#THANK YOU DEV TEAM YOU BEAUTIFUL BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE

[felassan]

EA site update:

"The Dread Wolf Rises Dragon Age Day 2023 Happy DA Day to our friends across Thedas!"

"[Mark] Dragon Age has always been a franchise about characters. Characters to fall in love with or to learn to loath. Those characters need a place in which to live, to fight, and to love—a place that shapes them and the events they find themselves swept up in. Today we explore the place they call home that forms the stage for everything that you do: Thedas. Corinne and the Dragon Age: Dreadwolf team have created a game that celebrates the rich and varied past of the franchise while crafting new experiences and stories. It has been incredible to come back to BioWare and see all of the progress they’ve made, and I’m excited for some of that world to be shared with all of you today. [Corinne] Thank you, Mark! I fondly remember playing each entry in the Dragon Age franchise, being completely immersed and enamored in the world you all had built. It amazes me to be here now, working alongside you and the team, to bring new stories and characters (not to mention a few returning characters) to all of the fans of the franchise. Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is the product of hard work and love. We know how much this world means to all of you, how these experiences stay with you. We want to get it right, so we’ve taken our time. We're so excited to join in this celebration of all things Dragon Age and the incredible fandom that surrounds it. Within the dev team, we’ve been eagerly awaiting Dragon Age Day as the enthusiasm, stories, charity, and artwork you share motivates us to be our best and create new experiences for all of you. To celebrate DA Day, we’re sharing a look at a few of the in-game locations you’ll explore on this new adventure (and perhaps a little more for those who listen closely). The stage is set. The Dread Wolf is ready to make his move. Oh, and one last thing before I go… In summer 2024, we’ll be fully revealing Dragon Age: Dreadwolf to you! We honestly can’t wait. See you all in Thedas, — Corinne Busche, Game Director & Mark Darrah, Sr Production Advisor"

"You’ve visited the lands of Thedas thrice before in our games and many more times in comics, books, art, and short stories. This time, you’ll be venturing to places unseen and returning to places from long ago. To celebrate Dragon Age Day, we wanted to show you some of those sights. [link to new trailer] We stand on the precipice of change. This is a world brimming with stories and characters waiting to meet you. The fate of this world teeters on the edge of a knife. In past games, you only got to see a slice of the world. In Origins, it was Ferelden—a land ravaged by war and Dark Spawn. In II, it was Kirkwall and its locales—festering with corruption and a dark underworld. And in Inquisition, you ventured across much of Orlais—facing down political intrigue as often as combat."

"This time, however, much more of Thedas is yours to see. The desolate, beautiful badlands of the Anderfels with curtains of distant mountainous spires. The twisting canals and gleaming towers of Antiva, where Crows may lurk in any shadow. The turquoise seas of Rivain with its rushes of greenery and hardy sea-faring people. And of course, there’s more."

"We felt this was best for the tale we wanted to tell this time and we hope you enjoy it as much as we have! It’s allowed us to create many more locations than past games, including both some you’ve longed to go to…and some you’ve never heard of before!"

"To help capture the wonders of Thedas, we partnered with three wonderful artists from our exceptionally talented community and gave them an early look at what you’ve now seen. We’ve always been so fortunate to have such an incredibly skilled community of artists, and getting to work with these three was a true joy! We asked each of them to create a vista of one of the three regions in the video based on their interpretation of it in their own unique styles. Please enjoy their wonderful work, and be sure to send them some love when you check out their personal channels for more of their art!" [link to art]

"Turning our focus to your closest kitchen, if you’re looking for a fun gift this holiday season or want to try some Thedosian dishes yourself, we’ve got you covered with Dragon Age: The Official Cookbook: Tastes of Thedas from our partners, Insight Editions! This project was lovingly crafted by the author, Jessie Hasset, as well as members of our team who have an affinity for the kitchen and a love of cuisine."

"The cookbook features recipes suited to all skill levels, but we know that jumping in may be a daunting task for some. To help you out, we’ve partnered with MisoHungrie, a wonderful YouTuber who specializes in cooking, with a particular knack for video game and entertainment-related dishes. If you’re looking for a place to start on your culinary journey, check out his video and follow along. And be sure to let us know what you think of these Thedosian delights! In addition to this, there are two giveaways you should keep an eye out for! For the first, our friends over at Insight Editions are giving away five copies of the cookbook on their social channels, so be sure to check them out. And it doesn’t end there. For those of you who decide to try your hand at making a culinary delight from the book (including one of the ones we’ve released separately), be sure to follow our own Dragon Age social channels for the second giveaway. Keep an eye out for the opportunity to submit your creation for a chance to win a BioWare Gear Store package, including the brand-new Morrigan romance bundle! Details on that giveaway will be posted next week."

"As we mentioned earlier this year, we’ve partnered with Dark Horse to create a digital package of all their comics for Dragon Age and Mass Effect on Humble Bundle. Visit the Humble Bundle page to find out how our partners are working to support Child’s Play, an organization that seeks to make the lives of children in hospitals more comfortable through the enjoyment of games. There’s no better time than the holidays to bring a smile to someone’s face. BioWare is also supporting a few local charities this month that focus on helping the most vulnerable in our communities via food banks. This includes the Edmonton Food Bank, the Greater Vancouver Food Bank, Les Banques alimentaires au Québec, and the Central Texas Food Bank. All of them provide food to thousands of people each month and rely on kindhearted donations and volunteers. If you’re wanting to give back this holiday season, please consider supporting Child’s Play or donating to your local food banks. Many communities also accept non-monetary donations of canned, dried, and packaged goods, clothing, and other useful supplies. However you choose to support those in need, know that every bit helps and can make a big difference in someone’s life, whether they’re in your community or around the world."

"An insult that he took as a badge of pride. An insult to inspire hope in his friends and fear in his enemies. That is what Fen’Harel, the Dread Wolf, truly is. Not a man who sees himself as evil, but someone who believes he’s fighting for a good cause and is willing to get his hands dirty. This long-awaited chapter of Dragon Age is fast approaching—the time close at hand. We’ll see you next summer with answers to your questions, including ones you have yet to ask. With that will come our full reveal including new trailers, gameplay, and—of course—the long-awaited release date. The Dread Wolf will rise once more and we’ll have much more to share with you as we approach Summer 2024. Please keep an eye on our social channels for all the latest information on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf’s reveal and beyond. Know this, though: The Dread Wolf has not been idle these past years. His reach is far, and soon his plans will come to fruition—a cataclysmic rejoining of magic and realms hundreds of years in the making. Will you be able to stop him? We hope so. Always believing in you,             — The Dragon Age Team"

[source and full post]

#dragon age: dreadwolf #dragon age 4 #the dread wolf rises #da4 #dragon age #bioware #solas #long post #longpost #video games #morrigan #queen of my heart #post fixed sry ^^

[swissboyhisch]

Bubba's First Game

Pairing: Luke Hughes x Reader

Summary:  Unbeknownst to the public, Luke has a baby and it's time for both of theirs first NHL game.

Word Count: 542

Warnings: kids.

SWISSBOYHISCH MASTERLIST

Tonight was Luke’s first game for the New Jersey Devils. His first NHL game. Not only were his parents in the crowd but his girlfriend and a couple of his teammates made the journey to Newark to celebrate. It was going to be a big night for the Hughes family.

Unbeknownst to the public, Luke and you had a beautiful baby girl. Nicknamed Bubba by all her uncles. She was only 6 months old. Living proof that birth control wasn’t 100% effective. But she was the most loved baby in the world. Her grandparents loved her to bits along with the hordes of uncles she had from the UMich team and the Devs. Including her two actual uncles who spoil her to bits.

After you dressed Bubba into her custom jersey, you in yours as well, you went down to the lobby to meet Ellen, Jim and the boys in the lobby. Ellen immediately cooed at the sight of Bubba in her father’s jersey.

“Oh look at her.”

You were happy to hand her off to her grandmother while you got to chat to Dylan, Mark and Ethan. You all made your way down the street towards the Prudential Centre. The hotel was only a couple blocks from the rink. 

“My turn,” Ethan stated, holding his hands out for Bubba. 

Bubba was handed around the group. She just loved the attention, being such a bubbly little girl. When you guys got the the arena, you held Bubba while you guys made your way up to the suite Jack had organised for you. If it wasn’t for the six month old, you guys would have probably been in the crowd but Luke and Jack didn’t want anything to go wrong. Didn’t want you or Bubba to be hurt. 

When the countdown neared zero for warmups, you walked down to the glass with Bubba in your arms. Luke didn’t know you were planning on being at the glass during his rookie lap. Well he didn’t know about that until Jack made sure he got the solo lap. 

You held Bubba on the ledge. Her headphones made her look smaller than she already was. She looked around the ice, enamoured with all the stimuli. Then Luke was announced to be doing his rookie lap. He took to the ice circling before spotting you at the end. The rest of the team joined him and Jack made his way to where Luke was standing in front of you. Bubba recognised her Dad immediately, trying to bounce and get to him. Then Uncle Jack was there and she went crazy. Two of her favourite people were right in front of her. 

Then she realised she can’t be held by either of them and she started to cry. You laughed, cradling her before waving goodbye to the brothers in front of you. Staying down there for a couple extra minutes to soak in Luke warming up with the team. You got a fan to take a couple pictures of you holding Bubba. 

Once you were back in the suite, you got comfortable between Ellen and Dylan. Bubba passed out pretty quick after a bottle. Leaving you all to enjoy Luke’s first NHL game for the New Jersey Devils.

yourinsta just posted!

Liked by lhughes, umichhockey and others

yourinsta: Daddy's first game with the Devs and Bubba's first NHL game ❤️

view all comments

yourbestie: how stinking cute is bubba

jackhughes: thank god for the padding. Lukey boy doesn't look like a bean pole.

lhughes: rude.

elhughes: ahhh this is so cute!

lhughes: love my girls forever ❤️

dylanduke: my favourite niece!

yourinsta: your only niece my dude

TAG LIST:

@penny4yourthoughts @mp0625 @hischierhaze

#luke hughes x reader #luke hughes imagine #luke hughes fic #new jersey devils imagine #nhl imagine #nhl fanfiction #nhl fic #swissboyhisch imagine #swissboyhisch

[ravenstargames]

✦ Lost in Limbo Devlog #9 | 02.29.24

What is this?! Two devlogs in one month?! More likely than you think! This February has been very productive for me and the team, so let's dive right into it!

