Hey Y'all, it's ThankMeLater here. I'm still trying to figure out my cadences and formats for getting information out to the community. I'm going to try and add a weekly report to my Upland blog to highlight key events from the previous week and any upcoming events. Not sure if there will be enough content every week for a meaningful post, but we will play it by ear.
This week certainly has some big topics and exciting events!
Upland News:
On March 1st, 9 AM PST SFO Domestic Terminal 3 was open to buy!
This was the first property opening event I have been a part of in Upland, and I must say it went smoother than I thought it was going to go. SFO isn't connected to the primary SF area, so you must fast travel there and the only property available to do that was property 6/9 Domestic Terminal 3 that was won by Cinamun earlier in the week. (If you want to see all the people that went to SFO, you can check that property history, lots of interested people.) Now, even though there were dozens of people at SFO, the reality is these properties are, and will always be, premium lots with premium price tags, so most explorers were just there to spectate. The lot prices had been speculated based on the prize property and were reasonably close to what the ended up being list for. (I'll write an article in the future talking all the numbers and how to estimate those kinds of things for yourself).
When you first traveled to SFO your explorer was only going to be able to reach some of the properties; 9/9, 8/9, 7/9 and 5/9. Arguably the most 'fought for' lots would have been 9/9 and 8/9 since they are easily the most "affordable" at 288k and 479k, respectively. Hodler managed to grab 9/9 and MinorProphet, from the Bad Crypto podcast, grabbed 8/9. From there, you had 7/9 at 853K and 5/9 at 4.28M. As of writing this, 5/9 was still unminted, which isn't a big surprise given its huge price tag and relatively unknow potential value (I'll talk about that more later in the article). Most of the explores I spoke to who were serious about getting into SFO were bringing about 1M to play with. (My stack was down to 900k because I'm weak and can't not by fun properties) so 7/9 was well within budget for most of the explorers who wanted a property. In the end, our very own reader Ryan600 was quick to snag that one. When I say quick, I mean I was there and never even saw the buy button! Yes, it seemed like there may have been some technical issues but having that many people vying for so few properties there were always going to be some complications.
By now you're thinking, ThankMeLater, what about the other 4 SFO properties?! Well, those are a little more interesting IMO. The other four properties; 4/9, 3/9, 2.9, and 1/9 were not in range of the initial warp to 6/9 which meant your explorer needed to drift towards the other part of the terminal to access them. This was of particular interest to me since I had my eyes/heart set on 1/9. So the key factors in this are 1) You only get 3 fast travels a day to properties you don't own 2) You have no control over which way your explorer goes once landed.
My Journey for 1/9 Domestic Terminal 3
With the limiting factors I previously mentioned, I needed to plan ahead. In order to maximize my chances of getting 1/9, I warped to SFO the day before the event to ensure I would have all 3 of my warps available, if needed, for the event. Additionally, by wrapping there ahead of time, this meant my explore was already in the SFO area and had a chance to be in the right place at the right time anyways (spoiler alert - he wasn't) 10 Minutes till SFO opens and my Turtle is right where I wanted him, unfortunately, you can't "drop anchor" so I floated right by... Now it's 2 minutes until open, I'm nowhere near where I need to be and am forced to fast travel back to 6/9. At this point, my plan was to buy 7/9 if I had to and try and trade it later. 9 AM hits... its a mad dash, I frantically refresh 7/9, nothing, nothing, nothing. I can see 9/9 and 8/9 are sold... The next thing I know 7/9 is gone! Oh no, I can feel my dreams slipping away... I look down and by some miracle that little turtle is headed the right direction! I start screaming at my phone; "Run you f#%$ing Turtle RUN!"... 3/9 lights up green, I hold; 2/9 lights up green, I hold;... finally 1/9 is green! "BUY BUY BUY"... "Minting on the block"....it felt like hours but I know it was only seconds; 1/9 Domestic Terminal 3 goes to ThankMelater! It was easily one of the biggest thrills I've had in Upland so far!
Ah, but now the others. Most explorers had not been as lucky as me and didn't drift the right way. These explorers were waiting for the first mint on the other side to quickly travel and be within reach of the last properties. Upon minting a dozen people fast traveled to 1/9 in order to reach 2/9 and 3/9. The one and only Capitalist snatches up 3/9, and the seemingly unknow ChuckBarnes snatches up 2/9.
At this point Telegram chat is going wild, people are posting pics and videos of their conquests and the excitement and chaos of the event seem to be wrapping up. Then strolling in at his own pace, the whale that is Kent snatches up the 2.7M 4/9 Domestic Terminal 3. His response "Had no choice you guys were so quick!". What a legend! It was a perfect end to the event.
Final Thoughts on SFO initial terminal offering
Ok now, that the dust has actually settled, what does it all mean? Did you miss out on the deal of a lifetime? Hard to say; these large-priced lots don't come with dedicated collection at the moment so the best multiplier you can give it is 40% from City pro. This means in the shorter term it's not a great buy to boost your monthly interest. If you were lucky enough to grab one you could put it up for resell, which several of the owners are, to try and make a quick flip and profit. But for me; smart money is that this an investment in the future. The Upland Dev team has made it very clear that airports will be a crucial transportation hub for future city expansion. It has also been mentioned that the size of the lot is directly proportional to the amount of activity/travel permitted. So the more extensive the lot the more travelers can use your location, which makes sense. Now, all the specifics on how exactly this will work have not been detailed out yet; so it's impossible to know just how profitable these locations will be.
Finally, it should be noted, SFO has 2 more domestic and 1 international(!!) terminals that have not yet been unlocked! So if you weren't lucky this time, or didn't have the funds available yet, there is still hope to be an original owner of SFO. Overall great event!
COMING SOON MOJITO! (Like real soon! Like THIS WEEK!)
Easily the biggest update to Upland since I joined in January will be Mojito! It was shared on social media last week that this long-awaited major content patch was coming out this week!
I won't go into a ton of detail in this article about all its features but once it's officially released I'm sure it will be the topic of many future articles. Especially the Treasure Hunts and Live Events. For the official details please see https://medium.com/upland/a-taste-of-mojito-d9aa35ff86e3.
I will say in preparation for this launch you should keep an eye out for cheap properties in as many diverse locations across SF as possible. Trust me, when the treasure hunts are launched, you'll thank me later :)
I appreciate you taking the time to read this update, I hope you found it enjoyable and informative.
Cheers,
ThankMeLater
Additional Upland Resources:
ThankMeLater’s Buyer’s Guide (Google Doc)
Upland community database (Built on Airtable, maintained by the community)
Upland Blog (The Upland strategy blog by ThankMeLater
Uplander Blog (The Upland fanfiction following ThankMeLater the Turtle)
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