Hellos and Goodbyes

Hail fellow Norrathians.

It doesn’t seem so long ago, but I can still clearly remember a day in 1997 or so when a girl I was dating told me about this article she read in a gaming magazine about this new type of game that Sony was working on called EverQuest. My interest was piqued, I read the article, and told her I thought it sounded awesome but couldn’t imagine they could ever get something so complicated to work. Of course as the game progressed through Beta I got more and more interested, and by launch day I was rabidly consuming any information I could get my hands on.

My computer couldn’t really run EQ, but that wasn’t going to stop me. A couple months later and I had a brand new computer that would handle EQ just fine. The girlfriend eventually fell by the wayside, but I stuck with EQ and made all sorts of amazing friendships that I still carry with me to this day. Eventually I ended up working in gaming, and was drawn away from Norrath. I still had all the memories, and nostalgia for those days often had me thinking about what it would be like to come back to EQ.

Fast forward to late 2010. Having decided to leave my then current position, I was doing a quick scan of possible opportunities when a posting on EverQuest’s Facebook page caught my eye. SOE was hiring a Community Manager for EQ, and was putting out a call for qualified candidates. This wasn’t an opportunity I was going to miss, and I quickly submitted my resume. With a bit of luck and a bit of work, I somehow managed to convince the folks at SOE to give me a chance.

I packed the family up, moved them 500 miles, and settled down in sunny San Diego for the experience of a lifetime. EverQuest is the reason I decided to work in gaming; it is a game that has quite literally changed my life. I have never regretted this choice, and it has been an amazing run for me to be able to be involved with my first love in online gaming. The people on the EverQuest Team, and everyone I have worked with here at SOE, are absolutely amazing and I feel privileged to have been able to work with them. The folks here are absolutely committed to making great games, and I’m excited about both current developments and things the future will bring.

Unfortunately, no matter how great a job is, there are things in life that are more important than a career. In this case it is about family. Both my family and my wife’s family are getting on in years, and the older they get the more help and support they will need in day to day life. I’m sure many in the EQ community can understand this, and being an only child this responsibility falls primarily on me. As a result my family and I have decided to move back to the area where our families reside so that we can be close to provide the needed assistance.

I’ve been working with a number of folks here to hand off my responsibilities, as well as to apprise them of all the different things that are relevant to the EverQuest community. This isn’t a small amount of information, but I know that I’m leaving you in good hands. Ry “Roshen” Schueller will be taking over the Community role in EverQuest, and he’s got tons of experience with EQ as a player on top of his experience working in Community. I’ll let him tell you more shortly.

I’d also like to thank all of you for making this time in my life absolutely incredible. What makes EQ so amazing isn’t just the game, but the community of gamers who plays it. This goes both for my official position as Community Manager and as a regular player of the game. You are a wonderful group of people and I’ll miss you more than you all know. I’ll still be playing in game, and lurking on the forums, so you’ll still see me around. You just might not know it. I might even make it to SOE Live this year, schedule permitting. I know I’ll want to find out about all the latest developments that will have occurred in the time between!

With the warmest affection and respect,
Eric “Piestro” Cleaver

Thanks for listening and being there for us when we needed you Piestro. You always had answers for our questions and looked into issues for us. You took everyone seriously and always took everything in stride, even our terrible whining sometimes

Good luck on your future endeavors, I hope everything works out for you in life and wish you nothing but the best!

/bow, you did an awesome work here and you'll be missed. Take care and i hope i will have some opportunity to cross your road ingame.

You did a great job. Hope to see you in game.

Best of luck, thanks for all the support

Thank you for your work with the community, you will certainly be missed around here. Best of luck in the future!

Signed in just to say I've always admired your work and communication in regards to the Progression servers. Thank you for what you've done for both us and for EverQuest. So many people love Norrath and everything it stands for, and your work has contributed to making EverQuest as special as ever.

Thank you and best wishes to both you and your family Piestro, hope to see you at SOE Live.

Fair Winds and Following Seas.

Take care Piestro, you will be missed.

You were awesome at your job Piestro. Good luck in the future. Don't disappear on us completely now.

Sorry to see you go Piestro. You did a great job as CM for the game. Thank you for being a great voice for the players to the developers and for the developers to the players. All the best.

Later Piestro.

You were my favorite community manager. Best of luck to you and your family.

PIE!

You are a good friend and will be sorely missed. Best of luck on your new adventure.

Piestro,

You have been an incredible CM for the EQ community, one that we'll miss. You kept things under control, didn't let the crazy players get to you (or at least show it to us) and you held the reigns the best of any I've seen in my 11.5 years of playing EQ.

Good luck to you and your family. I won't say goodbye as I know paths will cross again at some point.

You're a class act Piestro. Best of luck to you.

Take care and best of luck in what you do!

You have been by far the best CM for EQ ever. I dread you leaving as no one will ever likely be as capable and attentive as you have been. Good luck.

Best CM EVER. Well done sir. Well done.

Wait, you're leaving? Can I have your stuff?

Seriously, though. We are truly going to miss having you as part of our Norrathian family. Tunare's blessing on your new adventure, good sir!

I didn't even realize we had a community manager till Piestro showed up. Thanks for caring and sharing. Safe Journeys.