unforum

[Daddy]

Although meeting the PM's would've been cool, I'm glad NYC had some Bungie guys there. They are the ultimate PMs in all things Halo and talking to a guy that worked right under Joe Staten (the writer and cinematic director for the games) and experiencing his enthusiasm about the single player story got me that much more anxious to see where the story goes. He basically guaranteed that it's worth the long 3 yr wait.

Of course, I'd love to see how '42' follows up on this incredible effort. Anticipating their next project as well....


Tick tock..

[Phaedra]

Re: Phaedra, reporting in...

[Lemures]

id say you fit more into the ARG group phaedra. i think what they meant was that there were the two groups, those who knew about and participated (atleast to the extend of familiarizing themselves with) in the ARG, and those who cared ONLY for halo 2, and could care less about bees. You can still like halo and be part of the ARG group.... it was just that there were a lot of people there who were there ONLY for halo 2, and were actually somewhat RUDE to people who brought up the ARG.

[Mazian]

My report;

First, before I get too detailed, let me say that the event rocked, from beginning to end. And the attention of both the PMs and Microsoft gave it the exact balance of Halo2 and ILB chewy goodness needed to satisfy everyone who attended.

Next let me say that if I didn't get your name, I'm sorry. I'm actually very very bad with names, and the fact that I can remember any is a testament to just how many hours I have spent playing this ARG.

I consider us incredibly lucky, and I wish that many more Beekeepers could have come to SF to enjoy the event that was put on for us. We were extremely blessed.



I left work at 3 PM. I called around, discovering that Weephun and Mad Cow were at Caentari's hanging out and playing a little Halo to pass the time. Caentari told me that hmrpita was at the Bar & Grill at 4th street. So I wandered over that direction.

Now, it's kinda funny, and I have no shame, so I feel obligated to mention that I for some reason thought "Mel's Diner" and wandered in there to look around for hmrpita. No dice (of course, you say). So I wandered through the entire Metreon. All 3 floors (it's about 1/3rd of a square block in size, which makes it a full square block on 3 levels). No pita. So I started to wander back out to Mel's Diner, when I suddenly realized that the green over-hang kitty corner to Mel's (directly across from the Metreon) was a Bar & Grill... doh!


In I walk and there's Ariock, hmrpita, aliendial, Stitch and oen other who's name I've already forgotten. (Sorry!) We sit for a bit, and others start wandering in.

I got to meet, pants and The Adam, fubarz, Prokaryotic-Cell, and many others. The Great vpisteve arrived, as did weephun, Caentari and Mad Cow, twiztedmatt, missphinx and Sl1p and L.S..

There are many others who's names I can't possibly recall. hmrpita handed out Swag for the SF crew (she custom made SF Team name tags with an ultraswank image). She is so awesome.

Weephun did a little social engineering, while wearing his cafepress shirt. He found out that we would be meeting in theatre 15 in the Loews Theatre.

At this point, vpisteve got up to do some "recon" work (scout the theatre where we thought it was going to be happening) and then suddenly everyone decided it was time to head over. So we did.

Many people got in the line marked Halo 2. I went over and inquired with Customer Service whether "pre-registered people" needed to wait in that line or if there was separate handling (since we got priority treatment according to the instructions we received.) I was told that pre-registered people would be let in first, then non-pre-registered people would be let in based on available seating. (351 seats)

At which point, someone encouraged people to move from the line to the ticket taker, where we were checked off the list. It was now around 4:45, and by 5 PM, Ranger_D had called to say he was on his way.

However, once we were let in to the hall way leading to the theatre we were blocking other theatre entrances, and because they were not yet prepared to let us in to the theatre itself, they had to stop people from coming in to the hallway. When more pre-reg's arrived, they were a little concerned and upset because they were being turned away by the ticket taker. Ranger_D called me, so I inquried, found out what was going on, passed it to those who were in line "inside" and then went out to let people know who were in line "outside."

Here I also ran in to Addict and Evil Jester. I went back inside and chatted more with the people in line and eventually got a call from G3K who's plane had been delayed. I helped get him to navigate the San Francisco streets to get him to the event. I got a call from Arana, who was also running a little late.

Shortly after 6 PM (like 6:05) they started letting us in to the theatre, and letting other pre-registered people in. Then the non-pre-regs. We barely filled half the theatre.

Four TV screens, four xboxes, 8 controllers in front and a blank big screen TV that had the electronic words "no signal." You knew you were at a Microsoft event.

Ariock put up a giant San Francisco Killer Bees 49th Regulator Division banner at the front of the event and officially welcomed everyone to "our home turf."

