A New Smite Adventure Awaits

Hey all! So the past couple weeks I’ve been working on making a huge transition and I think it’s finally time to express the news:



I will be retiring competitive Smite to join as a programmer for the Smite Gameplay Development team at HiRez Studios :D



To many people this is gonna come as a complete shock and to others whom have known for a while it’s finally official. For anyone who has been following my story throughout my college career a lot of you guys I’m sure have noticed by now that I have a deep passion for Computer Science and Game Development. I’ve probably tweeted more about CS than I have Smite for quite some time.



To explain how I got to this position, it can be linked back to my decline since last year’s Spring split. Right after we had lost worlds and Pain and I decided to make a new roster and I was more motivated than ever to learn and prove my potential as a player. Back then I had so much to figure out and so many things to aspire towards that I loved the grind. During that split I felt like I was the best mid in the region, my confidence was at an all-time high and I felt mechanically nuts. My grinding was paying off in strides and I was having the time of my life. Unfortunately for me as time went on, the grind turned into very slight and minimal gains that payed off more in my consistency than anything else.



Whenever I was investing my time into my CS projects I had that same “love the grind” feeling that I originally had with Smite. There’s just an endless amount of knowledge and things to improve on as a programmer and I just felt so compelled to study further. I created 5 games overall during my Computer Science major at Stony Brook University. My biggest one being Rocket Race in UE4 which challenged me on a lot of physics, multiplayer, and object oriented gameplay development. It was so satisfying to me and mentally stimulating that compared to the ranked grind I felt my time invested into CS was becoming significantly more valuable. From there on you can see where my decline in performance as a player came from. I felt constantly torn between two passions and couldn’t ever fully commit to one or the other.



Thus once an opening for the Smite Gameplay Development team arose, I knew now more than ever that I was given an opportunity to pursue the passion I felt stronger about, without abandoning the usefulness of all the knowledge I’ve learned from playing Smite competitively. I can now actively work in a way that supports both my passions for CS and Smite and help provide a new perspective to the team on the inside.



I love this community and I love the game to death. I want to see nothing more than for it to continue growing and reach the heights we all want to see. I’ve always wanted to do my part to contribute in the best possible way and now I feel like I finally can.



So to everyone who’s supported me in the past and still continues to do so, I love you all and I hope despite the bitter sweetness of this moment, you can find the excitement like I am for this new chapter of my life and for Smite.



Thank you all and I’ll see you guys on the battlefield of the gods 😈





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