December 27, 2022
Q4 Roadmap Update
[UPDATE 12.28.22]
We're going to push back our AMA until next week to give folks time to get back from the holiday festivities and ready to roll for the new year. We want as many of you to get involved with asking questions as possible! Make sure to drop a question for the team on Reddit and we'll see you in the new year for some hot question answering!
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Before we close out another year in Upland, it’s time to take a look back at the major developments over the past quarter and look ahead to all the great things on the horizon.
Let’s take a moment to reflect on one of the biggest achievements of the year: metaventures. Did you know that Upland’s player-owned businesses (aka Metaventures) saw 310% growth quarter over quarter in economic activity so far this year? This is due to Metaventures doubling quarter over quarter in 2022. In December alone, Metaventures have totaled a record 263 million UPX in gross sales – and the month isn’t over! This is up from a fantastic 145 million UPX in gross sales in November. December’s huge Metaventure sales numbers come from a record-high of more than 31,000 transactions! Congratulations to Metaventure owners and all players supporting local businesses in Upland!
There’s another significant milestone on the horizon – the $10 million mark in player earnings via the NFT-to-USD program. Upland’s economy is a great example of how fun, community, and earning can come together to make something extraordinary. This type of real financial impact is a huge cause for celebration – which is in the works so stay tuned!
As we look to 2023, there will be extra emphasis on enhancing early experiences to ease the learning curve and help new players dig into the amazing things happening in Upland. We love our veteran llamas, and by making Upland more accessible and easier to learn, everyone will benefit. The community makes Upland special, and a growing player base only adds more excitement to the ecosystem.
The focus on new experiences, player ownership, economy updates, and major partnerships set the table for big things to come. So join us in this Q4 update for a glimpse at what’s coming and to catch up on all the recent highlights!
After going through the Roadmap Update article, check out our Roadmap Panel and AMA Live on YouTube and Twitch on Wednesday, December 28 at 11:00 AM PT to get the inside scoop with General Mort, X1TheGamer, and the Upland Co-Founders Idan Zuckerman and Dirk Lueth. And make sure to join the conversation and submit your questions on Reddit before the AMA!
Q1 Roadmap Goals
The following projects are currently in development. Some of these items may be delivered in Q1 2023, while others may come in Q2.
Onboarding Improvements
There are several projects in various stages of planning that we’ll unveil later in 2023. But here are some items coming soon to improve the new player experience.
Onboarding Overhaul
The community is what makes Upland work. As such, we’re putting more emphasis on growing the community with quality of life and onboarding improvements for new players. These enhancements will help people get comfortable with the growing mechanics, gameplay, and economy. What does this mean? An onboarding overhaul with new mechanics to reduce barriers to getting involved early.
Guided Gameplay
In addition to an onboarding overhaul, we’re also looking into how we can visually guide players through several early-game activities. This could be anything from overlay prompts to mini-game tutorials.
Cars
Competitive Racing
After launching competitive multiplayer racing in 2022, the goal moving forward is to give players more agency and involvement in race performance and outcomes. This will make races more dynamic and interesting. Some concepts in development include adding driver statistics for Block Explorers that directly impact performance. Additions to car statistics are also on the way. Another feature in development, lane switching, will add more player input that builds tension and timing into laps.
Race History
Who will be the Mario Andretti or Dale Earnhardt of Upland? We’ll soon find out! Soon, players will be able to see race result history. This helps build lore in Upland for the best cars and drivers and gives people bragging rights.
Mobile App Compatibility
The racing experience in 2022 was restricted to browsers. In 2023, players can get behind the driver’s seat from Android and iOS devices!
Metaventures
Structure Ornament Shops
Like Outdoor Decor Shops, a Structure Ornament Showroom allows players to run a business and sell ornaments to other players. We’ve seen some incredible Structure Ornaments from Halloween and our partner Jacky Tsai. Bringing these Metaventures to neighborhoods is a natural progression of the player-owned economy.
Manufacturing Open Beta
After the successful closed beta, we’re getting ready for an open beta for Outdoor Decor item manufacturing! This gives more Factory owners plenty to do with their facilities and will ramp up player-owned commerce in Upland!
Legits
NFLPA Collection Earnings
Earnings for NFLPA Collections work similarly to the one-time UPX bonuses for property Collections. Players who complete and hold an NFLPA Collection by the end of the football season will get a one-time fixed UPX reward for each Collection. A full breakdown of NFLPA Collection earnings will be posted in 2023 – so get those NFLPA Legits into Collections soon!
