Lost Relics updates always happen when you least expect them.
Loading screen art from the official blog post -- credit: "daysdoesart"
It's always the morning I wake up without even thinking about NFTs. That first morning in a week where I'm thinking about something else -- music, nature, books, anything else -- and then I go to my computer.
BOOM!~!
UPDATE TIME IS NOW. LETS GO.
Today was one of those days.
https://medium.com/lost-relics/lost-relics-upcoming-patch-188-f1549263e3fb
Major new update announced... at least this time it wasn't actually available to play right away. We have some time to prepare.
This update is SO HUGE that I need to be careful -- if I do a point-by-point reaction via the blog, my own post will be twice as lost as the original announcement. Instead of trying to cover everything, I am going to explain my three favorite new features coming with this update.
By explaining my favorite three new things to look forward to, we can cover the majority of the "vibe" of this update: What kinds of things are being adjusted, and in what way?
Lets get into it.
(1) New Play-to-earn Features
Gotta start with the play2earn, I mean that's a huge part of what makes these NFT games so interesting.
In this update, for the first time, the game will have a meaningful play2earn token-based economy beyond just dropping/buying/selling NFT items. Now players will receive shadowstones, worth 1/100th of an ENJ token, as drops when they run dungeons.
This is a big one. I remain of the opinion that playing to earn should be supplemental income, not viewed as a potential main source of income, and I think the rate of shadowstone drops will fit into that model. This won't be enough for almost anyone to live off of -- but it's enough to allow people to organically free-to-play their way towards stronger weapons and armor over time.
For someone who happens to fall in love with the game and play heavy 40+ hour grind weeks, if they would've done that kind of thing anyway, now they get substantially more value for doing so.
(2) Graveyard Rumble
Lost Relics is my favorite play2earn game (or at least tied with Splinterlands, it's close) because it has tremendous core gameplay. There is no other game -- including MIR4 and others -- that matches Relics' gameplay. Relics is an arcade-style dungeon crawler that is truly fun to play and happens to have remarkable NFT integration.
Therefore, I've been very bullish on the fun potential of new minigames and modes being added. Graveyard Rumble is the first one of these, and I'm sure it isn't the last.
The existence of NFTs in the game allows for some huge prizes as well.
Prizes are fun. That Zenarthil Parallel is VERY rare, only 22 have been minted so far in the game's several years history.
(3) Armor Sets
IMO one of the biggest missing mechanics in Lost Relics is having more depth of character builds. More diverse weapon and armor effects that allow for players to have agency in their builds to reflect their playstyles and personalities, something akin to the Dark Souls armor system.
We're moving in that direction :-)
Combining different armor will result in different synergy effects. The players will have to explore and experiment to try and find all the best and possibly rarest combinations.
I don't know how much of an impact this current implementation will have on the feeling of gameplay. I have high hopes for this system as it is built out over time, but only modest hopes for how it'll act on day one. In general I think we have a long time to wait before the game has really interesting and diverse weapons/armor/relics to build with.
Conclusion
This new update is going to be epic. I'm so pumped to explore all of the new features, especially that Graveyard Rumble, and I'm pumped to start seeing shadowstones drop in adventures. It's going to be a blast.
The halloween event, if it's even happening (is it actually confirmed? I dont know), will be coming towards the end of October. If we get this update and it goes smoothly, then we jump into Halloween event from there, it's going to be a wild ride for the next few months.
Do yourself a favor and read the whole announcement. Give cliff some "claps" on Medium while you're at it -- it helps with discoverability. https://medium.com/lost-relics/lost-relics-upcoming-patch-188-f1549263e3fb
What is your favorite part of the announcement? Are you excited for this new lost relics patch?