OngoingWorlds blog

News & articles about play-by-post games, for roleplayers & writers

May
17

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SciWorld 20 Years 1999-2019: Saturday May 18th

Category: Behind the scenes - running RPGs, Events, Interviews, Play-by-post discussion, Roleplay-related projects, Roleplaying community, Trivia Tags: , , 1 Comment

When I announced SciWorld 2019 last month, I failed to notice that this would indeed be the 20th anniversary of the SciWorld Online Convention (Discord Invite: https://discord.gg/EGBwV54). Wow! What a milestone! How could I have missed it?!?

Well, I did. To make up for it, I’m posting an edited version of a previously unpublished interview I conducted with Ender Maki back in 2011. For those who may be wondering, simmer Ender Maki is credited as being the founder of SciWorld. The interview wasn’t conducted for the purpose of publishing, but rather to collect information so I could flesh out a few articles on the old Simming Encyclopedia (which lives on today as Roleplay Wiki). As such, the interview may seem a little disjointed. But it’s still great! Without any further ado, here is Ender Maki, in mostly his own words, from 2011…

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May
6

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Become a patreon & get Hero Membership

Category: OngoingWorlds guide, OngoingWorlds site news 2 Comments

Hero membership

You might have noticed some users on OngoingWorlds have their avatars displayed on their posts, while others don’t.

That’s because some users are Hero Members, which means they are super special and donate monthly to the upkeep of OngoingWorlds (our hosting costs money, which is paid for by members).

Displaying an avatar on a post looks something like this:

User with Hero membership

Without Hero Members donating to the monthly hosting, there wouldn’t even be an OngoingWorlds, so we should be eternally grateful to them!

Become a Hero!

You can become a Hero by donating $2 per month – You can cancel whenever you want. You’ve got 2 different options to donate:

Paypal

Click the “Subscribe” button on the Donation page. It’ll take you to a Paypal donation form with $2 pre-filled.

Patreon

Patreon is a service to allow communities like ours get paid, it’s a great option because it’s an easy way to donate, plus it’s a bit more visible and lets others know about us.

To donate through Patreon, click this link. Then click “Become a Patreon”.

Apr
26

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SciWorld 2019: May 18th

Category: Behind the scenes - running RPGs, Events, Play-by-post discussion, Roleplay-related projects, Roleplaying community Tags: 1 Comment

SciWorld 2019 graphic by Outpost 42 News‘ Lt. Dan

That’s right, the 2019 edition of the SciWorld Online Convention will take place May 18th from 1:00 PM to 9:00 PM EST in a Discord chat server. As always, SciWorld is open to all simmers and online role players, regardless of rank or club affiliation, and the ticket price remains $/£/€ 0. This year we’re blessed with three hosts who are working hard as you read to put together a great program for us all:

What can you do?

First, plan to attend! This is when the entire simming and online role playing community comes together to discuss new ideas, compete in fun trivia games, and finally, to sim! Second, invite your friends. There really is nothing quite like SciWorld. It’s an experience that words simply can’t do justice. Finally, consider hosting a one-hour discussion, trivia, or sim. What better way to share your experiences with the greater community? Email me at star [dot] idf [at] gmail [dot] com with your event title and your top three time slot choices.  Please put “SciWorld” in the subject line.

More information, including URLs and a schedule of events, will be posted later to this blog. Until then…

See you at SciWorld ’19!

Apr
22

By

Online Role Players & Pokémon Go: 2019 Edition

Category: Interviews, Play-by-post discussion, Roleplaying community Tags: , , Leave a Comment

In case you missed it, we talked to online role players who also play Pokémon Go back in both 2017 and 2018. A lot has changed since that last post: the introduction of shiny Pokémon, research, monthly community days, friendships, gifts, player vs player battles, and more! While the game isn’t as popular as it once was, it still has a loyal following of fans who continue catch ’em all! We caught back up with a few of them to see where they are today:

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Apr
8

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Largehobbit Guide to Avoiding Overwhelm

Category: Behind the scenes - running RPGs, OngoingWorlds guide, Writing tips 6 Comments

Recently there was a discussion on the OW Community Platform started by Nim, titled: Another Moderating Discussion: How to Manage the Load?

This reply by Largehobbit I thought was worth highlighting, so I’ve posted it here (with permission), because being overwhelmed is something we all might feel at some point. Here it is:

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Apr
6

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2018 ToS Winners

Category: Awards, Competition, Events, Roleplaying community Tags: , 1 Comment

We asked for Tournament of Simulations (ToS) submissions back in February and March.  You responded by nominating 28 fantastic games, truly the best of the best from throughout the simming and online role playing community!  It’s now April and we have 10 winners.  If you’re curious how we choose the top games, here’s how.

As I say every year, evaluating sims is a subjective art, and this is certainly true with ToS.  We’re not here to identify the best games as this is impossible.  Instead, we’re here to identify what we think are outstanding role plays that exude excellence.  A different set of judges may very well chose a completely different set of winners.  And that’s okay!  With that our of the record, here are your 2018 tournament winners: Read More

Apr
2

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Congratulations to our 2019 Squiddie Nominees!

Category: Awards, Competition, Roleplaying community Tags: , 1 Comment

Congratulations to our 2019 Squiddie Nominees. Since our announcement of the awards this year back in February, we have received a total of 41 nominations from a wide variety of folks, and ruling out duplicates we have: 8 people, 13 games, and 5 clubs. Thanks to all who nominated!

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Mar
31

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OngoingWorlds is changing its name

Category: Website Improvements Tags: Leave a Comment

The new homepage

It’s pretty much obvious to everyone that this was an April Fools day joke, but I’ll leave it here for you to read:

OngoingWorlds creator, David “Onion” Ball has decided to give up making websites for a simpler life of herding beef & dairy cattle, and is planning on changing the name to match this lifestyle.

The new name will be OnCOWingWorlds, and the following games will be renamed to be cattle-themed:

The Story Forge > The Dairy Forge

Jackalope Crossing >Jackalope Cattle

OW Community Platform > COW Community Platform

Netfritia > Beef Fritters

Sliders: Unsolved Mystery > Steak Sliders

Blue Dwarf > Blue Steak

The name change will happen on the 1st of April 2019.

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Mar
21

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The Top Five Most Misspelled Words According to Oxford Dictionaries

Category: Writing, Writing tips Tags: , Leave a Comment

This article was submitted to us by Stephen Benton.

There is a quote attributed to South African writer Gugulethu Mhlungu stating that the English language is not an actual language but three, stacked on each other and hiding under a trench coat. And it seems to be nothing but the truth: the language we use today has had quite a few others influence it over the centuries, from Latin to German, and French, giving birth to the one we all love today.

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Mar
20

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The great OngoingWorlds outage of March 2019

Category: OngoingWorlds site news Tags: Leave a Comment

Yesterday we had quite a large problem with the server, with the website being down for about 16 hours. This was caused by an unexpected server migration by our hosting provider, which lead to the database being out of date. I had to keep the website offline for longer than expected, to wrestle with the company’s technical support and get them to send the latest copy of the database. I wanted to make sure absolutely no data had been lost, because I know how important each and every post is to you guys!

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