Space Tomatoes & Sir Knight - Dragons, Origin Stories, Subways, and Scaffolding

0:00 hey everybody welcome to the space tomatoes podcast this is your host lx460 and my co-host mr havoc hello havoc hey there hey bud so uh today we have a another special guest we've got lots of good guests on here um from one of the chats that we have on the gaming community uh a sir knight welcome thank you very much how are you today i'm doing good it's a beautiful sunday morning absolutely actually it's afternoon by now but whatever technicalities glad to have you here glad you showed up appreciate it yeah exciting yeah so we we know each other from a game chat other than that we we really uh i don't i don't know if we've ever played uh any games together um well technically yes like the beginning of my career was before you officially retired okay so like i started playing in july or august of 2019 i want to say so i i got involved with some random team like most people do like you get to like i think level seven or ten and they say hey join a team so you just kind of pick something at random not realizing

1:31 good or bad and i realized i picked a team that was dead and there was nothing going on within like a day or two and i was like really active in the game because i was trying to find a like an outlet to just get my mind off of things in life and like i'm like this game looks cool then i download it and it's oh my god this is nothing like the advertisement of course they They never are, are they? Oh, this one, War Dragons was really off base on a lot of reasons, because it made it seem like you can customize this and that, and you can't customize anything, like, other than your lineup. Whatever. I still liked it. It had dragons. What could there be bad about dragons burning things down? Right. Let's be honest.

2:13 So I started playing, and then I found, like, I was looking for a team, and I looked for the, like, the highest-ranking team that set me at my, like, I was, like, level 19. yeah it wasn't even level 20 yet and i was like all right i found a team and i applied to it and lo and behold for some stupid reason they accepted this tiny little player um and it was like the best move for them and me in the long run it was uh men of honor which i played like most of my time with it was like not a very big team it was a small team that stayed in platinum three most of the time um and then they became like a rising star sort of say because like I shot up rather quickly. Everyone kept surprised how big I was.

2:53 I'd show up in chats and in-game. They're like, wow, you grow fast. I'm like, this is not normal? They're like, no, no, it's not. Because I really like the game. And so I want to say it was before COVID, around December, I got asked to start running raids for the Alliance Sinister, which was one of the bigger alliances at least power wise allegedly on the dread side of things and then from there I started climbing up within like my own team I was became an officer and like I became super close with my leader you know may she rest in peace Linda she was an awesome awesome lady and I kind of became like super close with her to the point like where in chats I would refer to her as mama and she would refer to me as son and everyone thought we actually were you know that was our relationship. They were like oh it's so cool you played with your mom like yeah she's the best and I didn't let anyone like get the sway to that then I started then I started dealing with more on like the higher level of Sinister with raids like for the lower level teams of Sinister like the teams of Platinum and then eventually I got on core somehow I mean, I applied, so it wasn't really a big mystery, but I kind of got which Cora is like one of the leaders that volunteer their time for some stupid reason in this game.

4:20 And then Dredd stepped down from the game shortly thereafter. I joined Cora. It was like a few weeks in. So that was all sorts of interesting stuff. Nice. Nice. So you started probably a lot later than a lot of people did. That you've been talking to? Absolutely. I mean some of these people you're talking to were like the stars of the game when I was just starting and I was like seeing their names on leaderboards and this and that and you know I'm still playing they're not How did you find out about it was it like an advertisement that caught your eye or I think it was I think it was just some random advertisement and I was just looking for games just to like get out of things in real life just for a few minutes here and there um you know something happened and i'm not going into details there but i needed some kind of like way to just veg out like in my free time type stuff um i i don't remember exactly if i was searching for dragon games or i found a random ad or i was playing another game and this game showed up as an ad and that game i deleted because i didn't like most i was playing games maybe like a few days and deleting them this game kind of caught my attention and then i got well like with most people this game you get close to the people in the game itself right and that's really how it gets its hooks into you yeah no no the game itself sucks let's be honest it's very repetitive um the innovations they the the pg makes are really not great they haven't

5:55 come out with anything new or decent and i don't even know how many years like and even in the new dragons they make it just rehashes of old ones like it's nothing the creativity of the game has gone downhill quite a bit since i've been playing but it was it was the people on the team of men honor that really got me into it like some of them were no longer here and then also like in my own house like a lot of the people that was like taught me took me under their wing quote unquote like they all retired at this point and like it's just kind of like huh and i'm still here I play still mostly because of people from Men of Honor. Like, we closed the team, unfortunately, because I just saw, like, recruitment was horrible.

6:39 And I couldn't keep a team going. So I merged my team with two other teams. And I stay because of the players that came with me. So you're currently still playing the game then, right? I mean, technically, I log in about, like, once every day or two. I mean, I try to do points at events. I probably should get points now that I'm thinking of it. This is pretty interesting to me because if you had asked me 15 minutes ago, I would have said that Sir Knight is one of the older players in the group and has been around since I can remember, which is weird. Like, I must have some weird mind blink for a couple of years, a few years before.

7:22 You know, I got close with some people really quickly. like i got close with ghost through an in-game chat originally and then when i became part of sinister um you were part like in that watering hole chat too with from uh legacy and so was ghost and like you know because i became friends i was friends with ghost like our friendship grew like when we were both leaders of different alliances just because we like dealing with each other when we have problems with each other, it's usually easy to talk to each other since we're already friends. And then I think my friendship grew through Ghost to you too, just like being friendly with Ghost. And like, it just, like it is, like a lot of people, like, I don't know what level I am right now. I'm somewhere in the mid 600s, um, 660 something, I don't even know. But like a lot shot up really quickly very early on i i set a very ambitious goal before i before a year in i want to be at harbinger and i i met it i i got it like a few months before i was a year into the game i got that goal so it's like i i enjoyed the game and i pushed because i wanted to help protect my own team because i had all these big monsters coming and like my team wasn't very big So I pushed myself.

8:46 And because of that, Linda, she trusted me with a lot of the team that she didn't trust a lot of other officers, especially since her health wasn't the best. I mean, she ended up passing away in January of last year, a few days before her birthday. But, you know, which was a really big, tough moment for me. She was the main reason why I kept playing. She was my game mom. And like, and like, I would wish her happy Mother's Day and not just like, oh, because you're a mom. Like it was like I would send her personalized ones that like from me. Yeah. She would she would refer to me as her sixth son. That's awesome. It's amazing how you do actually get so close to people in the game.

