OngoingWorlds blog

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

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It’s 2017 Squiddie Time!

That’s right–now that the Tournament of Simulations is completed, it’s time to turn our attention to Ongoing Worlds’ pinnacle award: The Squiddie (aka The Ongoing Worlds Medal for Superior Online Roleplaying).  Each year we present Squiddies to three different entities: one person, one sim/game, and one club.  Squiddies are bestowed for exemplifying one or more of the following characteristics, primarily during the previous calendar year:

  • Excellence in role playing: Outstanding role play or leadership performance far above and beyond the typical person, game, or club.
  • Originality and innovation: Using a new technology or innovation or combining existing technologies together in a new way to elevate the role play adventure
  • Facilitating the community experience: Enhancing interaction, cooperation, and/or collaboration among role players to improve or advance the community

You can read about past winners here: 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 Read More

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2016 Tournament of Simulation Winners!

Hear ye!  Hear ye!  It’s time to announce the winners of the 2016 Tournament of Simulations (ToS).  For those who may not be aware, ToS is an annual competition, sponsored by Ongoing Worlds, where role play games of different clubs and genres compete against each other in a friendly manner for several awards.  The original tournament was held back in 1999.  For this year’s ToS, each participating sim submitted 10 posts that were written sometime during 2016.  The posts were then evaluated by three judges in three different categories on a 1-10 scale: Story, Characters, and Readability/Grammar.  The final scores were then adjusted based on the individual judge’s respective averages and standard deviations to adjust for both hard & easy grading judges and judges with small & large ranges of scores.

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 said, it’s time to finally announce our winners… Read More

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SciWorld postponed

I regret to inform you that SciWorld is being postponed.  We are working to reschedule and I hope you will be available and willing to attend in the future.  I will keep you posted as things progress. Read More

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How to host an event at SciWorld

Sciworld

Calling all text based Roleplayers! The annual SciWorld Online Convention is just around the corner. Mark your calendars for May 5th & 6th and join in the fun!

Interested in hosting a trivia, discussion or live RP? Fill out this form ASAP (http://tinyurl.com/SciWorldEvents) and a member of the organizing committee will get back to you. Read More

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The new OngoingWorlds Discord server

Discord

How many of you make use of the Chatbox up there in the corner of the site? Judging by what I’ve seen I would guess not very many. Which is a shame because I think there is real potential for better roleplay, for getting your game noticed, and for meeting new people if it was used.

So, with that in mind, I have set up a Discord server for Ongoing Worlds, and it would be great if people could start to join. Read More

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Online Role Players & Pokémon Go

Editor’s Note: This article was published shortly before Pokémon Go’s February 16, 2017 Gen 2 update.

The mobile application Pokémon Go was released a little over seven months ago today.  Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you know what a big hit it was.  Indeed, almost immediately it broke multiple download and revenue records for mobile apps.   Read More

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Announcing the latest Simming Prize laureates

The Trustees of the Simming Prize are honored to announce our latest laureates:

* Charles Star of Independence Fleet – For his unprecedented contributions to the simming community. As a founder and long time leader within Independence Fleet, Charles has personally sponsored the launch of 21 sims and commanded 10 within the club. During his time as IDF CinC in the early 2000s and as Chief of Fleet Ops from 2010 – 12 he oversaw exceptional growth within the club. More recently, Charles has been a primary a leader within the larger simming community, serving as the administrator/coordinator for SciWorld, FallFest, the Tournament of Simulations, and the Squiddie and OWCH awards. He is a member of the OngoingWorlds Board of Advisers, and has been the instigator of community wide April Fools jokes. Charles is also a storehouse of simming knowledge, and has been a primary contributor to the Roleplay Wiki and the OngoingWorlds Blog. Read More

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Website problems & how you can help

Hi guys, you might have noticed that last weekend, the website was down for about 10 hours, which is the longest it’s been since launch :-S

I had to perform some fixes, which meant waiting on support staff at the hosting company, and ended up paying for a different hosting band to make sure the website wasn’t hitting memory limits. Which means, the hosting now costs more :-/ Read More

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Our most popular articles of 2016

goodbye 2016

2016 has ended! Here’s a look back at our most popular articles of the last year:

Most popular articles posted in 2016

Starship Enterprise

  1. How will the Simming & Online Role Playing Universe End?
  2. Forget the Brexit! What about the Squexit? Top 10 Splits in RP History
  3. 12 tips for writing Star Trek fanfiction & roleplaying
  4. Star Trek’s 50th Anniversary: Your Favorite Trek
  5. Interview with Mike Bremer from Starbase 400

 

Most popular articles this year (from all time):

Mary Sue on the transporter pad

  1. 10 of the greatest Spock quotes
  2. A big long list of personality traits
  3. 4 rather good planet name generators
  4. 9 more movies with character flashbacks
  5. A list of great random character name generators
  6. The many different types of Mary Sue
  7. Is it wrong to RP a relationship, when you are in a relationship yourself?
  8. 10 things that annoy other roleplayers
  9. What is godmodding and why is it important?
  10. How to use Bitstrips to create a character profile image

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It’s time for the 2016 Tournament of Simulations (ToS)

ToS2016That’s right, it’s time for our annual Tournament of Simulations (ToS) competition!  Role players, hosts, and club leaders alike are all hereby invited to enter their games/sims/role plays in the the oldest and most prestigious competition of the entire simming and online roleplaying universe (yes, it’s ToS!).  Indeed, Ongoing Worlds is officially calling on on YOU (yes, you!) to enter your simulations and online role plays in the 2016 edition of ToS.  This will be the 12th tournament to be held (the first happened in 1999).  Nominations will be accepted through January 31st, 2017. Winners will be announced sometime later.  Here’s how to enter: Read More