Tibia Wiki:Interview with GM Grimrath

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Grimrat, I mean, Grimrath. Old School Player, member of the customer support team, with some experiences in testing as well, the little hamster has many duties. He cares of all tutors and is entrusted with the technical support. In this interview he tells about the creation of the new tutors system, Latin employees in CipSoft, his desire for a crafting system ingame, meeting in Tibianic, Some Golden Fruits and more. Enjoy.

Tibia Wiki: Hauopa Grimrath, first thank you for reserving a little of your time to join us in this interview.
Grimrath: I feel honored to be choosen for an interview by the website of the country with our largest fan-base.

Tibia Wiki: To begin, talk a little about yourself, your name, age, hobbies...
Grimrath: Uhhmm..., please understand that I want to keep personal real life data for myself. I am a very active Tibia player, and I want to avoid the risk of being revealed. I think you understand... :)

Tibia Wiki: How did you meet Tibia?
Grimrath: I have played pen and paper roleplaying games and pc fantasy games like the Ultima series since the 8o's. When the internet became more and more common with the new millennium, I started to look for something similar online and found Tibia.

Tibia Wiki: How and when did you get to know the CipSoft?
Grimrath: I was a Tibia player before I started working for Cipsoft. Someday, I stumbled over an interview given by Durin to TibiaBr.com and he talked about Cipsoft looking for employees. And I said to myself, let's give it a shot. And well..., here I am, still! ;)

Tibia Wiki: Do you usually play Tibia when you're not working at CipSoft? Can you share us your main vocation and character level?
Grimrath: I got a character of every vocation. Everyone is above 110+ and I play on an open-pvp server. I prefer no specific vocation but at the moment, I prefer my knight and my druid because they are the most versatile and therefore for me the most fun ones to play.

Tibia Wiki: If you could change one thing about Tibia, what would it be?
Grimrath: I would love to have a working crafting system in Tibia and a specific healing skill. In general, I am an old school player which means that I am a fan of less ingame restrictions, more player responsibility and interaction, more sandbox gaming. But it is good to see the game design resting with the product management because many ideas we players have look good at first sight .But if it comes to working on the details many problems can occur which cannot be determined by a player beforehand. Dreaming is a great thing, but some things are simply not possible and we have to respect that, even if it is hard. I learned that when I started working for CipSoft.

Tibia Wiki: Is there any Brazilian members working on CipSoft?
Grimrath: We are happy that one of our latest employees is from Latin America. She is a great addition to our team and will help us to improve the support for our Spanish and Portuguese speaking community.

Tibia Wiki: What is exactly your daily function in CipSoft?
Grimrath: My main responsibility is the tutor community, which I serve as the master tutor and the technical support, where I check and process bug reports and help our customers via email.

Tibia Wiki: A question about tutors: of all volunteers positions that existed only tutors remains. Why simplifying the volunteer's system?
Grimrath: It is a short question which deserves a long answer but I think this would break the given frame. In our old system, players were in the position to exclude each other from the game by holding a special "voluntary helper "position. It worked well but created many conflicts among players and lots of work for us as well. Therefore, we decided to make the transition to put the sole responsibility of rule enforcement in the hands of people which actually work for Cipsoft as employees.

Tibia Wiki: Several players ask for the return of gamemasters, saying that Tibia needs a human touch. What do you think?
Grimrath: I think "gamemasters" is only a term for a specific need. The need for immediate and personal ingame attention through a higher instance if it comes to ingame problems. You feel safer and more comfortable if you think someone is there to catch your fall. Voluntary gamemasters will not return, but improving our work by shortening our response time, for example, is something we are constantly working on.

Tibia Wiki: If tutors are volunteers who help other players and CipSoft reporting the rules violations, why are they limited to reports like all the other players?
Grimrath: We do not want anybody in the game to hold "special" powers which would make them superior to others. Tutors are essential for Tibia because they are able fill many knowledge gaps of our players, help them when others can't and they try to cover the need for individual help on the servers. But to stay on topic, in my opinion the amount of individual reports for a single character is a point we should review. It is not good if some topics don't get reported because our players have to rate the issues and safe their reports for the "important" ones.

Tibia Wiki: Given the large number of tutors under your coordination, do you have help of other CipSoft members or you work alone?
Grimrath: My teammates are there to replace me during times when I am not available. But in general, most of the time, I work alone.

Tibia Wiki: Sometimes you meet with the tutors. What is discussed in these meetings?
Grimrath: I try to explain our thoughts behind the decisions we make inside CipSoft to some extent. We address the problems Tutors face in their daily work with other players and I offer individual help in special cases. Furthermore, we thieve the cookies of the dark side and eat them within a fanzy ritual.

Tibia Wiki: Although there are many tutors, why so few attend meetings in the game?
Grimrath: I am pretty fine with the number of attendees. Nobody has to attend these meetings and I definitely do not want anybody to miss any classes because of them. Furthermore many tutors only choose to listen in the channel from Rookgaard, for example, because not everyone has a level 8 character to come to the Tibianic on Harmonia, where we currently meet. Everybody is free to find his role and level of activity within the Fellowship of Tutors.

Tibia Wiki: How and when was decided that the tutor's system needed a change?
Grimrath: It was a long process. It was discussed initially alongside with the changes on the gamemaster system and developed further until we were able to realize it.

Tibia Wiki: The new tutor system has been on air for a few months, what do you think of his?
Is it working the way that the CipSoft has planned?
Grimrath: Yes, for me much better than expected. I think the image of the tutors has changed for the better. We are not being flooded with new members and the ones which we could welcome are really a great addition to the team. Furthermore, the level of support we can offer in the help channel and on the boards did rise significantly. Especially the players who are willing to join the tutor ranks and who give their best to gather "Thank yous" are a great help and they display a wide variety of knowledge. The quality level of the answers on the boards and in the help channel is great as well and helping others is a virtue again.

Tibia Wiki: Since the implementation of the system, no changes were made to it, are you planning on further changes on it? If yes, may you share something?
Grimrath: We have 1 or 2 topics which we would like to evaluate and possibly adapt. The number of Tys you need to become a Tutor is one, for example.

Tibia Wiki: As in any system, there are always people who swindle it for their own benefit. What are you doing to prevent this?
Grimrath: Since you do not hold any special powers as a Tutor there is nothing which can be abused. Therefore, if someone tries to join the ranks for the sole reason of his own advantage, he/she will realize that there is nothing he can benefit from in game. It is more about being a part of a community and having fun in helping others and seeing other player develop because of your guidance.

Tibia Wiki: What is done to a player when he is caught cheating this system?
Grimrath: These cases are very rare and so far, I did not have to interfere. Since you get no ingame advantage from being a tutor, a player cheating his way into the system can do no real harm. However, players who act destructive towards the tutor community can indeed be removed from the position.

Tibia Wiki: After the change in the system, we can see a growing number of players interested in the help channel, to what extent this can be positive or negative?
Grimrath: Seeing many players paying attention to the help channel and the help boards is always a good thing. Even if some players give wrong answers in their effort to help others, other players or tutors can correct them.

Tibia Wiki: Finally, recently there was a bug with the item "Some Golden Fruits" and, in an official statement, you said that the item wouldn't be unique. Can you tell us about your plans for this item?
Grimrath: It will most likely be included as monster loot, or a quest. I am sorry but right now I do not have any information to share concerning the whereabouts of the golden fruits :) But I am confident that the content team will find a suitable event to make them re-appear for all players of Tibia.

We hope you enjoyed the interview as much as we enjoyed making it.