It’s the most wonderful time of the year — Happy Foal’s Day, everyone!
With a new season upon us, thousands of new foals entering the Photo Finish™ fray, and a breeding window ready to crack open, let’s waste no time covering what occurred in the final week of Season 9.
From big-time players entering the DAO wars to product updates and, of course, the biggest race of the season, it’s banger after banger from front to back.
Welcome to Season 10, Foal’s Day, and Breeding Window Eve. Let’s talk about it.
Mad Lads
Mad Lads is in the building!
Led by Twitter Spaces savant and community member Sol Goldrush, Mad Lads has recently formed a Photo Finish™ community stable – Mad Stables.
The team leader – one of 40 Mad Lads holders involved in the PFL syndicate – sat down to discuss the team’s plans to take over the PFL tracks.
Read the full interview in our news section.
Product Updates
While some have already checked out for the holiday, Third Time Games has been hard at work, ensuring the final few weeks of the year don’t go to waste.
This past week, CEO and Founder Ian Cummings dropped a list of various updates and improvements, almost all resulting from players’ valuable feedback.
If you missed those changes, below is an abbreviated list.
- – Ability to multi-select quick filters
- – Ensure we always show the “overall” benchmark rating on the cards in My Stable (whereas before, it would show the old ‘average of last 3’ rating)
- – Adjusting the “overall” benchmark rating for horses with a smarter algorithm to more accurately represent the horse’s recent performances and better account for ‘sandbagging.’
- – Push the $CROWN budget to prod for future seasons based on the recent blog so next season’s schedule regeneration will use new numbers
- – Small camera angle fixes on some of the new tracks that had obstructions
- – More slingshot visualization bug fixing (maybe the final fix?)
- – Final push of new inbreeding penalty math for S10
- – Fix benchmark weight displays showing more than two decimal places
- – Fix for Min and Max Benchmark rating filters being switched
- – New and improved new user sign-up flow
- – Various UI/UX/Analytics improvements and fixes
Allowance Races
Long before Photo Finish™ LIVE and NFT virtual horse racing became a thing, real-life horse racing had much of the game figured out. A critical ingredient in its recipe for success is the utility of Allowance races, something PFL offers multiple times daily.
What is an Allowance race? We heard the questions, and we’ve got answers.
Read The Beginner’s Guide to Allowance Races in the news feed.
How to Swap on Jupiter
The best time to prepare for an influx of Web2 users is now, not when they’re already in Discord asking questions. With that in mind, we’re expanding our Beginner’s Guide library to cover anything and everything a Web3 newcomer could need to know, including how to use one of the most popular sites Solana users frequent the most.
If anyone asks how to swap on Jupiter, point them to our Beginner’s Guide to Swapping on Jupiter Exchange.
You’re Invited: JG’s Xmas Party
After what we’ve all been through together and shared, I think the Photo Finish™ community can agree on one thing – at this point, we consider each other friends and family, even if the majority have never met IRL.
And what do friends and family do around this time of year? Smash some eggnog and pumpkin spice lattes at a proper holiday party!
On Thursday, December 21, at 6:30 p.m., JGweb3 will host a live Spaces event featuring free entry to 10,000 $DERBY races scheduled to run every 10 minutes between 7-8 p.m.
Tune-in, we’ve got lots of surprises planned!
Season 9 Kentucky Derby
The final Kentucky Derby of 2023 provided a bit of drama, as Vader held off an extremely game 100-1 Obsidian Noir to take home the prestigious title of Derby champion and the huge $2,350 payday.
This Kentucky Derby felt a bit different, with the title seemingly up for grabs for more stables than every before, a great sign for the future of the race and its accessibility to newcomers hoping to win the title of Virtual Derby champion.
Congratulations to Pootie’ Glue Factory on the huge Road to the Kentucky Derby victory, their first ever such honor!
Season 10: Foal’s Day
Santa arrives this weekend, but it certainly feels like he dropped some surprises on Monday — Happy Foal’s Day, everyone!
The most exciting day in Web3 gaming arrives once a month, and with it comes the reveal of a new crop of potential Kentucky Derby champions. As is the circle of life, horses will also be retired this week to participate in the breeding process for the first time, and previously born foals will come of racing age.
Let’s close 2023 out with a bang, everyone!
