NZXT PODCAST - #037 - Helen

Episode Date: April 9, 2020

This week on the podcast, the crew are joined by NZXT’s graphic designer: Helen! Helen and the crew discuss Xanga, taco trucks, and Valorant. Listen live to the NZXT 💜 CLUB CAST on our Discord server at http://discord.gg/nzxt every Thursday at 10AM PT! Thanks to Tanqr#5681 for the artwork!

And welcome to episode 37 of the NZT Clubcast, the official podcast of the NZXT community. This podcast is recorded live every Thursday at 10 a year and Pacific Standard Time on the official NXC Discord server and is available to stream wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. My name is Dennis and with me as always is Ivan. Shout out to all the people with the squeaky mouse wheels. Unfortunately, Amanda is out today, but we do have a very, very special guest, Helen, from the creative team. Hello. Hello. How are you doing, Helen? Good, good. A little tired.

A little tired? How's all the rain treating you? Are you guys getting a lot of rain out there? We're getting a lot of rain. It's pouring. It's nice. It's nice, except for, like, the other day where there was an insane amount of wind, and I'm pretty sure, like, half the cars on my street were, like, knocked over or something. It was pretty insane. I don't know if you guys experienced the same thing as we did down here, but it was pretty nuts. So for those who don't know, Helen is our creative, what's your official title, Helen? Graphic designer.

Graphic designer. So complicated. I know, right? Some of these titles are like a little weird and then I'm just a graphic designer. Yeah, I have a simple title. Right. Yeah, there's no community social specialists. It's just graphic designer.

Dennis has a complicated title, but he's a simp. Very true. Yeah. We're on both ends of that spectrum here. So Helen, how long have we worked at in ZXT? I've been here for a little under a year. June would be my full one-year mark. Wow. What'd you work before? I worked for a real estate agency, literally called the agency. Okay. Yeah.

Can you explain a little bit about that? Do you know why they named it just the agency? Um, I can't, I can't tell you why, but I worked for, um, the company that was hired through the agency and then they eventually got bought out and got put under them. So I worked for that department. I worked with marketing and I did a lot of like brochures, um, emails and stuff like that. So you were doing graphic design there too, right? Mm-hmm. Okay.

What'd you, um, how'd you, how'd you get into graphic design? Um, you know, I, um, you know, I. I used to start, I started playing on like Photoshop doing banners for when like I played Maple Story. And I did this, I did those little banners or gifts, putting them on my like MySpace and Zanga page. And so I was really interested in doing that. And then one day we had those like high school talks. We're like, oh, you know, you got to find a job, your career and what you want to do. I'm like, well, I suck at everything except that.

So let's dive into graphic design. Okay. So for the kids who don't know, what the heck is Zenga? Because I know what it is. I haven't does, but I don't think of the rest of the folks who know what that is. It's a Facebook, but you can edit it yourself. So, Myspace. Yeah, it's the same thing.

Was it the same thing? I remember. I remember that Zenga was very popular with certain crowds of people. And usually they're like the enemy fans or like the, You know, the weaves or the kids who watch manga. This is like before K-pop was like it actually things like no one really knew about it. But. I was like for Tumblr.

Yeah, yeah. Like if you were playing games like Maple Story, you were probably on Zenga and you probably weren't on like Myspace or something like that. Wait, is Zinga like the like the game thing that has like Farmville and all that? No. You're thinking. That's Zinga, right? Yes, that's Zinga. Is it Zinga?

So what the heck is? What heck is Zinga? Oh, Zanga. Zenga. Zanga is the game. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no.

When you're saying Zanga, the blog thing. Yeah, yeah. So Zinga, Zy, NG is Farm Bill and all that stuff. And then Zanga with an X was blog software. Yeah. Apparently, still around. Zinga 2.0 is here. Dang, 2.0.

Oh, even my space is still around. I knew what. I forget that the story. all around. I totally forget that it's around. MySpace came out when I was in college. And this was like, I think it was before Facebook. I'm pretty sure it was before Facebook. Yeah. It was. But yeah, like back when MySpace came out, it was like, I don't know, it wasn't like, like it is now. I think now it's like all for like music and kind of like entertainment type of stuff. Yeah. Yeah, they moved it around. Yeah, I was I was really big on live journal

Because I like the right I took several writing classes in college Community College old Golden West Community College I'm sure Ivan knows what that is Yeah shout to Costa messed up Yeah and I did a yeah I wrote a lot of a lot of live journal stuff Don't go looking for it thanks

I'm pretty sure a lot of it's not appropriate for the server I was like I was like 18 or something I'm like Aleck of me being edgy right in all my edgy stuff. Okay, so you, Helen, did you go to college or anything for graphic design? Yes. I went to Fidom, the Fashion Institute of Design and merchandise. Yes, it says fashion, but they also have a graphic design department, and that's where I got my degree at. Is that why you're always dressed to impress? No, I'm dressed so casual.

I did see you dress up like super fancy on Valentine's Day. That was because it was for Valentine's Day and I was looking forward to my date. I know, but it was like you were like probably the best dressed person to ever walk into the NZXT headquarters. I don't know. I always say the Avanese got a little bit of drip, but maybe a different kind of break. I've been like every kid in junior high school. Supreme hat every day. Yeah, it's like Supreme hat and hoodie and then like, you know,

some jeans he never washes and some Jordans. Yeah, that's true. Not the knock on the people or anybody in general, but I'm going to because that's what I do. When I went with the partnerships team to check out the Hunter Thieves party that they had like last year or was it last year was this year i didn't remember anymore this year in the before time right i saw so many dudes who were literally wearing like that same style of outfit they had like something on there was supreme it was either a hat a hoodie or it was

like the sling bag right and they had jordan's usually all the same color jordan's right just the basic red and white jordan's that's the that's the simp starter pack it's e-boy starter pack right and like and like half of them had like those like dangly earrings Yeah, it was very interesting. Helen, what's your preferred sell address in a, any, uh, male? Um, no. Are you talking like hitties and hats? You like button up shirts, maybe like suit and tie every day.

Like, you know, if he's like five guys walking on the street and you'd like, that's the guy I want to talk to you. What would you look like? What's the outfit like? I know it's not an outfit, but I would say confidence. Like whatever he wears, if he has confidence, I think that works, right? You heard it here. First, folks. Why is this like a dating podcast now? This isn't everything podcast, right?

People come here looking for life, fashion advice, career advice. We got to give the people what they want, right? Fun advice. Okay, so you were at the quote-unquote agency. And then from there, what happened? From there, I joined a Korean company that did. IT development, and then eventually Jin reached out and told me that there was an open position because I previously interviewed here. And then I was like, I'm down. How was the interview

process with Jin? The first time I interviewed with Jin, it was a fairly interesting process because we were back at the old office. Do you remember interviewing with me, Helen? I do. I still have your business card. But it was interesting because I came into the office and And I was like, there's no parking anywhere. Where do I park here? And so I couldn't get into the office because it's locked, you know. So someone comes in, someone comes back from lunch and I'm like, hey, I have an interview here and I don't know where I'm supposed to go. Someone helps me into people box.

And then I wait for a while for, you know, to interview with everybody. Fairly nervous. Then I met Ivan, very cool, very chill. Then I met Jin. Yeah. Was Jen scary? No, Jen was very down to earth. I think I was more nervous talking to people off.

That's funny because I feel like that at the time, our people ops, people were very chill. And like, I didn't even know that they were in that position. I thought there's like regular employees. I thought for a minute that like, who was it? Jared was like super big serious guy. But we just talked about Black Desert online for like half an hour. That was my interview with them for the most part.

Yeah, because I was previously at Kakao games. So I was like, oh, yeah, you know, I play a lot of, a lot of Krien-M-O. I'm like, yeah, I used to too. I don't anymore. All right, so we can get into that during another podcast. It's a long story. So you interviewed Jin, you got to job. What was like your first impression of like NST?

First off, why did you apply to NZXT? What made you want to, like, get a job here? I've always wanted to work in the gaming industry or related to the gaming industry because I'm a gamer. I like a game. And I feel like the culture NCXT offers is exactly what I wanted. So when I first applied, I was super stoked, really wanted to get in, didn't get in. And so I was really bummed. But then I got into that Korean IT gaming company. So I was a little excited.

But then Jin reached out again. And I'm like, it's a sign. I meant to be in here. And I'm actually really glad that I got into NZXT because I love the culture of this company. I love working with everybody, and it sucks that, you know, we're in a pandemic right now.

We can't go into the office because I really looked forward to, like, waking up and going into work and just talking to everybody. You can just go to the office. I'm going there tomorrow if you want to meet me there. You know, it's raining, and I like to enjoy the rain indoors.

That's what I thought. Dry. Gin still goes in, too. I think Irene was in there the other day. Yes, they're working on a project that I cannot disclose. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Yeah, I think that was one of the rules before we started this.

