NCsoft's Aion team welcomes its newest member, community manager Lani "Liv" Blazier:
Lani comes to us from the far reaches of the United States, in a sparsely populated state called Canada (her joke, not ours). A gamer from an early age, she began her journey into games on the Oregon Trail. It was while trekking through heavy rain and snow, along with a few starvation scares, that Lani had to ask, "Computer, where have you been all my life?", and even though that first gaming journey ended with a broken axle, stolen oxen and an untimely death due to cholera, she came out of it knowing this was the life for her.
She continued to play games through high school, with a strong appetite for FPSs. Having completely broken the balance of game time with homework, she had finally played enough competitive Half-Life: Counterstike to be offered a position on Canada's first fully sponsored female CS team; the same sponsor that sent Team Canada to the World Cyber Games in 2002.
After graduating high school, Lani enrolled in the Game Art & Design program at the Art Institute in Vancouver, BC. Upon completion she was awarded the "Ready to Rocket" award by the Canadian Awards for the Electronic and Animated Arts (CAEAA), the award recognized her as the student who exhibited the most promise in animation, game development and new media.
Her first job was as an assistant producer at Threewave Software, Inc., a company specializing in FPS multiplayer gaming. Lani dedicated herself to game production, pulling a half-dozen games under her belt. It was while working at Gamehouse (a division of Real Networks) that Lani got a taste of working with game communities on a variety of social gaming platforms. Her switch from production to community management was sparked from a desire to interact more with the players.
When Lani's not exploring the world of Aion, she's most likely writing sci-fi stories with her online Star Trek RPG group, outside enjoying the Pacific Northwest or playing board games with her family. And did we mention she speaks Klingon, has the Klingon empire symbol tattooed onto her back and has won numerous Star Trek trivia competitions?
Lani would also like everyone to know that she was using a certain game console to keep fit long before Jessica Alba was, even though Jessica is in better shape than her right now, "But not for long, Jessica Alba. Not for long."
We are excited to have Lani on board and we know she's just as excited to get to know the Aion community. Please join us in giving her a warm welcome.
If you'd like to ask Lani a question, feel free to email her at liv@ncsoft.com
Welcome to Aion!
