Fat Bottomed Girls Showing All!

This Interview is the first in an attempt to make Spotlight catch up on recent events. It's been a long time since we read an interview and all the managers covered are old geezers but we know little to nothing about the new breed of Scand managers. The first one to get exposed is Fat Bottomed Girls!

*wonders how many hits Pity will get from horny teenagers trying to find certain types of content through search engine due to that last sentence and the title of the interview...*

Name:

Joni Nieminen

Occupation:

Student, IT trainer

Residence:

Seinäjoki, Finland

Age:

31

Family:

Wife, two daughters aged 6 and 3 and a son, aged 1.

Pets:

Nope

Movie most recently seen(rate on scale 1-10):

X-Men 3. Let’s rate it a 6.

Book most recently read (rate on scale 1-10):

Harrington on Hold’em vol. 3. I rate it a 9.

Last album I bought(rate on scale 1-10):

Lordi, Monsterican Dream. Lordi’s music is above mortal rating scales.

Concert most recently attended(rate on scale 1-10):

Satu Sopanen and the Tutti-orchestra, my kids give it a 10.

Last vacation trip I made:

We spend a few days in a cabin in the middle of nowhere every summer.

Favourite place on earth:

No place like home.

Person I admire (and why?):

My mother, she had 3 kids by the time she was 20 and took care of them practically by herself.

When I was a kid I dreamt of being:

A comic book artist.

Started playing in week:

278

Most valued WeBL accomplishment:

Voted Up ‘n’ Commer of the year 2005. Winning 10 World Titles with Seppo “Sniper” Simpura is right up there too.

Favourite fighter (own):

Suomi Slugger, a gift fighter from Caramba. My meanest slugger ever.

Favourite fighter (other manager):

Art of Pugilism’s Muhammad “Float like a butterfly” Ali.

Favourite Scandinavian manager:

Flat Out, superb manager and always working for the community.

Favourite Non-Scandinavian Manager:

I fought Morgan in the Sr. Olys. He beat me (and the rest of the bunch) in a most convincing manner, using simple yet extremely effective plans and made me an instant fan of his.

Most admirable non-Scandinavian manager:

Morton’s, for all his efforts for the game.

Most admirable Scandinavian manager:

PityPart, for his efforts for the Scand Community.

Most "feared" opponent :

There’s something really scary about Caramba. He always seems to have the fighter and the fp designed to rip mine apart. Rotmo is the scariest of all though, always inflicting a sick amount of IPs.

Most "feared" opponent (contenders):

Rotmo, Flat Out, Invincible Iain, Pips fighting machine are fierce opponents. The slightest mistake against them will not only cost the fight but will hurt like hell too.

Worst Rival/Sworn Enemy:

I don’t have enemies as far as I know. Flat Out is an obvious rival, being the most successful Finnish manager ever.

Best WeBL moment ever:

Winning my first WT felt nice, although it was a lucky DQ win. Winning bronze in the Sr. Olys was cool.

Most memorable fight:

The one where I allouted Gym Graversen’s flasher to the body for three rounds and won was quite hilarious. His flasher covered up for the first two rounds, letting me pound him to exhaustion, before the big double allout in the third.

There is also one fight from my very early career. I had a 87-pound Very Heavy build fighter in the Straws, with 3 STR. I spent quite a long time on the fp for his most memorable fight against an opponent who was pretty kooky himself. The fight itself was pretty exciting. Here's the link to the fight.

NNN: lol that’s funny!, I like the fact that you roped him and it looked as it worked but in reality the endurance he lost was due to fatigue and not damage. He slapped himself down to “obviously tired” :P

Best fighter you ever fought:

Probably Gordon Oldskool.

Win you're most proud of:

Winning a world title with Merry Xmas 2005 from Jerry’s Fight Night was great, because he has a peculiar build which makes him hard to manage. With that win I also proved myself I could win titles with both KP and non-KP fighters.

