When I moved my blog to Wednesdays, I had no idea that the timing would line up this way:
Today, February 5th, is my blog’s second year anniversary!
Adding together all of the Adventures in VeVe and Letters from the Author blogs, this is the 92nd blog (I took some weeks off for good behavior.) So much has changed that I really don’t know where to start!
When I wrote “Click, Click, Miss” originally, we were still in the height of the “crazy-nana” stage of the bull market, and unless you had state-of-the-art internet or happened to be in the right location, your chances of landing anything on the drop ranged from a snowball’s chance in hell to zero chance.
I was in a bad location with bad service and an old phone. Boy, was I glad when the wait list finally got here. In fact, since I haven’t moved and only have a slightly better phone, I’m still very glad we have a waitlist.
But wait… I covered that in my first anniversary! What’s been happening since then?
I’ll handle the bad news first to get it out of the way:
The macro conditions have been positively brutal. Even here in the U.S., which was doing “better than the rest of the world” according to reporters, The Average Joe has been hammered, sandwiched between inflation and high interest rates, dropping ‘expendable income’ into a teeny tiny little wedge and some months disappearing completely. Regular collecting, digital collecting, gaming apps and so on… everybody’s had a rough year. My favorite comic shop went under, and some of my favorite digital platforms, and everyone hanging with VeVe knows it hasn’t been easy here either.
But despite all the Fudders who complained about how VeVe collectibles caused the world economic crisis… (they really did, too) .... I don’t think VeVe has that kind of power.
When I think about what was bad about VeVe during last year, there was one thing that stands out over all the nit-picky stuff we collectors have brought up: the silence was deafening. I even mentioned it in my New Year’s special in 2024, and it lasted most of the year.
Then they hired MyCollectibles (Oh No! We lost MC!) who, after joining the dark side, was given his helmet and was pushed out of the closing blast doors to deal with the rebels single handedly!
“Everything’s under control! Situation normal!”
No it isn’t! What happened with that last airdrop?
“Had a slight weapons malfunction. We’re all fine here now. Thank you. How are you?”
Seriously, what kind of answer is that? I’m shocked that he survived until Ben showed up.
Wait, just when did he change sides? Not the point, it’s still funny!
Anyway, that's the bad news, now let's talk about improvements.
Some of the changes this year have been adding to the crafting system, which was then in its infantile stage. It’s far from perfect; it’s too complicated and it tends to lag out those first few minutes when everyone is trying to craft at once. But considering that last year it got so backed up that it took days for it to sort out, it’s vastly improved.
VeVe now has that collaboration with Stackr, making it so that some VeVe collectibles can be traded with omi now on the Stackr site. Stackr is also a good place to look over one’s collection and get more transaction information for those of us not all that tech savvy, because it’s easy to use for that.
The phone app got rehauled, much to everyone’s dismay. It’s still missing features we used to have and some of the new features need some work (as much as I’d love to think I own every single comic, red medal checkmark thingie… I don’t.) However, it has been slowly improving with every new update and I’m sure it’ll get there eventually.
But the biggest thing that happened since last year are the improvements to communication as well as accountability. We now have weekly updates and lots more engagement with the community. You never know on any given stream or X-Space when someone from VeVe is going to drop in, and that’s let a lot of the pressure off. And VeVe is now owning up to mistakes, as well as correcting old ones, as folks who were promised James Bond drops and Jurassic Park drops have been cleared up.
What do I want for next year?
Mostly, I just want more work on growing the base, without wrecking the family that huddled together to try and survive the bear market. I want the app to keep improving, but with special care not to alienate new people by being over complicated. I want the VeVeVerse to open… also without scaring people away for being too over complicated.
Oh, and last but not least...
I want VeVe to fix the economy, just in case the Fudders are right and it is all VeVe’s fault.
And since I don’t want to risk leaving anyone out because getting left out is the worst, I’ll say this:
Thank you to everyone who’s been kind to me this year, because you know who you are. And thank you to everyone who’s been kind to each other.
Included below is my very first blog, February 5, 2023, originally published on Medium.
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| (Midjourney has also come a long way in two years.) |
Click, Click, Miss
Adventures in VeVe #1
You know, we’re all going to be laughing about this whole experience someday… at least, that’s what I tell myself after a drop.
Perhaps I should back up a bit… I’m into digital collectibles.
You know, those things everyone is always telling you to get into but you don’t want to all because your best friend keeps hyping it every time you talk to him these days… those conversations that typically start with your friend inundating you with photos with taglines like, “LOOK, SPIDERMAN IS HANGING OUT IN NEW YORK WITH ME!” or even, “CHECK OUT MY NEW CAR!”
Yes that friend. Well, I am that friend. Sorry.
Now, where was I? Oh, yes, back to the drop thing. As practically anyone on Twitter or That One Guy on Youtube could probably already tell you from my vicious rants and raves that my luck on drop days is less than stellar. (To be fair, I did have one good rebound once. It was the best rebound in my life… even if it did end up being a common. )
You see, as of this writing, the way to earn the right to buy a collectible on VeVe is to click a button that appears on your phone screen a millisecond before you have to hit it like a high stakes Whack-a-Mole game. And if you miss, you have to endure the brutal reality of everyone who didn’t miss showing you just how much they didn’t miss. And if you decide to vent about the fact that they did, there will always be one that comes forward that they never miss.
Maybe it’s because I live in a crowded apartment in a crowded wifi area. Maybe it’s because I don’t ever give up my current phone unless it is literally on its last leg, the battery overheats, or Pokemon Go forces me to because it stops supporting my phone. Maybe it’s because I have a lazy good for nothing family that hordes the airspace and doesn’t take my pain of death threats seriously when I tell them to turn it off.
But along with the uncontrollables, there are the inevitables that happen to all of us at one time or another; I have noticed that Murphy’s Law always goes into overdrive approximately ten minutes before every drop. I use all the tricks That One Guy says to get ready. I even use all the tricks That Other Guy says to do.
And this time, I tell my computer go to sleep and then stare at my phone at the clock going down… tick… tick… tick…
Why is it going so slow? It’s only ten minutes, and I’m sooo bored, and what is with all of this silence? Oh, hell… I’m not going to make it.
I turn my computer back on and round robin on one of the people broadcasting the drop on Youtube and turn it off at two minutes before the drop like I always do.
But in so doing, I must endure the inevitable advice that comes from all the back-seat button pushers. “Just time it!” one says. “Spam it!” says the other. “Hold it and lift at the right time!” “The button will be here!” “No, it’s here!” “You’re trying to get people to miss on purpose!” “You’re helping too many people get it so none of us will get it!”
Well, at least I’m not bored, but at the same time, the seed of doubt has been planted. Have I been doing it wrong all this time? Have I been pushing the one single button that comes up on the screen in the wrong way? Maybe I should rethink this whole strategy. I mean, last time I tried Hold and lift, it froze. When you spam it, you get that nasty message telling you you’re too early. And when you time it, you get an even worse message telling you that you’re too late. Well, I’d rather be early than too late, but maybe once… just once… I can time it just right… wait, what’s my ping? Ugh! It’s less than a minute now, I don’t have time to check! Is it 3…2…1… click? or 3…2…1…and… click!
CLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICK!
All collectibles have been allocated.
I hope I didn’t break my chair on the way to the floor. Either way, I am pretty sure that having close to a nervous breakdown isn’t a very conducive way to land drops.
Fortunately there’s tomorrow, and the next biggest thing to drop. Assuming that I turn off Youtube, and nobody calls me, or there’s a forced update, or my kid doesn’t make me look up at the last minute… I may have a chance to fall off my chair again.