Bunny and Bumble AMA!
Hey, Assassins!
Bunny and Bumble here, with our answers to questions you submitted as a part of our Year in Review AMA!
We apologize for the delay in getting this back to you (please forgive us). <3
Thank you for submitting your questions, we hope you enjoy this little sneak peek behind the scenes of ACR! 
Q - Bumble, what have you been doing (in terms of career) since you left the ACR CM position? If it was something vastly different, would you give an advice for those who try to find themselves in a new role, based on your experience from the past year?
Bumble:
I have been working in Production since my time in the community! My piece of advice for anyone finding themselves in a new role is to double down on being new to things to get yourself up to speed. Don't be afraid to put your hand up and ask what people are talking about in fear of making yourself seem inadequate. Nobody's going to let everything fall apart or judge you during your newbie stage; so that's your time take chances, make mistakes, and get messy. It's how you grow and eventually thrive.
Q - What are you most proud of in terms of personal or professional growth, and what are your goals for the upcoming year?
Bunny:
It feels a bit weird to sit here and toot my own horn, but after a difficult year like 2020, I think it is especially important for each of us to reflect on even small accomplishments and personal victories from the last year.
I am proud that I managed to move across the country, start a new job, and continue learning and growing as a CM, even after going into lockdown shortly after I arrived here.
I am also really proud of launching the official ACR Discord server and reaching over 10K members within a few months! It's been such a fun experience getting to know our ACR community on both Discord and the forum. Even if I don't always jump into the discussion, I read everything and I've gotten to know each of you through your posts. We have such a passionate (and funny!) community and I am very lucky to be your CM. I am also very thankful to our Discord Moderators and Mentors who have played a huge part in creating a fun and engaging environment on Discord through creating contests, polls, challenges, and the Intel Room podcast!
As for goals for the upcoming year, we have a lot planned for you! I have learned so, so much over this past year and I am looking forward to taking what I've learned and making 2021 an even better year for the ACR community!
Q- What's one memory that made you say "Being a community manager for ACR is challenging" and one that made you say "I'm glad to be part of the ACR team!"?
Bumble:
Challenging: Knowing that some requests from community are valid and agreeable to me as a player. As someone who genuinely loves the game so much, I ALSO want the funnest possible experience but also understand that it's just not possible to have all the resources or technical capability to act on the feedback quick enough or in a manner that resolves a problem holistically.
Proudest moment is really hard to choose because I am a sentimental bee. I still have Christmas cards sent from players and printed quotes on my desk. I framed the brilliantly punny "certificate" gifted to me by the community when I left my role as CM. For those of you whose eyes have been so unfortunate to have been ungraced by the masterpiece, it reads "in recognition of your service as Community Manager, the Discord community hereby awards you, Bumble, this certificate of discorderly conduct". I cry-laughed. I will tell my grandchildren tales of this honour.
Bunny:
As I mentioned in my last answer, we went into lockdown about a month and a half after I started as a CM for ACR. Going to WFH when you are still onboarding for a new game at a new studio was very challenging, to say the least! We had just released update 2.8.1, which included Edward Kenway and the DEAD MEN'S GOLD event. About two months later, we released update 2.9.0 while still in lockdown. If you were a part of the community back then, you will recall that this update had quite a few bugs and issues. This was a very challenging time as I was swamped with collecting bug reports, communicating back and forth with the dev team (virtually), and trying my best to communicate updates with the community.
There are SO MANY moments that have made me say "I am glad to be a part of the ACR team!" so I will just have to pick a few.
Last Easter, our amazing art team surprised me by putting my bunny Marshmallow on our Easter asset. I was still fairly new to the team at that time and this meant so much to me and really made me feel like I was a part of the team. I now use that bunny asset for my pfp on Discord and I love it so much.
During the July Ubisoft Forward event, there was a segment about "cats on boats" when showing footage for Valhalla. After that, I literally did not shut up about adding cats to our Valhalla event (especially on the BOAT). It became a running joke because I kept bringing it up in meetings. Little did I know, the devs were secretly working on adding cats to the event. They gave the task the codename "companion" to keep it secret from me and other team members. Needless to say, I was over the moon happy when they showed me the first gameplay footage that had the cats in the background. For those of you who haven't already noticed, take a look at your HQ and see if you can spot a few "companions" that were added in our last update.
On that note, another great memory was when I was scolded by Charlieb17's chat bot on his stream for yelling CATS ON BOATS in all caps. I was just really excited about the cats, OK?
In the September Ubisoft Forward Pre-show, my bunny Marshmallow was shown in the ubi-pets showcase! I had such a fun afternoon letting her run around the studio so I could capture footage of her, I was so happy that she made it into the pre-show! That was also very fun to see!


Q- In 2020, during the Pandemic period, did you have any difficulties in working conditions as a team, and what were these difficulties? (Social Distance, Quarantine Situations, Continuous Surgical Mask Use, Home Office Work etc.)
