It's helpful to have players in the community willing to help others on Discord and all that, takes loads off the Splinterlands team (I've tried to pop in there and answer a question or two to help offset things for the people working the channel).

I think the guilds and easy communication is one of the primary drivers for a lot of success in the long term. One of the things I enjoyed the most playing other games was joining guilds or groups and just being able to chat with them. Sure it's easy enough to post and all that here on Hive but a lot of newer players haven't the slightest clue what Hive is so if they can join a guild that can help them learn the ropes, it's got a much better chance of retaining them.

The rental market is also huge and one that I think is great to incorporate directly into the game. Got a lot of my older, unused cards rented out to folks that would have previously been required to buy them for a hefty cost. That's great!