Martin Rabl (German Community Coordinator) englisch

Martin Rabl (German Community Coordinator)

What is your name and what is your field of activity at NCsoft?

Hi, my name is Martin Rabl and I am the German Community Coordinator for Aion: The Tower of Eternity. My main field of activity is being the liaison for the German speaking fans of the game and filter information in two directions: Company to players and players to company.

This includes being present at the fansites and communicate with the users there, managing the official website , filling it with content and getting in touch with the developers to make sure they know about the players’ expectations.

How did you come to NCsoft?

It’s not exactly like the American dream but maybe a fanboy’s dream. Back then in early 2005 I’ve played a lot of City of Heroes and after a while I started publishing some kind of virtual tabloid (news-) paper for the game. In a funny way me and my friends were making up stories around what happened on the German server and some bugs in the game (e.g. clipping issues became teleportation accidents).

The people at NCsoft also liked the humour and the style of writing. At the same time they were looking for a German Community Coordinator for City of Heroes and they contacted me through their forums. In the beginning I hesitated a bit because I’ve never really moved away from home so far but after my interview in Brighton I’ve made up my mind and now I am here for already three years.

What are you working on presently?

Apart from my regular job that I am doing on the website (blogging, news, …) and the forums I am working on making our appearance at the Games Convention 2008 in Leipzig a memorable experience for our fans. We want to be there for you and you can expect to see a lot of people from our community team at the show.

Of course this involves a lot of planning because in our eyes “being there for you” means more than showing you our games. This year, we will be there with a big booth and you’ll get the chance to play Aion and Guild Wars there. We believe in the community aspect of online games and want to give you a lot of opportunities to meet and have fun with other players and chat with us. And if I say ‘us’ I am talking about the whole community team. Not just for Aion and Guild Wars, also for Tabula Rasa and City of Heroes. We’ll also show up with English and French speaking people, so come and talk to us.

Like I’ve said, we’re working on some interesting activities we’d like to do with you. If you come to our booth you’ll be having a good time.

You should see some announcements coming soon…

What do you like most at your job?

The wide range of tasks you get in this job is incredible. When you’re working in community you have to interact with a lot of departments and very often you end up representing the visions or opinions of those departments in front of the fans. You never fully have a break from your job because in the evening you might have a nice idea for a community event and catch yourself fleshing out the idea in your brain. I usually end up sending myself an email from my phone to remind me of it when I come back to the office in the morning.

One day you can be scouting at a big LAN party in Sweden, meet a lot of players there or hang around with famous people from the gaming industry and the next day you’re watching the reactions to a press release on the boards. And often you get asked about your opinion what would be the reactions before it gets announced. Sometimes you know that the community will love it but sometimes there’s simply no other way than announcing not so popular news and you know that you will have to manage the threads.

What is your favourite NCsoft title and why?

I guess we are talking about released games, right? Otherwise I would have to reply Aion (seriously). So in that case I have to say that City of Heroes/City of Villains is my favourite game. No game ever sucked me in so deep and let me experience what online communities are all about. The game strongly focuses on player interactions (although you can play it alone quite well) and makes it so easy for you to find members for your team.

The developers have also done a great job recently and there is still more to come. Two thumbs up for the European community and the coding superheroes of the game.

What other game genres (except MMOs) are you interested in and what are your favourites?

There is one genre which follows me since I got my Commodore C64 around 22 years ago. Soccer (football) games. They’ve changed a lot since then (yes, I was amazed by the graphics those days) but I always enjoyed controlling a team of virtual characters and kicking balls into the net.

Every so often I also play FPS games but I wish there would be a little bit more creativity in the genre nowadays.

What is your favourite TV show or series? What are your favourite films?

Throughout the last year I’d say my favourite TV series have been “How I met your mother” and “Lost”. HIMYM is simply so funny and still believable most of the times while Lost is making you want to watch the next episode right after finishing one.

Unfortunately both series are on their break now. I think that HIMYM will be shown on German TV this summer. Check it out…

Do you like reading? If yes, what kind of books do you have in your bookcase?

Yes, I do like reading. However I think I am reading not enough books. It might be because I am a bit too lazy to do the research and find out which books are good. If you give me a good book and I get lost reading it then I a usually finish it very quickly.

I’ve got my Marvel comic subscriptions running and some of my favourite books include the typical bestsellers like Angels Demons, Timeline, The Swarm and so on. If you have any good suggestions, then please tell me as I am currently looking for a good back to read in the sun.

What are you doing in your spare time?

Hanging around with friends (pubs, beach, …), cinemas, swimming, studying Korean (although I want to do more again) and playing PC and PS3 games, of course. I also try to convince myself to get back into DJing. My turntables are getting dusty. It’s just that I feel like I need to make the change to digital DJing but that’s something I always tried to resist. Once the little angel and demon are finished battling you might see me back in action.

McDonald’s or Burger King?

Burger King is the real winner for me. However the English really know how to make great burgers and I am not going to BK as often as I did in Germany.

Coca Cola or Pepsi?

Coca Cola…Zero

If you would have one year free time and enough money: Where would you spend your time and what would you do?

I would try to see as much of the world as I could. I would not stay in one place. One year of free time? You would never get the chance again to be that flexible. It would be a combination of visiting interesting cities (Barcelona, Seoul, New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Prague, Rome, …) and doing some activities I always wanted to do. Examples would be surfing at Hawaii, helicopter tour over the Grand Canyon, swimming down the Niagara Falls (ok, it’s a joke), stuff like that.

I think I am a restless person. Maybe after a year like this I would be a bit calmer and more relaxed.

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