[NAGC] Official NAGC Blog #8 – First Impressions

Official NAGC Blog #8 – First Impressions

Salutations Knights, and welcome to week 8 of the NAGC Blog!
As always, we have some spiffy new content for you to peruse this fine Tuesday evening! Another sneak peek image, a short interview with your host, GM_Artemis, and a community spotlight we hope you send some love and upvotes!
Sneak Peek – Next in Line
Elesis, Lire, and Arme aren’t the only ones due for a graphical update. I wonder who’s under the bandages this time!
GM Interview – GM_Artemis
This week, I took a look in the mirror and asked myself a few questions along with others we received via submission from you guys! Here’s the responses I drummed up for you!
Q: What do you do at GameRage?
A: I’m one of two Community Managers, and I work on Grand Chase, Pangya, and Trickster Online. My role is to interact with players on a day to day basis through all kinds of social media platforms, including the forums, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and a few others I’m exploring. I also work as a sort of as a liaison between our producers, marketing folks, and public relations department and you guys. In short, if it has to do with talking to you guys, I’m probably involved in it somehow.
Q: How long have you worked at GameRage?
A: I’m kind of a baby around here compared to everyone else – September 30th will mark my 5th month.
Q: Why did you pick your GM name?
A: When I started, the first thing I asked was whether or not we had a theme or something with names. I had looked through the list of current GMs and noticed a lot of people, former or current, that were named after deities. I’m a big fan of Greco-Roman mythology, and I really enjoy archery, so I went with Artemis – Goddess of the Hunt.
Q: Who’s your favorite Grand Chase character?
A: Well, if you’ve ever fought me in GM Brawl, you know that I play Lire a lot -but that’s mostly because people ask me to! “Artemis should have a bow!” In my spare time when I’m out of the office or playing for fun, though, I favor Elesis and Asin. I don’t normally like melee fighters in video games, but they’re both a lot of fun!
Q: What’s your favorite hobby?
A: I’d say gaming, but the hard part is choosing what kind! I am a nerd/geek in every way. I play console, mobile, and PC for video games, I love tabletop gaming like Dungeons & Dragons, I used to be an avid card game collector for a few different games, I like painting miniatures and playing strategy board games… They’re all very time consuming (and expensive) though, so I have to visit each pretty sparingly! Also, like I said above, I enjoy archery and working out at the gym.
Q: What kind of schooling do you have?
A: I tried a lot of different programs at my university, including Acting (Theatre), Japanese Studies with a focus on Language, and Creative Writing. None were really quite what I was looking for, and I found my niche in Digital Cinema with a concentration in Screenwriting. While that may seem not very game like, the cinema department and game development department at my university were intertwined and I took a few game design courses. I’ve kind of been all over the place academically and job-wise; it’s been a fun adventure!
Q: What’s the funniest thing about working in the gaming industry?
A: I find “e-fame” pretty funny. I’ve met a lot of people that I guess some fans might “flip” over meeting. And I used to have that same reaction too, giggling over my favorite forum posters, developers, community managers, or voice actors. I’m fortunate now to call a lot of those people friends, and like anyone else, they’re just normal people who happen to interact with tons of individuals on a daily basis, yet still aren’t quite “celebrities.” It’s a very strange status, and I’ve always found it really interesting.
Q: How did you get into the gaming industry?
A: When I came out of college, I was a really active World of Warcraft player. I posted very regularly on their official forums, and when I moved out to California after graduation, attended my first Blizzcon. I made my passion very clear, and spent a lot of my spare time putting together guides and even a blog for players of my class. I applied to work at Blizzard twice; the first time, I was unable to make my interview due to scheduling conflicts. I applied again a year later, and spent a great three years there as a GM and later, a forum poster. That was the start of my game career!
Q: Do you have any advice for people who want to get into the industry?
A: Be persistent! Never sell yourself short, but don’t lie about yourself, either – I’ve found that being both honest and firm in your beliefs can get you pretty far. Lastly, let your passion guide you. Love what you do, and let that love show to those who will appreciate it most.
Q: What’s your goal for the Grand Chase community?
A: First and foremost, I want to earn my keep here. My attention’s split between a few titles, which makes me feel a bit on the outside with each. I’m working on a few programs and initiatives that will hopefully allow me to be more involved with you all on a more frequent basis. It’s important that I get to interact with players at the player level, and not just at the employee level or anonymously on my play account. So, I want the community to grow and flourish and become a positive, constructive place for discussion and making friends – and I feel in order to make that happen, it needs to start with me!
Do you enjoy these interviews? Want to see more? Let us know who you’d like to interview next by either leaving a comment here on the blog or in our forum discussion thread!
Community Spotlight – r/GrandChase
I’m a very frequent Redditor. If you’re not familiar with Reddit (“The Front Page of the Internet”), it’s a unique series of forums where posters of all kind can submit links, pictures, or other points of interest that are then rated by users either via up-voting or down-voting the thread. I’ve been looking into expanding our community program to other venues, and as Reddit is one of my favorites as well as actively growing on a daily basis, it came to my pleasant surprise that Grand Chase already had its own subreddit!
You can find it here.
As you might notice when you check it out, it currently has a very low subscriber count. I’d like to toss it some attention today – if you’re a Redditor and a Grand Chase player, you should definitely check it out or submit some cool links to share with your fellow Knight Redditors! If you aren’t, well, signing up for Reddit is totally free, anonymous, and a heck of a lot of fun. Give it a whirl, and I hope to see you there!
Do you have something you want to share on the Community Spotlight? Fanart? Cosplay? Videos? A chocolate sundae that kind of looks like Sieghart when you squint? Send it in to us! We’re happy to feature all positive contributions to the North American Grand Chase community! We do ask that you send in your ownsubmissions though!
That’s all for this week, Chasers! Remember, your feedback is important to us. If you have any suggestions or requests for the blog, let me know by using the Feedback form on the left hand side of the blog, or e-mailing Community directly.
GLHF!
-Artemis

Original Post :  Official NAGC Blog #8 – First Impressions