Upland
Q2 Roadmap Update

April 12, 2023

Q2 Roadmap Update

It’s that time once again for our quarterly roadmap update. In this year’s Q1… checks notes… Q2* roadmap update, we’re switching up our format a little bit. Moving forward, we will be publishing the roadmap update at the beginning of each quarter rather than at the end of each quarter; hence the skip to Q2 in the title. Additionally, we will be replacing the Update/AMA video format with a quick video review of the roadmap, followed by a Community Town hall with Upland’s founders on Thursday, April 13th, at 11:00 AM PT on Twitter Spaces.

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Not a reader? Check out our video review of the Q2 Roadmap update below:

What to Expect in Q2

This quarter, we’re aiming to double down on onboarding improvements while we ramp up our efforts around several programs to expand their capabilities and scale. Among these improvements is a brand new Mission system that will guide players to Uplander during the earliest days of their journey. You can also expect to see several updates to Racing that will enable players with the ability to directly influence the outcome of their races. 

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On the Metaventure side, we will be introducing the first opportunities for players to design their very own vehicles in Upland with “Karts.” To improve the speed at which we launch new Metaventures, we aim to introduce new tools that will speed up the application process and allow us to expand each program significantly. Last but not least, we will be introducing the first wearables for your 3D avatars. As wearables become more commonplace, we will be actively exploring pathways for players to create and distribute their own wearables in Upland. 

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One of our core values is to empower the community through new tools that will allow them to leverage the Upland ecosystem. We’re incredibly excited to keep building on the foundation of these programs and support their growth with new discoverability features like the Global Asset Search. Before we jump into Q2 priorities, let’s do a quick recap of Q1.

Q1 Highlights

Q1 was filled with a variety of updates that set the stage for improved onboarding and user-generated content in the Upland metaverse. Key features for the expansion of Metaventures, the introduction of 3D spaces, and so much more have defined the start of 2023. Catch up on some of our best stuff below:

January:

February

March:

Q2 Development Priorities

The following projects are currently in development. Some of these items may be delivered in Q2 2023, while others may come in Q3 or beyond. 

Onboarding Improvements

Onboarding in Web3 is a significant challenge, and we are proud to have created an accessible platform for non-native community members. However, we recognize that there is still a significant gap when new players are getting started in Upland. As a result, the first-time user experience will be receiving a major overhaul that will give players better direction throughout their Upland journey.

The Mission System

You may have already seen the recent introduction of the Explore Center, which houses guided tutorials through the use of tooltips and on-screen guidance. This was just the first step in building the infrastructure for what will become the Mission System. 

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Initially, the Mission System will be only focused on getting players started in Upland. New players will be offered a curated set of Missions that will educate them about the Upland ecosystem, teach them how to actually “play” the game, and aid them on their journey to Uplander. As the Mission System expands, you will see new missions for more advanced players to give them regular opportunities to keep coming back to Upland. 

The Upland Guide

Alongside the announcement of the Explore Center, we shared the first version of our new Guide, which contains far more details about the Upland ecosystem than our previous guide. Our goal with the new guide is to continually update it as we share more about Upland’s development with the community. You can check out the guide by clicking here.

Cars

Player Agency for Racing

In its current state, players don’t have much of an impact on the outcome of races; other than the selection of their vehicle. Over the next several months, we plan to introduce a variety of features that will give players more control over how their cars perform on the racetrack. Players will gain the ability to control the positioning of their cars on the track so they can more directly affect how the car performs on certain parts of the racetrack, like turns and corners. The ability to control the speed of the car with Braking will also give players greater control of how their car handles the track. Lastly, players will be able to “boost” their cars during a race to rapidly increase their speed, which will be great for situations like straightaways. Overall, the goal is to allow players to have more influence on the outcome of races, so these features should go a long way to support that effort.

Cars as Transportation

The vision for cars (and eventually other vehicles) is to simulate their movement across the map, both within and between cities. This will enable players to travel to other cities without having to use transport terminals and will set the stage for additional features like cargo transport. 

Metaventures

Map Asset Factories & Showrooms

Not too long ago, we opened up the beta program for Map Asset (formerly known as “Outdoor Decor”) factories and showrooms. Even more recently, we announced that Map Asset Metaventures will be officially coming out of beta. Expect to see more volume and variety of these Metaventures over the coming months.

