The Splinterlands team is excited to release additional details about the next planned expansion for the Splinterlands game. This is by far the biggest update we have undertaken since building the game initially, and we expect it will take the entire Splinterlands ecosystem to a whole new level of both value and fun.
Not only are we planning to add new types of cards and a major update to the existing battle system, but we are also planning to add an entire additional game within the game to allow players to take control of the minting of the new cards. We think that this expansion will be groundbreaking - not just for Splinterlands - but for the entire blockchain-based gaming industry!
For those of you who are as excited as we are, and want to get involved early, we are planning to hold a presale for land in the Splinterlands in order to help fund the development of the expansion. You can find more details about the presale and all of the benefits and discounts being offered to participants in a companion post to this one which will be linked below.
Splinterlands Official Land Presale Announcement
The expansion will add two completely new types of cards to Splinterlands - Items & Spells - in addition to the current Monster and Summoner card types. Currently, players choose their Summoner and Monster cards for their team and then the battle plays out against their opponent's team with no ability to alter the results after that point.
In the expansion, players will have the ability to alter the course of the battle after they have chosen their team by playing the new Item and Spell cards. Once both players have chosen their team, they will each see both teams laid out on the battlefield, but before the battle begins they will each have a fixed amount of time, and Mana, to play Items and Spells.
There will be a wide variety of Item & Spell cards added to the game which can affect nearly every aspect of the battle. This additional step will add a huge new element of skill to the game by requiring players to quickly take an overview of the battlefield, anticipate what Items and Spells their opponent is likely to use, and decide what Items and Spells they want to use themselves in order to turn the tide of the battle in their favor.
The most important thing to understand when it comes to the value of land in the Splinterlands is that the new Item & Spell cards will NOT be available in booster packs like their Monster & Summoner counterparts.
Instead, they will be minted exclusively by players using resources and buildings that are harvested from or built on the land. This means that any players who wish to acquire Item & Spell cards for use in battles will either need to mint them for themselves, or buy them on the market from other players who have minted them. Splinterlands will NEVER sell Item & Spell cards.
The smallest unit of land is a Plot, and each Plot will be a unique non-fungible token (NFT) represented by a card graphic that displays all of its unique properties as well as indicate what type and level of building is currently built on it. Each plot of land will have a terrain type, a category, and a rarity.
The terrain type indicates what sort of land it is, what types of resources it can have, and what types of Splinter magic are best suited to that land. There are planned to be fourteen different terrain types in total: Plains, Hills, Tundra, Swamp, Bog, Mountain, Canyon, Caldera, River, Lake, Forest, Jungle, Desert, and Badlands.
In addition to the terrain type, each plot of land will also be in one of three categories - Natural, Magical, or Occupied. The category of land is similar to the "foil" of the existing Monster and Summoner cards and is indicated at the top of the card graphic. The majority of the land plots will be Natural lands, which means that they contain one of four natural resources (grain, wood, stone, and ore) which can be farmed or harvested from the land and will be required to build, upgrade, and maintain all of the various buildings that can be constructed.
Some land plots will be Magical, which means that they are rich in one of six magical resources, each associated with one type of Splinter magic - Virtulium (Life), Reclaimed Souls (Death), Ulana Seeds (Earth), Sparkstone (Fire), Bottled Storms (Water), and Heliostones (Dragon). The magical resources will be much more rare than the natural resources and will be one of two components required to mint Item and Spell cards.
Additionally, some land plots will be Occupied, which means that they are inhabited by wild monsters. Players can battle these monsters and extract their Essences, which will be the second necessary component of minting Item and Spell cards along with the magical resources.
Finally, each plot of land will also have a rarity - Common, Rare, Epic, or Legendary - just like the existing Monster & Summoner cards. The rarity will determine how abundant the natural or magical resources are on the land, or how many monsters there are on an Occupied plot, and will be indicated by a modifier that is part of the plot's name.
You may receive a Fertile (Rare) Plains, an Abundant (Epic) Swamp, or an Overflowing (Legendary) Jungle. Common rarity plots will not have any modifier before the terrain type. A land plot that is both Overflowing (Legendary rarity) and is either the Magical or Occupied category can be thought of as similar to a Gold Foil Legendary Monster or Summoner card.
In order to utilize the land it will be necessary to construct buildings on it. Only one building can be on a single plot of land at any time. There will be many different types of buildings that can be built, each with a specific purpose. The different categories of buildings are:
- Natural Resource Harvesting
- Natural Resource Refining
- Natural Resource Storage
- Magical Resource Harvesting
- Magical Resource Storage
- Essence Harvesting
- Item & Spell Manufacturing
Each building will require some combination of the natural resources to build, upgrade, and maintain, and each building will be able to be upgraded to higher levels in order to boost productivity. Constructing and upgrading buildings will also take time, and the amount of time will increase as the buildings are upgraded to higher levels. It will be possible to spend Dark Energy Crystals (DEC) to speed up the construction process, and any DEC spent in this way will be burned.
