Welcome to Upland! A great real estate NFT game, but with a bit of a rough start for beginners. Because there are so many decisions to make in the beginning, a lot of them can feel like mistakes! That's why I have written this blog post. Not to scare you, but to help beginners so that they can avoid these mistakes.
If you haven't started yet, this can be verrrry valuable information. From the moment you sign up (or even before that!) there are mistakes to make that will make your start more difficult. If you already started, chances are you recognize some of the mistakes in this list. At least I do, I think almost half of them were made by me! Luckily, in the end even I turned out okay, so you will too! So don't be anxious if you already made some mistakes, but hopefully I can prevent you from making more of them. These tips are mainly for players who want to play F2P (free 2 play), but they are also useful for players who do invest $ in them (especially 5-10).
UPDATE: Januari 2022. Make sure to check this update is not long ago, as the metaverse keeps evolving (read: cities are selling out!) it is important to use recent information.
The top 10 mistakes visitors make (in random order)*:
1. Not receiving free bonuses (worth over 6,000 upx)
2. Not using Discord
3. Picking the wrong starter city
4. Not setting your visitor fee to max
5. Buying the wrong props
6. Not using collections
7. Treasure hunting
8. Travelling
9. Thinking you will get rich quick
10. Giving up
*If you are just starting out with this game, the lingo used can be quite overwhelming. If you see some words in this article below and you have no idea what I am talking about, you can take a look at the glossary that I made: Upland ABC.
1. Not receiving these three free bonuses (worth over 6,000 upx)
This is a very common mistake, but also one that can cost you thousands of free upx at the very start of the game. And because you want to reach a net worth of 10,000upx as fast as you can to become an uplander (before that you are 'merely a visitor' and not really able to truly play), this is quite important. There are three free bonuses that I want to highlight. Make sure you look into them, because it can give you a great head start.
1.1 Referral bonus (free 4,500 upx)
The first free bonus you can get is a referral bonus. I know, this sounds a bit like a cheesy door-to-door salesman, but please believe me when I say that this is a mistake you'll end up regretting (yes, I am aware this only makes me sound more like the cheesy salesman, sorry!).
If you sign up without the referral bonus, you start out with the regular upx handout (I think it is about 3,000 upx). A referral sign in will land you 4,500 upx. On top of that, if you decide to later on put $ into the game, this referral gives you a 50% bonus on top of your first purchase and gifts the same amount to the referrer (a gift from Upland, so not out of your pocket). You are entirely free to use any referral you like:
- This is my referral link (4,500 upx + 50% on top of your first purchase).
- You can also go to the Discord community and ask for a referral there. Some people give you a personal mentorship along with it. You are ofcourse also welcome to contact me on discord (with or without using my referral), my name is desjaak and you can find me in the upland discord server.
- If you use Brave browser, it also gives ads with Upland referrals. Be aware that the first purchase bonus is not part of this referral.
Important to note: if you did not sign up with a referral link, but you regret this, you should not just create a new account with a referral. The game is quite strict on this, as double accounting is strictly forbidden. No joke, you will end up in (Upland) Alcatraz if they find out. I understand if you are a bit disappointed if you didn't receive this bonus, but no worries, there are two more bonuses you can get in the very start of the game!
1.2 Daily streak bonus (free 775 upx)
If you already made mistake number one, don't worry, we can still make this right. If you are still in your first week, you can still earn the daily streak bonus! The only thing you'll have to do is go to Upland every day of your first week. As it depends a bit in which timezone you are, you may have to try out what counts a day, but it will be worth it. The message below will pop up with a check to confirm you have been there that day. If you do this everyday your entire first week, you will receive a total of 775 free upx!
UPDATE: this streak repeats while you are still a visitor, so there is a possibility for more upx. As described by an Upland staff member:
As a new user you get your daily bonus during the first 21 days. This period is divided into 3 streaks of 7 days each. If you login to the game every 24 hours without breaking this interval (meaning not earlier) you will receive your daily bonus, which increases every day. If you break the 7 day login streak, your daily bonus will not increase daily and it’s amount will be decreased to the one you received your very first day. The days limit remains the same - 21 days.
If you become an Uplander and break the rule mentioned above, you will be able to finish the current streak but won’t be able to start a new, meaning the 21 day period may be shortened for some users.
