Welcome back to For The Minions, a weekly show where we talk about upcoming 3rd person mopas. This week we're going to be talking a little bit about Over Prime and their Monolith Mappa predecessor with some kind of weird laser coming from Howie and not really a whole lot from Aetherial or Fault. And then our discussion topic for this week is what success looks like for each game. I'm your host, The One and Only Mangaoos, joining me as always as my friend and co-host jelly knees. How are you doing, Jelly? Are you really The One and Only Mangaoos if I type in Mangaoos to YouTube and a mongoose comes up? I'm the only man-goose. There's plenty of them. Yeah, but I don't know that you are. If YouTube is telling me that there are other man-geese out there, man, then what am I supposed to do? Is that the plural for man-goose is a man-geese? Yeah, man-goose. Okay. Man-goose. There you go. I am fantastic man-goose. Man-goose. And with us, again, we've got the Viking Jedi. How are you doing Viking? I am doing wonderful. Yeah. Excited to be here. The last few FTMs that I've gotten to be part of have been super fun, so I'm excited to go over this one. Even though we don't have a lot of stuff to cover, I'm excited for the discussion topic. But yeah, I'm doing great. You're good. Right on. Well, let's get into it. Probably the biggest update was from OverPrime. They released a picture of a monolith-style map. And somebody was saying that they're going to change over to monolith and they were saying, like, why not both or something like that? And we know in the past that OverPrime has had both a legacy and a monolith map and you could choose to play on either one. And they also had a one lane A-ram map that was completely separate and completely different from it. It wasn't just the lane. So it was, I'm excited about this. I would love to see them include multiple maps if they have the player base to support that kind of thing. But I don't know, Jelly, what do you think? What's your thoughts? I'm right there with you. I think having multiple maps is always good because the people that don't enjoy legacy map, right, they can go to monolith and all that stuff. But with the video that we made over the weekend and talking about all the OverPrime changes that they talked about in their kind of feedback list, which if you haven't watched that video, go watch that video. Them announcing that they're also doing a ranked mode at the same time means that you're not diversifying your player base into two separate queues now, you're diversifying them into potentially four separate queues, which is a way bigger deal than just adding a single ranked mode. Like it's, and part of me also wonders, what if they make it that monolith is your ranked map and legacy is your normal's map? And I don't think they do that. And I'd be like 50-50 of whether or not that's a good or bad idea, right? Um, to keep from separating your players, you're dividing your player base by four instead of, you're just keeping it by two, but you just introduce a new map as the ranked map. Um, so I think it's a good thing overall, but I'm very curious to see what that looks like with their current player base as we solve the last test at least. So, I mean, I agree, obviously that the dividing a player base typically is not something I think, um, you know, a company wants to do, um, especially with the unknowns about what their numbers are going to look like. Obviously we know from the play test that they had really good numbers. Um, so there may be in there was some wiggle room for them to feel like they have the ability to separate some queues or separate on maps. But, um, yeah, I don't know. I do worry about it because like, and I'd be curious, like for people who are like more into Smite and stuff like that, because Smite has a bunch of different queues and you could argue that it's still a healthy atmosphere, the game still operates well. Um, they have a decent amount of concurrent, you know, players. So if over prime is predicting to be in that same numbers, you know, having multiple maps or multiple queues, uh, might not be an issue for them. It obviously a lot will depend on that. Right. And so maybe this is just a testing the waters or there's a, you know, again, a playlist of map, you know, maybe you queue in and you get one and then you queue in next time and you get another. I don't know. It could be interesting to see how that all works out. I also am curious, um, if this is the changes that they were talking about when it came to simplifying the map or if there's still something to come from that, because that'll be really interesting. Um, but yeah, I mean, until the game comes out, it'll be hard to say exactly what it will look like. I would, I would think that they will not do one for ranked and one for regular play because you would want one regular play should be the, the leaping pad to ranked, but I mean, what do I know? They could be interesting for sure. That's, I mean, so you bring up a good point of the potentially doing like a rotation of some kind or a playlist because that's like apex legends does that with their maps or they did. I think they just removed it, but that they have several of their maps in rotation and every, I don't know what it was, 20 minutes or an hour, the map changes, right? And so your games feel different because you're switching maps every hour instead of just queuing up for one specific map. Right. There's, but there's also an aspect that a lot of people like to the monolith map. They just didn't like monolith gameplay necessarily. Right. And so if you can implement a new map and bring in more players because that new map exists, there's the potential there as well that you're offsetting your potential division because you're bringing in more players. I mean, I would like to see them do a rotation for quick match, but just keep like ranked just the same map. And if the, and if they are going to do like if they were to do rotations and rank, then I think I would like to see even more maps make it like here's the storm where there's just all kinds of maps. And then you have, you know, different heroes are better on different maps. And then that becomes part of the difficulty of knowing who to pick for which map and stuff. So I don't know. That'd be interesting to see. I don't know how they would do. Well, I mean, they did the prime ducking on their monolith map before where it charged up the center of the lane and stuff. I don't think it'd just be about the same. I guess a big question I have between the maps is there is a balance difference between those two maps. There is not, you cannot have the same balance for both of them and expect the meta to be the same because it won't be the people that have higher movement of whatever kind will favor one map over the other, right? And vice versa, right? There are more open spots so people with long range abilities have a better favor, right? Or all those kind of things you have to keep in mind. So I'm very curious how they're going to deal with that if they decide to deal with that, especially if they're going to do a rotating queue of any kind. Well, and correct me if I'm wrong, but when monolith came out, they got rid of travel mode, right? So that was something that we saw in overprime. Now, obviously there was a mixed review. Some people like, you know, the travel mode. Some people don't. But I feel like monolith would just be really kind of crazy having travel mode all over the top. Yeah, probably. And so, yeah, I agree with the balances. You know, I kind of agree with Mingus. I would like to see there not be one for rank. Like you pick one, whatever the most popular or what seems to be the most popular, make that your ranked map. And then if you want to have a for fun mode of where they rotate the maps or something like that, like, you know, similar to what we've seen in, you know, here's the storm or other types of MOBAs, you know, League of Legends has Aram and stuff like that, that's fine. I think some people would dig that, you know, and it might be able to, again, bring together the full Paragon audience that was, you know, a fan of both. And then, hey, our game has both in different iterations. I do, again, worry about balance. But I mean, it wasn't up until a few years ago that even League of Legends started balancing Aram. You just played with the champions and it was what it was. It was a for fun mode. It was designed to be a ridiculous over the top mode until maybe Monolith or Legacy is that. But yeah, so it's a fun conversation. I think it'll be interesting to see what they do with it. Yeah, absolutely. I definitely think that they should release early access, see what kind of numbers they have first before introducing. So any kind of schism, like with the choice of maps into their player base, so. Sure. I don't know. I mean, it's cool stuff all around, though. I'm good to see them working on it. They already had it before and they're bringing it back. And then the other thing that overprime they showed us was and what do you call it? Skin, not a placeholder skin. Concept art. Concept art. Yes. There you go. Thank you. I lost my words for a second. For a war. I mean, I'm assuming it's a war, but. It's like a don't think that that's concept art. You don't think that's an actual skin. That's actual skin. I'm pretty sure that's a model. The hair is too detailed, but also not detailed enough to be concept art. The ice crystals look like they're models. They don't look like they're drawn. I'm pretty sure that that's actually her model. Hmm. It looks cool. Yeah, it looks great. I mean, that's what they've been doing. That's their base look now or if that's a skin because if that's her base look, she was already like the most thirsted after Paragon character way to go overprime and like doubling down on that aspect. Yeah, I can picture them doubling down on the sweet side cheek of Aurora. Yeah, I think it just proves to the soul leave watches my channel because it was the last week. I put up that post about where's Aurora. Well, that's I said something in the last video, too about it. I was like, I'm pretty sure Aurora. No, I wasn't yet. And then sure enough, like next day, it was like, great, there she is.  Freaking out. That's awesome, though. It'd be good to see her come back, though. And from that post, I know that there's a lot of people that would like to see Aurora brought back. She was a bit of a controversial hero because she's one of those ones that people looked at her and assumed she was a mage and then tried to play her as a mage and then talked about how her basic attacks were too overpowered for me. It's like she's she's not a mage.  