Interview No. 69

Interview By: @The-Great-One

Today's guest is a Newgrounds member unlike many that you do tend to see here. He started out like any other Newgrounds member, cynical and mean, but as time has passed he has strangely enough become nicer. So nice in fact that he has been awarded the 2011 Newgrounds Mid-Year BBS Award for Rookie of the Year. He is also like myself a fellow interviewer, but on his own project entitled Asandir's interview with Newgrounds forum users. The old quote is nice guys finish last, hopefully that will be the cause when the rest of the assholes are gone and he still stands, he is @Asandir.

Q: How did you find Newgrounds and why did you join?

A: Well, I played Toss the Turtle on Newgrounds from time to time, by searching for online games around 2009, I stumbled across it again in December 2010 and simply wanted to keep the medals and also to earn alot more of them from other games. My first account ever on an internet site, and Asandir arrived. Although I would later start to use the forums regularly.

Q: When people talk about you they say you are one of the nicest members of Newgrounds. You weren't always this nice though. Your first post was in a thread entitled Giving away genuine account 1/11/11. In this thread you called someone's account worthless. Looking back at this and where you are now would you say you have grown?

A: Yes, I can remember my first months here. I was pretty sure that people would start to rip a nice user apart, and I didn't really care about the forums at that time, I didn't know anyone and just wanted my daily 5 posts, then it were 8 posts and now it is way more on a daily basis. I soon started to be nice and how I am in reality, and somehow, I ended up being seen and liked in a way that I could have never imagined. I like that, but sometimes the influx of Asandir threads can be a bit annoying. ;)

Q: This is a question I like to ask forum regulars. Being a BBS Regular what is your take on the Forum Moderators?

A: I think that they are doing a very good job, honestly. They are fair and they are always there to give you advice and to answer questions and they are more a part of the community than on other sites, as far as I see it. We have alot of moderators with different personalities, and some of them are just lovable, like Rucklo and Bahamut.

Q: Would you like to be a Forum Moderator? Whatever your answer is could you please explain?

A: Something that I always thought about, especially in the first months of my membership, I wanted to become a moderator rather sooner than later. I later realised that I am more of an active forum user than a good candidate for modship, especially since my english is not really the best. I think that it is better, when the moderators have fluent english. I send private messages to moderators, when I think that they have overseen anything, and I think that this is the perfect combination. I can help out, and still post like there is no tomorrow :D

Q: What is it about Newgrounds that you like the most and why?

A: Without any doubt the lovely community. I realised that at a later point of my membership, but the forums here are really awesome, the members are nice and helpful and the moderators stay in touch with the members, so that you can always ask them about problems that you have. I wouldn't visit Newgrounds nearly as often without the forums, that's for sure.

Q: What is it about Newgrounds that you dislike the most and why?

A: Only one thing. The amount of bad or even stolen flashes, that pass every day due to 5-Voters. Although the stolen flashes get now flagged every time, when I see one, and it would be a lie, when I would say that I don't take part in getting them flagged by enough people.

Q: If you could change anything on Newgrounds, what would it be and why?

A: I would make me an adminstrator. No, but on a serious side, I think there is one thing that really needs to be fixed and that is the search function, it is pretty much useless and doesn't work nearly as good than on other sites.

I could also say: "Change the voting system, so that the minumum required score is 2, but that doesn't help at all. The people have to change their voting behaviour, the system works well. Not the system is bad, but abusing it.

Q: You are the winner of the 2011 Newgrounds Mid-Year BBS Awards as Rookie of the Mid-Year. How did it feel for people to not only nominate you, but vote for you for this award?

A: I felt very happy, when I saw that people nominated me for Rookie of the Mid-Year 2011. I think that I followed the on-going voting most actively, I always counted the votes and was very happy to see that most people saw me as winner of this award. Needless to say that the official results were really satisfying. Thanks goes to everyone who voted for me!

Q: This is where we get awkward now. Recently you have started Asandir's interview with Newgrounds forum users. Currently you have interviewed two different users. Where did the inspiration to do this come from? Why forum users? Who can we expect next?

A: Well, there was a thread, were the topic opener asked about the best interview that we have read or seen, and Suprememessage replied: "None because I haven't been interviewed yet." I then offered in said thread to inerview him, it was firstly intented as joke, but then the idea grew on me and I started to interview him.

I interview forum users, since they are most interesting for other users and since I know them better and can ask them specific questions.

The next ones to be interviewed are also regular users of the BBS, to be more excact, I hope that I can interview Legnus, formerly known as Gimmick, in the near future, since he joined 2008 and has an overview over the last years of Newgrounds and how it changed.

Q: You are also an artist with your first submission being Happy bacteria. Where did the idea come from and why work with 3D?

A: I wouldn't call myself an artist, to be honest. I started to play around with the 3D program Sculptris, which is very easy to use, and since I played Doctor Mario shortly before, I thought that making a bacteria could be fun. I liked the result and decided to upload it. I would have never imagined that I would end up getting scouted, though.

Q: I think my two favorite pieces by you are Jigglypuff and Chubby white seal. Where is the influence for these two pieces?

A: Well, they have very different sources, obviously. For Jigglypuff: I am a huge fan of the Pokémon games and since round characters can be created more easily in that program( you start with a ball), I decided to make Jigglypuff.

The Chubby white seal on the other hand is simple inspired from a real plushie that I have, it looks like that in rality and I am most proud of this work, therefor.

Q: Although you haven't done much artwork, have you thought about taking a step into 3D animation? No matter your answer, could you tell us why?

A: That was never my plan, mainly because going in that direction costs quite alot of many in Germany and I am nowhere as rich enough to pay that, and I am also not interested enough in it this subject.

Q: What can we expect from Asandir in the future?

A: You can expect that I won't release art in the near future and that I will foucs on the forums, although I could end up making less posts, since I start to study in October. Apart from that, more interviews, of course, since I like that idea a lot.

You can be also sure that I will continue to search for abusive reviews, to clean up the review section from the rule-breaking users.

Asandir is quite possibly the nicest guy you will meet on this site. Sure there are other nice guys here, but for the most part there are some less than pleasing people. However he is certainly a treat for us to have and one that I am proud to say is everybody's friend. If Asandir and Bahamut had a strange love child out of a night of passion, you would have the most productive and friendliest Newgrounds member ever.