Hello everyone! This is my second entry for this week's Splinterlands Social Media Challenge. Today I'm talking about the latest update to Splinterlands: the free-to-play mode and everything that came along with it.
In reality, the first step for the free-to-play mode started a few weeks ago, when they introduced chests rewards for ranking up. I would call it free-to-play v0.1 because you could earn those without any SPS and even using all ghost cards but you still needed to buy a spellbook. This was a nice update for any level of play but now they can be earned without a spellbook.
However, now we have the full free-to-play experience, which can be called v1.0. I'm sure there will be more updates to this but I think this is a very important step for Splinterlands. Let's see what has changed to make this game free to play:
Even without any SPS staked, Glint multiplier starts at 1x.
Glint can be earned, starting in the Bronze league, even without a Spellbook.
There's no starter card penalty for Glint earnings.
League advancement chests can be earned without a Spellbook (which I already mentioned).
Players also don't need a Spellbook to join a guild, purchase Credits, purchase cards, receive gifts of packs or cards, receive card delegations, participate in Brawls and earn Merits, rent cards seasonally, combine cards, open packs, or purchase Rewards from the shop with Glint.
A Spellbook will still be needed to sell cards, transfer cards, delegate cards, list cards for rent, hold Dark Energy Crystals (DEC) or Splintershards (SPS), enter a Tournament, create or own a guild, hit Jackpot rewards, access Land, access Soulkeep, and earn SPS rewards.
These were the improvements to the free-to-play experience. Players can also pick their name which will get a "_lite" suffix which will disappear once the Spellbook is purchased.
There was another change, which is a downside to me. I understand the reasons they were done but I still don't like it. Now, the only starter cards that are available are the commons and rares from the core set that is closer to moving to Wild. Right now, that's Chaos Legion. Once Conclave Arcana is released, players will have Rebellion starter cards. I don't like this change, especially removing them even from players who have a Spellbook. It doesn't affect me but I still don't like it.
That's the only downside of this update. Overall, this seems great. No one can abuse it with bots because they'd have to pay the Wild pass to use them. Even if someone managed to run a huge bot farm in modern, getting a lot of Glint over many different accounts, they'd still only get soulbound rewards. There's no chance of getting jackpots out of the chests without the Spellbook so there's no way to abuse the system by buying the Spellbook only on the accounts that got the jackpots.
I believe this will attract and retain a lot of players, likely convert some of them into Spellbook purchases and even further spending. A mobile app will be the next big step. Let's not forget that anyone can do ghost card challenges which means that anyone can try playing with all cards maxed out to see what the game is like at the highest level, for free. I see a lot of potential in these changes. After this and the mobile app, I feel we have all the tools to start the marketing and get a ton of new players. However, maybe the team also wants to complete the battle modernization first, so the marketing might not start as soon as the mobile app is done (unless the battle modernization is connected to the app).
What do you all think about these changes? Let me know in the comments! Thank you for reading!!
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