Yeah. Yeah. And what are the weird Paragon situations right there? Her like ice shelf ability is huge. Like that's that's an ability that will change how the game is played in a lot of ways, because it gives you access to things you didn't have access to before or from different angles. According to things, right? And so. But it gives you access that in your team, access to areas that they didn't have access to before. And I think if they keep that ability on her kit, that's huge, that that's going to be a cool thing to see players develop around.  Yeah, I think that's a key word, though, is right. I mean, this is overprime. So they feel like they have no problem just diverging from one thing to making it a whole other thing, right? So but it'll be interesting to see for sure. And meta meta changes with these added, you know, heroes is going to be nuts, right? Because it's just there were a lot of heroes and they all did very interesting things. And you started putting them into this type of environment as fast as overprime felt. Again, we talked about it before, but like, you know, the later scaling champions kind of struggling and early scaling.  Is it a late scale? Is it an early? You know, I guess the main thing here is I've just been stoked with the amount of updates they've put out since the play test. Like it's been it feels like every two weeks we're getting something new and interesting and they're just keeping the momentum moving towards early access. And I'm I'm just over the moon for it because I think I talked about it in one of the comments. Every time we talk about these games, I'm like, is it making me like, you know, is it hurting my feelings that I can't play it right now? Is it like kind of giving me a little bit of an ebb? You know, at this point, I just feel like I'm being edged, you know, and we'll see what it's like once we can actually get into this early access and play the game. But yeah, I'm just I'm just stoked with the amount of information they're putting out and teases and they absolutely know what they're doing. It's it's actually pretty masterclass, if you ask me. Yeah, yeah, because the discord blew up. I don't know if you guys saw it. It was like good with the post after they posted the monolith in concept art or concept art. Yeah, they we we've seen this from them so many times, their marketing is just on fricking point, like getting like tiktok and YouTube shorts involved with their marketing and like. Like leveraging their community to market their game for them by having a trend on like YouTube shorts and tiktok and stuff.  Genius. All right, that's all I had for overprime, unless you guys got anything else. Just go watch our other video breaking down all those other changes. It was a really big changes there if you haven't seen them. Yeah, there were massive changes for overprime that we just didn't put into this one because there were so there was so much. So much. Yeah.  Like it so normally this show is just about an hour. We did an hour and a half on just overprime and the update. So, yeah, it was really, really cool. Well, let's move on now to predecessor. They sent out a tweet like we were talking about the cat laser thing. Last time we had no idea what was going on. Well, they kind of they're they're giving us more clues. It was like an ability. There was a laser that came down from the sky and and kind of pulled towards howitzer. It did not look like howitzer actually cast the ability. It didn't look like it was a new ability for how it's or anything. But we didn't see where it came from at all. So, I mean, I had my theory that it might be their demon hunter, one of their abilities or maybe their ultimate or something. Your theory of her be or your theory of her being a paladin with a God beam that comes down like. And it's blue, no less. I said, that's a better light that everybody knows about. It's like one of those it's one of those paladin Sky lasers. That's what they're known for. Everybody knows what talented Sky lasers are. Like that's a common thing. But yeah, I don't know. In paladins and crossbows are very, you know, synonymous with each other as well. Absolutely. Yeah. You know, everybody knows this. Everybody knows this jelly. Thank you. You blunt the tip so you're firing small maces. Perfect. Perfect. Oh, my God. I mean, so I'd be curious to see what this is because this could be another character. But the fact that they're hyping up huntress and then showing abilities of another character feels kind of weird. It feels like you're you're splitting your focus a little much. Right. You're you're hyping people up around this one character and like, what are their abilities do and all these things? And then random laser, but like. So it's I if it's not for huntress, it's for a paragon character that we know that is getting a new ability. Which, honestly, that kind of ability seems pretty limited in which characters it can apply to. Just in terms of like style, like who's going to have a beam coming down from the sky? Right. Not not a many not a blue beam, especially. Right. Right. And that's the that's the big one that I think of is Wraith's laser of Wraith getting a laser instead that his ultimate is some kind of laser like that instead of the team invisibility, which was super controversial when Wraith was around. Yeah. Or they got rid of his rewind and gave him a sweeping laser like that either way. And that's that's who I immediately thought of as well. I think you're both wrong. I think it's an NPC PVE ability. That's what I'm thinking. Oh, really? Yeah. I don't know. I have no basis for it. And that's just what I think it is. There's just a roaming mob on the map that fires lasers occasionally. Yeah.  And that's one of its abilities. Or it's a turret ability. I don't know, man. You and Scorch have a new ability. Your turrets are going to fly in the air, beam across people. Yeah. Or or the the original gift of the laser pointer in the cat was telling us and Zynx got a new ability that makes absolutely no sense for Zynx at all. I can see it.  I like that. So Zynx is probably like the last on the list of characters that I think it could fit for. But it seems a little weird for Zynx because she wasn't, I don't know. She didn't seem to have like beams like that. Not orbital beams. That's for sure. Her gun was so good in BPM. Yeah, I think about that all the time. Every time I think of Zynx, that's what I think of. Oh, sweet. I got the Zynx laser. Yeah. It's so funny. There's so many people that play that game that have no idea what Paragon was. So they have no idea why I call stuff like the Grim Gun. Like, why is he calling that the Grim Gun? But I don't know. I think Wraith would be cool. I think Wraith would be really cool. I've been saying forever that Wraith needs to be added in. I think I don't think you can add Wraith without Rewind and without his snipe. Maybe you can get rid of whatever the whatever it was called where he would throw a word because a lot of people didn't use that.  But I can see them getting rid of that. And then, of course, his ultimate, like you said, it seemed so great on paper. Like, we're going to envis our entire team and jump on them. But you heard it from a mile away and people just always use it as an escape and it just very rarely was used as an engage like you would think it would be. Yeah, and I mean, the coloration of the ability that they showed and Wraith's blue coloration are very close. Like that's, to me, again, seems like the most likely option. Assuming it doesn't belong to Huntress, but I just don't think that's the case. I mean, is there a world where this is just another teaser for another original character? Like, have you guys followed it? Yeah, I just don't. I mean, I don't know. I've only recently started following them, so I don't know how they've teased things before. So, I mean, it didn't weird. In the past have been very linear, right? So, suddenly without having Huntress be completed or announced like to join the game, suddenly be switching and forking your content in two different directions is a little weird for them in comparison to past posts. I'm out of ideas. I don't know. Hopefully we'll get something this coming week that'll clear it up even more. That would be cool. We'll get to see who's firing the freaking laser. It's a shark. It was in the river. That's what the that's what Jenna's mom is.  At least an angry sea bass. What if it's like a random event that takes place on the map or something like that? Like, like the orbital beam. Yeah, just like it comes through like the red star or something like that. Like, oh, God, it's a new riverbuff. You get the riverbuff and an orbital beam just strikes through the lane. Yeah. Big fan predecessor. Hit us up. We got ideas for you. You need lasers. We got it. We got to figure it out. Jesus.  Well, let's move on for predecessor. Fault really didn't have anything. They just in their discord that big analysis but talking about discord scam. So good looking out strange matter. Good looking out for everybody. I saw that message from them and I was like, oh, all right. Whatever. And then like two days later, I got that scam message.  I'm like, thanks, strange matter. I actually got a way before them.  But you hear that? Mangoes ignores your messages. OK. Big truth. Yeah, I ignore all the messages from scammers. Yeah. Wait, but you don't know my messages, mangoes.  Oh, big truth. Wow. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, that's it for Fault. There wasn't any big big stuff out of them. We talked a lot about them last week of that movie. Which people seem to be under the impression that the movie is specifically about Fault. No, Fault just happens to be the game they used for the background footage of their movie. It's not like Strange Matter funded this movie to promote Fault.  And somehow, Strange Matter's Fault got picked for it. So we don't know what that process was. But no, Strange Matter did not spend money on this movie. They wrote a chicken joke, needed a game to get around it. So that was my theory. Yes. Never go full chicken, mangoes. And as of today, we're officially one month away from that movie coming out, mangoes. Oh, yeah, that's right. And people wanted a review on your channel from last week's FTM. So it's happening. I'm making it happen.  Mangoes will have a review about one up. It's happening. I don't know if I'm going to watch that movie. I'm just going to put that out there. If you guys need to get another guest to come in to watch the movie. Oh, man, the three of us are going to sit down and watch it together. We'll have a watch party. Oh, god. Actually, that might be bearable. If we're watching it together, maybe we live stream, co-cast the game, and just make fun of it while it's that would be or the movie while it's going on. I don't know if that's legal. Yeah, I don't think that's legal. It's just your channel. Who cares? Yeah, that's right. You're like, no, it's not on your channel. There we go. Problem solved. Oh, we can do it on mine. Yeah, that's fair. With the name Viking Jedi, I'm one copy strike away from losing my channel anyway. You know what I'm saying?  