Podcast 139: Star Atlas Weekly Review

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Podcast Transcript

[00:00:00] Hi, this is Matt with Intergalactic Caral. Welcome to my start list Week in Review podcast. This is podcast number 139. Any articles or videos mentioned can be found on my website@intergalacticharald.com. Just for weekly recap, newsletter 187. I made it through the intro, but I would admit I am sick.

[00:00:19] So you may hear my voice sound terrible, could cough, may need to drink some water. So I apologize for all of those things in in advance. Also this podcast is delayed. I had everything ready to go. Did a family trip, a day trip with my daughter on Saturday. Came home sick and have been sick pretty much ever since then.

[00:00:42] So this is being recorded on a Thursday. Thought it was just a bad cold on a fluke. Took a COVID test. It turns out I got COVID D and I remember a few years ago getting it and pretty much knocking me out for a week. Seems like I’m, slowly recovering. And part of the reason I decided to do this podcast is I had done all the preparation to record it.

[00:01:04] And just normally I do it on Saturdays, but since I had a family event planned, so anyways but I’ll make this one a little bit shorter in the sense that I won’t. Do all my kind of normal reminders of things like check out my website at Inter Herald Merch store community and things like that.

[00:01:21] And I’ll just get into the content because one like I said, I did do the preparation for it. So anyway, so let’s just get into the content. Mainly this podcast, which again, now is almost a week and a half old content was some, posts that were posted in the foundation room, which I thought were very insightful.

[00:01:38] Addition to that the week that this one is, the week in review, there was an Atlas Brew highlights from that was the IRS Blessings campaign, which is a six month community effort. Again, listen to the Atlas Brew or my AI recap. Pretty sure that, yeah, that exists. Sorry, I can’t remember what I did a week ago.

[00:01:58] They also mentioned that zinc testing was going very well, and they’re a interested in adding more testers. But again, this is almost a week old information now, and they did give a equip couple whole sim updates that the big key was improving their reliability and performance and that.

[00:02:14] Chapter two actually have some MPCs. So a new feature there. The week prior there was a lore keepers. I didn’t listen to it nor my AI recap, but both exist the Atla Brew and the lore keepers. You can star OS tv has the full recordings. Anyways. So without any further ado, let’s get into the meat of this, which was the foundation room post.

[00:02:40] Again, I’m gonna always state this to make sure I’m covering myself, but Foundation Room is the special discord Chat channel that is read only except for certain people who, for whatever reason, qualified over time. I think there’s actually criteria somewhere, but, anyways but it is public so people can read it.

[00:03:00] I’ve been working on getting a, feed of this information. But again, just one of those things that hasn’t happened yet, but I did find a week ago actually probably a week and a half ago for some of these messages, there was two sets of messages I found really interesting from replies to community questions from different people.

[00:03:19] If you’re interested in that, I’ll reference you there ’cause I guess it’s public, but I’m, again, I’m just gonna reference the replies and a little bit of a summary of what the questions were. Because again, I do think they were very insightful for kind of star atlas development and things like that.

[00:03:36] So one of the first questions had some information about, excuse me, about the Phantom star bases, but actually I didn’t find that the most interesting part of it. But how the future, so I’ll just read as is and then I’ll give you some my thoughts on it and then do a couple more of these.

[00:03:53] And that’s. Probably it for this podcast. So anyway, so Michael Wagner’s, CO replied back, oh, hey, I have a date. So on October 11th, if you want to go and skim that if you have access to the discord. He said quoting as best I can do if my brain doesn’t keep connecting dots. So first sorry.

[00:04:11] So the quote is first I’m. Quote, sorry, quote. First, I am hearing about additional phantom star bases hasn’t come up any of our internal econ calls either like we just theory crafting with the community. We’re happy to dialogue with you all to determine if there are any low lift opportunities to improve SAGE for the existing player base, but it honestly seems unlikely to me based on every idea we’ve come up with and assessed against time slash resources investment.

[00:04:43] C four PTR, and again, I always forget what PTR stands for, but what’s, I’m pretty sure it’s the. The testing phase and zinc are both on the horizon. My best recommendation is not to get too hung up on Sage for now and get excited, prepared for what’s coming next. Anyway, so my thoughts on that again is I think it’s becoming more and more clear that regardless of.

[00:05:06] What’s going on in sage? Pros, cons, whatever. The team is totally focused on C four and now the zinc. And as I mentioned on previous podcasts, it had been mentioned that C four will run with zinc. So zinc to me is a dependency and must come out first. So we’ll see where all that goes. Michael Wagner goes on to say and no, I won’t share any dates, but the zinc user dashboard and Z profile registration along with the airdrop campaign plus s each.

[00:05:33] Sage C four are both our highest engineering priorities, but since I haven’t leaked anything in a long time, I’ll share that the zinc platform is currently testing with community testers, so it’s approaching launch. That next section, of course was the, I think, big revelation, which is officially.

