<mysteryjones>Do you usually have an innocuous main storyline (eg. NRU university) with
a hidden back story?
<imbri> well, every time we've planned one, we've had a main theme or story
to tell and then we develop a couple possible side plots and then see which ones
the players latch onto
<mysteryjones> interesting. So you actually don't plan the story arc - you've
got multiple options?
<ScrappyDoo> "cover story" may be pushing it. Multiple interlocking story lines,
yes.
<imbri> no, we plan a main story arc, and we have definite points that we have
to hit (a has to happen and then b has to happen), and that develops and sets
the tone for the main story, and for the "main storyline" (or 2 of them, we've
used 2 or 3 'main story lines'). the general path is known and worked out, but
we make them as inviting as possible for subplots
<mysteryjones> If the players latch on to a particular 'side story' - does
that drive the main story?
<imbri> it hasn't changed the main story, but it has changed aspects of what's
happened, for lockjaw, our two main stories intersected with a character (Bruce/Vad)
he was supposed to recieve more influence from another character that the players
hated, so we shifted that influence, but he still recieved that influence. just
the way that he got it was changed. does that make sense?
<rose> so the players reactions to the characters influence what happens?
<imbri> yes, but it doesn't change the main story line. For MU, I started working
out the story in a software program, but didn't finish with it for various reason,
for my next project, if i ever do another one, i'll utilize it more because it
really helps to keep key points straight. serves as a reminder of what you need
your characters to achieve
<danman_d> imbri: what kind of software? specific story software, or excel
or something?
<imbri> a storyline builder, there are a coupld different ones out there, and
andy has also built a program just for ARG development that we're beginning to
mess with that also does that. but the narrative is important and in order for
the story to be complete and make sense (which is hard when it's nonlinear and
we're all so used to linear storytelling). so you should really work out the key
events and stick to them otherwise, in our experience, you tend to tell incomplete
stories or lose track of characters we lost a few in LJ that way, we didn't have
it mapped out and once we were live we lost it. After LJ I was going over things
that Sean Stewart said in order to avoid that in the future and the "key points"
thing really lept out at me.
<dmax> i'm always impressed by the amount of depth of knowledge in things
like mythology, which seems to be a recurrent theme - and i wonder if that's
an innate interest of the person(s) making the game, or is it "pick a topic
and research it to the finest detail and apply that to the game"? As Martin
Mull once asked: which is first, words, or lyrics?
<imbri> dmax, i think it's both. i also think mythology is pretty 'easy'
to adapt to and work with, but i know that I've always been interested in greek
& roman mythology, clay is an endless well of little bits of things. but
we've all researched possible symbols to use and then researched them and researched
them some more
<cabal> i would agree with imbri - i always use topics I am familiar but
if I need to include other topics I do research them intensely
<colin> How long does development take, from the time you decide to
go with an idea to running the game?
<imbri> well, LJ dev was 9 months from the time we came together until we
went live. for MU, we started in mid August and were live Oct 1. I know the
beast started dev in late december/early Jan and were live in march. If you
are really dedicated, you can pull it off in a couple months. but it takes a
TON of dedication you have a lot to do... work out the story, develop characters,
figure out domain names, secure hosting, come up with puzzles, figure out your
budget and where you want the money to go. build the sites.
<mysteryjones> What's an estimate for budgeting?
<imbri> that depends on a lot of factors... hosting costs (going with free
servers, shared or dedicated hosting) but you can get domain names for $15,
so if you figure you need 10 sites, that's $150
<mysteryjones> I suppose it fluctuates - volunteer efforts or not, etc. -
but have there been any costs that you didn't foresee?
<imbri> going over bandwidth was a big concern, both times around, but other
than that, not really
<cabal> Mystery another fact is also whether or not you will use real phone
numbers, how many, 800 #s
<danman_d> 1and1 does domains for like 7 bucks, and k7.net gives out free
voicemail boxes in the 206 area ccode
<ScrappyDoo> timeline oopses that prolong the game leading to longer hosting
needs and more charges - that's not fun
<imbri> you can get domains as low as $4.95 some places (i think that's the
cheapest i've seen) you can also get them for free if you sign up for shared
hosting accounts, so if you're going to go with shared hosting, you can figure
out the best plans and often throw a domain on them to save you a few dollars
<mysteryjones> A bit off-topic, but obviously ARGs take advantage of
the great effect paranoia can have for dramatic tension. Has anyone tried a
story that didn't seem to be threatening someone? Did this work out? (I'm imagining
the romantic-comedies of ARGs right now)
<imbri> i don't know of one that's gone live, i know of one in development
that isn't using paranoia. paranoia provides a great reason for people to hide
or conceal information, which provides for puzzles :)
<imbri> oh, what about the greatamericanstory, or novel? I didn't subscribe
to it, so i'm not sure of the storyline: http://www.greatamericannovel.com/
<aiesha> mystery - might make it more difficult to justify the puzzle element
with such a plot?
