Blog

Christina Sims

Happy New Year to all of our players and fans! My name is Christina Sims, and I am Cryptozoic’s newest employee and member of the OP Team as a Brand Ambassador. Many of you may already be familiar with who I am, or have seen me at 2011 North American Darkmoon Faire events as Alexstrasza: The Life Binder.

You may have met me as I performed demos of the World of Warcraft TCG, Penny Arcade: The Game – Gamers vs. Evil, and Food Fight at conventions like PAX East, PAX Prime and Gen Con.  You may have even seen me around at Blizzcon in my latest, craziest costume creation. I will be doing some of the same tasks as we move forward, but I will also have plenty of other important responsibilities as well. Here are a few questions you may want to ask:

 “What has your first week been like as a Cryptozoic employee?”

Being an official employee involves wearing much more comfortable pants 90% of the time, so that’s a welcome benefit. My transition also involved a rather adventurous move from Colorado to California with a car full of my belongings that even a suicidal deer could not stop. Don’t worry; the deer escaped unharmed, although a part of my latest costume did not after it became intimate with my car’s dashboard. Other than that minor hurdle, becoming a part of team has been very easy thanks to my great coworkers that have made me feel very welcome. I still am settling in to my new role.

 “Brand Ambassador? That sounds serious. What responsibilities will you have at Cryptozoic?”

A large part of my new position here will involve being the go-to person for our CZE volunteer program and Champions of the Black Flame. I will listen to the player’s concerns and keep my fingers on the pulse of the community. “Fans First” will be my top priority, and I will do my best to make sure your voice is heard. As we continue as a company to branch out into the gaming market, it is vital that we keep in contact with our fan base and make sure that the lines of communication are always open. Across emails, the forums, and social media like Twitter and Facebook, I’ll be talking and interacting with you, the players, on a daily basis. I want to keep that communication flowing in the Cryptozoic community and not just gain fans, but people who are absolutely passionate about our games and products and also want to be a part of what we are doing here as a volunteer.

Refining the volunteer program will take a lot of work and time, and will not be a simple task. Our volunteers are like family to us and are such a valued part of our community. We want to make the program something more efficient and accessible to everyone. One facet of our volunteer program, the Champions of the Black Flame, has been very successful. Without our Champions, our WoW TCG community would not expand and thrive. As we move forward, I want to take that program and polish it, then integrate those practices into our other games. While there may not be a “Champion of the Cardboard Tube” specific program, I would like to see our volunteers branching out and showing their communities just how fun the other games we have to offer are. At the end of the day, we just want everyone to have a ton of fun and keep things fresh and exciting.

I have a few goals to shoot for as time goes on:

·         I want to make it easier for people who have an interest in being a Cryptozoic volunteer to sign up for our volunteer program and make the application approval process faster.

·          I want all of our volunteers to function on a similar wavelength of knowledge so they can easily answer most questions presented to them by their playgroups.

·          Making rules and tournament organization documents more accessible by keeping all information to one place, as well as having a more efficient, universal way to communicate amongst the volunteer corps.

·         Continue to have incentives to joining our volunteer program, such as volunteer-only WoW TCG cards and priority on staffing our DMF and tradeshow/convention events, but also branch out these incentives and make them relevant to the volunteers who are also crazy about our board games and trading cards, not just the WoW TCG.

·         Keep recognizing the people that go the extra mile in doing things such as running demos at their small local conventions, reaching out to gaming clubs, and really going above and beyond in their community. We want people to be crazy about the idea of being a part of the team!

“So if I want X card banned because I think it is overpowered, I email you?”  You should talk to those R&D guys on Tuesdays!

“I’m having trouble establishing lines of communication with my play group, can you help me or give me ideas?” Yes! I can do this.

“WHAT IS PROJECT: SEXY MURLOC?” Soon.™

If you have any questions for me or the future of the volunteer program, feel free to discuss it in our forums or Tweet me at @wowtcg and I will do my best to answer your questions. I may not be able to answer everything, but any feedback is more than welcome. What would you like to see done with our volunteers? How do you feel about being a volunteer?

Thank you and I hope to work with many of you soon!

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