Top Shot has an alternative to Challenges now. They are called “Quests” and are (in my opinion) more fun than challenges in that they’re more open-ended. It also harks me back to my World of Warcraft days. Who doesn’t love a good quest?
What is a Showcase?
First, we must establish the basics.
“Showcase” is a core feature of Top Shot. It’s in an essence, a digital display case for your favorite moments.
You can create a showcase for anything. I have one for Short Kings aka known as players 6″ and under. I’ve started building others for players who wear #22 and another one for players of Filipino descent (currently only Jordan Clarkson).
It’s a way for users to be creative and tell others what they are interested in collecting. You can bet that looking at my showcases will help someone else better understand what I’m collecting! You can share showcases (each has a unique link) and other users can “like” your showcase by clicking the fire icon in the upper right.
Top Shot once gave away free Dapper to showcases that had a certain number of likes by a deadline. They were encouraging users to get familiar with the feature, as it was being underused.
Then, enter Showcase Quests!
What are the Showcase Quest Requirements?
Showcase Quests occur much less frequently than challenges, which are constantly taking place every week.
That’s how it looks now though. Who knows? Top Shot has hinted that showcase quests will be a much bigger part of the community in the future. Right now, we are lucky to see one once every few months.
Requirements for will vary based on the given quest and will be dropped on the blog. Top Shot usually puts a banner on the website too.
In order to get users familiar with the Showcase feature, the first Showcase Quest was rolled out for the Ben Simmons Cool Cat (see below).
The idea was simple, collect 3 Seeing Stars moments, 3 assists by point guards, and 3 dunks by centers. It guaranteed that certain moments would raise in value, but unlike with a challenge, it was flexible.
That’s the general format of a quest: “collect X number of this thing or that thing, and name it this.”
Users, for example, didn’t all have to collect one single moment so prices were bottle-necked. The Showcase Quests could be unique, and more importantly, it rewarded collectors who had a wide variety of different moments from different collections.
I remember mine for the ‘assist by point guards’ leg of the quest was comprised of a Facu, a Neto, and a CP3 (all of which I already had in my collection).
The quests give value to moments that normally wouldn’t have much demand and can randomly be qualified for it out of nowhere. That can be a good thing for collectors, but a bad thing for users scrambling to complete the quest.
In the recent Playoff Quest, Monte Morris had a moment balloon up to $50. In that regard, quests are not much different from challenges.
On the whole, quests are still fun and a welcomed change of pace from the predictability of challenges.
Check out this awesome tool from MomentNerd.com that allows you to check if you have the required moments necessary to qualify for the prize!
What are the Prizes for Completing a Quest?
Just like the requirements, Showcase Quest prizes vary too.
They can be essentially a raffle ticket (e.g. “you may win a pack”)
Or it can be a clearly defined and guaranteed prize (e.g. “you will be rewarded with a moment,” like in the Ben Simmons Cool Cat quest for example).
If it’s a moment reward, do note that it won’t have the typical red star that a challenge reward moment would have. This is by design to keep it differentiated from challenges. It’s a small difference, but Top Shot still likely wants challenges to be the main way collectors to be involved in the marketplace because the red star adds value that a quest reward does not have.
The other type of quest reward can be, as mentioned, the chance to win something. With the playoff showcase quest, 100 packs were given away to random users who completed it. While the odds were bad, plenty of users still jumped at the chance to play the pack game.
Are Showcase Quests Worth It?
In my opinion, yes! They are more fun and require less commitment than a challenge.
One thing is for certain: BE SURE TO NAME YOUR QUEST CORRECTLY. It’s case sensitive so don’t use all-caps as I just did. Follow the instructions specifically as they are laid out in the blog post.
There have been cases of users not qualifying because they used all caps or lowercase letters instead of the proper capitalization.
If that happens, you will have to submit a ticket. It will give you a headache for sure, so pay attention to the details. Top Shot will have a blog post for each Quest. Read the instructions carefully and good luck!