<colin> Puzzles: How do work them all in? How do you find spots to put
them? and if I can make this question longer, what do you do if people can't
solve them, do you have extra clues ready?
<imbri> well, puzzles have always been a sort of after thought. we've
always had a puzzle dump and work on puzzle ideas, but we try to keep them general
and know what sort of information that they could contain. then when we know
we have a possibile use for a puzzle, we create it (some have been created 2
minutes before they've gone live...not recommended!). but we always try to work
reasons for puzzles into the story. a paranoid character is a great way, but
it's easy and, perhaps, why it's so used
<cabal> Puzzles are an interesting dilemma - too many and they seem artificial
or forced and too few and players complain they need more; they are also hard
to judge in terms of how fast they will be solved. sometimes a puzzle you think
will stump people is solved in minutes and other times one you think is easy
one will drag on for days. its always good to have alternative hints and avenues
lined up
<mysteryjones> What about the paranoia that sometimes translates to the
player? I'm thinking recently of having CDs mailed to your home addresses. Is
that an inherent quality of ARGs (not that I disagree)?
<imbri> that is so true! i don't think that's an inherent quality. i
don't think that we've ever done anything to specifically create it. though,
they've created it on their own a bit. which, brings up something that I think
is important and is sometimes hard to remember when you're live... let the players
work through the story, don't spell it all out. i read a good article on the
10 mistakes that writers often make and that was on there, so it's not something
just with ARGs
<mysteryjones> Do you recruit other writers to play specific characters
or does the PM voice them all? Is it pre-scripted for them (within narrative
limits) or is it more improvisational style (define character motives and let
the characters drive the story)?
<imbri> it's been done different ways. we've never recruited other writers
and we've always matched PMs with characters. CTW was very successful with recruiting
players to do voicing BTS
<cabal> its been a mixture for me mystery - my first two games I did all
the characters myself, in CTW I recruited people to play certain roles but allowed
them to script responses based on guidelines and plot I provided. My thought
in doing this was to allow the these people playing single characters to still
enjoy as much of the game as possible
<colin> How many people 'finish' an ARG, I know Mu logged 120,000 IPs,
but how many players do you think were still around at the end? 10% 50% 90%??
<imbri> oh, we were still gettin a ton of players at the end, i don't
have the figures
<colin> do you know for any other ARGs?
<imbri> with lockjaw, we lost about 1/4-1/3, but we also gained,> there are
different types of players, there are those that lurk and those that are vocal,
those that check in once a week, those that check 10 times a day
<mysteryjones> I'm very impressed with the gender balance among the
dedicated Unfiction crew - do you find this to be representative of the larger
ARG community? Or is it skewed towards a gender?
<imbri> i think that it's representative, and I don't have any figures,
but if we'd call "onlinecaroline" an arg, I'd say that she had an audience that
was almost all female
<rose> I have heard of other games that collapsed or failed (i think
pale figure was alluding to this in the post) why does this happen?
<imbri> oh, a number of them have failed or are progressing so slowly
that I don't hold out much hope, i was working on a commercial project that
failed because the funding was dropped. In PF's case, it was about inactivity
on the boards, people didn't know how they fit in and just stopped offering
their thoughts on things that needed to be decided, posting dropped dramatically
and then slowed to nothing. and when someone would post and noone would reply,
they'd be discouraged from posting more in the future
<imbri> The project that I was working on was actually a "traditional" game,
to be marketed on cd but it had a large online aspect, a sort of ongoing ARG
that would both have it's own story and provided clues and help to the game
on cd it was incredible and we still have some hope that our work was not all
in for naught.
<cabal> i have been working ona couple of potential commercial projects that
have also folded for financial reasons
<aiesha> imbri - has there been a 'leader' in the team args you've developed
or was a cooperative possible?
<imbri> we've been as cooperative as possible, but those that are most
active wind up in 'leadership' positions just because they know the project
inside and out and what's happening when and how
<rose> what do you do when player interest starts to lag? is that something
you can anticipate?
<imbri> you try to figure out why it was lagging (story? pacing? puzzles?)
and attempt to repair the problem and recover any damage and losses by working
with what they like. if that's shifting the story focus for a few updates or
changing the puzzles around
<cabal> yes i find it really important to monitor the forums and players
emails etc to see what they like, dislike, want more of etc. I dont believe
in using the boards in-game, but they are crucial for getting player feedback
<imbri> i'm of the same thought
<Diandra> what about monitoring player chat rooms?
