Splinterlands Town Hall for January 7 2022

Splinterlands Town Hall (AMA) Summary for January 7, 2022

*Please note: I cover as much as I can of the summary as a record of the conversation. I do not provide my opinion but actual conversation that occurs during the AMA. This summary will have questions provided from the Discord and the answers given by the various Splinterlands' team will be typed by me. Please forgive any typos or errors; some may be from Discord or some may be my own.

Hi everyone! I'm under the weather today so this town hall summary is going to be a bit less than usual from me.

Founders Begin the AMA, now called a Town Hall
Today's Town Hall included: @aggroed, @yabapmatt and @hardpoint

Aggroed @aggroed Founder and (C.E.O)
Matt @yabapmatt Founder and (C.P.O.) * Note: Matt is Now the Chief Product Officer as of 12/15
Hardpoint @hardpoint (C.T.O.) (Chief Technical Officer) *Note: New role as of 12/15
KBux @kbux (VP of Engineering) *Note: New role as of 12/15
Nate @nateaguila (Creative Director)
Cryptomancer @cryptomancer (Splinterlands Developer)
Chatter (Director of Marketing)
Homestead @homesteadhacker (Moderator Lead) (Business Analyst)

If you want to read more about the recent changes to the staff click here.

Introduction from Aggroed

• Time for 2022
  • Let's get to know who's here (introduces @hardpoint and @nateaguila
  • We're getting noticed out in the crypto world
  • We're going back to LIVE tournaments!
    • Aggroed said he's been working on them and getting them up live soon.
• Let's talk about how we didn't go perfectly in 2021
  • We had had problems with servers and tickets - HOW ARE WE NOW?
    • We have happily cut down the tickets DRASTICALLY
    • We're getting a much more efficient process
    • Zendesk is getting set up
    • The trendline with tickets has been going half and half and half and we received half the number of tickets in December. That's just saying the system is getting better and we launched a whole knew knowledge-based articles to help people to keep those tickets down.
    • Support team is AMAZING Hardpoint said
    • How many tickets did we generate in Dec and how many are open left
      • 2618 tickets in Dec and we solved 1900 4417 in Nov and 4200 in November
      • We've solved over 34,619 tickets in the last four months
      • We have 1161 tickets outstanding right now.
        • Two areas of struggle: We can't change your email address on your website. We can't just change your email because that could be an exploit so we're working on a new way of how to deal with that that will revamp the way you address your email with your account. 240 tickets are for emails
        • Other area is bugs and that's being worked on all the time and improved tremendously.
        • We have other tickets as well, but those were the main areas.

Matt's Update

• What's Happening in 2022
  • We've got so many new people so I might miss things, but it's great with all these new people.
  • Q1 for this year is on the SPS validator nodes and the SPS governance system. Everyone who has SPS will find this important. It will make it fully decentralized and then you control what happens with the token and what goes on with the game.
    • It will be really the first game ever to let the players decide
  • Jan 17: General Sale of Chaos Legion ( @cryptomancer is focused on that right now)
  • Wild and Modern Format
    • Should make the game more fair and interesting and provide everyone with their own place to play in
  • And Land expansion will be after that and @cryptomancer will work on that with his team.
    • We'll be sending you screenshots and all the sneak peaks
    • Side fun: Matt shares 2018 Promo cards he was shuffling as he chatted.

Nate's Update

• As we get more and more popular.. shout out to the marketing... wow! The more eyeballs we have on this, the more imperative it is we can play with the big boys.
• We're working on a lot of fun stuff.. Joey will be talking soon. He is one of the narrative designers.
• We are revising the lore so it goes hand in hand with the Chaos Legion story
• We'll be involving the players with your stories and really make you part of the lore.
• We just scheduled an interview with Marvel/DC Comics... and who knows... maybe we'll have some shorts, videos and otherwise soon. We are branching out to reach others.
• You are entering the Splinterverse and it's exciting times for all that we're building and growing. Joey S. (Narrative Design Team Member) is going to share more about what we're building
• Joey S. Narrative Design Team Member
• The lore just needs to be updated and ad we're building the storyline up with the new cards. I help write the stories and I edit as well. The Chao Legion has invaded and spread across Splinterlands and there are a lot of areas of resistance and that leads into the Rift Watchers. That's the moment of hope with the Rift Watchers. That will carry on through rebellion.
• We will introduce battle mages which are the players themselves.
  -Aggroed asks what is the plan and hope that these people who read these stories are getting from this?
  • The reader should feel part of the game, the lore and a battle mage in the game fighting the chaos legion and helping to bring hope and victory to Splinterlands.

