[2019] Do you actually know your fellow Exiles?

Good Morning Exiles,

For something a little different and because we had so many new Exiles join in the past weeks, I thought it would be fun to get to know the community a bit better. Who knows, maybe there are some fellow players right in your vicinity? Surviving together does not only have to be in virtual space

So let me begin and introduce myself:
My name is Natascha and I have been with Funcom for a tiny but over a year now. As you might or might not know I am the Community Director, which means I am (now that we have and get more people, at least) mostly working behind the scenes and supporting the Community Team, both Community Managers and Community Supports as well as our different communities. I am also working closely with our live ops teams, making sure your concerns get considered and prioritized as much as possible.

I am originally from Switzerland, temporarily moved to Greece and then moved to Norway, where I currently live.

I have been in the industry for a long time (almost 20 years to be precise) and have seen both the development/production side as well as the community side.
I’ve worked for several big MMOs in one way or another (Everquest, LOTRO, Darkfall Online) and have also been on the development side of smaller games as developer or producer.

Not to mention I’ve been an avid and dedicated gamer since my parents bought me a C64 and then a NES. A decision they quickly came to regret

I am a big fan of MMOs, RPGs and Horror Games and have played pretty much every possible MMO there is.

Since I don’t have as much time as I used to have (my commute each day is about 1.5 hours one way), I am currently sticking to games that I can jump into quickly and play for a few rounds. That’s not to say I also spend quite a bit of time with our own games, of course

I have also worked as a freelance artist for WotC and FFG and illustrated Trading Cards for the official GoT and Call of Cthulu LCG.

Besides my gaming addiction I also really enjoy working out to keep my live balanced. Gaming is for the brain and working out for the body. Gotta keep both in shape!

Now it’s your turn - let us know a bit more about yourself.

Greetings and salutations!

I’m Jens Erik and I’m about 2 months away from my 3 year anniversary at Funcom! I was hired back in 2016 to be the new community manager on Conan Exiles. I’m still CMing Exiles, in addition to other games like Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden, Conan Unconquered, Moons of Madness, and several other unannounced things. I keep up with things on social media and the forums, and I also host the weekly livestreams over on our streaming channels.

I’m from Norway and have been living here all my life.

I have been in the games industry for around 10 years. I started off in games journalism, working freelance for various websites and outlets, before transitioning over to working as a community manager. Funcom was actually my first job on this side of the industry and I’m eternally grateful for the opportunity they gave me, and continue to give me.

As for games, I enjoy a bit of everything, but I definitely lean more towards single-player experiences (which is kind of funny, considering I work for a company that used to be known for making MMORPGs). Some of my favorite games are RPGs, but I rarely have time to play them anymore, which is a shame, but I try to get in one or two here and there.

My interests definitely curve towards the geeky side of things. I read, watch movies, play games, browse maymays, and consume pop culture so I can make obscure references no one but me understands.

Oh that’s really interesting and good to know. Thanks for sharing!

Howdy!

I am Ignasi, born in Spain where I lived pretty much all my life, then moved for a while to Manchester, and finally settled in Norway. I’m also from the Gameboy generation, and I’ve been the Community Support at Funcom for 5 months now. This has been my first job in the videogame industry after a few years in academics, although I’ve always been messing around videogames and involved in one way or another, either playing them, creating content, being a GM for an online game and so on… Long story ahead!

A dusty Master System was my first taste of pixel glory, and shortly after I got my very own Gameboy with its glorious Tetris bundle. Even since then I’ve been jumping from Nintendo generation to another until around the turn of the millennium, when I finally got my own PC and I found my favorite genre: shooters!

Although Unreal Tournament and Quake3 held my attention for a good while, it was Half Life the game that monopolized my gaming time for 5 years, jumping from mod to mod. I was particularly fond of Counter Strike (well of course) and more importantly, Day of Defeat. I spent a good chunk of my awkward teen years modding DoD to my liking, altering bot behaviour for Sturmbot and creating waypoints for maps that were unsupported and sharing them on Gamespy. Some of that knowledge I also translated to Medal of Honor Allied Assault and some of its mods, for which I adapted its most popular bot system for new maps and modes… and that was while I was on PC. Then was also when I enjoyed my most fond splitscreen memories, with games such as Phantasy Star Online EP1&2, Gladius and SSB Melee (while also going back to Goldeneye and Perfect Dark from time to time).

After that, I went jumping from game to game on PC and consoles, with favorite games such as OpFlashpoint, Rainbow Six Vegas 1&2, Red Orchestra 1&2, Mount and Blade capitalising my time in between releases of perhaps my favorite franchise, Mass Effect.
Nowadays, I’m mostly playing either Conan Exiles or BattlefieldV (both on PS4 and PC).

Besides gaming, I am also big into boardgames and cinema.
Aaaaand, that’s it about me.

Hello,
in real life people call me Andy. (nope I’m not AndyB ^^) Here in this forum I am one of he freelance moderators.
If I belong to the Gameboy generation? I don’t know exactly, but I know, that I owned once one^^.
As some of you guys already know, I live in good old Germany, since the day of my birth. Professionally, I have nothing to do with the gaming industry, but I am a passionate gamer.- I started gaming with Quake 1-3 to Half-Life until 2001 as Anarchy Online was launched, since that day I lost my heart to MMO´s, that’s the reason, why I played all MMO´s which Funcom had launched after Anarchy Online, you guys know, what games I am talking about.
My freelancing moderation work, did I start in 2012 under guidance of the german CM Waldgeist. Since then, I try to keep the forum clean (nope I don’t need fort hat the help of Mr. Clean^^) and to remind you all to pay attention to he forumrules.