[00:05:52] Unofficially, the zinc platform is currently testing and is approaching the launch, so launch of the zinc platform. I haven’t listened to the Atlas Brew that happened yesterday. Hopefully be filling up for that on a typical Friday night. So we’ll see if any information has come out again.

[00:06:10] So even though this podcast is occurring later than normal, for all intents and purposes, this is the. Linear process that I go through to create those. So anyway, zinc platform approaching launch. Then there was a another question that related to, faction fleet may be going away or it would, sorry.

[00:06:31] The question was, would the faction fleet going away, bring in more players? And Michael Wagner replied back to that post that he said, I don’t have a ton of confidence about prior migration from faction fleet. That’s why we introduced tutorial videos for the migration. I wasn’t aware there was tutorial reveals, but to be honest, I’m not in fraction fleet anymore.

[00:06:51] Interesting. That’s cool. He then goes on to say, at a minimum we’d like to see people list their fleets, or sorry, list their assets on fleet rentals. There is a real arrest that if we deprecate faction fleet, that people will dump, just dump their assets instead of making the migration. As of right now, I think the soonest we’ll discontinue faction fleet is when we roll out C four on main net.

[00:07:12] So there is a major release to incentivize move. Okay, so my thoughts on this like I said, I didn’t realize there was a migration video, but that’s awesome. It exists and probably ’cause I haven’t gone into faction fleet since I moved all my ships over to the sage. I also concur that deprecating it or getting rid of faction fleet, there’s really, nothing’s broke, not taking any time.

[00:07:35] Anybody who’s still gaining things from it are passive and that seems fine. I also really like the idea if you’re gonna take something away, you gotta give somebody an alternative. And fleet rentals for all their hope of that being the thing doesn’t seem to have occurred. As I mentioned in my past couple podcasts, I stopped playing Sage because of all the salono fees and waiting for Zinc.

[00:07:57] I was toying with going to Fleet rentals. But to be honest, the time it would take to figure it out again, it’s just these aren’t. These aren’t the gameplay loops I was hoping for. They all make sense I think, on strategy on how to continue the game development. But renting my fleets, they’re mine.

[00:08:15] I want to use them. So I know you could say I’m losing. Resources now, or Atlas or whatever, and I’m like, yeah I’ve spent all my money already buying the things years ago. So I, again but it takes time and I, it’s just not time I want to spend on something that isn’t my long-term plan.

[00:08:32] So anyway, so I did the fact that people have been bringing it up about faction fleet for a long time. And again we keep getting answers. You can. Interpret those results or answer however you want. So then, yes. And then there was one more. This was I think a few days later and hence later in the week.

[00:08:53] And it was, I actually, I didn’t write down the original question, so I don’t know. So it is a very long reply from Michael Wagner. I think regardless of not having the original question, the answer can stand on its own. I’ll just start reading. I’ll try not to editorialize until done, just ’cause it is a very long post.

[00:09:12] But hence the length and the content was why I wanted to share on my podcast. So again, to quote Michael Wagner I don’t necessarily share your confidence that we’re going into a bear market or that the bear market will last four years as it has in the past. I personally think market structure has and is changing considerably as the industry matures and that we’ve seen major institutional adoption in the space.

[00:09:35] However, we don’t really make decisions based on estimates of the market cycle, though naturally those estimates are incorporated as a data point into strategy discussions. However, we wouldn’t hold back a future release because we don’t think the market is in a good spot. For example. The larger point I would like to make, however, is that the product we are building in gaming is intended intended was italicized to be relative immune.

[00:10:00] To the market cycle, giving a mature product, gamers will game. Whether Bitcoin or Atlas is up for up or down, that is a separate demographic from the core web. Three natives that are in Star Atlas today. We do not intend to be constrained to appear crypto native indefinitely. We need to expand beyond that audience into the mainstream, which is why a product like Hal Sim can be so powerful alongside the free to play modes.

[00:10:28] Within ue. Now I can share some thoughts on why I’m overall optimistic. Point one, zinc dashboard and air airdrop. Season kickoff is imminent. Imminent was italicized. Sage C four PTR, and main net launch two x updates to UUE before the end of the year. Halim chapter two, release. And in terms of revenue schemes, they are numerous game asset sales.

[00:11:03] I don’t by any means rule this out, and in fact, Z Zinc could be a driver for primary market sales because it earns ZXB subscription services, both Holliston Battle Pass and Zinc Premium reoccurring cash flows from Telco and sales. Also note zinc could. Italicized be a considerable driver for purchase demand given Theron weighting of ZXP possibility, also italicized zinc token sales.

[00:11:36] Those are all beyond any potential to attract investment in either. Tima, the name of the company, zinc and the Sale of Validator License for Zinc. So there are many opportunities. Many was bold ahead of us. We are invested. We’ve invested massive resources and time into the upcoming product and feature releases.

