I voted for this in hopes of getting more eyeballs on it, and thus more discussion and input.
My personal hope would be for it to be an option added, instead of a replacement. Having various options to purchase "packages" is a great marketing strategy. I'm sure a lot of people would like to buy the "Deluxe Starter Package", and they could even insert a special "exclusive card" available only to this package too. That would be cool imo.
Good idea Cryp71x, I like that you are focusing on making things better!!!
No, this is not the direction I want to go. I want to increase the price of the Spell-book and the value of packs for compensation be maximal and I repeat maximal the value of the Spell-book price increase.
There can be multiple options, but I am sorry DAVEMCCOY the Null (Botfarm) option (Spell-book for 10$ and 0 Packs) will be no longer available if this proposal passes. Multiple accounts are o.k., but bot-farms nope. Hope you agree in this point DAVEMCCOY.
Can we be more specific as to the price change and number of packs issued?
That's fair, its your proposal. While I will likely abstain when it becomes a full proposal, I will still vote yes in the pre-proposal stage so that you get as many eyeballs as possible for you to make your points.
I still think its a good idea to bring up so that we can discuss the issue. So again I'm happy you made the proposal and are trying to improve things Cryp71x! :)
ps. I think the bot farms already pretty much have their accounts already, so that's why I'm not as concerned as you with the inexpensive option. IE...I think there are other things more effective at managing that problem that was created in the past.
My proposal is against new botfarms. The old ones will dry up with the "other things" you mentioned whatever the "other things" are.
buying spellbooks in bulk on the secondary market for under $10 currently is very easy. I don't see why anyone starting a new botfarm would waste money buying new spellbooks from splinterlands while this is possible.
Do you have a link for the secondary market? I would like to take a look.
Maybe I can buy some spell-books before the price increases 😉
I don't get your point, do you want to actually deter real players from entering and giving the company 10$ for doing so?
Are you aware you can have bulk accounts from abandonned botfarms for as low as 30 cents an account?
They never buy directly spellbooks, there is actually so much second hand accounts for sale in bulk for peanuts, strictly no reason to do so.
The only thing you'll achieve with this is putting a huge barrier of entry to the people you want to see coming in, while botfarms will laugh all the way because you closed a door they never use in the first place.
Also, a new botfarm would never open at 10$ an account, it would take them years after years to roi on that.
I'm sorry i'm voting against, there are already few enough spellbooks sold to real player to not make the wall three time higher for them. You want them all inside the disco, not out at the door with a too expensive ticket.
If you pay 100k DEC to get that out, you're basically going to loose money, to loose even more money on your SPS stack as it will be detrimental to the game in general.
Hope you get my point.
TLDR : Bots never buy spellbooks.
Just as an example, on the Xbot page, which is already expensive stuff but still 10x lower than company spellbook : https://xbot.app/discountedAccounts
here's a link https://xbot.app/discountedAccounts
you can also go on telegram. You can also buy bulk accounts for $0.70 each and they have potions on them. i spoke to one reseller that had 2300 accounts for sale. reach out to @binance_whalealerts on telegram
Agree 100% Dave! I like for the team to consider various spellbook options. Also various pack options too for the matter, but that is a different proposal.
No, I think Spell-book and starter packs are linked. I leave the details to the Splinterlands Corporation. My proposal is about the Null option (Spell-book price increase 0, 0 starter packs). And I want to NULL the NULL option 😆
Explain a bit more. I am listening.
Onboarding is highly complex and there are surely experienced developers who know how to do it. I want that there comes movement in this topic. I have the bad feeling that there are no new quality players joining. I don't have the numbers but just because 20 Spellbooks are sold, doesn't mean that 20 new quality players joined. Also, there are now new games like Genesis League .... If the Spellbook is too much for new players (after an increase) they can choose to join the newer Games while their Spell-books are still cheap. This way we create scarcity by making Splinterlands an exclusive club everyone wants to join but not everyone can affort to and then Genesis Goals and then .... So be lucky you were one of the first ones when it was still cheap. Don't wait to join the game.
Now to your question: Why is the Spell-book linked to Starter Packs. I thought this is obvious, but it seems it is not. It just came natural in my mind, but let me think about a proof:
Ok, when a new player joins he has to pay money, obvious. This money (real world like Dollar or digi world like Monero) consists of the price for the Spellbook and if the proposal passes also for packs. Now a link has been established. Buying a Spell-book is onboarding but also everytime I buy a pack I onboard a little bit, don't you think so AZIRCON?
I disagree with this direction. GLS and SPL are two ENTIRELY different games. I LOVE SPL but have ZERO desire to play sports games. While we don't want access to this game to be free, making it 'an exclusive club' undermines the purpose of the crypto game (spawn point equality) and works AGAINST the tokenomics and whole economy model. The SPL economy thrives the more players there are competing for the assets. We have had an exclusive club with no new members joining for the past two years and it's been a disaster.