Bumble:
Our studio is in Nova Scotia, so we've been on par with the top regions in the world to combat the spread of COVID-19 so we've been very fortunate to have our studio open since June. Some people choose to be in the studio and some from home, so adapting communication styles to accommodate with work from home needs has been a challenge. Our industry is highly collaborative and creative, so it can mean SO MANY CALLS and the inability to just bounce something off of a colleague. I went from shooting nerf darts at people to shooting messages. It's just not as fun.
Bunny:
Bumble outlined it perfectly! The only thing I will add is that I am very happy to be at the studio because I like throwing pens at people to get their attention and I also like listening in on conversations with my big bunny ears.
Q- 2020 was an immensely challenging year for us all, professionally and personally. 2021 is shaping up to be similarly tough, if slightly improved. These challenges have strong-armed many of us into being better about finding joy wherever we can and appreciating the positive aspects of just about everything we devote our time to. Is there anything about ACR, its development team, and/or its community that you appreciate more after 2020 than you did before it, and if so, do you mind sharing?
Bumble:
We have a saying coined by our lead programmer that when we are ending a release cycle or have a curveball thrown our way that we go "full tilt" and we all lean back in our chairs like weirdos shouting WE'RE GOING FULL TILT FOLKS. Since the pandemic, I've seen the team still manage to effectively go so "full tilt" with added constraints of quarantine and everything that comes with a pandemic, that we're practically horizontal. I am so proud of our teams ability to maintain the inclusive and endearing attitude we have going in our studio, even during an international state of emergency. It made me appreciate the raw talent we have on our team even more and how we're all just here because we love videogames and are delighted to be a part of it.
Bunny:
Throughout this past year, it has been my absolute pleasure getting to know the ACR team as well as our community. As I mentioned above, I moved across the country to be a part of this team, and they have become like my little family while I am not able to be with mine.
As for the community, it is very daunting taking over management of a community from another CM. Bumble left some very big-bee shoes to fill as she was absolutely amazing as a CM (like, she is WAY funnier than I am). I felt like it took a bit of time to build up trust and rapport between myself and the community, which is a bit more difficult to do with an established community compared to starting from game launch. However, I am so thankful to the community for making me feel welcome right from the start and for being patient with me throughout the ups and downs of this past year. I hope you all know how much I appreciate you and your passion for ACR!
Q- When are all heroes getting a 5* weapon? I'm missing some!
Bumble:
Sooooooooon
Bunny:
Soooon
Q- What hero released during the past year was your favourite one?
Bunny:
It is so hard to choose, we have released some amazing Heroes this past year! However, I would have to say Edward Kenway. Kenway was the first new Hero that we launched after I started as a CM so I feel very sentimental about him. I would say that I have used him the most out of all of the Heroes that we have added this year. I love the combination of Assassination expert, Freerunning Master, and his Brace of Pistols.
Bumble:
Hands down, it's Aya. I like her asp venom skill. She's not as upfront about her deadly force. I'd love to hop into the Animus and experience more of her genetic memory. Origins left us hanging! If Abstergo Entertainment would sequence more of her DNA...I would be all over an Aya reboot.
Q- How much time did the team invest in The Raven's Wound? Did you work with the AC Valhalla team? In the future, do you have plans for other ambitious events (3.0.0 apart)?
Bumble:
Discussions about the event started in 2019 with Montreal and our team was actively working with the AC Valhalla team throughout the whole process. I saw the ACR design team really shine working with Darby McDevitt. We even got to fill a narrative element that didn't make it into the HD game (although ACR is not strictly canon, it was so cool to see a piece of that world transcend into ACR). A lot of love and attention goes into every detail from waterfalls to the texture in a horn, so our whole team worked closely with various members of the AC Valhalla team to effectively translate their vision into this whole chibi murder baby world.
Bunny:
On the community and marketing side of things, I was very happy to collaborate with members of the AC community team to share the hype for our update with the wider AC community on their socials, website, and even in-game! It makes me so very happy to see their reactions when we give them sneak peeks of our upcoming Heroes, it's so great to see them get excited over chibi versions of their favourite AC characters!
Some of you may remember the cross-promotion we did for Eivor back in January in both AC Valhalla and AC Odyssey. This involved a lot of coordination with members of the AC team and was honestly one of my favourite things that I got to work on this past year.
Q- Looking back, does the Featured Hero Cube week seem like a successful idea or did it cause more issues for the development team in terms of the game's content life?
Bumble:
Live games are all about being highly iterative, being bold, and taking risks. It's part of what makes our jobs so engaging. The primary motive was to get the community involved in the decision making and we achieved that goal. We were so delighted to give back to the community and give you all a voice, although it resulted in a whole whack of legendary DNA being acquired very quickly. At the end of the day, the dev team can't be paid in bits of string and balls of lint from the dryer. We aim to do everything we can to give the players a voice, which is SO important to us. I think the community would be surprised at how much of a voice you truly have through Bunny. She metaphorically has a megaphone and is empowered in her representation of the community. I am glad we achieved what we set out to do but it's not something we plan on repeating any time soon.
Bunny:
What Bumble said!
Q- What's the biggest thing you have learned about this community?
Bunny:
That there are psychopaths out there that don't like pineapple on pizza.
Bumble:
omg ditto. #teampineapple
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