9:29 And we were just talking about how how we how we even knew you from from the chat that we're in. And, you know, the common denominator was it was ghosts. You have a way to pull people together. remember saying you know a friend of ghosts is a friend of ours is and that's pretty much how it happened but yeah it's kind of networking in the game to make you know friends like that too so i network really naturally just how i am um at one point i was doing a job called the job developer which is basically like a recruiter type thing but i worked for a non-profit and i got jobs from my clients that's basically the difference between that and recruiting because i didn't get bonuses or anything like that or because we didn't charge for it um and when i was on and after my training like and like i was a little cohort of like three or four guys of you know they're trying to see who would work out who wouldn't type stuff and after the training you know we would our manager like or our supervisor whatever you want to call him he would come with us to sites and like you know i whatever and he mentioned and i brought him to an old boss of mine because i was trying to get one of our guys placed there and when he met the guy he's like talking with him and he when he hit my boss says like so how is he doing so far that's my my supervisor like he's doing great i don't know what's with him but some people call it networking he seems just breathe like we have a client that needs x y g c services like that this is their background

11:05 in work and all i know is i say okay who knows someone and all i know is he's starting to flip through his phone and within an hour he has like two or three interviews set up for the guy already nice nice very nice so you've been playing what six years now has it been a full six uh august will be six years awesome i think yeah i think it was 2019 what league are you playing in now uh so we fluctuate between p1 and s3 it's a good company so the my the first season i played was when the first invoker came like i came at the very end of that season was that one was that that wasn't was that namaka no yeah it was namaka i remember that one well i i just remember being the first one it was the only one that like people considered good right no i i used that one extensively for for quite a long time yeah everyone had such high hopes for that dragon since like that was so good and then most of the other ones didn't really pan out quite so well.

12:22 Yeah, summer 2019. I'm looking at the Neon site. Skorpa, Meglock, Dirth, Firefin, Namaka, and Cheloith. Cheloithin? I don't know. Cheloith. Oh, Cheloithin. That was that weird looking... Yeah, that was... Namaka was made unuseful again. I had to go back to Warriors. It wasn't a bad thing. Yeah, so Yeah, I was right when I said 19. Wow, it feels like so long ago. I know, time flies, right? I could never find Invokers I always hated that time between the super and waiting for your ammo to reload I love Invokers when they a good one There's some of them that were really, really a lot of fun to play.

13:10 It's just they're not good at Atlas meta because of that gap between when you do that super shot and you're waiting for it to recharge, most of the time means you're deaf because everyone knows that and unless you had really good spells to block stuff it was a done deal like there's very few that were actual in my opinion i would consider viable like in meta like zahak was was it zahak something like that it was it was a lineage one and that one was a beast until they nerfed it and namaka i think was probably one of the longest lived outside of like how is that uh longest lived dragons in the game i mean how is that still takes that place right you can still see well i mean the top player technically if you want to be there it's probably um hasin uh not not hasin um what's his name shoot it's a old dragon yeah hasat yeah i i still occasionally see people i mean it's an old meta of like setting up the base but it's more like showing you hey this jacket still do it type of stuff yeah well and it certainly can right it doesn't fit the current game meta but you know how we we all just called it how can come in and disable a base and you can watch like you know and i don't know if ember can still

14:41 do it, but my guess is if ruined and geared correctly, yes. I don't think Ember could still do it because Ember was struggling on a few tiers ago. But there's other dragons that have that same type of spell that you could just unload it on and not have any issues. Just need death gaze after that. There's nothing you can do. You just sit there and watch it happen. There's literally nothing you can do. Best you can do is try to heal it in time so it doesn't kill it in one shot But the next shot is dead anyway. I mean, how many memes were there where, I set up the base for you. Why are you following the sorcerer?

15:22 Yeah, exactly. Yeah, but as far as the kind of more current meta goes, most dragons are two seasons. Maybe you can eek a third out of it, but Namaka was like six plus seasons where people were just. Yeah. Was it that long really Yeah it was It was at least a year Before I don't remember it was six seasons But it was definitely three or four Yeah I remember it Yeah I'm pretty certain I remember six seasons It depends on the flyer right It's the same with Howe Howe is at 99.999% Of the players Just can't flyer correct i mean especially nowadays people don't even bother because the it's not current meta so why bother i mastered it enough to be able to say ah i can do it but like the meta the meta was changing and like it it wasn't like set up bases were still a thing but it wasn't what it was like the war like when i started war was already the seven uh flames so you you need to do at least 70 of the base to get the full thing so like that's that's where the sub dragon really died was on that 70 change before that where you're you can just set up the base and the guy after you can just demolish it from you know zero to a hundred and you get the fall the full flames

16:57 I think that's one of the biggest and worst changes War Dragons did in changing the meta, besides Atlas speed. Yeah, no, I'd agree with that. I miss... That was one of the things that I agree. I think it just changed the game so fundamentally, and what the dragons were purposed for, and created these, you know, essentially every dragon now has to be some form of a tank, right? because now it's speed how fast can i get through and i have to hit at least 70 solo and that's the thing the thing i loved was setting up right setting up a base there was you know there was a very distinct art to it timing everything else had to be perfect and uh you know the hunter dragons in of old were glass cannons is what everyone called them because they you know it didn't take more than one maybe you know two two well-placed you know shots on that thing and it's it's dead yeah no no it's them changing that and the need for speed really it changed the meta in a huge very quickly very quickly i remember once like even after the meta change oh what was that there was an evoker that did this like black smoke screen as a super shot Let me see if I can find its name quickly.

18:24 But it... Like, there is these two, like... I think they were, like, gold-level dragons. Like, it was green and gold, and they took out, like, Odin's base because of this. Oh, wow. In regular game. It was a regular game, but they still, like... You know, Odin was an end-game player, and you have these two guys just basically, like, taking it apart, like, rather quickly. I don't remember what the name of the dragon was. Dros, that was it. Yeah, it was a block on invokers. I just hated them. It was the worst place. Why? It came out at the same time as Lockjaw and Hawzine.

19:06 So, like, that dragon kind of... It wasn't... It wasn't the festive dragon. It wasn't the discount dragon. So everyone just ignored it. Which is common in Warc Dragons. If it's not a mythic and it's not, then there's a discount or festive, you know, features. I mean, most of the festive dragons are just a means to get to the draconic chest these days anyway. Yeah. Very cool. So, I mean, if you don't mind me asking, if it's not a question you want to answer, that's totally cool. But where about in the world do you live? I live in the wonderful city of New York City.

