VC #6 : Checking in on Roadmap 2.0
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VC #6 : Checking in on Roadmap 2.0
It's been 2 months since RM 2.0 was released and the Writer's Room has been full steam ahead. Let's check in on it all... and speculate a bit as well!
This is Valet Confidential (VC), the best way to keep up to date on Jenkins the Valet, Azurbala, the Jenkins Audio Experience, Book 1 with Neil Strauss, mutant hijinks, and everything else in the Writer’s Room ecosystem.
As a reminder, our journey at VC began with a two-part interview featuring the co-founding legends themselves, Jenkins The Valet and SAFA. Take a moment to go back and read their thoughts on Web3 publishing, worldbuilding, community-generated content, and community-led DAOs in Part 1 and Part 2.
And remember, you can always find us on Twitter (FilmBook, SpaceWalk). Send us your ideas, questions, and wild speculation about the future of the Writer’s Room universe.
Before Roadmap 2.0 was released on January 31st, I had a feeling something really innovative was coming, and dropped this tweet in preparation:
SpaceWalk and I, and I’m sure plenty of others, assumed a few things based on hints from the Tally Labs team:
Writer’s Room genesis NFT holders would get the opportunity to own a Jenkins/Writer’s Room specific avatar
This avatar would have some kind of story already written for it or worldbuilding going on, and potentially an opportunity to license these new avatars would not be far behind
Announcement of some sort of DAO
The above alone would’ve been pretty monumental. What ended up getting unleashed was nothing any of us could’ve imagined. We touched on some of it with an earlier piece where we compared the Writer’s Room to Pixel Vault. The totality of what was unveiled is even more substantial. We’ve since had plenty of official updates and a few little nuggets of goodness dropped around the metaverse by Jenkins and SAFA. Let’s take a look at each major aspect of the roadmap below, and give an update as to where we stand as of April 10th — and maybe speculate a bit on where we are headed. If I were you, I’d refill that coffee mug.
Revisiting Roadmap 2.0
BOOK 1 NFT
RM 2.0 intro article info on 1/31:
The Book 1 NFT will be a special edition, claimable by the 6,942 Writer’s Room genesis NFT holders for free.
Each Book NFT will have a serial number matching it’s respective Writer’s Room NFT.
Each Book 1 NFT comes with a free claimable physical copy of the book.
All other Book 1 NFTs will be available through a public sale.
Book 1 will be both burnable and stakable.
New Info:
A “WriteList” has been established, enabling each Writer’s Room genesis NFT to purchase (at public mint price, TBA) an additional Book 1 NFT guaranteed.
All BAYC/MAYC that are licensed to Book 1, and if their owners don’t have a Writer’s Room genesis NFT, will be able to also purchase a Book 1 NFT at public mint price.
The Tally Labs team is actively strategizing around Book 1 becoming a New York Times Best Seller, which would be Neil Strauss’ 11th!
Licensors will receive a cut of 50% of net profits from all Book 1 NFT sales, as well as all physical Book 1 sales. Including on the secondary market.
Book 1 should be finished sometime here in Q2.
There will be underlying audio as a part of the Book 1 NFT as kind of a beat/track, and it will be rotating on a circular axis.
The “Where’s Jenkins” section of the book will be drawn by award winning artists and design firm IC4 design out of Hiroshima, Japan. All BAYC/MAYC licensed to Book 1 with a Yacht Key will be hand drawn in this section. Take a look at this mesmerizing sample of their work:
There will be a custom, gated, e-reader experience for Book 1 (and possibly all future written Writer’s Room projects?)
The Book 1 NFT will have unique cover art by the incredibly talented and successful @mbsjq!
mbsjq’s art is vibrant, unique, and just damn fun. His 1/1 pieces reside in the collections of some of the absolute top collectors of digital art in the world and he has done well over $1.5 million in sales on SuperRare alone
This is a great choice, and further validation that the Tally Labs team is only choosing world class collaborators for all of their projects
It’s pretty damn cool that all of us Writer’s Room NFT holders got a free JAKE piece and a free mbsjq piece just for holding
Revamped Members Portal
RM 2.0 1/31 Info:
We didn’t receive much info on this at RM 2.0 launch.
