A new type value proposition for utility NFT owners in Upland, such as a place for residence, a car or a business license will be the ability to lease these NFTs for the use of other Uplanders. This win-win mechanic will provide an avenue for another source of income for owners, as well as more options for players to participate in the metaverse even if they don’t have the necessary resources to own these assets. Moreover, as more elaborate building-block mechanics take form in the metaverse, new opportunities will emerge for Uplanders to pay other Uplanders for performing various services.

As of today, Block Explorers move between properties via send action at a constant duration regardless of the travel distance (in other words, the speed of travel for the Block Explorers varies according to the distance). When True Movement Speed is implemented, the timing of the sequence of sending your Block Explorer (BE) will depend on the physical distance between your BE and the destination.

It may not be always visible to the community (and neither should it be) but a significant amount of our development efforts go towards harnessing the power of blockchain in favor of all Uplanders in a way that is seamless to the player. As we prepare to go out of beta and offer Upland to mass audiences, the user experience with blockchain elements needs to be perfected. A good example of this is applying our handling of ‘microfork’ conditions (which is already applied for new contracts) for the legacy property minting action which we expect to deliver in the near term.

The Upland team is actively working to get well-recognized partners and brands (from outside the blockchain or crypto-related market) to participate in the metaverse. 2021 may see the first fruits of these efforts.

Upland will provide statistics and trends about properties within the game and reports for transactions made by the player as well as information about market transaction history. This will give players easy access to important information about the market and their individual activity.

Airplane NFTs and Airlines are one of the most fun and exciting businesses that will be introduced in the Upland metaverse in the future (but not in 2021) and provide airport terminal owners operational revenue. Until that point, those operational fees will start being simulated and distributed to terminal owners as a percentage taken from airfare, which is currently transferred in full to the community UPX pool.

Arcades will be the first test case in Upland for 3rd party developer integration, allowing web-based game developers to integrate their games with the owners’ business. As the necessary preparations for 3rd party development may start in 2021, we predict that arcades as businesses will be fully released later on.

Realty agencies will offer Uplanders advertising services such as advanced listings for property sales and residential properties for rent. Realty agencies will also offer advanced trading options such as creating property bundles for sale in a single transaction and selling complete collections.

Owners of Upland merchandise stores will be able to maintain an inventory and sell Upland merchandise to other players. Legit Upland merchandise will not be available for purchase anywhere else but inside of Upland, and the physical merchandise will be delivered in the real world. Some of the merchandise will be made available in limited runs and tokenized, offering the customer the option to stow the physical merchandise in Upland escrow while still being able to trade the token of ownership.

With the introduction of the Car NFT, Car dealerships will be the destination for Uplanders to get new cars or trade their used ones.

Uplanders will be able to customize the inside-experiences of their primary residence and display their NFTs for other Uplanders to admire.

Uplanders will be able to designate a structure as their primary place of residence, enabling their home experience and further contributing to their neighborhood’s development rating.

Each neighborhood in the city will have a development rating: a score given to a neighborhood that is based on a combination of the number of developed properties and their quality (elements that affect the quality of development include size, residents associated, supplemental items, number of businesses, and so on). Once a neighborhood has reached a certain development rating, it will automatically spawn a collection for that neighborhood (if one does not yet exist) and further advancement in the development rating will lead to an increase in the collection boost.

Cars will be made available to use as means of transportation between cities in Upland (and also within cites, once true movement speed is implemented)

Using your own car as a means of transportation in Upland is great, but what good is a car if you can’t race it? 2021 will see the genesis of car racing in Upland, where races are calculated and projected on top of the Upland map according to different elements such as the driver and their competitors’ skills, the cars they are racing, the attributes of the racing track and special available add-ons.

With the recent success of the Sandbox Wars generating interest, engagement and excitement in the metaverse, a new Battle Royal mechanic will offer players the opportunity to team up and launch competitions on demand.

Contingent with Upland’s economic development, 2021 may see new US-based, as well as international city expansions. Existing cities may be further developed with new types of peripheral expansions to support the growing communities.

A significant part of today’s interaction between Uplanders happens outside of Upland, primarily on official and fan-based social channels. Upland will start integrating features that would allow more and more of these types of interactions to take place in Upland through newly added features and improvements on existing ones, including the ability to follow other Uplanders via a personalized activity feed.

Get ready to team up! Squads will be formed by teams of 4 Uplanders that can utilize each other’s properties as if they were their own! Squads will also make joint property purchases easier and will have a special leaderboard section.

After the release of the Spark token, a certain amount of Spark (derived from the Upland Spark Pool) will be utilized for rewarding players for engagement and progression in the game.

Players will be able to get creative and trick out their properties with cool and unique inanimate objects that are produced and sold in decor shops.

Owners of Outdoor Decor Shops are responsible for creating blueprints for inanimate portable objects that can be placed on properties. Owners will work together with the Upland team to approve objects, manufacture inventories using staked Spark, and sell their products to other Uplanders.

Unlike trains and aircraft (as of now), cars will be truly owned by players and implemented as 3D objects that exist in the Upland metaverse, similar to structures. In later stages, cars will also have utility as a means of transportation between cities, and for racing. You can expect some intriguing mechanics and innovative features for cars in the metaverse, such as odometer tracking, parking requirements when idle, gas requirements and more.

The property to USD closed alpha was launched in 2020. In 2021, Upland will proceed with the Closed Beta and then later on the Open Beta, allowing all Uplanders to add USD to their property trading options. At later stages in 2021, more functionality will be added and USD trading will also be extended to other types of NFTs, turning Upland’s ‘Property to USD’ program into ‘NFT to USD’.