While 2021 turned out to be the year of the anniversary, we haven’t run out of anniversaries quite yet. Indeed, our friends at Star Army celebrated a big one earlier in 2022. Depending on how you count it, they were founded in either June or November 2002. Regardless, it’s still an incredible 20 years!
That’s how it read on the shopping or merchandise or whatever they called it page on the Utopia Fleet website more than 20 years ago. As I recall, they sold at least four different Utopia Fleet-branded items:
Item
Price
Description
Pitch
100% Cotton T-Shirt
$14.99
“White T-Shirt with Fleet logo on the front and the URL of the Fleet homepage on the back.”
none
11 & 15-ounce Coffee Mugs
$12.50 / $13.99
“Dishwasher safe ceramic coffee mugs.”
“Whether it’s coffee, Earl Grey, or Romulan Ale, it’ll taste better in your very own UtopiaFleet mug!”
Mouse Pad
$12.99
“Standard-sized premium cloth covered mousepad”
“What better way to show your loyalty to the Fleet than by having the logo right under your mouse?”
I just wanted to take a quick moment to remind everyone that the SciWorld convention is just about eight hours away. For an up-to-date schedule and additional information please visit the website for the con and it’s Discord.
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:
It is indeed time for us to once again plan for the year… In part of that planning we need help getting ready for SciWorld. This is an annual event where role players and simmers can meet up with others in the community, mingle with each other, learn something new or just have fun. In getting ready we need to select a host and chair for SciWorld. The chair is an individual from the host organization who serves as the point person to coordinate the schedule, advertising, and logistics. More specifically, the host and chair will work with us here in the SimmingHub Organizing Committee to:
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…
When we bid 2020 farewell one year ago, we hoped for better things in 2021. Unfortunately, I’m not sure it played out that way. Moreover, due to the ongoing pandemic, we’re going to have to put off our plans for an IRL Simming Get Together indefinitely. Should conditions change to allow us to hold the event, we will provide advance notice here.
But 2021 wasn’t all bad. There actually was quite a bit to celebrate. In fact, you could say that 2021 was the year of anniversary celebrations as four clubs marked significant milestones:
2021 has been the year for anniversaries. However, there’s another that happened this past summer: Obsidian Fleet marked their 20th on July 25th. One of the first fleets to initiate recurring Discord celebrations, they held their 5th annual Obsidian Day on July 24th, which included simming and a lot of prizes!
Obsidian Fleet was founded back in 2001 after a split from another group. Two things about that event are striking to me. One, they didn’t just create a carbon copy of their mother group. They went on to develop a unique culture that evolved over time while still staying true to their founding principles of creative and character freedom. Second, while many splits in simming often lead to resentment, and sometimes all out conflict, Obsidian Fleet almost immediately made peace and even began working on common goals with the club from which they emerged–this was unheard of in the early 2000s. Perhaps this is why the club has endured, more than 20 years later.
Please remember that today; the 13th of November at 10:30 AM Eastern (less than an hour from now) is FallFest. Come join some of your fellow simmers/role players to take part in one of simmings premier conventions. We have games, talks and role playing planned so please join us today whenever you can. The event lasts until 4:30 PM Eastern. You can find out more information on the FallFest website at https://fallfestonline.com/. Link to the Discord and schedule are located on this site. Thank you to Fifth Fleet for hosting today’s event and Nixon for charring the event.
OngoingWorlds is a website where you can work together to create interesting stories, and roleplay as any interesting characters. Either join a game or create your own.