Here's a google form where players can submit their SplinterBites

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc-DghOD4uZ-ZLilCpiMtcbo9JwGZr_CIZsrvEFcLOE6M0jFg/viewform

If we use yours, we will credit you and possibly give money as well for that.

Chatter's Update (Marketing)

• Ads are the first thing we're looking at. We're getting Snapchat going, and a landing page and Wordpress. We'll have FB, Instagram, YouTube working as well. The main goal is to get new users and we'll be putting a lot of product marketing to them after that. We'll be doing a lot deeper funnel marketing.
• We have esports manager position out
• Graphic Designer job out there as well
• CoinMarketCap and we have the live chat there and you can post. Please go join and chat which gets more involvement.
• Southeast Asia Metaverse conference coming
• Token Gamer named us as game of the year in 2021.
• So how do we link the blockchain to others and bring them in
• There will be a learn to play stream with Hardpoint and Chatter as well.

Waffles Kitty Update (Sarah / Dygycon even coordinator)

• Jan 21-23 will be having a live stream conference. Don't miss out on that
• We're excited to have the first event of the year.
• Dygycon Website revamp coming

VP of Engineering KBux Kevin

• We have a team of 12
• We're trying to make Aggroed and Matt's dreams come true.
• Feature Development
• Security Scale - working on making it great for the players.
• Any time their balance changed they will have that for 2021. We are just making sure they can get all the data.
• Security - How we manage crypto... how we get it in and out of the system and how we handle SPS
• The example that comes up the most is that when NFTs transfer out of the system we need to make sure it works all the time.
• Software factory measured by house often we deploy updates. We right now are at several hours but we want to get that down to minutes and update several times a week.
• We're trying to make that standard on the validators. We're working on that as well.
• We still are looking for devs so if you're out there and you love to code and do dev work, please hit us up and let us know.
• We scope the team discussions around the various topics. We work sort of like the set up in Discord with channels for the topics. We are growing super heroes for building this game.
• How are we bulding an assembly line for games... how do you interface with the creative team to take their plans and implement things of a creative process? How do we make sure that our design process fits your needs
  • Kevin answered that changes depending on what it is but we want people to focus on their expertise. We can talk about what's possible from an engineering perspective. It's a little messy but we have the helping of the teammates and working together. Collaboration is so important. Nate and Cryptomancer are talking all the time, and that's important.
• Aggroed says this shouldn't be "grind to earn" but "play to earn". The vision is good and the execution on that vision is spectacular- that's my hope.

Leadership Questions

• Aggroed / Chatter - If we want to discuss potential partnerships with Splinterlands who do we talk to? And via what channel (Discord, email, etc.)?
  • I think it's ok to start with Chatter. I keep my Discord at green as much as I can and available. Reach out at Discord to either one of us.
• Hardpoint- I think Hardpoint spoke of this previously but is it in the works to have a status update site or some kind of a simple tracker for tech support/inquiries that are over a month old?
  • Are they wanting stats? If you want individual information. On Zendesk you'll be able to log back in. It's coming if not already out there.
• Leadership: Does the team plan on having a Chaos Legion general sale steam going right when it opens, similar to how the end of pre-sale worked?
  • I would love to (said Hardpoint) YES! Let's do it
    

Development Questions:

• I love that we have been given an in-game way to review our season rewards because there are so often problems with actually opening the chests and whatnot. Thanks! Are there any plans in motion to either fix the issue with chests or to add an option to revisit your last daily reward? I know it can be done on peakmonsters but that process is tedious and should be able to be streamlined within the game itself. Thank you!
  • Sounds like a great feedback that should be upvoted. Aggroed says we really need a rewards' page and broken out by what the community's done, what the league has done and what I have done for my account to get a sense of performance.
    Aggy mentioned wanting to create casual games, would these be play-to-earn games, and would SPS be significant in these games; or would new currencies be created for them?
  • I am talking about casual games and play to earn. SPS might be significant in some but there could be new ones with new tokens.

