Official QB Nominees With Q&A Responses (in Contests)

This post is Carnage Blender's permanent record for Quarter Blender 2005, Quarter 4 and Quarter Blender 2006, Quarter 1. This thread will remain locked.

Chatmails have been sent to each nominee. Each chatmail contains 5 questions. The questions are a combination of questions asked before in the previous QB election, and some new questions. Upon receiving the responses, I will post them here to help aid your QB vote. Responses must be turned in to me (by chatmail or E-mail) no later than 9:00 PM EST on Sunday, April 2, 2006.

Based on criteria that has been used since Carnage Blender 1, the nominee count would have been brought down to only 5. However, this is not the case because we have to cover two elections in one vote. In either scenario, these questions will certainly be used to narrow down the choices quite a bit to help decide who will be crowned QB 2005, Quarter 4 and QB 2006 Quarter 1.


The Nominees (alphabetically):

• BarzooMonkey [Submitted]
• Dolphin [Submitted]
• GentlemanLoser [Submitted]
• Johnnywas [Submitted]
• Maelstrom [Submitted]
• Mem Dotson [Submitted]
• Verifex [Submitted]

These are the questions that the nominees will be answering:

• 1) Why should you become QB instead of the others that were nominated?
• 2) If you were told you couldn't win, who would you nominate to be QB and why?
• 3) Name one reason you might not be suitable for QB.
• 4) What single change would you make to the game and why?
• 5) What do you think the responsibilities are of the QB, if elected?

Johnnywas:

1) Why should you become QB instead of the others that were nominated?

         Why should I become QB instead of the other nominees? Well, once I get over the shock of nomination there's one easy answer to that. I shouldn't. I like to think I do my bit contributing to the game and it's community but there are other nominees who do the same as me and more. For every bit of strategy advice and helpful item giving there are other nominees who not only give advice but also find out how things work in a way that helps future players. For every useless drunken post I make there are other far more useless even more drunken posts being written. As a player I like to think I show people that you don't have to have a huge stockpile of money, or the biggest weapons or even use the most 'powerful' strategy to be a successful player. I like to think that you can be pleasant, helpful and maintain a sense of humour and I hope that shows in the way I carry myself in the game. If there is a reason for me to be QB I think that would be the main choice.

2) If you were told you couldn't win, who would you nominate to be QB and why?

         Who would I nominate if I couldn't win? Well actually my own nominations are two of the other nominees. GL was an obvious choice: fellow Londoner, similar sense of humour, similar attitude to life, huge personality and great all round player. Puts so much into CB and has been a great friend since I've known him. And that online personality is exactly who he is in RL. If you know him online I can guarantee you would recognise him straightaway if you were stood next to him in a room. GL will go out of his way to help people and doesn't expect anything in return. I love the man! And in a manly kind of way not in a way that my wife would find disturbing. My other nomination was BarzooMonkey. A great person, I love the competitions he runs. Contributing to the community is not just about pointing out the rights and wrongs of game mechanics; or commenting on inbalances--though those things have their place--Barzoo's contribution is the sense of fun and creativity he brings to CB. I've enjoyed his competitions immensely and even when I haven't entered I still get an enormous enjoyment from them. They encourage people to take part in the community. What I admire most though is the fact that Barzoo's contribution is unconditional. All he wants is the pleasure of running them. When there are and have been a lot of players who contribute for the attention, their own egos and many other agendas this has to be commended.
         However all the nominees here are worthy of their nomination, as would have been so many other people. Despite what some people have said in recent days I think we have a great community. We have our flaws but then we're only human after all.

3) Name one reason you might not be suitable for QB.

         One reason why I might not be suitable for QB? Again that's an easy one. I don't do chat. I can't run chat at work, which is where I do log in quite a lot. And one of the reasons I like CB is I can have it on in the background at home, looking in every so often while I do other things. If I logged into chat then I may never do anything else! So in that sense I'm only part of half of the CB world.

4) What single change would you make to the game and why?

         What single change would I make to CB and why? I hate questions like this one. I like the game as it is. I'd like to make the people who aren't happy with things happier. But if it's about the game itself then things like the trading side of things haven't really interested me much, I like the fighting side of things and watching my characters develop. So I'd probably introduce additions to gameplay, items, spells and so on to bring more choices to strategy. Not really a single change as such but as close as I can get.

5) What do you think the responsibilities are of the QB, if elected?