<colin> you both say getting feedback during the game is important, have
you ever been in a position where you couldn't get feedback?
<cabal> you have to be prepared to read negative or critical ideas though,
and use them constructively and not take it personally
<imbri> well, i've been the "pm spy" twice now, and so I'm a bit biased in
that i'm for it, i find that you get a different feel in the chat than you do
on the board
<rose> so it is valuable to post spec?
<imbri> oh, spec posts are very important
<danman_d> as a player, i will say that the one thing players really like
are updates. so, imho, keeping things updated is first priority, and listening
to opinion about actual plotline is second.
<imbri> well, yes, the game play comes first, but you can use what you
know from the boards in enhancing the game play, but updates are essential,
not something that you can avoid for long with much success. pacing is also
very important, and that goes along with the updates. You can get a good feel
for you pacing by monitoring the boards
<rose> the thing that has surprised me the most is the emotional reaction/attachment
I have to the characters. How do you work with the emotional responses in the
story?
<imbri> we kill characters the players like :) we killed Moot and we
'killed' dina. In Lockjaw, we knew that we had to have a couple of the hackers
killed and we had no idea who, until the players LOVED moot. that sealed his
fate, and we made it more heartwrenching by killing him with a hacker character
that was his opposite, so his last moments were not well spent
<cabal> I always try and anticipate the players reaction to characters but
like Imbri said that is sometimes that is hard to do too. I actually rewrote
parts of CTW based on player reaction, to some extent that is
<colin> How do you keep confidentiality? Have non-disclosure agreements,
or just work with people you trust?
<imbri> just work with people you trust, but we had 'issues' in Lockjaw
where one of the guys on the PM team not only tried to recruit PMs off of our
team for his game but once he quit he attempted to ruin the story for the players
when the game went live. fortunately we were able to stop that before it got
really out of hand
<mysteryjones> How have you dealt with interference from out-of-game characters
posing as in-game?
<imbri> it really depends on the situation, in LJ we had a player create
a character and we wound up writing him into the story. In MU, we had a person
create a site and make it seem in game and we didn't like that, so we proved
that it wasn't in game by giving all true in game sites a distinct marker (they
all linked to an image hosted on a specific and known in game domain)
<cabal> btw this could become even more of an issue - there has been discussion
on certain forums on the fringes of the arg world about "hijacking" someone
else's arg in an attempt to change it completely or even ruin it
<imbri> gotta love em :) the somethingawful crowd was doing that with mu.
jerks :/
<mysteryjones> How do you feel about tying your project to another larger
one? Did you get any response from the Wachowski bros.?
<imbri> we didn't get any response from them
<imbri> i don't know if I'd do it again
<colin> Did a wide cross-section of people in Mu make it hard to manage?
<imbri> in some respects, yes. because there were so many different player
venues and they were often at different places, and to hint to someone ages
behind on something that UF had found would have sent UF into a frenzy wondering
why something changed
<mysteryjones> This is one of the biggest questions I've got, have you
ever considered a possible ARG that would progress in stages according to the
individual user? - I ask because there is the issue of late-joiners who see
websites that are well underway with the story.
<imbri> i've thought about it
<mysteryjones> I suppose it would ruin the collaboration?
<imbri> but my attempt to work with that is to not change the "integrity"
of the sites, so that new users can come in and catch themselves up without
having to use player resources to find out the updates. if a site completely
changes or just goes away, it's harder for the new players to understand the
history of the site
<mysteryjones> Exactly - I tried to get involved with CTW but found it a
difficult path of dead ends at the beginning...
<cabal> i missed part of this due to getting booted out but it also destroys
any illusion that a game is really happening if different players are at different
points experiencing different things. i had an idea to have a character in the
game act as a "chronicler" of the game, playing the part of an investigator
or something - archive all the sites puzzles etc a day or two after they really
happened so that everything from the beginning would be constantly available
throughout the game, but it turned out to be an overwhelming amount of add'l
work
<mysteryjones> good point - do you think anyone participates in these
games without consulting others on forums?
<imbri> yes
<colin> do they keep up?
<imbri> i know that DO attempted to go through the beast on his own and he
did a pretty decent job of it. We had a lot of people in MU that were finding
things later on or, even right away, and weren't associated with any of the
"big boards" so they didn't know what all was happening
<cabal> yes definitely CTW had many many players who never ever posted on
or checked the boards
<colin> how do you track the players so well?
<imbri> well, the site logs will tell you where people are coming in,
that's how we found a lot of boards, google also works pretty well, and you
just add them to your bookmarks and skim through them on occasion to find out
where they are. individual players are a different story, but you could track
with cookies and such
<mysteryjones> Do you find that it's possible, given the unpredictability
of cookies?
