Hi everyone!

Firstly let me say a big thank you to Jeremy for his warm welcome and for all his support as I start to catch up and orient myself.

I'm Sam, you'll know me as Ictinus here in Aetolia. For the last four and a half years I've worked as Head Builder and Associate/Co Producer in Achaea. My IRE career started a long time ago in 2010 as a player in Aetolia, but in the AP role in Achaea I have had a major hand in virtually every event, every area and content release, and in all of the overall day to day management of the game. I've also spent a massive amount of time on the ground running my own events and storylines: believe me when I say I am enormously passionate about roleplaying and I am here to roll up my sleeves and work.

With all that said, Aetolia is not Achaea, nor do I want it to be. The unique identity of Aetolia is something I want to build upon and nurture while I am at the helm. Some of my key ways of achieving this will include:

1. Minimising the development time spent on promotions and monetisation, instead prioritising making the game as fun and engaging as it can be. Yes, this means more events and more stories. Aetolia's lore and history will be a steep learning curve for me to catch up on, but this return to focus will be something we all work on as a team.

2. Healing the rift between you, the players, and the staff, particularly when it comes to efficient handling of requests, problems, issues, and so on. If you reach out to me, I will answer you.

3. Maintaining an open and ongoing flow of communication. I will do my level best to set realistic expectations and deadlines for projects that you know are in the works, and be honest with you when something gets in the way.

4. Shouldering responsibilities that free up our coders and volunteers to do what they are best at. I know there are several stalled projects in the pipeline at present. We will be looking over these week one and coming up with a plan to eliminate the roadblocks. I want our coders to be able to do passion projects and make shiny new things. I want our Gods to feel empowered with the agency and autonomy to tell compelling stories and create intense experiences and conflicts.

While I continue to situate myself and get up to speed over the next week or so, I will be scheduling two Town Hall meetings. My aim is for everyone to be able to attend at least one of these without being negatively affected by your timezone. I'll announce the dates and times for these as soon as they're decided. Everyone will be welcome. These will be an opportunity for you to get to know me and for me to get to know you, as the FIRST step in an ongoing dialogue. There will certainly be questions I cannot answer yet, but I want to hear your concerns and your ideas so that we can move forward with a distinctly Aetolian vision.

Ultimately, the producer and the Pools as a whole exist for you: to make your experience the absolute best it can be so that you are excited about logging in and immersing yourselves in the world. None of us would exist without you and I am incredibly excited to dive straight in and get my hands dirty. I have great memories of Aetolia from my player days and I hope to be making a great deal more as we look ahead!

To close this out, should you need to get in touch with me, you can reach me via ictinus@aetolia.com. If you have any outstanding requests that you've sent to Tiur, please do send these across to me. There is a lot to get caught up on, but I will make this a high priority so that you are not waiting for responses any longer than absolutely necessary.

Let's get to work!

Penned by my hand on Falsday, the 1st of Ios, in the year 497 MA.
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