Make sure you don't talk about anything you're not supposed to talk about. So let's move on from that. Okay, so creative. So you do graphic design at creative. What exactly do you work on in the graphic? design space for NZXT? I worked on a lot of things, and I say worked on, because we're sort of shifting the process and how we do things and who takes care of what.

So before this whole structure change, I started with emails, banners, Facebook ads, a lot of image asset pooling for build and other departments. Now it's a little interesting to find me. I'm still doing the same thing, still doing video. So those walkthrough videos are trial in there because, you know, I'm just learning about them getting into that. And for the most part, that's mostly what I do. You just

redesigned our new blog newsletter template. Yes. Which looks awesome, by the way. Yep. Get ready for emails, folks. Get ready for a lot of, actually, not a lot of emails, but get ready for some awesome emails coming soon. Yeah. Do you all remember that?

You guys remember emails, emails, Facebook, Zenga. It's funny. I feel like most people don't, like, at least in our community, they don't check their email because I'll get DMs and they'll ask me, hey, what's the status of my sticker order? And I need the email to look it up. So I'll ask them, like, what's your email address? So I can look it up.

And then they'll be like, I don't know. Like, well, you have to type in your email address. Or sometimes people will win a prize and they will email them, you know, letting them know that they won. It'll be like a free computer. And like they wouldn't even check their email. Like they won't even accept their free computer. That's giving me anxiety what I'm looking at Mini Cuddle's picture.

10,000 no to, oh no. I think I have, let me check my phone. I have literally 14 notifications and emails. Dennis, we can't be friends. I'm sorry. I check, I check, I'll check it once every other day or so, and I'll clear through all the emails and archive stuff like once a week. So I have like a really clear inbox.

I do inbox zero every day. Every day? Every single day. I don't fucking do every day. I'm just, you know, I'm just too busy of a man. I get way too many emails every day. I can't really be bothered to do it every single day. You're so popular, Dennis.

Yeah, you know, I mean, I didn't want to say it, you know, but I guess, you know, cats out the bag. I'm a pretty popular guy. I'm getting all these emails. Facebook's, you know, all over me. What's your favorite thing about working at in the creative department at NZXT? Favorite thing, the team? Is that a question?

No, no, no, no, no. Speaking of your team, Helen is the last person from the creative team to be on the podcast. We had the first one was... It was Irene, then Raina, then Gin, then Jin. Yeah. Yes. I was delaying it as much as possible. We saved the best for last.

Is it part of the creative team? I thought he was like on his own like special box. Well, he's in the creative room, so I'm going to consider him being part of the creative team. Although he doesn't play games with us. Every time we're playing like siege or counterstrike, we're like, Shin, come join us, come join us. We need five.

Shin is like, no. Probably like the hardest working person in DXT, man. Like the other day, I went in there. I go in there every couple of weeks. I have to ship stuff out, you know, and I walk in there. I wasn't expecting anybody to be, at the office and as always shin was in that creative room in the corner just like you know working away

like nothing like nothing's going on i think it shows how hard working shin is is when he gets locked into the office and he can't go out because everyone thinks everyone's gone and they just lock the gates yeah it's actually happened yeah he figured the security alarms because he was like how do i get out now there was one day too um like maybe like five years ago now where um like we had just gotten Slack before we used to use Skype and we had just gotten Slack and and Shin I don't think had a smartphone at the time and there was something something happened at the office where we we had to close the office for some reason I think the power went out so there was like a company-wide you know slack message you know don't come to the office don't come to

the office today it's closed and then Shin drives to the office and he had no idea what was going on and he just like, I think, waited in the parking lot all day, like, waiting for someone to come and finally he called someone and they're like, didn't he get the Slack message? Office is closed today, man. But he's super dedicated to working. Who is the most interesting person in your department, Helen?

Who do you want to know the most about? You know, because there's certain people that you work with that you can like, you have like, you know, some interaction here and there and you kind of get a sense of who they are. Who's the one person that you're like, I want to know, like, as much as I can about this person because it's just so interesting. Mine's Andy. Andy has a lot of stories, so there's that. But I think for the creative team, I think we're all well put together. And we talk a lot. We spend a lot of time together. I don't, I think we're all fairly knowledgeable about each other. So I don't think there's, I want to know more.

about this person. Right. I think we're all, like, if we have a question we want to know, we just ask. All right, all right, all right, cool. Who, uh, who surprised you the most when you started working with them? Um, why is it Ivan? No, it's, it's Andy. It's definitely Andy.

When I come by and I was like helping him with email templates, I come by, like, look at him and like, why are you sitting like that? Why do you sit like that? It's not comfortable. Andy, please. how does Andy sit what's your how do you describe that he doesn't sit he squats over the chair armchair if that makes sense like he doesn't properly sit on it he's just hovering over it so he's sort of doing squats and he's working out while he's he's squitting yeah squint squinting squinting i think squitting i think

What's your least favorite thing about working at? In creative. I keep one to say at creative. The least favorite thing. I have to think hard about this. There's a lot of people. No, I'm just kidding. The least favorite thing is probably the last-minute projects that come in.

You mean like every day? Basically your entire job. some of the things aren't that bad but there there are times where something comes in and we just have to like completely reshuffle everything and it's like a big priority and it sort of just throws off the workflow and stuff like that yeah i actually want to ask about that like how how do you guys manage so many tasks especially when like it seems like a lot of them come in like last minute or like there's a change or pivot that that we need to make based on whatever's happening like how do you guys manage all these tasks and make sure you're staying on track and things get out when they're supposed to? I think as designers, project management and time management is very important. Just knowing what's a priority and what's not is

very key to doing our job. Like, if we know we can push something back and something else comes in, it's more important, then we'll do that. We'll shift the priorities and we'll do that. So yeah, I think that's the biggest thing. And sometimes the things that come in, they actually take like 10, 15 minutes, but it's the process of like, I have to close this program, open this

program, I have to relocate these files. That's what takes it, like, you know, what makes it, um, the process longer. And so I think that's probably the most frustrating thing is when we get a last minute project. We're like having to like find all those assets and everything like that. Hmm. Okay. Okay.

Evan, do you have any follow-ups for that? Uh, yeah. And I'm, I know that the creative team is always working on last minute projects. And I hate bugging them with that sort of stuff, but it is unavoidable. Um, but that's, actually one of the reasons why maybe like even six months ago, I asked Jen, is it cool if we set up like a weekly meeting specifically for community creative projects? So we don't have to do these last minute things so much anymore. And I feel like even with that meeting, there's still like last minute stuff. But I think it's a lot less if we didn't have that meeting. Right. Which is later today, by the way, at two o'clock, Helen. Oh, boy. I don't know.

I can't say because I just started joining those meetings, I think maybe a month, two months ago. Well, do you find them useful? I don't think they should be every week. I don't think that's useful, but I do think like a meeting would be worth of a month. They used to be every two weeks, which, yeah.

Yeah, I think we take them every week. Yeah, I mean, there's always, you know It's always something Like every week there's something Welcome to the meeting cast We're talking about setting up meetings With the rest of the company Next year you're going to set up a meeting with Johnny

This is how hard working we are Yeah, no, it's one of the things There's like, like, the matter what Like, I think that overall A lot of us in at NXT have a really good working relationship So we don't really have a problem Like bringing work stuff up

Like I definitely worked at places where if I'm talking to somebody from work, the last thing I want to talk about is work, because I'm just like so tired of it. But I think it's kind of shows that at the very least we like working, right, and doing what we do. So talking about meetings during the podcast is like, no big thing. It's all good. And then we'll talk about the podcast in the meeting.

Yeah. Yeah, we definitely will. So the podcast today, I had an idea. And Helen can help with us. Helen, what is your least favorite and most favorite N60 product? So let's start with what's your favorite N60 product? It's the new Krakensi because I can put a picture of my boyfriend on there. Hey.

That's actually really cute. My least work we meet. We actually met at a taco truck doing a meetup from a game that we played. That's how we met and became friends. Okay, first off, which game was this? What'd you order from that taco truck? It was Valerent. I wish. I can't get in. I'm trying.

It's a Korean MMO called Blade and Soul. Yes, I've heard of your escapades in Blade and Soul. Yeah, so we were talking in Clan Chat, and I always choked around with another friend, a mutual friend of ours, where I'm always saying like, oh, you guys got tacos? Where was the invite? Thanks for the invite. Where's the tacos? And so one day they're like, we're getting tacos. Let's meet up.

And of course, they're in the area, obviously. So we did that. We got tacos and we just became friends. We had mutual meetings here and there or like hangouts. And that's set. What kind of tacos? You know, regular taco truck. Those are my favorite.

