With it's launch coming later this year and single assets from the game selling on OpenSea for hundreds of dollars in ETH each I'm honestly surprised to not see more buzz out there about Neon District. The only thing I can really hang that on is the raw amount of confusion out there about this game. The team behind Neon District has stayed tight lipped and, apart from quarterly updates, they have held their cards close to their chests.
Even still there are many of us out there who see Neon District as a sleeping giant in the Play2Earn space and are working to get as many assets as we can under our belts before the beast stirs. I foresee Neon District occupying a space similar to Rising Star and playing like some sort of mutant MMO-timer game running on the gamification of DEFI and teaching the power of DAOs to a new generation of users. In a year or two I see Neon District looking a lot like the Drug Wars clones of the early internet ... except suddenly the profit is real.
Put simply, I'm going to run the Neon District.
I'll be leveraging my early introduction to the game and my place at the head of The CryptoGaming Guild to become one of the most powerful forces in Neon District because I believe Play2Earn gaming is the future. And to do that we're going to need guns...
One of the current goals I'm working on is to acquire as large a war-chest of item's as possible for future use and sale. Unfortunately, in these mean streets finding the weapons' are only the first half of the challenge. We're going to need offense to make sure that anyone else trying to run the district is ready to 'get down or lay down' and that means leveling them up.
When you upgrade weapons you'll be met with a screen like the one above showing you the 3 options open in your upgrade path. As you can see these options have different ranks and one of the options here is a Rank 9 attack. Score, that'll show um who's boss!
Sometimes when leveling you'll notice that you have two options of the same rank, these are different paths up. Here you can see there are two different rank 4 leveling options, one of them granting a boost to the item's hacking skill and the other is an upgraded attack options. This is a really cool distinction that makes all the items in Neon District very unique!
Due to this leveling system two identical Rare level 1 Rifles are going to look very different by the time they have been upgraded to level 5 and how the items are leveled can determine what you end up with. Looking for a huge pile of stats or a unique weapon that's weaker but provides specialized attacks? You're going to want to figure that out before spending your hand earned Parts!
When you decide to select a new attack or other ability you are going to need to find a way to fit it in the items Cards. Each item comes with a variety of cards that will determine what your character is able to do with it each turn! In this way the item's we upgrade become all the more unique as you are not only choosing what ability to gain but what ability you are replacing! Power to the players!
I don't know about you but, ever since Diablo 2, where is a piece of me that does not feel complete unless I have one game or another where I'm constantly tracking down pieces of set armors. That game has been Grim Dawn for a long time for me but it's looking like later this year Neon District is coming for the crown. That's right ALL the armors in Neon District are parts of sets and these sets differ in color by their rairity. This means unless you are looking to both look like a jackass and have bad stats you are going to want to have a very full closet. Get to work!
In a game the size of Neon District it can honestly be hard to know where to start and, for that reason, I wanted to provide a little advice.
First, try and get a character of each class, then get them each to level 5, than do that all again! A lot of the unique leveling features I talk about here that are present when leveling ND items are present when leveling characters. This means that two level 5 geniuses are going to not only play very differently but not be at the same power level! This means you are going to want to have a deep bench of characters to choose from, this is a great place to get started before worrying about collecting items!
Then it's time ... fir the Pizza grind!
And the Pizza grind is where we make out Neon, for now.
By the way, have you tried a practice battle yet? Not only do you get to see your characters in action and get an idea of what the game launching later this year may feel like you get to hear some of the awesome music coming not of the Neon District before the game launches! Check it out!
I hope this guide to leveling and evaluating items has been helpful. I look forward to writing about this game more as it releases later this year!
Are you looking to hang out with other Crypto-Gamers? Join us over at the The Crypto-Gaming Guild discord. We are looking for game captains and folks who can help organize. If you are interested, please step up!
The games we are currently focusing on are:
Rising Star
Splinterlands
RollerCoin
dCrops
UpLand
Neon District
Alien Worlds
Lost Relics
eXode