Greetings
Melcom

Hi everyone,

I must really be an old gamer. The first gaming system my parents got us when I was growing up in Texas was Pong. When my brother was not around, I would play the single player version.

My first online games were the text based BBS games multiple people could play on. To give you an idea how simple they were, one of my friend’s ran one off of his Apple 2.

I have been all over the world. I spent a month in Europe after graduating high school. I had the choice of going to Europe or the College/University of my choice for graduation. On that trip, we spent time in the U.K., France, Austria, Italy (twice), Greece, and Spain in that order. The flight back to the states was very interesting and unusual. The pilot was in a rush to get off the ground and in the air. After take off, we were told that Skylab was de-orbiting that day.

We actually made the news on the CBC in Nova Scotia that day. The New York Port Authority closed the airspace and stopped taking in bound flights so we were diverted to the only airport in the north east that was capable of handling a 747. In a way we were glad the flight departed early since we were past the point of no return to Europe when the airspace was closed. It was funny because we were the only aircraft on the ground at that time that was not Canada Air in Nova Scotia.

I actually have two college degrees, a BBA in management and an AS in computer information systems. I got the second one after I joined the U.S. Air force. I had ended up in a situation where I did not have a job and no one was hiring since they had just filled all of their openings for the Christmas shopping season.

While in the service, I spent time in South Korea, several cities in my home state where the Air Force has/had bases, California at Edwards AFB where the right stuff actually happened. I even got to meet General (retired) Chuck Yeager and yes, he still flew aircraft, just not as a test pilot.

At some point during my time in the service, I ended up in the military version of a black hole. During Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm/Provide Comfort also known as the Persian Gulf War. I spent my time at a classified location in the combat zone which has turned out to be a good thing for me. The bad part about it is the toll it has taken on my health.

During my last year in the Air Force while in California, I met my wife and we got married.

After getting out of the service I spent about 12 years providing technical support for business software. During that time, the company I worked for merged with another company and I was transferred to Colorado. When the Dot Com bubble burst, I was laid off when the department I was in was down sized. The VP in charge of it retired and of the 6 people in it, I was one of 2 that were not transferred to other teams. I had seen the writing on the wall so to speak and was expecting it to happen. I latter found out that all but one member of the team was eventually laid off or fired. The one that was not had left before they could act for a better job. I then spent about 13 years supporting Internet services with a company that also sold cable TV and phone services.

With my health declining, I moved to Arizona and for a short time worked as an Auto Insurance Adjuster for the largest insurance company in the U.S. With the continued decline of my health I finally had to acknowledge that I was no longer capable of holding a job. I was glad that I had started the process to have my disability rating reviewed by the VA. Even though it took them 18 months, it was a boon when they agreed that my time in service had been far more detrimental to my health than initially thought. Since then, the VA has decided that I am fully disabled and cannot work in a normal capacity.

So I spend my time reading, learning new things, trying to exercise (which is hard when you have to drag an Oxygen tank around), and playing games.

I was surprised when I was asked to help moderate the forums and enjoy helping out. Yes, I am old and my age is classified, so don’t ask.

Dominating and Surviving in RL. Thanks for sharing this with us.

I am so incredibly sorry to hear this. Like Sera, both of you to me are dominating and surviving your RL challenges. Conan would be proud and I am sure everyone around you is.

It’s great to know we have players with all different kind of backgrounds and challenges. I am genuinly humbled by everyone sharing their stories with us.

That is pretty freaking awesome. Much like https://www.specialeffect.org.uk/?

OIC, that is a great approach!

I like the booth Movies!

I always wanted to learn sign language but I never had the option/opportunity.
I should be on the lookout for an online class

Wow, so sorry to hear that. That is a rough challenge to have to deal with.

I always had the idea to do a special “Survive and Dominate” Campaign with showcasing Exiles players who Dominate and Survive their RL challenges every day. You guys inspire me greatly to pick that thought up again.

Thanks so much for sharing this with us and I am really sorry you lost your wife

Oh charity streams are already in the works. That’s not really what I meant (and we have done them in the past)

I was more thinking about an actual campaign with small videos of community members who face daily challenges and feature them prominently then encouraging others to share their RL challenges and how they tackle them

Re-opened

While I support posting of rl mounts/cars, I can’t guarantee that it has any influence on consideration for future features

It is! It’s the test for any foreigner and I love trying it on my friends from all over the world. It’s almost impossible to pronounce for any non Swiss person haha

My hope is that we get many more entries in this and Exiles realizing that there are fellow players in their vicinity. I want to be able to organize local Funcom player meetups!

I posted this on the Conan Exiles twitter but these Exiles actually found out that they lived in the same apartment complex!

You mean like meeting the community team and other players during events/conferences? That is something I am working on.

Threads like these and social media posts are a first step.

I can do

Because it’s an important question I want to ask here as well:
Anyone planning to go to Gamescom in Cologne in August?

Ah shame!
But also welcome to the CE community