The Takeaway
1. Have a goal for doing something, anything, in Upland. Otherwise, floaty float = helpless boredom!
2. Fresno is really the only reasonable city to start in for Visitors, but there are properties for sale in NY and SF, with the cheapest being 6x-8x the price of entry level properties in Fresno. But Manhattan ain't got lettuce farms!
3. No one wants to buy my properties in Fresno! What the heck. Do they forget it is literally the Lettuce Capital of Central California???
4. #whyllamas?
5. Yes there IS A WAY to quickly search for the cheapest properties for sale, but I am trying to manipulate you into reading this whole article before I reveal my (lazy) Pro Tip (you'll never catch on to my plan mwah haha!). If you don't like being manipulated, it's 2/3 of the way down under the header Top Secret Pro Tip.
This is a bit of a long post, so I have tried to highlight the main points below with underlining so you can skim if you like.
Loitering In the Land of Llamas and Lettuce
I am sort of getting interested in Upland. I am still deeply, deeply puzzled by what I am supposed to be doing other than being a good Capitalist Floating Camera and getting as much as I can of whatever is here. But, after spending a week getting Uplander status and all the wandering around I've been doing trying to figure out what I am supposed to be doing, I have discovered ...things. Not really sure what they are in total yet, but there are signs of life amongst the blimpy floatys and the many white, blue, and green rectangles.
Let's start with some unsolicited advice.
You might not have previously known that Fresno was the undisputed THE Lettuce Capital of Central California (TLCoCC), and therefore you might not always have aspired to live there as a giant floating camera. However, if you are starting as a Visitor, you have to. This is because you are not able to buy property that already is owned, you can only buy FSA-brand lots as a Visitor. Right now, these are only in Fresno TLCoCC. Also, as we shall see, property values are way, way cheaper there. Be happy in Fresno. It's all you've got.
That might change though There is an exciting possibility making me wish I still had some UPX on hand. Amidst the deafening silence of in-game comms from the Upland Overllamas came an announcement about their East Coast Expansion. They announced that they will be releasing the remaining blocks of property in Manhattan soon. That ought to mean that you could pick up an FSA property in a highly desirable non-Lettuce Capital city. If you are into Upland, I think this is a big, big deal. Again, not to overdo it, but property prices for owned lots in Manhattan are much more valuable than comparables in Fresno (duh I guess). I really, really wish I wasn't so illiquid in Fresno rectangles. Or that someone would actually buy one of my rectangles from me. Did someone say Fire Sale on Fresno gently used property?
The other piece that caught my eye was "Very soon we will be releasing Brooklyn, as a mid tier city expansion in NYC, which will contain around 50% FSA properties. With Brooklyn will come several new collections and exciting Landmarks." In it, they also clarify that NYC will be behind SF in pretty much every way. For example, property development and "special events" will be available in SF before anything happens in NYC. They confess that Fresno is meant to be a kind of sorry ass satellite of SF, and if that doesn't jazz you, they will be adding the Fresno of the East to be a place you can take a train to (but won't really want to) from NYC.
What is your guess for the Fresno of the East? It is hard to start speculating without taking shots at Fresno, a city about which I literally know nothing. For example, I don't actually know that Fresno is flat, many miles distant from the many outstanding attractions California is known for, or ringed by lettuce farms. I do know that their college basketball team, the Bulldogs if I recall, made it deep in the NCAA March Madness tourney one year and there was, like, a documentary about their point guard? I could look this up on Presearch (see what i did there?) if I wanted, but I think his name was Chris Herren. Renowned lover of lettuce.
A couple of serious points. (1) Upland confesses that they are hurrying ahead with opening up lots to buy in new cities before the functionality they had planned for their premier city SF is in place. (2) Upland confesses that they opened up Fresno more or less as an excuse for SanFran Uplanders to have somewhere else to go (and to jack the eff out of property prices around the Fresno train station...check it out!). Why Fresno? A major concern I have about Upland is that the regular normal model of value is super unclear. There is nothing stopping them from cranking out lots in city after city. Let's imagine that the global blockchain real estate trading game population is, like a million people or something? There are 39.3 million California residents, and 8.2 million New Yorkers (this time I did PRESEARCH it!). If they dumped Fresno into the world as a top priority and are actively looking to flood the market with Fresno East, why would we trust that any property we invest in will actually increase in value due to scarcity?