I love regular tacos from the regular taco truck. Nothing makes me more satisfied than a regular taco from the regular taco truck. What kind of meat was in these tacos? You know, Alpestor. Wait, say it one more time. El Pastor. Stop making fun of me, Dennis. I'm moving on.

Okay. What is your least favorite N60 product, and be honest? And why is it the podcast? I would say it's Dennis. What? I think it is the least favorite. I can't even say this as a product because I don't have one, but I'm going to say it's the RGB and fan controller

because I had to do the walk-through video for that. And that was my first time doing a video or a walk-through video and I struggled so much with it that I had nightmares doing it. What are some of the struggles in doing those walk-through videos? I think keeping the camera in track, like in still motion or making sure it's not too like wobbly, everything's in focus. getting like really cool dynamic shots. No, don't like that.

I just like that. I'm signing off. You did a great job with it. Yeah, no, it's a good video. I like it. Ever since Helen started working on the walkthrough videos, like if you look at the comments of the walkthrough videos, before people used to be like,

this is so uninformative, this is useless information. God, this is the dumbest walkthrough video. And now people are commenting, wow, how thanks NXT for making these walk-through videos useful finally, you know? So you're doing a great job. Well, I mean, it's nice that people give comments. Even if they're like negative comments, we take it back. You know, we learn from it and we try to improve from it.

So it's not like we're disregarding what the community says. Yeah. Yeah, so Irene and I are working on videos now. We're like sort of taking turns, shifting it in between, and it's fun, stressful. It's fun. Yeah, but you guys are doing a great job with the videos. I know it's a lot of work. you know we always like

when people used to complain about the videos when I was involved with them that's when I was like before we even had a creative team it was like I had to like make these videos and I had no idea how to do them and yeah like they sucked you know like there's like literally like no information

I think what's scary though is because our photo room is right by the men's bath room so every time people are passing by we have like a glass door so people are able to like peek inside and they're like tapping on the the door and I'm like so in the zone with shooting my shots that like when they start tapping on the door when they open it I'm just like whoa when you come in you should get like a sign or something you can you can't but you know if someone needs to come in and they actually need something it's very urgent it is what it is true yeah it's the same reason why uh when we were sending up our

podcast room in the office rip the office that we requested we'd get a door that had no glass on it because the one time we did a podcast where people could like walk by they were like tapping on the glass and looking at us and making dumb faces I'm like dude I'm trying to pay attention to what Dom is talking about here is a very important man get away from the glass it's distracting

yeah it was all the builders I'm going to say it right now it was it was like all builders and like I think one or two guys from customer service they were doing it Helen, if you could choose one thing non-gaming related, the NXT could take a crack at and apply its design language and principles, what would that thing be if you had your choice? It's a toughie. Very tough. Feel free to take your time.

There's no one listening. It's just you, me, and Ivan. No pressure. non-gaming related or just doesn't have to be in the game it doesn't have to be in the game but i mean if you if you want if you want to make it easier you can make it a gaming thing that we don't work on that we haven't released

that we haven't announced whatever you want car tires i want to see how we do car tires yeah are you a big car person no but i had to change my tires so She's a big tire person. Like, yeah, either tires or rooms. I wonder what N60 rooms would look like. Do you think they have like RGB on them or something like that? It would be square like pucks.

Square tires. They provide the best, the best traction out of all the tires, right? All right. I know Ivan has some questions for you, right, Ivan? I do. He does. Oh, no. Okay.

So what do you mean, oh, no? Oh, no. Maybe like six months ago on Slack. I think you were helping Andy with something with like an email template and you updated it for him. And then Andy goes, thanks, Ducky. Like, what the heck? Like, I had no idea why he called you Ducky. So my first question to you is, why do people call you Ducky?

It's because my gamer tag is a drunk ducky. A drunk ducky. There's a long story to that. We'd like to tell that story? Yeah. So I think the first time I called myself a ducky is also because my mom calls me my little duck. That's cute. And so the first time I incorporated that ducky into my gamer tag was when a friend told me that they, you know, we used to play on PS4, PS3, PSC.

to play modern warfare, you know, all the cod games. And so he said that he fought someone and he killed someone and their game attack was really interesting. I'm not going to say it because it might be inappropriate. So I thought it was interesting and I was inspired by it. So I called myself a drunk ducky because every time you'll kill me, he'll say you killed a drunk ducky. And I just brought that. Forever and ever.

Yep. Just keep it. Yeah, my, um, uh, I, it's not really a, long story, but like, you know, when I was a kid, you know, I used to watch a lot of anime, still do. But my, yeah, definitely does. So because Steam doesn't allow you to change your account name, you can change the email that is associated with your Steam account. My Steam username has Inuyasha in it from the show way back in the day.

And it can't get rid of it. I can't change it. It's just stuck there. So now whenever I have to log in the Steam, it's like Inuyasha, blah, blah. blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, at yahoo.com. What's wrong with that? It's old and cringy. It's what it is.

Are people still using Yahoo accounts? No, that's the thing. Like, I didn't even have access to that email anymore, but everything on my Steam is linked into my current Gmail that I use now. So it's just, you know, I just got stuck using that account because I made the Steam account when I was like 13 or something whenever Steam released. I've had my Steam account for like a million years, actually. I have.

an AOL account. And I still use it, yes. It's my spam email. Same. But it's great. I don't know how you still like would use an email that old. Like when does you get a new one?

Because, you know, it's easy to remember. It's great for spam. You know, if you go to the store and they're like, oh, do you have an email you want to sign up? And they're like very like, enforceable in trying to get your email. You're like, I'll give you this email. and they're like AOL.

How old are you? Yeah. It's funny. Like, whenever I go to a store and they ask me for my email, I'll give them that spam email and they look at me funny. They're like, is this kind of cold in me right now? And my AOL email is so old that it's literally Ivan B at AOL.com. Oh, my God.

Good luck, Chris, your name at any email provider nowadays. Yeah, I feel, I wonder what it's going to be like when you're like a kid, like, growing up getting email addresses and signing up for these accounts. I know that a lot of places are doing like, for example, how like Discord has a user ID and it's just like a long number. And then you have your Discord tag, which is like your name,

hash, you know, hashtag or pound sign, number, number, and then you have like your nickname. I wonder what they're going to do next to kind of like keep that going. Because eventually there's going to be,

I think I read an article somewhere that it's like in like 20 years, there would be more dead people. on Facebook than alive people on Facebook. I don't have you guys read that at all. Yeah, because of all the people who send it for accounts, right? They're like eventually there's going to be less people who are actually alive using the platform and people who previously had accounts. And made me think like, what that's going to happen with my account, you know?

I'm scared. Everyone's emailing a drunkie at aOL.com now. Thankfully, that is not my AOL account. I was hesitant to say it because I didn't want to get spammed. Okay, my next question for you is, why is it so hard for you not to curse? Because we've been inviting you on the podcast for months now, and like every time we invite you, you're like, no, I'm going to curse. I'm going to curse. It's like, why is it so hard for you to just like not say bad words?

I think it just flows out of my mouth too easily just to cuss. Like, I think there was one time I was talking to Irene and Raina. And in one sentence, I said... Don't say it. Maybe like five to six curse words in that one sentence. Yeah, it's just very hard. When did you start cursing? Maybe when I started gaming.

No, probably during high school. Yeah. And do you ever plan on not cursing, like, you know, stopping cursing? I mean, look at me right now. I'm on this podcast and I haven't said a single bad word. I can clearly stop. It's not a habit. It's just choice.

I can stop. I can not cuss, you know. Without cursing, what is your favorite curse word? What letter does it begin with? Oh, God. I'm getting trouble. Um, um, uh, Why is it so hard for you?

I have to think of which one. There's so many. There's so many great curse words to say. Which is it possibly choose? Is it this one? Is it this one? Is it this one? It starts with an S, you know?

Gotcha. Frankfurter. You're big fan of hot dogs, right? No, no, no, no, no, no. It's an S. Oh. My next question for you is, what inspired you to dress up as our wifu for Halloween?

I wanted to part, oh my God. I wanted to participate in the costume contest because it's my first time at a company event. So I did a last minute impromptu of the outfit. I voted for you, by the way. That was like the coolest costume I've ever seen in my life. It was, it definitely took me out of my comfort zone. If I had more time, I would have made it look better.

But, uh, yeah. All the, all the weaves in the office were like, you know, like, their mind was blown, basically. It was very awkward coming into the office with a purple wig. You look exactly like Akari, though. You rocked it. I think we took a picture, too, of me trying to do that. that pose, which is so hard that like, that portion of everything.

No, no, no. There's one where we actually tried to match it perfectly. Oh. And like, I think Eugene was watching. He's like, what are you guys doing? But you even had like the little floating heart and everything. Yeah. And the pucks in your, pucks in your hair, the socks.

