August 26, 2015

Guide to AE Team Members

Know The Difference

For a long time, everyone with a gold name has been called a Mod (short for Moderator) but there are actually 6 kinds of people walking around - Mods, Game Testers, Help Team, and Devs (short for Developer), White Hats, and members of the AE team who are not part of any of those other groups (like our forum moderators).

To make it easier to know who's who, we are giving each of these groups a distinct name color - that way, you'll know who can take action against a botter you've found (mods) or who might ask you to help them confirm a bug in-game (testers).

Colored Names: What They Mean

If you see someone with a colored name inside AQWorlds, that means they are a member of the AE team or work directly on the game in some capacity: devs, mods, testers, white hats, Player Support. Although we all have colored names, we have very different responsibilities, and the criteria we use to finds Mods is very different from what we look for in potential Devs or Testers.

Developers have purple names. They're the ones who make AQWorlds - creating art, coding, writing stories, designing classes, etc.

Testers have green names. There are three types of game-related testers - release, bugs, classes - all of them have green names inside AQW. Game testers test releases, while Bug testers focus on post-release issues. Class Testers focus strictly on new classes. Some staff Members that run the Wiki also have this color.

Moderators have gold names. They are your cheerful, helpful team members and read your reports and make sure AQW is a safe, fun, friendly game to play!

Player Support team members also have gold names - they are the ones who read your emails and are the only ones who can access your account information - they use that to help you fix problems!

AE Team Members have teal names. They are staff members who do not help in any of the other groups (forum mods, website testers, etc) but do so many things for our other games or community sites! They are official members of the AE team, so if you see them in-game, /wave hi!

White Hats have dark red names. These team members are one of our newest staff groups, and are former hackers who have proven we can trust them and vowed to use their very specific set of skills and knowledge of programming and/or web development to help keep AQWorlds safe.

For several years before they joined the team, each of the white-hats proved they were trustworthy by sending us details of in-game exploits and how they could be fixed. To become a white hat, you need to be invited, and the team is not currently looking for more members. If you see the White Hats in-game, do not worry if they don't respond or decline offers to /party - they are focused on the task at hand - keeping the game and your accounts safe!*

* They cannot access any information or take action against your accounts. They let us know when problems arise -- they are our guardians, and have vowed to use their programming super-powers for Good and Justice!

See a list of the AE Team Members here

How to become a Mod/Tester/Dev

As we need help moderating, making, and testing AQW, we bring on more people to help. Moderators and Testers are usually loyal fans and supports of the game who are helpful and patient with new players, fun, friendly yet responsible with the other experienced players. Many Developers are also loyal fans who have the art or writing skill we need to make AQWorlds.

For the most part being a Mod or Tester or Dev is a contributor position, although they do enjoy other rewards like free memberships, free ACs and access to pretty much any item they would like. Some contributor dev positions may turn into full-time gigs on the AQW team. The Help Team does not use contributor help because account information is sensitive, and we do EVERYTHING we can to protect your info.