Ooooh boy, Raquel keeps knocking it out of the park! She managed to get done every expression for every LI, and I coded them all! Now we have our wonderful characters ready for their debut. We have been using the wonderful Image Tools for Ren'py made by the talented and hard-working Feniks, whose tutorials and resources save a lot of dev's lives every day! This tool has made everything a bit easier for newbies like me, hehe.

Here's a taste of our edgelord's expressions! 💜 They're kind of a cutie when they put some effort into it!

We also had our second valentine's day celebration art piece thanks to Kayden! Sadly with the reworked version of the demo, you won't meet Vycar yet, so we thought we could ask for his forgiveness by giving him a beautiful bouquet and reminding him how much of a sweetheart he is! 💜

Also, Raeya got a hair update!

So, we weren't completely satisfied with the way we portrayed Raeya's hair, so this has been a rework we were sure we wanted to make. At first we were just going to render it again, but we ended up working on it from scratch to better represent what we envisioned for her. We hope you like it as much as we do! ; v ;💜

As always, we are open to any critique or advice; we are white people who have the luck to be able to ask POC friends for their advice as we work, but the more the merrier! Don't hesitate to send us your opinion to our ask box or even our email, [email protected]!

When it comes to the background department, we have been making great progress thanks to Airyn, who is honestly leaving us with our mouths hanging open every time! Thanks to her, another background has been finished and another one is in the making, leaving only two backgrounds to be revised and approved!

I personally can't stop looking at this WIP! She understood perfectly what we wanted to portray just by looking at an old WIP we had, and this is what we have so far—and it's already amazing!

Allie has been OBLITERATING the script. As of today, I think we have almost gone through everything that needed to be corrected and discussing, and lord if the script doesn't look a 100% better after we put it in Allie's hands. The way she writes, the way she understands everything I want to say even when sometimes I don't even know myself—what a talented, inspiring and amazing writer they are. I know I may sound annoying at this point singing her praises endlessly, but if the script is in the state where it is now, it's thanks to her!

My programming adventure of the month has been a success, if I say so myself! I've coded the characters with aaaaall their layers, their expressions, the blinking animations, made some videos, and started coding the script. Step by step as they say; I've coded 18 pages, and there's, uh...142 more to go. Haha! *sobs*

BUT WE ARE GETTING THERE! We can see the light at the end of the tunnel! I can finally click 'new game' and read the script and see the stuff going on! YAY!

Some extras of the month—we are preparing a Casting Call to choose the voice acting talent that will hopefully give voice to our characters. The demo won't be fully voiced (it's impossible with the funds we have, which are...zero), but if we are lucky we'll use some of our personal savings to pay for at least a few lines for each character so you can get an idea of how they'll sound if we get funded! Raquel is preparing an art piece for the announcement, and I'm getting the document ready and asking fellow VA friends for advice :3.

Also, we have a new member here at Ravenstar Games! Some weeks ago Astro and I formally adopted our first kitty, 8 month old Riki, fulfilling one of our dreams. We got him from a feline association that works with volunteers and fosters cats who have been abandoned, cats they find on the street, and so on. Riki has been living with me since January, and he's a happy, long big boy who loves playing, cuddles, and sitting on my desk while I try to work!

Say hi to the Ravenstar family, Riki! 💜

A productive month full of accomplished milestones, excitement and new challenges! The team has worked so hard, and I've done my part too! We still don't want to get ahead of ourselves, but we have done a lot of stuff we were sure we wouldn't finish yet, and look at that! We are doing so well!

As you can probably tell, my batteries are starting to run low, so I'm going to leave this devlog here. Thank you all like always for cheering us on, for being here in this journey with us, and for all the love you send our way. Let's hope March is as amazing as February has been, for us and for all of you! 💜

#lost in limbo #visual novel #otome #indiedev #devlog

[tadfools]

i love your blog!! I have some friends I wanna recommend bg3 to, but I’m not sure how. How would you summarize the game for someone who doesn’t play video games? I wanna say it’s a game based on dnd where your main character gets infected by alien tadpoles, and you recruit friends to help you remove them from your head before you turn into a monster. But that doesn’t capture much of why bg3 is so great. So if you have time, I’d be curious to know how you’d summarize the game/entice people to play! Have a great night!

Aw well thank you deal listener!

Unfortunately, I'm insane, so I might not be the best person to go to for this. If you're explaining it to folks who have played dragon age origins or the first fable, then I'd say that it has the same heart as those two games. It's fun and has wonder etched into every part of it but knows when to tone it down for serious moments and does so masterfully.

The party you gather thought the story actually feel like people who have their own goals and storyline. Larian did a fantastic job on making it feel like all of you are the protagonist without overshadowing Tav/Durge (the player) just like it would be in a dnd campaign. There's even points where the player has the option to shut up and let their companions speak for themselves, and it doesn't feel forced at all.

I've been very bias with the dark urge (one of the origin options) so the storyline of nature vs nurture and overcoming (or relenting) to a life of violence is a whole rant I could go into

Another cool thing about BG3 is that you don't have to have a blank slate character that you figure out the past for (that's Tav which is a name you can change) You can play as the party's wizard, a man ambitious to a fault who begins the story desperately trying to win back the affections of his goddess, you can play as rouge who's the spawn of a cruel vampire lord who, depending on the choices you make, can either break free of the cycle of violence inflicted on him or feed into it. You can also romance these characters, you can also romance no one. Over the course of the story they can become your friends and your family or if you're playing an evil route, which you can 100% do, can be cast aside like pawns.

Baldur's Gate 3, to me, isn't the story of how a ragtag group of adventurers either save the world or doom it. It is a story of breaking free of cycles. Cycles of abuse, cycles of reverence, cycles of compliance. Or continuing them. That choice is up to you.

Also, it's beautiful and made by a team of dev's from a lesser known company who genuinely love what they created and cared about the quality of it over a set release date

(gifs made by @entreri congrats, your beautiful babies pop up in the first row of results if you google 'bg3 scenery gifs'. they make amazing gifs go check em out!)

Feel free to add onto this with your thoughts guys, I'd love to read them in the reblogs/tags, and they might be helpful for anon! xx

#baldur’s gate 3 #bg3 #baldur’s gate iii #asks for bee #i hope this was a little bit helpful! #sorry for any typos

[splashinkling]

Another Get to Know Me

thanks @sleepy-night-child for the tag!

a band that you don't like that many others do:

I'm pretty amicable for music. it'd take a song I really hate for me to not like a band. on the other hand, I will like any song that will get me to sing along with it

least favourite animal and why:

bees. when I was a kid, someone told me to not move around bees so that they wouldn't bother you. outside during recess, I froze still cause a couple of bees landed on my shoulders/neck. the bell rang for us to go inside and I had to make a mad dash for the doors despite the fear I'd get stung. hindsight and common sense now tell me bees are generally harmless and wasps are the enemy, but I'm traumatized now and treat them the same

hot fandom take:

head empty, I don't really have any takes, especially ones that aren't already out there. also not really in fandom land, I'm just on my own island.

do you wear any jewellery, if so, what's your favourite piece:

not super devout, but I've got this necklace from elementary school that's a cross with a dove on it that I still wear. otherwise, the owl ring I got a couple years back that I wear as a necklace is the one

a movie others liked but you didn't:

honestly I watch so many movies with my friends nowadays and a lot of them are really bad lmao. I think a recent movie we watched was The Killer and I didn't like it, but it's rated highly for who-knows-why. like it's not even a comedic mess-up, the assassin was just bad at his job and it's not entertaining

three things you love about yourself:

I'm a relatively positive person, or more like I don't have that much hate in my soul. will try to be the best supportive friend you've ever had. and I've got a lot of creative outlets to use!

a place you hope to visit in the future and why:

Japan! I wanna see so many gamer things there. plus the tourist-y landmarks/activities. life-sized gundam is also on the list, if that's still around. and the food! (that I've been seeing because I follow this one guy on YouTube)

an actor that gets on your nerves and why:

the first name that came to mind was Dwayne Johnson for whatever reason, but he's doesn't actually get on my nerves that much

things you're excited about in the near future:

(slowly and surely) getting back to writing!! reviewing some of these games that I've been playing recently, because I've got Opinions on some of them. and getting used to this fancy new limited edition 8BitDo controller that I got. if this was a week ago, I could've said watching my friend finish the main story of Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth, but that's already happened

least favourite ship in a fandom you're in:

again, not really in fandom land so I have no idea about what ships go around.

what's the most toxic fandom you've been in:

as a gamer and basketball fan, those are wildly toxic fanbases. gamers are so mean to the devs (sometimes rightfully so, other times not so much) and to other players. like literal death threats sometimes, it's insane. and then fans of basketball would literally boo their own players at times, like what.

list three things you find beautiful about life:

Space science (thanks Kurzgesagt)! Other people's works (art, writing, games, or otherwise)! Family, friends, and pets!

any dreams for the future:

finishing and publishing any of my works so that people can (hopefully) enjoy the experience I made for them

how are you feeling today?

another day of writing, gaming, etc. but it's grey and gloomy outside and it's sucking like half of my energy away, especially because I need to walk the dog later. and the NBA Trade Deadline is at 3pm so I might be spending more time than usual paying attention to player movement/trades between teams, especially because my team is Not Good and I'm expecting them to make moves this deadline.

no pressure tagging @talesfromaurea, @moonluringfrost, @ettawritesnstudies, and sleepy friend already tagged @oh-no-another-idea and @drippingmoon, but I'll tag as well if you'd like :)

#ink rambles #tag game #get to know me tag #saw the music question and went. I was listening to J-Rock but now I'm listening to K-City Pop and realized I'll just listen to whatever I #encountered at that time. or I'll just listen to the same 3 songs on repeat for like a month 🤡. plus game OSTs are just so great that #yes. I will listen to the Karaoke songs from all the Yakuza games. thank you. #a couple years ago the fans of my team decided they would boo every time this one player touched the ball because of something he said in #the off-season. like we traded him away and still they boo'd him when he was on the other team. like come on. the moment is over lmao #trying to do too many things at once has made writing this take more than an hour lol

[fragmentofmemories]

Haven't had much time to talk about it (in the sense that I just kept going and going).

But I did finish Dragon Quest III SFC and—

Oh my god you have no idea how much i've been missing out no wonder people skipped work for it it's just amazing in every way from the music to the amount of freedom it has in both exploration and character building is amazing and the ending Oh my god the ending somehow I didn't get spoiled on it and it was just o̷m̸g̵ ̸j̵u̸s̵t̷ ̶t̸h̷e̸ ̴b̴e̷s̷t̶ ̸k̷i̴n̷d̶ ̶o̶f̷ ̸b̴i̸t̷t̸e̸r̸s̵w̷e̶e̷t̵ ̶AND---

As I was saying, Dragon Quest III was a great experience. And one I'm probably going to replay more than once.

