CB1 will not be back (in Changelog)

Sorry for the lack of word, but I've been thinking hard about the pros and cons of bringing CB1 back up. To make a long story short, the cons won. RIP, CB1.

Well, I'm a little sad about it, but thank you for giving us such a long grace period and allowing us to stay with it so long, Jon. Thanks.

PSST: first post after Jon's about it!

Ouch.

Understandable, sad but understandable.

Thank you for the official word though.

While I can understand the disappointment on the part of CB1 players, I have felt for quite some time that it was unfair to have CB1 currency as part of CB2 deals and yet impossible to start a new CB1 account because of the lock-out. With other games and currencies this is not the case. Thank you Jonathan for cleaning up that loophole and unfair advantage that CB1 players had over non-CB1 players.

Can you at least bring back its forum (read only perhaps) and user/ip info (for admin purposes) ?

I was about to say the same thing as Bart, can you bring back the website at least as a memorial to a great game.

I am glad, as it was too hard to quit. :)

Glory = Matrim, thats an advantage, not unfairness.

I kinda saw this coming, sad to see it go...=/

so all that cb1 just down the drain and no word of warning?

Hate to tell you this Bio. That's what happened. Btw, I like your changed name. Hi Hi Hi. I just joined the {CB1} club.

I'm not happy about this but at least I was able to get Red Sox Nation to over 3 million PR before Jon pulled the plug.
Thank you Jon for the great game that CB1 was.

BTW I guess this means there is no chance of opening CB1 to new players again? =)

oh man... and i was hoping to reach 2 mil PR before quitting CB1 >_<

There was more than a handful of people playing, some of us with a level of seriousness. I understand somehow we threatened the sanctitiy of CB2, and I hope it was for technical reasons rather than game play reasons this choice was made (lack or resources whatever) because doing it to limit the cb1/2 exchange seems really unfair to me.

I never promised explicitly or otherwise that CB1 would be back. I will not tolerate disinformation being spread, particularly not on an emotional subject such as this.

this isnt false information Jon. I remember reading on your post when you said cb would be down for upgrading that not to worry that this isnt the end of cb1 to not stress when we saw it was down.

You said you'd leave CB1 up even if only a handful of us were playing Jon, I'd repost it, but the cb1 forums are down.

It's hard to know where you are going when you've forgotten where you've come from.

CB1 was very important to the people who still played it. You've used this shell of an excuse to rationalize finally killing it off.

Since we can't go back and check I don't remember the exact wording or who passed on the message but it was something like ... as long as people are still playing it will continue...

at least tell us why?

I can't believe that the opinions of the biggest $US buyers on cb1/cb2 exchange had something to do with this? or is it that people here can gain a bunch of CB2 selling off CB1 stuff? /How is it any different?

Not exactly the answer I was hoping to read in these forums, but an answer nonetheless. Thank you for letting us know definitively.

I think the reason many of us stuck with CB1 was for the time invested in building up those characters, and many of us had set certain goals. At some point after creating a team of 4 too soon, I changed strategy and focused all my energy on a single minion character, TM II BoGo(r). I couldn't play day and night like most players could, having a job and requiring sleep, so my time in the top three was brief, and then I fell. With only 200 active players, and with my character around the 30th most powerful or so, I was hoping to climb back up again, or at the very least build my loch to Spid standards of x125+225. Such is virtual life I suppose, and perhaps there's a lesson in there. Perhaps five years is too long to spend building up something intangible. =)

Thank you for a fine and addictive game, and a lot of good memories. It's been a lot of fun, and I suppose all good things must eventually end. I'm sure CB2 is a fine game and I wish you all luck with it. As for me, maybe it's time to focus on more important numbers like my 401K. ;-)

CB1 is dead; long live CB1.

Take care everyone,
-MCF
http://mysteriouscloakedfigure.blogspot.com/

Gunner, shut up.

Bio: you are entirely mistaken. Check the google cache if you don't believe me.

novice: you are mostly correct. I said "CB1 will still be available at cb1.carnageblender.com as long as more than a handful of people play it." By any reasonable definition, there were indeed "more than a handful" still playing CB1 at least occasionally.