The only thing, the only thing that wasn't like, Akari was the shoes. You needed some purple Chuck Taylor's. I actually spent three days looking for the purple shoes. I found the stockings. I found the hoodie. And then I made the little like puck hair hair things. I found the wig. I couldn't tie it up, unfortunately.

But the shoes I went to like, I went to Walmart, Target. I checked on Amazon. Like I went everywhere to find the shoes. It should be on Amazon. No. I wouldn't have gotten them in time. That was the thing. Oof.

I would have paid for one day shipping. I have Amazon pride. I would have paid for one. one day shipping too but i just couldn't get it it would have been worth it it would have you would have clearly no i still won i still won i know you would have won more you wanted our hearts what did you think about my Halloween costume i liked it i voted for you at the time i only knew like a few people so i voted for the few people i knew yeah i think the webes definitely cheated i don't think they They get it right.

I mean, every weave, I mean, our office is like 90% weaves. So it's like, of course, we all voted for Helen. It was like they're, you know, like a no-brainer vote. I cringe. I get out my own photo. Stop. Yeah, that photo's there forever now. Sorry, it's on the internet.

That's my only three questions for Helen. Helen, do you have new questions for us? Who is your favorite creative team member? Beside you? Ha ha, got him. No, my favorite creative team member is Shin. I agree. I actually really like Raina.

I feel like she and I vibe in like a certain way. I don't know. And I just think she's like super cool. She hates you, man. Oh, really? stories to tell and she's very expression. Raina finds Dennis so cringy. Imagine that was the case?

She was like, oh, God, this guy's so weird. What does he talk to me? Raina said she would come back on the podcast the second time, so clearly not. Yeah, for sure. We definitely will love to have her have her on super soon. She's great. I feel like the first podcast we had with her didn't really do her justice, considering just the setup we had at the time.

And I think now that we have a much better setup, well, fortunately not anymore. But I mean, this is still a pretty sweet setup, I would say. You know, it's not that bad, right? I think that she can definitely add some extra pizzazz to the podcast because she does have some really great stories. She does. Have you listened to Raina's podcast? I know she started a new one called Hype the Podcast. Yeah.

I have another one? Yeah, she started another one. Dang. Yeah, she had the Felicity and Friends, right? And then she told us that one ended and then they started another one. Mm-hmm. So I think the move Ivan is to end this podcast on a high note. And then we start a brand new podcast.

I don't know what we're going to call it, but I think that might be the next step for the N60 Club cast. Call it up. The Pabcast. The Pabcast? That sounds really gross. Oh, no. Pappecast. That sounds like what you would call like a gynecologist podcast.

Poppycast. Aw topics. Helen, what are you playing right now? What games are you jamming on? I play TFT. I think that's the biggest game I've played so far. I stopped playing APEC, stop playing FPS shooters. I'm trying to get into Valorant.

Anytime they'll drop me a key, I'm down to go back. But TFT is probably my biggest game. I'd be sure if I would really recommend Valerant, to be honest. I played it for like two hours. And I was like trying to stream it. And I was like, all right, guys. Just because you're not good doesn't mean the game isn't fun. I was pulling out from pretty dope.

uh, strats. So I'm going to say, right? 300 IQ big brain. I was doing all kinds of crazy stuff. Dennis is just because he, because he paid for a key. Oh, yeah. Admi on Valerant, uh, at, uh, at XQ. That's my, that's my account. Um, no, like, it's, it's a, it's a cool game. It's just, um, I think that the hype's been super overblown. And I think that the tactic they're using.

to get these views on Twitch is like kind of not cool in my opinion because they're not being very transparent on like how you're getting these keys and they're not being transparent on how often you get a watch how many streams you get to watch that they're kind of like giving out this information piece by piece like no no game ever really hits a million viewers right like ever except if it's like unless it's like the Dota International or like you know uh LCS or something like that right or everyone's quarantined that's nothing better to do that's yeah right but I mean like But I'm like concurrent numbers for one single game in like any category. It doesn't like that doesn't really happen right because it's so spread.

And the only reason that these numbers are up is because people are sitting in these streams trying to watch to get these dumb drops so they can play this beta. Not only that you're forgetting that this is not just like any other random game. This is literally kind of is. No, this is riot games. This is, you know, this is not just like a no name type of game. this is huge. It's like if Blizzard or, you know, like some big publisher came out with a game, you know, it's going to be the same deal.

I think there's going to be hype everywhere and there's going to be a lot of mixed opinions. But I think that's what's fun about the gaming industry. Like even if you think this game is bad, I might find it enjoyable. I mean, there's going to be a lot of music reviews more so just if you have fun on the game, play the game. If you don't, don't play it. Like I always say, Dennis. But I'm not saying the game is good.

Video games are like pizza toppings. No, they're not. Just order like your slice. Nope. There's pineapple. Yeah. Pineapple is lit though. And we all agree that, right?

I like pineapple pizza. But what I'm saying is that the way that they're building up this hype is in a way that that's one, is super unsustainable, right? Because I can guarantee you, right, if they just did, hey, sign up online on this webpage for the closed beta, we wouldn't have nearly the number of people who are, who are watching these streams, right? And that's what I'm saying is that this, this crazy height that they're building up is,

it's super artificial. Yeah, it's, well, I don't say it's unfair, but it's unfair, it's artificial, it's overblown, and it's distracting from what the actual game is. But it's working. If right, it's working for now, but it's not going to work forever. That's the thing, right?

It doesn't need to work forever. It needs to work right now. It doesn't need to work forever. That's the point. And to me, they did it. they did it the right way because everyone's talking about it. I mean, you're talking about it. So it worked.

I think it also sucks, though, because people are watching, or they're not really watching the stream. They're just on just to get drops. And they're just like, where's my key? Where's my key? I want my key. And they're not really paying attention to the content. So it sort of sucks.

Right. Where you're coming from. I think they would still have a big impact if they just said, hey, guys, here's a game that we made. We think it's really awesome. Check it out. But they're doing this really weird marketing thing where they're setting people's expectations.

to be higher than it needs to be, and I think it's not going to help them in the long run when people actually have a chance to play the game. It's not a bad game, but I don't think it's anything groundbreaking. It's really kind of strike with like some TF2 and Overwatch stuff thrown into it. It's really nothing special, but it's not a bad game. Same way how like, I'm not a big fan of TFT, but people enjoy it and they'll play it and it's going to have an audience.

I don't think that, I don't think the Valorant is really going to pull anybody away from any games. The same way that like, mm-hmm. I have a question for you, Dennis. Sure. When are you going to play Apex with me? I don't know. What are you going to pay? Play Apex with me. I don't know. I'm waiting for you. When are we squatting up? I'm free tonight. Let's play. Let's do it.

All right. I'll show you my Mirage. And then I get angry and stop back to Jirbalt because Mirage is trashed. He's not good. Anyway, that's my thoughts on Ballarat. It's cool, but it's, you know, nothing special. Go play kind of strike. You want to play kind of straight. Ivan, what do you play right now? I'm playing super mega baseball. Number one. You bought that up there in a meeting.

Did I? Yeah, you did. You're like, I don't know if I should buy this game or if I shouldn't. And we asked you what game and you're like, super mega baseball and we're like, what? Are you that too far from going out there? I love baseball and, you know, like everything in life, everything is just like postponed. So baseball is like, you know, not out there right now. right now. So I wanted to play a baseball game so I can get my baseball fix. And there's this new

game coming out this month called Super Mega Baseball 3. And I haven't played the first two. So I bought the first two and I figured I'll play those until the new one comes out. It's a really fun game. I like it a lot. It's like you guys remember the NBA Jam arcade game for back in the day? Yeah. It's like that. It's like that style, but baseball. It's really, really fun. And besides that, still playing a little bit of Animal Crossing, although I am already bored with it. I'm so jealous. Everyone in that Switch channel is just talking about Animal Crossing and Turnup Prices, and I'm just like, I don't have a switch. That's why I am bored with it. It's because that Slack channel is like everyone's like grinding on that game and it just like I don't want to grind it. So it's just so weird. Yeah. It turns me off to the game. And once I paid off my house, I was just like, everyone's just like, I was just like, I don't want to grind it. So it just so weird. It turns me. It turns me off to the game. And once I was just like,

like, all right, I think I'm done. I don't really want to put this anymore. I was scrolling through the channel and Satang, he linked Google Doc. I'm like, what is this Google Doc? It's literally the Yeah, yeah, NZX turn up prices where everyone in the channel who's doing

it is posting their turnip prices day by day. And they're literally talking about their turnip prices. I'm like, why, guys? Yeah, I just put it to a screenshot of It's like it's way it's out of control man it's uh it's too sweaty it makes me not want to play the game because to me animal crossing it's not a game where it's like focus on grinding it and like getting the best prices and all this just like just you know it's

about chilling and just enjoying it and to me like making it really competitive takes the fun out of it because I really don't care about people flexing on me with their outfits or whatever, you know, like, I just want to be left alone. I've only had one visitor on my island. Oh. It was Jeff and he gave me two beards. It was beards? Yeah, two beards, the same. Like a beard for your face.