         Responsibilities of the QB? I don't think the responsibilities of the QB are any different to those of any player. Be honest and decent in your dealings with people. Help out those who need it. Put as much into the game and community as you get out of it. A lot of people keep saying the community isn't as good as it used to be, the game isn't as fun. But if they are waiting for somebody else to do something about then they'll have a long wait. It may sound pompous, and I apologise, but the community is the responsibility of everyone who considers themselves a part of it. The main responsibility of a QB however? Don't take yourself too seriously. You're just another player in the CB world!

Thanks for listening and good luck to everyone!

Verifex:

1) Why should you become QB instead of the others that were nominated?

         I guess, a few reasons I should be QB would be, I've been here a while, given a lot of my time to CB. Had some fun, laughs, and tried to keep up-beat even in light of all the changes that have nerfed my strategy along with others. I'm not as competitive as everyone else, but I love this game just as much as the most dedicated CB'er. I've always been happy to help people that need help even though I like to joke around a lot, I guess that's just my personality. And lastly, of course I have to mention: I have contributed many hours to development for CB tools (the GM script), CB itself, the CB help wiki, the strategy wiki, CB themes and even a CB buddy icon.

2) If you were told you couldn't win, who would you nominate to be QB and why?

         This is the hardest question of all, but I'll go with my gut, I think Dolphin would be my nomination, simply for his dedication to development on CB that he made. Navigating through the monumental CB databases is a feat, plus working in TCL is no easy task either. You go Dolphin! Although all of the nominees are wonderful people that make me laugh, cry, rant and rave, and I wouldn't want a CB without any of them. :)

3) Name one reason you might not be suitable for QB.

         Sometimes taking compliments from people is hard for me, I don't know why. Another reason I might not be suitable is, I don't know alot of the new people on CB, so I would like to get to know them. Also, I sometimes prefer to be silent and do things without looking for praise, just happy in the knowledge that I made someone else happy. So to actually be nominated and to win this would definitely be different. I also would like to say that it is too bad, but I don't get involved in a lot of the contests here on CB as much as I used to, heck I used to even run contests every now and then. Anyone remember my, spur-of-the-moment-random-question contest I would play in chat all the time, where no matter what answer they gave, they won? Ahh that brings me back, the days of CB1. ;)

4) What single change would you make to the game and why?

         I was going to say tournaments, but that's too easy. I think CB needs more incentives to play, after the loss of camping and forging (for good profit that is). The only incentive to play is to increase your stats so you can beat people, but the problem is that we have always had that incentive, so it seems kinda lame to take incentives away, without creating new ones. My change would be to create more incentives. I always thought temporary incentives were good enough to add into CB without throwing off the balance. So, as an example of an incentive here is one: say you reach 200k with your char, and you get a special charm. When you wear the charm, it gives your character an overall boost for a short period of time, but long enough to help you win and feel good that you are advancing in ranks.

5) What do you think the responsibilities are of the QB, if elected?

         To help those who need it, of course, but I already do that as a mentor, so I guess the primary responsibilities would be to just keep on doing what I always do. Like continuing development on the GM script and working on the CB code (if possible) to improve it. And just to generally help people with any technical problems they encounter along the way of playing CB. I know I like to contribute new ideas and concepts (sometimes strategies) to CB whenever possible. And in closing, long live CB! :)

BarzooMonkey:

1) Why should you become QB instead of the others that were nominated?

         Instead? I shouldn't. I honestly believe that every other nominee deserves to be QB. I'm shocked that I'm nominated. Until recently, I've always tried to "fly under the radar" as much as possible. Yes, I've always answered any question asked of me as quickly as I could, but I don't tend to offer up information on my own. I've always done the contest thing for what I consider selfish reasons, those being because I find it really fun, and every now and then I like to be told that "I rock". However, before I give everyone so many reasons I don't deserve it that I ruin any chance I may have, I will say this - I am honored beyond what most of you could probably imagine, just to simply be nominated. I probably appreciate it more than I should. But I'm no Ranger. I'm no Bast. I'm no Sutekh. I'm no Johnnywas or Gentleman Loser. I'm just a monkey who likes to play CB. But if I were made QB, I'd wear the title proudly and do my best to live up to your expectations. If you were to ask me "do you want be QB?", my answer is heck yeah! Now that I'm a nominee, heck yeah!!! :)

2) If you were told you couldn't win, who would you nominate to be QB and why?

         Again, I believe every single nominee deserves to be QB, as all are great players and have contributed much to this game, with style and creativity unique to each and every one. However, if I'm asked to single out just one, my answer is in the nomination e-mail that I submitted to Vestax:

Hey, Vestax, this is BarzooMonkey.