19:47 I am in Brooklyn. okay i thought i heard that earlier you said i think the word was taught and uh it kind of came across i was like hmm that sounds new yorkish yeah i have a few words left from my new york accent um when i was younger i was doing acting and my acting coach really beat out most of my local accents, some words kind of crept back in as I stopped acting. Like taut, chocolate, dog. Yep, there it is. Those few words give away my accent.

20:30 But other than that, it's ecomplacent pretty much anywhere in America. For years, they did telemarketing. They're like, where are you from? I'm like, take a guess. And no one ever guessed. because I stayed away from those words. When you're doing telemarketing, how often are you going to use those words? Awesome. So what's your favorite thing to do outside of gaming in your life, like daily life? My life's really busy. That's why I only have these two weird time slots on Sunday for this because every day is kind of like its own hecticness and Sunday is like just the only day I have time for this kind of stuff.

21:13 So I'm pretty active in doing Krav Maga. I've been doing that almost as long as War Dragons at this point. Corona kind of put a huge applause on it for a while because I couldn't really do anything. And from then, I got into Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu a little bit. I also did Muay Thai for a little bit, then boxing, and a few other things. but like I had a shoulder injury and then Corona happened. So like my, my coach left here and then coach left there. And then like with Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, the place I was going moved to a location that's just not convenient to get to for me. So like after my injury, when it got better, like when they, and I heard they moved, like it wasn't worth it for me to go follow them because it just wasn't near like, so the thing with New York city, most people like myself don't actually own cars, which is probably weird to anyone else listening to this.

22:07 I think people, some people do own cars. Like I have some friends with cars, but like, it's more annoying because street parking and you have street sweeping and like alternative side parking and all these rules. So unless you really have a need for it, you're not going to get it. And besides the fact that insurance is just ridiculously expensive in Brooklyn on top of that. And so I take the subway or the bus most places, because that's where my wife revolves around. and the location of the of my jiu-jitsu gym originally was real was right on the same track as me from my subway and then they moved to another one so for me to go there even though it's like roughly the same distance from my own home i would have to take like three trains to get there and it would take like an hour and a half each way and it's just like to me didn't make it worth it that's a long ride yeah i actually have a colleague well i have a lot of them but a kind of a friend that uh i worked with for a while and he's in new york and his patch is new york city and well that in connecticut but uh he uh i was asking him about that whole thing as well because i was there with someone else and they're like oh yeah i'll rent a car and we can go do this and i was like what's wrong with your car and they were like i don't have one and so i i asked him at one point and he said, yeah, most people just don't do it. It's, it's too much of a pain, like you said, right. Parking, et cetera. And then I'm like, well, you do. Right. And he

23:42 goes, yeah, but you know, I kind of want to have my own vehicle. And then he goes down the road and he's, you know, telling me a little bit more about this. And he goes, yeah, I'm almost done with my, my, uh, my loan on my parking space. And I'm like, you're what? He's like, yeah, I took out a mortgage on a parking space and I'm like a mortgage. He's like, yeah. And apparently it was, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars for his parking space, but he, it was in Penn Plaza, I guess. So, oh, no, that makes sense. Yeah. Considering where he's located. Absolutely. That makes 100% sense. Like there's an old, there's an old joke.

24:23 There's this guy sitting between these two ranchers, a short little skinny guy, and these two ranchers were talking. One of them's saying the fact that he can ride his car for three hours without going from one edge of the property to another. The guy's like, wow. And the other guy's like, yeah, I have so many oil rigs that if you start counting them, it's going to take you a day to count all the oil rigs I have in my property. And the little guy sitting between them, he says, I own an apartment that is 5,000 square feet upper east side Manhattan. And if anyone knows, it's probably worth more than those two farms combined. Oh, yeah, I'm sure. 5,000 is pretty big there.

25:06 Yeah, yeah. That's like three floors probably. Right, right. that's the joke is the fact that it's just so expensive that this tiny little property that fits in some backyards and some of these other things yeah no it's it's definitely that was also a big problem with corona was the fact that everyone's stuck in these tiny little apartments in new york yeah i can't imagine that i mean out here we had all our property i mean to be honest corona you know where where i live anyway it was not much changed right? So where I live personally in the area I'm in, it didn't change very much the local supermarket's only allowed certain people certain amount of people to come in at once so the market that's right around the corner of my house quite literally or my home whatever same thing to me it a small market so they only allowed so many people in so i would have to go further walking to like the big market where like because it was so big and we'll walk in but i was in office because my company was essential um so it was just like the office was didn't have any people to begin with but like it was just me and my supervisor and we're the only ones who came in everyone else was quote unquote working remotely which meant mostly doing nothing and like for me like my life really didn't change much because like i cooked i cleaned and like i just and like instead of being in my apartment like

26:37 sometimes we'd be just hanging outside like right outside my door and talking to my other neighbors because you know that's what we do and like we people don't want to go to like in my own building in my neighborhood people didn't care about going too close to each other but you weren't allowed to seen being close to each other so like you can just stand on your doorway and with a chair or sit there and you can schmooze with the person because the next apartment's really not that far and you have your socialization face to face without masks and the subways were really nice because like if there was one other person in the subway car with me it was a lot like and if i got on the subway cart and they were like in the same part of the subway cart they would go walk to the other end like they didn't want to be near me so i thought it was great and awesome like you you never had the subways running so smoothly so nicely so clean i was there in a for the first time i'd been in new york city it was in a right in the beginning of 2020 right before like the covid thing happened and then them subways were packed when i was on there like yes standing room only and like you know like you're pressed together and I mean there's areas that the subways are more tight I've seen videos of the ones in Japan where they got those guys with batons really pushing you into the subways yeah it wasn't quite that bad but close no too far off yeah it's it's it's it's interesting I had the guy the guy that was really angry at me because I

28:09 wouldn't open like the fire escape thing to let him through and I'm like I'm not doing that you know like I don't know what the ins and outs of this thing is, but he was pretty mad. Yeah, if you just step aside and let him do it, he'll probably do it himself. I wasn't doing it. I bought my little card thing to get on there, and I put it through the turnstile and was walking in. He's like, open that gate. And I'm like, oh, that gate. Yeah, those people I ignore. I did have one guy asking me for money, and I'm like probably the worst person to ask for money. And I'm like, dude, I don't have any money. He got mad at me. I had quite the harrowing experience with the New York train system. Well, it started in Connecticut.