Yeah, because I had a meeting with him and he saw my beard and then he's like, oh, I should send you a beard. And then he sent me the beard and then I decided to shave. If you ever take that audio clip, just without context, let me send you a beard. We posted Jeff's creations on Twitter last night. They're so nice. Yeah, and the only thing is that he named him really dumb. He named him pro pattern. Except for the Neteo one, he gave that one a name.

This is how I know that Jeff doesn't do what he's supposed to be doing at work, because I don't know how he has enough time to make an Ateo hoodie that also includes a sling bag. It's full. Even put in the zipper. He put the zipper on the back of the sling bag. Like, yeah, it's so much time. Hold up. I can add a couple of gray pixels here and there and make sure that it looks like it has a zipper on it.

I'm like, dude, what do you do all day? I told you. I checked his animal crossing hours for the first week at lunch, and it was 65. That's literally a full-time job. That's two full-time jobs. That's a full-time job and a part-time job on top of a full-time job. That's a, he needs to make ends meet. He's been handed on his payments.

His baby's got to eat, right? So he's going to take a second job working at like a liquor store at night so he can, you know, pay for milk and stuff like that. He gets commission for each turn up. Yeah. Turn up commissions. That's too good. Yeah, I don't know about that. Yeah, but thanks, Jeff and thanks Cuddle.

Thanks to everyone in the Animal Crossing channel on the Discord who are participating and chanted up. I didn't know if that channel would work, but I'm glad that it did because I know not everybody has a computer, but a lot of people have a switch. And Animal Crossing is like one of those really fun social games that people just want to hang out on. And I think that the way that we handle it in our community

is better than posting a Google Doc every day where you can list your turnip prices at set times of the day. Just saying. Yeah, there's Vivian. She literally just posted that right now. But that might be their way of having fun by competing with their turn-up prices.

I guess. To me, that makes it so not fun. Your games are like pizza toppings. I gave you. You find the way you want to play, and then you eat your slice. I don't say anything. I just stop playing it. I literally just stopped playing the game.

I went to baseball instead. Super mega baseball. Do you get some community questions? Yeah, let's do it. I'm down. Let's get to it. So if you guys have any questions for me, Dennis, or Helen, or just in general, start asking them.

We've been pinning some, but you guys can start asking more, and then we'll start going through them. Let's start with the first one here. It says, Tropicana Orange Juice is asking, have you guys ever thought of using a bot like Y-A-G-P-D-B, a role reaction bot to make roles like product update, NST blog, or NZ-T podcast to notify certain people about certain things?

The answer is, I have no idea, a bot that is. I will Google it and I will bookmark it so I can research this later. And if I think it's useful, sure, we will consider it. But we haven't up to this point. We just spam the server. Yeah, I mean, we can also talk about like how we don't have the feeds channel anymore. Right? We got rid of the feeds? Few people were complaining about all the announcements, so we made a feeds channel, started posting, like, blog posts and tweets and things like that on there.

But we noticed that no one was clicking on them or reacting, so we just got rid of it. We did keep the podcast feed, though. It's in Back Alley, just so people can listen to old episodes. We're not trying to spam you, but at the same time, we are trying to let you guys know about everything that's going on. But we'll look into this bot and see what it can do. Definitely spam. Cole McGrath is asking, oh, Cole McGrath from Team Wind, by the way. How do you guys at NXT feel about having a big camp out with the Discord family out at a campsite sometime?

I think that is an awesome idea. One of the things we want to do once this whole quarantine thing is over is start doing some more meetups. We had our first ever meetup last year, and we also had our first ever pop-up last year. And we did want to do more this year. planning them already like before the whole coronavirus thing hit but we basically had to put that on pause because literally every gaming event or any type of event you know with public gathering got postponed but hopefully we can do that one day soon TM yeah magma man team fire is asking why is ZXT's favorite color of purple, like was it voted for?

Yeah, so a couple years ago when we decided we wanted a color, we basically looked at, you know, what other gaming companies were using as colors, and everyone was black and something else, you know, they wanted to be black and white, black and red, black and yellow, black and something. And we just, we voted and we decided on purple. and pink because those are like probably the exact opposite of black and whatever. So at least use colors. Yeah, it wasn't a hard decision really.

I like it. I love, I love purple and pink. Our pink is our orchid. Orchid, yeah. But even before we change our colors, I always like those colors. C-Cat-6, the small form factor guy from Team Wind is asking what form factors are being explored for future cases. Are there any others?

I mean, we have ATX and mini-ATX. We used to have micro-ATX and then we stopped making it because nobody wanted to use micro-ATX. We definitely don't want to make like giant cases anymore like we used to back in the day. Oh, should I be unpinning these questions, by the way, or leaving them pin? I think it's fun to unpin them, but just to kind of go back to what you. you were saying the 510 does support micro and mini as well so it's like but it looks really yeah it does i know because like um it's like it's funny um Ivan was pointing out one day that i forget where we were talking about this but he said that he personally does not like when someone like goes to build and

uses like the tiniest motherboard ever and sticks it into a 510 because it looks really dumb and i agree it does look really dumb you see this giant case and this tiny little baby motherboard with all these components is like crammed in there and you with like all this space that there's all this empty space. Clearly it's not enough RGB in there to blind you from seeing that small motherboard. That's the problem there.

Yeah. Yeah. Tom Nook from Team Earth is asking, are the new mods behaving? And the answer is yes, they are. They're doing a great job. Even with the bot issues we had the last couple of days, they're doing really

good. no complaint so far Moby Cuddle Team Water is asking why is Dennis so small and the answer is because he has Papito. He's supposed to be small. Right, why are you so small, Dennis? I'm not small. Why are you so giant?

It's a better question. Because I eat my milk. No, I eat my beans. I ate my beans too. Actually, I've been eating beans every single day of this quarantine, dude. I was just about to say that. Yeah, like, I think every single day I've, we've been at home, there's been some beans at the house. Either old beans that we've, like, frozen and, like, we reheat or, like, fresh beans that we just made or something.

It's a lot of beans, but, you know, I love beans. It's good. You know, beans are great. Yeah, when, because my wife used to, you know, my wife makes my lunch and she used to make me a sandwich and some fruit to go to the office. And then when I told her I was going to be working from home, she was like, She just asked me, what do you want for lunch every day? And I said, bean tacos. So that's literally what I?

Every day I just have like six bean tacos for lunch with some. Six tacos? Yeah. With some cooking cheese. Is it a lot? Six tacos is a lot. It's a lot of tortillas, no? Yeah, half a dozen tortillas.

Considering when like you would barely eat when we would like go out to lunch, now you're eating these big old meals at home. See how it is. It's quarantine. You don't even eat lunch at work. Yeah. I do skip it? I thought you said you skipped lunch. No, I eat lunch. I just eat it like in five minutes and I get back to work. I literally go into the podcast room. I'll eat my sandwich and my salad and then I'll just go back to my desk. Tom Nook from Team Earth once again is asking, how do you think the progress of the house event is going so far? I'll let you guys answer that because I think it's going great. I want to know what you guys think.

I think it's going nice. I think it's going well. We're working on some more stuff. I know that Amanda and I were working on some more stuff to do regarding Pucci Kup, but wait for her to come back so she can elaborate on that. She did make an announcement yesterday about getting Pucci Cup points for writing blog posts. So check the announcements channel if you're interested in that. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Tom Nuck is also asking, has a lot of? there been any anime you watched that made you think more on your life or life in general from the story that was told the answer for me is absolutely not cartoons cartoons mean nothing to me except the simpsons that probably changed the simpsons that changed my life more than any any other show i've ever watched how about you guys uh go ahead denn uh fully coolly i mean from you know what mean what Sergio and I talked about last episode. Like that show hit at a certain time when I was growing up

that kind of made me like think a lot about like how I was reacting to situations. Because when you're like a young person right and you're growing up and you're like in those really formative years you like don't know what the hell's going on right? And like who you're supposed to be and that show kind of like made me thinking about the stuff a little bit more. I'm supposed to be it.

This is this is where. am inside. I used to, growing up, watched this anime called Gundam Seed and there was a line in there that said, what are you supposed to do with this war when all you have is your feelings? And that really struck a chord

with me because that was like, it sort of told me, like, you know, stop doing things, like just saying things, like take action for once, you know? It was really deep. And ever since then, she started cursing. No.

Vipsy Team Wind is asking how about the cutest pet of the week? I love that idea. Yeah, I read it down. I rewrote it down. I'm going to talk about it. That's a great idea. Where did you write it down? I wrote it down on this little milestone escrow paper pad that my dad has because he does real estate on the side.