Well, OK, let's move on now. Ethereal, ethereal. You got anything for ethereal, Jelly? I do not. We got nothing for ethereal then. Nothing for ethereal. No ethereal lose today. You've got to give us something, man. This is like the third FTM or fourth FTM in a row that you've said, oh, nothing for ethereal. Like, no, give us something. Like, has a color changed? Is there one more minion in each lane than there was before? Something, something tangible that keeps people interested in ethereal, please. It's gracious. Playtest has been going well, at least. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, OK, the game is definitely coming along along big, huge strides right now of things going on in the background, right? Like, we put out a roadmap a little while ago. And a lot of those things on the roadmap are starting to come to fruition. There are a lot of good quality of life features, additional features, and things, and playable aspects, and things like that. So that's as much as I could say without Owen coming and stabbing me straight in the back. I'm going to grab that Rick Grimes stuff thing and put it over you at that point. Please do. I love it. At least it's something. I mean, gosh, no, nope, we have nothing. Like, come on, man, it's been forever since we've earned anything from ethereal. You need something to catch on to. Well, let's hope that it will work. Hard at work. Yeah. That's fine. Well, let's close out ethereal and let's do our discussion topic. What does success look like for each game? And this has kind of changed a lot. This is a topic we've hit on quite a few times. But the way these games have been funded kind of changes the way success will be measured for the games. Because if you look at Fault, they've been out for two years now. Like, they've been out making updates and they've been chugging along. They may not have the biggest player base, but it's bigger than hood. There's a lot of games that have come and gone in the time that Fault's been up and Fault still has people playing that game. So, I mean, I don't think this is what success looks like for Strange Matter, like what we currently see right now. But Strange Matter also has the lowest bar that they need to reach in order to be successful because they are completely community-funded and crowd-funded. They don't have to satisfy investors or satisfy a producer. They just need to satisfy themselves. And as long as they're happy and as long as they're bringing in enough money that they can keep producing the game, then that success, that is successful. So, I don't know. What do you guys think about Fault? Fault's, what success looks like for Fault? You want me to go first? Yeah, okay. To be honest, I think for Fault, they need to go to console. That's it. At this point, you've been out two plus years. You need console. Everybody in your comments, everybody on Reddit, everybody on Twitter, everybody in the Steam, like they want console. If you get this game on console, it was big back in the day. You need to get it on a console. I don't care if it's on the Switch, dude. You need to get it on a console like now. So, if they're not already working on it, they need to start working on it and they need to put it as a, I would say it's a major priority. I would argue that that would be a priority for almost any of these games, but Fault in particular, needs to do something to get a boost into their game. There's probably a bunch of other things because what's stopping any of us from right now logging into Fault? I haven't played Fault in so long and the reason why I quit was because it was boring and I just hated queuing into the game with how slow it was and I don't know. I know they've made a lot of changes and I should probably try it and see if I can reshake up my opinion, but if I'm not interested in queuing in, what's gonna get anybody else who's never played a game like that interested in queuing in? So, yeah, I feel like they have the farthest to travel, but if they, like I said, if they go to console, I think that'll be a big, big, big jump and maybe do something cool community-wise. Like they get some traction through a streamer or something like that, you know, get shrouded to play your game. I don't know, do something. Get somebody involved that's gonna play the game and get some more eyeballs on it because I think that'll help a lot. That's the success I see for them right now. Yeah, I mean, I think for all of these companies, there's kind of two levels of success. There's success to survive and success to exceed expectations. And I think potentially, because I don't know for sure, fault has been sitting at the, probably at the line of success to survive, right? Where they've been out for two years, they're kind of in a flat line. They're not necessarily going down either. They're just kind of in that holding pattern at the moment to see which way they go. For success to exceed expectations, right? They of course need free to play because that's gonna be a big one. Oh yeah. They need more skins, more fault designed skins because as of right now we have five, six total? I'm not sure, some of them. Maybe 10. There's Chimera, Gideon, Decker. Boris. Yeah, Boris. And a couple of those military skins. Yeah. So maybe 10. Really just recolors really the military skins. Yeah, but maybe 10. We have maybe 10 original fault skins in two years, right? If you, and you can buy all the Paragon skins, with in-game currency. So there's no direct reason to spend money on the game to buy those skins, right? So to make more money, you have to make more skins to make more money, right? Like it's one of those things, but their, and their skins recently have been really good. Like the Aztec Warrior, Decker skin, amazing. The Astrogidean skin, amazing, right? Like you've got, you've got good skins that are coming out of them. We just need more of them more consistently. Honestly, every patch, they should have at least a skin drop because they need to be churning, trying to generate income for themselves. And that's why I think they're probably in that success to break even kind of states because they're not focusing more on generating the more revenue with those skins. That they're, what they're getting right now is just enough for them to kind of work about, work on bigger things relatively, right? Whether it be console-free to play, optimization, all that kind of stuff. And then from there, after that's all done, then they can go hard into skin creation and generate to the success path to past expectations level at that point. It's going to be very interesting to watch faults and how that changes as we get ever closer to Overprime and predecessor releasing. Yeah, well, so that's one I'm wondering too is like, does fault become successful at the detriment of Overprime and predecessor falling flat? Like then faults like, well, if you want to play this type of game, we're it, you know, what are you gonna do? But I just don't think that's gonna happen. With Overprime success, especially in the Eastern market, I just, I don't think that it's gonna, and if anything, it's gonna hurt fault even more. So I think whatever they're gonna do, they need to do now. Otherwise their success measurement will be that they lasted it for two years. And that's up to them to determine whether that was actually successful or not, that they got to remake the game that they loved and have a community come around it and enjoy that moment while it lasted. And there's something to be said about that. I would say that's pretty cool, but business-wise, probably not a success if that's where you're leaving things off on. I do think fault is on a stricter clock than any of the others. Sure. Fault clock? Yes, and not in terms of their cash flow, but I think their potential for success goes infinitesimally smaller, the longer, basically the closer we get to the end of the year. Because we know predecessor and Overprime are coming out at the end of the year and unless they completely bomb it, fault's measure of success or potential for success gets way smaller the second those two drop, right? They need to do something big. We lost jelly. Rather than try and scrape. Oh, hello. We lost you for a second there. Apparently. Yeah. You're moving now. Okay, there we go. We lost you at before, if you can remember what you were saying. Great. What a unique word to remind me of where I was. Okay, this time my special effect is as soon as you stop right there, I'm going to turn you into foam. Thank you. But they were on a stricter clock. They have to do something before Overprime and predecessor release because they need to be successful prior to that and hold that success going forward rather than try to find their success after both of those projects launch. I do think there is a world that exists out there though where Overprime and predecessor for whatever reason do bomb like that could happen. We don't know. We don't know what the future holds and if strange matter keeps plotting along like, I mean, you guys kind of brought up good point that they're surviving, they're not thriving, but if they can survive long enough to outlast the other two, then maybe they can find some success down the road. But as things are right now, we've played like the beta for predecessor, we've played the beta for Overprime and both games were absolutely fantastic and very exciting. It doesn't look like they're gonna bomb. Just not. I think there's about a 0.1% chance that they bomb. So. I think the only way that they realistically bomb is not because of player base. I think it's purely because of income and their investors deciding whether or not they're willing to support them. Which leads right on into this conversation Let's talk about predecessor standard of success because it used to be, I would talk about how predecessor doesn't really need to be nearly as successful as monetarily successful as Paragon to hold the line and to be a good game because any developer doesn't need to make as much money as a AAA game does to be considered a success. But now that they've brought in all these investors and everything, that bar has gotten higher. They actually do need not as much as Epic needed to make with Paragon, of course, but they do have people that they need to answer to. They have investors, not sponsors. People didn't just like, hey, here have some free money to make this game. People were like, we think that this game will make more money than we've put into it. Here's some money and we're gonna gamble on that. I mean, they've already gotten the money, so there's people have already made their bets and taken their gamble, so it's not like they have to answer to them too much, but if they want to keep getting investors, they're gonna need to be decently successful. And we've seen even in their records that the ownership of Omidus Studios changed hands like 14, 15 times.  