Once again, the Co-Founders of Upland have graced us with another AMA (Ask Me Anything) session. The #3 AMA session was hosted by John Thomas (BlockUnchained) on 6th November 2020, starring Co-Founders Idan Zuckerman and Dirk Lueth. The AMA session was focused on the release of Spark, a resource token used for property development and many other undisclosed functions. For those that missed the session or lack the free time to watch the replay, I will do my best to cover all the exciting details that has been shared during the AMA session. Disclaimer: I do not represent the Upland team and what I will be sharing is simply what I interpreted from the AMA

The contents covered today can be split into the following categories:

Spark | Property Development | Upland Currencies | Businesses | Cities & Collections | Roadmap

Spark

From Upland's recent medium post, we understand in the near future, a new resource currency called Spark will be released for the purpose of property development. Spark is a cryptocurrency token that will be implemented on the EOS main net. Spark will be staked for the duration required to complete the construction of buildings, statues and cars. It can be leased between players on the Spark Exchange to earn some additional UPX. Sparks can also be mined in the future on dedicated wastelands and an initial amount will be airdropped to Uplanders existing before 24th October 2020.

How can Spark be received or mined?

Airdrop - For players that received the status of "Uplander" (More than 10,000 UPX net worth), they will be airdropped Sparks based on 3 categories, status, veterancy and engagement level. During the AMA, little was disclosed on how these categories will be weighted. However, these are some speculations of mine; Status - Sparks should be airdropped proportionally to your Upland status. Uplanders, Pros, Directors and Executives should be airdropped an increasing amount of Sparks. Veterancy - Could be dependent on when a player became an Uplander. Hence, I believe Founders that joined during the closer beta should receive the highest amount of Sparks. Engagement Level - This would be the hardest to predict. However, this category could be decided based on engagement on Upland's discord channel or based on certain leaderboard metrics such as number of trades, number of referrals, total amount of UPX proceeds or number of treasure found. When AMA participants asked on more details, Idan mentioned any additional information released now will only cause chaos and havoc in the Upland metaverse and decided to remain silent on the matter.

Mining - A piece of sad news to players that speculated properties to be wastelands. The co-founders have announced that there are no properties currently on Upland in the 3 available cities that will be wastelands where Sparks can be mined. Instead, dedicated areas will be devoted to wastelands and Uplanders will be required to travel to these secluded wastelands via trains or planes. From there, Sparks can be mined with equipments released in the future.

What are the possibilities of Sparks?

Apart from staking Sparks for you own property developments, there are plans to allow you to stake Sparks on another Uplander's construction. Sparks can also be brought out of the Upland metaverse, possibly to exchanges and 3rd party partners. This is because Spark is a cryptocurrency token implemented onto the EOS main net.

Are there other resource currencies like Sparks?

The co-founders have reaffirmed future development of a resource currency to create life like plants and animals. This resource will be mined or farmed on farms. It has also been mentioned that farmlands could soon (no time frame) be available in areas near San Francisco and Fresno.

Property Development

Mentioned way back in a Medium article by Upland in June 2020, property development is now closer than ever. Visual instances of 3D structures can soon be erected onto your buildings! This will beautify our metaverse and allow players to develop their neighbourhoods and primary home addresses.

Help! I can't wait to development my properties, could you please give me something to curb this insane urge?

The biggest surprise released by the co-founders today was the upcoming sandbox to explore and play around with property developments. The sandbox will be released along with challenges and mini-games. This will give Uplanders a sneak peak into how properties could be developed in our metaverse.

Will property development dilute our simple yet beautiful metaverse?

This was one of my biggest concern that with players inputs, although the metaverse could be more diverse, it will destabilise the aesthetics of our metaverse. However, the co-founders have affirmed us that development of properties will have a controlled look. An analogy given by Idan was that our metaverse will be like the Apple ios as compared to Android ios where the interface will have a uniformed look and feel. You can now be assured my pre-school standard, semi-3D property pieces will be spared from your sacred eyes. Instead, only the in-home 3D experiences will be highly customisable and in the far-far future, Upland may incorporate virtual reality (VR) as part of their offerings.

What are some additional information should I be concerned with?