Shout out to milestone escrow. Let's go, baby. Let's go. Can you please make a Trello card for that? Thank you. Yeah. Magma Man, Team Fire is asking, who is the oldest member of the staff,

and why did they join NXT originally? I don't know who the oldest member is, but I'm assuming it's Helen. I'm kidding. I think it's Shin, isn't it? Like oldest? Like oldest? Oh, like age-wise.

Oh. Is that what they mean? Like oldest age-wise or oldest, like, 10-year-wise? Yeah. Well, Shin is the first employee ever. Yeah. He's, well, apart from Johnny, but first guy Johnny hired, and he's, Shin's been here for like a dozen years now.

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, we don't really ask people's ages. Like, I don't really know who the oldest is. I think it's kind of illegal to ask someone their age during an interview. So we kind of avoided, I think. True. I'm sure I look the oldest. I have a lot of gray hair.

Yeah, your beard when you were growing it out had a ridiculous amount of gray hairs in it. I wasn't prepared. That's why my wife made me change it. She's like, you look like a grandpa. Oh, no. So I was planning on growing my beard until we returned to the office to, just like shock everyone. Because I can grow a beard pretty quick.

And I just wanted to, like, you know, shock people. And then it only lasted like two weeks. My wife couldn't take it anymore. Told you get rid of it. Doodle Team Fire here has a question for Helen. What's the coolest idea you've made? as part of the creative team. Oh.

Oh. I feel like I won't be able to answer this just because I can't disclose projects. What's the coolest things so far? I don't think I've actually done anything that cool. Great. Okay, great. Sorry to disappoint. Magma Man Team Fire has another question for Helen.

scale of 1 to 10, how good is NZT? Do you like the creative team? What inspires you to stay there? So is that scale of 1 to 10 on NZXT or NZXT creative team? I guess both? I want to say eight for both because I feel like we're doing a great job, but there's always room for improvement. Yeah, and the creative team is very, dynamic. I feel like we have a lot of processes where we're just, you know, learning, adapting, and we're very flexible. I love the culture of the company the most and the same with my team. I mentioned earlier where I wake up and I anticipate and really look forward to coming into work just to see and be with my team. But unfortunately now, that's not doable or it's not

recommended. So yeah. Good answer. All right. Doodle is that asking Team Fire, by the way, how do you know when you have a good or bad idea? What are the signs that something is going to or not going to work? I feel it's a feeling inside. You never know if an idea is good or bad until you do it. And you never know it's going to work until you try it. So one of my favorite things to tell Dennis and Amanda is you only fail if you don't try your best, right? So it's not about like succeeding or failing.

It's just trying. Just try your best. Yeah. And Jen always says it's okay if you fail because that's a learning, learning experiment. We learn from it. It's okay to fail as long as we learn from it. If you're not failing, you are probably not trying hard enough at whatever it is you're doing. That's the way I see it.

Not that that makes sense because if you're trying, right, that means you're trying things that are different, trying things that are new that might not that might not necessarily work so if you are failing a lot that means that you're learning what works and what doesn't work yeah at a certain point though like don't suck right well i mean this is like a this is like a line right we're like if you're failing too much like okay maybe this just isn't what you're supposed to be doing right yeah but But, you know, that's like any great inventor failed a million times before their great invention. So just keep trying. Cole McGrath, Team Wind is asking, would a woodworking workshop channel and back alley for building things to be a good idea or has it been done and just turned out as that bad idea?

No one has ever requested that in the five years that have been in this discourse server. I mean, it's probably not going to be a good idea, but if enough people interested in a wood shop channel, ask for it. I guess what we'll make. Maybe for topic of the month, right? Yeah. The topic of the month is woodworking.

Watch is like super lit. We have like a bunch of new people come in just to talk about woodworking, and it becomes like the woodworking discord or something. People make cool stuff out of wood, though. Yeah, for sure. a NZXT logo out of wood. I've seen people make a wooden poochie. I've seen a wooden computer case. I have one cosplay from League of Legends where I did a Battle Bunny ribbon cosplay and one of my friends actually made me the ribbon sword out of wood and it's really cool

because they used like this this orange acrylic and they incorporated that into the wood so it's like nice reflection and stuff like that. It's cool what they can do. I made one, I'm very bad at like, you know, working with my hands and stuff. But when I was in junior high, I made, I made one thing. And we went to visit my parents a couple months ago. And I saw it, like, they saved it. And I showed my wife. And she was like, that's actually really good.

And I made this little wooden tic-tac-tow game that you play with marbles. Wow. Yeah. But that's like the only thing I've ever made with my hands, everything else been destroyed. Nila is, or Nileys from Team Wing, has a question for Helen. As a designer, what systems do you use on a daily basis,

and would you recommend them for daily use? I use majority of the Adobe sweet stuff. So, for example, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, after effects, Dreamweaver. And then we started using this, or I started using this program called Sketch, and that's really nice too. I, day-to-day, probably use

Photoshop, recently DreamWeaver, but those were for other projects. Photoshop, After Effects, and Sketch. No, Illustrated the most, those three. Jin says Sketch. Oh no, Jin joined

the podcast. I'm ready for these spicy questions. NIL is also asking you, Helen, as part of the creative team, what are some things you can recommend to any aspiring person wanting to get into your field of work? I would say learning new skill sets, you know, making sure you can time manage, yeah, time manage, project manage. Being very adaptable and learning new things is very important. I also think finding your own style is also very important. Cool. C-Cat-6 from Team Wynn.

There's another question for Helen. Do you do the renders and 3-D design for NZXT? I do not do the designs of the 3-D renders. I help with them sometimes in terms of like if we need to do a correct angle for one shot or something like that. But for the most part, Shin does that. Yeah, that's our industrial design team. Queen Money, Team Wind and Rainbow. What sort of things have you created for the creative team?

Is it stuff like advertisements or is it more to do with graphics and the design of the website? I've done a lot of, I would say, digital things from like Facebook ads, which are advertisements, to like Twitch panels with our influencers, a lot of emails, videos, social assets. Stuff like that. Magma Man Team Fire is asking who invented Pucci, and the answer is the server did. You have to hang around the server long enough, and then you'll discover the history of Pucci. Oliver has a question for Helen. Any tips for a person doing graphic design as a hobby?

Yeah, get a new hobby. Rude. I would say just find your style, find what you like to do. I think graphic design is such a big industry. You can do a lot of things with it, like web design, print collateral, stuff like that. Find what you like to do. Find your style and just do what you like to do.

And it's okay to fail here and there. You know, everything's a learning process. Yeah, you hear that, Jen? It's okay to fail. Yeah, Jen. Please. Yeah, Jen. Moby Cuddle from Team Water is asking,

Helen, why are you epic? If I were to be epic, it's definitely be because. I'm on Team Water. Earth Gang up here. Magma Man wants to know. What is the staff's most played game together? And I'm going to have to say it's definitely Mario Kart. Yeah, I think it's Mario Kart as well.

I don't think we're ever going to beat that. I have like 500 hours in Mario Kart. It's going to be countertrike soon with the tournaments we have. I have like 500 hours in Mario Kart and it is legit all played with like the office. people. I don't think we're ever going to beat that. Tropicana Orange Juice is asking you, Helen, what are the requirements for becoming an NZXT graphic designer? I think passion is the biggest thing because skills you're able to learn, you know, if you're a culturally fit person for NXT as well, that's something else.

But I would say just passion. Hackerman Team Triangle is asking, why doesn't NZXT make blue cases anymore? For example, the H510. The simple answer is because there's more people wanting other colors than blue. The other answer, more detailed answer could be, you know, we make hardware a lot of times based on like the popular colors of other hardware. For example, if all the RAM that's out there is blue, then we're probably going to make a blue case or blue something, right? Or if all the RAM out there is pink, probably going to make something pink.

But no, we just try to make colors that are popular. Actually, I'm looking at our subreddit right now. The top-voted build right now, it's a blue case with red ram. It looks really, really weird. Wait, I should show you my case. Let me take a picture of my case and post it. Blue case of Red Ram. Cole McGrath from Team Lynn is asking,

how do you feel knowing that everyone loves you guys as a family and not like a celebrity? I love the server and I love it when people give us to love back for sure. It feels great. I do feel like the community is like a family. You know, we're we hang out with each other. every day. We have our ups and downs. We have our arguments. Our good times or bad times, but we're always sticking together. Right? Should I say yes? Yeah, totally. I got just directed

posting my case. Sorry. Yeah, we're an awesome family here. Family time. Yay. Webszele. Team Water is asking, what do you use to be inspired to make the designs? Helen. I'm usually inspired by just thinking ahead of the intent of the design. If I'm really stuck on something, I like to look at Pinterest, just to see what's trending and stuff like that. All right. Okay. Doll, Team Blue Diamond. How long does it take for a new case to get approved, manufactured, etc.?

