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What’s up, Top Shot Nation!
Since the last Dev Diary – where we run down all the biggest updates to NBA Top Shot product – was published in late 2021, our developer and engineering teams have added quite a few new features across the site.
Every decision we make is focused on improving your NBA Top Shot experience, so let’s take a deeper dive into recently shipped features and upgrades designed to do just that.
A Better Event: Pack Drop Improvement Upgrades
The pack drop is one of the core parts of the NBA Top Shot experience. And we’re dedicated to making it the best experience possible for fans all around the world.
To that point, a series of technology upgrades have been built and deployed surrounding our Pack Drop experience.
Before the drop: The new Pack Details Page now includes the ability to view all Moments possible in a pack for any drop, presented in an interactive format similar to the NBA Top Shot Marketplace, so fans and collectors can easily watch each Moment before joining the Queue. Moments are broken into categories based on rarity and can also be sorted based on rarity. This is an upgrade from our previous spreadsheet-based format.
During the drop: We’ve built new “Magic Links” that will drop members of our community directly into the Waiting Room or Queue. These links can also determine the eligibility of each potential participant and send them to the Pack Details Page if they are not eligible to join.
After the drop: When you open a pack, the shadow underneath a Moment that is typically colored to distinguish between Common, Rare and Legendary now features a delay to prevent the excitement and surprise of a big hit from being unintentionally spoiled. If and when you pull a Rare or Legendary Moment in your pack, our new “Big Hits” feature identifies and highlights any Moment you pull in a pack that is Rare or Legendary with a special call-out.
Opening The Doors: Expanded Non-Custodial Wallet Support
To give NBA Top Shot fans and collectors more flexibility and control over their Moments, we’ve expanded non-custodial wallet support to include eligibility for any and every Moment.
When you send your Moments to a non-custodial wallet, you will be able to move your Moments to approved marketplace partners, starting with BloctoBay, VIV3, Versus and GAIA.
For details on how to use this new feature and what it means for your collection, read this FAQ.
Giving Made Easier: New Gifting Rules
All NBA Top Shot fans who have verified their identity are no longer restricted in their ability to send Moments as gifts to other accounts. The previous gifting restrictions of holding a Moment for 7 days and needing to own a certain amount of Moments in your collection no longer apply.
Playing Smarter: Challenge Experience Upgrades
To improve the NBA Top Shot experience around Challenges and Flash Challenges, we’ve built and shipped a series of UI and UX upgrades to our Challenge HQ.
This includes a redesigned Challenge Hub, a new Challenge Progress Bar, more helpful feedback any time one of your Challenges becomes ineligible, an improved Challenge Builder and other meaningful design changes. These changes also allow us to create Challenges that require more than 10 Moments.
More details about these challenge-focused developer updates can be found here.
A Mile In Your Shoes: Product Testing Updates
As of this week, our Product and Product Design teams are setting up two test accounts with $1,000 in Dapper Balance for each account to test the product experience from end to end. This allows us to continuously improve and iterate so we can create the best product experiences.
They will be participating in pack drops and Marketplace purchases to better understand product nuances.
Moments from these accounts will ultimately end up in The Locker Room, but can be moved between these two test accounts in the meantime to test other features and experiences.
Reminder: The Locker Room is where any Moment exchanged for a Trade Ticket is sent, removing each Moment from circulation until someone uses their Trade Tickets to purchase a Locker Room Pack.
In the interest of transparency, the account usernames are:
- NBATS_test_account_1
- NBATS_test_account_2
We look forward to leveraging these accounts to learn more about our constantly iterating product experience, and appreciate your understanding as we work to make this experience the best version of NBA Top Shot it can be.
Reliving Your Journey: Opened Packs History
In the “Overview” section of your account, you will now see a history of NBA Top Shot packs you’ve opened. By clicking “View All” you can browse through your entire Pack Drop story, and by clicking on any of the pack art, you’ll be taken to a page that shows the date you opened the pack and exactly what was inside.