The team will continue to be working on joint-ownership of large and expensive properties, perhaps allowing players to have differing amount of stake on a piece of land. Alamo Square Park, your dear residents are coming for you! As for Uplanders that have minted entire blocks of properties, there are plan to allow merger of properties. However, this function will not be available anytime soon. In addition, for Uplanders that have invested in large plot of lands, apart from enjoying higher monthly income, you should be able to build more/larger structures onto your property. In addition, the co-founders have mentioned 3rd party partners could allow a diverse utilisation of these large pieces of land. However, beware that any developments on top of your properties will have to be traded away when you sell your properties away. Lastly, landmarks are now more valuable than ever by what was confirmed by Idan. Landmarks will be tagged similar to how San Francisco's City Hall is tagged. This will be implemented when the landmark structure is attached to their respective properties.

Upland Currencies

Fiat - Fiat money is a government-issued currency that is not backed by a physical commodity, such as gold or silver.

With the hype building over last few months, fiat out is at arm's length away! As announced on Discord on 5th November, the team has completed their integration with Tilia, allowing Uplanders to sell their assets for US Dollar! Over the next few days, fiat out functions will be tested by the team and 30 closed beta participants will be engaged to test out the process. The fiat out function can only be accessed through the browser (desktop or on phone browser) but not in-app. Upland will have 4 useful currencies/resources - US Dollars, UPX, Sparks and the resource similar to a breath of life.

With the new fiat out function, can I use my 8 different wives' accounts to make a quick buck?

Indeed, most Uplanders that have invested time and resources into the metaverse will hate bad players that exploits this function and eat into our reserve of community UPX pool. The co-founders have assured us that there will be precautionary measures to ensure such exploitations will not take place. Some examples of measures that will be taken are: Visitors will not be able to utilise the fiat out functions. A minimum account life to use fiat out function may be implemented. In addition, I am sure on the side of Tilia, KYC (Know Your Customer) checks will be done and shared with the Upland Team. So hold your horses John Doe, Miles the Llama will kick your ass into Alcatraz.

The wealthiest Uplander makes just over 1,000,000 UPX a month, is hyperinflation part of the roadmap?

Properties in our metaverse gives a yield of 17.3% per annum which is ridiculously high for any sort of investment. This is without considering visitor fees, collection bonuses and treasures found. However, repeated once again by the co-founders, yield will not remain at 17.3% in the future and will only drop. The reduction of yield will not occur anytime this year but possibly in 2021. The current yield was given to kick-start the metaverse's economy and in the future when other transactions happen through businesses and whole lot of options, Dirk hopes for the economy to move by itself, reducing the need to have such a high base property yield. Rest assured, with a Phd in Economics, Uncle Dirk will not let the Upland's economy crumble.

Businesses

The introduction of businesses in Upland was released along with property developments back in June. The initial release of businesses should include Block Explorer Shops, Cafes, Realty Agencies and Arcades! Licences required to operate such businesses will be bought or leased from each city's City Hall and the size of properties will affect the restrictions of business operations. It has also been mentioned that players will be required to spare time and effort to grow their business brand and make them known to the rest of the metaverse.

How will Business Licences be regulated in our metaverse?

There are two caveats mentioned during the AMA. Firstly, business licences will be limited per locale. This means that the number of licences in each cities will be predetermined and proportional to a certain metric. An example given with fictitious numbers was "For San Francisco, only 20 licences for Block Explorer Shops will be available." Secondly, the cost of operating businesses will differ between cities. Hence, I believe that the cost of business licences and its operations will be rank as such, from cheapest to most expensive: Fresno, San Francisco, Manhattan.

I will be the Jeff Bezos of Upland, how should I get started?

It was mentioned that businesses in Upland will be similar to those in the real world whereby players will have to pour in time, effort and an initial capital to begin his/her business. The Team foresees that players that place in sufficient thought on their business model, marketing and branding efforts will attract more customers. In addition, the Team will be implementing ways for players to advertise their businesses in-game perhaps through a paid bulletin or announcement page. Also, if I am not wrong, businesses could be sub-leased to another player but can only each licence can only be utilised on a single property.

Are there any more updates on businesses?

The Team will continue to develop the metaverse and there is a probability of having in-game chat functions. In the release of businesses in Upland, it is mentioned that cafes will be place for Uplanders to meet and interact. However, during the AMA, there was a quick mention by Dirk that there could be other places for Uplanders to interact, there was a quick cite on Universities (Let the FOMO begin!)

