Entrevista a Ogrey

Hello Ogrey! For us it's a great honour to have this interview, in exclusive for TibiaVenezuela!

You're welcome, it's a honour for me as well


Well we gonna start the questions but any extra info you want to tell, just throw it there. We have a mandatory question to intro this thing and that's what's your name and describe your job on cipsoft pls haha

Alright, my name is Ogrey, also known as Captain Oggy :) and I'm working as a community manager for CipSoft


For our readers, what's the job of a community manger in your words?

A community manager informs the player base about changes, updates, patches etc., collects feedback from the players and informs other CipSoft members about the general mood in the community


Yeah as many know, a very important job, how is the process of collecting feedbacks from the players, what tools and method are usually used?

There are different channels which we scan regularly: forum threads, polls, feedback forms. So we read a lot, then we summarise the feedback to get some core issues out of that. So it's basically reading... and summarizing.


Have you considered using also fansites as sources, we usually have first hand complains when the community don't like something haha

:) Of course! Fansites are a great source of information for us. Rejana is mainly reading fansite forums since she's the fansite coordinator for Tibia.


How did you end working for Cipsoft, did you know of Tibia beforehand?

I joined CipSoft in April 2009. Before I used to live in another city. My girlfriend was living near Regensburg, and we only met each other at the weekends. So I decided to quit my job, move to her and so I had to find a new job. I knew CipSoft back then because in this part of Germany there are not so many game developers, so it's something special. I applied as a community manager - and got the job. And of course, I knew Tibia before I applied.


Working on Cipsoft seems more fun than the average work, are we right about that?

Well, the job itself is very often not so funny. :) Reading the forums etc.... you know what I mean. But working in the games business is really great. There are a lot of geeks working for CipSoft, and that's pretty cool. And, honestly, CipSoft cares a lot about the employees.

I especially like the free fruits and beverages! :)


Ok.You talked about my next question. It was about to talk about the fruit.

?


Lol xD In every video we see some watermellon or something haha.
I was gonna ask if it was given by cipsoft or you reallike like fruit haha
But is already answered

Hehehe, yeah, indeed. Free fruits at CipSoft!


That explains a lot haha

It certainly costs them some money... :D


Yeah, also the beers haha

Only when we have things to celebrate


Btw Ogrey, you talked about mood, is indeed hard to try and please everybody and change is not always well received, no matter what there will be complains, how do you try to deal with that?

We CMs are very good in staying calm actually. This doesn't mean we do not take the feedback seriously but... It helps a lot to find out what the complaints are really about. This is very important for internal discussions with the product managers, for example.


One complain that was on the spotlight not much ago was the removal of the GM, community is still suffering about it, may the situation change in the future? Is still a hot topic at Cipsoft?

I can assure you, the whole rule enforcement topic is still a hot topic. GMs definitely did a great job in the past, no doubt... Nevertheless I am concinved that CipSoft will be able to balance the absence of GMs very well...

Of course, fine tuning of the measures and internal processes is necessary, but that's what we are working on. Even right now.


I asked about the GM situation because well... Is very hard changing a human being by a program, at first people used books and other objects to press keys and train without being there. Usually you could call a GM and solve that IF he came.However, that was not that game breaking
But now, is Cipsoft aware of the new bot?, the ban have been dropping lately from thousand to hundreds

Let me first answer to one thing you have just said... It's not that we have replaced human beings with a program. We have rather replaced the GM position with our inhouse customer support team. Replaced humans with humans… and in addition to that we have implemented a couple of reporting options so that ALL players are able to report directly to the customer support team without having to wait for a GM to come.

I think, what you said, the "IF he came", that is very important aspect of this vision of rule enforcement. No waiting and hoping any more. Customer support definitely gets all the reports and can deal with them.


Yeah we have seen improvement in many areas about that
But there is a new bot that doesnt modify the client, but the keystrikes and by that moves the char and do all the botting. It is not being detected by the program at this moment, can someone report people botting and they will get banned in a future, how you will have proof that the person was really using illegal software?

