A few nice words about last year’s Squiddie nominees

As we’re in the midst of the 2016 Squiddie nomination period, I thought it would be helpful to post some of the kind words that we received for last year’s nominees. As you can see, there was quite a bit of talent that we weren’t able to award.

For a reminder, there’s just a week remaining to get your nominations in. See the original post here to submit your favourite role players, games, and clubs for a Squiddie – the top award presented by OngoingWorlds.

ryjones

He has made some amazing posts. Thought he can’t post on weekends, when he does post, he adds depth to the world’s we play in. It makes the weekend last way too long because I can’t wait for him to post again! He brings something special to every game.

Michael Lancia

His mission churned out the most posts in Sunfire history with 575 in just 113 days. It got everyone actively involved in not just posting but communicating on our Facebook page daily and got people interested in our sim again, which he was lauded for.

Kraken

Kraken brings three things to the table: hard work, innovation, and a writing skill most can only hope to achieve. She writes and creates worlds with such love and passion, that I (and several others) are almost immediately drawn in. Please consider her for an award.

Angfaulith

I believe Angfaulith is worthy of a nomination as an awesome writer and content creator. He helps out new players to get into plots, he is inclusive and takes on a multitude of roles. All from the plot driving important characters to the supporting cast for others. He also expands greatly on almost any game he joins and helps mods create content, making him often becoming a moderator as well. The game Vaesallum would not be the longstanding success it is without his involvement, and his own creation Procrastination has a fresh take on adventure. As a new player he helped me lots towards enjoying the format and to find my feet.

Renos

This is my nominee captain Renos of the USS-Darwin. For many reasons in character the sims created are such a joy to read, I’m always hanging on the edge of my seat wanting to see the next sim. Out of character always first to congratulate on any occasion. Always there on hand to give positive and negative feedback but always put across in the nicest ways! If you take time to read Renos sims you’d understand! Thank you.

Tristam Wolf

I would like to Nominate Fleet Admiral Wolf for your Persons Award. He is outstanding leader of the Starbase 118, he gives up lots of his free time to running the group. He is always active and supportive towards members and teams within the group. Very approachable person if theirs a problem or even a question he will answer it.

Jamie LeBlanc

In addition to being a moderator for the group’s forums, Jamie plays several different characters in our game and manages to infuse each one with depth and life. Every one of her posts includes vivid descriptions of not only her character’s thoughts, actions and motivations but also their surroundings and setting, giving them a verisimilitude that draws the reader into the world. She also manages to give each of her characters a distinct personality that makes them truly unique. Her writing serves as an example and inspiration to others, making them want to strive to improve their own writing and characterization skills and improving the game for everyone.

Silent Hunter

I’ve known Silent online for about 8 years now. In all that time, he’s been a frequent originator of sims, setting up and running so many different sims, some in established sci fi and fantasy universes, some historical, and others of his own devising. He’s also held admin positions in the clubs I’ve played, specialising in helping other roleplayers set up and run sims. As well as his own sims, he’s a prolific roleplayer, playing multiple characters in several clubs simultaneously all of the time I’ve known him. I therefore enthusiastically nominate him for Person category.

Deborah Leighton Plom

In terms of quality of roleplay, Deborah is the most excellent I know. She writes like a pro, her characters are well-realised and consistent, and her GMing is exceptional. She’s especially innovative when it comes to enhancing player experience, using resources like photobucket, wix, and wikis to flesh out the game worlds she creates and her players love.

I think it’s particularly her contribution to facilitating community experience that I want to highlight. Her first admin post in a club was in Member Support, and she’s excelled in such roles ever since, leading mentoring schemes, writting FAQs, and more. She offers genuinely caring Sim Leadership and GMing. Deborah recently took an LOA from online roleplaying but the comments received since her return evidence the warm regard she is held in. I think the most endearing I read was one player saying “Mama Bear is back! :D”
I think it’s a testimony to her worthiness for this award that someone who has been nicknamed as GM “Mistress of Evilitude” is also called “Mama Bear”, suggesting her brilliance as a roleplayer, and the place she holds in her players’ hearts.

Thomas Sahm

I’d like to nominate Thomas because apart from being a great (and fun!) CO to SIM with, he is also a dedicated UCIP president. As a crew member of Crazy Horse (a once virtually dead SIM which he took over, managed to revive and make into one of the most active ones of UCIP) I know he’s going to great lengths to be available to the crew, provide great story arcs and not least of all, maintain the respective websites and nudge people into contributing (who can resist those Romulan puppy-dog eyes…).

On the UCIP level, he managed to get himself elected with 90% of the votes, promptly conducted and tallied an organization census; and then went off and developed the first new website of the org in a decade, increased membership by 15% and started a public archiving system that all games can use to unify the IC experience and more easily interact with other SIMs.

As on the SIM level, he devotes a great deal of personal time and effort to making UCIP a fun place to SIM, and I’d need a little (OK, quite a bit) more than 250 words to list every detail. But I do hope you’ll consider our resident Romulan (just so he can give me another Look).

