Upland’s big Easter Egg Hunt is tomorrow! This fun-filled contest will determine the first Uplander to be JFK-Bound. But when you’re taking a break in between those hunts, you’ll need some inspiring reading material. Here is an overview of our next release — Martini — and some of our future plans.
Martini In Shots
As promised, we started shortening our release cycles to be able to deliver much-anticipated features more quickly, turning our Martini Glass into Martini Shots! Let’s knock ’em back!
Shot 1 — Desktop Support
This one was already gulped down. The first feature from the Martini cohort to be released was desktop support, making Upland more or less universally accessible.
Shot 2 — Travel to JFK and Jail
The upcoming shot will have 2 important features that lay the infrastructure for future gameplay:
Travel to JFK
Air travel is just around the corner, and until it debuts with the launch of NYC, JFK (NYC’s main airport) will be accessible for sending Block Explorers to. As a precursor of things to come, your block explorer will naturally need to first be at SFO in-game in order to send to JFK. For the time being, there will be no flight mechanics required to send your block explorer to JFK, and doing so for the immediate future will not cost any UPX.
Introducing Alcatraz
As discussed in our AMA, the block explorers of players that violate Upland’s Terms of Service — especially multiple accounts used by the same individual, which is strictly prohibited — will be sent to in-game prison on Alcatraz Island for a short period of time to allow them to reflect on their behavior. While there, block explorers cannot be sent back to the San Francisco mainland. Our game encourages learning about the locales in which it takes place. How much do you really know about Alcatraz, the former island prison also featured in 1996’s film The Rock starring Sean Connery and Nicholas Cage? Check out the Wikipedia entry.
Fun and humor aside, this will indeed serve as a warning and repeat offenders will find themselves prohibited from gameplay for longer periods of time. Players that have been violating such rules: we’ve been watching you. The pre-Martini phase of our game is your grace period. Be aware!
Final Shots
Here are some of the major features included in Martini, keeping in mind that those may still be split into additional parts to hasten delivery
UX Upgrades
As Upland gets populated with more features, a small rehaul was called for to improve usability and at the same time give us the opportunity to offer a slicker user interface.
Improved First Time User Experience
Onboarding new players is a major priority, and the improved First Time User Experience is not just wishful thinking. It includes the mechanics that would allow for testing variations of this experience and help determine the most effective one for increasing new user acquisition.
Leaderboards
One thing we noticed about our players — they love being competitive!
Leaderboards will feature the top Uplanders in various metrics such as Earnings, Trades, Referrals and more!
Challenges
Challenges will be similar in nature to leaderboards, but they are time-based and carry an UPX reward. Challenges will become another important part of Upland’s live events program.
Treasure Hunts 2.0
We’ve launched Treasure Hunts in its beta settings and have learned some valuable insights. We also received great feedback from our Uplander community. Martini will include some exciting enhancements to the TH experience, including a personalized treasure tier and new types of treasure-finding mechanics for the existing treasure tiers.
What’s Next?
As we approach the mid-year mark, this is a good time to reveal some of the other things we’ve been working on.
Travel Between Cities and Collections Reveal
As the Upland economy grows, we need to prepare for the right time at which we’ll launch NYC in “vanilla mode” (meaning all game activities will still be focused on SF). We foresee this happening in the second half of 2020.
In terms of game mechanics, there are two important prerequisites for launching a new city: enabling and activating the travel system and supporting the blockchain-based collections-reveal system, both of which will be developed with high priority.
Property Development
Pretty soon, Uplanders will start developing their real estate. Building residential structures can be beneficial in an effort to increase your neighborhood value, but it doesn’t end there!
Upland will host virtual businesses across different sectors such as entertainment, real estate, financial services, travel and more. And over the next releases, we will introduce the concept of the Business Permit NFT along with the first line of example businesses that Uplanders can operate to generate more UPX revenue.
Fiat Out
You have heard in our AMA session some exciting news about our coming partnership that would enable Uplanders to trade their digital assets for fiat. The partner agreement is signed and will be officially announced in the next few days. Our dev team will start working on the necessary integrations and marketplace options as they appear in Upland.
Squads
In the first stage, Uplanders will be able to team up to form squads, and compete against other squads for UPX and straight out bragging rights.
In later stages, squads would enable team members to pool resources together for joint asset acquisitions and business development.
Keep on truckin’
You guys keep playing, we’ll keep improving. Our team is committed as ever to bringing Upland to the mass market and having everyone enjoy the benefits of true ownership over in-game items. Our game continues to develop its real economy, which is truly taking form, and we continue to push for an open economy where players, and in the future perhaps brands, will be able to operate together. The line between real and virtual has never been thinner!
To life, liberty and property. Join Upland today!
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