A Shrimp in Splinterlands! I Finally Took the Plunge into this Legendary OG Blockchain Game

I did it! I took the plunge! I am now in Splinterlands!

And I am getting my ass kicked!

But I'm glad I am there. This article will give you a few insights into why I finally joined this groovy crowd of gamers, what you need to know before joining, and what (small amount) I have learned so far.

Why I Finally Joined Splinterlands

There are some perplexing blockchain games out there. In one of them, all you can do right now is admire your spaceship as it uselessly spins. In another one, you just click a button that says "mine" then you click a button that says "claim" then you click another button that says "approve" then you see if you won a prize NFT. Which I never do. I have terrible luck. This is just a fact, and I am used to it by now. Not happy about it, but used to it. So in these click the button see if you get a good prize games, I get sad and annoyed quickly because while everyone else is posting about how they "finally got a good NFT" that is worth $300 after the apparently lame one they got that was only worth $50, I sit around like an idiot waiting to maybe get some NFT that costs more to sell than it is worth.

Is it so hard to make a game that actually is a game? What is it with Cryptoworld that creates so many terrible games. I mean, they would have been brutal bores if I was playing them on a Commodore PET in 1988. Click, wait, click, wait, read post about someone getting rich, click, wait, cry salty tears when you get another useless dreck.

But in my subconscious there existed a world that was different. A world where the game was a real game, where a little shrimp with a dream could battle his way to becoming a slightly larger shrimp with a few Dark Energy Crystals to his name. I must have read a dozen articles about this magical place, and after each one I am sure my shrimp brain said "sounds too complicated, I will get my ass kicked." However after toiling away with my frail shrimp arms in the Click Mines of Mordor for lo these many years, getting my ass kicked sounded like a dream. At least something would be happening!

So, I steeled my shrimpy little heart (I assume shrimps have hearts, right? Does anyone know this?) to plunk down actual human money to go get my ass kicked in a real, honest blockchain game that, for once, actually was a game.

What You Need to Know

I gave away the headline to some degree. The first thing you need to know about Splinterlands is that there is an entrance fee to this game. $10. Well, I am getting ahead of myself here. There is a Free 2 Play version where you do practice battles, but that is it. You do not accumulate assets, power, equipment, or anything else from this version as far as I can tell. Not interesting, not useful. So the Play 2 Earn game is really where the shizzle is at in Splinterlands. And for that, you need to put down $10.

Splinterlands is in the HIVE ecosystem. HIVE is supremely complex IMHO. If you want to dive in and understand HIVE, read or watch a comprehensive guide. I am now playing three HIVE games and participating in 2-3 HIVE-based social platforms and I still don't have any clue how anything works. HIVE is a cautionary tale for why people should not take magic shrooms, read the Silmarillion, then code. HIVE experts get it and they know I am an idiot, but if you are not a HIVE expert and don't want to become one, then you can skip all that. I just used PayPal and blammo!, there I was, taking my first steps in the Play 2 Earn world of Splinterlands.

Immediately I was confused. Here is the portal to Splinterlands:

You will notice two things. First, you can buy with a code (no idea where to get one), PayPal (mm-hmmm), or Crypto. Especially in a down market, I didn't feel like spending my tiny stash of crypto, so I used PayPal because I have an annoying but useful credit card that earns me 3% on internet shopping and I have some fiat rewards credit to burn there. Second, you will notice that the "Packs" tab is selected. This is a NFT-card game, so you might think that you need a starter pack to get going and you might imagine that if you buy something in "Packs" section for a card game that you will get a pack. Foolish mortal! This is HIVE and I already explained that it is confusing in HIVE.

No, what you get is more like an account upgrade. For your $10 you can compete in rewards competitions and, crucially, earn Dark Energy Crystals (known as DEC, the game's native currency) and complete daily quests (where you can win cards, DEC or other performance enhancing assets).

Once you do that, you can buy more stuff or you can start to Battle! If you do the steps so far, you will have an array of pretty wimpy starter cards to choose from. It would be much better for you to join with a referral.

I searched and searched and searched trying to find a specific referral link from an article I remember reading a long time ago. The author generously had offered to lend players great cards to help them advance. I love that sort of thing in Cryptoworld - it is part of what drew me here. But I couldn't find that article, or any of the articles I had randomly read so long ago. I really apologize to the great writers out there who have promoted Splinterlands with so much heart and integrity. I mainly signed up out of frustration with AlienWorlds and Upland and just couldn't find those posts in time. I am a big fan of using referral links and carefully consider which to use. I am sorry I did a crappy job this time around. And on top of that, I know I will be the one to suffer because it will take me days, if not weeks longer to start making progress on this game! I am not very good at it and the basic cards are mainly useless against good cards. My bad, my apologize to Cryptoworld!!