Cities & Collections

We live in unprecedented and exciting times, with 3 available cities and up to 56 collections currently in the pipeline, who can't love Upland? The OG city of Upland, San Francisco ,currently have 18 collection all available. Of these 18 collections, only 4 collections can be completed minted fresh from the metaverse. Manhattan, with over 41,000 properties and 25 collections, will remain in vanilla mode for the foreseeable future. The last city dedicated to new players, Fresno, was released 3 weeks ago. With majority of its available collection currently unmintable to non-FSA (Fair Start Act) players, all veterans look forward to the last 3 locked collections.

When will the last 3 collections of Fresno and all the collections of Manhattan be released?

Which city or country will be introduced next into our metaverse?

It is certain that no new cities will be released for the remaining of this year while Dirk allows the economy to stabilise with the sudden introduction of properties in Manhattan and Fresno. However, it was mentioned that the next country is heavily dependent on the demographics of players. Currently, Upland has a large amount of Americans playing, followed by a substantial amount of players from the UK, Germany and Oceania Region. The demographic of players will determine the demand and perceived value of properties and hence the priority of release. If you're a dedicated player with ties in the real world, you could apply for Upland's franchise program to expedite the process of introducing Upland into your hometown. Dirk has mentioned they will continually look for prospective individuals to franchise Upland into new territories, although these matters will only be looked into next year.

Could you give more description of the current cities?

San Francisco - it will always be the home of upland with hopes that player activity within SFO will remain the highest out of all the cities. More than 50% of SFO has been minted and SFO offers the full range of offerings such as all collections being available, both limited and exclusive treasure hunts available and the hub of all current available travel. The price range of SFO is currently sitting inbetween both New York City (NYC) and Fresno (FRE)

Manhattan - similar to real life, NYC is no affordable real estate. Cheapest properties available in most neighbourhoods are upwards of 10,000 UPX. All 25 collections in manhattan are still unavailable although already determined and escrowed into the EOS main net and will be released in phases. Treasure Hunts are also unavailable in NYC although I speculate NYC to have larger average treasure size compared to SFO and FRE.

Fresno - With 75% of the properties only mintable by Uplanders of net worth below 100,000 UPX, the city is dedicated to new players. Properties and visitors fees are all proportioned to a more affordable range. From the AMA, it was mentioned standard treasure hunts in FRE is now lowered to 20 UPX which makes standard treasure hunting in FRE potentially profitable! What's left to Fresno will be the release of exclusive treasure hunts and the last 3 locked collections.

Wait, what's with the unanswered question above?

It was the actual response by the Team during the AMA. There was no disclosed dates for the release of the remaining collections. However, it was mentioned the remaining collections in Fresno and collections in Manhattan will be released along with other events and milestones. That's all the team has to say for now.

Roadmap

If you're interested, you can click on this link to download Upland's proposed Roadmap for 2020 and beyond. Another roadmap will be released in 2021 which should include a magnitude of exciting features. The co-founders have also recognised that there are some aspects of the 2020 roadmap that has yet to be fulfilled such as Squads and Dashboard Statistics. At the same time, some features not planned in the near future has taken the front seat such as the focus on Nonfungible Tokens (NFT).

The Roadmap and results of Upland have been spectacular but my support emails are still unanswered!

It was mentioned during the AMA that Upland will be introducing two individuals into their team which should help with the their support response time. If any of you are experiencing issues with the game and require support, feel free to contact the team via [email protected], post your message on Upland's discord thread "technical-bugs" or send a private message to Will or BlockUnchained on discord. They are wonderful and helpful to the community but on the team's behalf, please be patient as start-ups are never an easy venture.

What are the most exciting features in Upland?

The idea of having NFTs such as cars was once again mentioned during this AMA. The Upland Team will be seeking partnership with real world car brands to release limited number of cars as another form of travel within Upland. The co-founders hope to have this implemented in 2021 which will spark new possibilities such as races on the Upland map, having different elements like drivers and car parts that affects your performance in the race.

As most of the Upland community will agree, the Team has been extremely agile and responsive to the community and the features released and potential of the game is unthinkable. I hope everyone stays around to support the team, enjoy some profit and keep those property prices high!

In Closing

I genuinely hope you have enjoyed the read and that you found this post informative on what is to come to our metaverse. Your read is valued to me and I am extremely thankful to have you part of the Upland community! I will deeply appreciate it if you could leave me a tip for on publish0x or visit me at 100 Laguna Street (My only property at 100UPX). To all my readers, all the best with your property and business developments. Keep hustling on and make those UPX work for you!

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