There were catcalls of "Run Linux!" and "Initiate your SPDR!" and "Choose Flea++" when they were setting the Language options on the projector. There were red balloons tossed around, to which someone said "fire alarm hazard, put those away" (the theatre security people had made us pop all red balloons filled with helium on the way in since they would set off the fire alarms, they said.)

They continued to have technical difficulties, but Gamespot was present with a camera and reporter. They tried to interview me, since I was one of the loudest people pointing out the Killer Bees banner at the front of the stage. I demurred and passed that honor to Ariock and hmrpita, who both wanted to pass it to DarkForge as the "official" leader of the SF Team. While DarkForge was willing to be interviewed, Gamespot had already gotten all of the quotes they wanted out of us from Ariock. (Btw, good job!)

Then, they brought the PMs down, and said that one of their number, who was about to be a father, had to leave. After that, the Microsoft guy tried to get the PMs to introduce the "special chapter" (the Wave file with the clue hidden inside it that returned apocalypso.)

The PMs actually seemed shy, which was the first surprise I had in dealing with them. They actually "ran away" from the front of the room (and were pursued by avvid beekeepers I suspect).

Since I was drawn in to this originally for Halo 2, I stuck around in hopes that I would get to play.

DarkForge shortly after we got our clue said that he found out that Austin's clue was "Suture" (I think). After a couple of rounds, Ranger_D had the idea to use the Xbox Live as a replacement for the IRC chat and trade passwords that way. Genius!

So up we went to try to get our password out to the other cities, and try to get their passwords. Unfortunately, the host seemed to be suffering from lag, so we couldn't hear anything in the lobby, only during game play.

Since the person who was supposed to show up for that round wasn't there, I got to play a 1 minute oddball game and I got stomped. (Kinda hard when you can't pre-config your controller). We (SF) were tied for 2nd, so it was awesome, and I can accept defeat by a better crew. Way to go!

Then, on the next round, we managed to get some of the passwords passed back and forth between people over the Live game. It was awesome. At that point, having played, Ranger_D and I decided to head out and see whether the PMs were getting mobbed.

I found out that extra swag was available for collection, and found that several other Beekeepers had already picked up an extra supply to hand out. I picked up a couple myself for the people that I knew were on the Swag Lottery (Dragonrider, CoffeeJedi and Buzzkill).

I got a chance to speak to each of the PMs in turn and was stunned to find them (as was said in another post) screaming my name back at me and welcoming me like an old friend would. Quite stunning.

And even more so to find that they not only read the forums and liked what I had said in game and about the game, but that they had especially appreciated my contributions to game during Live calls. (I had thought I would be another anonymous face, since I had gotten lost from the "crew" list after my first live call until almost a month later.)

Kristen's husband seemed a nice chap, and was reported to have said "I'm the guy who's taking her home," when asked "Are you waiting in line for an autograph from Melissa?" Uber Kudos!

Kristen has a wonderful voice and personality and seemed capable of coming up with a personal story for every person to whom she had spoken live. It was wonderful to see us all so fondly remembered, since these people were our own private little hero's in ILB, to find that we were their heros in return was immensely disarming.

Sean impressed me with his dedication to the ARG genre itself, and with a wealth of behind the scenes stories about ILB and how he'd like to see ARGs mature. He was also immediately approachable and likable.

Elan was wonderfully open about his experience and encouraged people to keep in touch. He also had some interesting stories to tell about the technology aspect of the ILB story arc.

Jane, who is, as they say, saving the best for last, was a wonderful addition to the ILB game. She contributed so much behind the scenes, and was both sincere and comfortable in the presence of so much love and attention from the fans. We were all saddened to learn that she is not (yet?) a permanent member of 4orty 2wo entertainment.

While outside, the birth of a baby boy was announced. Congratulations!

When asked whether they were working on any future ARGs, they said that they would certainly "let us know." (Wink wink, nudge nudge) When asked for help on the last puzzle (released during the event) they found themselves defended by other players.

They joined us for food at Mel's (I think they had some contractual obligation to remain at the event until 9 PM, so they couldn't leave earlier, even though they all admitted to being hungry.)

While there, I got to meet Catherwood and Leftbrained, Lady Kata and Shad0 and many many others.

We had dinner, we talked. We even had the infamous "I would pay to play an ARG" discussion, for which I immediately supplied the historical evidence to support the idea that people, presently, will not pay in sufficient numbers to justify the cost of an ARG. (Anyone heard of Majestic? It died.)


We collected our things and departed. I'll post photos later (by re-editing this message and including them inline). I'll post a message in this thread when I have added all of the photos and a link back to this post.

Again, my apologies for not coming up with all the names of all of the wonderful people I met last night. I hope to see you on here or on XBL!