<imbri> i don't know, but if you were interested in monitoring them, you
could find a way
<colin> how many hours a day does it take to run, once your live?
<imbri> too many :)
<cabal> and i generally finds it takes about 26 hours a day once a game is
live :)
<imbri> that seems about right :)
<aiesha> most time comsuming thing?
<imbri> and it varies, update days are much more hectic (at least if
you operate on a last minute schedule like we do)
<the42guy> ok, so I've failed once at starting an ARG. How do you manage
to make sure your game runs the full time? (keeping in mind - games that finish
halfway through....)
<imbri> Well, you do it. If you commit to something, you follow through
with it. I was talking to krystyn about this the other day, we think that we're
wired in such a way that not doing it or not finishing it was never an option.
it takes over your life and you have to be prepared for that, but we were each
putting in 40-60 hour weeks during LJ.
<cabal> honestly, once a game launches i literally spend almost every waking
moment working on or thinking about the game and like imbri said, quitting for
me was never really an option
<imbri> we smartened up in ways during MU and that number dropped, but it's
always there and always over your head
<cabal> one of my main time consumers in CTW was trying to personalize e-mail
responses, instead of relying on autoresponders etc. i wanted it to feel like
the charcaters were actually getting to know you
<colin> why do you need to spend that much time on it when its live?
<imbri> well, there's writing the content, developing the puzzles, researching
situations and possibilities, adding pages to the sites, working on the graphics,
etc
<colin> ok, so mainly that the content was still being created
<imbri> yes, we were still creating the content...
<Magesteff> Do you think it is possible to creat the pages ahead of time,
at least a majority of the content for the web sites, and tweaking them once
the game goes live?
<mysteryjones> is it foolish to create the content beforehand?
<imbri> ...because no matter how much you want to be able to have it all
done in development, you really can't if you want the experience to be fluid
and responsive to the players, we created some content beforehand, but when
you suddenly realize that subplotX is hugely popular, you start redesigning
things to enhance that
<cabal> for me thats always the goal but i never quite get there, the urge
to launch overpowers the desire to wait until everything is done, and i also
agree its important to be flexible and responsive to players and events
<colin> do you set a launch date first, or start development at set a
date down the track?
<imbri> we knew for mu that we were going to launch october 1st, i think
we figured that out the day after we decided to go for it. for LJ, we were going
to launch in october, then it was november, then it was december, then it was
feb 1
<bagsbee> I joined the chat late so trout freely if I ask anything that's
been answered... I'd like to get involved in the creation of an ARG, but my
schedule most likely wouldn't allow me to be a PM. How does one become a BTS
person? For that matter, what are typical things that BTS people do?
<imbri> we've never utilized BTS people, so I can't answer. Cabal?
<cabal> in CTW i let BTS people do a variety of things from creating items,
to answering e-mails, to creating entire sites based on content/guidelines I
provided, part of my thinking was to allow people who couldnt commit tons of
time to participate.
<bagsbee> who were these people? players? friends?
<cabal> people i recruited during CTW registration and people i knew from
earlier args, but i also wanted to have a team of BTS/PM people who didn't know
each other and who could still play and enjoy the game as players. each one
controlled their character but didnt know the overall BTS picture or other characters
BTS stuff in real life they wouldnt know this stuff either, so in some cases
it allowed for more realistic responses
<mysteryjones> Did you find that worked well?
<colin> did *you* find it a lot of work?
<cabal> i thought it worked fairly well but it was a major commitment of
time and effort from me as the central PM, to keep everything coordinated yet
isolated, i probably wouldnt do it quite the same way again.
<vpisteve> hey, i want to mention something personally. having bts players
or not are just two different approaches/philosophies. I don't think one is
necessarily better than the other, but they definitely present their own unique
set of challenges and meta issues. :)
<colin> as a PM do you create systems to handle what's happening, or your
just so involved that you know what needs to be done and remember everything?
<colin> have you ever forgotten anything and had to cover your tracks?
<imbri> we just tried to be as organized as possible, i can't think of any
major incident, a few things have had to be postponed to the next update, or
go up late
<cabal> actually sometimes the players create these great little guides which
can save your ass when you forget certain details along the way; even though
i script everything out its easy to get confused because you are dealing with
so many different timelines and plots
<imbri> oh, heck, i can't count how often i refered to steve & space's
guide & trail during lockjaw, and brienigma's site during mu was instrumental
on several occasions, esp when it came to voicing some of the 'urchins'
<Diandra> cabal, what would you change about using BTS people?