Real-Time Visibility: Marketplace Live Sales Feed
A live feed of every sale to occur on the NBA Top Shot Marketplace now exists on the homepage, as well as a dedicated page devoted to sales activity.
This feed includes the Moment, price, serial number, set, series, buyer, seller, date/time and transaction confirmation on Flowscan.
Transparent Data: Improved “NFT Details” Visualization
The semi-circular meter that showcases Moment ownership, Locker Room ownership, burning and other details has been improved. The most notable upgrades are the distinction for how many of each Moment are in the Locker Room and how many are Listed amongst those that are owned.
Here are three examples to demonstrate different ways this information can be showcased to represent different Moments on NBA Top Shot. They include Kevin Durant's Series 3 Game Recognize Game Moment, Bruce Brown's Series 3 Base Set Moment and Nikola Jokić's Series 1 Western Conference Finals Moment.
Tracking Your Favorites: Moment Watchlist
A new feature called “The Watchlist” has been added to each NBA Top Shot account, enabling fans to save Moments from the Marketplace they’re interested in adding to their collections.
When browsing the Marketplace, a “Watchlist” icon will appear in the top right corner of every Moment, accompanied by a number that represents how many other members of our global community are watching the Moment.
This icon also appears above the name of every Moment if you click into the page specific to the play, where you can choose to buy it, save it or share it. Every Moment you save is added to a personalized Watchlist for your account.
A series of new sorting and filtering features is currently in development to improve the discoverability and experience of using the Watchlist, rolling out soon.
Educating Collectors: The New Moment Listing Sales Experience
To give our community a deeper understanding of how each transaction they make impacts their collection and Collector Score, we’ve rolled out a new experience after you press “PLACE FOR SALE” on any Moment from your collection.
This will clearly call out how the sale of a given Moment will impact your Collector Score and any Complete Sets and Complete Teams you may be working towards or currently in possession of.
Memorializing Achievements and Building Community: Set Completion Times and Lists
Whenever you complete an NBA Top Shot Set, that time and date is now captured and visualized on your account. Each Set you are working towards completing will now also show you how many other collectors have already completed it, and give you the ability to click-in and see more details about your peers in the community who have completed the set.
Innovating With Our Partners: Auctions and Bidding
Working with the NBA to create 1-of-1 NFTs to celebrate each of the league’s teams allowed us to build and test an auction feature on NBA Top Shot, as well as the ability to place a bid on an NFT.
Each NFT represents not just the scarcest and rarest to exist for each NBA team, but an unprecedented level of utility and access for NBA All-Star events over the next five years.
Fostering Consistent Transparency: The Change Log
In the spirit of building in public and constantly improving, we’ve introduced a “Change Log” which takes many of the updates you’d normally read in our Developer Diary series and puts them front and center on the NBA Top Shot website whenever they are rolled out.
As we continue to build, you’ll notice the Change Log pop up whenever something new is introduced to improve your experience.
Community Developer Spotlight: MomentNerd Twitter Banner Generator
A new community resource and tool built by MomentNerd is now live, allowing NBA Top Shot fans to build a beautiful custom Twitter banner using any 6 Moments from their collection.
Take it for a spin today using your favorite Moments or what you pull in your next pack drop, share it on Twitter and tag @TheMomentNerd and @NBATopShot in your tweet.
Coming Soon: April 2022
- Desktop push notifications and mobile alerts are coming to NBA Top Shot in the near future, possibly before April.
- Moment Organization is coming in April, giving you the ability to create custom groups for your Moments.
- A referral system that will reward any collector for bringing new friends onto NBA Top Shot is currently being built, with more details to come. Each collector will have a personalized code they’ll be able to find on their account and share with a friend, with both you and your friend earning Dapper Balance for taking part.
- A new and improved Discover Page is coming to NBA Top Shot to make it easier to find relevant new information and stay up-to-date with everything coming.
- Robust new personalization features are coming to NBA Top Shot collections.
We hear you, and we keep building.
As always, if you have any questions, feedback or suggestions, feel free to reach out on Discord or on Twitter.
Until next time, happy collecting!
