Guardian of the Week — Edition #10 Meet ‘Firebolt’
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Welcome to Edition #10 of the ‘Guardian of The Week series! Every second week, a special member of the community will be chosen to be featured.
This is our way of acknowledging and celebrating all the contributions, love, and hard work you have all given to this family 🖤
We appreciate every one of you, and we hope this series gives everyone an insight into the brilliant people that make this community what it is!
In this edition, we are honoring a Guardian that is well known and beloved within the community, Firebolt!
Firebolt has been a member of our community for just over a year now. In that time, he has developed many of the amazing graphics that you are likely to see on display. Firebolt has regularly put together info graphs and visuals to help his fellow guardians view and understand game mechanics and data.
As the Guild of Guardians network of ambassadors and moderators expanded, Firebolt was an obvious choice. He heads our content creation team and works closely with the rest of the ambassador team to leverage his talent with graphics to make our presentations truly spectacular. Most recently, he has contributed to his faction, the Empire, in a challenge to create a recruitment video for pre-registration (For the Empire!).
Firebolt, introduce yourself to the community…
“Hello, Guardians! You may know me as Firebolt, but my real name is Dominic, and I am a Scrub Practitioner working in surgical theatres. My job is to ensure that surgeries are done safely and that everybody in theatres conforms to the standards of surgical practice. I do orthopedics like hip and knee replacement surgeries, plastics, and general surgery, among others. During my pastime, I enjoy playing games, watching movies and anime, photo editing and manipulation on Photoshop, and doing my newfound hobby, digital drawing.”
There’s a big difference between what you do as a Scrub Practitioner and the digital artwork you do here. You are very talented! What got you into digital art, and how did you develop your talent?
I have always loved to draw anime characters since I was little. I had a drawing notebook dedicated to this, and I can remember the first drawing that I really loved was Killua from Hunter X Hunter. I also drew Pokémon, Ghost Fighter, and Dragon Ball characters, among other 90’s anime shows. They weren’t really that good, but it was a start.
When I was in junior high, I was introduced to Photoshop editing as one of our subjects, and I immediately enjoyed it a lot. It’s amazing what you could make by just manipulating objects in a photo to make a better version of it or create a different photo. The love of Science Fiction is what made me want to develop it even further, but I never got the chance in college because of gaming and schoolwork. I started doing it again when I bought my personal computer right after I graduated and started making tarpaulins, banners, [and] t-shirts for the company I was working for as a hobby.
It motivated me even more when people liked what I did. When I moved to the UK, a computer was the first thing I bought. And immediately downloaded Photoshop in it. I thought I can get by with a computer in the house and I’ll never get bored.
At the time, I was looking for content for Guild of Guardians, then but I couldn’t find anything since it was recently announced, and not many people had made content about it, especially on infographics. That’s when I decided to make my own using Excel. It was the distribution of heroes in their elements and factions. I posted it on Discord to help the community decide how to form their squad easier. And people loved it, and they were very supportive and encouraging. I guess you could say that’s why I made more after that and continue to do so. On the other hand, I just recently started digital drawing last March when I got my phone. I am still trying to learn techniques and develop my drawing skills at the moment.
Are you a gamer? What do you play?
I have always enjoyed gaming, even as a child. I could remember playing the Nintendo, family computer, PS1, and then moving to PC with Battle Realms. I guess you could say I didn’t know exactly what I was doing then, but I still enjoyed playing it. Some of the games that I played were Flyff, Dota 1 and 2, Dragon Nest, DN mobile, League of Legends, and Ragnarok. My in-game name has always been Firebolt, so you might have met me if you also play one of these games.
What brought you to us here at Guild of Guardians? What drew you to the community?