[Daddy]

[Kali]

[Kali]

[hungrygaijin]

I'm with Phaedra on this one, definitely. However I'll even go as far as to say that the people who were only there because they saw it posted on slashdot or game-(insert suffix here) kind of didn't deserve to be there at all (Meaning the ones that had no prior ILB knowledge or experiences). The Combat Training was supposed to be our reward for being such a loyal and hard-working crew, and I think you deserve that whether you answered 1 phone, a hundred phones, solved a puzzle or just followed the whole thing on the forum. But finding out at the last minute that there's going to be a pre-release screening of Halo 2 and writing an email to Dana (not even knowing who she is) is kind of a dick move. I mean I was tearing up at Durga/Melissa's final goodbye...and I bet there were people there who didn't even know what she was talking about (or who she was). That's what kinda irks me.

However this has nothing to do with being a Halo fan or an ARGer, because you can definitely be both, I know I am. It has to do with being a game news site junky who likes to mooch off other people's hard work.

And lastly, there are many people who were infinitely more dedicated to this game than me (both Halo fans and ARGers). I kinda played in my spare time and stuff. I had a great time, but I want to be sure to thank those who did the freaking elephant's share of the work. You guys were awesome.

[Checksum]

I have to agree with the others that it was annoying that there were so many non-ILB people at the training exercises.

Like Phaedra said, there's a difference between someone being an ILB person who joined the ARG because of Halo 2, and someone who didn't play the ARG, who just wanted to play Halo 2.

To anyone who says the combat training was primarily a Halo 2 think, not an ILB thing, I have to disagree. For evidence, look at this:

1) The only direct advertising of the event came from the 404 page on the ILB website.

2) The lanyards given out specifically say "I Love Bees". The word "Halo" does not appear anywhere on the Lanyard.

3) The DVDs given out were all about ILB. They didn't have any previews of Halo 2 or anything not ILB-related.


For those reasons, I say that the event was for ILB people i.e. people who followed or played ILB. So I think it's fair when someone from here says they felt like the Halo 2 bunch (by this I mean Halo fans who didn't follow ILB) took over the event.

-checksum

[Lojack]

Update first, remarks second.

Went to the LA cache location up at Universal. Total of about 30 people in line by six, I'd say maybe 50-66% beekeepers, and a few others (the big EB Games store is right next to the theater.) Manager came out, everyone lined up and just got a DVD. Very low key, no password or anything. A few of us went off afterwards for dinner (and we messed up the reservations, sorry) and that was it. a fairly low key event all around.

Now for the remarks. Well, since there was no LIVE event, the beekeeper ratio was good, I imagine it would have been like everywhere else had it been the same. I still am puzzled as to why what was admittedly a marketing event was so sparsely populated. Nothing in some of the other large cities in the country to make it more geographically balanced? Just weird. Oddly enough, the thing that bugged me the most here is that the PMs and the actors were in SF! (Why meeting them is important escapes me, but probably to interact directly and say thanks and enjoyed your talent.)

Oh, and in the hindsight department, found out today that I probably could have gotten away yesterday to drive up to SF for the event.

[Daddy]

[The Watcher]

[thunderclap8]

cross-posted from another thread:

still in NY here.... internet cafe.

DeltinaWildfire and I were rather disappointed in the event.


First of all, Amtrak was a grand total of 5 HOURS LATE in getting us to NYC. We ended up getting to the theater soaking wet after sprinting through the rain at exactly 8:45. Where they then made us stand in the rain some more, finally getting into the theater at maybe 9:30 (people who got there earlier as we intended too were apparently let in earlier). No other registered crew members were available, nobody even know the SIGNAL, CORPS chant!

Then we were so far in the back by that point (Despite preferred admission) that we never got to play. And the people running the Xbox live sessions were morons. All in all it needed more organization. 14 hour travel time for essentially nothing...

Now turning it over to Del:

Del sez: asdhbsadfadifjubhrabf!!!!!!!!

I can't believe I came up all this way to be delayed by Amtrak, miss dinner with you guys, get there late, find out that no one in the line I was standing in knew what a "crewmember" was. (Trust me, I went along the line and asked if any more crew was present. And everyone gave me really funny stares. Well, at least until Haefele and I ran up to the angry spanish lady when she said "RSVP? Crewmembers?" and cut basically the ENTIRE line off. That was funny. But the theater was half full anyway, DOH!) And I attempted to start the Signal Corps chant outside the movie theater, and no one responded. DOH!

Yeah... and what Haefele said. Lol.


STUPID AMTRAK!!

[rose]

about New York

[Scumbag]

Re: Phaedra, reporting in...