1.3 Newbie collection bonus (free 800 upx)
The last free beginners bonus is the Newbie collection bonus. This one is the easiest, but sometimes also easy to overlook. But even if you missed out on the referral bonus and forgot to login for your daily streak, you are still able to get this newbie bonus. The only thing you will have to do is put your property in this collection. You do that by clicking on the button with three dots in your game screen to open up the menu, click on COLLECTIONS and fill the newbie collection. By putting your property in a collection it will give your earnings on that property a boost (the newbie collection multiplies it by 1.1%), but it will also give you a one time bonus of 800 upx.
2. Not using Discord
Not joining the Upland Discord is one of the biggest mistakes you can make. Why? Because without it you are missing out on a lot of useful information. Access the main Upland Discord server here.
Because the game is quite complex, the simple instructions you get at the beginning of the game are a bit too limited to understand it all. Information about the game is all over the place. Luckily, the Upland community have gathered a lot of information. There is a lot of info pinned to the channels, but this is also a spot where you can find official announcements (from new city release updates to game maintenance). But there are also a lot of wise and helpful players. Especially when you want to play for free, it is nearly impossible to play while flying solo. They are extra friendly to new players (head over to the #new-players within the server). They are so friendly, that they will even help you become an Uplander! Ask nicely (or even better: creatively - memes are very much appreciated) if they will visit your property in the #visits channel and you will receive the UPX visitor fee for every visit. For free! Be friendly and appreciative if people visit you, upx paid to you comes out of their pockets so they truly do this as charity to help the community forward. The more you interact, connect with other players and become part of the community, the bigger chances are other players will help you out.
Upland: the game where even introverts become extraverts - and even enjoy it!
- A wise uplander on Discord
Even if Discord is not your thing, don't be afraid and take a look. I made the mistake of trying to play without Discord. I never was a hardcore gamer, so I always thought Discord was nothing for me. I did play some games, but never games where there were communities tied to them. And if there were communities, I always tried to continue with as little as contact with 'strangers' as possible. So joining Discord? I just didn't think it was for me. But that was a BIG mistake. Not only was it nearly impossible to play the game with the help of the Upland community on Discord, I even enjoyed it. I would even say the community on Discord is one of the best parts of the game. So don't make the same mistake I did and join the server asap.
3. Picking the wrong starter city
I personally think this for me was the biggest gap in information when starting out with Upland. You sign up and pretty soon get the question which city you want to go to when starting out. I had no idea which one to pick and thought this wouldn't be that big of a deal. I was wrong. I decided to go with Brooklyn, as it sounded cool (and being Dutch, I think it is funny being named after the Dutch town of Breukelen, which is almost the opposite of Brooklyn). At the time it wasn't the worst place to start, also not the easiest, but at the moment I would not pick Brooklyn as a starter city. Even worse would be San Francisco or Manhattan. Why? Because there are no FSA (starter properties) available there. I will write another post how to pick the perfect starter city, but if I would recommend Chicago at the moment of writing this blogpost. It is a tier 1 city with lots of FSA still available. Bakersfield and Cleveland are also good choices, but if you want to find out if this is still relevant head over to upxland to check if these cities are sold out or not. You want to start in a city that is not sold out yet. So use the filter Status: Unlocked. This will show you all unminted (meaning: available for a new player to buy) properties. Make sure there are properties available within your price range. If you are unsure, just head into Discord and ask around what cities are available for new players.
If you already made the mistake and picked a sold out city, it might feel like you are stuck. I feel you. Don't run away just yet. Every half hour, Upland will release new FSA properties - if they are available. New properties get released when for instance new players did not renew their visitors visa (make sure to do that every week when you are still a visitor!). So before you leave the city, make sure to check at a few different times during the day exactly at a whole (??:00) or a half hour (??:30).
If your research keeps showing up with 0 results after a few days of checking, it might be better to travel to a different city. But take this decision with caution (see mistake #8). I would head over to Discord and ask other players for advice if it is worth to leave the city you are currently in and to what city you should travel to. It could also be that you will need to wait for a new city to come out to be able to play free2play. A way to circumvent all this effort is to just put in $5+. That will bump you up to Uplander status right away.