For like, you know what I mean? It's gotta be some kind of tax thing where like the, if you own the company and put so much money into it, you get like a tax right off or whatever, I don't know, but- I don't know either, that's funny though. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I absolutely agree. And I think the thing that's up in the air for me about predecessor, and I've said this a hundred times at this point, is we have no idea what their monetization looks like in any way, shape, or form. And in fact, we've seen maybe what? Two skins, Jailer Murdoch and that red reaper Severog skin from them. And that was two years ago, two and a half years ago. So similar to what I said with Fault, is if they're going to release is a free to play because they've not charged players to play their game and they don't haven't said anything outright about charging for early access. If they're going to release as a free to play, that means they have to have skins for monetization in order to please their investors unless they've made some godly deal to defer that for some amount of time, which is entirely possible, right? That kind of deferment benefit does exist, but it'll be interesting to see where their monetization comes down to because I could see that being a detriment for predecessor if there's some kind of, especially in the world of predatory monetization and how aware people are of that recently, right? I mean, we did that whole video on Diablo. I'm not saying it's going to be to that level by any means, but people are so hyper aware of predatory monetization now that you have to play that line perfectly to not upset your player base. And when you have a smaller player base as these games will when they first come out, right? In terms of like the bigger MOBAs, then you have to cherish that player base as much as you can. I think for me, the success is highest for predecessor. And part of the reason why I think that is that, just like with Fault, when it first came out, you are going to be compared to Paragon.  Now, I know they're deviating and they're doing their own things as well and adding in a bunch of other stuff, but the comparison is going to be there, I think, regardless. And if it doesn't, on a bigger scale, feel better or like it's moving in a good direction than where Fault faltered, then I don't, yeah, their success, I think starts to really come into question because it's, you know, the, if Epic couldn't make it work, if Fault is struggling to make it work, what's predecessor going to do to make it work? Like what is it that's the big change in the process that's going to do it? Like we see with Over Prime, I mean, it's still relatively in the same conversation, but it's a pretty decent deviation as far as gameplay, at least when we did the play test it was. We'll see what it's like when it gets to early access. So I think for the success, it's going to, you know, one, they have to appease to their current investors if they're wanting to continue getting investment. I think one of the perks for them, unlike with Epic is that Epic was wanting to focus on another game that was starting to catch on, you know, and so you could see them pulling resources from my dying game or lack of interest game. I don't know if that would happen with this studio, despite all the CEO changes, I guess. I don't know if they have any other projects that they could be potentially pulled away from. So the investment is into predecessor and hopefully that's what, but yeah, no monetization conversation yet of, I think that's a concern. Maybe they go the route of like doing a pay the entry like 20 bucks and then having a, you know, initial free battle pass or something like that to keep people interested in checking in, not like a crazy one, but one where you earn currencies and you buy skins and that's something to kind of give people time to grow in their game. But yeah, predecessor I think is the hardest one for me to measure because there's just not as much information about what they're going, what they consider success, you know, like I think that's where I would struggle. I think as a fan of the genre, I just want a fun game, you know, so we'll see what that looks like from them. You guys talk about how fun it was. I didn't get to play it, so that's the key. If it's fun and it scratches that itch, then at least from a gamer's perspective, it'll be successful, but we're fickle gamers. You know, if it was just scratching the Paragon itch, fault would be a lot more popular than it is. Let's just be honest. Yeah.  It's not even that they're going to be compared to Paragon. They're going to be compared to people's rose-tended memories of Paragon. Yes. Yeah, exactly.  You know what I mean? Right. No, that's not true, Mangus. If one of these games gives me box grucks, they will live up to my expectations of rose-killer. They will live on forever. Dude, box grucks, please. The other thing I do want to mention as well, and this is something I've brought up quite a few times, Paragon got the ax well before Fortnite BR was ever a thing. I know it officially shut down after Fortnite Battle Royale, but the decision to close down Paragon was made at least six months in advance. Well, it wasn't, not the decision to close them, but an ultimatum was given like, if you're not making more money by this quarter, then Paragon is gonna get shut down. Then they did not make that much money. That's why they were hyper-aggressive with their community corner, talking about how much they were gonna do and improve the game. It's because they were trying to breathe life into it and bring people back into Paragon, but people were already leaving in droves. So a lot of people say that Fortnite killed Paragon. No, Paragon was already dead. Fortnite was just a happy coincidence for Epic. Something to take the Paragon devs and put them on to after the fact. Right, right. I mean, it made the whole decision a lot easier for them. I guarantee that, but. Hey, you guys wanna keep your job? Well, look at us. We'll give you one. Yeah, all right. But yeah. Well, I think the Fortnite single-player campaign or whatever it was, that was in advance, right? That wasn't, and it was pretty popular. I mean, it wasn't nearly as popular as the BR version became, obviously, but it was still a pretty popular game. I don't know enough about what other Epic titles were out at that time. It feels like, I don't know why it feels like 20 years ago that all those games came out, but yeah, I definitely just think it had an impact on Paragon's quote-unquote overall success.  Like, hey, they're really looking for new devs over on this cool new game, you know? And this one falls through. I've already got my spot lined up. You know, we don't know what that looks like, and I'm obviously totally just throwing that out into the universe as a possibility, but it also wouldn't surprise me. You know what I mean? Yeah. I'm just saying that they knew that they were gonna shut down Paragon before they knew that Fortnite Battle Royale was going to be successful. Yeah. Yeah, big true. So let's move on to Over Prime now. With their being backed by Netmarble and all that, I think their standard of financial success is even higher than predecessor's standards of financial success. So, Jelly, what do you gotta say about that? I completely agree with you. Yeah, Jelly, what do you have to say about that? Jelly. I completely agree. I think an established completely, like Netmarble, can pull the plug faster or with more ease doesn't sound like the right word to use, right? But they're more comfortable pulling the plug if it comes to that moment. They can just call it eating a bad investment and move on. Yep. And they've got plenty of other investments to make money from and can shift development, shift the assets, shift whatever they want over to these other developments and try to recoup some of that cost that they put into those things, right? And so I think it is an even more volatile situation for Team Soul Leave in that regard because they have a much bigger fish to feed than just some angel investors or some community members, right? Like this is a way bigger fish that you have to keep on feeding and keep on generating for. And I think so far, they're doing the right things toward that end, right? The amount of skins we've seen come out, I kind of think I'm gonna refer to the skins as a big metric, because that's at the end of the day, that is their monetization, right? When they all go free to play, skins is the thing, right? And overprime is by far winning in the skin game compared to lead to the other two, right? Like that just looking at that, they have way more skins, more unique skins, more of all the things, right? I prefer overprime's original skins to 99% of the Paragon skins that ever existed. And that says something, that's something I would spend money on. I can already see myself spending money on. Whereas Fault, some of the skins, I'm like, oh, you know, that's a good skin, I might buy that, right? Or predecessor, we have no idea, right? But I don't have that same willingness to spend money as I think I do for overprime. Or just looking at skins, kind of window shopping from it all. I think their barrier to success is higher, but their potential for success at the current moment is also a lot higher than these other games. Yeah, I mean, I think Jelly said it pretty much perfect. I don't really have any much to add on, to be honest, because I guess the only thing I would say is that with the backing in the community that they have, especially in Eastern markets, they have, I think they have a really good chance of being able to get some kind of sustainable monetization. We obviously, we don't know how much money is going into this, you know, for the longevity, like what their expectations are for whether that's in the first three months, six months a year, two years, right? But like, I just think with, there's a lot of games that seem to still manage to stay relevant despite everybody else's expectations in Eastern markets. For example, weird one to say maybe, but PUBG is still wildly popular. It's still hitting high numbers on Steam charts, and most of that is coming from Eastern countries. It's just, that's the truth of it. It's not like completely dead here in N.A., but by far it's more popular in those places. And so I think