Certain types of buildings, like storage or item & spell manufacturing can be built on most any plot of land whereas other types of buildings like resource harvesting buildings may only be built on land that contains the specific type of resource.
Most buildings will also require some existing Monster and Summoner cards to "work" in them in order to function, so you may want to hold off on burning your hordes of Rusty Androids! Additionally, Monsters and Summoners from certain Splinters will be better suited to working on specific types of buildings and land plots. For example, Fire Splinter Monsters and Summoners will perform better on a Mountainous land plot than on a Lake.
Buildings can also be destroyed by their owner and a certain percentage of the resources used to build them can be recovered in order to make room for a new building on that plot.
Lastly, there will also be two special types of buildings - the Castle and Keep - which are pre-existing on certain land plots and cannot be destroyed or removed in any way. These buildings will confer special benefits to their owners and also to the surrounding areas. Each Region (1000 plots) will contain exactly one plot with a Castle and nine plots with a Keep (one in each Tract (100 plots) except for the Tract that contains the plot with the Castle).
The end goal of owning land is to mint the new Item and Spell cards which will then be able to be used in Splinterlands battles. There will be specific buildings that can be built for minting item and spell cards, and, like the other buildings, they will require Monster and Summoner cards to work in them.
Minting Items and Spells will require both the magical resources that can be harvested from land plots that contain them as well as Essences which can be harvested by battling monsters that inhabit Occupied land plots. The type of magical resource used will determine the Splinter of the resulting Item or Spell card.
Unlike some crafting mechanics in existing games, in Splinterlands it will not be possible to choose exactly which Item or Spell you wish to mint. Instead, the resulting Item or Spell will be randomly determined based on a number of factors, including, but not limited to, the level of the building, the Monster & Summoner cards working in the building, the types of Essences used, and bonuses from special Totem artifacts placed in the building (more about the Totems below).
As with building construction, minting Items and Spells will take time. The amount of time it takes to mint a new card will also be dependent upon many factors similar to those described above, and it can also be sped up by spending Dark Energy Crystals (DEC) just as with building construction.
Totems
Magical items known as "Totems" have been discovered scattered across the lands of Praetoria. These ancient artifacts from civilizations long forgotten have been imbued with magical energy that can provide significant benefits to players that can harness them.
Each Totem will be a tradeable NFT item just like the existing Monster and Summoner game cards and the upcoming Land Plot cards, and they can be placed in buildings to provide specific benefits.
Each totem will provide one very specific type of benefit, for example it may speed up Death Splinter Item card minting time, increase the rate of Sparkstone harvesting, or reduce the maintenance cost of a Farm building.
Totems will have Common, Rare, Epic, and Legendary rarities, with the more rare versions giving larger benefits than more common ones.
Initially, Totems will ONLY be available as prizes in the Splinterlands Land Raffle, which you can read more about in the Official Land Presale Announcement post, however, once the land expansion is live there will be additional ways that players may come across these rare and valuable items which have yet to be revealed!
Conclusion
Please keep in mind that the details of the expansion are still very much in the design phase, and certain elements may change from what is described here by the time the expansion is completed and released.
The goal is to not only add a new element of skill and interaction to the battles, but also to provide a very deep, fun, and challenging empire-building game mechanic where players can learn and discover a myriad of different ways to optimize the value that can be extracted from their land and carve out their niche in the overall supply chain of Item & Spell production. Whether you have one plot or one thousand plots, there will be an important role for you to play.
This is your chance to take part at the ground floor of an exciting and groundbreaking game mechanic where the creation of new collectible game cards is put into the hands of the players.
Stay tuned for more updates from the Splinterlands!
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NOTE: All rewards from this post will be burned.
Does the lands deplete in resources permanently or will resource regenerate over time???
i hope also that it certainly doesn't deplete!
I certainly hope it doesn't deplete!
Depleting it would render it useless and be a lousy way to promote the next expansion. I wouldn't play anymore if my max level elemental phoenix one day rolled over and died because it was all used up.
Having said that, however, I am concerned spells and items might have a limited number of uses and I really hope that isn't the case. It'd be REALLY great for land owners but not at all friendly to the player base as a whole. I don't think I would enjoy having to constantly replace spells or items that deplete after use. I could probably get behind it as an add on, for really powerful one use items, as long as I also get to create/upgrade and keep the spells I add to my spell book.
