Silent Hunter's view of 2012

This year has been a year of growth for Phoenix Roleplaying and for over half of it, I've been at the helm. Of course, not all of this was my own work, as our hard working members posted and recruited, those continuing to attract people to our site. We certainly have more members at the end of this year than at the beginning.

In the simming department, we've had some departures and arrivals. Sadly, we are no longer a Star Trek club, with our last sim there closing and we now only have one open Stargate sim. However, we have opened a number of sims in a variety of other worlds, including Baldur’s Gate and The Matrix, in addition to original sims such as AW75. Indeed, these new sims have helped in our promotion, with the site getting mentions on a big Wing Commander news site. The implementation of a Sim Strength Ranking system has helped our decision making a great deal, I would say.

Our social media is going very well – our Twitter account has over 30 followers and our blog has a wide audience, although I would like some wider contributions from other players to the latter. Our wiki frankly needs a bit more love as well.

In terms of my own personal RP, I’ve had a good year in the sims that I run, as well as those I play in. In particular, I’d like to extend warm praise to Robert Longtin, Kevin Diamond and Osprey, who have provided strong influence and ideas for my RPing, ranging from the difficult position of an Emirati princess faced with her country going to war to a mercenary who meets up with the hyper-active children’s TV presenter he once slept with. A couple of my sims have gone by the wayside (and I may well lose others), but I’m used to having games fail on me and I bat a better average here than elsewhere.

I’m pleased to say that everyone is getting on very well with each other and the only people I’ve had to ban were spammers who solely joined up for that purpose. Our policy debates have been interesting, but no-one has insulted anyone in them, always a good sign to see.

So, on to 2013. I’m planning to stand for a second term as General Coordinator, which will probably be my last in the role, as I plan to move on and let someone else take the reins – I can think of a number of highly capable candidates. My aim to get every sim with a banner is near to completion and hopefully will be fulfilled by May. I will continue to blog and tweet as well.

Most importantly, I’ll still be simming in past and present, Earth and beyond, in a superb community that is the best RPing organisation I’ve ever belonged to.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

 Originally published in Issue #4 of our newsletter 'The Burning Question'.