Community
In-Game Chat Enhancements
In December, we launched In-Game Chat, giving players new ways to talk directly in Upland. In 2023, Chat will see improvements such as Group Chat, Neighborhood Chat, and more Global Channels (including Global Channels where players can create comment threads). More improvements are coming later in 2023 to help Chat become even better!
NFTs
Upland NFT Search and Discoverability
With the launch of new search and discoverability capabilities, Upland NFTs will be on search engines like Google! Also, the NFTs (e.g., properties, Legits, Block Explorers, etc.) can be found in Upland using a simple search function. This makes it easier to find the assets and collectibles players are looking for while giving Metaventure inventory instant reach for players and non-players!
Third-Party Development
Upland’s unique design allows a dev to connect any new or existing app/dApp to the Upland economy, community, and infrastructure. In Q1, we will continue to work on the community dev tools released in Q4 for the Upland Developer Network (UDN). With all the activity going on in the Upland economy, we’re seeing a lot of interest from third-party developers curious about the metaverse. Over 160 devs have been vetted and are actively working on their Upland connectivity. We look forward to seeing a lot of fresh third-party content throughout 2023.
Miscellaneous Developments
3D Avatars
With 3D Avatars, players will have a “humanoid” form they can use in certain situations in Upland. Players will design their avatars to their liking and use them for various immersive experiences. This may also include experiences built from Community Dev Tools.
UPX Earnings Accumulation Cap
As announced in a previous economic update, Upland is moving from a passive earnings model toward a more active earnings mechanism. Specifically, we will introduce a cap on uncollected earnings accumulation. We want to encourage players to remain as a working part of the ecosystem. The first and critical step in doing this is to have players log in. As such, players will be required to log in to collect their earnings before their accumulated earnings reach a certain threshold, variable by Upland status. This does not mean that Upland is placing a cap on how much players can earn. Rather, it is a cap on how much UPX can go uncollected before it stops accumulating.
City Releases
As a metaverse mapped to the real world, launching new cities is a core initiative. We can’t announce the full city launch schedule, but there is one location we can talk about. During FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022TM, we announced that the tournament winner would get a city release in Upland. And since Argentina took home the trophy, we’re more than happy to say that Buenos Aires is coming to Upland soon! Buenos Aires is also a perfect place for our most recent partner: the Argentina Football Association (AFA)!
Partnerships
While we can’t go into specifics until the official announcements, a few exciting partnerships are on the horizon. One adds to a major existing mechanic, while the other brings a new NFT to Upland that is guaranteed to blow players' minds. Sorry! That’s all we can say for now.
Looking Back on Q4
This was a Q4 for the ages! The past few months brought Upland forward by leaps and bounds. The features, economic updates, and partnerships launched in Q4 will go down as some of the most important things ever brought to the metaverse. Check out our recap.
Cars
Multiplayer Races
November brought a little friendly competition to the raceway as we saw the first-ever multiplayer races speed into Upland! At launch, there were four race tracks open for racing, and new tracks are on the way. These three-lap, six-car races let players test their cars against other players and AI bots. This was one of the biggest events for Upland cars and the entire ecosystem – showing that Upland is much more than a real estate simulator. And more utility and gameplay mechanics are coming!
Car Showrooms
If running a car dealership is your dream in the metaverse, you’ll love this. With the addition of Car Showrooms to Upland in October, players gained the ability to just build structures for displaying and selling cars! Coming before the year’s end, players will be able to open their Car Showrooms for business!
This is an important piece of Upland’s economics as Car Showrooms give players an avenue to sell or acquire a car. Two new Showroom designs – the Medium and Large Showrooms – opened to give players enough space to house car inventory. In the future, we’ll be adding more functionality to all Showrooms, including sub-merchants that allow Showroom owners to sell another player’s items for a commission.
Player-Designed Racetracks
In December, we saw the second Great Racetrack Challenge come to Upland. Here, players submitted their racetrack designs for various cities, and we received nearly 200 submissions from the community! There will be four winners for this challenge, and each winning racetrack will become a real track for future races! Player-created content is one of the things that makes Upland special. Bringing the community’s creativity together with car racing is a match made in motorway heaven!
Metaventures
FIFA Fan Shops
There’s no denying that many players love all things FIFA World CupTM in Upland. Bundles have been flying off the shelf (in fact, we’re sold out now), making FIFA Fan Shops a much-welcomed addition to Metaventures. With these new shops, players have more ways to buy and sell FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022TM Mementos and Essentials from past tournaments. This is a great way for players to complete Collections or simply own items for their favorite teams playing in this year’s tournament (and prior tournaments dating back to 1930)!