I try to be careful about making statements like this, but here I clearly blew it: any number of factors outside my control could have rendered this false. I apologize. A more accurate statement would have begun, "I will make reasonable efforts to keep CB1 available at..."

I understand Jon, and I realize that for some reason CB1 became a liability.

as was previously stated by someone calmer than me, thanks for keeping it up so long...

Jon:

You are the owner and creator of the game and the server that it resides on - so as has always been said : it is your right to do with as you want.

However (and this is only MY opinion) : The way you did this was not a very good example of your "finest hour".

jon......how could you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! that was a crazy game and i don't care what any of the the pepole that want cb1 dead i really liked that game played when ever i had the chance..... at elast you could off.....*can't think* i will bail this game bye.

Alas, no 2.5 million PR for Iluvatar on CB1.

Too bad we can't have some kind of special item, which would be doing nothing, just for the memory of CB1.

Rest in Peace Carnage Blender 1, Rest in Peace...


*holds a minute of silence*

Rest in peace cb1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ouch $50 usd down the drain for me in the last month 30 on cb2 suportships....to upgrade my cb1 chars & the other 20 on cb1$ same reason .....well cant say we all did not see it coming but DANGIT

If you sent me money for something CB1-related in the past two months, please email me.

Wesley, you do not have freedom of speech on any privately owned server.

You are lucky to have the ability to post in the forums, keep up your act and that will be removed as well.

Novice, starting flame wars with messages sent in PM is also stupid, to quote you, grow up. Nothing Glory said was attacking you, bashing you or insulting you.

Jon did not close CB1 because people were using the money from cb1 to purchase items on cb2. That is an insane assumption.

It is, however, a side effect someone is happy about. There is nothing wrong with that either.

Now, I understand this is an emotional time for those die hard CB1 fans who think Jon ruined thier life, but unless you can keep it civil and act like an adult I will continue to remove posts, if you choose to continue to post in the same manner after is has been removed, further action will be taken.

argh, good thing i exchanged most of my stuff for CB2$.
To bad i lost a few million.

R.I.P.

. . . couple days away from getting my elbow back from a month long forging. . . was fighting so hard to get to the top . . . i'm blown away . . .way too sudden. I'm so incredibly bummed about this. =[

Jon, i respect the decision, just such a major blow out of nowhere. Cb1 was such a great game with incredible people. It leaves a major hole . . . bah, I don't even know what else to say . . . *sigh*

Wow, well in short, that blows . . . CB BA was the main reason for logging in to CB2 and burning BA here, while waiting for the respawn timer to end.

Don't know what it is, but CB2 just doesn't do it for me like CB did.

same here EG

I understand it is logical but ...

It is like a very bad ending from a good story.
I was hoping the ending won't be rushed and that you would give most players a satisfied ending instead of this...

Thank you for keeping CB1 up for as long as you did.

I'd like to second Bart's request for read-only access to the cb1 forums, user info, and IP logs.

Jon, is that a FINAL final word, or could you be convinced otherwise by people paying for your time to fix it?

If people feel so strongly, maybe there is enough sentiment around to become more than just forum posts...
assuming that is even a possibility of course.

I sent him a modified User Friendly cartoon this afternoon that demonstrated how CB1 users were reacting to CB1 being down, and I told him that he could have some real fun if he implemented an 80% rescale before opening it up again. Jon 1 upped me.

The sad part is a lot of people put a lot of time, real money and effort into CB1. It is a shame to see it go, but how will we know that in a few days/months/years CB2 isn't gone? Sorry to think negatively, but I was one of the "handfull" still on CB1. I would hate to put the time into CB2 to have it "go away"...

:(

obviously you don't have any guarantees with cb2, or anything else for that matter. just ask the players of Asheron's Call 2.

still, cb1 lasted over 4 years, including a year past when its successor was announced. not really a bad track record as such things go.

