Upland enters Manhattan, NY

Here you have it. Even More Virtual Real Estate available.

Upland has officially expanded to include Manhattan, New York.
At time of writing, Manhattan’s second bubble has been released. 
These series of calculated releases is based on the percentage of San Francisco properties that have been sold and introduces Upland’s Fair Start Act, which is to even out purchasing opportunities for all players regardless of a player’s in-game net worth. This includes some properties being locked out from purchase, therefore in theory allowing players of modest means the chance to purchase properties closer to their in-game net worth.
This is the first and will no doubt requiring some tweaking as the game structure develops, but it also illustrates how the team has been listening to community concerns. 

The 5 Manhattan bubbles are determined at increments of 40%, 42%, 44%, 46%, 48% of properties sold in San Francisco. 
Ex. First bubble accomplished when 40% of San Francisco had been sold, Lower East Side was opened.
Other regions of Manhattan include Upper West side, Upper East Side, Midtown, Village/Chelsea.
Once 50% of San Francisco has been sold, all of Manhattan is available for purchase.

*** Update: As I write this Upland added another feature that will open up all of Manhattan randomly for a short period of time. The details on when or how this will happen is still pending. Maybe the time you read this it has already passed.**

What does the roll-out for New York look like?
During this controlled release Upland had prepared challenges for a chance to win 12 hour exclusive access to open segments. Personally I have mixed feeling about it. Time will tell how it all unfolds.
The other thing worth noting is Manhattan will open up in vanilla mode. This means there will not be any collections to collect and no Treasure Hunts to find. Thirdly, any new game enhancements like the property build or business license will not be available in Manhattan. San Francisco will remain as the main focus.

You may be saying then why bother with Manhattan if you are unable to do anything?
I wrote a small analogy referencing real estate sub division in real life you can read about it here.
Upland is very similar. It’s about building your own portfolio one layer at a time.

My trip to Manhattan including my experience with bubble 1.
Yup flew over to New York State.
First I sent my gallant seahorse to one of the airport parcels. Purchased a ticket for 2,500 UPX at one of the terminals, and on a flight lasting about 45mins. You even receive a nice animation of plane take off. 

Sat back, chill. I took a peak to see the progress and was nicely informed my flight had 19mins remaining. Once I landed another neat notification prompted me I was ready to deplane the aircraft.

From the airport it was sending my Seahorse to the first minted property in Manhattan, and was it every busy. The block explorers were hoovering around like seagulls waiting for food in this case the first light green indicator (for those who haven’t read through my blog, light green indicates a property within range and available for purchase) and off to the races.

Needless to say it wasn’t the smoothest experience. On my end I had freezings glitches, the game went under maintenance a few times and there we no sends (sends - paper airplanes that allows your block explorer to jump from one property to the next - paying rent unless it’s your own property), but that was quickly addressed.

Frustrating a bit, but also in a good way. Because to me this indicated there’s interest, the game is growing and also offers the team hard evidence on resource demand to better prepare for bubble 2 etc.

Conclusion:
It was exciting. I bought a few properties and stayed for about a week before purchasing my return ticket back to San Fran. At this moment it is unlikely I’ll participate in bubble 2, but will see how things move along for bubble 3 and onward - or maybe all of Manhattan will be available if the demand continues.

There are really good stuff happening, take advantage of my referral code: https://discover.upland.me/TheCatalyst to gain a bonus on your first property purchase.

Soon -- I'll touch on NFTs (non fungible tokens). 

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