Game Play Questions

• Why are there suddenly no more practice battles when you transition from bronze I to silver III? Does the need to practice mysteriously evaporate at that point? Or is it because the big boys can make money and they want cannon fodder to devour?
  • The match making system will not match people in bronze with silver. There aren't people in silver playing practice battles very often. I guess we could run bots just so you can practice battles. If no one is playing practice there won't be opponents there.

Land Questions:

• Tracts and regions were bought with people pooling resources so that once they can be split each can have according to their share… if the reveal occurs before they can be split and shared, then different rarities may make equal sharing difficult. So will they be allowed to split before the reveal so that ultimately it depends on luck which rarity one gets? Thanks!
  • Matt said they thought about it but it's been awhile. He thinks the plan is that when it's time to redeem your claim and get individual plots and then separating there's a set to reveal those plots so if you have a region you have 1000 unrevealed plots. So there would be a market for unrevealed plots going forward.

Economy Questions:

• From current rewards cards, only 17-21% have been printed so far. Do you think the print amount for those was set too high? (due to the player base growing so quickly and possibly not understanding how big of an impact reducing cards from loot chests on lower levels would have) Or were you planning for the current reward cards to stay in print for 2 or so years? Have you considered adding additional reward cards to the mix to freshen them up, i.e. A limited-edition reward card that would stay in print for only a month or two and then change to another limited-time reward card?
  • Possibly. We did intend for the cards to be available for quite awhile. It's hard with the reward cards, if the number of accounts grows, we have to guess how many to have out there. It's more content added into the game so we have a lot of stuff we're working on an we don't really have the capacity yet to add more but we'll have more resources available to be putting in new content to the game which isn't just cards but new rule sets, skins, etc. At the moment we're focused though on security and support and stability for the game.

• Any thought of reducing the total number of reward cards to be printed to avoid flooding the market and stabilizing the price?
  • I don't think we're going to reduce it. Adding new cards is not just throwing stats on a picture and getting it out there. You have to make sure the cards are new and works with the game.

• will riftwatcher booster packs need vouchers?
  • Aggroed wants 100% with vouchers and Matt just wants to wait because it's 5 to 6 months out so we want to see how things are going when we get to Q2 and be sure what we are doing.

• Suppose only 2.5 million packs are sold by the time the next 2 airdrop cards are airdropped, will the chances of getting those cards increase for those who have bought the packs (i.e 2.5 million pack holders, because they are supposed to be distributed to 3 million packs)? Or will the rest of the cards then be available with .33% chance in future pack openings?
  • The chances are going to be what we said in the post regardless of how many sell.

• Can we have the total number of AD cards to be printed, by AD number? Like x number for 3rd airdrop and y number of cards for 7th AD card etc
  • It's chance based. The next two airdrop cards. 1 in 300 packs are guaranteed an airdrop card. You can do the math on how many have sold to see how many will be airdropped.

• Since all two million packs from phase two will probably not sell, does that decrease the minted copies of the phase two airdrops to keep the 300 pack per drop? or will the packs per drop requirement scale to the new purchased quantity?
  • No we're staying at 300.

• How many packs are needed for a guaranteed airdrop card on the public sale?
  • We haven't done that math yet but we'll have a post out with the details as soon as it's ready. Generally it increases by 25 packs for each new legendary card assuming it's a legendary. It will be in the 300- 400 range.

• Are the airdrops still going to count for all 10 in the first 24 hrs of the general sale?
  • It depends on how many packs we sell, but you're qualified in the first 24 hours will have a chance to receive all the future airdrops in the edition.