I can answer that one. So it depends on the case and not all cases are the same. So I know Manta took, I think Shin or Shin confirmed it took about three years to make. The H510 elite took about one year because we already had the H510 to base it off of. So it really depends on the case, but I would say at least a year to make one. Um, Packerman, Team Triangle is asking, what is your favorite case? I just said mine, Manta. How about you guys?

I like the, either the 510 or the elite. I still live, the H440. That's still my favorite case. I just think it's, it was one of the, one of the cases that was like that really changed my, my thoughts on, like, on, like, what a computer could look like, right? And what it should look like. A computer can look like a fridge. Yeah, pretty much. And since then, I've never not owned an NZT case. So

GGs, y'all got me. I'm getting to that point. Kiwi, who's a newbie in the server, asked, how do companies like NXT compete in the pre-built space? Do you get discounts from different companies for your pre-bilts? It's a really good question, actually, especially for a newbie. So thank you, Kiwi.

Welcome to the server. So I guess specifically for NZXT, we don't really upsell or we don't upsell like our hardware and our computers. We only charge our assembly fee, which is $99, and we charge MSRP for all the hardware. And the way we're able to do that, apart from working with hardware vendors that supply us hardware is, for the most part, a lot of the hardware we use is ours. So unlike other companies that make computers that might be using hardware from every company, including NZT. At NZXT, we use a lot of our own hardware. So we kind of did things backwards because, you know, there's a lot of companies that make computers that try to design their hardware now or are designing their hardware now. Whereas at NGXT, we did it the exact opposite.

We basically designed hardware for 15 years before we started selling computers. So that's basically how we're able to compete. Plus, we also have Pucci. That's another way we're able to compete. It's the secret sauce. Yeah. The sauce comes out of Pucci. Yeah, the sauce is actually the thermal paste we put in all the computers.

All right, Firecar, team triangle, and Team Fire is asking, when is the DJ role coming out? And the answer is that it's already out. I have it. So there you go. Yeah, me too, actually. great. It's really fun. Enjoy having it. Next question. Phoenix King, Team Fire is asking, can we have keyboards as a permanent channel? The answer is maybe if the chat stays active for the entire month of April and it's like overwhelmingly, you know, just like positive and everyone

wants it and keeps asking for it, then yeah, for sure. But we don't know. The purpose of that channel is to change it every month, so more than likely it will change. You can talk about keyboards in the hardware channel at any time. That's true. Selby Cookie, the cookie guy, team Earth, has a question for the boys. Are you guys growing a quarantine beard or mustache? I've been good for a bit. I was into my wife, maybe shave it, and then Dennis can't grow facial hair. No, I can't. My hair, like on top of my head is getting really long now. So I don't want to do about that. You always wear a hat anyway.

I don't know why you're, because I'm lazy. You'll get a haircut and then the next day you're wearing a hat. So it's not like it really matters. It's for a special occasion growing, you know? I can't let everyone see the beauty that resides into the hat. You know, I had to keep it toned down for the for the rest of the folks out there. Dennis, Dennis actually never get any of the pay. imagine if I did

Jen finally some gin questions here oh no oh god do you guys think aliens exist yes perhaps why

why because the universe is way too big to not for there to not be other life forms and when I say alien I don't necessarily mean like green men who fly around

in the saucer and like visit us and like you know take us away It's, you know, it could be like a bacteria, right? Or it could be like a zygote or even like, you know, like a weird looking frog thing. Like, alien just means a extraterrestrial being. I agree with talking about now. Which is what we are. Right.

We are in outer space right now. Right. The way I think about it, we're all, we are all aliens in outer space on this spaceship called Earth that is spitting out of control. like thousands of miles an hour. We have no control of this ship. Like at any moment, our ship can get destroyed or go through something like this coronavirus thing, right? Yeah.

We are aliens in the middle of nowhere. Now, if we're talking, if there are little green alien men running around somewhere, probably are. The universe is infinite and ever expanding. So there probably is. We just don't know where they're at. I know where they're at.

Where? I can't tell you. well for those of you who followed poochie's adventures on instagram he found some aliens so you should check that out oh jim also wants to know what animal would be cutest if it scaled down to the size of cat ducks are the cutest period i'm going to say a tiger yeah a duck is the size of a cat already helen so it's already the cutest it's true It's already perfect Actually you know what to be really cute

Imagine like a little A little hippopotamus That'd be kind of cool right Because I was just thinking that too Like a tiny hippo But maybe like a tiny elephant or something Would be kind of dope Or like a tiny giraffe

Like a little long neck boy Helen are you watching Tiger King No It's overrated Oh it's overrated It is It is. It's interesting, but I don't think it's like super amazing.

Like everyone's, if anything, honestly, it's sad. It's like, it's really, really sad story, man. I mean, it is, but it's also amazing in the sense of like how these people can keep like 200 tigers in their houses. Like, you're regulated. The most amazing thing to me was that they filmed all this stuff like five years ago. And like they basically filmed their whole lives. not knowing that eventually it's going to turn into this thing. Yeah.

But I didn't think it was that amazing. It's good, I agree, but I just think it's really hyped up. It just sounds like you guys don't like hype. I like hype. I'm down for hype if it's deserved. I think the craziness of that show kind of like, to me, lives up to the hype because that story gets crazier and crazier. It's so nuts.

Yeah, every episode does get crazy. Are you finished that? I'm on the last episode. Oh, I keep watching, dude. It's nuts. All right. Fish has a question for Helen. Why is your picture a sad duckie?

It's adorable. And also my in-game name on Blade and Soul was a sad wifie, or sad wifie. And I just kept sad as a sad duckie, and I just thought it fit. It's adorable. Takumi Fujiwara, team Earth, is asking, will there be more NZXT cases that support 240 millimeter radars at the top? The answer is, how should we know? We're just the podcast, guys.

Maybe, who knows? If enough people keep asking, not that many people ask for that, believe it or not. Yeah. Cruel's Angel's thesis is asking, Helen, what's the best and worst experience you've ever had at NST? Ooh. I have to think for this one. And why is Jin the answer to both? Best and worst experiences at NCXT.

See the pop-up. Oh, no. The pop-up was interesting, actually. It was my first time attending one of those kind of pop-up events. so it was a good experience I don't think it was a big failure it was just interesting but

I mean it was definitely learning experience you know like we've never done anything like that ever before and I don't think a lot of other companies have other done something like that before either so you know it's kind of like it was it was really cool that we did do it you know what I mean like I thought it was awesome plus I had to play a lot of Apex so

yeah that was also the first time me learning that you were left-handed I'm like, what are you doing with that keyboard and mouse? Why are you playing like that, Dennis? If I knew Dennis was left-handed, I never would have hired him, to be honest. Oh, no. But, you got a nice to talk with me. We're not allowed to ask those types of questions in job interviews along with age. Speaking of age, I didn't answer my question.

Best experience is obviously joining NST and I'm meeting the team. Worst experience, I would say, is, I don't know. I got nothing. It's been great so far. So another question from Jen is, what old person things do you do? I am an old person, so everything I do is an old person thing. Yep. When I start reminiscing on the past, you know, bringing up the past, old memories, comparing things from back to the day. Like Zenga and.

And my space, yeah. In my space. I think for me, like Dennis always thinks it's weird that I watch the morning news, that I keep up with the weather, that I, yeah, I do have a bedtime and I stick to it, you know. Why do you do that? I'm just kidding. I think it's important to know the weather and the news. And I love getting a good night's sleep. I, you know, I stick to my bedtime.

I try not to stay up late. to go on my walks. But yeah, basically everything I do is like an old person thing, I think, at this point. I'm almost 40, so I'm pretty old. All right, I've got a couple more questions in here so we can head out. I know Helen's got a lot of important. Last-minute things to catch up. Last-minute things.

T.D.H. Esqueasy is asking, why doesn't NZXT make mice? The answer is we do. We did. We made a NZXT avatar mouse named after our favorite anime. Check it out. And speaking of mice, I'm going to give you guys a little ASMR right now. My squeaky mouse wheel. All right. Ready, turn up the volume. Yeah, and that's, believe it or not, that's, that's, that's less squeaky than it was yesterday. I spent 30 minutes this morning, like, cleaning the lint out of the wheel trying to make it less squeaky, but this is the steel series Sensei raw frost blue. I've had it for like five years now. I think it's time to get a new one. I'm glad you clarified what mouse it was because I might have thought because you said you were so old that it was the mouse that had the rubber ball underneath it. I'm so old that I actually

use a mouse, a real mouse. That's why it's squeaking. Jin is asking what brand are you most loyal to? Besides NZT, for me, I'm going to say Levi's. It's like the only pair of pants all wear ever is Levi's. I don't want to try any other type of gene. If I'm going to wear anything that's jeans, it's going to be Levi's. You're not down with the Wranglers, though? No.