28:52 And I was there with my colleague. And he's, you know, the guy in New York that I was referencing earlier. Anyway, he's like, we get to the train station. He's like, okay, so you're just going to get on this train. You're going to go do this, this, this. And I'm like, what? He's like, yeah, I'm going the other way. I'm going to go meet my family up in New Hampshire, wherever they were going. I don't know. And so he's, he's like, okay, from Connecticut, you just take the Xela express and go down. That'll take you to Penn station. You go from Penn station, go down to the LIRR, get on your train from there. And I had to go to JFK. And he goes, just get on that and take it to Jamaica station.

29:35 Then walk up steps, get on the air tram, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, completely. I can remember Excella. That's about all I remember at this point. Easy peasy, man. Actually, that's an easy, smooth trip. He wasn't even telling you the fact that from Penn Station, chop on the A, go up a few stops and get on the tram there because it's all sorts of more fun. Oh, well, so he leaves and this train comes pulling up and it's not on time. And there's like, you know, a few trains listed right in that same time range. And I go up to one of the conductor dudes on the platform. I'm like, is this the Acceler Express? And he looked at me like I had two heads.

30:15 And I was like, no, really, I need to go. Is this the train I get on? He just, like, looked at me again, turned around and started walking the other way. Doors closed and the thing goes. And meanwhile, my battery on my phone at the time is, like, at, you know, 12% or something. I'm like, oh, I'm in so trouble. so I call up my my friend and he's like okay just take the next train and it's going to take you into Grand Central or whatever it is and because from there you'll be able to go down get on the loop to Penn and from loop to Penn you know giving me all this stuff anyway if it weren't for the police there I would have been complete I would have missed my flight and I would have been totally lost but you know I get down there and it's funny I get there and I'm like okay so this place is massive i mean it's massive and there's just if you've never taken trains before this is 20 airports all stacked on top of each other and that's what you're dealing with right and so i'm like which grand central you mean or pen grand grand central pens just really grand central to me yeah no grand central grand central is like a thing on itself there's so many levels and so many areas to it exactly i hate going to grand central well i didn't anything he tried to get it so i didn't go there but i ended up there yeah yeah no no i asked one of the cops i'm like okay so where do i go i need to go to penn station he's like oh you just go right down here and and you'll be fine just get on the train down there so i go down and a train

31:50 goes by i'm standing on the tracks and goes by on the right side going you know forward and i'm like okay it stopped and i wasn't sure right because there's two sides and then like a few minutes later the train comes in this way and it's going that way what do i do i run back up find another cop i'm like guy told me to go down here and he goes oh it's a loop so the train will go this way and then it'll come back around it'll come this way and then i'll go back around so got on that got to got to uh uh long island or got to pen and then went down to the long ireland railroad railroad and uh i think that's what it is larr yeah and it's just this long hallway of just all these tracks all the way along the way so finally found where i needed to go and and with some help but i asked another officer i'm like okay so what do i do from here and he goes okay and you're going to go down here.

32:49 This is where you're going to want to be. Great directions, by the way. Very helpful. And he says, no matter what you do when you get off at Jamaica Station, do not walk down any stairs. He goes, if you're not walking upstairs, you're going the wrong way. And he goes, so just stay going upstairs. And I'm completely confused about why this, you know, why is this such a big deal on the stairs? Do not, I'm very, very, very adamant. Do not go down the stairs. You pull into Jamaica station, you get a real quick rude awakening of exactly why going down the stairs is a very bad idea. So if you've ever seen like the, the projects on like a movie, you know, with like the gangster side of New York or whatever it is, that's where this is.

33:40 Jamaica is not that bad. There's worse train stations. Oh, I'm sure. Well, not the train station. He was saying don't go off the platform. No, I'm saying there's worse train stations to get off the platform at. Oh, all right. Well, for me being completely carrying my roller board and my backpack and everything, he was like, yeah, you're not going to have a good time there. Yeah, New York's an interesting place. Like, where I live is perfectly fine and safe. but if you go about five blocks one direction about seven blocks another direction it's completely different completely different and it's just funny like i was talking to a co-worker that just moved to new york and like i was explaining my area and like they're like why is it so different like is there a wall i'm like no there's no wall they're like why don't those people cross over and get problems where you live then i'm like you know what partly it's the police partly it's like safety patrols that live in the area and partly there's just an invisible fence.

34:44 They'll stick out like a sore thumb and whatever they're doing is going to get caught real easily. So unless they have a reason, they don't want to be here either. Makes sense. It's just funny. It's literally just blocks. It's not that far. And by blocks, I mean walkable things, not probably things that you guys have of blocks. Well, yeah. I mean, a country block can be quite a long long way to the next crossroad. Yeah, let's say you're somewhere in the south, I believe in the middle of nowhere. North Carolina, middle of nowhere. Loving it every day. I couldn't remember if it was north or south. And Alex, you're in like northern Florida, yeah? Central Florida, yeah.

35:28 Okay, fine. Still away from southern Florida where it's busy. Oh, it's way too hot down there. Yeah, I have family down there. I hate visiting them in the summer. Ampik's laughing. He's like, man, it's hot where you are. What are you talking about? It's like three degrees warmer down south or something. I don't know. It is. It's also more humid down south. That makes a big difference in Florida. That humidity in the Miami area versus central Florida, night and day. I mean, I live in New York City where it's humid. Florida is a wonderful place from about October to March Is air conditioning pretty widespread now?

36:10 Do most people have air conditioning in New York now? Yeah, yeah Especially in the city, the summers are brutal I mean, it's not as hot as Florida But we do get our 90 plus days And 90% humidity Take a look at a map, we're surrounded by water It's very easy to forget but we are surrounded by water. A lot of New York, especially from my understanding anyway, like Brooklyn and those types of areas where, what do they call them, brownstone or whatever, but the building essentially, I think a lot of has happened probably in the last 20 years on air conditioning with mini splits.