I am not going to promote my own referral/affiliate link here, because I think you will do better and support wiser players than me if you use one of these player's codes:

TO SUMMARIZE GETTING STARTED

Follow a good referral link from a nice, kind, wise, helpful veteran Splinterizer Learn as much or as little about HIVE as you want, but be prepared to spend $10 Your $10 does not buy you any assets, but it does upgrade your account so that you can Play 2 Earn Dark Energy Crystals (DEC) are the native currency and you earn them when you win battles Completing daily quests also can help you win DEC, gain NFT cards that you can use or sell, and compete for other prizes as you get better What I Have Learned So Far

Well, when I said I was prepared to get my ass kicked, and that the game was complex, I was totally, 100% right. I am getting my ass kicked, and the depth of play is 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea deep. Here is my profile after one day:

You can see that I am not very good at this. I did tank one of those games on purpose because I was starting to level up before I knew what I was doing, but I definitely am losing more than I am winning. I am pretty sure this will be a continuing trend haha! I did complete a Daily Quest and earned a reward. Because I have terrible luck, I got a very common, fairly wimpy card that I probably will never use and that is worth maybe $0.05. My bad luck is a fact, like I said. I don't count on ever winning a good card or getting a pack or getting a large payout of DEC, because I never have gotten that kind of thing in any other game I've played. I'm a sad-sack grinder and I am a lot of fun, I am sure, for luckier and better players to pummel into a bloody little splat. Hahaha! (I am crying on the inside though)

So that is the getting my ass kicked part. What about the complexity? Allow me to let the interface speak for itself!

What you see are the menu options at the top left (with the Cards interface open), some golden vampire teeth asset that I have none of in the top middle, with my miniscule DEC winnings of 0.2 DEC after 7 victories, then my username, which strikes fear into exactly nobody at this point.

In the row below that you have all the ways in which cards are typed: Edition, Foil (gold is better, which means I don't have any haha!), Role (Summoners versus fighters), Rarity (4 levels), and then Splinters which are the elements or factions of each card. The cards shown here are all Fire Splinters. The Splinter you go to Battle with is determined by your Summoner's Splinter. Everyone says Summoners are the most important card to focus on early, so there's that tip for you. On each of the cards you can see the Mana they require to be deployed in battle, their type of attack (saws mean melee, bullseyes mean ranged). You can see how much damage they do, their speed, and their hit points and so on. Are you tired yet? Hope not because there is more! Cards also have special skills like Reach (can attack from behind the card you choose to be your main melee tank) or Sneak and so on. Each of these cards can be leveled up, too. Oh, and in case that is not enough, Summoners also can grant special abilities to everybody, and in addition to Melee and Ranged attack modes, there also is Magic.

You think I'm done, don't you. Poor you. There is at least one more element that comes into play and that is the fact that you sometimes get random rules of engagement for battles (like certain card types get an advantage or are ruled out), and the fact that Daily Quests specify certain types of battles that count. For example, my first Daily Quest needed 5 wins using card decks that had at least one card with Sneak ability.

It is complex, dude. That degree of complexity will reward better gamers, which is appealing to gamer types. For me, it ensure that I will forever get my ass kicked, but what else is new! Haha!

My Takeaways

I am excited to dive deeper into Splinterlands! I think it is a real game, with many opportunities to gain assets, get better, learn more, and join a community of people who really like what is happening there. The Splinterlands community, as reflected in the PubOx writers I remember reading weeks ago at east are not just trying to score quick payouts, although I am sure that they are making a very healthy amount through their skills. It seems complex and overwhelming, but I think you, and maybe even me, will prosper if we keep three key ideas in mind:

Use a referral from someone awesome
It can be as easy as using PayPal to get going, don't let the HIVE mystique slow you down
It is a complex game but when in doubt, just keep grinding and you will see some payoff

I hope you enjoyed my first take on Splinterlands. As a pretty bad gamer and crypto noob, I will keep sharing my impressions and tips as I go, so consider supporting me. I am pathetic enough already haha!

Posted Using LeoFinance ^Beta