I would like to nominate Maelstrom for QB. For as long as I can remember (at least since last summer), Maelstrom is constantly active in the forums in the most positive ways. He is always among the first to offer assistance and advice when it is asked for, and he is always polite, level-headed and positive, no matter what the situation.

I can't speak for his activity in chat, as I have very little experience in chat myself. I can say from experience that he is a great clan leader, again always upbeat and positive, even when we are being massacred. He asks all members advice before making decisions that affect us all, and from the moment I joined in October, he has been wonderful about offering advice and equipment loans, and I know his kindness is not limited to me, or even to his clan.

In conclusion, I hope that this is enough to put his name on the list of nominees, if he isn't already there. Thank you.

3) Name one reason you might not be suitable for QB.

         I could give a bevy of reasons, but you've only asked for one. Chat. I'm seldom there. I play CB primarily on 3 computers - at work on weekdays, at home during most evenings and Saturdays, and my mother-in-law's on Friday nights and Sundays. Chat works on my work PC, but since I'm old and slow, I have to focus too heavily to pay attention in chat, so there is a limited amount of time I can do it while at work. I've never gotten around to debugging CB chat on my home Mac, so I can't from that computer. At I mother-in-law's, I just plain forget, as there's always nephews and dogs running around being distractions (Uncle Monkey, are you playing your geek game again?) :) So that's my big caveat. If being QB requires a considerable presence in chat, then I would possibly run into difficulty fulfilling QB duties. :(

4) What single change would you make to the game and why?

         My easy answer is tournaments. I never played CB1, so I never experienced "official" tournaments, but I sure have enjoyed the two that Vestax ran. But that's too easy. My hard answer is a little controversial. I brought this up once before, but I was shown threads from CB1 in which Jonathan said he wasn't interested in coding the change, or maybe would make a change if he were "hired" to do so. Some consider it trivial, but especially since I'm noticing more and more ladies playing lately, the change I would make if I had the power would be to fix some of the gender biases. "Bast prefers to keep his e-mail secret" , "Mrs. Beee prefers to keep his...". And that chat /ignore message... Again, some say "that's dumb get over it", or "you're a guy, why do you care if the ladies don't". My answer is simple. I still believe in chivalry. I believe that if my wife, mother, or sisters would find something rude, then it is rude. I realize the coding is a lot of work, and some will still say "meh, that's just trivial", but if I'm asked a question, I answer it, so there you have it. :)

5) What do you think the responsibilities are of the QB, if elected?

         This is the toughest one. Are there QB responsibilities? I see our current QB's all over CB, doing exactly what I have always remembered them doing, which is all of those helpful, creative, entertaining, informative, and all around positive things that keep CB fun. The same efforts that earned them QB status in the first place. So I guess that's it - if you have been consistently kind, helpful, informative, successful, smart, entertaining, giving, and all around good at the game and a positive influence on the CB community in general, to make enough of an impression to earn a QB nomination, then your job as QB is to simply "keep it up". Keep doing the good things that got you there in the first place. It all boils down to this: I think a QB's responsibility is simply to do whatever you've always done to help the CB experience stay fun. Stay positive. Don't panic when things get scary. Be someone that anyone feels comfortable going to for advice, or just conversation. Stay fun.

Thank you very much!

Mem Dotson:

1) Why should you become QB instead of the others that were nominated?

         The real question that needs to be answered here is will I suddenly become some superhero if I were to become QB? No, I'd simply go on doing the same things I do every day-- try to take over the world. Seriously though, I don't think it really matters. If you all would like to put those fancy letters in front of my name then I'm not going to say no, but I'm not going to change who I am because of it. I've never really been one to care for popularity contests (even if they do have an electoral college) because I don't feel that it's ever indicative of who should win... which is a perfect segue for the next question.

2) If you were told you couldn't win, who would you nominate to be QB and why?

         InebriatedArsonist. The guy is a consummate professional. He is one of very few constants that I can remember in all my time here. Since he jokingly (or was it?) dubbed me his arch nemesis many moons ago I've been intrigued by what he's had to say. You can always count on a highly intellectual conversation, speckled with German, from him. If for no other reason that consistency does he get my vote.

3) Name one reason you might not be suitable for QB.

         Lack of posting in the forums. From time to time I let my opinion be known, but for the most part I tend to let all the other 'drama llamas' stick it to each other. This could be either bad or good. I'm not entirely sure.

In the end, a title is an empty thing.

4) What single change would you make to the game and why?

         This is both the hardest and easiest question asked of me. Change-change is the best thing that can happen to this game. Change keeps the game from getting stale. Change allows for new strategies to spring up, or brings life to old ones. Change weeds out the weak (and that's weak as pertaining to strength of will). So my single change would be to make change happen more often.

