At long last, Splinterlands gives us an official release date for the 1.5 release of their Land-based gameplay! While this first launch is only a small subset of the larger plans, land owners will be able to stake cards to their plots and begin harvesting Grain, SPS tokens, and research points!
Get your Dark Energy Crystals and Splinterlands cards ready, because Phase 1.5 of the land gameplay is set to land on November 14th! This release will allow players to begin staking Dark Energy Crystals and cards to their land plots as workers in order to harvest Grain (to feed the workers), SPS (replacing the current SPS airdrop to land holders), and Research (for some future secret reveal).
What’s in the 1.5 Release?
But there will be a number of features missing from this initial release that will be added over the coming months. This includes an internal market for Grain trading, using Soulbound cards on Land, combining Totem fragments, Prefix Titles, the DEC rental market, using rented cards on Land, and Land “surfing”. That last point is a big one, IMO, as Land surfing would allow players who don’t own land to work on unused plots. This feature would open up the Land game to everyone, not just land owners. Hopefully they will prioritize getting land surfing implemented soon.
Phase 2 of the Land expansion will bring even more changes, featuring 30 different building types and 50 different resources. All of which will tie into a complicated crafting system to create Spell and Item cards in Phase 3. The Splinterlands team says that they expect to have a whitepaper released in the near future outlining in detail their plans for Phase 2.
In the meantime, launch day For the Land 1.5 release is set for Tuesday, November 14th. If you own any Splinterlands land plots, I highly suggest you read their Land 1.5 Pre-Flight Checklist to make sure you’re ready to put your cards to work!
Land Gameplay Basics
Land plots produce resources. In this first phase of implementation, land plots can produce Grain (used to feed the workers), SPS tokens (this will replace the current airdrop for land holders), and research for the Secrets of Praetoria. The research points contribute to a global project that fully unlock until some point in the future. When completed, players will receive benefits based on how much they contributed to the research. They also have the opportunity to earn special titles by contributing the most research points in their Territory.
Players work their land plots by staking Splinterlands cards. Each card staked (up to 5 per plot) generates production points. The amount of Production Points (PP) generated are based on the card’s rarity, level, and set. This ranges from 2.5 PP for a level 1 common card from a recent set, up to 100k PP for a max level gold, alpha, legendary card. There are also additional bonuses or penalties based on the terrain type and card affinity. For example, a Fire card staked to a Lake or River plot receives a 50% penalty to production points.
In addition, players can also stake Totems and Titles to plots for further bonuses.
Assigning a card to work a plot is instantaneous, though removing a card from a plot takes three days. Workers require Grain to function, which can be produced or purchased. Plots also need a Power Source, purchased with DEC, though a Runi can also function as a Power Source when assigned to a plot.
More About Splinterlands
Splinterlands is a browser-based, play-to-earn, trading card game running on the Hive blockchain. The game features two tokens. Dark Energy Crystals (DEC), the primary game currency, and Splintershards (SPS), a governance token.
To learn more about Splinterlands, read our game guide. You can also visit their website, follow them on Twitter, and join their Discord server.