USS Sunfire

Probably one of the finest years for this ship and sadly its last, but if you have to go out at least go out with a bang.
The writers came together for one final bow and wrote their hearts out with fast paced storytelling that led to 1,106 posts of pure quality in less than a year. A lot of the writers were burnt out after this! lol

I know it’s a lot of posts and I can’t possibly ask the judges to read them all, but please read as much as you can because I feel you’ll enjoy it as much as we did writing it as they were all interconnected from one mission to the next building up slowly to a massive finish.
It’s certainly the best stretch of quality writing that I’ve ever encountered in my 24 years of RPG’ing.

Vaesallum

For over a year now Vaesallum has stood steadfast as one of the best fantasy game on OW. Starting out as a high fantasy game a year and a half ago, it had an impressive world, crafted by a few dedicated members of the OW community. Over time, it has drawn in more players and its backstory and lore have grown as expansive as the quality of the average posts. Over time it has also matured from a high fantasy setting into a dark fantasy setting where the forces of darkness play just as much a role as the heroes who strive for peace and justice.

Vaesallum is a fantasy game spanning the entire world as opposed to the usual handful of nation bordered by a sea. Vast kingdoms and empires strive for greatness and domination in a world where humanity has become the dominant race and elves and shifters are suppressed or enslaved. Dragons (draconem), the old rulers of the world are all but faded to legend and the few that remain hide away from sight, fearful of their ultimately dark legacy. Despite grand empires and a whole world at our hands it is still the individual that shines in the story, and with widespread online co-writing and the average post length of more than a thousand words the quality of the work encroaches on literary gold. This in a time where most posts on the site span less than 50 words. Vaesallum carries with it the prospect to further grow in the years to come and truly deserves to be honored.

USS Darwin

The Horizon Class USS Darwin is one of UFOP: Starbase 118’s most unique ships offering plenty by way of advantages in the region its assigned to; spatial anomalies, corrosive gases and other such discoveries can be examined safely. Volatile sections of salvaged debris can be transported without risk of harm. The scientific possibilities are endless… The quirky, ground breaking ship is built to last and, while it does not harbor offensive capabilities to equal one of Starfleet’s escorts or cruisers, it is resilient by design. A perfect match for an unpredictable region where surprise lurks behind every star system.

The Darwin is the first in the fleet to be assigned to the Delta Quadrant where we are boldly going into the unknown, pushing the boundaries of simming by trying new things and through engaging, exciting, character driven plots. The crew are exploring such exciting concepts as a Dyson Sphere as part of an ongoing plot arc, and are developing previously seen species such as the Talaxians and Numiri.

Starbase 400

Starbase 400 has developed a vast back-story, complete with two dozen permanent NPCs, a fleet of ships, and a dangerous intersection of space to defend. To support its in character universe, Starbase 400 maintains an academy, a database, a timeline of sim canon, and logs of each mission to ensure members are informed. Infused with a focus on character development and realistic storytelling, these factors combine, producing an intensely vibrant sim.

On Starbase 400, we focus on character development and realistic storytelling. As a friendly community of fans and writers, we strive to work together to produce not only wonderful stories for all to read, but to also grow together and move forward…expanding on our little corner of the final frontier.

UFOP: StarBase 118

One look at out website shows the nature of our club – experienced, professional, friendly and with a focus on writing. Our Academy program inducts new players into our game and teaches them how to play in an environment where they can be unafraid to make mistakes.
A large tutorial section on the website and regular writers workshop articles in our blogs help every writer interested in improving their skill whether they’re brand new to writing or much more seasoned.

With over 20 years experience and over 100 active players the community is as strong as ever and has a presence in the wider simming community, having previously hosted such events as FallFest and two writers improvement months with spreecast interviews with published authors open to the wider community.

Having been a member of many of the larger fleets such as Obsidian Fleet, Bravo Feet, Sixth Fleet and more, I haven’t found a friendlier, better experience anywhere and only regret that I did not find them sooner.

Bravo Fleet

This fleet has done it all. Bravo Fleet has been the leader of Simming for over 10 years. With it’s excellent hub of relay station bravo and it’s great Simms spanned the entire galaxy, Bravo Fleet is #1.

Phoenix Roleplaying

I’ve been a member since it started, and I’m so fond of it! Some of the players are of such high quality; creative, immersive, believable, sustained, the sims there are a joy to read.

Phoenix has a culture of innovation, with a simple process for approving new sims (basically, if a few players want it, it happens) that really facilitates experimentation and originality in terms of the sim settings we explore. A browse down the Index shows the sheer diversity of sims on offer (I think non-members can’t see all of them: there is an “archived sims” section that members can see of some 56 sims which testifies to some of the experiments that have fed into what we now have, let alone the 28 currently active sims).

What I nominate Phoenix for most, though, is it’s incredible commitment to facilitating community experience. There are a few pages of accessible community rules including a section on creating and sustaining a “Safe and Fair Environment”, the site’s leadership is democratically elected with a culture of transparent, collaborative decision making based on the Nolan Principles, there is a clear complaints procedure, extensive checks and balances, and accountable job descriptions for the site’s leaders to be kept to.

Independence Fleet

I would like to nominate Independence Fleet because it is a fantastic community of writes whom all produce excellent posts and logs.

If you want to read nice things people said about nominees for the year before, click here.