I have come to know NFT games from a friend who told me to take a look at them. So, I did a bit of research and saw a few projects like Illuvium, my DeFi pets, and Axie Infinity. I tried some of the projects, but when I learned about Guild of Guardians, I immediately fell in love with the project. I got into GOG Discord and pre-registered around July last year and have been really passionate about the project ever since. I just love role-playing games’ complex itemization and levelling systems, interaction with both NPCs and other players, and world exploration that weaves immersive storytelling and lore. It’s on mobile, which is more accessible for me. I can still play the game even with just 15 minutes of free time — anytime, anywhere. But what drew me into the game was the team behind it and its community. The beauty of meeting people from many parts of the world coming together to build an amazing community like this. You can’t just simply find that anywhere.
You are an Ambassador and a Moderator for the Guild of Guardians community; what’s next for you?
I have moderated other projects’ servers and became an ambassador candidate in another project until I decided to focus my time and effort on Guild of Guardians. It’s not easy, and it takes up so much of my time moderating the servers. It’s not just “yeah, I have the role now”, and that’s it. You need to be there, representing the project and have your presence known to the community. On the other hand, I also wanted to be able to go out, be active and socialise in real life. So, I decided to stay on one server that I am most passionate about, Guild of Guardians.
If I could dream, I would love to have joined the GOG team. They look like they are having fun every time I see/talk to them. I know it’s not that simple, but I know I’d have fun working with the team. But being in the UK, there are not many job openings here, and I don’t have the qualifications to apply for a position since I’ve never really worked in the gaming industry before, let alone Web3. Having a full-time job at the minute will also be very difficult for me to manage my time. Who knows, maybe sometime in the future, I’ll decide to move out to Australia.
A lot is going on in Guild of Guardians right now, and the game is actively developing. What future aspects of gameplay are you most excited about?
Gameplay wise, I’ll have to say Guilds have the biggest impact on the game. It incorporates two of the biggest advancement features of your characters in the game, Raids and Item Crafting. When properly equipped, even rare Heroes can be on par or even better compared to legendary heroes in terms of damage output and strength. This is a game changer, I would say, especially for those who don’t have a full roster of Heroes.
On the other hand, I’m also kind of an aesthetics guy. I love watching special effects and animations, so I’m also quite interested in what they are cooking for the hero’s ultimate skill in special effects. The first time I saw Lia’s ultimate skill animation, it gave me goosebumps! It’s amazing how they do these things.
And to end on a serious note, we are obviously in a Crypto winter, and things are crazy. Do you have any advice for the community or opinions about the current market that you would like to share?
I just entered crypto early last year, and this is my first bear market. I have yet to learn so much when it comes to investing and trading stocks and cryptocurrency, so I am not in a position to speak for anyone, but I can speak for myself and what I believe in. If I’m being honest, I am not really worried about the market this year. Yes, it is regrettable that I haven’t predicted the coming bear and that it would be this low, but it has been going on for years. There is a cycle between bear and bull markets every now and again. It also happened in 2008, 2015, and 2018, if I remember them correctly. The prices went as low as about 80% from the highest point in that cycle. But I do have a strong belief, like a few of us here, that NFT games are the future of gaming. Assets that you own and use and gift, trade, or sell when you don’t need them. The choice is yours.
Furthermore, before I started investing in crypto, I did my research, read a lot of articles, and decided which ones I wanted to get into. I got into GOG thinking long-term. That I’ll be playing the game for years, and I’ve always taught myself that I should never invest more money than what I can afford to lose.
A bear market is the best time to leverage yourself and start. Do your research and decide if you believe in a project and the team behind it. #SilentlyBuilding
Lastly, always be vigilant to scams! They’re everywhere. It’s worth investing a few bucks in a hardware wallet to keep those precious assets secure and safe.
How can people get in touch with you?
You can follow me on Twitter at @firebolt6887
We hope you enjoyed our tenth edition of ‘Guardian of the Week’. Each week, we’ll introduce a new community member, to acknowledge and celebrate their valuable contributions and achievements.
Guardian of the Week is a community-run initiative written and managed by Bayrd from Pax Custos. You can follow Bayrd on Twitter here and on Discord as wusong101#7530.
LFGOG!!