Starting party was Hero/Fighter/Dealer/Priest.

Monk archetypes are one of my favorites and DQ3 fighters are no exception — high crit chance and an extra "sidequest" if you want to give them a great weapon early on. The way agility affects defense, my fighter was also somewhat tanky too.

Priest. Obviously. I will have a bias toward healers no matter the game. And they remembered that priests can deal damage and have good equipment too, so extra points for that.

As for dealers, it was mostly out of curiosity at first. But giving mine an AOE boomerang and knowing they can appraise items made her very helpful for a while. Dealers being the class that levels up the fastest helped too.

After discovering reclassing was a thing, and that it functioned similarly to Wizardry (minus the stat requirements), I wanted to try the secret Sage class.

But then I got a cursed, +255 DEF helmet.

At which point I actually finished the rest of the game with just the hero (and my priest which I kept around whenever I needed to use items).

And the best part is the game still remained challenging despite me essentially cheesing it.

Magic ignores defense, and almost every enemy in the endgame uses spells instead. That includes bosses who, besides hitting hard (and more than once per turn), also required proper strategies to take down.

One boss in particular genuinely got me stuck thanks to it healing every turn. And I guess at that point I realized it would've been much easier to just bring in a full team.

But that's the beauty of it: I was committed (lol). Despite this not being something the devs probably planned for, I just knew I could do this.

After better planning, and around 20 or so minutes of fighting, I managed to take that boss out.

Then plot happened! And it was shocking! And then it was even more shocking!

And I could go on and on, seriously. But well, it isn't anything different from what others already said about this game: It's that good.

Really, this is the sort of stuff I love about RPGs: The ability to freely experiment with any strat - regardless of how outlandish it may seem - and somehow make it work by knowing how the game works.

It might have been cheesy, but the game was fun either way. Definitely going to try to attempt it again without the helmet later on (maybe the GBC version?).

#dragon quest #excuse my outburst it happens whenever i experience peak #i did have an irl friend help me get into the series (aka she gave me the games) #though now i'm wondering which version of dq4 i should try first... #dq3

[a-dragons-journal]

Hey, I don't know how much of Frontiers you have played yet (so feel free to hold off on answering until you play a bit more, if you want) but how are you liking it? 👀 How do you feel the devs did on the game?

I am asking because I DO want to hear you gush about Frontiers (or give your criticisms), but also for slightly selfish reasons because the team who made Frontiers is also making the open world Star Wars game and I am a bit hyped lmao. I am hoping that if the team did a great job on Frontiers, they might also do a great job with my hearthome as well c:

But for real, please gush if you want, I love hearing about your hearthome stuff and seeing people get excited over things like that brings me so much joy.

@starrun (sideblog woes, gotta send on anon)

(Ayyyy, fellow hearthome-haver! :D)

So here's the thing about Frontiers, and thank you for giving me an excuse to make this post.

I'm going to preface this by saying I am not very far into the story yet, so this may well just be a case of me not being far enough in to have a good grasp on it. I haven't even gotten to getting my ikran yet, and I know that's considered relatively early in the story.

With that being said: If one of your primary desires with Frontiers of Pandora is to experience Pandora, you will have a fantastic time with this game. If that's not something you're really interested in, and you're only focused on other aspects of gameplay... it might not be worth the price tag for you.

I am in love with this game, let me be very clear about that. I've been playing it obsessively in every spare minute I have. But my primary desire with it is to experience Eywa'eveng, story and other gameplay aspects be damned. In that, Frontiers does a spectacular job - the world is impossibly detailed and interactive and beautiful, the animals and plants are fun and interesting and I haven't even gotten out of the jungle where they really put together a bunch of new stuff yet, the feeling of the world is flawless. Weather cycles are a thing, day-night cycles are a thing, and both of them are extremely well-done in terms of duration and beauty. The gathering and crafting systems focusing on immersiveness and quality over quantity is great; the cooking system is genuinely fun to experiment with (though that probably won't last terribly long lol). The Na'vi actually speak well-pronounced Na'vi! Although the subtitles could use some corrections and there's a couple of weird instances where character names are misspelled according to Na'vi phonetics (looking at you, Eetu - that should be Itu). The character concepts are very strong and interesting, and I'm in love with a couple of them. The music is incredible. Running around in the world feels fantastic - you really feel how strong and agile you are as a Na'vi, and they really understood how important verticality is to Eywa'eveng; you can climb basically anything you want and you're rewarded for exploring by finding neat things and resources. I can't wait to be able to fly.

However, it's clear that they focused so hard on that aspect of the game that, in my opinion at least, some other aspects of it suffered. There's some weird little things, like the fact that NPCs in the world who have something for you but don't have a whole cutscene don't turn to face you when they talk to you, and the ones that do have a cutscene tend to glitch and teleport when the cutscene ends sometimes (mostly this seems to happen with cutscenes that aren't directly plot-relevant, though, so it's not like it's gotten in the way of anything, it's just jarring). The character and story concepts are very strong, fun, and interesting, but the execution is... kind of meh so far, to be honest. A good portion of the dialogue feels a little unpolished.

There's also a few game decisions I just plain don't like, even though it's clear that's just a case of "they were going for something different from my preference" rather than "this is poorly done". For instance, there's no dialogue options when you talk to NPCs; the player character just says what they're going to say, and for me, even if a dialogue option doesn't actually change anything, it's still nice to have it and makes it feel more interactive and engaging. As it is, I feel a little disconnected from the character I'm playing as. Similarly, while there's a lot of ambient dialogue from NPCs as you walk around (which is fun and nice), I kind of miss the ability a lot of RPGs have to walk up to the major/named NPCs and interact with them to prompt a dialogue line when they don't actually have a full conversation for you.

But, again, a lot of the weak points are things that might well get ironed out as I get further into the story, and might just be a symptom of that weird little portion a lot of games have toward the start where they're trying to get you fully set and going on the story and thus things have to be a little weird to make that happen. A lot of the characters' mehness is not that they feel flat, but that they feel unexplored, and like... there's plenty of time for them to be explored in, it just hasn't happened yet. So I'm reticent to say any of this is a very fair critique just yet, but it's what I've got for you.

#frontiers of pandora #rani talks #hearthome #asked and answered #starrun

[retphienix]

You know, they weren't kidding on the random gamefaq thread.

Dragonlord is a huge pushover compared to the color orb quest boss.

Kinda wish I could easily just go rematch that guy with this team instead since it'd be a more fitting send off, but hey, there's still some very real appeal to this being the closing chapter in my Caravan Heart playthrough :)

The Dragonlord is like The guy for DQ, so it has that appeal for sure.

I do think it's funny how pathetic he is here when the color orb boss was properly scaled to be a real heavy hitter :P

I'd ALMOST go so far as to assume they realize they messed that up what with the entire preamble being that he's reawakening "too early"; Like in universe you can say that's why he's weak, but if I were to be sincere here I'd wager that's just meant to be meta meant to write off that he's here at all- not an explanation for his strength.

Though it could be Meta Meta and it was the devs saying "We didn't have enough time to rework the DL to be a challenge, our bads" but I really doubt that lol

Anywho, Caravan Hearts is Mid.

Early game is far too slow for no good reason.

Innovations on the formula often fail to positively impact the gameplay loop, instead slowing things down or being CONCEPTUALLY (caravan party) positive but PHYSICALLY lacking (no real options in main game, too much RNG to stay invested post game- not to mention their impact is lacking compared to the monsters themselves).

Base story game is overall "fine"- to me personally it was very "Basic RPG going through the motions" overall, it had some nice moments like collecting beautiful things being rather non-linear (aside from the ending) but overall it was "Here's your small sandbox, play in it then beat this tower/dungeon/boss to get to the next sandbox" which is Fine but it's also kind of the vibe I feel DQ usually presents itself as- and then surprises you by doing things Exceptionally well or by surprising you with a twist that beats your expectations- not here. It's JUST the paint by numbers RPG stuff.

Color quest is much more fun! It's also majorly flawed lol it feels designed from the bottom up to be a drawn out lengthy grind for max/min players in terms of mechanics (caravan members mostly) but gameplay wise it's thankfully not so harsh in what it demands of you, no "2 billion damage" boss fights or anything- even the final boss, while strong, is SUPER reasonable despite the mechanics of the post game implying "This is where you grind forever to get maxed stats and true recruits".

The color quest is way more fun than base game because the little dungeons are entertaining, the frequency of mini-bosses is a big plus on the gameplay, and you're pretty much just fighting nonstop. Mostly.

Because the main flaw of the color quest is the backtracking - it's just not fun or well handled. The quest does not burn you on it if you just want to win, but if you want to max stuff- oh buddy. You better get a true sage ASAP. But if you just want to win it's annoying but "fine", still the biggest flaw because you really do spend like 30% of your time in ports and then 70% having actual fun in dungeons, that's still not a great ratio.

Dragonlord was fun. EZPZ but I had fun- the dungeon has relatively fun fights in it and while it is actually VERY tiny if you go the right way, there are a couple wrong directions that trick you back to the entrance, it's simple and TINY but it's nice.

Beyond this there are from what I gather spirit fights for unique hearts and I can continue the color orbs forever I think. So if I was enjoying the grind for recruits (No thank you) I have endless content to smash into for stats I suppose. Kinda neat :)

Hmm. Already did more lengthy closing thoughts in prior posts.

Have a random thought instead:

Did you know that some people consider features being REMOVED from the prior releases to be a positive feature in this game?

Like they listed "Removed Personalities" as a POSITIVE feature in this game versus the prior two, because they emphasized "Having complete and direct control" as a positive- some people just don't get the appeal of the DWM personality + order passive combat system :P

Overall, I had fun. I don't know if I expressed that well in my random posts but I wasn't exactly keeping the most in-depth tabs on my playthrough so it probably slipped through the cracks.

The game is Not one I'd ever recommend since it doesn't fit my tastes on the formula- DWM and DWM 2 fucking rule and this is a GBA RPG I'll probably never touch again so go figure- but this was very neat, I guess is the word for it.

It was neat playing the black sheep of the series- one mostly known that way for its lack of a translation than for its quality- but one I'd wager probably deserves it on quality >:)

But it's neat!

