Wizard Wednesday Recap, 2024-06-05

As the show gets started, Elf, Dotta, Tadmajor, Entropy, and Bearsnake kick off with introductions.

Dotta, Bear, & Entropy Return

"Bet on Cults"

Dotta is back from time with family, Entropy is healing from COVID, and Bearsnake returns from Consensus in Austin, TX. Bear shares information about an upcoming trip with Elf.

Dialectic's Summer Jam & Elf's Upcoming Holiday

Bearsnake notes that he and Elf will be taking a trip to Europe and joining a Dialectic “Summer Jam.” He recounts a story of Dialectic “fat fingering 80 ETH instead of 8 ETH” but the rest was returned “and that’s how the friendship started.” Bear says that Dialectic are big holders in Forgotten Runes and were a part of leading the Runiverse Land Sale in 2022 with Alexis Ohanian.

He says during Dialectic’s Summer Jam, he and Elf will be having talks and making deals. Bear mentions Elf will also be taking a vacation. Elf says this will be his first vacation in 2 years, and says the team might have some announcements to make once everyone has returned.

Cult Questions

He also notes the morning of the show was crazy and so he didn’t have much prepared for the show. He asks what everyone wants to talk about. Elf says that the Secret Tower has been quiet and hasn’t received many questions from the Cult.

Comic Book Storage

Forgotten Runes Issue #1 Foil Variant

He says the only question is from MeepleDad, who asks what the team what they store their comic books in. Elf says he just stores them on his bookshelf.

Dotta says that he has ordered bags and boards for his Forgotten Runes comics. Bear says that he wants to get some issued graded. Entropy notes that he was able to find hard plastic covers for the comics at his local shop which are more heavy-duty to protect his foil issues.

ChatGPT In the Book of Lore

Elf then receives more questions from the Secret Tower, beginning with a question about his feelings on the Book of Lore becoming filled with AI work from ChatGPT. He says he loves this topic and has spoken on it before. Elf cautions against creating a Dead Runiverse filled with AI. He continues by encouraging people to use AI tools minimally as an assistant.

“Don’t just press a button, generate content, and put it in the Book of Lore.”

Dotta says, “We’ve been over this a lot of times.” He says it’s a bigger issue between AI, human, quality, and canon.

Ongoing Discussions In the Secret Tower

Gate to the Seventh Realm

Dotta notes a question from Bill Gains to the team asking about their thoughts on discussions from the day in the Secret Tower:

• Community bounty board

• In-house Wizzypedia librarian

• Information about the opening of the Gate to the Seventh Realm

Dotta says that he wants to implement more incentivizing and curation systems for Lore. He speaks about Token Curated Registries, which he explains as a way to use crypto to "stake their value" to vouch for a piece of content. Dotta also speaks about Lore Points as a topic of discussion in the past months. He says the team is still thinking of a system like that—a system that encourages good Lore and curation while collecting project Lore that may not make it to the Book of Lore. Dotta says the Book of Lore needs updates, edits, and refreshes to make it easier to use. However, he also points out that much of the Lore in the Runiverse happens outside of the Book of Lore—on Twitter, Discord, etc.

Dotta says that breaking down processes of writing to the Book of Lore into incentivized tasks is something crypto is perfectly positioned to do, and something the team is looking into. For example: One Wizard shares an image, another uploads it to Wizzypedia, both are rewarded.

Elf says that he's glad Dotta has come to his side on dead Runiverse theory. Dotta says he believes they differ in opinion at the deepest level, saying that he thinks Elf values human creation where Dotta values human curation. Elf says he thinks he is more of a humanist.

Magic Machine's Favorite Genres of Music

Another question comes in from community member Slim, who asks for the teams' favorite genres of music. Bear says it's impossible to answer because it depends on the vibe of the moment, but he has been listening to Hip Hop and Rock. Elf guesses that Dotta's favorite genre would be Jazz. Dotta says he loves Jazz, but if you hung out in his office through the day you would hear a wide variety of music.

Elf just says, "EDC—high five Jitcy."

The Roles of the Runes

Then, community member Ponyboy asks how the Wizards and Warriors get their Runes. Elf says they are assigned by the Icosahedron that spins eternally in the Secret Tower. This is the Generator that embodies randomness—resembling the D20. The Runes may be blessings or curses.

On Wizzypedia

Inkwell From the Athenaeum

Dotta circles back to the idea of a community bounty board. He thinks this is a great idea, and on the topic of Wizzypedia, says it used to be open to all, but it was quickly inundated with spam. He says those who want things to be different on Wizzypedia should get an account.

Madotsuki takes the stage to also speak about Wizzypedia, noting that he normally adds content in waves and may not have to time to properly tag things. He says he thinks this is a problem throughout, where orphaned pages are floating without any other links or categorization. Elf says that he loves the Wizzypedia, but notes his own difficulty with using the MediaWiki tools. Mado agrees that they are "pretty jank," and says there is a learning curve. He says he thinks most of the time he spends on Wizzypedia is formatting content to look nice.

Why Wizzypedia When the Book of Lore Exists?

Elf addresses a question he often gets about the need for Wizzypedia when the Book of Lore exists. He says the Book of Lore is more for Character biographies, where the Wizzypedia is more for general information about the world of the Runiverse. Elf says that he writes in the Wizzypedia often, and notes that it's a good place to find metalore about the Forgotten Runiverse world. He says that he sees a correlation between how big a franchise is and the size of its wiki.

Dotta says that there are frustrations with MediaWiki, the base for Wizzypedia, but says that there aren't many options, and it would be unwise to move something so important to a platform that is owned by someone else. He also lauds MediaWiki's "database functionality" support.

Forgotten Runiverse MMORPG

Forgotten Runiverse Map Collage

Dotta steers the conversation to the Runiverse game after mentioning discourse in the Sales chat in the Discord earlier in the morning of the show. He addresses delays by noting there are "dependencies" on announcements that have yet to be announced. Dotta says that if there was a production build for the Runiverse game, the team would have made mention of that, but this isn't the case. The next 1-2 builds are ready and announcements are planned by the end of June.

"I think it will make quite a splash in crypto Twitter."

Bearsnake says the proof will be in the pudding and he predicts that the Forgotten Runiverse will be one of the top games in Web3 by the end of the year.

Kendrick Wiz-ard, Community Updates With Tad, Goblin Lore, & the Cult Content Chronicle

Then, he recounts a story of picking avocados with Kendrick Lamar at a mutual friend's farm. Madotsuki asks if Kendrick Lamar would be a Wizard or a Warrior. Bear says he thinks Kendrick is definitely a Wizard, and notes that he's "not just talking about lambos and dumb shit...in a world where hip hop isn't going in the right direction, he's a Wizard."

Community Updates With Tad

Tadmajor then joins to give some news from community:

Tad notes that the Runes card game tournament wrapped up on Saturday with Melon taking the win. He also says that he is gathering art to upload to Wizzypedia, and gives an open call for others to send him Runiverse art. Tadmajor also notes that the only proposal in the past month has also passed—NFTSasha's text-based MUD. Following that, Ponyboy shares some great Goblin voice work for the Lore of one of his Warriors.

Cult Content

As the show winds down, the team review the Cult Content Chronicle! The Chronicle is a collection of art from the past week within the Forgotten Runes community aggregated every week by Tania del Rio.

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