We have a close look at the bot market and monitor what's happening there. Our anti-cheating measures are of course heavily based on automatic systems and analyses. But I cannot go into detail concerning our anti-cheating measures, sorry. Nevertheless, rest assured that we haven't stopped fighting cheaters. We are currently in a more detailled evaluation of the situation. That's all I can tell you.


Thanks, is good for our community to know you are adapting to the new situation, is that we had that question a lot.One guy even asked if you were planning to take the GM back considering the anti bot program doesn’t work properly anymore, but lets move into another area.

Okay


These are questions suggested by our community: “Dear Ogrey, Since you take care of the Event Board, which was the most creative Event you have seen?“

That is really hard tell. I very much appreciate players who organise events for the community. That's really awesome!... I personally like marches through Tibia, like a march against racism or something like that. And what I really like is the idea of the Social Sunday series that currently happens on Julera. There are so many ideas out there.


Nice answer!, is indeed good to see stuff like that, virtual worlds are not virtual anymore

Agree


If you were to pick a prize in a contest, what would you pick?

For me, the coolest prize would be to meet some people I know from the forum in real life. THAT would be crazy! :) I'd really love that to happen one day.


If you had the power to instantly change one thing on Tibia, what would it be?

That's an interesting question... I really miss sound. Who doesn't? LOL...
But I guess I would mix medieval and sci-fi elements in Tibia - and allow space travel and things like that. WOOOHOOOO!!! I'm a sci fi geek ;) in a pirate outfit.


Haha maybe one day some aliens from planet Tibiae could visit Tibia. This is another, related to the content.

YEAH That would be great!


Ogrey,we have been following closely the thread of the serpentine tower in the event board, now, we the winter update, the content team redesigned the Colossus of Kazordoon, Are there plans to "open" the possible old projects as well? i.e the basilisk, the sword of fury, etc

Hm... Well, to be honest, the Colossus thingy... it was really suprising for us CMs that this is such a big issue in the community. We CMs didn't know that. :)
But those mysterious quests in Tibia really are a very delicate topic, we are aware of that. And rushing any changes is definitely not what we want to do...
So, I can tell you that there are no concrete plans at the moment to change those quests that some people call "unsolved" or even "unsolveable" in any way.


Yesterday a member of the community remembered Fiction Fighters, any news on that that you may know?

"Remembered fiction fighters"..... that's a great wording! :)What was fiction fighters again?!? :D Okay, seriously...


Haha yeah is that we havent had news in a while haha. We saw a cool video on Youtube, dunno if made by Cipsoft.

A video on youtube? Not sure about that... Anyway... Fiction Fighters is doing fine. We have seen an internal presentation some time ago and it really looks great. Totally different than Tibia, of course... An internal beta test will be started soon, but only for CipSoft staff. There still isn't a release date, but the current status is pretty promising.


Great. Another community question: "Ron Aldo: Dark Trinity Mace, Solar Axe and Epiphany are quest rewards in future quests?"

I cannot really comment on that, since this is solely decided by the content team and I don't have any information on that. Sorry.


Aight. We are almost finishing btw.

Oh. How time flies...


This is a equest, have you considered doing a pvp arena, even on optional pvp serves, for people to duel without the loss of anything? Or even with some loss, previously agreed by both players.We made a poll and that request won by a big difference.

The focus group has discussed and still is discussing many many aspects that could really improve PvP. They have worked out some great ideas... Even if we CMs are not directly involved in the discussion, we know that PvP arenas are a topic that is part of the discussion and duel modes as well... A decision about that hasn't been made yet. But it will definitely be considered when it comes to decide which features should come next... We really want to improve PvP for all PvPers our there.


Well are already know you are a Sci-Fi fan but would like to know a bit more, so this question will fix that: If you were to get isolated with only one video game, one movie, one book, one person and one music cd for a year, what would be your choices for each?

Oh my god... The video game would probably be Gears of War 2 at the moment. I love it!
The movie would be Some Kind of Monster. It's a great documentary about the band Metallica. It's very inspiring for me.


