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 Forum index » Archive » Archive: General » ARG: ARGtalk
[?]ARGTalk
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Shaded Spriter
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Joined: 07 Apr 2005
Posts: 282
Location: England

 		Do you think it is a save guess that the person dropping off the .swf files is the kidnapper.

(obsessed psycho...What he said makes sence if he is the kidnapper.)
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 25, 2005 9:54 pm
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skilletaudio
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Joined: 17 Aug 2004
Posts: 515

 		Theres no voice in that file that was intended to be heard..
we have background noise, at a gathering, or an office. We have the sound of a motor of some kind, perhaps a CPU fan, and what I believe ot be someone sitting on a creaky office chair, hitting a key, leaning back, leaning forward, hitting a key.

Sounds like someone interacting with a computer, not doing anything special.

PostPosted: Sat Jun 25, 2005 9:56 pm
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Delusional
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Joined: 16 May 2005
Posts: 839
Shaded Spriter wrote:
Do you think it is a save guess that the person dropping off the .swf files is the kidnapper.

(obsessed psycho...What he said makes sence if he is the kidnapper.)


that's excactly what i'm thinking.

also theres an irc chat at #argtalk

PostPosted: Sat Jun 25, 2005 10:00 pm
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Duckie
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Joined: 17 Oct 2004
Posts: 401
Location: Drifter
Quote:
Mrs. Jones was aware that Suzee was supposed to be doing something for ARGTalk last night - the Talk Show obviously

Why do I get the odd feeling this isn't obvious? If she didn't say thats what she was doing, perhaps she had other issues to attend to.
Anyway, they have a post up there saying we shouldn't treat it as a game. I suppose we should reccomend they contact the authorities in that case, unless they've come to trust the community's snooping ability Wink

In any case, this is the first game in a while I'm genuinely looking forward to.

And a call for help-- the "delusional PM" left ARGtalk two flash clues, and though I've downloaded Macromedia flash I can't seem to open them. If anyone could PM me with help on that/ post them here/ explain what they are, it *would* be appreciated.
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 26, 2005 1:27 am
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Pixiestix
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Joined: 26 Aug 2004
Posts: 2465
Location: Tomorrow's Talk Studios

 		After reading the post on the blog about how this isn't a game, i thought the best way to approach it might be "no no, it IS a game, and you have to play with us for suzie's life" {{{flash backs to "urban hunt" and the fine line between the arg inside and the arg we play}}} so i did what they asked on the website, "Please don't hesitate to contact us at argtalkSPLATgmail.com if you have any information at all about this situation." I sent an e-mail:

Quote:
The suggestion has been made that perhaps, while not being a game, the ARGing community may be able to help with what is going on. It seems that someone has already left clues for us... ive4.swf had an image hidden in it - and when the image is shifted slightly it is the word "jones" dripping blood.... Please, if the mysterious PM leaves anything else in the drop boxes, please post them. Any other information you might have... We can't help unless we have these things, and it seems he means for us to have them. A deranged PM perhaps, playing a dangerous game - if we don't play his game, I fear for Suzee.

Pixie


[EDIT]I can't do it right now... But has anyone called the 800 number they set up previously to "get opinions" on argtalk? They said to call before "Tuesday, June 21, 2005 at midnight" but maybe..... ?[/EDIT]
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 26, 2005 4:51 am
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Max Steele
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Joined: 26 Apr 2005
Posts: 456

 		This is the email I sent to ARGTalk late Friday night:

Quote:

I've just caught up with all of the happening surrounding your web
site and the recent broadcast you had.

You said that you received a file from a "mysterious drop box
visitor". That file could hold some clue into what happened to Suzee
on the air tonight.

Also, it would be a good idea to try and get ahold of her PDA, since
she said she took pictures of people at E3, where she felt like
someone was following her around. Did she ever mention what was on
that business card she received?

Hope this helps gives you some direction on where to go next...


PostPosted: Sun Jun 26, 2005 5:44 am
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fubarz
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Joined: 14 Nov 2003
Posts: 119
Location: LA

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PostPosted: Sun Jun 26, 2005 6:07 am
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Saevitia
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Joined: 30 Mar 2005
Posts: 688
Location: Rochester, NY

 		Okay, has anyone here played Silent Hill 2? It probably has nothing to do with anything but...

"I close my eyes and I see you there with me, in our special place, it will be perfect."

really reminds me of the beginning of SH2 and the lines

"In my restless dreams, I see that town. Silent Hill. You promised you'd take me there again someday, But you never did. Well I'm alone there now... In our 'special place'... Waiting for you.."

Like I said, probably nothing. However, I do know that the monologue in thye swf is A) creepy and B) really familiar.
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 26, 2005 9:44 am
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Satyr
Boot

Joined: 25 May 2005
Posts: 62

 		Morse code (almost.swf)
Finally found out what everyone's talking about with the morse code-

I played the slowed down ver and found this:

i // t t i//(t/e) (m?) (m?) i// e

Not sure the static is dashes, but.. I think it's there to split up some beeps which can be misinterpreted as part of the next character:
eg. "it" could be misdecoded to "u"

Just my non-morse-trained ear idea

PS. I found a way of seperating the channel:
1) load the .swf into the browser
2) turn play off
3) turn loop off
4) forward
5) rewind
- the morse would play without the animations (at least it worked on my browser here)

PostPosted: Sun Jun 26, 2005 10:25 am
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JebJoya
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Joined: 13 Apr 2005
Posts: 679
Location: UK

 		You know, reading all this does give me the willies a bit... I mean, if a person did want to kidnap someone, and make a thing of it, who would be better to kidnap than someone working for an ARG website... Noone would take it serously... How fucked up would it be if it were actually REAL... :S

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PostPosted: Sun Jun 26, 2005 12:26 pm
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puma88
Decorated


Joined: 06 Jun 2005
Posts: 167

 		good point. oh im scared..
this could be the next truly original ARG though as opposed to
'the clock strikes at midnight, contact jeff for more' crap posted on the forums.
if it is an arg it's a good idea. wish i'd thought of it.... Mad

PostPosted: Sun Jun 26, 2005 12:48 pm
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skilletaudio
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Joined: 17 Aug 2004
Posts: 515

 		Real kidnappings are not HORRIBLY ACTED.