• How many packs need to be purchased to get maverick status?
  • 1000 packs

Suggestions/Request:

• What's your take on a “beginner’s luck charm” or something that would reward new players an extra daily chest or DEC boost or a higher chance at reward cards or something? (Already added to the feedback list!)
  • Sort of like the quest potion so we are working on a high level overview of our ranked battle system and how that works and whether or not it incentivizes things. Our goal is.. we want people to increase their collections. We don't care if they are renting or buying but we want new people coming in and new money coming in to get cards for themselves to get into higher leagues. The whole issues with the bots means the incentive structure isn't quite right. We need fewer in the starter cards and lower leagues. As we take a higher overview, I think we'll actually ultimately be able to increase the rewards, once we address the issues of just farming the rewards. So once we get our incentives in place, then we can start increasing our rewards in all the leagues. We want to get that whole thing nailed down and done right. It's a project we're doing... reworking that rewards system and we're waiting for modern and wild format are out, the chaos legion general sale has happened and then we can take an overview of the current system and then we will design the incentive and rewards properly.

• Can you please do an in-depth bot check to determine the actual bot account numbers and percentage of actual players? I feel like you're answering around the question each time it is brought up. I for one actually hope there are a TON of bots because that actually means we are a LOT earlier here than if all of the DAUs are real people.

  • Well, yeah, there's no way to 100% tell. There are obviously accounts that are bots. Then there a number of bots that play like humans and some humans that play like bots. We're never going to get numbers. And to some degree we really don't care. Our goal is to make the incentive structure correct so they want to get more cards and get to higher leagues.

• I want to leave my SPS staked as long as I can including the SPS that I get from APR returns. But the problem here is I have to sit on the system 3 times a day to claim the SPS and then stake it back. It is hard for people who want to leave it for a long time. I am busy with my job but at the same time, I am confident on SPS as well. If there a feature you could build so that SPS returned from APR could automatically be re-staked then it would make my life much easier (for long term investors)
  • It's one of the top 3 listed on the feedback and it's been prioritized and we will work on this because I want this (Said Hardpoint). Auto-staking is a thing. It's coming.

• Twitch streamers go through a lot of effort to promote Splinterlands and bring new players and excitement to the game. Your telegram moderators will not allow streams to post twitch links or free card giveaways. I myself am an affiliated twitch streamer and was threatened with banning /muting if I said anything about upcoming streams. Please support your streamers, don't treat us like we are the bad guy for supporting your game.
  • There are security components to this. If we start letting anyone start posting, that means anyone can post and if their account gets hacked and then we are sending people to where we don't want them to go. But we're going to build out on the platform a way for streamers to get things out that are working with us. Liam is working on this so that the streamers will be visible. We want to help you guys do better. I'm dodging the question but talk to the team. We just can't have anyone post. Aggroed says he would love to see streamers on Splinterlands.com. This is coming in 2022.

• It would be nice if you add a weekly/Biweekly quest that can be worked on during the season time (with some rewards, DEC for example). Sometimes I finish my daily quest fast and lose the will to play more matches
  • Aggroed follows up with: What about having more absurd quest objectives that would last more than one season? Matt said that sounds awesome! Matt said he would love to have it but it's always about priorities.

• Suggestions to help with the launch that would prevent a flood of transactions from people opening and merging cards being an effect on those who want to make their initial purchase:
  30 min to launch: posting on marketplace postponed, opening packs postponed.
  5 min until launch: Ranked battles disabled
  15 minutes after launch: Opening of packs restored
  30 minutes after launch: marketplace restored.
  • Aggroed asked: What are the thoughts for Chaos Legion? Are we going to sell out? Matt says no, don't think so. There will be no problem to get your packs and you'll be able to get them within the first 24 hours and get all your drops. I can't say what is going to happen but we've never had a better team. I don't anticipate things will be too bad. As far as turning off parts of the games, we've made it so we can separate things. That allows it to not have issues. Hardpoint suggested a game to see how many packs sell in the day. Aggroed said the game should include: How many packs are you going to purchase and then what's your best guess of what gets sold on that first day. Price of Right Rules. Hardpoint will be working on it. Matt says he will give out the exact number to everyone of the packs sold in bulk.

• When can we expect to see 4th, 5th airdropped cards with stats? It'd be better if we can see it before the general sale because bulk sales sold at least 1.5 million packs and day 1 of general sales most likely sell 0.5 million packs easily. So it'd be fair to see airdropped cards stats before the general sale.
  • Yes we would like very much to get those posted before the general sale.