New Info:
As you can see below, the new Members Portal v2 aims to be your one-stop-shop for tracking the Writer’s Room projects you’ve licensed your NFTs to, the make up of other Writer’s Room NFTs licensed to that project, the characters on those licenses, your voting power within that project, and your tokens held overall. Additionally, to quote Jenkins in Discord, “And when you see v2 I just want you to remember the jump from v1 to v2, because that’s what’s coming from v2 to v3 as well.”
Tragedy Strikes?
Nothing really has been shared here. Looks like same Top Secret envelope that is on the Valet Stand, no?
SPECULATION: Well, in the RM 2.0 article, the team states that Jenkins is leaving the valet stand at the BAYC and going on a journey for reasons unknown, but that “family is everything, and sometimes you need to put everything on the line for the ones you love”. Well, if we remember the tweet from Jenkins below….it tells us who Jenkins only family is. My guess is the adorable GoodBoy will be kidnapped and whisked away to Azurbala, forcing Jenkins to embark on a rescue mission. In the envelope are clues to GoodBoys location.
The Mission?
See above. Looks like a big magnifying glass to me on the map. Is Jenkins looking for clues as to who took GoodBoy?
Discovering Azurbala (Interactive Experience)
Information is starting to trickle out. Jenkins has released some short videos of Azurbala. Some hint at mining activities. Others feature lush jungle castles.
If this is executed on the same level as other experiences and mechanics from the Tally Labs team, I expect this to be amazing, and maybe even a game-changer from a consumer/investor/project progression perspective. These sorts of experiences or games are some of the most fun aspects of Web3. Events as simple as a basic transaction or formerly clicking a button or two, are now transporting collectors to new worlds, having to navigate environments, going on short missions, or advancing storylines and building worlds. A gameified commerce experience.
Book 1 NFT Burning in the Sprawls
RM 2.0 1/31 Info:
Tally Labs is building a whole new world called Azurbala, with the worldbuilding being led by successful Hollywood screenwriter, Emma Needel.
This world has already been built out quite a bit, with it’s own religion, topography, resources, a ruling class, warring factions, rules to live by, and a lot more.
If you burn the Book 1 NFT, you will get a mint pass, which is then redeemable for an Azurian avatar with full commercial rights.
These avatars are described as “characters from the minute they hit your wallet”.
They will react on chain to the happenings in Azurbala.
This will be a burn event/mechanic with lore already built, so it won’t feel like a simple transaction. Reading is illegal in the Sprawls, so we will “journey” there to burn Book 1 NFTs for mint passes.
New Info:
There is a tentative time frame that the team has discussed for burning books and thus, release of Azurian avatars, and that is late Q2 / early Q3
I do find the below quote very interesting from the RM 2.0 article. What does that mean? Are we going to have the option to spy on different factions? Work/earn for our factions? Pay taxes? Can our avatars actually “die” in Azurbala?
Make them think you’re more valuable free and alive than imprisoned or dead. Follow that rule, and you just might survive.
Book 1 Staking
RM 2.0 1/31 Info:
You can stake your Book 1 NFT in order to receive governance tokens in “Media DAO(MDAO)”
MDAO will be a group of people who will “drive the future of decentralized content creation” and develop a decentralized media empire.
MDAO will create and incubate content, in an active way, across all media verticals.
MDAO will collectively govern the content they produce.
Azurbala will be the first project MDAO is involved in.
Tally Labs is contributing a significant amount of ownership interest in Azurabala IP to MDAO
New Info:
Part of the Azurian avatar sales will seed the Media DAO, and Media DAO will also receive a portion of those secondary sales.