(it's also clear to those who pay attention to such things that CB2 has been designed to avoid the need for a CB3...)

welllll....this really sux a big one so.....well..i will just have to find some other game...i just wish i could get back on and get my money back for all of my stuff...as in cb2 items/gear/money

Some tragedies are just too heartbreaking to happen but once.

while I respect your decisions to close cb1; i am disappointed; camping and tourneys were the main reasons I kept playing cb1; and they are features no longer///not yet available in cb2...

gah

i dont played cb1 , but i think that will be good , coz that way jon will be able to focus only in improve cb2

I'm disappointed, mostly because I was right around 1.9M PR on CB1 (so close!). But I have been looking through the forums each day since it went down expecting to find this message.

Jon, thanks for keeping CB1 around for so long.

I know I should probably read more posts in detail, but I had to stop (in disgust) when I saw "shell of an excuse"...

I don't know how many people pay attention to the goings-on in CB-land, but you don't have to be around more than a few months to hear about entire nights/weekends/days Jonathan has lost to a volume overflowing, backup gone awry, or slam-dunk upgrade that turned out to boink off the rim. New servers, memory upgrades, and bandwidth issues. Power outages and sever relocations.

This guy devotes the most precious resource of all - his time. Keeping CB1 open takes the same amount of work whether 10 people are playing or 100.

If you think I don't care about CB1 being gone, you would be laughably incorrect. Carnage Blender has single-handedly made me disinterested in other video games, brought me in with a community of people (that hasn't happened since my early MUD days 15 years ago), and put my brain on fire with strategy and passion (not so much any more, but in the day, Hell yes).

As for how Jonathan shoukd have handled it...well. We all had this discussion about a year ago. I was mad that Jonathan announced CB2 when I was sitting on a couple dozen million in cash. I sold stuff for a huge loss. Still didn't get paid, ever, for my ELS (thanks, newmcyo). There is no "right" way to end something that was a favor in the first place. Do you give a long warning? Pull the plug instantly? I have no idea how I would handle it (and have yet to hear anyone with a better idea), so I sure as heck ain't going to judge the way Jonathan has handled it.

Before anyone starts yelling about the hoards and hoards of cash Jonathan has made, I'll address something I should have on the "How much money you think Jon makes?" thread. I would guess that with the time spent (including weekend and holiday hours), Jonathan has maybe, MAYBE eked out minimum wage on his time. Remember, we are talking about a guy who, if he so chose to do some consulting or custom programming on the side, could quite conceivably command $50-60 per hour.

No. Jonathan wanted to have fun. He followed his heart and his hobby and created a wonderful game. Then we created the community. Guess what folks -- we're all still here (or could be if we wanted to be).

Every second of this game has been a favor. Thank you, Jonathan...

...and RedDwarf, rest in peace. I will continue to miss you dearly in the same way I have since retiring you.

Seconded, Sutekh.

The Thread got lots cheerier after that Sut...never fear.

Cheerier? I read my post again and I sound like a grump. *laugh*

Sorry, not been sleeping well lately, and horrendously understaffed this week. So, I hope I didn't offend anyone. Folks are entitled to their own opinions after all! *smile*

There, much cheerier!

Thank you jon, for telling us outright. Thank you for keeping a game up that supported me in some of my hardest times. Thank you for giving me something my horribly outdated computer and 56k modem connection could handle. Thank you for stopping the bordom.

I was with CB for almost 2 years now, really starting Jan 1, 2004, and there i made friends i'll have forever. After Cb2 was introduced, I said i would probably leave CB2 if CB1 was shut down, and I must say, I continued thinking that for a long time. I have a limited understanding why you did this, but of what i do understand, i can't blame you jon. If i was in your situation, i would do the same.

Again, thank you. For your honesty, dedication, and creative spirit that made CB1 and CB2 great. I will be staying :)

I do understand why you closed CB1, and you made the right decision, but Damn, I have some cash in there. Oh well, no use crying over spilt milk. Thanks Jon, for your genius.

oh well.. thanks jon

Sigh... Dangabit. But finally have a bit of free time then. =) I just wish that an item or two can be given (transferred as base) as a token for those people who have stuck with cb1 to the end (ala Runescape).

