The employees at Hi-Rez love community interaction, whether it be through twitter, reddit, streaming, or twitch chat. In this interview series "Meet Hi-Rez", we talk with some of the employees and ask them questions about Hi-Rez life and Smite. Today we feature our interview with Kelly, who does eSports coordination as well as content, such as the Smite Recall series. We asked questions about the Extra Life charity event going on right now. You can follow Kelly on twitter and see the Smite Recall series on Smite's youtube channel.

First off, thanks for taking the time to answer some questions.Tell us a little bit about the Extra Life Charity event and Team Smite.

Kelly: We recently hosted an event with Child's Play, we raised over $12,000 and saw a good response from the community. Not too long after we noticed that the 25 hour marathon for Extra Life was coming up, so we decided to keep the momentum going.

When is the charity streamathon happening?

Kelly: November 2nd (at 8:00am Eastern I believe) is when the marathon starts, but we are asking people to join earlier and try to raise money before/after the actual marathon.

What events do you have planned for the 25-hour stream?

Kelly: We wanted to reward the members of Team SMITE for helping with the charity, so we are offering the person who raises the most money ten 800-gem codes as well as 1000 gems to their own account. Outside of that we aren't preparing for much. I feel that this is more of a community driven event and should primarily be led by the community.

How and when did you join the Hi-Rez team? What is your primary role within Hi-Rez?

Kelly: I actually joined Hi-Rez because I use to stream SMITE every day on my own Twitch channel. I had a pretty big following at the time, at max I had 7000 concurrent viewers. I'd bring those viewers over to SMITE and about 2000 would stay. That got the attention of the executives, they hired me to work for them at PAX East and the rest is history. My role at Hi-Rez was initially more geared towards eSports, but after working through things I found that my passion was more involved with the community and making videos/streaming.

How long have you worked at Hi-Rez?

Kelly: Since late May, so about 5 months.

What’s your usual day like at Hi-Rez?

Kelly: Mondays are always the busiest for me. We have a meeting at 10am, and from that I go straight to writing and recording SMITE Recall. I try to record everyone before I stream so I can start encoding the video. I stream from 1-4pm and as soon as I finish streaming I start editing the video. I also am the direct admin for the third party tournaments we support, so I have to input about 150 different prizes to players, which isn't difficult, just time consuming.

What’s your favorite part about working at Hi-Rez?

Kelly: Hi-Rez is different from any place I have ever worked; we're small, and hectic at times, but we get things done. I sit with a bunch of the other juniors in the office, and we tend to goof off (once we've finished our work). It's refreshing working with a bunch of people that love the same things you do.

What were your expectations for Smite when you first started?

Kelly: I started a lot later than majority of the developers here, so I'm sure I have a different answer than most would. I came in when we started the $10,000 PAX East tournament, and the official weeklies. I was surprised we were so involved with the eSports aspect of the game until I heard we were being published by Tencent. From there I knew that SMITE was going to go places, and that I was lucky enough to be there for the ride.

How would you say Smite has evolved until now?

Kelly: I played it all the way back in closed Beta, but I was only a fan and player. The growth I've seen from then is substantial. It has the pull of a MOBA but also the attraction to people who play FPS and WoW Arena. It has so much potential and it paid off. We keep reaching new numbers in regards to player base, and we recently had 10,000 viewers for our Patch Notes stream. SMITE is still evolving and we aren't even out of Beta yet.

What can we expect from Smite in the future?

Kelly: Recently we ran our own tournament at Siege, to see how we could handle hosting our own events, and it was a big success. I feel like this, our invitational's at PAX Prime and Gamescom as well as our involvement with Tencent should be enough notification that you can expect a lot from SMITE in the future.

If you had the ability to change any one thing within Smite, what would it be?

Kelly: The only thing that really bothers me is the negative attitude some players have (which is common in most competitive games) but unfortunately there isn't much you can do to change that.

Who’s your favorite god in Smite?

Kelly: Ymir. I love him. So much.

What’s your favorite game mode?

Kelly: It fluctuates between Conquest and Assault. Anytime I get too salty from playing bad Conquest games I just switch over to Assault since I take those games a little less seriously.

Are there any projects you’re working on or upcoming events we should know about?

Kelly: Our eSports website is getting a giant overhaul, besides that, I would keep an eye out for our involvement with Tencent.

How do you think the new league system will change ranked and tournament competitive play?

Kelly: People seem to be more comfortable playing in League games than they were previously with ranked. However, we haven't seen the real affect of the League system yet since everyone is in Bronze currently. Once November hits, we will most likely see a big difference in League play.

What ratio of online to offline tournaments would you like to see for Smite eSports?

Kelly: Between the official weeklies and community ran tournaments, we currently see a lot of online tournaments. However, I feel that once SMITE grows, we will see an increase in offline tournaments, especially at any major events we attend.

I'd like to give a huge thanks to Kelly for participating in the interview! To our fans and readers: We have interviews with Bart and Duke to be released soon as well.

If you liked the interview, you can follow me on Twitter to get updates on my upcoming interviews and content. Thanks!