that they have the opportunity to maintain, you know, a level of, you know, success. Whether it's reaching the numbers that we keep saying that we think is successful, maybe they don't have those same things. Maybe if they're hitting fault numbers and still generating revenue from the, you know, 400 or so players that are playing every day, that's enough for them. But I would also agree that it is more than likely if this thing isn't a success in the way that they want, they have the most aggressive exit strategy available to them. But I think they, again, are doing probably what you would expect to do the right way. It does raise concerns also with the market that they are coming from, what the monetization schemes look like. I mean, we don't really know how much these things are gonna cost, how they're going to do it. Is it gonna be kind of predatory? I don't know. That's probably one of my concerns, especially if it's free to play or if it's a pay to have access to and that changes things wildly. But yeah, I think their success is like the most like jumpy. It's a harder one to kind of pinpoint for me. And it's because of all those things. Like we're just, yeah, I don't know. As far as the game itself, I think they've just diverged enough and set themselves up for being different enough that that will help them to at least gain a player base initially, which I don't think that, you know, predecessor and fault, they're gonna be leaching from each other a little bit. And that's, we've talked about that in the past. And I think the closed beta test for over prime have shown that this is almost definitely going to be the case, at least for a little while, is that we've talked about that out of these three Paragon successor projects, the likelihood that two of them survive is decently high. Sure. Because you can have over prime in the Eastern market and then Paragon, or sorry, predecessor or fault in the Western market. And they can coexist because they are in different markets. They have some overlap. They are distinctly set apart from each other. And I think over prime has shown with a 70% player base in the East that that's entirely possible for them. To just survive off of Eastern players. I would love to see that happen. I would absolutely love it. If we had one for N.A. and one for Asia and then I could play both whenever I wanted to. Yep, 100%. That'd be great. Another thing, what pisses me off like, with both predecessor and over prime, when you ask about their monetization, they're like, oh, well, our investors or our publishers, wants us to focus on it being fun first. And then we'll talk about the monetization.  Whole answers.   Like, And while we've seen that in the closed beta test, we could go into the shop and buy skins directly in over prime. Right. We've also seen that they have loot boxes, definitively. Yeah, they do. So which one is it? Are we going with the loot box strategy? Is it going to be pay $5 to open a loot box for a chance at a $10 skin or just pay $10 for the skin? Right? And even that, I'd be relatively okay with, because at least I know I could buy the skin I want directly, right? Depending on the cost. But at least I know that I have a direct, it's not, I'm not stuck in the loot box trying to get the skin I want. Right. Yeah, I... Predecessor, we don't have any of that information. Yeah, we know nothing about Predecessor's monetization plans. I just don't... I don't want it to be like CSGO. I think that's my biggest one. As far as like the loot boxes, like, I mean, even Overwatch, I hated their loot boxes in Overwatch. I was not a fan. So I'm not a fan of loot boxes in general. So when I saw it on there and I tested it, I was like, you know what? What does it look like to do this? And to be honest, it was a bad feeling. Like it just didn't feel good. It just, because you were like, well, I won the chances of getting at least in the play test. The chances of getting the same skins you already had were decently high. I think I was doing the 10,000 so you get 10 rolls or whatever it is. And I would get eight out of 10 I had already owned. Now granted, there's only a finite amount of skins.  But it does start to, yeah. So if that's the only way that you're cracking into, you know, the cooler skins, I think I would start being concerned. Now, if they go the route of having something where it's like you can earn prestige skins or something along those lines where it's like unique, like you stand out because you have, you know, succeeded in a metric that is unique to this character, I think I'd be a little bit less about it. Cause then I feel like as a player, I can earn towards something that makes me stand out uniquely versus just throwing my wallet at the, you know, the machine to see if I get something cool. And I have to go back because I made me laugh when you're talking about rainbows and this total PR. It's like asking James about ethereal.  I just, I couldn't help myself. I'll tell you about ethereal monetization, no loot boxes. That's more than an answer that we get from the other two. I don't know if he's authorized to say that.  I'm going to get a call from owner and that was so bad news. No, no, 100% no loot boxes. They've said that for years. That's not, that's not going to change. Now for the success of ethereal, that's another rough one to gauge because there you don't have any investors or anything like that. But you do have a bit of community investment from Patreon, but there's been so much work put into that game. Like you guys didn't start with the assets to work with. Everything had to be made from the ground up. So if the game isn't at least moderately successful, that's going to feel bad for everybody that had, that worked so very hard on those, those character models and everything. 100%. And then the other thing is too, you're not pulling from a preset base of people.  So, I mean, what does success look like for ethereal? I think it's, I think it's again, a lower bar, but I don't think that's what you guys want to see. I don't think I want you guys to thrive instead of just survive. Yeah, absolutely. Can I jump in before you get a chance to kiss you? I want to do one thing. I'll let you talk and then I'll answer both of you. I think in my head, for terms of surviving, right, not thriving, I'm not talking about that. Terms of surviving, I would say between, from what we've talked about, between FALT and predecessor, because you have that exact mention, Mangoose, of you got to have money poured into the assets that we didn't have, they had to be made, right? It is a concept, money and time, right? It is a thing, whereas FALT has a lot of those assets already, so their bar is slightly lower in that regard. So I completely agree with you there that there is an aspect of trying to find pay off in those new assets creation and all of those things. So yeah, with that, I'll let you go first, Viking. Well, I mean, I don't have a whole lot to say. I just wanted to get my answer in before you came in and said what really was going to go, but from my perspective, the success measurements for Ethereum seem a little bit more of like a passion project. Like it seems like it's a group of people who were passionate about making a game, had an idea of what they wanted the game in general to be. And then it's, like in the time that I've been part of it, it's evolved in a very like real way. Like you can feel the impact of the team itself. Like it started off with maybe like, the initial guy's idea or the buddy's idea, and they figured out what they kind of wanted to do. And then as the dev team has grown, and as the art has grown, and as the programming has come through, and the people's investment and their ideas, like it's, to me it feels a lot more like a really, really cool indie passion project that anybody who's paid attention to Ethereum is excited to see what it ends up being. And if you, I feel like for the success, I mean, obviously this is not a business success. It's just from a game perspective. If you get a good amount of people who are willing to come in and be like, dude, this game is actually pretty cool. Like, good job guys. Like, wow, this is cool. Like this is a game that I didn't expect to like or whatever, something along those lines. I think that would be a big success just because of how uniquely different it is than the other Parazomies that we've talked about. I think Ethereum's primed to absolutely not need the leaching so much from the old Paragon days. They have the opportunity to really crack into a whole other genre and expectation of different types of players. So obviously that's gonna be a tough egg to crack. Like they're gonna have to figure that out and what the marketing scheme looks like from that. But I don't know, again, I don't know the business model and I don't know exactly how much money has been put into it at this point. And I know any business, they want it to be as profitable as possible. But at least from an outsider's looking into Ethereum, again, passion project that we hope people like. How did the feeling that I get for it? Yeah. And I completely agree with that. I think kind of having that evolution because it definitely has, even since Mangus and I have been following the projects, there definitely been a shift in like super hardcore indie feel to really trying to put out a really nice product. And I think that shift is still going on at the same time but there's definitively been changes. I mean, Mangus, we've seen the old concept art with Malaya and Kalia, right? And like that's a very different game. I liked it. Of course you did. But very different game, just even in that shows the differences that have happened since then. I mean, the team is over like 60 people now, I think it is, right? And so that's, I mean, and of all different shapes and sizes of what they work on, right? But that's a huge thing, right? I mean, I would bet more than what fault has in terms of personnel. Predecessor maybe, it's hard to gauge because we don't know for sure and over prime is the same way. It's hard to gauge because they've got the net marble backing behind them, right? But that's a lot of people. And by association, it's a lot of mouths to feed, right? If you're thinking that everybody wants a piece of that pie, right? Everybody on that team is like, yeah, if Ethereum gets successful, like I'm gonna be filthy rich, right? Not exactly, right? But that's the idea behind it, right? Right. Is that concept. And so I will frame it and I'll frame it in the same way I have with the others in terms of at a complete stage of being free to play, right? Where anyone that wants- Here comes the rainbows. Here comes the rainbows. No, no, no, no, no. Actually direct opposite at the same level that all of these games, they're