Who is the man behind Fat Bottomed Girls? (tell us a little about yourself)

Not much to say about me that would interest anyone… I try to finish my engineering studies this spring and hopefully get a proper job after that. It’s going to be difficult because I’m incredibly lazy.

What's the story behind the gym name?

I love the Queen song. I also admire female individuals with a well-sized rear compartment, married one too.

Other interests besides WeBL?

Poker, movies, books (particularly ones dealing with history, or poker). I also used to draw and paint quite a bit; I still draw portraits of people occasionally.

What made you start WeBL:ing?

Someone mentioned it on a gaming-related discussion forum, and I decided to give it a go.

What's keeping you hooked?

There’s no other game quite like WeBL. There’s so much depth to it, and always new things to try out and learn.

Do you have any real life friends playing WeBL?

Nope.

Do you have any specific WeBL goals?

Not really. Winning the Sr. Olympics would be cool though.

You were around before I took a break almost two years ago and you made some noise back then as an up’n’commer if I recall correctly. Can you give me a quick update on what’s happened to your skills since then?

Well, I think I’m finally starting to get a grip on how to write fight plans.
The last Sr. Olympics were a real eye-opener for me, I learned lots during the tournament. I’m also starting to learn how to use speedy fighters properly.

Your style of fighter design and your fp-writing remind me a lot of [tnt]-the newbie troop, did you ever fight him at all?

No, I don’t think I did.

Are there any specific managers you miss having around?

Now with all the sluggers I have, I sure miss Moffa and his sissies.

Did you have any mentors or role models when you first started playing? Who was your inspiration?

I started the game by reading all the game’s help files, and then the Newbie Help Files by Bad Bit and WILBOO. I believe this already gave me a nice edge against many regional managers. I took a few easy wins early on and thought I was pretty good. Then I started to get scheduled against Rotmo, Flat Out and other top managers, and soon realized I was nowhere near their level. Those two have certainly inspired me to write better fight plans.

Do you remember your first fighter? Who was he and how did he do?

My first fighter was Half-Elf, a KP sissy who also became my first Contender. I retired him at status 22. He’s still in a pretty ok condition, no APs lost or anything.

Do you remember your first RT fight? How did it go?

Yep, that was Seppo “Sniper” Simpura who won the RT against Gym Graversen’s Kpt. Zorg. By luck, of course, as my opponent didn’t have a proper fp.

Are there any sharp turns, bumps or jumps in your WeBL? If so, what caused them?

For about the first six months of playing I wrote a new plan for every fight. I also created lots of experimental fighters, and all my fighters were different. Then I decided to start using similarly-built sluggers almost exclusively, and thought I’d write a bunch of premades for them and really make them “my thing”. I didn’t enjoy that as much as having a bit more diverse gym, so now I’m back into using different fighters. I still have my Bastards and they are all sluggers, just no longer all similarly built.

Have you ever re-started your gym or played under a different name, the reason I am asking is that I think remember fighting you but I can’t find any fights?

We haven’t fought, but we did have a little clash in the press once :)
I started as Weight Watchers, but changed the name on the same week I started. Apart from another gym I had on a private region for a while, this is the only one I’ve got.

Oh, nothing serious I hope. I used to like to agitate people through the press back then. What was the clash about?

I ducked your guy by switching divisions, you noticed, and smacked me pretty good. It was one of the few times I have laughed aloud when reading the press.

You said earlier that Suomi Slugger was your favourite fighter. How is that? What made him special?

The fact that he can dish out a completely unreasonable amount of Injury Points.

What does it take to become a great manager? What are the most important traits?

The most important trait is the willingness to learn, to study what works and what doesn’t, and why.

Do you see any up'n'commers with those necessary traits?

St. Claire Boxing Thugs seems to be having a very nice start.

Do you feel there is room for improvement with regards to your own skills and abilities? Any specific areas?

My scouting sucks. My fight plans also tend to be too long and messy, which often result in fatal lines kicking in at the wrong moments.

How much time do you spend on WeBL on an average day?