[00:11:58] The Star Atlas brand is insanely valuable ip. We’re heavily diversified in both revenue streams and product suite. We don’t have any intention of being beholden to crypto market cycles. Okay. There was a lot to unpack there. The first paragraph talking about for bear market and things like that.

[00:12:17] I I don’t I don’t understand all that. Sorry. That’s blockchain stuff, just like markets stock market and things like that. But I think Michael Agner made clear that future releases will come regardless of where they are in the market. Second paragraph was, that the purpose of Star Atlas is always to build a gaming platform.

[00:12:36] Just happened to have crypto and blockchain things and that gamers are more interested in games as opposed to the price of Bitcoin or Atlas. But the current player base or demographic in Star Atlas today is more interested in crypto and things like that. So I think, oh, but the big point.

[00:12:55] Was that he said to expand the audience, it definitely needs move in the mainstream. So I have always thought this makes a ton of sense. You build we could look at Tesla. They built the Roadster for people who had a hundred thousand dollars to buy a sports car and eventually they wanted to get to the model three.

[00:13:13] That was much more of a consumer, and you can pro and con of Tesla as a company, you fund by. Putting out a premium product to get to your mainstream product. Totally makes sense. From a business standpoint to me. On the bullet 0.1 things that Michael Ner is optimistic on, again reiterating that z the zinc airdrop kickoff is intimate.

[00:13:37] So again. This is good. We’ve been talking about C four launch, or PTR again called beta launch main net launch for a while. Interesting. You mentioned two more upgrades to UE five before the end of the year and the HOL sim chapter two, which again seems to have only been delayed because of reliability and performance problems that.

[00:13:59] Or the cause of a rough launch on the chapter one. So I really think that information is great to tell the community. It definitely makes us optimistic for things coming. I’ll put a little personal note whether or not all these come before the end of the year. Again, we’ll see. I think, uE five seems more likely. They’ve been on a pretty good cadence all year long, releasing things. Halim two chapter two seems like just literally until it’s ready and this time, it needs to be ready. And so I think the team understands that. And I think the zinc has been the thing that got everybody excited after the start last summer.

[00:14:37] And it’s just taken longer and that’s fine. Guess. If the date has never been mentioned, this would feel quite natural. And then as I mentioned before, I think it’s become very clear now that zinc is n necessary for C four, which also makes sense. So anyway, so that’s there, the next bullet terms that he mentioned were revenue streams and.

[00:15:00] I guess we’ve always known the game assets are their primary thing revenue stream, even though they’re doing other things, subscription services. Makes sense. I don’t remember the zinc premium. It’s been just too many months since that. But the battle pass got people to purchase. Now the reoccurring cash flows from token sales.

[00:15:19] Yeah I don’t know if he’s referring to Atlas and Polis token sales or the zinc token sales or all three of them. Partly too, I’m really not up on what’s Z xp. And again, it’s, I’m just haven’t been following zinc and. What was mentioned is a couple months outdated, so I just don’t have memories of that.

[00:15:40] Actually, here’s an interesting thing. He says, reoccurring cash flows from token sales is one bullet point and then a second, or the fourth bullet point is a possibility. Zinc token sales. So I would assume maybe there’s some thing about buying Atlas and polis again I’m, I just don’t remember.

[00:16:02] And then the final one was the revenue streams from direct investment and things like that. So I think what was really great about this entire post here was one a reminder that Star Atlas is a brand has potential as a gaming platform to grow. It’s this original promise still is intriguing to me, which had been here years sooner.

[00:16:22] But whatever. But other people may find it interesting who haven’t been following it for four or five years. They have invested resources and time. The upcoming product in res again the Hall Sim, chapter two, UE five Sage. Excuse me, zinc yeah, those are a very strong, product goal to reach.

[00:16:44] And they have been developing on most of those all year long. Holim is a product. It’s just still being refined, and UE five is definitely maturing. Sage C four. If as large as the announcements at the start out summer with the editor with claim stakes, with ha crafting habs council rank, which hasn’t gotten a lot of attention and combat.

[00:17:10] Which if it’s anything like what’s in Hal Sim could be. Incredible. For those who want to participate in combat, I’m not sure I’m one of those, but that’s a different thing. And then the whole promise of zinc. Yeah. So I found I guess to wrap this up, ’cause I’m babbling now, I realized these are, I think were some great posts.

[00:17:27] Really appreciate Mike Wagner sharing this with the community. Thankful that now the foundation room is accessible to anyone who can join Discord. Hence why I’m wanted to share because I do think this helps with, call it a mid. Mid-quarter or I guess mid half year, quarter if star, our summer was the middle.

[00:17:46] And Christmas will be the quiet time. Having something here in the middle of October to kinda remind us of what the goals are. The next couple months I think was really great. I wanted to make sure to get share that with my audience and things like that. So thanks very much for listening. I’ll just skip over the ending ’cause my voice is starting to go again.

[00:18:03] Thanks very much for listening. This was Matt with Inter Herald. Have a short, good week ahead and hope you don’t get sick with COVID anytime soon. Take care all.