We’re excited to announce the next big stage in Upland’s Neighborhood Ratings Contest, set to go live on October 1st, j ust in time for the start of Harvest season! This new event, called the Neighborhood Collection Upgrade Challenge, offers a thrilling opportunity for top-rated neighborhoods to face off against each other and upgrade their collections.
This is more than just a new challenge, it comes with some important updates to how neighborhood ratings will work moving forward. Here’s what you need to know:
Seasonal Contests
Starting October 1st, both the Neighborhood Ratings Contest and the new Neighborhood Collection Upgrade Challenge will be seasonally aligned. Winners for each will be crowned at the end of every season, with six winners per year. This shift brings a consistent rhythm to the competition and aligns the mechanic with seasons.
Fair Play for All Neighborhood Sizes
We’re introducing a balancing adjustment to the neighborhood ratings algorithm. In the past, larger neighborhoods faced a slight disadvantage. With this update, neighborhoods of all sizes, big or small, will have a fair chance to compete for top rankings.
Paid Sends Now Count
The number of paid sends within a neighborhood will now contribute to its overall rating. This adds a new dynamic to neighborhood engagement, rewarding active use of Upland’s in-game mechanics.
Boost with Seasonal Ornaments
This update also puts a greater emphasis on seasonal ornaments. The more structures in your neighborhood that showcase these ornaments, whether crafted by the community or provided by Upland, the more your neighborhood’s rating will rise.
Active Players Matter
Finally, we’re also introducing a formula that takes into account the number of active players in a neighborhood. The more players who regularly log in to Upland and have their home address set in your neighborhood, the better your rating will be. This change rewards active and engaged communities.
These updates, launching on October 1st, introduce a new layer of strategy and competition to the game. We’ll continue to make tweaks and adjustments to further enhance and balance the experience as needed.
Neighborhood Collection Upgrade Challenge
We’re excited to introduce the Neighborhood Collection Upgrade Challenge! Kicking off on October 1st, this new competition allows nodes to compete based on the highest season-over-season percentage growth in overall Neighborhood Ratings. Only nodes that have earned a Collection by winning the Neighborhood Ratings Contest are eligible to participate.
When this competition launches, the top-ranked neighborhoods receive an UPX earning boost increase for their Collections, while the bottom ranked neighborhoods receive a decrease.
All Nodes that spawned a Neighborhood Collection automatically join this competition.
Note: This is just the first iteration, we’ll be making adjustments, additions, and improvements as we monitor its progress over the next few seasons.
Neighborhoods will be evaluated based on the season-over-season percentage growth in their rating scores. Top-ranked neighborhoods will receive an earning boost increase in their collections, while bottom-ranked neighborhoods will receive a decrease. Earning Boost can range from 1x to 2.99x.
Neighborhoods that upgrade their Collection rarity will enter a one-season cooldown period, during which they won’t be eligible for earnings boosts. Additionally, if a neighborhood finishes last at their base level earnings for two consecutive seasons, it will be removed from the Upgrade Leaderboard. While the Collection remains intact, the neighborhood must secure first place on the Neighborhood Challenge Leaderboard to regain entry to the Upgrade Leaderboard.
When a node boosts its earnings enough, its Collection will increase in rarity, unlocking even greater rewards! Upgrading your Collection’s rarity level not only enhances the one-time reward, but also makes your neighborhood’s Collection even more valuable and sought after. The table below outlines the earnings boost ranges required to reach each ascending rarity level
Collection Rarity: As collections earn upgrades to the Earning Boost, their rarity levels will also change. The below table shows the corresponding displayed rarity level:
Elevate your Neighborhood
The Neighborhood Collection Upgrade Challenge introduces a fresh layer of competition, where neighborhoods can boost their earnings and Collection rarity through season-over-season growth. Top-performing neighborhoods gain earning boosts, while lower-ranked ones must improve to stay competitive. With the chance to unlock higher rarity and even greater rewards, this challenge promises to push neighborhoods to new heights.
As this new challenge kicks off, we can’t wait to see which neighborhoods rise to the top and take their Collections to the next level!
If you’re new to neighborhood ratings, here’s a quick recap of how they work:
Neighborhood Rating Details Review
As a reminder, Neighborhood Ratings measure the progress and development of each Neighborhood, or “Node,” in Upland. To do this, every Node will be evaluated by a eight-part rating system every season. The eight factors are:
- Average Spark Hours (SpH) allocated per property for building Structures (e.g., Residential Structures, Showrooms, Factories, Stadiums, Landmarks)
- Average number of residents with a designated Upland Home Address per property
- Average number of Metaventures per property
- Average SpH allocated for Map Assets (aka Outdoor Decor) manufacturing per property
- Average UPX contributed to the Community Pool each season per property
- Number of paid sends in a neighborhood now contributes to its overall rating, rewarding active engagement with Upland’s mechanics.
- Seasonal Ornaments, Neighborhoods with more structures showcasing seasonal ornaments, from Upland or the community, will see a boost in their ratings.
- Neighborhoods with more active players regularly logging in and setting their home address will benefit from a higher rating, promoting community engagement.
Neighborhood Ratings are calculated and updated once a day. We understand that these factors might give smaller Nodes an advantage since it might be easier to achieve higher “per property” statistics. To level the field, we’ve introduced a “grading curve” to the calculation that gives larger Nodes an additional multiplier to level the field. The goal is to ensure a fair scoring system for Neighborhood Ratings. As such, there may be further adjustments to the grading curve or the evaluation factors above as we measure results.
Benefits of Neighborhood Ratings
Who wouldn’t want to be the Joneses of the metaverse? Being in the top-tier of Neighborhood Ratings is an honor, and each season there are rewards for the king of this Upland hill!
There are two Neighborhood Rating competitions: a competition to spawn one new Node Collection each season, and a new separate competition for Nodes that have already spawned a Collection. As we mentioned earlier, the second competition is brand new and will launch on October 1st.
Any players who own properties in a Node that spawned a Collection can complete the Collection to boost UPX earnings and get a one-time UPX reward for each completed Collection. Players don’t need to have an Upland Home Address set in a Node to benefit from a Node Collection, they just need to own property in the Node.
Neighborhood Collection Spawn Competition
This competition rewards one Node with a new Neighborhood Collection each season.
To win, neighbors should work together to achieve the highest rating on the Neighborhood Rating Leaderboard. The winning Node gets a Standard Neighborhood Collection with a starting UPX earning boost of 1.3X as well as a 450 UPX reward for all players with an Upland Home Address in the Node.
This competition is only for Nodes without an existing Collection. Once a Node tops the leaderboard and spawns a Collection, that Node is automatically entered into the second competition.
Whether you’re part of a small neighborhood or a sprawling community, there’s never been a better time to get involved and start climbing the ranks.
Good luck to all neighborhoods, let the challenge begin!