May be the resources will deplete and recharge with time....just like mana.
They shouldn't deplete anymore that the other cards do. Which is zero.
Wow...
I've been impressed from the beginning with what you have accomplished...
But this is SUPER COOL! I now have many things to do so that I can get as much land as possible!!!
Great update and brilliant design by super talented people!!!
Sweet merciful awesomeness. Absolutely everything I was hoping for, a very coherent and detailed game within the game. Freedom to the players to craft this phase of the game is groundbreaking and I am very excited to see the results of this very well kept secret getting out. The masses will not know what to think, haha.
Very cool!
It will add much needed variety to battles and a completely new aspect to the game that is a bit like Settlers of Catan.
This is all just fantastic.
I will have 2-3 years of exciting game and building my empire!
when i can buy my first land?
Wow. That's really a huge update. As a new player who is still trying to get familiar with everything I need to hurry up a bit to get on track :D
Holy smokes Rusty Android you may have a reprieve from the DEC recycling centre.
Long live the Rusty One!
Just got a land plot for $200!. 2022 that price will look so cheap!. Thanks!...
you were so right haha !
How did you buy land now? I thought it was sold out?
Secondary Markets like Hive-Engine or Atomichub
Atomic Hub. You can buy a land plot for $350!.
Not right now lol now there 10 dollars.
Very nice! This thing about players creating cards is really cool! To be more fun, there should be an empty wilderness area, a nobody’s land, where you could conquer land through wars and battles...
Me parece una idea brillante. Me suscribo totalmente a su propuesta amiga @marianaemilia. Ya iniciando mañana esta aventura, espero disponer de fondos para adquirir una o varias parcelas.
And now the quesrion rises.. how much does a plot of land cost. Because I want some!
They provide more detail here https://peakd.com/splinterlands/@splinterlands/official-splinterlands-land-presale-announcement
$10 per plot at the start of the pre-sale. $20 after.
Full tracks of land have an extra discount.
$10 seems like a price I can work with at least. I initially saw these $7500 and $9500 dollar prizes and I nearly fainted. But indeed...these ten bucks a plot seem good! But you need to have more of them with resources to make them work for you as I understand, right?
That's where I'm iffy...
It sounds like a single plot of land can have a single building.
To make cards you need resource storage and production as well as factories.
My gut feeling tells me you'll need at least 10 plots to be able to do anything useful with them since they are randomized as to what you get...
I'm on the fence about what to do personally, I might pay with ETH and grab a tract... or I might ignore it completely...
Maybe, but a single plot maxed out harvesting lumber will have market value, since the guys with only one plot that has a Spell forge need to get it from somewhere.
True, if you aren't aiming to be self sufficient, there is value there.
I guess I like too much control ;)
But not everyone will be able to be self sufficient. One may end up with a dozen plots that all have the same few traits and still need something from someone else. Even with a a lot of land it may still, on occasion depending on the market, be more efficient to just buy a thing instead of doing everything from start to finish. I believe there's always a benefit to getting a lot early, but I also, have faith the devs can work it out to ensure each individual plot adds value to the game for both the individual owner and the project at large. I kinda have to at this point because every time I've lost faith in the past an awesome update emerged and reminded me I'm just one of the idiots along for the ride. I've been here since just before the beta release went live and at this point I'm convinced these guys seem to know what they're doing.
Update: Also, keep in mind that even if you buy an entire region, there could very well be materials needed that are only available from another region you don’t own. God help us all if a jerk gets all “the spice islands”. 😁
wow... ttalking about a game rehaul! amahying features and to be honest it|s going to take some time to understand everything. Can't wait to see how it plays out :)
I’m a buyer:)
This should bring a whole new type of player to tg=he game who just likes to craft stuff. Or give current players a whole new thing to spend time doing in the game. I like the idea a lot guys a good job.
yes bro you are right
Great!
Noice
An interesting premise and it sounds like a promising improvement to gameplay.
Based on the other post it seems like it will be too pricy for casual players though so I doubt it will impact me much...
I will be curious to see how it turns out.
Oh come on, make Rusty useful please!
I imagine a level 1 plot of land produces X amount of X resource over X period of time, and building, leveling up, using higher level monsters to harvest/refine, etc. will boost productivity like guild and streak bonuses increase DEC for a battle won.
I imagine the same! I can't honestly imagine being able to manage 100 plots of land you know - it would just put pressure on myself to buy even more damn cards.
ATM I think I'm looking at a much better balance - I'll have about 30 plots in total, I'm buying up some more decent cards now to stack the land with, I've still got a fuck load of DEC and I've sold some for ETH.