I want my named HoI

how about a Helm with Good AC and 1% bonus to DD AND Enchantments for a new supporter item, with a cb1ish name? Say taken from one of the epic chars armor perhaps?

Loyalty gets you no where... I played CB1 for over 2 years and was still actively playing up until the last day. I started CB2 on Jan 1st the moment it was open to the public; it just wasn't the same. I got discouraged early on in CB2, mostly because the NUB was introduced shortly after I made my account, so I got passed by just about everybody. I rarely traded CB2 for CB1 or vice versa. And now the game that I enjoyed playing has been taken away, leaving me absolutely nothing here on CB2. I went from playing a 2.2m PR character with amazing gear to playing a character less than 200k MPR with just about no gear at all. I don't expect any form of compensation for my CB1 money/NW/gear, nor do I expect any donations, it just frustrates me to no end that this has happened. I know most people (especially here on CB2) have little to no idea who I am/was as I was rarely ever in chat, and that will drastically lessen this blow as I have no emotional ties to anyone. Guys and Gals, it was a fun ride while it lasted, but all good things must come to an end (and the bad ones last forever).

Dang.

Anyone notice who was winning T183 when it went down? ;)

I thought we were on 193 : )

I have to say, I sold everything I had for USD a couple weeks before the end and the only cash I kept onhand for long periods of time was for forge fees. But even without personal loss, I have lots of un-PG words I want to use to describe how you decided to close CB. Yes, we all knew the game was going to die at some point. But I feel you could have given us some form of warning - such as a message that said, 'hey guys, CB1's closing in a month, don't spend any more USD'. I know Moto and Bio all recently spent USD to buy USD or forging from me, and I feel this has been unfair to them. I want to rant, but I doubt you care at all.

That is a risk you run when you put real money into a game that anyone could have seen coming to a close. As many people have said, they stopped spending USD once CB2 opened.

Yes, but at the same time there were many of us who kept on buying item namings and supportership nevertheless - giving money to Jon even though we knew it wouldn't last forever.

Gun, Jonathan has already said to e-mail him if you sent him money in the last 2 months. I am not entirely sure what he is doing for those folks, but that's one month extra from the "warning" you were asking for, at least as far Jonathan is concerned.

On player to player transactions, that's a zero sum thing. If Jonathan had said "closing in a month!", all the folks MAKING USD could be complaining now, saying, "Hey man, I could have eked out some more cash for that last month!"

Jon can't win on player-to-player cash exchange, because that is _out of his control_. And for what was under his control he is offering a two month window to people to e-mail him about.

What more, exactly, do you desire?

Actually I think most people still playing cb1 would have wanted some advance notice so they could finish some of the goals they had set.

The way it was done-going down for a cb2 upgrade and not coming back-is the problem most people have.

I was really counting on Jon's words myself, I had no clue.
I was days away from buying more stuff, in the middle of amassing another big chunk for a possible merger...I would have at least like to get some screen shots of my main...

Sut - Ranger hit the nail on the head. I do feel bad for Bio, for example, who paid me USD for a forging job that I never even got to finish before the server went down. And whatever arrangements Jon makes for people who paid him in the last two months will probably be adequate - fair enough. I think the main problem is that we all assumed things would be back up. Even if it made no monetary difference it would have been nice to know, this is it guys. I'm happy with what I got out of CB1 ultimately, I just wish it could have had a more honorable death.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention - I'm not Gun. And I really don't want to get in a huge argument over this, despite the incendiary tone to some of my words. I'm just a little upset at having lost a great game.

Bolfen, I was winning the last tourney. Thanks to all the guys who ran tourneys. Great job.

Still waiting for someone to propose a better "shutdown plan" -- are you all saying that if Jon had said, "Closing in two weeks", you would have all frantically continued on, trying to reach goals/mergers/spend money? Seriously, I 'm asking. And seriously, I doubt it.