• Would you consider giving everyone who is interested (or maybe guilds only) access to the test server + access to all cards at max level? This way it would be possible to do skirmishes without having to rely on card rentals. Especially for guilds a very useful feature to do in-house challenges, prepare for brawl battles, or just try new strategies.
  • Feature request to play as if I own all the best cards. It's like a rule set or a game mode. Hardpoint mentioned you make conditions of the practice and that would be great. If you want that guys, go to feedback and vote for it.

• Would you consider giving MAVs the option to add more than one account? If I had two accounts in there I could use them for guild purposes.
  • You can definitely add more than one accounts. All you have to do, is buy 1000 packs on more than one account.

Matt had to go but he said thank you so much and 2022 is going to be so amazing.

General Questions - Rapid Fire

• QUESTION: On the topic of making the game less favourable for bots without scaring them away completely, what if you did something like a cooldown for the Rare cards from the ghost deck after X games played per day. Not the quickest of fixes to code, but it would mean their win% could drop after a human-amount of games played each day.
  This will restrict (but not place a limit on) the earnings, as the rating will be lower if they keep playing through it
  • You can't play the same ghost cards all day long. Changes are potentially coming to the ghost cards. Stay tuned on that. We're actively discussing this topic.

• Question, will you be able to play both formats at the same time my fear would be old cards would be devalued.
  • Yes you can play both.

• QUESTION: Eye candy from @nateaguila ? - He's been too quiet
  • Posted Chatter's pic

We will have the countdown screen. Here's a preview.

14 Different Geography Types (Aggroed's fault by the way). Aggroed wanted to go running and screaming off into the jungle. (Nate cut me down from 35!) Each geography type has 4 different rarities. But wait! There's more! Magical Land versus Non Magical. Resource or Non-resource land and is it occupied or not occupied land?

Nate said he was asking how do we make sure all this magic is unique to each element and animation.

So here's a common swamp with occupied land:

Here's a higher level swamp (rare level).

Here's an OCCUPIED Epic swamp:

Here's a legendary swamp:

• QUESTION: Will there be 2 separate season / daily rewards for Modern / Wild? That would theoretically "double" player engagement / time played (since they'd want to play both) and ensure utility of the older cards. I know I'd play both formats
  • Only one then one ECR.

• QUESTION: Where’s the best starting point to dive into the lore? I keep seeing lots of cool stuff, but it feels like I’ve started reading half way through the book.
  • This sounds like a Lore tab to me. We need to add that to the game. We want quests to be not just on top of the map screen but you're in the Splinterlands Universe.

• Question: if I buy 1000 packs at Gensale can I move the machine status to my other account? (Also does Mav give you airdrop points?)
  • You will register there so your Discord can fluctuate.

• QUESTION: when will be listng on CEX low liquidity is kiling us?
  • You guys should be harassing exchanges. I can't tell you when they will list us. Go be out there.

• QUESTION: First of all thank you guys for doing this, this game has the chance to change my life completely. I am aware of your policy regarding bots and I am super fine with bots being in game as long as they don’t have advantages over normal players. But is it ok to have market bots that place buying transactions in the same block as the transaction of the seller? I have tried to look at this from all the possible angles, it feels like insider trading. They have privileged access to Mempool transactions and they are using it to profit at the expense of the other players. I am ok with market bots, but used on finished and published blocks. Can you change the way transactions are processed in such a way that it doesn’t fulfill if the sale and purchase transactions are on the same block? (accounts: denmatsibu, dorabot, weggesnackt, etc)

Picture they provided:

- We are digging into it.

• Question: Can you please give an update about the next wave of official SL tournaments? Last week aggy said that they are about to come he just has to put them in....

  • Hoping to have them up tonight but not sure. (Aggroed is trying to get it today.)

• Question: As part of the ranked redux work. Have you considered allowing players to choose a league each season and accounts only being able to fight in that league per season? If you need to change leagues you can but you'd be reset to the bottom of the league.

  • Going through an analysis phase for match making.

• Question: can we allow credits and sps for guild build up?

  • I'm good with it. I'm not sure it's our next priority but put it into feedback.

• Question: Is there an ETA for the modern/wild format mode ?