PostPosted: Sun Jun 26, 2005 12:49 pm
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JebJoya
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Joined: 13 Apr 2005
Posts: 679
Location: UK

 		Yeah, i just listened to it... Rolling Eyes

Jeb
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 26, 2005 1:12 pm
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Duckie
Unfettered


Joined: 17 Oct 2004
Posts: 401
Location: Drifter

 		no, real kidnappings are horribly ACTED, they just don't have voice actors.
Anyway I called the line-- theres still a mail box set up as of yesterday, I just asked if I could help.
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 26, 2005 1:13 pm
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Phaedra
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Joined: 21 Sep 2004
Posts: 4033
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Pixiestix wrote:
After reading the post on the blog about how this isn't a game, i thought the best way to approach it might be "no no, it IS a game, and you have to play with us for suzie's life"


Hmm. This reminds me of a section in Jane's This Is Not A Game paper on what Elan, while he was creating the Beast, thought would be the response to TINAG:

Jane McGonigal wrote:
According to Lee, the immersive experience of the game was always intended to be reflective and conscious, enjoyed on a meta-level. "It was a delicate balancing act to make sure the game and the meta-game worked in synchronicity," Lee said [personal interview]. Players were never meant to believe the "This is not a game" rhetoric, he explained, but rather to be baited by it. "It was obviously a game," Lee said. "There was nothing we could do about that. What we could do was make it a game with an identity crisis. If I know it's a game, and you know it's a game, but IT doesn't know it's a game, then we've got a conflict.

"The idea from the start was to be provocative, to talk a big game and behave outrageously," Lee said of his team's plan to ignore the standard practices of metacommunications in game play. "It's hard to ignore something that is so obviously not playing by the rules. We all believed that it's a part of human nature to deal with something like that by showing it who's boss. We expected the players to prove us wrong, to fight back." Much to their surprise, Lee and his collaborators discovered that the audience had no intention of fighting back. Instead, players embraced the game's "This is not a game" bravado and buttressed it with their own performed belief. When often-sizeable gaps appeared between the game's "big talk" and the realized immersive effects, the audience collaborated in suturing the game world ruptures. In other words, the players actively supported and protected the game's belief in itself.


Obviously ARGTalk, by insisting on an out-of-game site that this is not a game, is stepping a bit outside the normal boundaries of TINAG, but as games go, there have been plenty that have gone a lot further.

The question your comment raises is whether it's possible to play an ARG by challenging, rather than supporting, its belief in its own reality (i.e. confronting it and telling it, "you are a game").

I'm not sure it is, for several reasons:

1) I've spoken a lot about the trust players put in PMs, but there is a reciprocal trust that PMs put in players. Trust in individual players, in a way, has to be less, because it's much harder to predict the actions of individuals than the actions of a group, and because there's probably always going to be at least one player who's a troll, who tries to screw the game up, etc. or who unintentionally throws the PMs for a loop (i.e. weephun in ILB -- they didn't expect that anyone would so easily give up the Sleeping Princess).

Also, of course, this is necessarily a trust of a far lesser magnitude than that which the players place in the PMs. As the creators of the game, (and since any game will hopefully bring in new players who don't know anything about ARGs), the PMs bear the far greater responsibility for the game. Any expectations of player-borne responsibility must (and should) be minimal, unless we want to end up in a genre where players must sign an agreement before playing.

There's no way the PMs can accurately predict what each individual will do, and therefore, there has to be less trust. I don't mean this in a negative sense, as in "oh, those dastardly players" -- just that game design has to take into account that individual players will behave unpredictably and not rely on any individual player to be predictable (for example, trusting a single player to crack a puzzle, relay important information, etc.).

However, PMs can generally trust the players as a group. Group behavior is easier to predict, for starters, and in general the group can be trusted to want the game to succeed and to go down the paths the PMs prepare for it.

In a way, for players to turn around and attempt to dismantle the TINAG aesthetic, for them to actually say to the game, "you are only a game, and not a reality" is to violate the expectations of the PMs that players will play the game as an alternate reality, which essentially amounts to violating the trust on the PM side.

2) Saying to the game, "you are only a game" creates the same sort of problems for the game that PMs treating Unfiction as in-game does. Those problems are discussed in this thread.

3) Refusing to allow the game belief in its own reality amounts, essentially, to playing against the PMs rather than with them. I'm not sure that the ARG framework, which depends so heavily on active player collaboration and cooperation, can support such a departure.

That said, it might be possible to play in a way that challenges TINAG and have a good game experience. But I would say that the PMs would have to have anticipated and prepared for it, otherwise it could collapse the game's framework.

However, considering that it was the response Elan expected to the Beast, it may be possible and might even be enjoyable. I don't know. I'll ask him what he thinks.

But in any case, for some reason I doubt that the ARGTalk PMs were attempting to do a game in which the players challenge TINAG.
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 26, 2005 1:34 pm
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