<cabal> as far as the BTS people, I think I would provide them with more
detailed and long term guides and scripts, eliminating the need for constant
contact, but i would still allow people who cant devote tons of time to participate
as they can, there's so much talent out there in such diverse areas, why not
let the video producers help as they can and the perl scripters etc?
<bagsbee> along the lines of what someone said before about the PMs creating
a "guide" for new players, why not just have one of the players do it? for
example, suppose imbri that you had asked BrianEnigma to help writing a guide
for MU
<imbri> oh, we've tried that on a couple occasions, one of the difficulties
in that is that what player knows everything as intimately the players, in our
case, that would've torn the curtain
<bagsbee> so he could be a BTS and not have to know anything esle about the
story
<imbri> oh, you mean having the player write one for you... what steve said
:)
<vpisteve> having a player write it is best, imo (speaking from both sides
of the curtain)......
<bagsbee> well I figured since people are writing guides anyway, recruit
one of them to help you guys
<vpisteve> depends on how strong of a curtain you want, meta-wise, i suppose
<bagsbee> just an idea
<bagsbee> yeah but the curtain would only be torn for that one person
<vpisteve> yeah, true
<imbri> one of the difficulties in that is a) the curtain issue and b) what
if the person you recruit looks at the game in day 1 and says "this sucks!"
<bagsbee> and to tell you the truth if I was writing a guide and the PMs
asked for my help, I'd be thrilled :)
<cabal> if the game is interesting and involving enough, normally players
are excited about creating trails and guides
<vpisteve> then there's the question of how players would react at endgame
when they found out one of their fellow players was 'in on it' to a certain
extent.
<vpisteve> they probably wouldn't care, but you never know. people can get
funny about that kind of thing
<bagsbee> was there any of that after CTW, since you had BTS people who were
also playing?
<cabal> i honestly dont believe thats a problem if a couple of things are
considered -
<cabal> first, if there's no prize or winner, it doesnt really matter if
BTS people also play as long as they dont shill the game or solve their own
puzzles etc
<cabal> secondly, there will always be people who complain about the way
any game is run - ive seen it in every game from Majestic to Metacortechs, you
cant please everybody. in CTW, the BTS didnt know anything about the puzzles
etc and so couldnt change anything or look like heroes by solving things
<Diandra> i hated being suspected of knowing the answer to a puzzle i solved
for CTW. i had nothing to do with the puzzle creation. But everyone knew i was
Tracie
<imbri> I just can't forget all the hell that the CM mods caught when it
was discovered that they had been contacted by the PMs
<bagsbee> but were BTS-as-players in contact with other players during CTW,
and if so, was there any weirdness after?
<imbri> so, i think that if there are BTS people, that should be known, i
think
<Magesteff> Bagsbee, Sunny was a bts for CTW, I had no problem with it
<mysteryjones> Another off-topic moment, but still around ARGs: Do you
ever fall prey to the 'bystander syndrome'? Where people think someone else
will do it, so they all stand around doing nothing?
<ScrappyDoo> YES!
<mysteryjones> I'm thinking specifically about a deadlock in story progression,
<vpisteve> oh, when the game is live, mysteryjones?
<mysteryjones> Yeah - I just wonder (grumpyboy excluded) if there's ever
a feeling that 'someone else will solve it'.
<imbri> mj: that happens quite a bit in development, and it does happen during
game play, i know i'm guilty of waiting for someone else to solve a puzzle
<vpisteve> oh, from a player perspective then
<rose> i think most people try to solve the puzzles
<imbri> in LJ we had an even larger breach than just the server issue
<imbri>
which, perhaps, made it not seem as drastic to me, but we had two different
players get into various dev areas. one of them knew EVERYTHING! saved every
message that we had ever written and downloaded all of our files, he knew the
entire game and could have blown us out of the water. we kicked him out of the
group, patched the hole, and moved on... all within a few hours
<vpisteve> but $20 took care of him
<vpisteve> :P
<imbri> by the next day it was done, the server, the same thing. but it definitely
hurt the 'new guys' more than it hurt the LJ part of the team
<aiesha> are there any essential skill sets that you feel need to be covered
in the PM or PM + BTS team?
<vpisteve> SECURITY
<vpisteve> :)
<imbri> well, skill sets: perserverence. but you also need to be able to
write and take criticism. when we started LJ, we only had 2 people with any
web skills. I don't know if I'd go that route again, but it worked for us, so
I'd add some web skills to the list
<vpisteve> there are technical skills, organizational skills, creative skills
and people skills
<MosServ> You have to know about security, but at the same time be able to
make an entire Universe where absolutely no one has any concept of the idea.