free to play release, right? What is the monetization scheme? Skins, at the basis level, battle passes and stuff aside. Sure. At the basis level of skins, right? Ethereum already has 40 skins completely modeled, at least 40 skins. That's just what I can think of quickly and what I referenced quickly as well. Completely modeled. So basically it just takes the actual implementation of said skins, right? And with that, we've got probably another 60 that are in the different stages of becoming a fully fledged skin, right? That's, I mean, so it's already developing toward that end, right? In terms of, yes, you're developing the game and making that better as well, but you're also getting ready to push that success when the moment comes, right? And I think that's a big metric that all of these games have to look at. And like I said before with OverPrime, I think they're doing a really good job of even before the game is released, getting those skins ready and out there because they know where their bread is buttered. They know what the thing is that makes them their money going forward, right? And I would put ethereal in that same boat. Predecessors, they up in the air question about that and fault I'd love to see significantly more of that from them, right? And that's because that's where success is gonna come from all of these games is whether they put out enough high quality content in terms of skins for people to buy them and be sustainable off of those purchases. Right on? Yep. Well, we are coming up on about an hour, boys. So let's start closing it out. Jenna, you got any final thoughts on what success looks like for these games? I mean, I think the biggest measurement of success again is whether or not the game is fun. But again, that's me being not looking at the business stuff. So fault I feel like has a lot of making up to do. Now granted, I haven't given it an opportunity to. So that could be easily just as much me as the game itself. But yeah, I think that's the biggest thing I'm looking for for all of these is that are you making a fun product? Are you invested in feedback from your community? And not just looking at like crazy monetization while that's important, I think everybody who would be playing your game understands you need to make money. It's at what cost, right? Like again, and striking that balance. And I think that there's other games that have mastered that that you can pull from. You can absolutely look at like Fortnite. You can look at Apex. You can look at League of Legends. You can look at Smite. There's a lot of other games that are out there that do this monetization scheme well. And you can find success in them so you're not only hitting the business metric but the hopefully the fund metric because those businesses only work well because the game is fun to play. And that's a big one. So and get on console, Jesus. Like that's, at this point, like it just, yeah, that's a big one, right? Everybody in the comments is always talking about when is it coming to PlayStation Network? Well, we don't know. Like when these guys got it figured out, man. That's it. That's my final. No rainbows here. I mean, so my final thoughts, I think kind of echo that same thing, right? And I guess I'll do the opposite. Since I've been focusing more on the business aspect of success and you've been focusing more on the fun aspect of liking, right? I think they all have routes that we can see and visualize for business financial success, right? How they get there is interesting. And that's the thing that's really up in the air for all of these games is figuring out where they fall in that, how they get there and how aggressively they push to get there. And it'll be interesting to see across the board with that, right? Fault not having many skins, all the unknowns about predecessor and then the skins that we've seen out of Overprime and then the skins that people know exist now because of me in ethereal, right? Is wondering how aggressively those are pushed onto people and how predatorily, I guess, for lack of a better way to put it, those are pushed onto people for purchases. Agus. Just, let Jetta, I said, their biggest boost to success is console. Like that's the pathway to success. No matter what success looks like, the biggest stepping stone that would bring them towards success, towards that goal is console. And guys, everybody in the comments, trust me. When one of them comes to console, I will do a video. It will be in the title of the video. This game is now on console.   Don't you guys have computers? Do you not have phones? That is not the metrics of success. Do not become a mobile game. That's not a point three on Metacritic. Oh, man. Play be rising. Let's go to close it out for this week. It was a fun show, good times, had by all. If you want to check out Jellie and Ease, I'll have his Twitch and YouTube linked in the comments below.  That's true, yeah. He just hangs out with us chaps. That's true, it's true. Check out FTM, check out the beta males, man. I know a lot of your audience has already been kind of tuning in, but it's definitely been a fun excursion, I think, for us, especially when there's not like a lot of crazy games that people want to sink their teeth into. So if you're looking for opportunities to see new games or have suggestions for new games, beta males has been going off and it's been a lot of fun, I've been enjoying it. So that's all I've got to plug. Just check out our beta males, put one out for V-Rising, for Blood Hunt, and Diablo, yeah, Diablo, and we got more coming. We should have one for Cycle Frontier somewhat soon. Yeah. If Jelly can ever get it to work. But yeah, that is gonna, let's go and close it out for this week. I appreciate you guys hanging out with us for the time being, but this is the Four of the Minions crew signing off. You guys, have a good one. Move, nice mic at their menus. Man goose. Special shout out to channel members, I, Blood Hunter, Jelly Knees, Meow Mix, for men's stunt, Raven, and Blastoise King.


I guess the first time we talked to you since you signed, what's the adjustment been like here with the new team and maybe how excited are you about the possibilities of this offense with you and obviously AJ and Julio, along with Doug Deere, Kenry and Ryan Tannehill and everybody else. Yeah, man. It's been awesome, man, just a new learning experience for me, being able to just kind of meet all these guys and start to grow with them and stuff like that.  You know, I mean, just kind of keep my head down right now and in my playbook and and trying to get caught up on everything. But I mean, I mean, I'm excited with the with the new add on what Julio and and to get going with this offense.  It looked like you were doing everything. Can you tell us a little bit about the progression there and how your relationship with with Ryan Tannehill is coming along as he starts his relationship with Julio? Yeah, yeah, man. Yeah, I was a little a little bit kind of just catching up with with the swing of everything, practice style and and everything like that.  You know, those things you got to you got to work on and and and build rapport with Kayla. Hey, Josh, welcome to Nashville when it comes to just your overall thoughts on this team, the identity of this team coming in. What was that when you arrived in Nashville and now that you've been able to be around some of these guys and head coach Mike Raebel?   And yeah, we're still learning some new, you know, new things here and there and new techniques, new new adjustments. But I mean, other than that, you know, it's it's team building and and hard work. For Ron, it's sorry about that, Josh, as far as you just kind of building with with receiver coach Rob Moore and the O.C. tied down and see you do a lot of interaction with them. How's that relationship developing? It's going good. It's going good. They're they're they're learning my play style. And I'm you know, I'm learning how they how they want want want concepts and stuff like that ran. And so, you know, it's just it's right now. It's just a bunch of learning learning opportunities for for the both of us. Teresa, sorry, my question has been asked. Thank you, Luke, Josh, you know, from being on some high powered offenses in LA, that it's not just have it a bunch of talent to make things work, you'll have to work together well. So with all these weapons that you have here in Tennessee, what's it going to take to get everyone on the same page and yelling and it to be one unit once once the games roll around in September? Honestly, I don't think I don't think it should be that hard for us to to to judge together. I mean, we're all here to win games. And I mean, that's the main the main, you know, point of everything, you know, the win games for the Titans. So, you know, I don't I don't think it really matters who's out there. I think guys are going to be on the same page to follow up on that. We're able to just mention you have a lot of guys who want to get the ball to but only one football sounds like you guys aren't going to have much of an ego problem with that. And it's really all about winning for y'all. No doubt. No doubt, man. I mean, and if you do your job, the ball, the ball come to you. So, you know, there's really no need to do anything extra. John Lennon. Hey, Josh, yeah, with Julio coming in, you know, how does that change your role?  I know you've you've played that a little bit in the past. Oh, kind of hard to say right now. You know, they kind of got everybody rotating. So, you know, I'm wait till camp and see what they what the plan is for me. You just could get better and and learn its office. Terry. Josh, I know that for a lot of receivers who are around your age or so, Julio Jones was a guy that they probably grew that you probably grew up admiring and watching his game from afar. Did you have to for a split second kind of pinch yourself or think it was surreal when you looked on the practice field or in the meeting room and you go, that's Julio Jones.  But I mean, he's he's a good dude first day out there. He was he was coaching guys up in, you know, just a little technique things here and there. So, you know, you can just tell his mindset coming in is is when games and, you know, whoever's out there. Make plays. It's a couple more for you, Josh, Joe Rex road. Yeah, kind of following up on that, Josh, it looked like you guys were having some good conversations today. I guess what has that been like from that aspect, just talking game and talking scheme and then also how similar do you find anything that you're doing here to what you did conceptually schematically with the Rams? Oh, oh, yeah, yeah, I'm sorry, blanked out a little bit. But yeah, yeah, you know, you know, to be able to be able to learn from a guy that and for me, it's my first time being in the in the league, learning from a guy that's that's kind of stature built like me. And so, you know, to be able to learn, learn from a guy like that, who's been doing it at a high level for a long time.   So I, you know, I'd say it's it's conceptually pretty, pretty similar. But, you know, they they they throw their own twists on it. And yeah. Last question, David Boclair. Josh, everybody's talking about Julio and AJ as a one to punch. Have you thought much about what it means maybe to be number three behind a couple guys like that and what what opportunities will be there for someone who the defenses aren't necessarily as concerned about? Oh, yeah, I mean, definitely, but, you know, you don't you don't really think about that kind of stuff.  But I mean, at this point, it's it's getting better every day. For me, it's it's learning the offense front and back and and, you know, for me to be able to do my job and get on the field as much as I can.