36:59 Before that, there's no... Less time than 20 years. The mini splits have really dominated, I'd say, less than 10 years. Okay. They started about 20 years ago, but, like, really where they took off and, like, you'll see in, like, everyone's homes would be, like, 10 years or less is where they really just, like, boomed. Yeah. Before that, people were choosing window units a lot of times. Exactly. And that's what I was going to say. There's no way you can go in there. You know, it's all stone infrastructure, so you can't, like, add in, you know, ducting and stuff like that. Space is a seriously real commodity. It's not just that. Yeah, but it's not just the stone.

37:39 Even the newer buildings that got built in the 80s, which were not stone. The apartment buildings, the infrastructure wasn't put in for it. And to start building it after the fact, the brownstone, some of those were built for a pretty long ago. AC wasn't even a thought. But like some of those places, plumbing wasn't a fault when they first built some of them. Still got an outhouse, huh? No, but I mean, they probably did at one point, but I'm joking a little bit. I didn't grow up in the city. I grew up in the suburbs of New York City and Long Island. So it was a very big culture shock to move to the city and have no space.

38:23 And your neighbors, like your walls are touching each other quite literally. Like the attached buildings and semi-attached if you're lucky. You know, it's a little bit weird growing up one way. Maybe you can answer. So when I went to the city, the thing I noticed, first of all, is there's scaffolds everywhere. I'm like, what is the deal with the scaffolds? They're like nonstop. We like to look. It's artwork. Right? No So very often the outside of buildings need renovations of one reason or another and so that where the scaffolding comes in It could be windows being installed and you have to do parts insulation inside and outside the building or it could be just the outside exterior of the wall which is like the EFIS it called and some newer buildings, instead of brickwork, it's stucco work.

39:19 So you have to rework that. And even the older buildings, which is real stone, over time things go on it and they have to do renovations of it. And these buildings are big. Yeah, they are very big. I really can't describe it because I've never been anywhere in the world that have so many big buildings that are this close to each other all the time. And, I mean, the scaffolding sometimes is nice because, like, when it's raining, you have something to duck under. Yeah. And it rains, like, when it rains hard, it rains really hard here. Like, at least, I mean, not compared to some other areas, but, like, just for us, you're getting drenched.

40:02 Oh, yeah. Yeah. So you haven't ever been to, like, Sao Paulo, Brazil, or Mexico City? uh no mexico i was only in like resort areas for work purposes yeah um those cabo tijuana those cities give you like i always thought the same thing my first time in new york i was just like wow and and my mind really couldn't comprehend that there was something bigger than that you know like there's more city than this this is huge you know i mean literally as far as you could see it's is buildings. And then, you know, boom, I was in Mexico City, and it was just, you know, I'm sitting there on like the 27th floor of this building. And as far as I can see from that high up, there is nothing, nothing but just towering buildings. And then the same thing in Sao Paulo, just as far as you can see, it's just, it's mind boggling. What people also don't realize about New York City is Each borough is really its own thing and has a very different feel to it.

41:09 Manhattan, which is like the king of skyscrapers, even though Brooklyn, we do have a fair share of them, but nothing beats Manhattan for us. It's confined to an island. People don't really – you can't expand more because it's an island, and if it wasn't on an island, Manhattan would probably be the size of those two other cities easily. but because it's an island and like so like in bronx is to the north and it's and that's the only thing that's actually attached to mainland america is the bronx everything else is islands you know you have staten island which kind of gets ignored by most people in the city because it's own thing um and then brooklyn and queens are are on the physical long island on the west end of it like it's all islands and just everywhere like you taking bridges and tolls is normal if you got to leave it is it is pretty cool to see last time i was there it's been a few years now um and and i know that there was one for staten island i think it was but you know um like you said nobody really pays attention or goes there so um but it seems like they put more trams in like large capacity trams like from you know across the river etc yeah they're they're There is some stuff.

42:28 I don't really know so much about the transport between the Staten Island and the rest of us. Because I only go there usually because it's a drive-through to get through Jersey and the rest of the world. Right. So that's like most New Yorkers. By New Yorkers, I mean people from New York City area. That's their view of Staten Island. It's a way to get through to the rest of the country if you're driving. Yeah. and you know we don't think it started in jersey because being a new yorker you just technically don't like jersey because it's jersey it seems to be i mean seems to be almost universal though to be honest so when your whole state is a suburb of new york city or philadelphia or both depending where you're living i don't know if you really can call yourself a state that's hilarious so hey Was War Dragons the first mobile game you ever played, or was it just an add-on?

43:27 No, this was the first game I played more than a week or two, maybe a month in, that caught my attention and kept me in. I played a few other random games. Some of them, I don't even remember the names of them, but mostly a lot of them had to do with dragons. I like dragons. I'm a big fantasy fan of reading. I devoured I devoured the Dragonriders of Pern series I mean like most people in this community who have an obsession with dragons most people picked up one of those books at some point oh yeah that was a great series I remember reading them when I was gosh I must have been oh geez 14, 15 or something like that so just about 10 years ago something like that We'll go with 10.

44:19 Did you know that there's a War Dragons book? No way. There is? Yeah. Are you kidding me? Yeah. Yeah. When the game first started, they had these couple guys. They actually had them on the stream. A novelization of the mobile game War Dragons. That's funny. Take all the lore and make a story out of it? Yeah. Actually, the first great contest, like the one where the original Dread Avatar, there was like six teams that won their own avatar. And they had a mention in the book that was part of it. But it's called War Dragons All Things Must Burn. I heard it was pretty kind of not good, but I don't know.

45:01 You can download it free on like Kindle or something. I'm not that interested. Yeah. So I have one question for you, Alex. So that Dread symbol that's on every single PvP, like the island that pops up for PvP, was that put there for Dread or did Dread take that from that? I think the banner you can just choose when you create a team, but I'm not really sure. No, I'm not saying the banner. The island that pops up. The island that pops up, you know where your home is, your base, right? where your end buildings are? Where that gold throne thing is?

45:44 Yeah, that was put in there. That was part of that contest thing. That was the second great contest or whatever they call it. I wasn't sure if that was from... Did you guys take it from that? Or did the company before PG put it in for you guys because you won something? No, PG put it in there. That was based on that second avatar. Got it. yeah there were six of those great events or something uh two two real big ones the the first one they gave out six avatars um i don't remember ld and and dread and and knees royal road and japanese that was the second one yeah that was the second one the first one um i think eq got one besides Dread, EQ got one.