Anything from 10 minutes to two hours, on average maybe 30 mins.

What do you do when you’re on?

It really varies a lot. I don’t usually spend a lot of time on scouting, so that might be about 5% of the time I spend preparing for a fight. New fps can take up to an hour to write. Most often I don’t write entirely new ones though, only edit the old ones. As for the forums, I usually only scan the lounge and press quickly, and check out for new messages on the Scand forums. Certainly if something really interesting pops up I can spend quite a while on the forums.

How do you prepare for a big fight?

I will check out how my opponent has fought against fighters similar to mine in the past, try to get a picture of their stats, then I write a new fp from scratch using the sim. When the fp is ready, I will try to beat it using my own fps and with slight alterations to the sparring partner’s stats. After that, I screw something up so that the fp is lost before I’ve saved it. Then I jump around in agony for a while and toss in a crappy premade.

What's your approach to scouting?

I check the opponent’s height, if he has KP or not, and a couple of his fights. Against really poor opponents, I may just check out the height. And against Flat Out, I just check out the manager’s name.

How often do you write new fps?

That depends on how many Contenders I have active, if I’ve recently started using a new type of fighter, and if I happen to have KP fighters active (I write a new fp for every fight for them). On average, I’d say I write one or two new fp’s per week.

What is your favorite fp line ?

if opp = 0 and score > 1 then 5B/10/5 (inside);

What are the three things NOT to write in a fp?

These are all tried and true:

#rest in round 12 when opponent is allouting me in the head
1) if score > 1 and endurance_percent < 75 then 1/1/8 (clinch);

#allout if I haven’t won on points on round 1
1) if score < 14 - round then 5H/10!/5 (allout);

#get DQ’d when the opponent is tired and losing the fight
1) if warnings = 0 then cheat;

What is your favourite fighter design?

I like all non-KP types. Currently I have mostly balanced and sluggers, but I also have some Normal build fighters, a counter-puncher and a nice dancer, and they’re all fun to manage. Next up, I will probably create more non-KP dancers. I’ve tried pretty much everything except flashers, which I find too boring.

How many stock fps do you use frequently and around what "size"(# lines) are they?

I only have a handful of fps I use frequently without modifications. They are 35-50 lines long.

Have you set any rules / set any principles etc. for yourself regarding WeBL?

Some people seem to take WeBL quite seriously. I don’t, and I never will: I’m just having fun. If it ever starts to feel more like work than fun, I’ll quit.

Are there any WeBL "phenomenon" that irritates you?

The way some people use the Roleplay forum or the Press certainly irritates me.

Oh, what way is that? Can you give any examples? (keeping my fingers crossed, hoping Joni isn't speaking about me)

I mean personal attacks and other distasteful posts on the RP forum, and manager-to-manager smack and other misuse of the Press. People should definitely read your Smack 101 article before posting anything in the Press.

NNN: Ahh, I like that you’re giving an old “has been” the proper respect ;) j/k. The article was written partly as a serious article showing my own self-imposed codex for smacking but mainly as entertainment. I remember Dr. Moffa getting real agitated over it at some point. He thought I was dead serious about it and that I forbade everyone to disagree with it…

Well, over to something else. Some managers who have played a while can feel that they at some point reach a plateau and that improving gets difficult. Being here as long as you have you can surely recognize the feeling. What's your best advice for getting past those plateaus?

Try out new fighter designs, it’s a sure way to learn new stuff.

What's your best advice for newbies?

Don’t give up, it’s a great game but you need to give it a proper go, and don’t hesitate to ask questions from me or other managers. If you ask the right questions, there’s no secret to success someone won’t spill out.

Are you currently working on any specific WeBL projects?

Not currently, but after I finish with my thesis, I plan to write some newbie help stuff of my own.

Final words?

Thanks to Bruce Cota for creating WeBL and to all the people who make it what it is. Also thanks to Pity for his work for the Scand community, and to you Nick for making this interview!