It's different, it's trying to mash some mainline DQ ideas into the side series, it gave DQM an entirely new framing device- one "similar" (traveler gates and dressers are involved) but WAY different than the prior 2, and way different than Joker 1 (and probably the other Jokers). You're still from a different world, but it's not a watabou waraubou story- it's just- you go to the monster world and help out, also the monster world is DISTINCTLY the dragon quest world instead of being a weird dragon quest monsters island "world" with "Great" kingdoms duking it out and training in traveler gates-

This Is Different And That's Kinda Neat! :)

Not a fan or anything, but I don't hate it, it's neat :)

#Dragon Quest #Dragon Quest Monsters #Dragon Quest Monsters: Caravan Heart #DQM #DQ #RetPlays #Youtube

[astronomodome]

what is blaseball

Ok so first of all thank you for sending in this ask because it gives me an opportunity to infodump about something that's really important to me... Blaseball! There's no way I can fully explain the game or what it meant to people but I can absolutely try!

Now, you may ask (and you did), what is Blaseball? Blaseball (with an L) was an absurdist eldritch horror online baseball simulator hosted at blaseball.com. Each week, 24 teams with names like the Canada Moist Talkers or the Atlantis Georgias consisting of simulated players with names like Brisket Friendo or Jessica Telephone would play game after game for the enjoyment of fans, who mainly gathered on discord to watch and cheer on their team together. Fan interaction consisted of betting on games and using the currency (peanuts) gathered to vote in elections at the end of each week, which determined new rules and game mechanics to add into the simulation.

Eventually, several godlike entities (including a giant peanut, a capitalist coin, and a friendly squid known as the Hall Monitor) would make themselves known and add commentary in between games, try to get the fans to pick a certain option, threaten the audience for picking the 'wrong' option, and so on. Meanwhile, fans would regularly screw with the system as much as they could, finding weird ways to bend the game to their advantage and creating ridiculous scenarios.

One of the most iconic events from the early seasons of Blaseball involved working around the mechanic of Incineration, in which players could randomly get Incinerated by rogue umpires during games and sent to the Hall of Flame, where they were 'killed' and unable to play. The fans were able to manipulate a Blessing (a type of vote during an Election) that would send the #14 most liked player in the Hall of Fame (distinct from the Hall of Flame, fans could give peanuts to players to rank them higher) to the team that won the Blessing. Fans carefully maneuvered Jaylen Hotdogfingers, the first player to be Incinerated, into the #14 spot. When the Election was over, Jaylen was pulled out of the Hall of Flame and back into the game... with the tragic consequence that they now had a 'debt' modifier on them that would make players who played against them more likely to be Incinerated themselves. I don't know, Balseball is weird. But it's this weirdness that made it so much fun.

The fan space of Blaseball was hugely creative, mostly because the site itself was very minimalist and there wasn't much information canonically available about the players. Thus, fans were able to pretty much build their favorite characters to be whatever they want, and they did so. Every team in Blaseball is its own subcommunity with traditions and extensive fanon of its own, and that is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen in a fandom space, honestly. I highly highly recommend checking out the fan-run wiki for just a glimpse at the absolutely massive amount of fan lore that the community came up with. It's this that truly made Blaseball the cultural phenomenon that it was and I'm proud to say that it inspired my art and my creative process in huge ways.

Now, you might be wondering why I've been referring to Blaseball in the past tense. Well... despite regular dev updates since the ending of the second 'Era' (story arc, basically) and a faltering attempt at starting a third, on June 2, 2023, the dev team suddenly announced that it would be shutting Blaseball down permanently, citing financial issues. This came as a shock to fans, who had been keeping the fandom alive on discord and elsewhere for months with no sign of anything too bad from the dev side of things. We were given a few hours' notice to say goodbye before the discord was archived. It was a really difficult time for a lot of us to see the foundation of a whole community just kind of vanish into the wind, but many folks carried on in their own side discords and on tumblr and twitter where regular fan spaces are. I was pretty far from fan spaces by that time, but the news still affected me a lot. I think it's super important that I keep its spirit alive in the best way I know how: by talking about it and being annoying on tumblr.com. I hope I can keep its spirit alive in everything I create. :)

A few more things that anyone interested in Blaseball and its legacy should definitely check out:

@waveridden's google doc A Brief History of Blaseball, which explains the details of Blaseball much better than I ever could in an easy-to-understand way.

The official Blaseball Recap, in which a put-upon Anchor gives a chaotic summary of the events of Blaseball and gets progressively less sane in the process. Genuinely a fun watch even if you don't care about the rest of Blaseball.

The Garages, an incredible band (idk their genre they just do what they want and thats based) composed of Blaseball fans who sing songs about it. Genuinely really really good. You don't need to know about Blaseball to listen to them but it does make things make more sense. I have an art project that's almost done that is in reference to their music so look out for that also. :P

#i will never ever stop thinking & talking about blaseball. riv everyone but especially my bbg Kelvin Drumsolo and the rest of the Mechs #if you follow me for mcyt hiiiiiiiiiiiii look at blaseball aka the life series if it wasnt real #blaseball #astro speaks #astro asks #astro's garages brainrot #<-sure that can go here too

[slasheru]

Heyyyyy Slasher Nation! 🖤 First of all - HOLY CRAP THANK YOU!! Even though the Kickstarter didn't hit the goal, the fact that 98 of y'all (!!) got us a SIGNIFICANT part of the way there (almost $3,000!!) is MINDBLOWING!! <3333 I can't thank you enough 😭

So What Now / Wait you had a Plan B the whole time?!

Yeah, man, you thought I was just gonna leave you guys hanging? ;) We're gonna try this again with a WAY smaller goal on Crowdfundr! (I'll talk more about this below!) Short pitch is: $1,125 goal (which we nailed in 48 hours here), keeps SU running, launches September 7th, Crowfundr is being hella cool and sponsoring it for SPX Spotlight, follow along HERE! [https://crowdfundr.com/slasheruact2]

But ALSO, holy crap, you guys are AMAZING:

I can hardly call this thing a wash, though, because the amount of love, attention, and SOLD COPIES OF SLASHER U: ACT 1 have been ABSOLUTELY FUCKING WILD. I just wanted to shout out to:

More than 600 new Slasher U: Act 1 players downloaded the game since the Kickstarter launched

Slasher U: Act 1: Alpha Edition maintains a whopping 4.9 out of 5 Stars average rating on itch (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

I sold enough copies of Slasher U: Act 1 to cover MORE THAN HALF MY RENT THIS MONTH!! If this Kickstarter stopped right here, you guys would've been able to cover 4 MORE months of rent & production time! Which is HOG WILD.

We got shoutouts from:

Beautiful Glitch, the team behind Monster Prom, Monster Camp, & Monster Roadtrip!! Beautiful Glitch are one of my most inspirational/aspirational heroes of game dev, and the Monster franchise was a HUGE inspiration for SU, so I can't BELIEVE this happened!!!! Thank you guys SO MUCH!!! <333

WWAC (Women Write About Comics), where journalist Alenka Figa wrote SO MUCH NICE STUFF about my storytelling I'm gonna fuckin cry!!

Corinne Halbert of ACID NUN - she and I are actually gonna do an Acid Nun x Slasher U collab where you'll be able to unlock an Acid Nun player skin!! Shhhh!!

The crew at Lewdgamer who wrote an awesome writeup of the KS campaign!

Indiepocalypse - we made it into Issue #42 and Alex had us on his podcast, which was SO MUCH FUN!! According to Alex, Slasher U had one of the highest audience participation/engagements he's seen on Indiepocalypse Radio, and it was MEGA FUN watching him parse some of your saucy Sawyer questions, LMFAO.

And here's some Slasher U & SUKS stats for you:

More than 2/3rds of you ended up dating either Sawyer or Tate. >:)

In total, 94 of you backed the game here on KS!!! YOU ALL KICK SERIOUS ASS

Almost 1,000 new copies of Slasher U: Act 1 (both Regular and Premium) were downloaded during the campaign!

During the campaign, at least 3 people personally thanked me for Slasher U completely changing their life by discovering something about themselves or making them feel seen and heard, which is going to make me FUCKING CRY and is the ENTIRE REASON WHY I MAKE THIS GAME IN THE FIRST PLACE. I love you all so, so so sosososoososososos much, Student Disembody. :'))))))

So this "Plan B", eh?

Some of you know I'm a cartoonist by trade (I drew for the official FNAF franchise and more!). This year, I ended up talking to some sponsors for this upcoming SPX (Small Press Expo), which is like SDCC for indie comics, including Crowdfundr - one thing led to another, and now I'm partnering up with Crowdfundr and SPX to bring you a WAY SMALLER but also WAY MORE PERSONAL campaign to keep the lights on here at SU, as part of Crowfundr's SPX Spotlight event! For the non-comics folks here, Crowdfundr is basically the indie comics Kickstarter - I've been buddies with this crowd (pun vageuly intended) for a while and I'm psyched to be doing this with people I've been meaning to collab with!!

The new goal will cover the absolute bare minimum of making SU - $1,125, which includes font licenses, the Mac port, and taxes. Then, any EXTRA will go to more production time on Slasher U! Basically, I'm swinging the campaign around so the minimum amount is the goal, and the goal-goal's the reach goal. The GOOD NEWS is we apparently smashed this $1k goal within 48 hours of THIS Kickstarter, so I'm VERY OPTIMISTIC ABOUT ROUND 2 OVER HERE.

(You'll ALSO still be able to snag one of those custom player skins I'm drawing - there's gonna be only 5 slots this time!) Aaaaand you can click to follow when the Crowdfundr launches in a month, here:

P.S: estimating the first Early Access build with *just* Laila's Act 2 content, plus some core extras, in the next month or month and a half >:)))

xoxoxooxoxoxoxo, love you guys SO FUCKIN MUCH, and, as we like to say on campus:

STAY HORNY!! xxoxooxox Professor Plutonium

#slasher u #slasher u act 2

[nicohischier]

@david-reinbacher tagged me thank youuuuu just the other day i was thinking about how i wanted an excuse to talk about myself LMAO

Tell me about:

1. The thing that got you hooked on hockey

i've spoke about how i first got interested in hockey so i won't rehash that, but what hooked me was honestly the behind the scenes content. behind the b was my best friend when i was a baby fan, i absolutely loved the content. even now, that sort of behind the scenes stuff is still my favourite content posted by teams

2. Your first ever fandom friend

my first hockey friend was shoshana (@/kempny) but they aren't on hockeyblr anymore and we haven't spoken in years unforch

3. The jersey you would most like to own

this is boring but my dream jersey is just a regular hischier home jersey

4. YOUR player (you only get ONE so choose wisely)

i am predictable. obviously it's nico. i've always felt like being a fan of the devils, for me, is like returning to the comfort of your home. nico's like that for me too. i think, no matter what team he plays on in the future, seeing him on or off the ice will give me the same comfort that coming home does. soz for getting sappy, he's just my guy

5. A pairing that deserves more fic

like. i'm a mattdrai girlie and i will never say no to more fics. but i am also tragically stuck in 2017 and would therefore go absolutely insane for more niconolan fics.