Anyway, I suppose their hope is that with property development, people will plow enough money into the properties they do have, and people will still pursue prestige addresses and functional assets. I was dreaming about snapping up a lot someday ringing Heathrow or LAX when I noticed that people obtained terminals at JFK airport (probably through dirty backroom deals involving Llama body shots). These lots are functionally irreplaceable because in order to send your floaty to a different city, you have to Send them to a property near the train stations or airports. Please check out the asking price of the one that is available to you right now. It is amusing, and surely anticipates Sending costs to skyrocket the second the market will bear it. So, sure, maybe folks will chase the small number of valuable lots, but would you?
A Couple of Short Takes to Whet Your Appetite
1. From what I can tell, almost everything that is interesting in Upland.me happens not in the game but on the Discord group, where apparently getting premium membership is what all the strivers do. Seems like a company might want to integrate some of that action into the game, but it sounds like if you want to do more than float, you have to go to Discord.
2. I think, *think* that you get a 300UPX bonus for each 7 day login streak, so Day 8 counts as a 7 day streak (days 2-8). That's pretty dang cool if it's holding. 300 UPX is a month of rent from 15k worth of properties in the current game build, so I wonder how long this generosity will last.
3. Currently, New York = Manhattan, so if you want to buy that Korean burrito place you love in Brooklyn, the Korean superspa in Queens, or the kombucha tap you remember from Astoria, nope. Cheapest properties start at 8,000+UPX and are in Harlem. Oops, in the last 24 hours the prices all went up 1,000 UPX, sooooo now Manhattan starts at 9,000+UPX.
4. Remember to mentally tack on 5% or so fee. That property you're eyeing for 8200UPX will cost you 8600UPX. It is sad when you see something that fits your budget and then, it doesn't.
5. San Francisco is not a place for Visitors, BUT there are many properties for 6,000UPX and up. Many of these are listed in USD thanks to their partnership with Tilia (I Presearched that babay!). So, you can buy if you want to get a foothold there. Your money doesn't get *quite* as much in SF as it gets in Fresno TLCoCC, as we shall see... Here are the only two properties I could afford in SanFran. And yes, streetview = creepy:
The shrub was 23 UP squares in size, and the house was listed at 26 UP squares. In comparison, for 1/2 the price, I bought a veritable mansion on a fake lake (I think, it's a giant blue rectangle) with 203 UP squares for half the cost.
How did I find these primo budget-friendly luxury SanFran properties without breaking my mouse or brain clicking on every neighborhood?
Top Secret Pro Tip
I found a trick through a bit of chance and a lot of annoyance. I was very curious if there was a way to find out which properties were for sale in a city, and especially if there were any in my price range. I had been zooming and clicking wherever there were green dots and then clicking the little building icon to get a list of properties, sorted from cheapest-to-whowouldpaythat! It is a tiring process and made me hate Upland, zooming, llamas, and lettuce. So, I clicked on every button that Upland.me had to offer and here is the helpful information I was able to discover: ________________________ (space left intentionally empty...there is a trend here, if you want info about Upland and how to play it, you must not ever look in Upland the game itself)
That mad me angry and back I went to hating llamas, lettuce, and now I also hated all the icons in the world.
I got desperate. You see, I wanted property outside of Fresno TLCoCC and my caveman way of looking around SF and NY was to zoom way out until I could see the whole America, then scroll zoom until I could see little green dots indicated properties for sale. Then I would zoom-click-icon-get mad-repeat. I decided to click on the building icon while the whole city of San Francisco was visible. Lo and behold! It brought up a list of EVERY PROPERTY FOR SALE IN THE CITY, which of course I sorted from cheapest-to-whowouldpaythat!
When you are done pondering the birth of your real estate empire and want to go back to Fresno TLCoCC you just click the icon that looks like a chess pawn on the left and whee!
And that is my Pro Tip! Here it is in the actual steps I used to buy my SanFran property.
Zoom in just to the point that it makes your desired city look like this:
Click this:
See this!
And buy this, or at least I did!
Beautiful. After such success, I once again love llamas and joyfully feed them lettuce -- hey, wait, is THAT why there are both llamas and Fresno TLCoCC in the same game for the first time in history?
All told, I have gotten at least a few hours of... something that is not quite entertainment but doesn't make me angry anymore... out of playing Upland. I actually am envisioning an enjoyable future playing Upland. Especially if I can figure out a way to get some starter properties in Manhattan.
I hope these bits of advice help you get a cool property in the city of your dreams!
Now if only someone would buy one of my dang properties!!
~~~~~~
#UplandPublishOx
Here is where the rest of my grind-to-get-free-crypto time goes
BetFury -- https://betfury.io/?r=601502337521da79ce95370b
Cointiply -- http://cointiply.com/r/p9Gyy
FreeBitCo.in -- https://freebitco.in/?r=41144131