And how long should the warning be? A month, a week, a day? No matter what, someone would have said, "Oh man, not enough time!!!!!!!" or "Too much time, if it is closing, who cares...I just needed a day to get a screenshot."

Bunch of savages in this town.

Proudly wearing his CB1 T-shirt,
Sutekh T. Destroyer

Personally I would have liked a 3 month notice. Cannot speak out everyone else though.

Just the abrupt nature of cb1's demise was a bit ....strange.

Problem is, how could Jon know 3 months in advance that a database upgrade would cause too much work to be worth it?

bartjan, there is no room for common-sense, rational, level-headed, logical thinking here! This is an emotional flamefest, don't you know?

I agree with Sut but it would have been nice to give a week warning and then post a hall of fame thing at the end, let people use all their money and duke it out to be on the top of the list. It may have even worked out that people would have used cb2 to buy cb1 just to get their weapon to the top of the list with that last upgrade, or to pump up some ammo a little more to win the score chart.

Even if it didn't allow smaller players to trade in their cb1 for cb2 it would have been nice to see a free for all to get the top score.

Either way I hope there can be some kind of hall of fame as a tribute to the great game.

Hall Of Fames is a good idea :) Just make a simple static html out of the data you have for all top 10 stats, including most $$, most N/W, most powerful spells, most powerful items etc.

I don't think it's much more work than getting it back to live again. But at least you can make a few players who have devoted a lot USD + time in CB1 happy.

Yes, some queries would be nice. However, the issues was with a database upgrade. The queries have to be done in the database, so if it is the database that is the problem, that _would_ be as much work as getting the whole thing up again.

erm.. can't he just extract cb1's data portion and port it to another machine with old DB version ? You don't need to upgrade DB for CB1 query anyway. But of course, this is just a sincere suggestion to honour players who spent thousands of dollars on supportership and naming. Although it's not an obligation, it's a nice thing to have :)

I have no idea how the database works, or what got garfed during the upgrade. I know I can't take a SQL Server MDF/LDF file assembly and just move it somewhere and have a different server point to it. Maybe with some work, but server databases are just that -- the whole server.

Now, if he had a sweet Foxpro DBF backend, well then! He could just send me the files and I would do all the queries you wanted...

...and CB would also have been crashing at least once or twice a month if that had been the backend. *wink*

arg i loved cb1 but oh well its your game jon and you can do what you want with it.
and you have probably made a good desision since if it was still up i would still be playing cb1 and cb2 and less time working on school work lol

All of you who lost money in CB1, take heart. Freed lost more ...

blackshadowshade (who hit 1M score just before the server went down)

The reason why I havent posted is that - yes - I did lose more money than everyone else - and will probably lose more than everyone else if/when cb2 closes in the same way.

Thats life and it saves me spending money on sweets :-)

well..money is better spent on cb than drugs..=)

A Hall of Fame would be a great idea if its possible to extract the data.
But I would expand it to a top25 or even top50. That way more of the active CB1 players would get a place in it.

hehe top 25 oldest and active players list would be nice :D So I can get myself in too :D

Leave your legacy by sticking around CB2. *smile* I remember when I started CB, so I don't need a list.

Sut, it's too bad you bailed cb1 so early, I understand, you actually left long before it ended, but it could have used an advocate of your caliber...

Its very sad CB1 is gone but i guess all we can do is move on i mean i lost a lot i was selling some uneeded stuff right as the death happened but i can eventually make all taht up here and do well here like all the rest of the cb1 vets.

jon, your game, whatever, i knew it would never be on forever, but i atleast expected you to be a man of your word, that as long as people were playing cb1, it would stay, now you throw away what brought you all this(fame & glory, USD), but look around, i mean cb2 is ok, but its not cb1. it was a utopia, and we all played for fun, no camping, money did not matter. you had something.


CB1 lives on

doop, please realize that the reason CB1 is down at this given point is that Jon had to face a choice in spending a certain amount of time in repairing something that would have gone down sometime in the future anyway, or invest his time and energy in other things.

