HOW EXPLORERS EFFECT PACK OPENING? - A discussion on ownership transfer of cards
The question came up while on a @clove71 Dlive stream.
When you buy packs the blockchain explorers can tell you what is in those packs before you go through the motions of "Opening them"
I wanted to pose the question here: any of you are effected by that feature?
I'll give my best explanation of how things work and how things would have to change fundamentally if we wanted that to change.
@STEEMMONSTERS BLOCK CHAIN EXPLORER
An explorer like http://monsters.steeminator.com/ tells you everything going on in the blockchain and that is a beautiful unique thing about having this game on the block chain. When you own a card it is total ownership of that unique ID which is what represents the card and also everything is very transparent as far as what's happening with card creation, trades and leveling up etc. You can track the whole history of the card from purchase and being passed around infinite amount of times. You know it was legitimately created and owned.
PURCHASING AND BLOCKCHAIN
If you buy packs right now the cards are sent to your account IMMEDIATELY ... every card with the unique (JSON) ID is actually now owned by you immediately. Ownership doesn't happen when you OPEN packs... when you open packs what steemmonsters.com is doing is letting those cards now be seen in "MY COLLECTION"
So it makes sense that you can see all cards right away after someone puchases.
WHAT WOULD NEED TO CHANGE
The solution (for those who may be bummed by the fact that everyone can see what you got before you open the packs) is a little tricky i'm guessing. (BTW the designers of the game can chime in and tell me i'm totally wrong... or tell us a different solution)
The solution is a sort of DELAYED OWNERSHIP
The solution is to have an ability to "purchase the rights to own cards". Meaning you can pay for the packs now and then only when you OPEN the cards does the ownership transfer (from steemmonsters to you) take place. If they gave that as an option or switched to that system entirely then block chain explorers wouldn't see what you got until you opened your packs.
My guess is I don't think @steemmonsters likes that sort of risk and prefers to send the ownership of the cards the moment they're purchased. But I'm guessing you, the user, can speak up and say what you prefer and they may decide to do something about it.
Would you want this?
I myself (@jarvie) am not really sure how I feel about it. Immediate transfer of cards to my account does take some of the fun away of opening the packs. Even if I don't personally look, others will. I also enjoy looking at what others get in the explorers. I do stuff like figure out their drop rate ratios. All in all... I'm not sure i care enough to have them divert time away from their programming to work on something like this. You could have the developers of the chains remove the feature if they feel like it... but there will be lots of explorers eventually and for sure some of them will have that feature.
I don't know if they should change their current style as much as give people an option to do some sort of delay ownership until pack is opened sort of feature. I'd be down with that for sure if they get the time.
A MARKET SUB-IMPACT
Just a random side note: What happens on a market side of things is that someone can see what you got in your packs and if you're wanting to sell packs as a sort of unit of value then that unit now becomes more complicated because people can figure out what probabilities your stock of packs has.
I'm not saying if that is good or bad... it's just another complicated thing here in the "birth of a market".
I would prefer for the pack to be hidden as well. I like your idea of delayed ownership.
Basically instead of a pack of 5 cards you'd buy a "token" (boosterpack) that token is worth 5 cards (or however many there will be in a boosterpack at that time).
That "token" could than be traded in for the actual 5cards when being opened
Oh this makes sense to me... like the way you explained it.
Indeed, so I really hope they will be able to implement it like this.
As it would prevent people selling boosterpacks that they know are worthless etc.
Another perfect example of why this is a reason to consider this.
Indeed :) so hoping it will be picked up
I would prefer that booster pack cards stay hidden for everyone until owner click/opens them.
Donating booster packs may lose it's charm otherwise imho
Seems to me if a person does not want to ruin the surprise of opening a new pack then just go to https://steemmonsters.com/ site to open them, problem solved, don't peek. I know it is hard not to peek. Then go to the block chain explorer to do the evaluating or whatever of the cards.
you are correct... but if they don't want others to know what are in their cards there is nothing stopping them. In fact there is little besides courtesty from stopping another person from ruining that surprise right away.
I'm not saying the system in use right now is good or bad just seeing what people think. So i'm just seeing what people think.
Yeah, I forget there really are spoil sports everywhere, but with a blockchain it is hard to hide it all. I can see it now, someone watching a D-live give away, they win a pack, someone in the room a minute latter offers you 10 SBD for the pack, you think wow 10SBD, I can buy 7 Packs for that price. You sell it, then find out it had a legendary, and the guy who bought it knew it was there. That would sure be a suckyassed situation if it ever happened.
Great example!
It should be possible to create a token that represents an unopened pack. A transaction could then be added for "open pack."
When an open transaction was broadcasted, cards would be randomly generated according to some pseudorandom, provably-fair mechanism (perhaps the cumulative hashes of the next block or number of blocks).
I'm not a programmer but maybe that' possible. However the biggest decision is when SteemMonsters generates and SENDS you those json ids that represent your cards. Because that occurs on the block and that's the moment of transfer of ownership.
haha! That was funny, someone on Discord said that this morning and that's why I was checking and actually if you don't have time to open them it's kinda cool then to see instantly what you got! I used to always look at the present before Christmas anyway, lol!
Haha then as a present looker it's kinda similar... except you can also look at everyone elses' unopened presents. :)
This reminds me of back in the day when you could look through the back of the legends packs. mtg and steem monsters similarities continue.
I think it's also funky that we can see what other people have. If we know a player has all legendary maxed out cards, why bother playing against them except for experience? I know a lot of people are discouraged from even buying and getting involved due to the sheet intimidation of others being such rampart collectors and maxing out their decks. A few people have already sold or given away their entire collection.
Maybe it would be nice to only see what others have already opened, yes. Or maybe only see what cards they have but not all their stats.