46:36 Lethal Ascent, or Ancient's Ascent? There's... I don't know. I don't remember them all. Yeah, that would be Ancient's Ascent. Yeah. Lethal was later on where they were really... I just don't, in the beginning days, don't recall Lethal Descent being really anything that anyone had heard of, you know? But they came up pretty quick and came up pretty hard. Yeah, no, I like those avatars. I mean, that was part of the appeal. Yeah, no, the avatars at one point were really good. Yeah, that Dread avatar, man, that thing is just amazing. I used to just look at it, choose a player and look.

47:18 I'm like, oh, I want that. And it was just intimidating to see when a player came up and you saw that avatar from them. Even if they weren't on Dread at the time, you still looked at it and went yeah you got that from being there and from winning that contest so this is yeah no so like i remember at one point someone in my t5 was an alt for not like a major big dread player i don't remember who it was but their account was on dread and like it was the first time someone in dread dropped on my castle to defend it um because like this player's alt was my T5.

47:59 So he saw the fact we needed help. His alt couldn't handle it. So he brought in his main account and all of a sudden everyone that was attacking us vanished. He didn't have time to attack them all. They just saw it dreaded there. I thought they felt like there would be more coming because they saw more of those lines coming in. It was just people from my own house coming to help us. Alright. It was funny. The reality of the situation and just very close parallel to our real world. Don't touch the people with nukes. Yeah.

48:40 Yeah. Even though I feel that there's probably bigger bombs and worse things than nukes these days. Yeah. But the analogy is the same. Don't mess with people with bigger guns than you. There you go. and that's why I like to be friends with Havoc yeah you don't have nothing to worry about in New York the guns aren't allowed there right so you don't have to worry about that no that's not true at all it's just very hard to legally have one but it's not Chicago where it is illegal like if you go to my neighborhood you'll see plenty of stores that have signs that says that there is legal concealed carry on the premises you'll even see it in front of some homes too it's harder to get here than a lot of other places but it's not impossible it's not very permissive I go with some friends that I don't own one myself because I just don't feel it's worth the headaches getting it but I go with friends of mine who go to shooting ranges and because they have their permit I can shoot with them so i i go regularly like uh probably not regularly for your guys standards but for me i go like every month or two i go to range and shoot handguns with them it's fun very cool so plan for the rest of your day um after this i have some errands to run and laundry to do and all that fun stuff um and i usually like i'm an mba i'm in an mba program so i'm usually sundays

50:17 is the day I do all my textbook reading. But this summer, I'm not taking any classes because they didn't offer anything that I can take that I need. So I have a little bit more time today. But later tonight, I will be doing my Krav Maga. Havoc's at that age. He's probably thinking about a nap. I don't nap well. But yeah, maybe. I've been going through this weird thing. I've always had kind of insomnia. And now I have kind of like some weird thing going on where I'm tired very early, but I get up extremely early, right? I think it's called being old. Maybe. It could be. But, you know, normally, like for me, about seven hours is about the max.

50:58 You know, sometimes I'll hit eight hours, but not normally. So somewhere between six and seven hours is pretty normal for me. So I've been waking up at like 5.30 in the morning and, you know, get tired around, you know, 10, 10.30 or something. so that's that's late man um you make fun of me because i'm on chicken time i get up when the chickens get up and i go to bed when the chickens go to bed yeah i'm different than both of you i'm usually up way too late and getting up way too early from out of sleep i'm getting yeah that would that's been me my whole life literally i i would be up till 3 3 34 in the morning and then get up at 7 38 and and that's it you know i'm usually up between 6 30 and 7 Yeah, for me it just changed and I don't know why. It's weird. But hey, alright, I'll take it I guess.

51:53 Yeah, you'll figure it out. I have some things I can do before work that I have to do each day. So I take care of that and then I go to work and But I'm usually, I aim for bed o'clock to be at bed by like 11. I'd say seven days a week, I'd probably hit it maybe half a day. Nice, nice, nice. Yeah. So you're still playing on this meeting? I call myself semi-retired because I don't play very much, especially when I was playing far more. Sinister doesn't really need much attention.

52:33 So even though I'm still on core, I'm probably by far the longest serving member ever of core at this point. There's not much going on in alliances, like, other than friendly fire occasionally. And I'm personally of, like, who gives a crap? Unless, you know, they did something really a lot. And I'm like, can you just go talk to them, tell them, hey, go look it up. But sometimes they want gold. And so it's like, it's mostly that more than anything else with mega alliances. They're pretty much dead in my opinion. Yeah, no, they really are. I think I remember SF used to be one of the places that was like, oh my gosh, again, friendly fire. It's like, what did you lose?

53:14 Oh, 4,000 troops. It's like, really? You're here in like the big chat telling people they need to compensate over 4,000 troops. and, you know, maybe just let it be like, all right, I got some glory, they got some glory, and life moves on. It was just annoying if some team came and bubbled you for no reason, like they shouldn't. Well, yeah, no. Obviously, that's a different case, right? But, I mean, we got a lot of the, you know, oh, they attacked my prim and took 4,000 or 6,000 troops. Yeah, no, that was a lot of it.

53:55 I couldn't stand that. But where my strengths were with dealing with Core was really reaching out to other alliances because when I was at Core, we had some rough personalities. No. Yeah, yeah, believe it or not. Like they really cared about Sinister, and they put Sinister first above anything else. So they kind of like nicked everyone else here and there. And I usually try to smooth things out because I'm pretty much a people person. And I'm pretty good at dealing with different personalities and smoothing things out. So my always tactic was when negotiations were going south with another alliance, I was like, well, you can talk to me or you can talk too, and I'll make a list of the people I can talk to.

54:39 And usually nine out of ten times they chose to stay with me. Yeah. Yeah, hopefully you didn't have to deal with my shenanigans too often. You know, Flail was who I dealt with or Ghost with Legacy back in the day. I don't know if she's still playing or not, but she was awesome. Yeah. No, she was awesome. And, yeah, no, I just, you know, I would get in the other area, and I guess I'd maybe I rubbed people wrong. sometimes and then the other cases i just really don't i'm not going to like uh i guess i don't really care who you are you know everyone deserves a bit of respect and if you're not willing to give that i don't really care who you are what team you're on what anything you know and so no back when you were in on your your legacy advisor sinister and legacy were pretty good with each other yeah yeah we were for the most part there were we we there were there was times where things got a little rough but we we coordinated well we worked well together when we didn't when we did cross the line stuff and it usually worked out pretty well oh yeah no overall it worked really well these were this was more individual personality of usual right no no no i i we don't name names but I can probably make a list of within seconds.