<vpisteve> heh, good point, mos
<cabal> proofreading is an essential skill; you need to have someone esle
review your stuff; that's one of my biggest common failings. getting stuff done
in advance certainly helps with this
<vpisteve> yeah, we'd post dev versions of something, and we'd all assume
someone had proofread it at some point
<vpisteve> then if it goes live, everyone thinks the typos are CLUES!
<imbri> seriously, I'd suggest that people take the time to look over what
people post and, if necessary, edit it and always post a little "hey" to it,
there's nothing more discouraging in development to write out a bunch of ideas
and get no response to it. I think that's where a number of teams begin to fail
<vpisteve> imbri, agreed
<cabal> i had a puzzle in CTW that had an error in it that a BTS person alerted
me to after it went live and I had to quickly write a "second step" to the puzzle
to cover it up and explain it
<mysteryjones> interesting - did you find it best to schedule regular
meetings (even in chat) or did you always go the bulletin board route?
<vpisteve> we had regular meetings, but it seemed the most progress was
always made outside of them. in our case, a lot of our team couldn't reliably
get into irc. then there were the weekend PM parties in Vegas...er, um.
<mysteryjones> It seems that most help has been recruited through the
ARG community - do you find it's the most dedicated, or have you considered
recruiting people close by?
<vpisteve> i think the benefit of those in the ARG community is that
they know the genre
<imbri> I've considered it, but most of my friends think I'm insane
<vpisteve> ditto to imbri, lol
<mysteryjones> Yeah - I hear that. My 'pitch' begins with "Now some stranger
calls your house and threatens you". Doesn't sell very well.
<imbri> heh, it really doesn't, they stare, blankly
<vpisteve> even the Beast pm's had trouble with their 'hired help', they
didn't get the concept and kept putting their own personal inside joke 'clues'
in their html, like 'beef sandwich' or something
<MosServ> pepperoni
<vpisteve> yeah
<vpisteve> elan and team were like 'no, you gotta stop doing that'
<vpisteve> OT: for any future games, hope that another virus like doom
isn't released. as we're sitting here, metacortechs continues to get oh, about
20 infected emails per hour, that would've sucked during live
<mysteryjones> Really?!? I'm still trying to find my friend who's infected!
I get about four a day!
<vpisteve> so i still say that's your #1 requirement. make sure all your
server security is airtight, or else something could easily bring the whole
game down
<Addlepated> As a PM, what do you get out of running a game; what makes
you keep coming back to do it again? One of those hobbies that seems insane
but the participants enjoy, like jumping out of a perfectly good airplane?
<vpisteve> well, i've heard pm-ing compared to crack, but i wouldn't
know
<imbri> AP: it's a huge boost to your ego
<Addlepated> how so, imbri?
<MosServ> I kinda-sorta PM'ed a game, and yes, it is indeed like crack.
<vpisteve> i do know there's a huge letdown afterward though. am i right
guys?
<imbri> you go to the boards and you see people enjoying something that you
created
<Addlepated> watching people enjoy something you create?
<imbri> it's just an amazing feeling
<imbri> heh
<MosServ> No, the fun is watching people struggle with stuff you create.
<imbri> no, the struggle hurts a bit
<MosServ> Maybe for you.
<imbri> the enjoyment is what just rocks
<MosServ> Pain, pain..
<MosServ> yesss
<vpisteve> for me, the most fun was watching people stumble onto things and
try to figure out what was going on
<imbri> when you see a thread titled "you know you're a metagamer if"
<cabal> that is really hard to put into words addie but for me it is several
things and one of them is indeed an ego boost but like you said, watching people
enjoy your creation
<vpisteve> getting the first few phone calls. that was great
<imbri> and you just get a huge smile
<imbri> heh! the one where the girl forget to hang up
<vpisteve> i think that's it imbri
<imbri> "see, you go to this site
<imbri> and then, well there's these people"
<vpisteve> for me, it's a huge creative outlet, with a true worldwide audience.
interactive theatre
<imbri> "no, click there"
<imbri> "isn't that cool"
<cabal> to me its an art form and its like im driven to tell this story using
this new media we are all pioneering
<vpisteve> yeah, those calls were great
<imbri> hahaha i loved her :)
<imbri> and cabal comes out with the good answer :)
<Addlepated> and is the hope that if there are enough grassroots efforts
to create memorable and complete games, eventually Corporate will pick up on
it? Or do y'all think this will be a perpetual grassroots thing?
<imbri> I do not think that it will be forever grassroots
<mysteryjones> Nothing is grassroots forever - coolhunters find it eventually...
<MosServ> I think the failed Majestic thing pretty much dooms it for the
time being. Maybe in a few more years.
<SunnyOne> I figure that it will be very big
<imbri> I do not know how it will be implimented in a 'corporate way'
<Addlepated> i.e. if Microsoft announced they'd start 4 new games a year,
do you think you would still run your own games?