I'm sure anyone who buys a tract or a region by themselves - they're going to need to sell some of it to fund using it!
The market I think will be pretty active in the middle of next year.
My guild is trying to get a region, so far I have enough pledged to get a tract and 7 extra plots. I hope I don't have to sell any of them, but if I do I'm going to prioritize guild members. I think guild management of the entire region will be beneficial in a few years once this expansion is successful and the next is entering the design phase.
Yes fair point, it could all go in a very interesting direction!
For me I just don't want to get caught in this trap of having to invest more and more and more in the game, that seems to be the way things are going!
Yeah. That is a significant point. I may end up with a lot of plots that go undeveloped for a while...
I've got one key question...
Once land is released, how do we start building?
Will we be able to assign units to harvest undeveloped land, or will a "Natural Resource Harvesting" building be required? Will we have to buy (with money/crypto) our first buildings? Or will we start with a certain amount of resources?
Thanks in advance
I find it a little odd that the prices of land is at 20 bucks so if I want to eventually own more buildings I have to purchase more land wich akes this game very expensive and also feels like a little bit pay to win style to me...
But who am I judging Laready spent 20$ on the gae and it is really not very nice to new users. You basicaly stand no chance of winning against anyone! The spell book gives you next to nothing. I will play on but these are my first impressions and they are not that good as you see...
in retrospect you should have been on your knees thanking them for such a price, I just bought 3 lands on a dip at $600 each lol
Greetings. Already starting tomorrow, Saturday March 6, 2021, the opportunity (for just one day) to acquire one or more plots of land from splinterlands, I wish you all the best of success.
And to my clan SM-ESCUELA DE ESPAÑOL, I hope with faith, the greatest victories as a group and in the individual battles of each of my companions.
For my fellow Venezuelans, the best is yet to happen. With optimism I know that the best come to those who do good at all times.
! Spliterlands Venezuela to Conquest ...
Spanish
Saludos. Ya por iniciar mañana sabado 06 de marzo de 2021, la oportunidad (por un solo un día) de adquirir una o varias parcelas de terreno de splinterlands, les deseo a todos el mayor de los éxitos.
Y a mi clan SM-ESCUELA DE ESPAÑOL, auguro con fé, las mayores victorias como grupo y en las batallas individuales de cada uno de mis compañeros.
Para mis compatriotas venezolanos, lo mejor está por ocurrir. Con optimismo sé que lo mejor vienen a los que hacen el bien en todo tiempo.
! Spliterlands Venezuela a la Conquista...
How am I just now coming across this? It sounds amazing. I can't wait.
Will there be more lands for new players?
I hope I could afford to buy a land.... ^_^
Hi
Could you tell me how to send Splinterlands Land Plot from hive engine to Splinterlands account please
Send it to @steemmonsters
I'm late to the party but man am I excited lol. Can't wait to see what the future holds for Splinterlands. I've got a feeling Splinterlands is going to change the gaming world. Maybe it already is.
can't wait... :)
Tournaments and new pack drops are Kraken level only. This is such a bad choice for the community. RIP Splinterlands
I came to this game too late to buy a land :(.I'm definately going to use them a lot by "working" in them tho 🤣
When can we claim our land plots?
i accidentally sent 1 PLOT to @steemmonsters instead of tokenizing it. PLEASE HELP
This is a classic piece of content and great for any new players to the game to explain what land is!
Thankyou for sharing your time and perspective.
I've shared this in the Yield Guild Games Splinterlands Discord and Splintertalk community.
#WEAREYGG
Wow. I am so excited what Splinterlands has to bring. Im still clueless on some things in crypto but I do understand that one day, just like touch tone phones and rotary phones, the word Internet will be a thing of the past and Metaverse will be the future name. Im looking forward to seeing what my one small lot will bring me. Wish I had understood things a little better back then. I did get my GnoCity Coordinates today. Kinda out there though and I have a feeling Im going to be getting very little when the game goes live because my residents is in the forest in hawaii and my commercial is north pole alaska at santas workshop. Not sure how many people will be running around looking for gnomes up there. Was kinda hoping I would have received something in my home town but oh well. Anywho I cant wait to see what all this stuff beings in the coming years
THank you all for making such a fun game. Now if I could just get good at it and not lose every single fight lol
When this will be implemented, it will bring chaos to everyone. This changes will turned the game upside
lets get land in the game!!!
in love with @splinterlands
This is awesome!
When land?
LOVE IT!! CANT WAIT
!HBIT
Where are we on this? It's been almost 2 years. #splinterlands
This expansion will also be available to play with the cell phone?