Category: Roleplaying community

SciWorld! Wow!


What a SciWorld we had last month!  In case you missed it, Bravo Fleet and Star Army partnered together to host the 2018 edition, which was an absolute blast!  As far as we know, this was the first time that two different sim clubs co-hosted the convention.  The first SciWorld was in 1999, and it has been held continuously since 2011.  We believe that this year’s SciWorld was the 16th, but we’re not positive as many records from the early 2000s are no longer available. Continue reading SciWorld! Wow!

Congratulations to the 2018 Squiddie Nominees!

Congratulations to all of the 2018 Squiddie Nominees!  In response to our June post, we received 11 nominations for 10 people, 6 nominations for 6 games, and 3 nominations for 3 clubs.  In case you lost count, that’s 20 total nominations for 19 different entities.  All 19 are outstanding in their own right and deserving of top-level awards.  Unfortunately, we can only award 3 Squiddies every year: one person, one game, and one club.  We have our work cut out for us!

Without further ado, here are your 2018 nominees in no particular order… Continue reading Congratulations to the 2018 Squiddie Nominees!

2018 SciWorld Online Convention

That’s right, SciWorld 2018 is today.  See you over there.

We would also like to give a special thanks to Alexander of Bravo Fleet and Wes Davis of Star Army for chairing this year’s convention.  Great work so far!  We can’t wait for SciWorld to begin!

2018 SciWorld Online Convention

 

SciWorld ’18 is July 28th

It gives me great pleasure to announce that the 2018 SciWorld Online Convention will be hosted by 2017 Squiddie winner Bravo Fleet & 2013 Squiddie winner Star Army on Saturday, July 28th!  Obviously, we’re changing things up a bit this year.  We’re holding SciWorld in the summer instead of the spring and you get two hosts for the price of one (actually, it’s still free).

If you’ve never heard of SciWorld, it’s a time when the entire simming and online roleplaying community comes together for one day in online chat rooms for engaging discussions, interactive trivia games, and live chat role plays.  In short, we share ideas, information, and energy!  Bravo Fleet & Star Army are on point to plan, advertise, and execute the festival.  Indeed, it takes a lot of work to make SciWorld happen! Continue reading SciWorld ’18 is July 28th

Enter Your 2018 Squiddie Nominations Now!

The time is here!  Time for YOU to nominate the best from our community to win a 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 | 2017 Continue reading Enter Your 2018 Squiddie Nominations Now!

Outpost 42 News is Here! They Report & Decide for You!

This article was published at the request of Major Tom, the Editor-in-Chief of Outpost 42 News, a fledgling news website for the simming & online role playing community.

Outpost 42 News is dedicated to providing you with the fastest, latest, and most relevant news about the simming and online role playing community.  In fact, we’re the most trusted fair & balanced name in news!  We will never let you down! Continue reading Outpost 42 News is Here! They Report & Decide for You!

Spelling Tips: Part Deux

Nearly four years ago, I published an article titled Spelling tips – It’s your game they’re looking for.  The concept was simple: Since what we do is sometimes called creative writing, shouldn’t we show some competency with the writing part?  We also certainly don’t want to turn new players off with our own poor spelling or grammar, right?  That piece covered the proper use of its/it’s, your/you’re, and there/their/they’re.  Today we’re going to look at five more situations that are often confused. Continue reading Spelling Tips: Part Deux

Online Role Players & Pokémon Go: One Year Later

A little over one year ago, we interviewed 12 online role players about their experience with Pokémon Go.  The answers were… well, diverse!  A lot has happened with Pokémon Go since that February 2017 article: Gen 2 & 3 releases, legendary raids, EX passes, and more!  So why not revisit our interviewees and see where they are today?  We were able to catch up with six of them.

The mobile augmented reality game Pokémon Go was released jointly by Nintendo and Niantic in July 2016.  It reached an astounding 500 million downloads by the end of 2016, and increased to 750 million by its one year anniversary.  While not as popular as it was shortly after its launch, Pokémon Go maintains a loyal following of players. Continue reading Online Role Players & Pokémon Go: One Year Later

2017 Tournament of Simulations (ToS) Winners!

The results are in and we have some winners!  If you’ll recall, we asked for nominations back in December.  If you’re not familiar with ToS, the original competition was held back in 1999.  For this year’s ToS, each participating sim submitted 10 posts that were written sometime during 2017.  The posts were then evaluated by three judges in three different categories (Story, Characters, and Readability/Grammar) on a 1-10 scale.  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 our of the way, here are your 2017 tournament winners: Continue reading 2017 Tournament of Simulations (ToS) Winners!