Meet Dhayne

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He’s the Customer Support Lead for Realm, 25 years old… and for some reason… can’t seem to grow a beard. Meet Dhayne, the guy who’s not very good at bullet-hell games (in his own words) but knows the Realm like no other and is always there for support (pun intended).

IGN, Nationality and Age?

My IGN is Dhayne, I’m 25 years old and I am from Bulgaria, which is located in the land of darkness called Eastern Europe.

What is your job? Tell us about it.

I am currently the Customer Support Lead for Realm, working alongside a few caring and passionate individuals, namely Screap, Valsined, Sienna and Meliodas. I’m actually one of the people that has been here since the beginning, a couple of months short of 5 years now. It has been an amazing journey so far and a great learning experience for me. 

In terms of what I actually do – right now my job mostly consists of finding ways to make the customer support experience better for everyone. This includes internal changes that help our team provide you with better and faster assistance, policy changes that will benefit you and external changes that will improve the overall experience when contacting us. Taking this into account, I would actually like to thank the community for the constructive feedback that they’ve provided over the years. It has been invaluable to us in figuring out what works and what needs improvement!

Any hidden talents or hobbies?

My biggest hobby is gaming, how surprising!

Other than that, I’m also an avid reader of Fantasy and Sci-Fi books. One of my favorite authors is Philip K. Dick (shout out to any fans out there!). Right now I’ve started to work my way through Brandon Sanderson’s bibliography, more specifically the Mistborn trilogy. 

I also enjoy going to the gym, although with the pandemic situation in recent times that has become rather difficult. Hopefully we’ll be back to normal soon enough.

My last hobby is programming. I’ll be finishing my degree in Computer Science soon and I am looking forward to diving deep into that field. 

In terms of hidden talents, admittedly I don’t have that many. I am really good at beer pong and sleeping for unnaturally long periods of time, if that counts!

How did you end-up on DECA?

Through a combination of coincidence, luck and hard work. It’s actually my first (and only!) job. I’ve always been a gamer at heart, so the chance to work for a games development company is one I didn’t want to pass up. When I started, I immediately fell in love with the game and community, so I haven’t looked back since. As my experience increased, so have my responsibilities within DECA. I am truly grateful for this opportunity and everyone I have gotten the chance to work with for the past 5 years has been amazing!

Did you play RotMG before?

Unfortunately, no. I started playing it once I got hired as a CS Agent and got really hooked. I am, however, really bad at bullet-hell games, so I’ve had my fair share of deaths. (no, I didn’t walk through the evil water and die immediately when trying to host a DDocks run during one of our admin sessions, nobody saw that)  Sometimes I wonder how you guys can dodge so much stuff, but I guess I just have to git gud.

Favorite Class and Dungeon?

My favorite class is the Necromancer. In every game I play, I always choose these types of “dark” classes or builds that are self-sufficient. I am a sucker for edgy characters.

My favorite dungeon has gotta be The Sprite World. The reason for that is when I was learning the game back in 2016, I did endless amounts of Sprite Worlds because I read somewhere that it’s the best place to farm Dexterity potions. The moving tiles annoyed me to no end. Seeing it always brings back those fond memories. Really happy that it got some love with the rework!

What other games do you play?

Oh god, too many to count. In terms of single player games, I really enjoy RPGs with amazing storylines and characters. Some of my favorite games of all time are:

Mass Effect original trilogy. I think that Mass Effect is the only game I’ve played that really captured that sense of space exploration and mystery and it will forever be one of my all-time favorites. Looking forward to Mass Effect: Legendary Edition!

Dragon Age is also one of the games I played a while back that left a mark. BioWare made some great games back in the day!
The Witcher: Wild Hunt is most definitely my favorite game. Although it didn’t have outstanding gameplay, the narrative, characters and world were simply breathtaking.

Honorary mention to Stardew Valley – I have a lot of hours spent tending to my crops while listening to podcasts!

What makes RotMG unique? 

It’s a bullet-hell permadeath MMORPG. What’s not unique? I don’t think I’ve played a game that scratches the same itch as Realm does, but I think we’re all aware of that. One other uniqueness I’d like to point out is the community. I’ve never seen a more passionate community in a game before and that makes working on the game even better!

What are the things you love the most in the game?

The sense of satisfaction when you finally learn how to do a dungeon run or boss perfectly. It might take a while, especially for people who are not good at bullet-hell games like me, but it feels great once you get the movement and patterns down and can do it flawlessly.

What would you change?

I think we can all agree that the experience for new players can be improved a bit. Since design is not really my forte, I’m probably not the best at figuring out how that can be done. Possibly a more in-depth tutorial and guidance post-level 20 would be great. 

I’ll also echo Toastrz’s opinion on the realm and that it is outdated at the moment. 

How do you see the game in 10 years?

I would really enjoy a more open-world gameplay (to replace realms) and possibly an expansion of Realm’s lore. I believe that there is some great hidden potential in the history of the world of Realm.

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