6. Your favourite on-ice moment

this is going to sound so stupid because i literally wasn't even a hockey fan yet, but adam henriques goal against the r*ngers in the 2012 ecf that sent the devs to the finals... i knooooow its such a dumb choice cause i wasnt a fan but. god. i cant explain how much that moment means to me even looking back retroactively. i get goosebumps every single time.

THEN

link someone else's art/fic/etc that you love & think everyone should check out

I HAVE A LIST. here's three from three different mediums. @jonasiegenthaler's insanely beautiful nico art inspired by a quote from his tribune article. @ghostgeno's jack eichel 'what i got' hockey poetry post. and @stevenstamkos's fic 'and i saw stars' which is half taylor hall/jordan eberle and half taylor hall/adam henrique and entirely taylor hall character study. i love all of these so much, none of you will ever know how much i respect you and the things you create.

AND

link something you made & are proud of & want people to see

so unforch i'm not part of the creative side of hockeyblr but like. go read the 2018 drama post i created at the end of 2018. esp if you weren't a fan at the time. it's my most popular post and i love how it complies so much history from that year that most of us would probably just forget about.

alas i will not be tagging anyone because. i think? everyone i would usually tag has already been tagged. also i'm shy :( idk who is okay with being tagged :(

#tagged #thank you for the tag !!!!!!! #i love tag games so much tbh #and i love reading what other ppl say its so important to me that im nosy at all times gbskdhbs

[fatalfangirl]

Thank you for the tags today friends! @facewithoutheart, @captain-aralias, @ionlydrinkhotwater, @sailorblossoms, @artsyunderstudy, @chen-chen-chen-again-chen, @whogaveyoupermission, @moodandmist, @johnwgrey, @creepyspice, @confused-bi-queer, @palimpsessed, @martsonmars, and @bookish-bogwitch. You all are so active today and I can't wait to read snippets from all of you (or recs) (or appreciate your art).

I am very close to finishing ch 9 of The Beautiful Game. I've said this before but it's been a real exercise in "don't overthink it" and "don't like perfect be the enemy of good." As I get near the end, the exercise has become more of a challenge.

Also remember when this was supposed to be something I posted daily? HA HA.

Anyway, sentences:

The sun was setting as we turned onto Market Road, adding warmth to the buzz of excitement. Right away, we spotted the reserved pitch. 

It was mad. More people than we could have imagined. Our wedding party was there of course, Bunce and Shepard in green and black kits and Dev and Niall in purple and white, but there were also friends, family, coworkers—all dressed in Team Snow green or Team Pitch purple. And when they spotted us approaching, a cheer went up that gave me chills. It made me squeeze Simon’s hand in mine. Made me think, how did we get so lucky?

Only one chapter to go!!

Tagging @whatevertheweather, @aristocratic-otter, @takitalks, @otherpeoplesheartachept-2, @shrek-gogurt, and @you-remind-me-of-the-babe.

#my fic #six sentence sunday #the beautiful game #now that i'm working fulltime again writing only happens on the weekends #BUT WE'RE SO CLOSE #after this we go back to the present to wrap her up

[marveltrumpshate]

★ THE 2022 MTH AUCTION IS OFFICIALLY CLOSED ★

The auction is officially over! Phew. We’re exhausted and in need of some delicious shawarma.

We hope you all managed to win the auctions that you really wanted and that this week has been as thrilling and enjoyable for you as it has been for us.

Firstly, we’d like to say a huge thank you to everyone who supported us this week: creators; bidders; signal boosters; our design, dev, and server mod teams; and everyone who cheered us on. We’re immensely touched by the kindness and generosity you all showed in contributing to the auction and giving encouragement to creators and bidders alike.

Emails will be going out to winners as soon as possible, with instructions on how to submit your donation. As there are so many of you, it may take a while for everyone to receive the email. Keep your eye on your inbox over the next four days even if you don't think you won; some creators take on more than one winner and you might get lucky! We'll announce when all the winner emails have gone out, so please do not contact your creator or make a donation preemptively. We also ask that you refrain from asking creators if they're taking on a second winner for their auction(s); not everyone is eligible to do so and not everyone is able or comfortable even if they are, so we don't want creators to feel awkward or pressured. Creators will also be emailed about the next steps of the donation process within the next 48 hours, and we’ll be posting further instructions on Tumblr shortly.

This year was full of surprises (at this point, the only thing we've come to expect is that we'll be surprised; this has been a pattern for the past four years). It felt as though we had the most new faces this round than we've had in a while, which was wonderful to witness as this fandom continues to mature. Understandably, many of you wondered how much of a difference you'd make—if people would know who you were, if people would bid on you. If you'd make an impact at all. "I'm just me," you insisted. "No one remarkable." Except you are and all it takes to get the ball rolling is one person.

That's why we chose Kamala and Nakia for our Auction Week banner. Kamala, driven by compassion and bravery and inspired by the same heroes that inspire us, believed that since she was in a position to help people, she should even if she was just a no-name high schooler, not a world-famous Avenger. Nakia had ideas on how to change things for the better and regardless of her youth and inexperience, decided to run for election as a new mosque board member so she could put her ideas into action.

And they weren't alone. When they decided to get involved, people rallied behind them. As we saw in the Ms. Marvel finale, the entire community showed up to protect and cheer on Kamala when she needed them, the same way the Marvel fandom united to support MTH participants. We may "only" be superhero fans like Kamala (though without her cool powers, sadly), but together, we're a force and together we've created, in Kamala's grandmother's words, "something much bigger than [any of us] could have created alone" through our shared love for this fandom.

Thank you again for making the auction as wonderful as it has been. We can’t begin to express how much it meant to us to have the fandom we love so much come together to make a positive impact, and we’re looking forward to the creation of many beautiful fanworks over the coming year!

#marvel trumps hate #mth 2022 #announcement #auction week

[revasserium]

i love your replies to the writer’s ask! about the compliment you gave yourself, yes. i do agree. i’m trying to recall which HQ fanfic of yours i first read. i’ve read so many of your works from that era. as i’m sieving through my memories, a few works of yours pop up like kageyama & the world responding?? daichi’s story with the prompt on goodbyes? adore the way you hook and drag. without looking at your masterlist, which story immediately comes to mind when you think of “time”?

about driving, since i’m still new i haven’t driven much. i’m very excited to cruise on the roads, but i’m also really bad at overtaking (i.e. i can overtake—or else how would i have passed my driving test—but i haven’t done it when cars are going fast & when it’s crowded… road conditions for my test were milder). it’s scary… SJDJSJDJSJ. i’ll hopefully be driving soon with my parent who can instruct me. i think for the time being, as i get used to the car, i have to focus, but i look forward to blasting music while driving 👍 — @anonymilk

also the poem you gave me was so great 🥹 thank you!! are there any poems from that author you like as well?? why do you like them specifically?? — @anonymilk also what happened the past 2 weeks r u alright :( — @anonymilk

combining ur asks! <3 hope u dont mind and sorry i take so long lol but answers in the cut!

uGH that reaper!kageyama x angel!reader fic is still one of my all time favs u__u im so happy you remember that one. sldkfjasd and the daichi story T^T -- i realized that pre-hiatus i was so so so kagehina biased with a hard sprinkling of suga but then post-hiatus i came back and suddenly i'm a daichi stan like is this..... IRL character dev bro. am i just into the Greenest of Green Flags now. not that i dont still adore kagehina bc i do. u__u they are my babies.

in terms of "time" -- i think the one that comes to mind most immediately is the hinata "length of daylight" fic i wrote! it remains one of my fav hinata fics i've written to date :D

for driving -- it def is something that needs lots of practice! but you'll get there!!! i'm excited for you!!!! and yeah to this day, i hate overtaking ppl but it's a necessary evil LOL

re: agha shahid ali YES oh my god okay. i love his stuff. i actually found him when i saw a poem of his on the new york subway lol im not even kidding. and it still remains one of my favorite poems of his to this day -- it's called Stationary, and it goes like this:

The moon did not become the sun. It just fell on the desert in great sheets, reams of silver handmade by you. The night is your cottage industry now, the day is your brisk emporium. The world is full of paper. Write to me.

i think the reason i fell so in love with it is because every single line is so vivid. not to say that most of his other poems aren't like this as well but like. idk something about this just spoke to me so much? i love love love metaphors about like irl things turning /into/ paper or ink or like... writing-related stuff. it's just such a beautiful image to me. also like there's a phrase in every line that strikes me "reams of silver", "brisk emporium" -- and something about the sentence "the world is full of paper" makes me like want to yell bc it's so??? GOOD??? bc yes!!! the world is full of paper!!!!!

and obviously, the ending just SMACKS you doesn't it? write to me. ugh. UGH. ugh its so good.

sometimes this poem still comes back to me in random moments and it makes me happy.

and now for some not so fun stuff. tw for like... ilness and death but yeah uh.

this entire summer has just been kind of ass tbh??? like. during the single month of july, we had 4 people in my family/friend circle pass away -- 2 grandparents, 1 uncle, 1 friend of a friend (who was literally only 24yrs old!!! bruh!!!! WTF!!!). we thought August was going to be chiller, but nope. last day of Aug, last thursday, my boss's wife passed away after battling with cancer for 2+ years.

it hit hard for our entire team at work bc like. she was younger than my mom. and my boss is such an industry veteran, and he and his wife have been married for 17 years, they have a 13yr old son like... it just sucked all around. we all went to the funeral this past wednesday. it was a beautiful service, but obviously really freaking sad. half our entire office was there, everyone was crying. i was crying like. it was a mess.

and then right after, i think my body had had ENOUGH of this nonsense, and i got a really bad fever literally ONE HOUR after i got home from the funeral. and i've been sick since then.

it's just been... unreasonably rough... i'm really hoping that this is the last big bad thing that's gonna happen for the rest of the year. like. im so exhausted -- pls @ the universe LOL. take it easy on us okay.

so yeah. i try to keep the heavy stuff off this blog bc it's supposed to be a place where i come to be happy and write things that make me happy so i haven't talked about this much but u__u since you asked, i didn't wanna just be like "oh yeah everything is fine" when it's not LOL

i do hope that the summer is treating you better though! <3

#Anonymous #anonymilk #this got way long LOL i hope you don't mind #🌧 raindrops

[crynotifier]

Bobby Zagotta, US CEO of Bitstamp, on US Crypto Regulation, The Banking Crisis, and Web3 Innovation | Ep. 257

Bobby Zagotta, US CEO of Bitstamp, on US Crypto Regulation, The Banking Crisis, and Web3 Innovation | Ep. 257

In an exclusive interview with cryptonews.com, Bobby Zagotta, US CEO & Chief Commercial Officer at Bitstamp, talks about 2023 market movements, Web3 innovation, navigating regulation, and the banking crisis. 

