few weeks ago, you had the opportunity to rate the community work of Tibia's customer support in our weekly poll. An overwhelming majority of you wished for an improvement of the community work. Actually, we have been working on the idea of intensifying already existing activities and expanding into new areas for quite some time. The communication between you, our dear players, and CipSoft is essentially important. It is your feedback, your ideas and your criticism that helps us improving Tibia and our services further. Also, we know that you would like to be informed in return: what is going on behind the scenes, what features are planned for the next update, what do we think about various topics - you have many questions and we would like to provide you with answers in a more direct and interactive way.

So it is about time to upgrade.

We are more than happy to announce the establishment of a department that focuses on community work, on the exchange of information, ideas and thoughts between you and CipSoft. Dear players, please welcome our new department Community Management. The team we field consists of two young ladies, former customer support members, who are eager to get things started. Our new community managers Rejana (formerly known as Alguzara) and Mirade (formerly known as Neofine) are already bursting with ideas. In this featured article the community managers will tell you what is new and give you an insight on what is to come.

At first, however, we would like to explain the new naming as we decided to change the titles and abbreviations of CipSoft members. So far, all customer support members have been called community managers and could be recognised by the abbreviation "CM" in front of their name. With the establishment of a separate community management department, Tibia's customer support is no longer responsible for tasks involving community work such as coordinating the fansites. The support team focuses on helping whenever you have a problem in Tibia, processing reports, answering emails and taking care of the voluntary helpers. Since many of their tasks involve rule enforcement they will be called gamemasters from now on, or "GM" for short.

To avoid confusion with our voluntary gamemasters, you can still recognise customer support members by their special ingame outfit, a blue overall and a red cape. On the boards, the title "Customer Support" will appear right under their name whenever they make a post. The names of all customer support members can be found in the About Tibia section under About CipSoft. From now on, the abbreviation "CM" will only appear in front of the new community managers' names. They also have a special ingame outfit, they wear a blue overall with a green cape.

Please keep in mind that CM Rejana and CM Mirade are no longer members of the customer support so they are not involved in any kind of rule enforcement. They are solely responsible for community work.

A few weeks ago, we started to make plans and preparations. As a first step, the new department took over some of the former customer support tasks such as the polls, the feedback form, the news and the featured article. The previous featured article, for example, was already written by a community manager. Also, one of the community management's main tasks is to collect, evaluate and forward your feedback and ideas to our development team. The proposal board and the weekly polls already serve as important tools players can use to state their opinion and present their ideas. Additionally, we will intensify the use and evaluation of the feedback form in the community section on our website so you are very welcome to express your ideas and opinions there.

But we have even more in store for you! There are two new community boards which will be checked by the community managers on a regular basis. On the discussion board, Tibia topics of general interest and importance can be discussed with us. Moreover, you can comment on the latest featured article or the latest news in our brand new feedback threads. There will be a direct link to the respective thread at the end of every article or news. The event board is the right place to advertise an event server-wide, to swap event ideas and tips with others. There, you can also find events created and organised by CipSoft every now and then which will always be designed for the entire Tibia community. If you are looking for an event to participate in, check out our event schedule. Before you start posting on the boards, please read carefully the announcements on the discussion board and the event board for further information.

And now, we would like to tell you some bits and pieces about us so you can get to know us better.

Rejana, can you tell our players a little bit more about Mirade?

"Sure! About a year ago she joined the customer support team. Right from the beginning she impressed everybody with her clear and structured way to argue, so it didn't really take long before she was trusted to deal with a very important group of our customers - our voluntary helpers. She first assisted Iscen on the Tutor Board, then helped supporting the gamemaster team. When it became clear that there was going to be a new department inside CipSoft that would deal more with community work instead of rule enforcement, she applied for the job, and was chosen. I'm very happy to work together with her. She has a brilliant mind and many fun ideas. She's hardly ever in a bad mood, likes to laugh, and appears at the office a lot earlier than many other people. So when I arrive a bit later, still a bit sleepy, she manages to brighten my day with a cheerful 'Good morning'. Her cheerfulness is also shown by a couple of colourful figurines that decorate her desk.In order to be able to introduce her in this article, I have asked her a couple of questions, which will help me tell you what kind of person she is: She prefers cats over dogs, which tells us that most likely she has a very independent mind. Her preferring vegetables over meat might hint at a non-aggressive nature. That suspicion is confirmed by her server choice. She prefers Non-PvP over PvP, which lets us suspect a peaceful attitude. However, she does not fear any confrontations. When asked about what vocation she would choose, she went for the knight. So she's a front-row woman, with a clear and independent mind, who doesn't want to cause any harm, but will fight for what she thinks is right. If she's stressed out, she can easily relax by letting the sun shine on herself on the beach. If it's cold, or raining, a nice game on a console would do the trick, or simply a bite from a chocolate bar could cheer her up again."

So Mirade, now it is your turn, how would you describe Rejana?

"Well, she's one of the oldies considering how long she is already a member of the CipSoft team. Most of you have probably heard of her already, either back in the days when she was still the master tutor or, more recently, as being the head gamemaster. She did a great job and got along well with our voluntary helpers due to her kindness, wisdom and good sense of humour. She applied for a position in the new department and got it, yay! She's a great match for the job - very educated, helpful and a good listener with an open mind. We often share a laugh and whenever she's on holiday, I miss her witty remarks and cheerful comments. We really enjoy brainstorming together and she usually has a lot of inspiring and imaginative ideas. I'm deeply impressed by her skills in knowledge management. She collects, organises and stores important information in a very neat and tidy way, everything is easy to find.And she has a motor scooter so I guess she likes the freedom of the open road. I have also heard that she's a good singer but I still have to find out whether or not this is true. She asked me some questions about my likes and dislikes and here are the results of what I asked her in return. Her favourite seasons are spring and autumn, which tells us she prefers the transition periods to the extremes of heat or cold. It seems that she likes it colourful - fresh flowers in spring, intense leaf colours in autumn. To redeem a voucher for a free meal, she would go to a Mexican restaurant and order a delicious spicy meal. I have also asked her which prize she would like to win in a lottery in Tibia. She would choose a wand, the powerful and mysterious weapon of sorcerers. Using magic requires a lot of wit and wisdom, so I guess she would be a great magician with amazing tricks."

Dear players, there is much more to come in the future as our new department has just started out. So stay tuned and meet Rejana and Mirade on the new boards. We hope to see you there soon!

Let's get together!
Your CipSoft Team

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