Do you know how I can look up your Sps token value FATJIMMY? I am curious if you really care about this game.
What we need to do is bring back the old players who left. Leave no one behind.
I get it. I am with you.
Offer a new orb like shit they can open each day for some special promo cards.
This is IMO way better option as packs. And can be also priced different like offer some discount on them.
Can have same mechanic as packs for DAO. It also feels way more special.
Definitely. Its a simple but powerful concept that would certainly apply to packs too!
I agree that it should be an option to get a spellbook with packs. I don't like the idea of a mandatory substantial increase to get in the game. I also don't think it would deter future bot farms at all. If anyone wanted to set one up, there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dormant accounts that can probably be purchased for a few dollars each. Thats how I expect new bot farms would pop up.
Yes, it is theoretical possible to sell your bot-farm, although it is a hell of a pain in the ass I am sure (how to organize that logistically and also how to match a buyer/seller?).
But it will be no longer profitable to create a new farm IMNO. That's something, isn't it? Kill one bot at a time. Then the next one. Until no one is left.
I don't like the idea of a mandatory substantial increase to get in the game.
Ok, so you would opt that the compensation of packs for the Spell-book increase is exactly equal. Yes, this proposal allows that. It is up to the Splinterlands Corp. and CLAYBOYN to figure this out. This proposal is only to NULL the NULL option.
I don't believe it is currently profitable to create a new bot farm. Botfarms happened because you could pay $10 and then win 25 to 50 cents per game in bronze with starter cards. And if you rented a llamakron, you could get it back even quicker. Bot farms were into profit within a week and then it was all free money after that.
Today it would take a few years to make that $10 back and there's a chance you never can because for all they know, bots could be made illegal 6 months from now. People with the skills to build a bot farm have better opportunities with less risk. Those who own the accounts already and have already built bot farms in the past don't even find it worth it to keep them going anymore.
I think the value of this idea is more about encouraging pack buying and new player integration than it is about deterring bot farms. But I don't think that should be forced. So I guess I'm against nulling the null option.
I voted for it though because I want to have the conversation.
No bot farms anymore? I am so glad to hear that. Let's make sure it stays that way. My proposal will help.
No one is forced to pay let's say 14$ for the Spell-book and a Rebellion pack. If this amount is one's life savings I would say: Play some other game like ... hm why not chess. There are boards for less than 10$ on amazon.com
There are a few still in operation (although 90% have shut down already as evidenced by the reduction from 500k daily actives to 50k today) but no new ones are opening up. Your proposal is supposed to deter new ones but since new ones haven't opened up in over 2 years, it seems like your proposal is to help with a problem that doesn't exist.
And what is anyone going to do by opening up one rebellion pack? That's not even fun, and it will be a deterrent once they realize that one pack isn't even close to enough to field a team (play the game). I'd rather we do what Matt has been talking about. Buy a spellbook and get $3 to instantly rent a whole modern deck in one click. The player should be able to come in and instantly be able to play the game, not need to figure out what it means that they now have 5 cards they bought but can't field a usable team with.
And if it's more than 1 pack, well, now we're talking about a lot more than the $14 you came up with to rebut me.
As I said, I leave the details of the implementation to MATT, CLAYBOYN, the community and also you IMNO as part of the community of course. (14$ was just a silly example so you understand, but it seems it failed 😒). All of you can decide afterwards how the onboarding will be implemented and look in detail.
I just want the price of the Spell-book to increase and compensate with Rebellion packs. Because I want quality onboarding not quantity onboarding. And I also want fairness towards player who bought the book years ago already.
Imno also explains well what I said in my other post above, the botfarms that were created by the thousands were done when it was taking 7 days to get back the 10$ on the account from rewards cards dumping. After that they were positive until they tanked the market.
Then they left for the most part, and their accounts are still sold as of today to people that run bots in wild and invest in them, but in way less quantities as it currently take months not only to get ROI, but to stop loosing money on them. Yes, a new bot activated today is a 90% loss for 6 months minimum, that should tell you they are not so detrimental to the economy.
If anything i'd LOWER the price of a spellbook to 2-3$ as it serves zero purpose at 10$ currently with so many cheap accounts flying around for the people in the know to use.
I personnaly would lower it to 2 or 3$ as even at that price no bot farm could take advantage of the price and there is better out there for them. It will also make sure there are more real players entry because low price = more entry.
Don't know where you got your theory where high price in a shit market = more customers but it's factually wrong.
Apart from that, i'd obviously monitor the market price, and readjust the price of the spellbook accordingly and dynamically.
If we were with crazy price once again the price should go higher and higher and be calculated over the SPS price, as the rewards cards are now locked and cannot enter in that calculation.
But for now, 10$ is too much, more than that is suicidal.