If it weren't for CB2, I wouldn't be in CB-land any more at all. So, I would probably not be the greatest CB1 advocate. *smile*

dont want to be an idiot but i have to.

too me there was no reason to actually make CB2 it just could of been a big update of CB1. wow a few things changed and now you are crying about it.

More than a few things changed. Also, considering the response after the 60% rescale, I don't think Jon wanted to anger too many people so it was much easier and beneficial to create CB2. By starting CB2 Jon could do his best from the start to set up a game where there is no need for a "big update" (by the way big is definately an understatement) or newer version and continue from that point to prevent the need for either. CB2 was a requirement. CB1 had a great community, but the game itself was getting out of hand.

I'll be honest.. I'm enjoying CB2 a lot more than CB1. One of the reasons I stopped playing the original was the shenanigans that were going on with the store.(don't give me the "but they were just dedicated campers" line... I ain't buying it) Since that kind of nonsense is not in evidence here, I like the game more.

Camping was removed here for the same reason those "campers" were so good in CB1.

you know for all the smack talk, I'd like to see some specifics, making blanket statments about all campers is more than a little lame guys...

or you could just go check the thread where I banned someone for using a camp cheat.

My point was is that not every "good" camper on cb1 cheated, and that is certainly what is stated

otoh claiming that nobody cheated on cb1 is like closing your eyes in the rain and saying it's not wet

didn't say no one, just that not EVERY one of the good camper cheated, and besides, it's NOT RAINING IT's NOT!

"My point was is that not every "good" camper on cb1 cheated, and that is certainly what is stated."

Really? Where did I say that? I said one of the reasons I left was because of some of the nonsense going on with the store. I also said that I was not buying the "good campers" argument. That is not saying that all campers were cheats. But there were enough who did cheat that it left a sour taste in my mouth. You know the ones... the ones who never logged in except when a rare item just happened to spawn in the store.

But that's all finished now(I hope).

I was talking less about your statement than J's, however on a second read I could have just been being a grump. He doesn't really say all the good campers cheated, just that camping there was comprimised as well...

i think I'm just going to pretend this thread is closed...

I love kittens, but I agree. There was a lot of whining included in this post, but I think that the sentiment of this post is still important. I stopped playing both games because of CB2, so to me the loss of CB1 is unfortunate... However I don't play either much anymore. I agree with those who stated that they got all fired up about CB1 and strategizing in that game, however strategy seems to not matter much in CB2. In CB2 time spent is everything. Sure I found some exploits in CB1 but I did not cheat ever. Everything I had was the result of deep thought, and time spent. Granted I got greedy and started selling out. But finding the way to gain the most in the least time, was the most fun part of this game for me. I have always loved that and it is next to impossible in CB2. BTW this post was not meant to undermine Jonathan's efforts, thank you for such an involving, intricate, and in-depth experience. I am sorry that it ended. Even if that means I am only sorry for myself.

PS. (whiners? yeah you) Get over it. :p

Anyone who will have him
NotSuitableForChildren =)

I feel bad for the guys from CB1 but really, just because their "main" server got closed down, doesn't make CB2 a horrible place to be. I mean, if you think about it, CB2 could be a fresh start for players who know what they want to do. Yes, I understand that people have invested their real money in this game but that is what you do when you make an investment and if you think about it, CB is just that, an investment. There is no assurance that the game will last forever but it will be here for as long as Jon can stay sane and still keep his job. We ask alot of a single person to do, even with the admins to help, so putting this kind of stress on a person is something that is not only wrong, in my opinion, but cruel to a person who has brought us happiness, most of the time, and a serious time sink that helps us relieve serious amounts of stress. (I've personally busted four keyboards when my strategy goes to pot and I get womped by anyone who can hit the enter key.) I hope that Jon never has to make a CB3 though because then I'll feel the same way as the people from CB1, horribly depressed that I lost all the hard work I had done. But there will also be something some people seem to be overlooking. The chance for a new start.

If you think of CB as an investment you are setting yourself up for pain.

At best you can call it speculation.