C&C Community...I am your father.

My name is Jeff Suhr, and I started working for EA as your C&C Co-Community Manager on June 1st, 2009. However, my process to the throne is probably not what you would come to expect from someone in this role.

I graduated from State University of New York (SUNY) Brockport in May 2009 with a Bachelor's Degree in Biology and a minor in Psychology. After you recover from the shock of how unrelated these fields are to Community Management, you may have enough left in you to finish reading this. While I loved learning Biology, my heart was into gaming. I followed games closely throughout my life, and loved building my own websites. After learning HTML in 5th grade and experimenting in creating many different types of websites, I started to learn Photoshop for fun. Although school took up most of my time, there was always some left to spare for Red Alert 2. This is the C&C game that would set the wheels in motion for a long process that would eventually lead to me trying to take over APOC's Corner (and getting shot off the set!).

After Red Alert 2, I went back and played the older C&C games, and have beaten every mission of any C&C game to date. I used to write down the entire story of the Tiberium universe to get my friends interested, and, through this, became so entangled in the fiction that I couldn't wait for a sequel. When Command & Conquer 3 was announced, I was posting on the boards under the username "jsuh0107". I created a website called CNC Vision, in which users could submit their own ideas for C&C3 including units, structures, story, gameplay elements, etc. in a nice organized forum. The website also had polls where the community could vote based on how they felt about different aspects of the game, and I would harass Apoc to look at the results. At this time, I posted on the official forums with a lot of constructive criticism, excitement, and sometimes I'd try to "calm the mob".

Apoc and I had been in frequent email contact at this point, with "Nukewave" being my current username. He appointed me and several others as Moderators. I noticed a rampant cheating problem with C&C3, and helped to build the volunteer anti-cheat team now known officially as the "Shadow Team". By taking reports from the community, we would look up stats on every player, or watch replays, and find out the right course of action to make online play a friendlier environment. We are much more sophisticated now, but that information is buried somewhere in the Tacitus.

The next year, Apoc emailed me asking "Would you like to intern here as a Community Manager?" I really couldn't believe that this was a possibility, but I went for it. My website, moderator, and Photoshop skills paired with my knowledge of the games and my Shadow Team helped me to get the internship.

I worked very hard that summer to learn everything time allowed, and improved all of my skills. I was able to help Apoc take community feedback from our passionate, hardcore community to the developers much more efficiently with both of us on the job. We were also able to help out with a lot of community programs such as weekly Red Alert 3 Q&A's, community website spotlights, and more. While in the studio, my Shadow Team could work much more effectively. My hardest task of all was play testing Red Alert 3 missions. This was obviously the most painful part of the job, where I started to wonder how I could have moved to beautiful Los Angeles to help a franchise and play video games. Absolutely brutal (I am in need of a sarcasm font)!

I left in August for my last year of college, back to the world of chemicals and microbiology. Luckily, I was able to help the community out from school as a contractor, while studying one celled organisms. These little things aren't nearly as entertaining as you guys in the community! I was also able to experience my last year as a Track & Field athlete, which was very exciting. The 400m dash is said to be one of the hardest races in the sport, but after running competitively for 9 years, I had done it at least 100 times!

During the winter, I got a call from EA. They offered me a full time position as an Assistant Community Manager / Assistant Producer for the C&C franchise! It was a defining moment of my life; being guaranteed the job I had always wanted, across the country, and away from the horrible New York snow. It was hard to stay focused on Biology, but I held up through my last semester. After walking across the stage at graduation, I knew it was time to set off to my final destination across the nation...C&C community domination! Another reason I chose community management over the hip hop industry. I moved to EA Los Angeles, permanently, set up shop, and here I am! I have had a great time getting to know the C&C community online and through events such as CommandCom, and look forward to our bright future together.

Apollo, Dackel, Me, and AGM Launcher at CommandCOM

Although I interned at EALA last summer, many things have changed. Many people had similar roles as they did on Red Alert 3, but others had stepped up their game, and we are making a different game. However, I felt at home right off the bat, and made sure to build off the processes Aaron and I had been working on over the year. It has been awesome getting to know the people on various teams such as development or marketing. Everyone is very supportive and helpful. Being the new guy can be hard in a team of 100 people, but I think flying out to Germany for CommandCOM with the team helped to "break the ice" so to speak. My favorite change has been my ability to speak up more often in various C&C4 meetings, rather than being the intern hiding in the corner with the notebook! I now sit by Aaron, under an annoying light that buzzes all too often, in the destructive path of nerf dart launches, staring at the text of thousands of community members. I just recently received a Photoshopped image from Raj showcasing myself as a fat guy jump kicking our video editor. As you can see...the perfect work environment!

Apoc and I have a lot of cool community programs coming up in the future, so get pumped and stay tuned! For now, be sure to check out my weekly community map and mod spotlights. If you have any comments or concerns, you are always free to private message me on the forums, or email me at 2poc@ea.com.

-2POC

Check out my weekly 2POC's Map Madness Spotlight and my weekly Mod Spotlights. E-mail to be featured!