Writer’s Room NFT Staking
RM 2.0 1/31 Info:
You can stake your Writer’s Room genesis NFT in order to receive governance tokens in “Character DAO (CDAO)”:
CDAO will be receiving a significant ownership interest from Tally Labs in the Jenkins The Valet, Jenkins the Mutant, and GoodBoy, as well as 7 Azurian characters called Legends, which we will meet once we start to interact with Azurbala
Stakers of genesis Writer’s Room NFTs will receive CDAO governance tokens based on the tier of the Writers Room NFT they hold. The higher the tier, the more governance tokens they receive
As these characters appear in projects, they will earn funds which will flow back to CDAO
CDAO will get first look at projects created by MDAO
It will be up to CDAO to decide on licensing these characters to certain projects, including outside of the Writer’s World ecosystem
New Info:
Jenkins the character will evolve and separate completely from Jenkins the human being and co-founder of Tally Labs, and continue growing through the twitter feed, audio experience, Book 1, and other future projects
The Jenkins Audio Experience
RM 2.0 1/31 Info:
The next Writer’s Room project to be fully released is called the Jenkins Audio Experience
This will include other avatar communities
Writer’s Room genesis NFT holders can license their NFTs to this project, utilizing their own avatars or partnering with someone else
New Info:
The incredibly successful media company SALT Audio (Blackout, The Midnight Miracle) was announced as the team collaborating with Tally Labs and the Writer’s Room to make the Audio Experience a reality
A roster of writers, directors, and actors have been assembled and work has begun
The Audio Experience will be accompanied by a unique software experience and gameified NFTs
The Tally Labs team intention “is for the IP we’re creating with SALT to eventually live in many forms”
There will be 6 total communities that will be a part of the Jenkins Audio Experience, with all potential partners able to be licensed to a Writer’s Room NFT if those owners so choose
One of the communities teased by Jenkins and SAFA, and one in which we know they are actively meeting with, is the Gutter Cat Gang
Upon tweeting that the Gutter Cat Gang was a great community, Gutter Cats, Dogs, Rats, and Pigeons showed up everywhere in comments, mentions, Discord, etc.. expressing their excitement and interest in partnering with the Writer’s Room
Read to the very end for some upcoming alpha from the Valet Confidential team on the Jenkins Audio Experience
Other Topics in RM 2.0
Merch drop 2!
There was a small merch drop last year, and the community has expanded quite a bit, along with the project gaining a fair amount more notoriety. Lots of anticipation here for new merch.
“A few other surprises”
This could really be anything. There has been a few instances of the team hinting recently at something big. Let’s take a look at these few Discord posts from SAFA:
The mention of CAA here is really interesting. Seems to signal some sort of partnership doesn’t it? What could be bigger than signing a deal for representation from the largest talent agency in the world? A multi project deal with Paramount? An investment from Netflix? Are the Writer’s Room and Media DAO going to be the go to media apparatus for the Otherside, and the stories told there? Is Gary Vee looking to partner on creating content for VeeFriends? A major player that we really haven’t seen much from in the Web3 space is lurking and I’m sure will be diving in soon…so I wonder what HBO is thinking? What about other forms of entertainment like Sports? Theater? Dance? It feels like we need to be thinking even bigger than just books, games, and podcasts and maybe even bigger than movies.
We’ve touched on a lot of different topics, and there are so many more updates to come. Next up for Valet Confidential is some content around the Jenkins Audio Experience, which will be the next project the Tally Labs team will be releasing, complete with avatar licensing possibilites. SpaceWalk and I had the chance recently to sit down with the CEO of SALT Audio, Nick Panama, and he kind of blew us away. We can’t wait to share that interview with you soon, and think it will really help provide a fair amount of background and clarity as to what this project will be, and why it is so exciting.
Until then, please reach out to us at FilmBook and SpaceWalk with any questions, comments, feedback, wildly speculative theories or anything else you’d like to chat about.
Some Disclaimers: None of this is financial advice. DYOR. And yes, FilmBook and SpaceWalk are WR collectors and long-term hodlrs.