4. Not setting your visitor fee to max
A visitor fee is the price someone pays to drop by your property. Not setting these fees to the absolute maximum is a very common mistake. I understand why, because you probably think: "why will someone visit me if it is that expensive, while it is cheaper to visit my neighbor". Yes, that is true later on in the game, but as a visitor it is generally accepted that you have your fees on max. On the visits channel on Discord people are very friendly and love to help visitors become Uplander. So if you go there and post your address, those helpful players want to visit you. But if your visitor fees are low, that means they have to visit you many times to be able to give you upx. That is why you put your visitor fees to the maximum amount (this amount differs per city). How do you do that? Click on your property, on the top right you will see a button with three dots. After that you will see this green button and there you can adjust your visitor fee.
Another mistake that is more common than I thought (I'm just gonna slide it in there as a "top 11" did not sound right to me): visitors visiting other visitors. Do not make any visits to help another player when you are still a visitor. You are really kind, but don't. Why? This fee will only become available on the moment you will become an Uplander, so this does not help anyone at the moment. Even when you just became an Uplander, refrain from making unnecessary visits. Leave this up to the senior players and whales who have enough passive income from there properties that they can miss, you need your upx more than they do.
5. Buying the wrong props
This is also a mistake that a lot of starting players make. But what defines a "wrong" property? Some great props could be rubbish to someone else, and some rubbish props could be great for others (my biggest sale so far was an empty parking lot with some car tires on it). Definetely, some properties are better than others in terms of (potential) worth. If you really want to buy a great "flipper", do your research on upxland.me (the floor price and median markup of a neighborhood is a good indicator of good value for your money, and special collections will be worth a lot of upx). Areas that are almost sold out tend to be a good indicator for new players that people have interest in it (once you can start selling as an Uplander, this can be hard if there are still a lot of neigboring properties to mint for a low price). But in terms of a "wrong" prop for a visitor who wants to play f2p, I have another indicator: quantity over quality!
Why? Because your main goal as a visitor is to become an Uplander. And the fastest way (besides putting $ in there) is to fill as much of the collections as possible. Others might go for bigger props as they seem to give you bigger earnings, but in my opinion a collection focus at the very start is essential if you want to jump to Uplander as fast as possible without spending a dime.
I'll explain a bit more about collections in the next point, but if you follow this strategy you definetely want to go for quantity (and change this strategy only after you filled all your collections). You can find the cheapest properties on upxland.me. You want as many properties for the least amount of money. It depends where you are if there are cheap FSA properties available, but I'd say that between 1,000 - 2,000 upx would be best, below 5,000 is still okay but the lower the better. Following this visitor-strategy, in this early stage of the game 5 properties for 1200 upx is better than 1 property for 6000 upx. 5 is not a random number, as you will find out in the next point.
Another addition to this, for when you finally leveled up to Uplander: watch out with buying on the secondary market. The secondary market is buying from other players, and that is usually more expensive than minting new properties. Get to know the market first before making a purchase.
6. Not using collections
If you are a beginner, the best tip you are going to get is: collections collections collections! Take this seriously, because ignoring them will give you a slower start. If you read this article from the beginning, you already filled your newbie collection (if not: see mistake #1). Besides the newbie collection, there are three more general collections you should try to fill: a city specific collection (for instance Chicagoan or Bakersfielder), King of the street collection and city pro.
For the first you will need three properties in that specific city. But you can kill two birds with one stone (hmm, that's a strange saying...) if those three properties are on the same street. I did not do this, so it hurts even writing about this mistake (but I overcame this painful mistake and unlocked this collection later on). But I would love it if you did not make the same mistake!
- So after your first property, please try and buy two more on the same street.
- With those three properties you can not only fill the King of the street collection with a free bonus of 950 upx, but after that you can also fill the city specific collection and collect that bonus (this amount of upx you'll receive for unlocking this collection differs from city to city, in newer cities these are not available yet, but will be after a while).
- After that, make sure that you move those properties back to the King of the street collection, because the boost is higher on that one (it multiplies the earnings of those properties by 1.3x). You can move around your properties between different collections anytime you want, so always move them over to the best booster.
