This past week I reached 1 year spent playing Splinterlands. I was actually a little surprised to realize that it had been that long - it is easy to focus on playing season to season, and there are so many events and aspects of the ecosystem that keeping track of everything keeps you busy and the time just flies by. A year is a bit of a significant milestone so I thought it would be a good time to take a one week break from my Splinterlands Economics series for a quick look back, as well as a reflection on where I'm headed for the future.
Getting Started
Splinterlands is an incredibly complex ecosystem, with a constantly shifting economy and many players with the funds to make large splashes in the game marketplaces. This was my first experience with both play to earn and blockchain gaming, so there was a very steep learning curve. Luckily, the community came up big and played a huge role in helping me figure out what was going on and getting used to being able to play some games. All of the helpful folks on Discord were vital in helping me to learn about Hive and Splinterlands, and the main reason why I ended up sticking around. I spent the majority of my first couple of months just reading about how the blockchain, the game, and various aspects of the economy worked. A big shoutout here to Clove71, Unitqm, and everyone who regularly spent time in general chat on Discord - having a place to ask questions and the occasional giveaway was invaluable as a new player!
On the subject of new player onboarding, the community certainly plays a large role. And a huge part of the community organization is the guild system. While there is still much room for improvement, guilds provide a (relatively) easy way for players to communicate or interact. In addition to benefiting players from the economic payouts of brawls, they are great support systems for swapping tips and advice. If I were able to give my past self advice a year ago it would have been "find a helpful guild as soon as possible", and "don't be afraid to ask questions, even if you think they might be silly".
Moving Up
Once I had a (very) basic understanding of how the system worked it was time to get started being a small investor in a very large pond. Splinterlands does had mechanisms which allow smaller players to participate at higher levels - rentals and delegations are very helpful in getting to play higher level cards with a relatively small amount of investment. During my time here my primary source of funds going into the game was income from blogging on Hive. The great thing about Splinterlands operating on the Hive blockchain is that it allows any player to have a means of obtaining capital to put into the game, allowing people that can't or won't move around large amounts of money a way to participate.
For me personally, my blogging payouts have been a small but steady way to build my collection and I have been able to buy at least a card or two each week thanks to my writing. That may not seem like much but it certainly adds up over time - as of the time of this writing I have accumulated over 3,000 SPS, am approaching 90,000 owned collection power, and have been able to play out ranked play seasons in the Gold and Silver leagues, a total that seemed nearly impossible when I first started playing. And one of the best things about Splinterlands is that things have a way of compounding - the higher earnings from playing in these higher leagues have allowed me to upgrade cards more quickly and in turn be able to climb up that ladder even more! That is one of the biggest lessons that I have learned about Splinterlands ranked play - climb as high as you can (sustainably, of course), the rewards are either best there, or the developers have indicated that they will be the best there in the future.
Going Forward
After getting moderately established, the main challenge became keeping up with the constant updates and changes to the game landscape. In the last year that I have been around, there have been 2 new set releases, several promo cards, a separation of ranked play into 2 formats, and 2 brand new games announced which are related to Splinterlands to various degrees. There have also been huge economic changes such as the end of the SPS airdrop and the new ranked rewards system, with even more updates and refinements to come. And the doesn't even begin to mention the crazy macroeconomic conditions we have been going through with the bear market and "crypto winter".
Now that I have a decently sized collection and (for the most part) know what is going on in the game, my main goal is to continue to move on up - upgrading summoners and monsters to be able to compete in the higher portions of the ranked ladder and tournaments, and to be able to make more of a contribution in brawls. Having gotten more familiar with the Splinterlands ecosystem and developers, I am also interested in the upcoming Tower Defense and GLS projects. Notorious B.I.G. had it right with "Mo Money, Mo Problems" - figuring out what to buy with any amount of money is easily a full time job! Here's hoping that my next year in Splinterlands goes just as well as the first.
Thank you so much for reading all the way to the end. Interested in seeing some more of my writing in the future? Be sure to give me a follow! In the meantime, if you'd like to see some of my recent posts:
Splinterlands Economics: Gluts - An overview of the concept of gluts, and how we can apply it to Splinterlands.
Taking a Flier on this Deer Mage - Using Regal Peryton in Battle! - Last week's battle challenge, featuring Regal Peryton!
My Take on the Card Level Rewards Proposal - My thoughts on the the card level rewards Splinterlands proposal.
Thinking about giving Splinterlands a try but haven't signed up yet? Feel free to use my referral link: https://splinterlands.com?ref=bteim, and be sure to reach out to me if you have any questions!
All images used in this article are open source and obtained from Pixabay or Unsplash. Thumbnails borrowed with permission from the Splinterlands team or made in Canva.