With the reconfiguration of the bimodal voter accreditation system machines used for the 25th February presidential and national assembly elections concluded what lies ahead for voters in the March 18 state elections. Nigerian inflation rate has risen to 21.91% in February 2023 according to the National Bureau of Statistics. We'll look at what this means for a nation already grappling with its severe economic hardship. And in off the press we take a look at the latest headlines and front pages of today's national dailies and analysis to follow. Very good morning. You're welcome to the breakfast and plus TV Africa. It's a beautiful Thursday morning. My name is Kofi Bartels and of course we apologize for starting a bit behind time due to technical difficulties beyond our control but we're here and very very set to do justice to the issues of the day. We have interesting conversations. Of course, we're counting down to the 2023 March 18 governorship and state House of Assembly elections and we'll be bringing you coverage right here on plus TV Africa. We have a guest standing by to the justice of the topics ahead. Let's start off with a look at what has gotten Nigerians chatting and talking on the social space. We're talking about a top training segment as we'll start with. And the first one is not a story I really or ordinary would like to talk about or touch on because it's so close by just not far from where we are. But the traditional of Ikate Lagosha Kingdom, he is his royal majesty Oba Sahid Ademola, Kusenla III. He has declared a three-day all-right on non-indigents and women from midnight to 5.30 a.m. including on Saturday's governorship and state assembly election day.  Well, we hear that there was a memo that was issued or sent to residents of Ikate Lagosha in which the monarch announced that they always alleged, let's say, is alleged to have announced that there will be restriction of movement to perform the overwrite in the community from Wednesday to Saturday. Residents of the community are also alleging, or some residents, let's say, are also alleging that there is a political motive for the curfew which will further disenfranchise women and non-indigents from voting on the election day. Others have complained that it would be, they will be paralyzed or it will paralyze commercial activities in the community. All right, then the suppress reached out to Temitope Oyefecho. Temitope Oyefecho is the special assistant on media affairs to the monarch of Ikate Kingdom. He is reported to have confirmed that an oral right is taking place or happening in Ikate Lagosha Kingdom, which is a very, very important part of Etiosa in Lagos. Etiosa local government area in Lagos. It's a very important part of Etiosa in Lagos. So this is what he is quoted as saying. Yes, there is an oral right happening in the kingdom. So the Lagosha community council decided that residents and visitors should be in their houses from midnight to the morning, or midnight to morning, Wednesday to Saturday. Wednesday to Saturday is what he is saying, Wednesday to Saturday. However, he said to have debunked the allegation that it will affect activities on election day. He says, quote, we're not saying that people should sit at home during election day like they have in other places. Elections are held during the day, and by morning we'll open the roads for people to come. It is a traditional right, but unfortunately it has come at this time. It is an annual event. This is not the first time we are not disrupting any process. All right, so he also said, quote, voting starts at 8 a.m. There is a police curfew from midnight on election day. We are not doing anything different from what the police have done. It was just comments two days earlier. People should stop speculating or being mischievous about our rights. It's not interfering with the process. Residents can move about from morning till 11.30 p.m., morning till 11.30 p.m. So that's that. Of course, the police public relations officer in Lagos State was reached and he says he won't engage in hearsay. He won't engage in speculation. Of course, that's what he said. So, you know, before this news became public or this allegation became public, there were some rumors that something like this was going to happen in some parts of Lagos. And there was a particular community where the residents had to reach out to the commissioner of police to say, look at what's going on. They're saying we can't come out, you know, in this election period. I mean, what the media aid to the monarch in Nicaragua, she has said, I think she gave us more insight or is quoted as saying, she gave us more insight into what exactly is at play here. Because they're saying that they're starting on Wednesday, Wednesday, and it is going to continue until Saturday morning. So Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, okay, is what he's quoted as saying. And if indeed it is true, if indeed it is true, it would therefore mean that the, what do you call it, the, I mean, voters would be allowed to go around, move about on Saturday, especially going by the fact that the allegation says that the movement of restriction will start from 11.30 p.m. to morning. However, what we hear, another latest is that Yorba has come out to debunk this allegation or to debunk this particular insinuation. But it's something that we'll have to, we'll have to clarify. You know, because yesterday I saw in the punch newspaper that Yorba, Saeeda Demola himself, on Wednesday, yesterday, said that the 23-year-old festival will not affect the governorship elections. You know, that's what he's saying. Through his media aid, let me talk about the FHR as we mentioned earlier. So what is debunking, I'm not too sure about that, but what he's saying is that the election day is not included, you know, the election day is not included. And moreover, they're going to restrict the movement of people from maybe 11.30 p.m. or midnight to 5 a.m. where they'll perform the rights, you know, so the election day is not included.  So Saeeda said, okay, it's a modern society. Why are people going to be restricted for traditional rights and all that? But they are doing their thing in the night.  And if they see any light on security light, they'll smash it.  So it's, I think what we can say is that we right here, you know, plus TV Africa, we have a high regard for the traditional institutions. And I'm sure that Nigerians out there and the voting public will have a high regard for the traditional institutions. I mean, or by Ligushi is a very, very respected monarch that's talking about Saeeda Demola, the traditional of Ikate Ligushi in Ligushi, a very respected monarch and very, very monarch at that. And I mean, traditional rights, traditional processes and all that are really, you know, the exclusive preserve of the custodians of the land, they have a right to do that. The question that some would ask is, you know, why now? But what the Oba's media assistant is saying is that it just happens that, it's an annual exercise, it just happens that it's coinciding, it's a coincidence coinciding with the run up to the election period. But if they've moved it some days before the election, and that from the daytime people are allowed to go about their activities, but from 11.30 p.m. or midnight to five a.m., you can do that. So those who want to go clubbing, you have to think about maybe staying in the hotel or something, you know. So I think that's that.  Allow the traditional institutions to do the thing. And on election day, people are free to move. People are free to move. It ends on Friday. So there's nothing to be worried about. All right, we'll move on to another top-trending story.  And I don't, I don't think we should even call them Yahoo Boys anymore. I think it should be Yahoo Boys and Girls, you know. In the, in the name of agenda equality, I spoke to a taxi driver or cab driver from one of these ride-hailing apps, you know. And he was complaining to me that people would show him in the midst of the cash crunch in Nigeria and search in use of banks, online platform, internet platforms, and mobile applications. So the banks are finding it difficult to cope with the search.  But what I hear now is a trend is that some of these fraudsters or passengers who want to dupe the drivers, ride-hailing drivers, would show them fake, fake transaction notices or lets or receipts, you know. And one driver was trying to convince me that, that his female drivers or passengers are the ones that do it more, you know, which was a shock to me. So maybe we need to just call it what it is. It's no more Yahoo Boys, but Yahoo Boys and Girls. Really, that's the situation. But for this one, all I can see, those I can see in front of me are boys, young guys, you know, 21 of them suspected internet fraudsters. Of course, they'll be charged to court. If they are found guilty, then we can call them internet fraudsters. And I'm happy that the media is choosing not to show their face, but showing them from behind, which is good, which is good, you know, so that they can be given their day in court. And the EFCC and Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commissions, the Corruption Watchdog, arrested them. And the names have been put out. I don't know why the names are put out, since they're still suspects, you know. But the Antigraphed Agency and a statement on its official Twitter page said the suspects were arrested in Lugbe and Kuboah suburbs of Abuja.  You know, they said they recovered some items from them. When they say they recovered items, I don't know, are those items stolen? Because you hear them saying they recovered two mobile phones, recovered three laptops, recovered two iPhones and all that.  