Happy New Year to all on behalf of myself and the rest of Gaming Staff. 2017 was an eventful year for Hotseating and we wish to start a new tradition of giving the community a brief newyear recap for the past year while giving a little insight into staffs plans for the year ahead; including short messages from Myself and Section Leads. Without further rambling we'll get right into it - SoulGamesInc


For those of you unaware I took the position of Gaming Director after Dux's retirement in November 2016 so the arrival of 2018 marks what has essentially been a 'new era' for the community as a whole. Since then we've seen many changes to games and even staff through innovation, introducing more new features in the last year than years prior with Gaming Staff taking an active role in modding all new settings designed to expand the community to the point that it's become practically expected for GS to learn basic coding skills. The birth of the Admin Faction and Events in whatever form has easily proven one of our most noteworthy changes from the status quo; providing admins with a hands-on role and players with a more interactive experience. Once improved, it'll hopefully make Admin's more appealing as we've always a need for more players to step up and help the community by learning to Admin rather than relying entirely on Gaming Staff. So, help if your able, you might find yourself in the new generation of staff. Admins are the backbone of our community.

If anyone is remotely interested in learning to Admin, contact any member of Gaming Staff for details.


There remains a great many improvements to be made and I am excited for the possibilities, from work on A World of Ice and Fire to multiple projects underway in Main and ThirdAge; providing a steady supply of new content. I started modding myself with a sub-mod of Dux's and even helped code for Westeros v1.0 before going on coin the term 'Newblood' and create the first series of Newblood games, using my channel to shine a spotlight on Hotseating. I aim to have a renewed focus on Newbloods moving forward. In 2018 it's my hope to see further expansion on the additions we've introduced over 2017. Westeros in particular will be benefiting from the work being done on A World of Ice and Fire and the multiple settings planned on improved maps of the North and Riverlands and More, with improvements to features and brand all new ones that should prove very interesting in the months to come.

Once the Westeros sections running smoothly with the bulk of new content it's my intention to assist Joerock in ThirdAge however I can. The TA section for those of you unaware was once one of if not the largest group of Hotseaters alongside Westeros, a history I'd see renewed with enough effort, given the massive fanbase out there for Lord of the Rings. We renewed Main and can do the same for TA.



Main and ThirdAge sections have their own projects that I'll let each Lead briefly explain below for themselves, that'll be all from myself. Happy New Year.

Quote Originally Posted by Dragon.
Main section happenings, events, mods and plans by me and by my staff members are the following. Hannibal started his first Roman RP hotseat based on a certain time period. He has plans and changes for the next version and he also has some other plans with rome history, but a possible last kingdom mod scenario might come up aswell later on, though no eta on that. Captainnorway started working on a westeros modification of the ASOIAF mod, but it is still in the beginning so it will be finished, when its done.

And lastly as of mine, I started up the first of the warhammer version of hotseats and so far everything goes well. I hope I will learn much from this first version to see where it might need improvements for the next versions, which I have plans for. I also have plans to start at one point making hotseating scenarios to the other successful warhammer submods, the Beginning of End Times. I already have a plan for that aswell, but for now I am focusing first with the current version I have. Other than this my other work is my patch to improve the third age hotseats and the first version of my patch is ready, which is already sent to be tested by Joerock and Chief. I will continue to work on this aswell to help in the possible resurrection of Third Age hotseating.

As for tournaments I haven't made any plans as I believe with the currently ongoing 2 interregnum game and the warhammer one offering rep, gaming medals is already enough giving away. We don't want to water the gaming medals down, so I am not planning for a tournament currently and for now will only wait how my section goes. In the future maybe a summer tournament could be organized, if the current ones are finished or close to be finished and of course if you, Soul agree on it.

This is all that is going on as current or future plans for main section.
Quote Originally Posted by Belthasar Bolton
Hey,

In the coming months the Westeros GS will be looking to continue to bring new mods and fresh content to section. Additionally, one of our foremost concerns moving forward is the competition of the 2016/2017 Westeros Tournament and plans will be revealed once everything is finalized. On a different note, moving forward an emphasis will be placed on encouraging more non-GS admins in games in order to reduce the reliance on GS. There will be rewards to earn for anyone willing to commit to admining games to completion and doing a good job through the process. It is important for our community that there are more than 3 or 4 admins shouldering the responsibility of the games in an entire section. Lastly, I want to remind everyone that anyone can host a game so long as they have a willing admin and can provide to me a list of confirmed players for each faction.

Please feel free to message me or any other member of Westeros GS with any questions or concerns about opening/admining a hotseat.

-Belt
Quote Originally Posted by joerock22
The Third Age hotseating community is a small but steady group. Two hotseats drew to an end this year, but two new hotseats were formed over the summer and both remain active with a good pace of play. Players of all skill levels are welcome, though the current players are mostly in the young to middle bloods range. A detailed Third Age Guide was also published over the summer, with sections of both a faction-specific and general nature. Gaming Staff will soon publish a patch which greatly expands the recruitment abilities of the players and should provide a new element to Third Age hotseating.

Gaming Staff hopes to initiate at least one new hotseat using this patch in the early part of 2018.

Regards,
Joe
Signed, Gaming Staff
SoulGamesInc - Director
Dragon. - Mains Lead
Joerock22 - ThirdAge Lead
Belthasar Bolton - Westeros Lead
Captainnorway - Staff
Hannibal2001 - Staff
BerryKnight - Staff
Blue1924 - Staff