<vpisteve> right now, ARGs attract the 'early adapters' which isn't a real
great market
<imbri> but I don't think that this is it
<Magesteff> Moss but maybe that doom is good for it, gives it time to develope
with out the commercial pressure
<imbri> I think that there are a number of possibilities to use ARGs in "serious
gaming"
<mysteryjones> Every speaker I've heard recently says the same thing: "Be
the second person to pioneer something"
<MosServ> I think there are a few obstacles.
<vpisteve> personally, i think the only 'viable' way to do these from a 'business'
standpoint (besides grassroots labors of love) is using promotional dollars
for films/tv, etc.
<imbri> and I have a couple plans drawn out for several commercial possibilities
<imbri> steve, I completely disagree
* vpisteve kicks imbri
<imbri> unless you mean in a form like the games we're playing
<imbri> but i think the true market is in serious games
<imbri> and that's where the money will come
<MosServ> But that eliminates the fun of playing together at the same time
with others.
<vpisteve> i meant the classic arg like now
<MosServ> Simultaneously, playing with too many people sucks a lot of the
fun out even when it's a fantastic ARG like The Beast. Someone always solves
it first.
<mysteryjones> The biggest promotional outlet I've seen is that ARGers are
the 'stickiest' viewers ever to a site - I've never seen anyone pour (pore?)
over a site so thoroughly.
<vpisteve> see, if a game is promotional, then it's 'free' to play
<MosServ> A group of volunteers could probably run an ARG profitably right
now, but when you go corporate you have to pay salaries and such.
<aiesha> education market might offer commercial opportunities. lots of people
comment on how much they've learnt as a result of an ARG
<mysteryjones> I think that's a great point of discussion - how do you
deal with puzzles that are solved so damn quickly - make them harder or individualize
them (I personally don't like either). What a minute - did I answer my own question?
<MosServ> But incredibly difficult puzzles just frustrate players. Indiviudalizing
puzzles takes away the fun of working with a group.
<MosServ> Necessarily, an ARG can only be played with a somewhat small group
or people get crowded out.
<Addlepated> MJ I imagine that there are several puzzles that surprise the
PMs, either by being solved much faster or slower than expected
<MosServ> I hate to contiously talk about LJ, because I do, but that had
just the right number of people. Everyone had a chance to solve a puzzle.
<Addlepated> how many JBs were there?
<vpisteve> what we did in mu is we tried to keep the puzzles challenging
but not too hard. we were surprised both by what was solved quickly and what
was totally missed...... if a crucial puzzle wasn't solved by ANYONE ANYWHERE,
then we'd consider nudging it somehow, if it was crucial to progressing the
story
<Addlepated> so it seems like PMing is a lot like producing a play - some
would call it insanity, some would call it nirvana
<MosServ> A play months long with daily intervention required.
<vpisteve> it's more like interactive dinner theatre that follows the audience
home
<mysteryjones> that's the best pitch I've heard yet.
<vpisteve> because quite literally, we were working 24/7 in the heat of it,
my other work really suffered, heh
<MosServ> It's more like a severe drug addiction.
<vpisteve> and the biggest challenge for me was just trying to stay ahead
of the curve develpment-wise
<vpisteve> yeah, imagine yourself playing a part in the dinner theatre, and
you get to follow somebody around for a few weeks in character
<vpisteve> we'd have update day, then maybe 8 hours before we needed to start
working on the next update
<Addlepated> what do you do about deadbeats on your team?
<ScrappyDoo> kick em in the ass
<vpisteve> hmm, we were fortunate. no deadbeats. some miscommunicated assignments,
but no slackers
<MosServ> How did you handle money? Who paid for what?
<vpisteve> heh, good question, we sort of paid for our own portions of
things...... whatever site we were dev'ing, etc. but when big things came up,
we'd all contribute, hosting, phone calls, etc.
<Addlepated> what's the biggest expense, and what took you by surprise
either by costing more or less than you anticipaated?
<vpisteve> i was surprised by how cheaply a lot of things could be done
if you looked hard enough....i'd say our biggest expense was hosting, tho, but
even then, it was a good deal
<MosServ> What was the total cost?
<vpisteve> total total?? i don't know.
<vpisteve> low to mid thousands? ballpark?
<MosServ> Ballpark, yeah.
<vpisteve> definitely better than the million dollar budgets of the published
games. but we didn't pay ourselves salary. mid-thousands like $5000, i have
a feeling if we added it up, it'd be more than we thought, lol
<Addlepated> did everyone contribute, or is it ok with you to have PMs who
can't contribute financially but are able to put in a lot of work
<vpisteve> Addlepated, in our case, folks contributed as they could. some
less, some more.