If you missed out on buying your first three props on the same street (because you did not know about the collection or there are no properties available on the same street), you can just go for the city specific collection once you have three properties. Keep the 'same street' in the back of your mind when minting props, the bonus of 950 upx is a big one in the beginning.
The last "general" collection that will give you a big bonus in the beginning is the City Pro collection. This might seems a hard one to finish, as you need 5 properties within the same city, but that's why I would go for the quantity over quality strategy in this early phase of the game. Also the upx of the bonuses from the other two collections can give you just about enough to mint the extra properties you'll need for City Pro. If you don't have enough, ask for visitors (see mistake #4) until you have enough to buy these extra props. Unlocking this collection will give you 1,200 upx bonus and a 1.4x multiplier.
7. Treasure hunting
I am going to be short and sweet about this one: please don't treasure hunt as a visitor. Treasure hunting sounds like you are going to get free upx, but it is way harder than it sounds. Especially when you are a visitor, because you don't have a lot of properties to send your block explorer to. Every send to a property that you do not own, will cost you upx. So finding treasures and piñatas can turn out to be very expensive. Big chances it will cost you more than you'll find in the chest. I would stay away from it for now and once you think you can give it a go, make sure you watch some tutorials on it first. But as a visitor: please don't fall for the treasure trap!
8. Travelling
Travelling is also a big money loser. Your block explorer moves randomly over the map, but will stay between city borders. To cross city borders, you need to buy a ticket (plane/train/hyperloop/bus). This seems fun, to take a look in another city, but I would refrain from doing this when you are still a visitor. Travelling is very expensive. A flight from Manhattan to San Francisco is 2580 upx out of your own pocket. The cheapest travel ticket is a bus ticket, for instance between Staten Island and Brooklyn (20 upx). That is a way cheaper, but still, as a visitor: keep that upx in your pocket to work towards that 10,000 upx net worth. You rather want to mint a new property than buy a plane ticket to fly to the other coast.
So if you get a bad case of "wanderlust" and want to see the rest of the Upland world, wait a bit longer. When you upgrade from visitor to uplander you can travel all you want (if it is a smart way to spend your money then I'll leave up to you), but as a visitor I would definetely say try to avoid travelling all together. The only exception is if you are stuck in a (starter)city without any available properties (in that case, first read mistake #3). But otherwise, my advice is: a no fly zone!
9. Thinking you will get rich quick
A lot of new players join Upland with dollar signs in their eyes (or should I say crypto signs?). Yes, there are (lots of) players who earn big time with selling their properties for $. But I think it is important to note that Upland is not a get-rich-quick game.
The game is slow pace, because it parallels to a real economy. That way, your properties do gain value over time. And with them being NFTs, you will see your capital over time (and when you become an uplander, you can speed up this process immensely). But first you have to be a bit more patient and not focus on those dollar earnings. You have to apply for the fiat out option (we are now in a phase where everyone can be a part of the fiat out program, but it can take a while to get approved). There currently are quite some players who earn thousands of dollars with selling there properties, so it is possible to earn through trading in Upland. But 'quick' is something I would remove from your game plan. Also, even if you have fiat out, I wouldn't cash it out immediately. Of course this is entirely up to you, but as I said, your properties will probably worth more over time (no guarantees of course). Patience is key here. If you are not patient, this game is probably not for you.
Have patience, the grass will be milk soon enough.
- Chinese proverb
10. Giving up
Some visitors want to give up. They don't see uplander light at the end of the visitor tunnel. For the beginners who are currently thinking of making this 'mistake' of giving up: noooo you are almost there! Did you come this far to only come this far? I didn't think so. I am here to tell you that this game will change immensely once you become an uplander, and you are this close of becoming one!
The easiest/quickest way to overcome this mistake is to buy some upx with $ of course. But if you are not able to (or just simply don't want to), you still can become an uplander. In that case I would read mistake #2 again. Discord is your biggest friend, and I am the living and breathing example of it. I made numerous mistakes in this article, but still made it to uplander (within a week) with help of friendly players in the Upland discord. So just kindly ask if someone can help you, and before you know it you are a big time Upland real estate mogul!
For all the readers that came this far in reading this article: thank you! I hope you enjoyed reading it, or even learned something from it (if so, tips are very much appreciated).
