So vouchers for Riftwatchers? That's kind of messed up. You have to have staked SPS to get vouchers but you have to have unstaked SPS to spend on the Riftwatchers packs. If you spend SPS you get fewer vouchers which means future offerings will be unobtainable without spending large amounts of cash on SPS and vouchers in the exchanges.
That's pretty rough for accounts with a value of less than $2500.00. I feel like I'm forced to decide on buying packs or just holding out and buying individual cards. Actually, I think I might HODL SPS and vouchers, they may be worth more than packs before this is over.
The new Chaos cards turned out pretty nice and the offering was pretty fair so everyone could participate and even vouchers were more or less affordable on the exchanges. My account is smaller and yet I was able to scrounge up enough funds to get 100 packs to open. I didn't really gain much account value, more or less broke even but at least I had the fun of opening packs which is an important part of the experience unless you are just here solely to invest.
So kudos on the initial offering of Chaos - I hope you can figure out a way to make Riftwatchers available to all the player base as well.
Great response, and I hope I can expand on the situation.
Unfortunately, due to the growth of the game and the amount of money people like to throw around, I don't believe we will ever have a normal pack sale ever again. As a result, vouchers were created to try to find a balance.
When vouchers were initially created, they were mainly described as a utility for SPS. However, they actually turned into a mechanic to meter the pack sales ultimately. Due to vouchers, the sales were able to be split into different phases, and allowed everyone to participate if they wanted to.
Yes, vouchers cost additional money, however, they ensure that you buy the pack/s you want. Also, you get additional benefits when you bought with vouchers like the pre-sale rewards, and then the next two monster airdrops for those who buy in during the current phase, phase 2.
If vouchers didn't exist, the Chaos Legion pack sale would have been sold out in the very first couple of days. I know this sounds like a guess, but I'm telling you right now, the amount of money that was sitting on the sidelines while SPS was at a higher price, was unreal a few months ago. However, they didn't want to waste any of that on vouchers, so they've been waiting for the general sale.
With all this being said, I wouldn't be surprised if RiftWatchers does require vouchers for 100% of the pack sales. However, by the time RiftWatchers is even released, the in-game marketplace should be expanded to include packs, lands, titles, and probably vouchers as well. What that means is that players will be able to buy these assets through the in-game marketplace, rather than having to seek out Hive Engine or Atomic Hub, and to go through a bunch of hoops.
When that happens, I think it will make all these assets supper accessible as I imagine you can buy with DEC which everyone has. So if you wanted a voucher, you could probably just buy with DEC, then use your SPS for RiftWatchers.
Just my two cents, hope it helps give some clarity!
That makes a little more sense. I am definitely happy to hear we will be able to transfer assets internally with a third-party exchange, the system right now is terribly cumbersome. Being able to move assets easily in and out of game is critical for growth. People new to crypto need that when they start playing Splinterlands.
hi what do you mean by normal pack sale? How was it like previously compared to now?
Well I only joined back in June 2021, so I can't speak on the sales other than Untamed as that pack was still for sale in the Shop at the time. It was great though, because what hooked me was the ability to create an account and buy packs right away. I'm an addict for pack opening and that alone explains why I'm still in this game.
Unfortunately, that won't happen anymore as back then, we only had around 5,000 daily active users. Now with 300k+ DAU, there is too much demand for packs, and too much scarcity. So I see the General Sale selling out in like a week or less.
goodness! 5000 users... wow, wished I was one of those 5000... Really didn't know splinterlands existed until I started doing research about play2earn. Should have started researching earlier 🤣
You can stake SPS to get the vouchers, AND THEN unstake to purchase RW packs. RW won't be released for 4-5 months, which should be ample time to accumulate some vouchers before unstaking to purchase.
However, as I'm sure many others will tell you, if you want best value for competing, buy individual cards.
The answer is almost always buy individual cards (at least for gameplay purposes; if you're buying things primarily for investment, I can't help you).
The point was about keeping the "fun" of opening packs available to everyone. I've been playing TCG's for a long time now, a lot of the game excitement is the mystery of opening packs not knowing if it will be a dud or some super cool legendary gold that is worth a pretty penny. I still remember opening Pokemon 1st editions and pulling a holo Charizard!
My wish is that no matter how big Splinterlands gets it will always be friendly to new players on any budget, that everyone can always buy packs, and it does not become a whales-only club like some other blockchain games have.
Trading card games always have had an investment element to them as well. Take Magic the Gathering for instance. Some of the cards from the first few sets in the early 1990s are worth over $50k USD! Today you can still pull rares worth up to $50-$75 USD depending on how good they are in game play.
Most of my experience is MtG, which is why I responded the way I did. Yes, there are still some chase rares/mythics (although the explosion of alt arts has made the standard version of even the best cards really affordable), but even if you want those, the best solution is to buy them as singles and not open packs. Only whales (and local game stores) should open packs as they open a large enough number to make it not gambling. If you like gambling, and have fun opening packs (and who doesn't), then do that. But if you want the best value for your $ in terms of gameplay, buying singles is gonna win every time.
I was under the impression that you will buy Riftwatchers packs with DEC, just like it was for DICE, not SPS.
You can only buy Riftwatchers with SPS. See the last AMA notes.
SPS is the future IMO. HODL
The following was in the last Gold Foil Press email I received from Splinterlands -