About Bobby Zagotta

Bobby Zagotta, US CEO & Chief Commercial Officer at Bitstamp. He came to Bitstamp from Kraken, where he served as Chief Commercial Officer responsible for strategy, business development, marketing, M&A, research and analytics, and global growth initiatives. Before that, he was a Senior Managing Director, Strategy & Execution and a member of the Executive Team for CME Group Inc., a global, publicly traded financial exchange.

As CEO for the Americas and Global Chief Commercial Officer at Bitstamp, Bobby is responsible for strategy and growing our presence and business globally, as well as overseeing day-to-day operations in the Americas.

Bobby Zagotta gave a wide-ranging exclusive interview which you can see below, and we are happy for you to use it for publication, provided there is a credit to www.cryptonews.com. 

Highlights Of The Interview

2023 General Market Movements

Stories from growing CME and the parallels to present-day crypto

Regulation/American Adoption; The cryptocurrency industry has the potential to create significant economic value through job creation, investment, and innovation

Banking crisis – The collapse of Silvergate and the regulatory takeover of Signature Bank certainly impacts the efficiency of traders and investors on crypto exchanges

Web3 innovation and navigating regulation 

Bitstamp growth

      Full Transcript Of The Interview

Matt Zahab  Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Cryptonews Podcast. You’re buzzing as always, and I’m super pumped to have today’s guest on the show, Bobby Zagotta, US CEO and Chief Commercial Officer at Bitstamp. Bobby came to Bitstamp from Kraken, where he served as Chief Commercial Officer, responsible for strategy, biz dev, marketing, M&A, research and analytics, and global growth initiatives. Before that, he was a Senior Managing Director and member of the Executive Team for CME Group, a global publicly traded financial exchange. As CEO of America’s and Global Chief Commercial Officer at Bitstamp, Bobby is responsible for strategy and growing the presence and business globally, as well as overseeing day-to-day operations in the Americas. Bobby and I have been trying to get a show going for a hot minute. We finally got it going, and I’m super excited. Bobby, welcome to the show my friend. 

Bobby Zagotta  Thank you, Matt. And glad we finally were able to make this work. 

Matt Zahab  We did. You and I were playing quite the game of tag. That was me who dropped the ball more than you. I had some unfortunate bounces that came my way, and here we are, pumped to have you on. You have a beautiful background. I feel like we got to start with that. Whereabouts are you right now? 

Bobby Zagotta  Thank you. Yeah, we’re in Michigan. We have a summer house here in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and it’s a beautiful spot, and we absolutely love it here. And it’s a good place to work. It’s a good place to relax as well. 

Matt Zahab  Probably nice and tranquil, no distractions, besides maybe fishing, boating, all that kind of fun nature stuff. 

Bobby Zagotta  Yeah, it’s a little different than Chicago. 

Matt Zahab  You can say that. I love that. Now you have a very interesting pass, and we could start at a multitude of places. The one place I’d love to start is the CME Group. I did not know what the CME group was until I started trading. When I just got out of high school and got into university, I, like many people, was a little would be an understatement, rather bored at uni, and I wanted to make some money, so I got into trading, and my mind was blown about the CME group in Canada. We’re literally never taught about that at all. And it’s such a big exchange. I don’t know why we’re taught about that. We hear about the Nasdaq, we hear about the NYSE, and of course, we hear about the TSX and the CSE with the Canadian Stock Exchange, which is the Penny Stock Exchange of Canada, but we never hear about CME. And I’ve been fortunate to have a couple of people on the Pod who’ve worked at the CME before. It is a world class institution, absolutely massive, and you got to grow that as well. I’d love if we could start by you telling us some awesome stories about your time at CME.

Bobby Zagotta  Yeah, happy to. And like you, I feel so fortunate that I was able to end up as part of that company. It wasn’t by design, necessarily. I started my career as an engineer. I ended up getting into strategy consulting and risk management, and I did a stint as a co-founder and CEO of a startup that we grew and sold. And coming out of that experience, I ended up advising companies on M&A strategy and integration type processes and CME was a client of mine. And to your point, it was really my first deep dive into capital markets and really the extraordinary transformation of that industry. So the CME Group was founded in the 1800s. I can’t remember the exact year, but it’s 165 or 170 years old. It was the Chicago Butter and Egg Exchange to start with, and it was a very necessary capability for our agriculturally based society, particularly in the Midwest, to manage their economics. And the CME has been just an incredibly innovative leader in that space for many years. And it grew up as a mutual company, but ultimately IPOed and became a public for profit company. And it’s just really done an amazing job. So I learned a ton there. I did have the opportunity to join their executive team and lead a couple of different divisions for the company and hopefully help contribute to their continued growth. 

Matt Zahab  And one thing you said that sort of blew my mind, it started off as the Butter and Egg Exchange. Is that legit? 

Bobby Zagotta  Yeah, it’s absolutely true. And there were a few of these that started in approximately the same time. So the Chicago Board of Trade was another one that started in a similar time frame. They were ultimately acquired by CME Group. That’s one of the deals I helped with before I joined, and same thing in, New York you know, the NYMEX. The New York Mercantile Exchange has a similar history. What happened was farmers back in the day, you know show victims to extreme supply and demand. So they would work all summer, harvest all of their corn or wheat or pork bellies or what have you, and then they’d all bring them to market at the same time, and the price would plummet. They used futures contracts to be able to manage their price risk, and that in itself was an amazing innovation. But then over the next hundred years, and the CME led the charge here, I believe, really diversified that concept of futures contracts into trading and speculation and hedging across a whole range of assets, including oil and gas and financial instruments, etcetera. So, yeah, it’s a great story. It’s a fascinating company and a great learning experience for me. 

Matt Zahab  That’s wild. What a story. Next part that we have to dive into because you’re one of the few people who actually has his or her finger on the pulse here and that is sort of regulation and American adoption of crypto and we’ll segue also into the banking crisis. This has been absolute bananas. Obviously we had the collapse of Silvergate Signature Bank. It’s not looking good. We’re recording early August. This is going to air mid August. But the US debt also just got downgraded or US bonds excuse me, also just got downgraded as well. Things are looking rather bleak. Things are looking rather no bueno. What is going on right now in regards to the banking crisis? And then we’ll segue into regulation and American adoption of crypto. 

Bobby Zagotta  Yeah, I really can’t think of anything going on in either of those spaces. I’m kidding. Obviously it’s been an absolutely tumultuous year. And we’ll start with the banking situation. Silicon Valley Bank was the first that was affected by the macroeconomic environment. I don’t believe they had any material crypto holdings or anything like that, but they, I think, were the first to be really caught flat footed by the rapidly rising interest rates versus how they were managing their debt portfolio. And then that put a lot of regional banks on notice and a couple of those. So Silvergate and Signature who also played an important role in the crypto ecosystem. So not only were these guys useful banking partners for a lot of players in crypto, but they had these real time settlement networks that really reduced frictions for people participating with exchanges and with other kind of players in the ecosystem. It was very, what I would say, current in terms of how financial transactions should work real time, fast and low cost. However, as you know, Silvergate voluntarily wound itself down. Signature was forced into a wind down situation, as I understand it, by their regulator in New York and also federally. From my standpoint, I would love to have more information about the nuts and bolts of why wind down was the right answer for both those institutions, because I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but it seems like it wasn’t an obvious or the only path, let’s say. 

Matt Zahab  Yeah, no, that’s very true. Another issue is the debt ceiling. This is pretty bananas. Everyone is hoping that President Biden and Congress will come to an agreement, whether it’s short term solution or long term fix. This is a very touchy subject and it would be a huge loss if I didn’t ask you. So I must ask Bobby, what is your two cent on the current debt ceiling issue? And do we have any solution that could potentially come into play over the next couple of months or years? 

Bobby Zagotta  Yeah, I wish I knew the answer to that question. But my perspective on it is it’s really crucial, obviously, that we can bridge the Yawning cavern between the two political parties operating in the US. And start to compromise, start to work together so that we don’t get ourselves into a situation where we’re on a slippery slope in terms of the role that we play in the global economy. So today, as you know, the United States has a very enviable position in the global financial services marketplace and the global economy. And that’s not a sovereign right that we have that’s just because of how the economies have played out. But if the fundamentals of that equation change, such as the credit worthiness of the country, such as even the role that the country plays in the emerging crypto ecosystem, these things are going to determine the role of the US. In the evolving economies, that we shouldn’t take it for granted. So I feel like a lot of the people on Capitol Hill are taking it for granted. But I think if we don’t make some important and very decisive moves now, that’s in jeopardy. 

Matt Zahab  And speaking of important and decisive moves, the US. Is also and again, I speak as a Canadian here, but we usually follow in your guys’ footsteps when it comes to a lot of regulatory climates. We, as in North Americans are dropping the ball when it comes to crypto regulation. There’s still nothing really solidified. And this can be a huge ball drop as we’ve seen dozens, if not hundreds of really solid companies and people move to spots that are more open, like Singapore or the UAE. What’s going on on the regulatory talk right now? Is there any news? Is there anything to look forward to? Is there anything to be happy about currently with the US regulatory crypto talk? 

Bobby Zagotta  Well, there’s a couple of things I would point to globally and I’ll start with the US, so obviously the judgment in the Ripple case I can’t overstate the importance of that ruling to what I would call bringing some balance to the landscape, to the legal landscape, and to the conversation, frankly. Now that could be appealed. There was a recent ruling from a different circuit court that had a different take on the securities question, so it’s certainly not a done deal. But what I felt like is the SEC’s perspective was kind of unchecked from a legal perspective and from a marketplace perspective. And that Ripple ruling checked them, right? It didn’t say they’re wrong or didn’t prove they’re wrong, let’s say. But it definitely brought them back to the right playing field to have a productive conversation. So that’s a bright spot from a US regulatory perspective. Another one is some legislative action. So there’s two bills that have come out of committee, been approved by committee, the Agricultural Committee and the Financial Services Committee. And that of course, doesn’t mean it’s just going to be a law tomorrow, but that’s a huge step that we have not realized as of yet to actually put some laws or a framework in place that the regulators can then enact. That’s how it’s supposed to work. And when we don’t have that legislative foundation in place, the regulators can kind of act on their own. That’s what we’re seeing, I think, with the SEC, and I’m sure there’s multiple opinions about what they’re doing and how they’re doing it, but from my perspective, it’s not the most productive path. So I’ll pause there. I’ve got some other international bright spots to share if you want. 