How about you guys? I would say, say I'm loyal to Chuck Taylor's. Is Chuck Taylor a brand? That's his own brand, right? It's certainly like the most uncomfortable shoe of all time. Yeah, it is, but I love them. Yeah. I love the look, and I love wearing them until you step on a little rock,

and then you spray your ankle. I don't know how people play sports for those things. That's why you get to pick up to the Chuck Taylor twos, if you can still find them because they are a vast improvement over the original Chuck Taylor high top design that nobody bought because they didn't see the value in a shoe that's actually comfortable for once. How about you, Helen? Which brand are you most loyal to?

I would say Wackham, the pen tablet. I have it at work. Well, I brought it back to work at home now. I have another one at home for personal use for Sintique. And every time I work professionally, I require a Wackham pen tablet. I forgot about that. You don't even use a mouse at word. You use that.

That pen tablet. It's so weird to me. I have no idea how you don't have a mouse. It's crazy. It's the same thing. You just click with the pen. Absolute mad lad. Are there other brands of a pen tablet?

Because I don't know. Is it really? Yeah. It's like I've only ever heard a wake-um, like ever. Or whack-um or however you pronounce it. Yeah. Wake-O-Wack-Wack-Wam? I'm so loyal. I don't even look into the other brands, though.

For the other companies. That's all I know. Firecar, Team Fire is asking, what's your favorite color and why? Mine is purple because Jin told me it has to be. But you guys orange because I don't do what Ivan tells me to do. Mine is green because it's different. How is green different? A lot of people, I think back then when they asked, you know, what's your favorite color? They'll either say red or blue. And I just wanted to be a

different color. And I like green. And I also like just the shades of green. Jin is saying every girl loves green and I have to agree. That's my wife's favorite color. It's, I think every girl loves green. Another, this is the gin question segment here. So Jin wants to know what's your secret talent? Hmm. Sleeping. Is it? Yeah, sleeping. I can sleep all the way till like, I'll sleep 10 p.m. And wake up 4 p.m. in the afternoon and go back to sleep and just sleep for the whole day. I don't think that's a talent. Yeah, I'm real.

No, no, it's a talent. You should probably see a doctor about that. No, that's a talent. I'm pretty sure every woman have ever dated has been able to sleep whenever they want. They get to lie down and just knock out. Like, I don't think it's a very unique. How about you, Dennis? Mine is to annoy Ivan, a very special set of skills.

You don't annoy me. Nothing annoys me. That's a line, you know it. I just brush off the haters. What's here's Ivan? Probably that I make really good omelets. I'll have to test that for myself before I can say if it's a skill or not. Stop annoying me.

Stop annoying me and I'll make them. I thought you to know you. Quick rapid fire questions real quick. Tear gas makes people cry and laughing. Gas makes people giggle. What other kinds of gases do you wish existed? A gas that made people to stop annoying me. If you don't pay for your exorcist, do you get repossessed?

Yes. Yes. I was going to say farting gas too. know why, like, as I want to say, he's like, that's dumb, but I see that Jen here literally type farting gas. So, yeah, farting gas will be dope. What, you need an appointment to see a psychic? The answer is because it's a scam.

There's no such thing as mind readers. You sure about that? Because I knew you were going to say that. Yeah, I'm positive. No one can read my mind. I called it. I think you're actually more. You just want to stop thinking about your mouse.

It's clean enough. It's still going to stay squeaky. You can't do anything about it. I think that Ivan is more predictable than he actually thinks. I'm very predictable. I'm very like routine, like, oriented. I do basically the same thing every single day. You do.

And I think that's why you're so predictable. And also like certain things that I bring up to you, I kind of already know how you're going to answer. And like, I'm already like angry and like annoyed before I even talk to you because they're going to give me an answer that that's going to be like annoying and roundabout. and not just answering the question them trying to ask. That's because I never, whenever anyone asks me a question,

I always see both, like, sides of the answer. I never, I never want to just say something is yes or no, black or white. It's always like, let's think about everything. And that annoys, I know that annoys Dennis for sure. that means you're giving well-thought-out answers. Yeah, that's why I do it. I do it because I think it's important to think.

And the reason I answer like that is because that's how you think about the why. It's more important to think about the reasons why as opposed to like, what's the right answer? What's the wrong answer? It's like, okay, why are we asking the question? That's a real question. Right. I disagree, but okay. I know you disagree.

Okay. So we're going to go ahead and wrap this up. We don't have Amanda here today, but I'm going to try my best to do community roundup. Off top, because I didn't write it down. I check the podcast announcement section in the outline. I added some stuff. Oh, look at that. Yeah, okay, cool.

Awesome. So Ivan did process the rewards last week. So for those who are leveling up and trying to get their Discord, their NXD Club rewards, we have to wait until next month to be processed. But let me make a quick sub announcement on that. So several people have been spreading some false information saying that the rewards are delayed. As far as I know, nothing has been delayed. like the warehouse we shipped the rewards from, the mailman that ships them, all that stuff.

Like no one has once told me these things are delayed. However, I have no idea where you live or how the post office works in your country or anything like that. So maybe where you live, some situations going on where you're not getting your mail. But at least here for the rewards, nothing has been delayed. Everything's still going out. All right. the stickers for the latest design contest are shipping this week so thank you ibn for handling that yep i'm actually going to the office tomorrow um to to pack everything and get everything out

they're going out all right um the poochie cup is still ongoing so you know chat in the secret chats participate in trivia when we when we pop them out uh you do get points all right you do get points also for asking questions in the podcast channel if they're pinned. We just announced this yesterday where we will be taking submissions for articles and anything written that will go into the N60 blog. Not everything will make it on there. So obviously it has to be of a certain quality or else we're not going to post it. But for any additional information on the writing,

I guess you can almost call it like a writing contest, but it's more like an ongoing submission thing. Contact Amanda. and she'll give you more info on that. I'll probably get back to you tomorrow, though. And then we will be starting our next design contest next week on the 13th, Monday, and it will run until the 24th, correct, David? Let me confirm the dates.

I'm going to for two weeks. Yes. Yes. And the giveaway will be the following week on the 27th. Right. And keep an eye out for the rules, as we obviously will be. be amending them per what happened last design contest if you want to know more info about that listen to two episodes back where we did our town hall and then you can uh you can get all that

all that juicy information stop tagging me in moderators um i just got a pink um and then uh yeah so this is a kind of a side a side thing uh doesn't do with the community but it might affect some of the people in the community or some people who listen to the podcast but uh we have identified an issue with the Cracken Z regarding how it interacts with certain motherboards and the USB headers. I'm not super like

super like how, what's the word? I don't 100% know what all that stuff means. The word you're looking for is smart? Yes. Oh, no. Thanks, I really appreciate it.

All right. Bye. It's like a whole thing that has to do with with USB enumeration, all kinds of stuff that I definitely do not understand. But there is a solution if you're having issues with your cracking Z or if you're interested, check out the subreddit.com slash R slash NZXT.

I just wrap the link. Cool. Yeah. And it's a it's a pin topic. So something that we will be fixing in future iterations of the crack and Zs. But we will offer a solution to help you get it fixed. So don't worry, we got your back. And the solution is right now everyone's getting the internal USB hubs so they can that's a quick solution but the long-term solution is that they're working on updating the hardware and then on the on the subreddit um there's a picture that of a chart that has all the a md motherboards that we know of that are impacted yeah yeah and like yeah the the reason why it's kind of hard to explain is because it's like you may have that board but it will like it could still work right like it's not every single board of that of that brand of that that

of that model number. So we put that a pretty good explanation, I think, in the subreddit, check it out. If you're interested. And if you have any further questions, contact support, and they will assist you with whatever you need. So what they're there for? You know, give them a big pat on the back for being awesome and helping us out and helping all of our customers, fast future and future and present.

And I believe that's it. Any other announcements? Helen, do you have any announcements that you want to let the people know? Do you want to leak any company information? No, I value my job, especially if Jinn's in the podcast. Jins everywhere. If you value it. I value my job.

Yeah. All right. So with that, guys, thank you very much for joining us. Helen, really appreciate it. And thank you to everyone who tuned in. You're very welcome. Remember to tune in next week at 10 a.m. Pacific Standard Time on the official NZXC Discord server and follow at NZXT on all relevant social media.

And don't forget to listen to past previous episodes. I know why I said it like that on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and SoundCloud. Also, if you would be so kind, please leave us a positive review if you like what you hear. And even if you don't. Thank you very much. We'll see you next time. Bye. Bye.

Stay inside. Wash your hands. Take showers.