5) What do you think the responsibilities are of the QB, if elected?

         Simply put: Keep doing what you've done before. You got those two letters because a large portion of the community felt you were doing something for the game that very few people can do or will do. You don't have to do anything else. Just keep doing whatever it was that got you there.

GentlemanLoser:

1) Why should you become QB instead of the others that were nominated?

         Not to copy answers already given by the others, but I don't think I should become QB. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to be chosen, everyone wants the little 'QB' tag infront of their username! ;) I just feel that others have provided more to the game than I and should be recognised for it. To be nominated is brilliant! Now how much do I have to bribe the Admins to get them to tell me who nominated me? ;) I've also been lucky with being able to send my answers in. This weekend I'm staying in Lowestoft with my In-laws. They have just bought a computer with internet access! Without this, I wouldn't have known about my nomination until it was too late! I've tried to catch as many spelling errors as possible, but this computer doesn't have any word processing packages and WordPad doesn't have a spellchecker!

2) If you were told you couldn't win, who would you nominate to be QB and why?

         I'd like to say everyone else that has ever been nominated. But I'd like to mention a few specifics for some of the current nominees. First, Johnnywas. He's a outstanding example of a CB community member. Always present, responds to questions, requests for help, stupid topics and contests. With patience, humour and wit. If we want to highlight the positive aspects of our community, ellect Johnnywas as one of our QBs.

         Secondly, Dolphin. Dolphin has put a lot of effort into improving CB2 (along with others), I first encountered his hard work as the leader of one of the Valinor Clans. Dolphin created weekly statistic tables on your clan members and went to the effort of CMing this information to Clan leaders. All off of his own back, with no pretence of wanting anything for his efforts. I was pleased when his work (or part of it) was taken on board officially with the new Net Score stats for clans.

         Lastly Verifex. Verifex is another who's put a lot of work into improving CB2. I've not had a lot of first hand experience with most of his work (I don't use greasemonkey?) but can't stress how much I make use of his 'Other' option in the training page! I'm one of those weird people that like my stats to be nice and rounded and used to spend ages train 1/10th and then single points to try to get to the figure I wanted. Now I use the 'Other' option. So much more painless! :D Thank you!

         Anyone else noticed how this round of nominations seems to be a Fierce Invalids shoe-in! ;) Four out of the Seven (I still include you BM. You don't get away that easily!) belong to the clan! :D

3) Name one reason you might not be suitable for QB.

         Again, same as some of the others, I don't enter Chat. :( It's too much hassle at work, and Claire has threatened to divorce me if I do at home! I'm only really experiencing half of what CB has to offer. I'd probably also make some kind of 'Woo-Hoo I'm QB' post just to see how the purple tag looks! ;)

4) What single change would you make to the game and why?

         This was my question, and I regret asking it now... I think I'd like a massive re-tune to the xp system. Get rid of the top ten penalty exemption and make rewards lessen the higher you get, so that the top player earns the least (xp) of all. There would be no need for the NCB and the NUB could be kept to just give new players a boost in cash rewards for a while. It would take people longer to reach the top, but as they will potentially be able to earn more xp per fight than the top place, it would be possible. It would also help keep the top ten more dynamic. Given enough time and commitment, any player would be able to battle for the top with any character they create regardless of when it was created or any breaks away they might take.

5) What do you think the responsibilities are of the QB, if elected?

         To stay as you are and not let the 'status' go to your head. If you've been nominated and then selected to be QB, you're doing something right! Keep doing it! ;)

Dolphin:

1) Why should you become QB instead of the others that were nominated?

         Well, I'm very surprise and very honoured to be nominated. I will write some of the reasons to be a QB, but none of them seems to me to be enough to deserve me a QB :-). May be the 2 last ones.

• I have been here for a long time, since the beginning of CB2 and near than one year before on CB1.
• I'm a good clan player, now the 3th in the year and over 1 million points.
• I'm lucky and I'm the leader of the second clan in the year. My responsibility in this is small, the main reason is the people who is in the clan (PoisoN, Angel of Death, Bast, Roenall ) and was (robinhood, ANJAN, Therea1killer, golgotha, Mokaba, miteke, Krasko, Rubberduck (now BorderLiner), Wonderpuff, LoneWolf, Primordial, KightWarrior, TheKing, Cylo) I hope I don't forget anyone, all of them very good clan fighter, I only coordinate them and they made Hell Blenders what it is. Special mention to robinhood, he was the creator of the clan.
• I like stats and may be this is the main reason of my nomination. In CB1 I made an Access data base to manage the items you had (not very popular, only 2 people were interested in it :-), but I was using it for a long time). In CB2 I began to collect some stats of my clan and I developed some tools to do it in automated mode that I use to offer these stats to other clans that were interested in. You can see it in Do you want some statistics to know the performance-history of your clan? More stats that I did: Some stats to be used in your NUB debate. These ones were collect by hand :-)
• When Jonathan asked for help to code on CB, I offered him my help, I'm not a professional programmer so thanks to him to trust in me and give me a chance. I'm the creator of the net score in clan stats, some other code is waiting for his approbation. I had to lean some TCL, SQL, get into a lot of the code of CB..., but I liked it, It was funny and of course I didn't expect any compensation for my work, I only want to help people and improve the clan stats.