  • We don't have that. Late Q1

• QUESTION: Has the cutoff date for submitting vouchers to claim bonus packs for the bulk sale been determined?

  • It's not fully determined but it will be.

• Question: What time is gen sale on the 17th?

  • 12 Eastern.

• Question: Will Beta cards start giving bonus DEC?
  • That's something to put into feedback.

• QUESTION: It has been noticed that there are a few trading bots who are able to buy cards in the same block the card is listed for sale in. Generally, these are cards which are priced over 50% off the market low. In the interest of not allowing bots to have an advantage over players, is the team thinking to address this at some point? If so, are there any ideas on how? Note: I have thought about the issue and do not have a solution to propose currently
  • working on it

• Question: Is there any interest in banding together as a community for a big charity move that could be both good publicity and help some people in need? Perhaps a day where everyone opts in and donates their rewards to a specific cause?
  • If we have a cause that we can all agree on that yes we can put a button on the screen or something like that.

• Question: Could community boss fights be a thing? You fight with your deck to the death to damage a super strong boss and others contribute damage too for loot?

  • Yeah

• QUESTION: are their secrets hidden in the runes? I've found a few hidden in the game art.

  • We're working on it. Maybe we'll share it or maybe you'll make it so that you figure it out.

• Question - when do you think we will find out about card power requirements for modern league?

  • Don't have it.

• QUESTION: Have you thought of releasing some skins influenced by countries which have the most Splinterlands Players. Seems like a cool thing to give back to the international community and add to eye candy.
  • Yes we need skins and tie that to Splintertalk.io and it's hard to add that because it's not a major revenue driver and it won't be until we change that so it's kind of a catch 22.

• Question: Do you have a final total on bulk pack sales?
  • 6 mil dollars and 1.5 mil packs sold. Had a couple big guys jump out last min. but that's ok.

• Question: if the broader crypto market goes into full on crypto winter will it have any effect on the development of splinterlands? In other words - will crypto asset prices effect how much devs can get done or how many new devs can be hired?
  • We could go 3 years without making a single dollar and we're doing fine.

• Question: will old cards CP count for modern league power requirement?
  • Think Matt's answer was yes.

• I was looking at the DEC's richlist
  https://www.splintercards.com/tool-richlist.html
  in the top 200 accounts (there are also those of sl-hive, sl-bcs, sl-eth....)
  we have 2.2B of DEC
  and at the 200th account we stop at about 1.1 million DECs.
  imagine adding all the others practically half of the total system comes from DEC
  it was a huge mistake to put so much value on DEC compared to all the other assets.

• Don't you think a mistake has been made and that all these airdrop points would have been better distributed among the real assets of splinterlands as cards/lands/skins and not all catalysed in dec to get more aridrop?

  • I don't know. The damn thing has gone really well. Our business 17x in a year. It's hard for me to look back and say you know what we should have done differently. I am okay with going wrong and strong, because it's not an exploit. We don't come back and change the rules. We let markets market. There are super cool aspects of it and frustrating aspects of it. There's something to consider there for sure.

• Question: Will keep and castle properties have rarities ?
  • Don't think so.

• Question: you talked about evolution of land. Does this mean common land can be transformed to legendary over time by the use of game mechanics and resources? Or did you just mean graphical evolution
  • Graphical

---

Here's the Link to the YouTube video from Splinterlands' Official YouTube Channel if you want to see the Town Hall as well for a reference.

---

If you enjoyed my post and want to try Splinterlands, please use my referral link: https://splinterlands.com?ref=rosiew

Please remember my post is not meant to be financial advice and is just my opinion.
Follow These Folks:
Splinterlands: https://peakd.com/@splinterlands/
PeakMonsters: https://peakd.com/@peakmonsters/
Monster-Curator: https://peakd.com/@monster-curator/
1Up (#OneUp): https://www.1up.zone/

Here are some great links to join as well!
Splinterlands Discord: https://discord.gg/Tw7KjNsQGs
Monster Market Discord (Monster Curator): https://discord.gg/DR3J9rfRFV
PeakD Discord (PeakMonsters as well): https://discord.gg/7mQmzZeugE
NFT Studios Discord (aka 1UP Discord #OneUp): https://discord.gg/4VYBcNuVQd