With Granado Espada SEA shutting down, we take a look back at the great memories we had in the game and featured memoirs of some of the key personalities. In our first memoir, we have the former Community Manager of Granado Espada SEA PH branch Veya to share her adventures.

Ten years ago, I was given a title that was every gamer’s dream – to represent the Philippines as Community Manager for Granado Espada. Having played MMORPG titles for decades have been just a past time or a hobby for me. Never in my life would I imagine myself doing this as a professional work. I’ve worked in harmony with its amazing team of Game Masters and of course, with our Regional Community Head, Hrin, guiding us with our marketing and community efforts for the Granado Espada online community.

But as they always say, every happy beginnings will have its happy-yet-nostalgic endings. Thus, I am writing this in memory of Granado Espada – the game that brought us together as a ‘family.’

Moments

A lot of my work involves monitoring and guiding the GE Filipino gaming community. My favorite was doing faction (guild) visitations – in-game and in-real-life. And yes, I was only allowed to use a regular account, no edit, no filters, just plain unscripted hack and slash, day and night gaming. When I was falling behind, I remember a certain faction called PasawayProphecy saying ‘protect the princess.’ We encountered a high-level boss and I was pretty useless at that point, having to not reach level 100 yet. That’s where I said ‘no more girl gamer branding.’ We can’t let the ladies be always the damsel in distress. I have to do something – other than leveling, I’ve spearheaded to also focus on the female gamers. I had real-life interviews with the ladies, conducted an exclusive event for ladies only, and encouraged them to involve in tournaments, the Mentor Program, and other gaming activities.

The point of being a GameMaster or Community Manager is having an authoritative representative or presence, however, for me, I just wanted to hangout and have some fun, as a gamer myself with the community. Work or not, I enjoyed having missions with the GE Pioneers, visit them in-real-life in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. This way, it gave us inspirations in doing contests and other artistic events. And oh, I love being in any iCafe events – these are the best! I’d be in this kind-of-shy voice, ‘can I join po?’ when we have freeplays.

Proud moment for the team is when we first created War of the Factions, and mechanics got changed as years passed. Even if we have to work for the weekend, it was worth it! All Southeast Asian gamers got to enjoy it. PvP contradicts of players having to fight off each other – for me, this actually binded the gamers more. Having to be online all at the same time, in one in-game arena is the best feeling ever!

Maybe the best moments are both in-game and in-real-life. Or you may noticed I’ve never mentioned my favorite characters (Emilia the Sage, I know RNPC and also, bias!) or my family of Fighter, Scout and Wizard, or the time where my characters got killed at Porto Bello.

And so I end this with a cheesy line, ‘in Granado Espada, we don’t have friends. We got family.’