Speedway Metaventures

The latest entry to the Metaventure catalog is Speedways, which allows players to design their own custom racetracks in Upland. Applications for Speedway Metaventures are already open, and it’s our goal to deliver the first fully UGC speedways over the coming months. Speedways are just one more way that we are empowering the community to create their own content!

Cafes

Over the last several months, we have introduced a variety of new features to support the future of immersive spaces, such as the Mangueira experience, 3D Avatars, and Wearables. With these new tools, we will be working to introduce a new type of metaventure called Cafes. These will be player-owned 3D spaces where players can connect and socialize via both text and proximity voice chat. 

Kart Manufacturing

Since the arrival of cars, one of the most common questions we get is “wen UGC cars?!,” and we’ve stated in the past that we want to explore ways to make UGC cars a reality. The first of these efforts will be Upland’s version of go-karts! Via Metaventures, players will soon be able to design, manufacture, and sell their very own Karts, which are a new class of vehicles in Upland that will be only usable for racing. This means they can’t be used for things like transportation or ridesharing, however, it also means they'll be a bit more unique!

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One of our goals is to measure the fidelity and quality of Karts that the community can produce before we decide to expand manufacturing to other classes of vehicles. Because they aren’t made to mimic real-life cars, creators will have more chances to flex their creative muscles to produce unique and fascinating vehicles! In other words, we’re comfortable loosening the design constraints a bit here. Stay tuned for more details on guidelines and the application process.

Improved Scale of Metaventure Applications

One of the greatest challenges with Metaventures is the speed at which we can approve and support them. This process is very manual and requires a considerable amount of resources from the team. In Q2, we will be actively working on ways to speed up this process, so we can scale the Metaventure program more efficiently.

Legits

Wearable Legits

Wearable Legits are a new class of Legit that can be placed on your 3D avatars. While Mangueira wearables are the first of these efforts, expect to see more of these Legits in the coming year. Additionally, we will be exploring ways to allow players to manufacture their own wearables in the future via Metaventures.

Community

Chat Updates

The introduction of Chat has had an amazing effect on community engagement and participation. We will be continually exploring ways to expand the capabilities of chat to allow players to connect in new and interesting ways. These developments may be improvements to the existing functionality as well as the addition of new types of channels. 

Neighborhood Ratings

At the start of this month, we announced that Neighborhood ratings have officially arrived! Neighborhoods are now pitted against each other in a month-long competition to see who can generate the highest score for their Node. The winning node will be awarded with its very own collection! As more neighborhoods spawn collections, we plan to open up the upgrade competition for neighborhoods that have a collection spawned already. 

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We’ve already seen a lot of positivity around neighborhood ratings, and we’re eager to see how this supercharges the community to work together toward a common goal. As with all new programs, we will be monitoring the results and making adjustments as needed.

Quality of Life 

Global Asset Search

Currently, it can be very challenging to find exactly what you’re looking for in Upland. Whether it be a Map Asset, Legit, Block Explorer, or property, there’s no easy way to search for those things. As such, we will be introducing a brand new Global Asset Search feature that will allow players to find any asset in Upland! The new Asset Search will deliver a robust list of results that tell you what the asset is, how many there are, who it’s owned by, and even where it’s listed! This will greatly improve the discoverability of all assets in the Upland metaverse.

NFT Portal 

Support for Ethereum Mainnet

Our vision for the Upland ecosystem is to make it as open as possible. To support this effort we will be opening up a bridge between the EOS and Ethereum mainnet blockchains. This will allow the transfer of NFT assets between blockchains, creating greater utility and interoperability for Upland assets. 

Third-Party Development

API Functionality Improvements

Not too much to report here, but we’ll be continually iterating and improving the functionality of our developer API for the Upland Developer Network.

Tournaments

Through our Community Dev tools, Upland will give developers built-in options to run tournaments for their skill-based games. There will be two types of tournaments offered. The first will be mainly for single-player games where players will be ranked based on their individual performance; the top scorers will earn prizes. The second will be a bracket-style tournament where players can compete head-to-head for a chance to advance in the tournament. 

Miscellaneous Developments

Uncollected UPX Earnings Cap

This isn’t exactly news, but expect this feature to arrive in Q2. Upland is moving from a passive earnings model toward a more active earnings mechanism. Specifically, we will introduce a cap on the accumulation of uncollected earnings accumulation. ‍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.

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