterlands with me again reaching the highest level I can. My card power limits me to Gold I, so I get 30 chests. I got more potions that do not do me much good as I rarely buy packs. I am selling some of the cards as I have gold versions that win me more DEC in battles. I got some DEC too. Some will go to my guild Splinter Elites and the rest will get saved up. I got into the top fifty of the Gold league at times, but not high enough to win any card packs. Those tend to go to players who have enough power to play higher leagues.
The big news in the game has been the land sale. The first batch was released last week. This came in two forms. There were bulk lots of 1000 plots that went via a lottery. I was not going to buy one of those, but via the game Discord a pool was organised and I put in for three plots at the discounted rate. Unfortunately our pool did not get anything and I was swiftly refunded. I had bought the DEC for this using other Hive Engine tokens I had earned as I am not keen to spend more fiat on games for now.
10% of the first land sale was available as individual plots, so I prepared to get some that way. When the time came the site promptly crashed. It just kept refreshing and I was unable to do anything. When I did get on it was all gone. It seems some people had faster connections or just got lucky in buying some. I hear talk that others used direct transactions on the blockchain to get theirs.
There were a lot of disgruntled people on the Discord afterwards. Apparently demand was far higher than the team expected, but I think this shows that doing a bulk sale at a given time is a flawed method for various reasons. Some people will just not be available then and if there are technical issues like I saw then many will just not have a chance.
I think there is too much emphasis on attracting big investors to the game. The players who have invested money and lots of time in actually playing the game should have more of a chance to be able to benefit from new features. They are the ones who actually make the game a success. With 30,000 plots available it would have been possible to allow all players to apply to buy a few and still leave some large parts for the big spenders. There could be conditions based on how much someone had played and what cards they hold.
I hear there will be a lottery for all buyers next time, which may work better. The prices are higher then than before. They claim this is still a discount, but we have no idea how valuable owning land will be. I am not totally sure what the benefits will be for me if I get some, but I was willing to give them a chance. I have seen several people say they are disillusioned with the game and are selling up. I appreciate that the teams behind the various games want to make something for their efforts, but if they alienate the players then they lose out.
There has to be some balance between fun and profit in all games. I play a few battles of Splinterlands each day as I enjoy the challenge.
Other games I am playing on Hive are:
- Rising Star - Rise through the music industry. This has got more strategic lately.
- dCity - Build a sustainable city. A fairly hands-off game as you can just buy items and let them get on with it.
- CryptoBrewMaster - Brew beers. There are more types of beer possible now and you can buy different items.
- Farm Farmer - Buy and stake cards to earn. I have a few cards, but not much happening yet.
Hive five!