56:11 Yeah, exactly. There's everywhere. Yeah, you know the people. That's it right there, right on the nose. Yeah, man. Yeah, no, no, no. I'm not trying to batten out if they're talking about it or smack because, one, they're not here to defend themselves. But there were some heated moments for sure because people cared about their certain things and they put their priorities and really ignored anything that wasn't them. Or what they were trying to accomplish. Which when I put that in perspective and tried talking to them, I got more accomplished because I realized that they're not a bad person. And by bad person, I mean they're not purposely trying to be jerks to the teams I represent.

56:56 They just have a goal that's different than mine. And when there's a conflict in goal, you're going to have this eruption when people care a lot about a stupid pixel castle. yep absolutely and that's that's what really baffled my mind when i put that in perspective of me mentally like these are pixels that you're arguing about like and we're adults allegedly that's that's awesome that you can see it from the other side like that i i don't always have that skill i was never utilized in the diplomatic purposes well because um no offense when you on Dread you didn really need diplomacy Yeah no no they did They just did I was just never part of that Dread was probably more mired in diplomacy than anyone That was my point, was the fact that when you're on Dread, King Dread did all the diplomacy.

57:52 That was my point. It wasn't that the team didn't need it. His players didn't need it. It was between him and Flighty that did all the diplomacy. and they were if anything else they were brilliant tacticians of dealing with teams and getting teams to get along who would not normally get along partly out of fear of them but it was partly respect too I had a lot of respect and when you, Alex, when you and was it Kroch? Kroch, yeah when you guys had that podcast with Kingdread and Flighty after the retirement of Dread.

58:32 It was really mind-blowing just to see the... Well, not see, but at least listen to the people that were behind this and just the whole progression. It was really cool. Maybe we have to see about getting it back on. See what they've been doing for the last... It's been almost, what, four years now? Three years? Four years? It's probably more. I think it's closer to five. Has it been that long? Yeah, because I got on core like when i got on core is when everything went to the crud on the mega lion side because like when dread stopped stepped down it was like oh crap what are you gonna do like are we gonna stay together not stay together and then it was like okay we'll stay together and like we'll wait on dom to see who's gonna be the new and then like that was like no we don't want anything to do with you people anymore which was hit or miss true like in hindsight they did do some things but not quite on the level dread did and they did their own ways and then they had their own infighting and whatever that's not me to say it's just like an outsider looking in on that stuff but like from my point of view it's like oh crap i just got appointed to lead this alliance which is doing really well with all these other alliances and now the dad is stepping away who kept order yeah you kind of it was one of those uh let's let's do the diplomacy thing unless you would like some character building yeah yeah yeah and like i even saw it a few times when like the little bit i was

1:00:06 in that that chat with all the other alliances um and i saw dread a few times and he didn't even use named dread he had like a different name of the line um i think it was terris lancaster or something that which was an old player name of his but like i don't even know who this guy was like i'm like who is this guy and like then i've read and chat more i'm like oh okay that's king dread himself like oh okay now i see why when he says stuff people just like listen because like he's worked with them for years and they respect him and like yeah you know and he he had he had his way and he was really good at managing those egos in that chat no he's definitely talented yeah no no it's it's very talented and the reason why i'm able to see this outside thing is because the various jobs and i've had i've had to deal with a lot of different personalities and like i've done management when you're managing people like i don't care what area you're working on your people skills have to be top notch and that's in my opinion it's more important than being really good at your job is being good with people and managing them because you have egos and you have issues and personality conflicts and to be able to see these things before they erupt and diffuse them beforehand really makes a huge difference i need to get some lessons from you on the side there it's it's also like it comes back into like like i've mentioned a few times krav maga it's an israeli martial art that's was originally designed for the military and it's gone

1:01:40 to like the civilian world and it's not the same like civilian and military like attack styles very different because you know we have laws of self-defense that you don't want to cross and in the military you don't have these things like if you you know disable the guy by breaking his arm no big deal because who's going to yell at you um whereas in the street you don't have that ability and what they really drill into more than anything else at least the school i go to the teachers there is is being aware of situations and de-escalation and like yes we do train hard like when it comes to the combat and the the defenses and chokes and bear hugs and all those things uh weapons bits coming at you um but they really really really harp in into like chaos going on like when you're sparring with your partner they'll make a close quarter so you're going to be bound bump into the pair next to you and you have to be socially aware to not bump into them because and also like where this de-escalation comes in talking it out like noticing the telltale signs of body language and things like that and the psychology behind the things like someone going to attack with a knife versus someone holding a knife to you if they're going to attack you they're going to attack you if they're holding a knife to you they want something else so you can negotiate with them you can talk to them they want your wallet 90 of the time so give them your wallet and throw it the other way and then run like that a that a lot of it is just in you know living in new york city um i had to walk through some rather unsavory neighborhoods especially i was living in long

1:03:20 island because like the subway was much quicker to go this way and i was working late at night and i would it was about two blocks out of walk from the subway to the long island railroad and it's probably one of the out of the crossings for long island it's probably not the smartest place to be walking at night especially when you're short like me and you know not very intimidating looking um and i never had any problems like someone someone i i know is like they're like you walk there every night i'm like yeah like like at night i'm like yeah it's like it's like i worked there for two months i got mugged three times i never had any problems because it's about how you hold yourself it's watching what's around you being aware that this guy's coming up to you and you look them in the eyes and they when they notice that they're not interested in hard targets they're looking for easy targets and it's the same thing with online games like they're behind a keyboard but you can still see you know body language we can see the language and you can see when they start getting aggressive and because they're behind their keyboard and screen they're probably more willing to amp things up quicker than they would in the conversation in person no without question yeah i mean like i've the bullying the intimidation i've seen like through through these pixels is mind-blowing to me that people can behave like that and you know i always treated the screen as like talking to someone face-to-face like i want to treat them respectfully and well and that's probably why i'm relatively well liked even by like my quote