Matt Zahab  Bobby, the floor is yours. Keep going. 

Bobby Zagotta  So the other thing I would point to is Europe, and you may not know this. Bitstamp was founded in Europe, and Europe is our primary base of business, about 65% of the business. We have a whole range of regulatory licenses there, and we do a tremendous amount of business with institutions and on the retail side. 

Matt Zahab  Bobby, your European business is larger than your USA business. 

Bobby Zagotta  It’s true. 

Matt Zahab  Wow. 

Bobby Zagotta  It’s true. I mean, I can give you kind of 60 seconds on background. So Bitstamp was founded in 2011. We’re the longest running crypto exchange today. And I was founded in Europe, and our global business is based in the UK. But we have legal entities in other jurisdictions in Europe as well, we have a very strong and growing US business. We have a little bit earlier stage Asia Pacific business, but Europe is kind of Bitstamp’s home court, if you will. And in Europe, Bitstamp is a household name. I would say in North America, we’re still kind of building it. But one of the reasons I’m happy about that footprint for Bitstamp is because the EU has adopted this MiCA regulatory framework. And from my standpoint, this is a really good, common sense regulatory framework that is specific to crypto and digital assets. It’s not trying to retrofit traditional assets or securities law or something else into the crypto space. It’s a legitimate specific and well defined framework. It’s passportable across the EU. When it comes into effect. I think mid next year. And so what’s happening is we’re getting a lot of more inbound interest from corporations in Europe than even in the US. And obviously it’s still a healthy marketplace there. That’s because corporations in Europe, whether they’re hedge funds or banks or other types of players, now have more confidence to participate. And we think that’s great, and we hope that the United States and other jurisdictions take a hint from that. 

Matt Zahab  Very interesting. I would have not known that. I mean, from the narrative standpoint, it seems like Europe is so far behind, and it seems like Europe also has very stringent rules. Maybe I’m just completely off the pulse here, or why is that narrative true? Or perhaps it isn’t true, but why would I and some of my peers perhaps would believe that narrative, I guess, is the better question. 

Bobby Zagotta  Yeah, I think that in many areas of law or society, there’s that perception about the EU being a very tough bureaucracy, let’s say, and difficult to create unified perspectives. And I’m certainly no expert on any of that. But from a crypto perspective, they have, in my opinion, just taking a strong step ahead of the US. And they’ve created clarity, or a level of clarity that will enable crypto players and other players, whether they’re just individuals or companies, to participate. And in the US. It’s still too high a degree of uncertainty. Bitstamp has always positioned itself as a compliance forward organization. We were the first crypto company to ever get a license in 2016. And we think we’ve got the most extensive regulatory footprint in the business. And that’s not because we love working with regulators as much as we just know it’s necessary for broad adoption. We know that common sense regulatory frameworks are necessary to give people confidence. I just hope the US can get there in a reasonable amount of time, otherwise the innovation is going to move to Europe or move somewhere. 

Matt Zahab  Very true. Folks we’re going to take a quick break and give a huge shout out to our sponsor of the show. And when we get back, we are going to talk about some of the bit stamp growth that we’ve seen US corporate customers up 14%, quarter over quarter, retail verifications up 12% and a bunch of other really good things moving and grooving over at Bitstamp. But until then, huge shout out to our sponsor, the show PrimeXBT. If you are a trader and you’re looking for reliable and professional market data and performance, do go check out PrimeXBT as they offer a robust trading system for both beginners and professional traders. It doesn’t matter if you’re a rookie or a vet, you can easily design and customize your layouts and widgets to best fit your trading style. PrimeXBT is also running an exclusive promotion for listeners of the Cryptonews Pod. Use the promo code CRYPTONEWS50 that’s CRYPTONEWS50 all one word to receive 50% of your deposit credited to your trading account. Again that is CRYPTONEWS50 all one word to receive 50% of your deposit credited to your trading account. Now back to the show with Bobby. Bobby, you guys have grown in a pretty bananas bear market. I absolutely love to see this. I love when when people who continue to grind see good results, especially in the bear market. It seems like everyone got the pardon my French, shit kicked out of them over the last 18 months, give or take. And you guys continue to grow. How are you guys doing this? I’m looking at the stats in front of me. General markets. You guys are moving and grooving. US. Specific markets. You guys are moving and grooving. What are you and the team doing to make sure that Bitstamp continues to grow in such a shitty time? 

Bobby Zagotta  Yeah, there’s a few things I would point to. The first one know, as I alluded to earlier, our very strong regulatory compliance and overall governance kind of reputation and footprint. So coming out of FTX and some of the SEC activities and even the banking crisis, to me, that has ushered in a flight to quality. So people being more choosy about who they partner with and why. And we’re a beneficiary of that. So our global market share has tripled, really, since the FTX prices last November or the FTX debacle. And Bitstamp is viewed as very well managed, I think. So I’ll give you one example. Bitstamp, just to give you a sense of who we are. Bitstamp made the decision this was before my time, but made the decision in 2016 to become a globally financial audited entity. And they didn’t just hire a regional accounting firm. They hired a Big Four accounting firm in 2016 to do a global financial audit. And we’ve done it every year since then. So we’re the only crypto company on the planet that can say we’ve got seven years of big four global financial audits. Now you got to think about what 2016 was like. Nobody was thinking that way in 2016. It was quite the opposite. It was more like, let’s burn the traditional financial services space to the ground. But Bitstamp has always been, let’s do it right kind of company. And because we get audited in a very rigorous way every year, we have burned in the process of doing things right. It’s what we do. So because of that, we never got much credit for it until FTX. Now everyone’s like, oh, actually, maybe this is the right model, and maybe I should care about who I partner with. Not who names the stadiums, but actually who’s got the credentials and the governance in place. So that’s a big part of the story. The other part of the story is I mentioned we’re the longest running exchange. So we’ve been through a few of these market cycles, and we have the playbook, if you will, and the playbook is essentially, obviously we manage our costs very tightly in a bear market, but we invest in the product, right? So we use this time to perfect the experience for users, both institutions and individual retail investors. And that’s where we’ve been able to maintain our onboarding we’ve improved our onboarding processes. We’ve improved every aspect of the user experience, and we just make it easier for people to participate with us. And that really helps our numbers a lot. 

Matt Zahab So refreshing to hear you’re lying about we don’t have our name on stadiums. That’s too freaking good. Oh, man, that’s too good. It’s still weird to think that the Miami Arena is FTX and Staples Center is now Crypto.com. It’s still a little weird. I don’t know. 

Bobby Zagotta  It is Super Bowl ads and things like this. I have my own kind of internal index. If there’s like a tech company in any industry, that’s one of their kind of early stage investments, I think, all right, their days are numbered. That’s my own bias, right? I could be wrong about that, but. My bias is, like, if you’re still an early stage company, you got to be focused on the product should take every dollar or not every dollar, but these are big price tag marketing investments that, in my opinion, should be plowed into the product. 

Matt Zahab  No, it’s very true as well. You guys also just partnered with BitGo. That seems like you two are a match made in heaven. I mean, two of the oldest and most reputable and trusted and audited firms in the space partnering together, that just seems like a match made in heaven. And that was announced, I believe, last week or the week before. Congrats on that. It seems pretty straightforward, but what does that partnership do for both you guys?

Bobby Zagotta  Actually, we’re a longtime partner with BitGo. They’ve been our primary custodial services provider for many years. I’m not even sure how many. But to your point, the reason that partnership came into being and is so powerful today is because they approach the marketplace like we do. They’re licensed. They’re a trust company in state of new york. They have license in other states as well. And so it enables us to deliver more confidence to the marketplace, because, first of all, there’s a little bit of separation between church and state. The exchange and the custody are separate. Generally, that’s viewed as a best practice from an overall safety and security perspective. And then secondly, they’re a licensed entity, we’re a licensed entity, and it all kind of works. Now, what we announced, and the reason that we’re really wanting to to be vocal about this right now, is they are also creating an off exchange settlement network, the Go Network. And we’re an early participant in that network, and we’re anxious for more institutions to adopt it. What that enables people to do is be extremely when I say people primarily institutions, they can realize some really great capital efficiencies by participating in trading but not having to move money off and on the exchange. So, yeah, really powerful new opportunity. There’s some other networks out there as well, which we’re looking at, but BitGo is primary for us. 

Matt Zahab  I’d love to take a quick step away from Bitstamp and just focus on Bobby for a second. While doing research for the show, I learned that you are a triathlon. And I have one buddy who just did a triathlon. Shout out my buddy Andres. He’s a sick puppy. You must be a sick puppy. That’s a compliment, by the way. Anyone who does a triathlon, I’m always like, whoa. I used to be a runner. I can run, I can throw in a pair of shoes and still put up a good 5K, 10K time. I feel like most people can bike, but doing all three, the swimming, I’m a decent athlete, and when I get in the water, that’s a whole new different beast. What went through your head the first time when you’re like, you know what, screw it. I’m going to do a triathlon. And walk me through some of the training you have to do because that can’t be fun. That’s nightmare fuel for me.Bobby, I don’t know how you do that. 

Bobby Zagotta  Well, gosh, I love to talk about this topic, and I was a runner for a long time before I ended up in the Triathlon space. But I’ll give you the straight dope here. How I ended up here was a very good friend of mine’s wife got sick and he wanted to raise money to help find a cure for her for her sickness. And he asked me to do a triathlon with him. And I couldn’t say no, of course. And I was highly motivated to help any way that I could. But I will be honest with you, I said, yes, absolutely, I will do that sign up. But in my mind I was like, holy shit. What am I going to do? I can’t swim a mile, I’ve done a dozen or so Olympic distance triathlons and I’ve done a half Iron Man distance as well. And I’ve learned a couple of things. Firstly, running is obviously a great form of exercise and mental health and has all these benefits. But what I’ve learned, as I’ve become more of a triathlon focused endurance athlete, is it’s a fairly narrow exercise compared to, like, swimming. Swimming uses so many muscles. It’s a completely different kind of workout and I really love that now. So I started hating swimming, but now swimming is my favorite and then cycling, too. Different kind of workout. That creates different kind of, what we call vo, two drain on your body. I love that it’s varied and I love that it’s always a test, it’s always a test of you. And the last thing I would say about it is, to your point about the beat down side of it, the training takes a lot of time, it just takes a lot of investment, but it’s easier to do it. Half the reason I do it is because when I have a race on the calendar, I got to do it. I do not want to drown. So it’s really motivating to get out there and work out. So, yeah, I highly encourage you to try it, Matt. Put it on the count. 

