I have been primarily interested in gameplay and economics of @splinterlands with little regard for the fancy high production value hype builders. Serious investors; casual players is the perfectly fitting way to describe the way I play. The same goes for my wonderful Guild mates from Roaring Twenties. I have been around since the starting date of the Guild and I invested in Splinterlands before there was even a game to play. The excellent economic fundamentals is one of the major reasons we have managed to be one of longest surviving projects in cryptosphere. Many projects with 10X funding have utterly failed in blockchain gaming.

Concord was a multiplayer game that cost 400 million dollars to make and it was shut down in 14 days. Most of the biggest blockchain games that went viral are nowhere to be found these days. This is a sign that we have very good fundamentals to survive the chaos of cryptosphere and retain players for the long term. One thing we have been missing is the superficial things that other games focus massively on.

Aesthetic Customizations Have Arrived

I did not care to play around the avatar creation for the first few days. I changed my mind today and found myself impressed by the level of depth and options presented. Cosmetics skins are a multi billion dollar sub industry. There is a serious demand for these superficial customizations.

The best part is that with enough Glint spend on Leveling Up, players can have their own custom Card they can use in Battles outside of Ranked. There is minimal burden on game design and art department can go all in to expand features for the players.

Most if not all Bloodlines in the game will be available to players eventually. What is already available is sufficient for millions of unique combinations. With the new additions, we could easily reach more combinations than there are humans on Earth.

Showcase Your Achievements

We were promised some form of achievements system many years ago. There is finally a Badge system that players can use to show off to the world. These are important elements for community building. Having to talk to players to know about them or having to read some introduction somewhere is far too cumbersome. Fast and efficient communication is a very good step forward IMHO.

Designing My Own Card

Talk to any long time player and see if they have their own idea of a perfect Card for the game. There is now the opportunity to design exactly that (with some limitations to stop overpowered builds) is here and it acts as another resources sink.

Continuous Level Ups Needed

At first, there are 20 Points to use and each Level Up grants 1 more Point. It is possible to advance multiple Levels at once. This is going to be a major relief to the Whales who should have a great deal of Glint left to spare (as long as they are not going after Gold Foil and other ultra expensive purchases).

Final Results Snapshot

I think this Exemplar system is one of the best ever in gaming. Most of the Abilities and all Attack types are available. There are millions of combinations possible and the Mana system works as a brilliant way to counter the power creep. One could create an absolute powerhouse and then have to keep spending their Points on bringing the Mana cost down.

It will take some time before I can get my Exemplar to a playable shape in Brawls. I did not spend too much time on the appearances. I picked something that looked good enough for me. The default was far too ugly of a design. I am happy with what I built over a short amount of time.

The only complain I have about is regarding the Collection Badges. Card Collector and Land Barron are very difficult to achieve and costs greatly. Yet their Badges come across less flashing and amazing than the others. This is one bit of feedback I have on the newly implemented system. Overall I think this is one of the best additions to @splinterlands for the purpose of player retention and engagement. Those who look at things as cryptocurrency investors may not fully comprehend the value of these systems that offer minimal gameplay utility and near zero economic value. Please take a look at how much money gamers spend on things that have zero economic value for the purpose of entertainment and a sense of progression.

We built what is arguably the best game in cryptosphere and yet, very few players stuck with us. They are "wasting" their time on being at the mercy of someone else for the gameplay access and live without the ability to truly own their assets (or the game they paid for). Avatar + Exemplar + Badges is a way to bring those players into a better world of gaming and keep them around for the long term.

Happy Gaming! Happy Investing!

Posted Using INLEO