2) If you were told you couldn't win, who would you nominate to be QB and why?

         All of the nominees are amazing and I think that they represent better than me the spirit of QB, but in my opinion Verifex is the better election, he has voted to me and I had to say thanks but he has worked harder than me in the code, may be more in aesthetic aspects but all of them help us to play a lot of. And of course he is a very active in chat, forum participation and CB2 community involvement. Verifex, you shoul be the QB :-)

3) Name one reason you might not be suitable for QB.

         This is the easy one. I'm a introvert person and I'm a little shy, I don't like to chat not even in my natural language, I'm not able do chat and do another thing :-). I spend a lot of time burning all my BA and I really don't have time to chat, I used to read the forums but I write too few, I was busy last months and I have to recognize that I didn't read them as much as I used to. This is main reason because I'm not suitable for QB, I fail in the social aspect of the game that is what a QB has to stand out. As BarzooMonkey says in his answers "I've always tried to "fly under the radar" as much as possible" I'm always dispose to help people but I like more the technical aspect than the social :-)

4) What single change would you make to the game and why?

         The hardest question... a single change... I think that if we could unlearn with less penalty we can try more strategies... I know that this will stimulate some people to cheating, right now I don't imagine how but I'm very ingenuous... I like to stay in the top of the chars and I'm reluctant to lose my hard exp points earned in doing experiments... I know than with changelogs Jonathan is always trying to balance the game and if the penalty is removed it looses its effectiveness. May be on Sunday the penalty could be reduce and increase the rest of the week, in this way we can test different strategy every week

5) What do you think the responsibilities are of the QB, if elected?

         To help those who need it, but with my personality. As I wrote in question 3 I 'm not able to improve my social contribution to the game, but I can help more in the code of CB and balance the equation. Recently I have been working with GreaseMonkey and I've learn some JavaScript so I could help Verifex in his script and I can learn more TCL to help in Tournaments code.

Maelstrom:

1) Why should you become QB instead of the others that were nominated?

         First, I have to say that this is a complete surprise, and a great honour. To be honest, I can't think of any reason why I should be QB instead of the other great candidates. I try to be friendly and helpful in the forums, occasionally make pathetic attempts at humour, and always try to keep things positive. I really hate it when people don't get along (in real life as well), and try to help resolve any arguments that occur. I guess you can read BarzooMonkey's post above for further reasons ;)   [...so that's who I can blame for having to answer these questions!]

2) If you were told you couldn't win, who would you nominate to be QB and why?

         Any of the other candidates! BarzooMonkey, GentlemanLoser and Johnnywas are all clanmates of mine (at least at heart), I consider them all to be friends of mine, and they all add a great deal to the CB community: GL and JW through their humorous posts and their strategy discussions, and BM though his genius contests and very generous nature.

         I don't know Verifex very well, but he also gets a nomination thanks to his GM script, which is so incredibly useful. He has also helped guide me through customizing the script a bit on my end. I'm ashamed to say it, but I don't know Mem Dotson or Dolphin very well, but I do know that they are equally deserving candidates :)

3) Name one reason you might not be suitable for QB.

         That's easy. I hardly ever go into chat: first, because any time I open up chat no one is chatting, and second because I'm usually doing too many other things at the same time to get into chatting.

4) What single change would you make to the game and why?

         I would set up a system so that it is impossible to cheat in CB, and then bring back camping! ;)

         Also, as Mem said, any change is good, from the slightest tweaking to a full rescale. That's what keeps the game fun.

5) What do you think the responsibilities are of the QB, if elected?

         The responsibilities of a QB are the very reasons for their candidacy: being a friendly, helpful, and active member of the community. Though it's not one of the criteria, it also seems to be a "QB thing" to stand up and bring attention to any problems they've noticed in the CB community or gameplay- to "lend their voice" to whatever CB cause they feel is just.

All responses are in. You can vote here.