OngoingWorlds blog

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

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2022 Simulation Cup Results… Finally!

Image by Malkfan

What a tournament! A record of 88 fantastic entrants led to another record of 36 awards to be conferred below. Before we get to those, however, you might remember that we’re running this Tournament of Simulations (ToS) under the Simulation Cup banner to honor the 2012 and 2014 tournaments.

Naming conventions aside, this competition has been one for the ages, easily blowing away last year’s records of 70 entrants with 26 winners. The participation and excellence displayed is a true testament to the ongoing strength of the simming and online role playing community, regardless of what others might say.

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 sims that exude excellence.  A different set of judges might very well chose a completely different set of winners.  And that’s okay! If you’re interested, this is how we select the winners. With that on the record once again, here are your 2022 Simulation Cup winners:

Play-by-Post

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2022 Simulation Cup: Enter Today!

Image by Malkfan

With calendar year 2022 in the books, it’s time for us to formally close it out with the annual Simulation Cup. Wait, don’t I mean the annual Tournament of Simulations aka ToS? Yes, they are one at the same!

According to our records, the 2012 tournament was held under the Simulation Cup banner. In honor of that event 10 years ago, we decided to use its name again today. And we think it makes a pretty cool poster too!

The mechanics of the game remain the same: Here are a few tips on how to win. For those who may be unfamiliar, this is where you can enter your role play to potentially win a prize at no cost or risk to you! Judges from across the community go through all of the entries and grade them on story, characters, and readability.

As has been our tradition for several years now, play-by-post games will be graded on 10 consecutive posts while chat games will be graded on a single chat session. All sims will be considered regardless of club or fleet affiliation. We then present awards to the top-scoring games. The sims that don’t place are not announced. That’s right: you’ve got nothing to lose, so why not enter?

Okay, enough on that. How about we get on with the nominations…

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2020 Squiddie Award Winners

Squiddie award for superior online roleplaying

After announcing this year’s award and receiving nominees, it’s time reveal the winners for the long overdue 2020 awards:

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2021 WarGames Competition Winners

Image by Malkfan

It’s time to announce the winners of the latest Tournament of Simulations (ToS). But before we get to that, you might remember that we’re using the WarGames banner this year to honor the 2001 tournament from 20 years ago. My how times flies!

Anyway, we asked for nominations in February, and you responded by sending us an absolutely incredible list of 70 fantastic games from across the community. That easily breaks our modern (since 2011) record of 64 set last year, and is maybe even tops all-time (since 1999). Regardless, it just goes to show that simming and online role playing is still thriving and probably stronger than ever.

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 sims that exude excellence.  A different set of judges may very well chose a completely different set of winners.  And that’s okay! In case you’re interested, this is how we select the winners. With that on the record once again, here are your 2021 WarGames winners:

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Congratulations to the latest Simming Prize Winners

simming prize
The Simming Prize Image by Jack Carter

Editor’s note: The awards season continues!

Please help me in congratulating the 2020 and 2021 Simming Prize winners. They are all more than deserving, each serving the community in their own unique way. While some are relative newcomers, others have been with us for many years. They represent the cream of the crop within simming & online role playing, and give us all something to strive towards.  Well done, Simming Prize Laureates!

2020

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A Round of Applause for our Squiddie Nominees

Ongoing Worlds Medal for Superior Online Role Playing

The window for Squiddie nominations has closed, and my did we get some good ones! In addition to the high quality, I was surprised by the sheer number of nominations we received: 88 total over all three years. It’s quite a bit for our judges to go through the next few weeks!

I would also like to thank Nim for taking over as the coordinator for the Squiddies moving forward. It’s a big, but often thankless job so I’ll thank you: Thank you, Nim!

Expect to see the winners announced soon. Until then, here are your Squiddie nominees:

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2021 WarGames Competition

Image by Malkfan

2021, which was equally as dreadful as 2020, has finally come to a close. That means it’s time for the annual WarGames Competition! Wait, don’t I mean the annual Tournament of Simulations aka ToS? Yes, they are one at the same!

According to our records (which are suspect, of course), the second tournament was held in 2001 under the WarGames banner. In honor of that event 20 years ago, we decided to use its name again today. And the movie from 1983 was pretty cool, too!

The mechanics of the game remain the same: Here are a few tips on how to win. For those who may be unfamiliar, this is where you can enter your role play to potentially win a prize at no cost or risk to you! Judges from across the community go through all of the entries and grade them on story, characters, and readability. As has been our tradition for several years now, play-by-post games will be graded on 10 consecutive posts while chat games will be graded on a single chat session. All sims will be considered regardless of club or fleet affiliation. We then present awards to the top-scoring games. The sims that don’t place are not announced. That’s right: you’ve got nothing to lose, so why not enter?

Okay, enough on that. How about we get on with the nominations…

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Submit your 2020… and 2021… and 2022 Squiddie Nominations Today!

It’s time, and also past time, to open the annual Squiddie awards to nominations from the community.

As it turns out, we still need to award winners for 2020, 2021, and 2022. Yes, we’re way behind! Each year, three entities win a Squiddie for their actions and achievements of the prior year. To translate that into English: the 2020 award is for achievements made during 2019, the 2021 award is fore achievements made during 2020, and the 2022 award is for achievements made during 2021. Confusing? We know, and we’re sorry! Of course it wouldn’t be that confusing if we had done these when they’re supposed to happen!

The due date for all submissions is February 15, 2022. If you’re unsure if you should submit your game, a community, or an outstanding person…. Just do it! (Sorry, Nike.) There are a lot of great people, games, and clubs out there, and we want to hear about them.

Submit your nominee(s):

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We Hope You Enjoyed FallFest!

Good day,

I hope that you all are enjoying the holiday season of 2021! We are still not out of the woods in this pandemic thing but hopefully in 2022 we can make further progress together. Earlier this fall we all joined together for a wonderful FallFest hosted by 5th Fleet and chaired by their Chief of Operations Nixon. The event was great and people spoke well of things; I am happy that the hand over to SimmingHub has went so well and that people were willing to help run the event even though someone else was handling behind the scenes. I am honored to be a part of this moving forward and I want to thank 5th Fleet for helping this year making the event a success. This all could not have been done without their direct oversight of the set-up, planning and running of the event. I hope that we all as a community are able to keep all of this going over the years to make future FallFests and this next year’s SciWorld as successful as those prior.

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What a SciWorld!

A SciWorld for the ages! Where do I even begin? With some of the most diverse topics & panels I’ve ever seen, great ideas & comments from the audience, and a trivia event that felt more like a shark feeding frenzy, this SciWorld had it all. I haven’t even mentioned the hilarious opening ceremony video yet; thank you Charles and the team for that. If you missed SciWorld, we look forwarding to seeing you at FallFest, which will happen sometime later this year. Both events will be held in this discord server moving forward.

Now that TNU Project‘s SimmingHub has officially assumed the management & administration of SciWorld & FallFest with the completion of our first convention, I would like to personally thank Ongoing Worlds and Charles Star for sponsoring the last three SciWorlds and all 10 FallFests. Your service to the community is much appreciated and we hope to live up to the ideals you championed. On behalf of the Ongoing Worlds Board of Advisors and the SimmingHub Organizing Committee it is also an honor of mine to bestow some awards to members of the community, without whom this event would not have been possible.

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