1:04:53 unquote enemies i have a number of friends and enemy alliances enemy teams that i've built really good friendships we don't talk about the game at all but it's come in handy too like the current meta war dragons is more on a personal level than it is on any alliance level um i was having a problem with an enemy team because they kept hitting my castles and like i was friends with the leader for years like nothing to the war dragons just strictly through line chats and i hit them up and i'm like you know are you is there purposeful targeting like what's going on she's like oh no you guys are just good glory for us and like i put one castle on she says but like i noticed my officers put five more of your castles on and so like i i report like this is my new team so i talked to my leader and said look i spoke to the leader like reach out to her and she put like in an in-game chat like to hey can you talk to your leader because we're trying to negotiate and that team felt like oh gosh we did something we shouldn't so they took us off their list completely we moved to chat the line and because i was friends with this person we were able to have a good communication of good laughs and we have a good like we attack each other still occasionally but it's nothing crazy like five or six of your castles being bubbled overnight because you're sleeping like it's it's all good fun like you're like people trying to have fun and enjoy it and you know you don't have to ruin it i mean there are plenty of people who want to ruin it and and like dissolve teams and, you know, but at this point, in my opinion, that's just more harm to the game than anything else.

1:06:25 Yeah, no doubt. It's dwindling a bit. So, um, we're getting close to wrapping things up here. Um, we, we like to ask one question. Um, you probably know what's coming, but if you had one person, only one person that you could shout out from the word out dragons community, who would it be? You know, I knew this question was coming because I've heard it from the other podcasts I listen to. I'm not quite sure who I'd want to shout out to. I mean, it's tough. I have a lot of really... You gotta answer that. Yeah, I know, I know, I know. And I can't pick Linda since she's no longer living.

1:07:07 Actually, no, I'm gonna go with Linda. Dragon Queen 928. She'll get my shout out. Awesome. What team was she leading? Men of Honor. Men of Honor. Awesome. Yeah, that was the team that took me under the wing for most of my career until our merge out. So, I mean, technically I've been on three teams. I don't know if I can count the first team since I was on it for like literally three days, maybe less. So I've been on like all these years, six years and two teams. I think it's not so bad. Nice. And if I can't shout out to Linda, I don't know who else I'll shout out to because I would probably annoy people if I didn't shout out to them. So I'm just going to stick with Linda.

1:07:47 that's awesome man it's your shout out you can shout out whoever you want and if they're annoyed well they can always leave a comment below and tell them hey comment either way if you're happy or not comment smash that like button hit subscribe or don't whatever yeah we don't I have one question for you guys before wrapping up you may have covered it and I don't say I watch all your podcasts I just watch random ones or listen to them because I listen to them while working a lot um how'd you come up with the name space tomatoes that was me um not surprised so i had an i had someone make some some uh avatars for me and uh i just told him go off and do something you think is fitting um i'm into gardening alexis as well but i'm into gardening and and at the time was posting a lot of photos about you know of my gardens and and the you know the harvest and things of that nature and they came up with this thing because I also you know I guess kind of you know just an interesting character all around a bit spacey in in general as far as just being broad topic etc so they came up with one which was an astronaut growing tomatoes in space and i ended up using it for a presentation at work at one point basically saying go do the impossible

1:09:23 grow your tomatoes in space and so when thinking about a name you know i don't think either lx or I wanted this to be exclusively war dragons, right? And I was trying to think of something, you know, what speaks to broad, generalized, just random weirdness, right? Whatever comes across. And it just came to mind. Space tomatoes, it rolls off the tongue. It's easy to say. And I already had a kind of a graphic image for like a logo. There you go. I was just curious where it came from. It just seems so random and very you.

1:10:04 Yeah. Instead of space, you can go with eclectic. It makes it sound fancier. There you go. There you go. Yeah, so that's the story behind that. And I don't know. I like it. It fits, I guess. It's funny. It's a really good question. It's funny that you guys don't want to make this a war dragon, but it seems like all your friends are war dragons you keep bringing on. it's what you know we we will be having some guests that uh are not part of and never have been part of the war dragons community i think one of them oh that's exciting yeah and i think one of them for sure just has never done any mobile gaming so we plan on branching it out um you know getting into all kinds of different stuff and you know i'm sure some people will like it others won't you know it'll be what it is right and just so i i used to give talks like in front of large crowds of people um and i always opened up with jokes because like lightens the crowd lightens the moon and makes people engaged when there's something interaction between the two but before i started my jokes i always start with a line the fact that i'm sorry to tell you that i'm I say a lot of corny jokes and you can laugh.

1:11:24 You can not laugh. It's not going to encourage me or discourage me from making jokes because the jokes are to entertain me because you guys are boring to look at. Yeah. And usually I got chuckles and like nods. And then they realize all these corny things I'm saying that are jokes and like I'm not being serious. And they would laugh with me. So it's like it gave them the oomph to like, hey, yes, you can laugh where you may think it's inappropriate. it it's fine i'm a big fan of it um like at my grandfather's funeral uh my family were cracking jokes and like everyone who was in the family felt really uncomfortable i bet because we're at a graveside and you know there's jokes being cracked and so when my that was my mom's side when my father's side parents passed away uh we didn't make any jokes at the burial or the funeral old self but afterwards like when we went back to the house um because uh we my culture we we do we don't like uh mourn before it's more after the burial we bury rather quickly um so like awake is usually before the burial we do it after and like when as soon as the last person left the house that wasn't family the jokes just went flying that's awesome funny moments for my grandparents like because they died in a car accident so it was it was they got buried together quickly um but it was just jokes were flying from like you know from my uncles and my my brothers and like everything it was just rather entertaining to hear that but we have we had the decency to wait

1:13:01 for people to leave so they can actually mourn the way they want to mourn versus our way which through laughter and so inappropriate times for jokes and laughter is common in my family that's awesome that is awesome all right well i i think we're uh pretty much done with this episode i appreciate you coming on uh that's sir knight had mentioned if you like us give us a thumbs up if you didn't give us a thumbs down either way leave a comment be interactive we'd love to hear what you think. If you have ideas, give us a shout in the comments and show us what your ideas are. Maybe we can get people on. If you've got ideas for guests, let us know about that.

1:13:44 Click the subscribe button. Click the subscribe button if you can. It does help out. But again, I don't really care, so do what you want. And for all things, most importantly wherever you are, whenever you're listening to this have an amazing day thank you so much for watching we really appreciate your time or listening or listening I mean you could spend your time doing a million other things I really do appreciate you taking the time to be here and with the attitude of this podcast if not, that's fine too that's fine too