It is!, the mustaine scene is so funny

Oh yeah! Poor guy :) The book is clear: Master of Doom - How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture. It's the story of id Software, the developers of Doom and Quake, among others. An awesome book, really!

The person is clear, too: my wife :=


To many people is clear the opposite haha

HAHA Not for me ;)


Not for me either, thanks God.

And the music cd: I guess it would be S&M by Metallica. It's even a double cd! Hope that's not cheating. ;)


So Metallica fan? What metallica song fits tibia to you?

Yes, I love Metallica!... Some days ago I listened to their song All Nightmare Long...
Here the lyrics are "We hunt you down with no mercy, hunt you down all nightmare long"... I guess that fits. Somehow. Sadly.


Hahaha it indeed does!
I have a couple balance vocation question I forgot

Hm... Hard to answer for me probably


First, about the knights: people is concerned about that vocation and would like an answer or some hope about it.

I understand Hm... Balancing is also a big issue that is solely done by the content team and the product managers... I'm afraid, I cannot really give you a useful answer on that question at the moment. Sorry.


Well yeah sorry too, ill make it easier. This rumor is getting hot, is it valid? This update can make new balancemment in vocations? some players was saying players cant hunt anymore on ue mode, cause after update the exausted will be 5sec. of ue, its true? Or you know something about it?

Please understand that all information about the upcoming update will be provided in the teasers. I wouldn't want to comment on those questions in the interview. Hope you understand that.


Yes, still, any safe spoil information that you can give exclusively to TibiaVenezuela?About mounts, balancing, or something?The new balancing department?

Count Tofifti is really having a hard time with balancing all this stuff, I can tell you that...


Yeah for example, is he still sane?

LOL He is...
He is doing a great job, but it takes some time to figure everything out because as we all know Tibia is a very complex matter... I guess Count didn't know that when he applied for this job. :)


Well, last question before the rapid questions to finish. Do you want to change somenthing on Rookgaard?

We want to tweak it a little to better take newcomers by the hand when they start our on their Tibian journey... But Rookgaard will not be removed, nor will players be able to skip it until further notice...


Please never remove the cockcroaches yeah! ROFL

Rookgaard is a place full of legends. This charme has to be preserved. Cockroaches are definitely part of that! :D


Cocckroachers mount will be awesome yeah!

A cockroach mount? Forwarded to the content team... :)


You made my day!

Just a try


I know, still haha. Well Ogrey.To end there is tradition to say quick words, single words, and you say whatever you have in mind as fast as possible

On a question?


Several phrases. And you say whatever you have in mindsentences, or words. When you are ready.

Ready


Crunor

Mighty one!


Knights

Protector of the weak


Zathroth

Who is that guy?!? LOL


Void

Pretty scary, isn't it?


Tibia

Massive!


Fruit
Mirade

I love bananas! :D
Mirade? Sitting next to me


Flash client

Will be awesome (when the graphics for the UI are finished)


Reggaeton!

Hm... Whats that?


Volunteer Gamemasters

A great team. Great people.


New helper system(group)

Nothing's decided yet


Basilisk
Hunted

Basilisk: oh la la, mysteryyyyy
Hunted: Metallica rulez!


Haha nice!

That was it?


Well Ogrey we wont take more time, we know yuo are a busy person

Yeah

Wait, tell me: what is Reggaeton?


Haha!Is a style of dancing music very popular in latin america xD

Oh, sorry guys


Some love it to death. Some hate it.

I'm not a dancer


Yeah I know it was a tricky Word XD

Not dancing like dancing I mean you can dancing it, believe me.
You just move hips or whatever and thats.

I should look it up on youtube.


Thats why its so popular. Pls look for "perreo". Thats the dancing move name. In whichi well, is very erotic hahaha XD
Reggeaton perreo should do it.

I'll try it out


Let's make a screen shot. You are a very cool guy Ogrey. I had a lot of fun, can't believe it was 2 hours, as you said, time flied

Thanks :) had a nice time with you guys

Thanks, good luck on Cip and keep rocking man

Thanks to you!


I wish for your Sci-Fi content to be added someday, it will surely be refreshing.

Let's see what happens... I'd love it.