Robert Hiett @CHLotD

Mr. Robert Hiett has been a regular fixture in the Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game space for over twenty five years, and he is the leader of one of North America's oldest competitive gaming guilds. During the early years of his gaming life he lead his guild to victory by conquering virtual worlds, and earned a reputation as a strategic leader in all games that featured Player vs Player (PVP) combat options. Mr. Hiett’s gaming guild has been featured in gaming industry magazines, professional podcasts, gaming fansite news networks, and other prominent places over the years.

Mr. Hiett went on to write for the gaming news networks of the early internet period such as Stratics Network, Warcry Gaming Network, and guest writing from time to time on the IGN Gaming Network.

Mr. Hiett's writing and strategy articles lead to him being brought onboard by Ubisoft Entertainment as the first War Correspondent for the game Shadowbane. Mr. Hiett's character, Waylander the Slayer, became infamous for always being spotted near the largest player battles on the server, and a crowd of players would routinely broadcast his travel patterns across the land. The War Correspondents were the official chroniclers during the Shadowbane Beta Testing years, and they wrote about the trials and tribulations of the various guilds vying for power and dominance in the Shadowbane World.

The War Correspondents eventually became known has Heralds, led by Mr. Hiett, and it grew to become a team of up to 15 community team members dealing with daily player relations, coordinating feedback to the Shadowbane Community Manager, and reporting game balance issues to the development team. In addition, there were up to 20 Player Advocates who became part of the community team, also coordinated by Mr. Hiett, and they reported game feedback about player character classes that would be used for game balance updates.

Mr. Hiett was later recruited to be part of the community team for Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR). Mr. Hiett's role on the SWTOR community team was to perform remote game testing and feedback, help manage the SWTOR public community discussions, and to help to produce game Wiki information that would eventually be used as player walkthrough guides or information resource points.

Mr. Hiett has also been a speaker at the Austin Game Developers Conference, and he spoke with other leading guildmasters of the day about player relations, game development, and virtual worlds.

Mr. Hiett continues to consult with various gaming studios as he participates in closed testing opportunities. Mr. Hiett is an advocate for game based learning (Gamification) to teach today's youth about important soft skills, such as teamwork, communication, coordination, etc., and to introduce them to career pathways that lead to good paying jobs in "middle skill" occupations.