<MosServ> How much did you pay for hosting?
<vpisteve> i'm trying to remember. server beach basic service or something....
<Addlepated> Steve, your PM team seems pretty concrete, would you consider
working on side projects or are you happy with knowing how you will work as
a team?
<vpisteve> Addlepated: we are a good team, but we have done and continue
to do stuff 'outside'
<Addlepated> y'all brought in a couple of new people for MU, didn't you?
<vpisteve> Addlepated: i was one of the 'new' people, heh
<Addlepated> oh, I thought you were a LJ guy too =)
<vpisteve> i was LJ as a player/moderator
<cabal> steve was part of CTW too addie
<vpisteve> they saw i was crazy
<vpisteve> yes, i had great fun doing bts for ctw
<Addlepated> so how do you find PMs, play duck duck goose? :D
<Diandra> we have parties in Vegas and whoever shows up gets to help
<cabal> look for unstable yet brilliantly creative people prone to OCD and
you are in
<vpisteve> in my case, the Karetao guys asked me if I'd be interested in
doing a game from the other side of the curtain
<cabal> insomnia helps too
<vpisteve> i do know in the past, grassroots teams have developed, from player
boards. just a bunch of folks who wanted to do an ARG get together and do it
<Addlepated> I was reading about the Acheron PM application in the pre-game,
with the 'serious inquiries only' puzzle to people who put bogus info in
<cabal> yes just post your intention or desire to get involved and others
will get in touch with you as opportunity and need arises
<imbri> just saying "hey, i'm interested in working on a game, who's with
me?"
<mysteryjones> what do you folks think about NashCarey's response from
45 people? Do you think that there's that many people comitted to being BTS?
<bagsbee> do you get a lot of emails once the game's over saying, "I
want to be a PM with you guys on the next one!!!"
<imbri> "hey! next game! whatabout me?"
<imbri> karetao also got a slew of email resumes when it was discovered that
karetao might be behind mu
<imbri> you know, I honestly believe that the only skill you really have
to have is perservence, the main reason that I say what I do is that LJ started
with 100 people, all posting all these great skills they had (writing, coding,
server admin, etc etc etc). Of those 100 people, 6 finished the game, and none
of us had technical experience, wolf is a technical writer, k had worked in
a dotcom and knew html, monk was in a graphics arts program. other than that,
we had nothing (oh, and Andy was a programmer). what it took was us coming together
as a team and sticking with it
<MosServ> Wait, that's four! Of six!
<imbri> if you really want to get it done, you'll get it done, i learned
html and a touch of asp, found out how to order a domain name and get hosting
<imbri> mos (me- um, nada. clay- nada)
<Addlepated> but imbri, would you be as quick now to bring in someone
who doesn't have any experience in html/graphics/etc?
<imbri> yes, if they had the willingness to stick with it and learn as
they went. if they had good ideas, I'd consider it
<Addlepated> which brings up another question, how many PMs is too many and
how many is not enough?
<imbri> i really like the 7-9 number, it's worked well for us, we have 2-4
that are pretty active at all times, and another few that are always willing
to jump in as needed?
<Addlepated> how do you stay in contact?
<imbri> irc, email, im, and a dev. board
<vpisteve> we stayed in contact mainly in IRC and in a private bat cave
<imbri> one team that I was sitting in on, i thought they were gonna rock,
they had a some outstanding ideas, they raised a bunch of cash, they had a great
group of people, with a wide variety of skills and interests. it died. i think
it was partially the waiting for others to do stuff, but they also suffered
from people not finding their niche in the group and i think that's because
they had 20-25 people
<Addlepated> too many cooks?
<imbri> it made it easy to sit back and wait for others to do stuff
<Addlepated> seems like you need to have one or two PMs who are also the
taskmasters - "Ok, you do this, have it done by Friday; you develop this idea"
etc
<imbri> in a group that size, yes. but we've never had a head cook. sometimes
i think we need one but we're a cooperative bunch which also has it's problems.
there are times when I know that I've wanted to stand up and start directing
and I'd imagine others have felt the same.
<imbri> sometimes it comes out and i attempt to overorganize instead :)
<vpisteve> imbri's great at that stuff, btw :)
<imbri> he says that just to make me smile. i can hear him cursing about
it behind my back :) but, as an organization freak, you have to organize stuff,
otherwise you lose great brainstorms, and track of the plot and characters
<imbri> and as far as groupware tools, we've tried out a few different things,
quickplace... sucks! very easy to lose stuff in there and it's slow. As long
as you have something that you can upload files and communicate with each other
and share ideas, you're ok. phpbb works ok, it's not ideal, but with a few mods
added to it, you can manage.