First-Ever Outdoor Decor Showroom Shopping
Back in October, players opened the doors for the first shoppable Outdoor Decor Showrooms! This was a major step for the ecosystem and player-owned economy as it represented the purchasing and fulfillment end of Upland's commerce. Also, with all the passion surrounding FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022TM, we knew that players would want more ways to scratch the tournament itch. FIFA Outdoor Decor Showrooms allow players to trade Outdoor Decor assets in their very own Metaventures.
Legits
FIFA World CupTM Legits
The Upland-FIFA World CupTM partnership brought incredible new Legits into the metaverse as well as new mechanics to collect them. For example, we introduced FIFA World CupTM Bundles, Passes, and Pass Exchanges that spice up how players get FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022TM Mementos. Pass Exchanges brought a lot of excitement to Legits for FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022TM, and the “burn” mechanics from Passes open doorways for future Legit mechanics, such as Replicas.
FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022TM Spotlights
Perhaps the most exciting Legits development is the launch of Upland’s first video-based collectibles: Spotlights. These rare Mementos play video highlights from key moments of every FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022TM match! It’s one of the most dynamic and authentic ways for players to remember the 2022 tournament.
NFLPA Triple Threat Challenge
The Triple Threat Challenge gives giving the community more reasons to feed their NFLPA fandom! In November, we launched the Triple Threat Challenge to task players with building a winning three-player combination. This is an important addition to Legit gameplay, and we’re working on improving this activity and building opportunities to bring it back in the future.
Community
UIP-1: Upland’s First Player-Voted Economic Update
In November, we wrapped up the first player vote that brought real change to the Upland economy. UIP-1 was the first Upland Improvement Proposal. It suggested an improved way to fund the Upland Pool in the future. To get the Upland community ready to vote on UIP-1, players joined the first Upland Town Hall for a lively discussion with the Upland Co-Founders. After 4,272 players voted on the proposal, nearly 73% of the community voted yes. So not only did UIP-1 represent the shift toward player-governed economics, it showed that the community is immensely active and interested in being a part of the ecosystem. And this is just the beginning! More voting capabilities and systems are in the works.
In-Game Chat
We just launched the first iteration of real-time, In-Game Chat! Players can now read several Global Channels as well as chat one-on-one with other players. As we mentioned above, this is just the beginning as in-game chat will receive deeper functionality soon!
Third-Party Development
World of Football
The third-party game, World of Football, is in Upland! This is possible through the Community Dev Tools launched back in September. World of Football is a new physics-based soccer game with over 56,000 downloads across Steam, Epic Games, and other platforms. The game has also seen nearly 600 Uplanders successfully connect to World of Football! It’s still early, and we’re sure more players will join soon – especially when players can visit several World of Football stadiums in Upland to launch matches.
This is one of the first third-party activities to launch in Upland. It is a great example of how Upland is poised to be an exciting platform and gateway for many game and app developers to bring their IP into Upland and the metaverse!
You can check out X1TheGamer’s interview with the developer below, and stay tuned for more announcements coming soon!
Miscellaneous Developments
Dynamic Competitive Treasure Hunting
October brought changes to Competitive Treasure Hunting to balance player rewards and give more players a chance to win. This change came from player feedback as well as our observations that some balancing might make these activities more enjoyable. With these changes, there were also tweaks to Riot Mode Thresholds and Treasure Rush.
Partnerships
Check out a recap of our newest partners!
2023, Here We Come!
It’s been an incredible journey. Upland has taken major steps forward in the past year, and with growing partnerships, an explosion of Metaventure activity, and third-party content via Community Dev Tools, 2023 is already shaping up to be a banner year.
This coming year will also see initial efforts that expand beyond Upland’s boundaries. One of these initiatives is the introduction of “living” species to the broader metaverse. As this initiative develops, it will bring new life into Upland. We will have more details as we get deeper into 2023.
Another initiative we should mention is the Open Metaverse Alliance (OMA3). Upland’s Co-Founder and Co-CEO Dirk Lueth is the Chairman of the Board at OMA3. This consortium aims to bring disparate virtual worlds and web3 developers together so users can cross apps and platforms with their identities and assets. The group came together in 2022, and it already has over 1,000 registrations and the first three workgroups on the way! Upland is a proud member of OMA3, and will continue to develop pathways that bring each virtual world in the broader metaverse closer together.
As we close out 2022, we want to send llama hugs to the community for being a part of this journey and making the Upland metaverse so special!