Matt Zahab My knees, I’ve torn my pretty much A to Zcls. I do not have knees, so. It’s a little difficult for me. The swimming part is actually the easiest on the knees, but yeah, anytime I run more than ten clicks, the next day my knees are the size of softballs. But another question in regards to being an endurance athlete how many sort of aha moments or how many incredible business ideas or just states of mental clarity have you achieved while being on one of these runs or bikes? Personally, I can’t see myself thinking of anything good while I’m swimming 2 miles. I think like you, I’d just be focusing on not drowning or getting eaten by a shark. But I know when I’ve gone on longer runs or walks before, I’ve had some of my most clear mental states, mental thoughts and have thought of some really good things. Have you had the same thing as me or thousands of other people? 

Bobby Zagotta  Absolutely. It’s maybe the best part of it because I think it’s so therapeutic. I think it teaches your body and your muscle memory and your head resilience because if you’re running or swimming or whatever you’re doing, it’s hard and you have to push yourself through those moments when you want to stop or you’re doubting yourself. And once you do, I feel like your mind opens to new possibilities and they come ideas or thoughts sometimes for me, it’s just a recognition of something that’s actually okay, something I was concerned about that’s actually okay, it’s going to be okay, or what have you. And swimming is very, then it’s all technique. It’s all technique so you have something to think about all the time. But then there’s that other part of your brain that starts to operate. It’s a great observation. I really love that side of it. 

Matt Zahab  I’ve never gotten into flow state while swimming before. I don’t think I ever will and I’m a swimmer. My grandparents had a pool growing up and I spent a lot of time there, so I’m a good swimmer. But, yeah, I definitely don’t have a good enough stroke. Yeah, I’m usually focusing on breathing. You got to come out here. I know you got the perfect one. I’d love to jump into the hot take factory Bobby segment on the show where we let a couple of hot takes fly. It doesn’t have to be crypto related. Can be health, wealth, happiness, something super spicy like politics, AI, space. But is there anything that’s really getting you going at the current moment? 

Bobby Zagotta  Well, this is going to sound absolutely overused at this moment, right? But this AI thing is just continuing to fascinate me and I’ve just scratched the surface. I’ve just been playing around with it a little bit, reading about it, and it’s just quite amazing what’s possible here. I think we think about the Hollywood side of it and robots and the Matrix and whatnot, but it’s the mundane things that I think are so easily transformed in a very value added way. Obviously, this whole topic has a lot of risk attached to it and it needs to be managed in a smart way. But I’ll give you an example. We at this sample, we have a learn center. So, again, as I mentioned, trying to make it very easy for individuals to be educated so that they can participate with confidence if they choose to. And so we have a learn center. We have several hundred of articles up there that tell you anything from what does MultiChain mean to who is CZ to a whole wealth of information. And we generate we grind out all of that content. It’s a lot of work and AI or ChatGPT is one example that doesn’t replace us in terms of creating it, but it gives us a significant leg up. We haven’t done this yet, but we’re experimenting with it. Because if we can get an 80% solution for a piece of content and then bring our expertise to bear on that, first of all, make sure it’s correct, but also to bring it home for the reader. That’s an incredible efficiency and that’s mundane. That’s not like, take over the world or be autonomous. I’m quite fascinated with that and just can’t underestimate the potential impact on day to day lives. 

Matt Zahab  It’s so cool. I have a friend of mine who I set up. I’m again spending all my free time AI related as well. I have a friend of mine who I just set up no Free Ads. So I’m not going to give the name of the software because I would like to partner with them and sell for them, sell their product because it’s so good. But I’m sure you sent your thousands of Cold emails back in the day. I’m sure you still send Cold emails. There is a couple of different pieces of AI software that find your end clients and do the hardest part of a Cold email, which is make it non generic. So it would scrape everything Bobby Zagotta related on the internet and it would go pick a beautiful subject line and go, hey, Bobby, this is, you know, Matt’s water company. We think you should drink more water because and then it would go, because you’re the CEO of Bitstamp, which obviously everyone can find, but you’re also an ultramarathon runner and have ran these marathons and have participated in these triathlons. It auto fills all the data on the person, too. I was blown away. I actually got one, and when I got it, I contacted the company and I was like, how the hell did you guys do this CEO took me through a demo. Again, no free ads. Can’t give him a shout out, but absolute craziness. One other topic, probably the most trendy topic right now is this. And this is way above my pay grade. I’m not a science guy. But this new semiconductor, I’m sure you’ve seen this ZP 99, or whatever it’s called. Have you seen this craziness going on with that? 

Bobby Zagotta  I have. The numbers are just staggering. 

Matt Zahab  It’s looking legit, too, by the way. Again, we’re still very early, but it’s looking like for the listeners at home, this is the equivalent of almost like discovering fire. Like it’s that crazy. 

Bobby Zagotta  Yeah. I can’t even pretend to understand all the ramifications and implications of it. But just looking at the sheer scale of what is possible on a chip is absolutely game changing. But I got a couple of others. Do you want two more? 

Matt Zahab  Yeah, please. 

Bobby Zagotta  So I don’t know where I got this idea, but I read it somewhere and I’ve started doing it and it’s been so awesome. Which is I take one meeting a day on a walk, right? So as many of us are, my schedule is pretty full and I’m going from meeting to meeting. Most of them are remote. So I take one on my phone, put in my AirPods, go for a walk for 30 minutes or 45 minutes. I’m not trying to work out per se, but putting your body in motion brings about some of what we were talking about. Kind of clears your head. The person you’re talking to also, they’re like, wow, I want to do that. I think it’s just very healthy. It feels healthy and it leads to better conversations, I think. So super in at that right now. 

Matt Zahab  I do that every morning. Eight to Nine, I go for a walk downtown Toronto at the harbor front. And it’s a great way to start the day. We’re in kilometers, not miles, but again, my hour meeting is usually between 5 and 6 km. What’s that? 3, 4 miles kind of thing? I look at my watch and I’m like, oh, I just burned 200 calories, got 5000 steps in and walked 5 km. It’s the absolute best. You and I are in the same yacht with that one. What’s number three? 

Bobby Zagotta  Oh, the next one is I’m in nature at the moment, and there’s something incredibly centering about it. And I live in the city, I live in Chicago, and I love it there. But there’s something very center about staring at water, breathing different air, walking through a forest. It used to be like recreation, but now for me, it’s like critical, necessary for kind of mind and body health. That’s my other hot take. 

Matt Zahab  It’s prescribed. The doc prescribes that Bobby must spend X amount of time at the lake house per year. I love that. I am jealous of your background I must say. I’m very grateful for my beautiful view of Toronto right now. Rogers center CN tower, Lake Ontario. But I would do bad things to be where you are, my friend. But Bobby, this has been an absolute treat. Thank you so much for coming on. Had a blast, learned a ton. Can’t wait for round two. Before we let you go, can you please let our listeners know where they can find you and Bitstamp online and on socials? 

Bobby Zagotta  Yeah, that’s basically it @BobbyZagotta @Bitstamp we’re on Twitter and LinkedIn a lot and all the other usual suspects. Or I should say X. 

Matt Zahab  Yes, I guess we’ll conclude with that. Do you believe in Musky’s vision? You think he’s going to turn this into not only the global town square, but a global payment network or whatever the heck he has planned? 

Bobby Zagotta  All I can say about that is I wouldn’t count him out. 

Matt Zahab  Yeah, don’t bet against that, man. 

Bobby Zagotta  Yeah, I wouldn’t count him out. The vision seems not intuitive for me, but I’m not an expert on the Twitter business. But like I said, I wouldn’t count him out. He seems to find a ways to innovate in meaningful ways. 

Matt Zahab  Yeah, he’s the man. I’m a betting man, and that is one man that I would never bet against. Elon, we’d still love to have you on the show if you’re listening, by the way, I’m positive that you’d make a great guest and I’d dig up some good dirt on you. But Bobby really appreciate your time. This was an absolute treat. Learned a ton and can’t wait for round two. Thanks for coming on. 

Bobby Zagotta  Oh, thank you, Matt. It’s been a blast. 

Matt Zahab  Folks what an episode with Bobby Zagotta US CEO and Chief Commercial Officer at Bitstamp, told some great stories, dropped tons of knowledge bombs and had some good hot takes as well. We’d love to see that. As always, I will include everything Bobby and Bitstamp related in the show notes. If you guys enjoyed this one, I hope you did, please do subscribe. To the team love you guys. Thank you so much for everything. Justas, my amazing sound editor, appreciate you as always, you are the man. And to the listeners, love you guys. Keep on growing those bags and keep on staying healthy, wealthy and happy. Bye for now, and we’ll talk soon. 

The Information contained in or provided from or through this website is not intended to be and does not constitute financial advice, investment advice, trading advice, or any other advice.

New Post has been published on https://crynotifier.com/bobby-zagotta-us-ceo-of-bitstamp-us-crypto-regulation-banking-crisis-web3-innovation-ep-257-htm/

[vergess]

I’ve decided to read the Job Action changes to avoid thinking abotu quarantine and starvation and I gotta say?

EVERYTHING ABOUT SCHOLAR IS LOOKING SEXY! AS! HELL!!!!!

I can’t even decide what’s my favourite part.

Is it:

Physick potency up (like way up, like comparable to Benefic now up)

Aetherflow gives 2k MP instead of 1k

Energy drain potency up

Energy drain cooldown shortened to DPS oGCD weaving levels

Adlo potency up

Catalyze AND galvanize are still there and BOTH stronger

Art of War potency up

Biolysis potency up

Broil IV potency is bananas

Art of War TWO!!!! STILL LOVE THAT!!!!

HP up thanks to Protraction implying the weird chiropractic references in the quests are officially included in the design of the class now

Ex! Ped! I! Ent! Expedient!!!!

They really did see my absurdly autistic obsession with SCH and say, “yes, we’re going to give THIS SPECIFIC PERSON everything they could ever have dreamed up AND MORE”

I’m losing my mind.

This is amazing.

I can’t cope with how GOOD THIS IS!!!

WOOOOOO!!!!!

Text link because tumblr makes offsite links not show up in tags: https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/jobguide/scholar/

#FFXIV #Endwalker spoilers #Job action spoilers #Scholar Rework #SCH #FFXIV Scholar #EVERYTHING I EVER WANTED AND MORE #THANK YOU DEV TEAM YOU BEAUTIFUL BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE