Modern Format & ToS Updates

The Splinterlands team is working on a number of upcoming changes to improve matchmaking liquidity in Modern format and to clarify and more actively enforce the Terms of Service around bots and battle helper usage in Modern format, Tournament, and Guild Brawl battles.

Fair Play Policy

Splinterlands will be adding a "Fair Play Policy" to our Terms of Service in order to provide more clarity on the rules for Modern format, Tournament, and Guild Brawl battles. The new policy is currently planned to be put in place as part of the upcoming release on Tuesday, April 2nd, 2024.

The Fair Play Policy will specify, among other things, that both providing or using any tools or services that provide help to players during active battles in Modern format, Tournaments, or Guild Brawls is strictly prohibited. We will be working with the community/DAO to implement a clear process for enforcing the Fair Play Policy and for handling voilations going forward.

We are also excited to welcome @Sylar to the Splinterlands team. Many of you know him from the community and as the creator and operator of the XBOT service. As a team member, @Sylar will be specifically focused on working to enforce the new policy both for players and for operators of third-party tools and services. As the creator and operator of one of the most popular third-party Splinterlands services, we believe that he is highly qualified for this position, and we look forward to working with him and with the community to ensure fair play in Splinterlands.

@Sylar also wanted to share the following message with the community:

I understand and appreciate the importance of having a competitive game and acknowledge that many bot and battle helper tools, including XBOT, have had a detrimental effect on the competitive integrity of the game. Going forward, I'm confident that I can leverage my knowledge and experience with these tools to develop a robust, accurate and effective solution to enforce fair-play.

Modern Format Rewards & Match Liquidity

When the new ranked reward system is released (currently also scheduled for Tuesday, April 2nd, 2024), winners of Modern format battles will earn 50% more of the new Glint token than winners of Wild format battles would with the same rating and modifiers. The Glint token will be able to be used in the new reward shop to purchase the soulbound reward cards and many other items. More details about the new reward system and the Glint token will be published shortly.

We hope that this will encourage more players to participate in Modern format at all levels and help to ensure that players can more easily find suitable matches at all times.

Additionally, the Splinterlands team is planning to begin running automated accounts in Modern format that will not earn any rewards in order to help further ensure that players can always find a suitable match at all levels of play and at any time of day. These accounts will have Hive wallets but no Summoner's Spellbook, meaning that they are able to own assets and play, but they cannot earn any rewards at all in the game. These accounts will be no different than any other account, and will need to own or rent cards and will be subject to the same Energy usage and other restrictions as everyone else. Therefore, we expect that these accounts will be mostly indistinguishable from regular players.

We look forward to these changes creating a much better player experience and bringing significantly more players into Modern format over time. In the future, as we make more progress toward improving the player experience throughout the game and begin our marketing and promotional efforts, we expect that we will no longer need to run these non-earning, automated accounts, however we feel that they provide a good solution to ensuring quick and fair matches to Modern format players in the interim.