You know, but I'm sure the security operatives and police in the EFCC will know best the language to you since it's their profession. But to me, as a layman in that area, I sometimes wonder why they say they recovered. You know, maybe you come, you raid the house of a suspect and they have mobile phones and then they pirate the mobile phones. So we recovered five mobile phones from them. I mean, I didn't know meant to have mobile phones. But anyway, maybe the laptops are part of the exhibits, I don't know, but it's somehow awkward to me. They said they recovered three laptops, Mercedes CLA250, which is a choice car of Yahoo Boys, but it doesn't mean these are Yahoo Boys. We don't know yet. 25 high-end mobile phones and a C300 car. The EFCC is saying they'll be arraigned in court as soon as investigations are concluded. And you know, this is my problem. It's a problem I have. Why are you sounding like these guys have already been convicted when you are just about to start an investigation?  It was a case somewhere in, I think, in the United States or in Britain of a celebrity who was accused of sexually harassing a woman. Well, he went to court and then he was cleared of all these charges. And I was interviewed. This was earlier this week. I was asked, you know, for his thoughts, and he said it's going to be hard for him to repair the damage to his reputation since his name hasn't been put out there already. You know, it's going to be hard for him. So, I mean, for me, it's not about discouraging anti-graft agencies, but we talk about media trial, you know.  Secondly, I think their names should not have been put out.  That's why you're paid. And then go to court. And when they are convicted, you can announce that, hey, these people are being convicted and found guilty and all that. You know, even the practice of a mugshot, you know, being released to the public by AFCC, I do not know how, how do I call it? I do not know how whether that is known to Nigerian law.  Kofi Bartels, he's a, what do they call it? We have information on him or financial crimes or something, something. Then they come and soup on, maybe it's a mistaken identity, because it happened to me before, you know. And they put my name on the document, mistaken identity. And, and they soup on you and then, yeah, what's going on?  Investigations are about to start. However, and if I, if I walk, I walk free, who's going to pay, repair the damage to my reputation? With me, I'll definitely call my lawyer and I will say to my lawyer, please, can you file a suit and they'll pay huge money. So, so I think this agency should, I mean, the whole boys were used to this thing. We commend them for the work they are doing, but they should conclude their investigation before putting such out. And then also they should tell some of the operatives to also, if they find these guys doing these things, not collect money from them, you know, do the job. Because from what some of these young boys have led, they're saying that, you know, they'll be roughed up, you know, by some security men, not AFCC, but it could be some other agency. I don't know, maybe. And they'll be roughed up taking in, you know, and all these things to be done, only for them to be, to be, for money to be collected from them, sort of a bribe. And they'll be set free, you know, they'll be set free. So it's good the FCC are saying that they're going to go to court with this, but they need to talk to some of the operatives, the FCC police, whichever it is, to not do what they've been doing before, which is rough some of these boys up and collect money and all that. Okay, let's go to River State. My production people seem to be so interested in this story, so I won't waste time. So these are pictures of women protesting the election results in River State. You just see them in the amount of seconds. These women, yesterday, Wednesday, February 25, you can see that on your screen, found their way to the Independent National Electro-Commissioned Office on Abba Road, near Water Lines. Hey, that's what they call it, in Port Harcourt River State. And you can see some, they are wearing all black, and you can see the placards they are holding. INEC, we are watching you. INEC, River State. River State is not for sale. Ya kubu ma mood, ma wii ya kubu. Wikis, what, I can't see that one. INEC stopped killing. River State, later, votes count. It uses from INEC, you know, and all that.  You know, current placards, some of them reading INEC, we are watching you. INEC did the right thing for once, you know, amongst others. And we don't know who these women are, but I think this follows some of the incidents during the presidential election in River State, which basically amounted to daylight robbery. And I mean, if election in River State stands then, of course, you know that nothing has changed as far as democracy in Nigeria is concerned. You know the politicians who do those, so let's just do it first. Let's rig the election first, and then let's go to court, and then we'll take it from there, okay? And that's what's been happening. And that's what's been happening. And it'll be quite unfortunate if it continues in 2023. Of course, there are different elections. You know, if you look at the House of Representatives elections, the Governorship elections and the Senate elections, there are different dynamics involved. And the candidates, some of them have their base, you know, they have their structure, they have supporters. But some people strongly feel that the presidential election results in Port Hacot were rigged. And the evidence is so loud, especially in one or two local government areas. From the reports that our correspondent gave to us at the time, the evidence is so loud. And I mean, we can confidently conclude that there was daylight robbery, daylight, broad daylight, robbery of election results in River State, you know. Anyone who will say that didn't happen or we shouldn't say that means that we should actually report what happened and then come and lie that it didn't happen, which personally I can do, you know, I can do that. So, but I don't know if this will amount to anything because, I mean, in 2015, you know, in River State, people came out to shout and protest and they said, let's go to court. And the rest is history, you know.  Nothing will come out of this. So I wish them the best in Port Hacot. I hope that they get justice. But, I mean, for these women, I wonder who is playing the drums for the, or the tune for the dance, they are dancing. I mean, it could be that some of the candidates on Saturday's election or in Saturday's election may want to use this as a way of putting pressure on I-NEC so that there will be no rigging. Now, can you blame them? You know, if I want in a free and fair election, if a politician sponsors something like this, you can see the placards look really new and fresh. Can you blame them? Because, I mean, any politician who sponsors something like this will want to have a free and fair election. And all they're asking for is a free and fair election, an election that is not rigged, an election where, you know, when the voting is done, the results that were recorded in the polling unit will be what will be written on the results sheet. And when it's taken by the president of such the RA Award Coalition Center as recommended by I-NEC, that they will change the results. And when the word results are gathered and taken to the local government area, a free and fair election means that the presiding or the coalition officer in the local government will not disappear for three days. It will not be in either government house or be in local government headquarters, you know, rewriting the results. A free and fair election means that the local government's coalition officer whose result is meant to be submitted at the state coalition center, which is just in his same city, will not get there three days after while those who were bringing results from local governments that he have to cross water to get his own pass, got there before him. A free and fair election will mean that the local government coalition officers in Riverside will not disappear for three days and appear in company of security, heavy security, all right, heavy security, which was not given to him by anybody from I-NEC. Security men are known to I-NEC in tinted, you know, glass vehicles, you know, suspended to be that from government house, okay? A free and fair election will mean that a local government coalition officer in Riverside will not be held down by a local government chairman who has been threatened by the governor to produce results. Otherwise, he will be dealt with. It means that she won't have to call the commissioner police, okay, to come and rescue her from a local government chairman who is pressuring her to change the result and who has abducted her. It will mean that local government chairman who is not accredited to be in I-NEC state coalition center will not follow her there in a bit to try and convince her and everybody there, frantically, okay, shaking and sweating to change the results to what he wants it to be. That is what we mean by free and fair election. It is what the people vote is what will be seen. A free and fair election in Riverside means that what we see on the results sheet stands inside and given to the party or polling agents, okay? Those results will not be different from what will be announced by the local government coalition officer. That the results will not be different from, as announced, not be different from what I-NEC itself is uploading on its IRF portal. A free and fair election in Riverside will mean that when the party agents follow the presiding officer to the area award coalition center and from there to local government coalition center, that thugs and hoodlums, which is their rights in electrolyte, thugs and hoodlums will not appear from nowhere and chase them away and abduct the I-NEC coalition officers to the unknown destination. A free and fair election in Riverside and in the extension of Nigeria will mean that the beavers' device will not cease working all of a sudden or the I-NEC officials will not complain that they cannot upload the results and then go away with them to unknown destinations. That is what this women are protesting for. That is what they are protesting for, you know. We are not fools, Nigerians are not fools, and we see what is happening. And we in the media, we have a responsibility as an enchanted Nigerian constitution to hold government to account. And when we see blue, we call it blue, no matter who is involved. When we see red, we call it red, no matter who is involved. Okay? The world is watching.  That is what they shall reap.  That's the size of our package on our top trending segment. We'll be right back to look at what the papers say.