Nick
Name: Cali
Girl (a.k.a. California Girl or XP-Cali Girl)
Real Name: Jody Robinson
Birthday: August 9th
Background: Cali
Girl is best known as a news publisher for sites like
Xtremenetwork.com, Gamers.com, Jediknight.net, LucasGames.com
and now Quake3world.com. She has also been a webmaster for
sites like Pingthis.com, Starsiege.org, StrategyXtreme.com,
VampireTales.com, WestwoodNews.com, Roguesquadron.net and
among many others.
As for her previous
gaming activity, she was pretty well known as California Girl
as a Command & Conquer addict when the game was well known
on Mplayer.com. She later on noticed more activity by her
C&C friends playing Quake 1, where she first encountered
the game. Ever since then she's pretty much enjoyed first
person games among any other game genres.
Questions
1: What do you enjoy most about the Holidays?
Answer:
Visiting close friends, eating food you don't normally eat
through out the year and spending time away from work (which
is rare on many cases even through out holidays for me). This
year was pretty nice because I finally had time off for
Thanksgiving after working through it for the past 8 years.
Questions
2: Can you explain your current activity in the
gaming community? What are the games you have enjoyed since
you stopped playing Quake 1?
Answer:
My current activity has changed from last year and
the years before in the gaming industry. I basically used to
update (news and maintain) over 20 gaming sites for 4
different networks (Xtreme Network, Lucas Games Network,
Gamers.com and Gamesmania.com).
Last January (2000) I
left all the other networks to be exclusive with XtremeNetwork,
then actually moved out to the Bay Area to work out of the
Mplayer.com offices for this company in February. Since I
moved up here year I have more so took closer steps in making
Quake3world.com by being more active and focusing more on it.
Then with the more recent help of others that are listed in
the Q3W about
page, I have had much more things I could get done with
them all helping me with some of these projects like the
forums among other things.
As for the other sites
I used to run, I am much more in management of making sure
things get organized at XtremeNetwork.com's official
community, mega sites and fansites than before. It's a bigger
task that I thought it would actually be to manage people like
this. Getting things done on my own is something I have always
done so asking other people do it is and trusting them to do
it is something I have achieved better than I thought I could
years ago.
The games I have
enjoyed the most since the Quake 1 days are Starsiege Tribes,
Quake 3 Arena, Metal Fatigue, AOE II, Baldur's Gate II,
Counterstrike, Unreal Tournament and No One Lives Forever
Questions
3: In what way do you feel the Quake community has
changed since Quake III Arena came out last year?
Answer:
I noticed the Quake III Arena has more of the dedicated gamers
than it did back when it was released in November. To me, most
people sort of just played the game because it was the new id
Software game. There's still a big gaming community that keeps
growing, especially with Team Arena coming out just around the
corner. The hype about the Team
Arena Demo has been very exciting lately.
Questions
4: Have you had a chance to check the Team
Arena Demo yet?
Answer:
During Thanksgiving, my best friend downloaded it
and played it for a while. I was too much in that lazy mood to
actually get my hands on it at the time, finally getting time
off work. I checked out the beta build months ago but the demo
was very impressive looking graphicly when I watched him play
it. The CTF styles of gameplay have always been pretty neat
looking since I played it last E3 2000 at the Activision
booth.
Questions
5: With
id Software's new project being focused on Doom, is there any
features you would like this upcoming game to include?
Answer:
I guess I am wanting id Software to really make
something impressive. They have in the past so I am glad the
game is being created by them, rather than another company. No
pun intended. I just feel the creators of the original game
would know the background from creating it already before.
Questions
6: What
gamer besides yourself do you feel comes to mind as one of the
most respected gamers? This would be someone who you felt is
respected not only for his gaming skills but for his/her
attitude.
Answer:
There's so many gamers on my list that I respect
for not only who they are but for their skills as a gamer. I
guess I could narrow it down and name three for Quake III
Arena: Makaveli (Victor), Burn (Richard) and Fatal1ty (Johnathan).
I have known Victor for many years, he has always been a
sweetheart. As for Richard and Johnathan, I have met them in
person with in the last year. They are very friendly and don't
seem to have an attitude for being well known in the gaming
community.
As for the Quake 1 and
2 era, my top three would be: Unholy (Jason), Kiljoy (John),
Reptile (Jim). Jason has always been very helpful in the Quake
1 era since the first day I met him back on the kitty servers
playing against him when he was XP-Unholy. I played him Net
Quake Rage Arena. A couple of months later I met John (XP-Kiljoy),
he seemed to always keep a manner of professionalism when he
played at tournaments. As for Jim (Reptile), he's that type of
guy that would do something for you that was out of his way.
All three are just legends to me, not through there skills but
the way they carried themselves as true gamers in the Quake
era back in those days.
- Lady
T: She is the typical California Girl to me.
I've appreciated her help in the past and the fact that
she was always so polite about the whole thing!
-
Xanthates:
Even with the deluge of mail and stuff she must
get hit by, she still manages cool helpful replies.
I think she does a great job and works hard at it.
-
AstroCreep:
She has done a great job with Q3W, keep up the
good work. I know it's been hard being a female Webmaster
for Q3W, and in the beginning people had a lot to say
about that but Q3W wouldn't be what it is today without
you!
-
Hrewty:
I think that without you, we would not have this page, and
no page here would mean no support from our friends at id
Software. So you are the best!
-
Chemical
Burn: The first
thing that comes to mind when CG is mentioned is patience.
She's always extremely friendly, despite some of the crude
commentary that often gets tossed about in the forums.
She's an attractive woman with a good head on her
shoulders. Diligent (if overworked it seems) and very
involved in the community as a whole.
-
CyriC:
Cali, I seriously have to admit, if I did your
job I would be dead in 2 days from stress. I really gotta
hand it to Cali she has her s*** together. I had no idea
how much stuff she had to handle way back when I used to
post, but then becoming mod, then admin and finally
webmaster. It really does blow me away. And when you
consider not just q3w, but the other sites she manages
too, she really is a machine. A cuddly, little happy
machine. =)
-
CornPopper:
I know she
is constantly busy doing something. Should nickname her
the Energizer Bunny =o). Overworked and probably under
paid for what she does. She takes care of many sites that
are great with the help of great co-webmasters. Keep up
the great work Jody.
-
chiQ:
Cali is an angel. She struggles to keep on top of
demand I think, and has an incredibly busy life, but she's
always working towards to better enjoyment of her users.
She has a mental block about the Crash model - Clash? -
which has become rather endearing. Don't ever change J. 
-
Chris-:
Cali Girl is always very helpful and friendly,
even if it does take her a while to return an email.
-
Servo:
chiQ and Cali are also two others I see around
the forums a lot. They don't let any of our childishness
bother them.
-
Vikingo:
Awesome job with the page, helping me out. She
created the international forum, after I suggested it was
a good idea.
- Slater:
Q3W is my homepage. I come here for all the
news, and I always see Cali posting significant info in
all the boards. It's a great help since I don't have much
time to read news. I think this site is one of the best
run quake sites on the net. Great job. And I love her
forum icon.
