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 Forum index » Meta » General META Discussion
THE BEAST?!!!
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Hova092
Unfettered


Joined: 14 Apr 2005
Posts: 304
Location: Zanzabar...RAILING UR MOM!

 		THE BEAST?!!!
CAN SOMEONE F**KING POINT ME TOWARDS INFO TO FIND OUT WHAT THE BEAST WAS EXACTLY!! i've been looking everywhere....also....is the sit estill up, much like ilovebees.com is? can someone fill me in? i would LOVE to know where it all began....AND WHY WAS IT CALLED THE BEAST?!! email me with info pleeeeaaassseee...i will heart you forever...
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 10, 2005 12:42 pm
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Ehsan
Entrenched

Joined: 09 May 2003
Posts: 992

 		"The Beast" is the name given by fans to the alternate reality game created to promote the release of the movie A.I.

The Beast was the mother of all ARG's, and is still considered by many to be the best ARG ever, for very good reasons.

The complete Beast archives are available online from the Cloudmakers' website. Cloudmakers was the name of a Yahoo group created to tackle the Beast. (Yahoo groups were all the rage before the days of Unfiction).


Their link is right on top of this page, on the ARGN toolbar. Click on cloudmakers and you'll get every single detail you need about the Beast. My recommendation to you (if you are REALLY interested) is to click on Guide from the menu and go through the entire game in sequence..


Every single original game website is also available from the Cloudmakers site in the archive section. The game featured about 30 different websites and you can revisit all of them as you are reading through the Guide.



I know the majority of people here came in after the Beast, but I believe every ARG player should at least skim through that guide once, check out their websites, and see how polished the first ARG really was. Yes ILB was amazing game, but it was not an amazing ARG (Calm down I'm not flaming.. just trying to get you to make you read every single word of the Guide to understand what all the fuss is about). If you're thinking about reading a new book, read this instead.

Moreover, I believe it is a moral sin for anyone to even ATTEMP to PM a game by themselves without analyzing every single aspect of The Beast. You can't give your students and exam if you haven't even studied or passed the subject yourself.

PostPosted: Sat Sep 10, 2005 12:57 pm
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krystyn
I Never Tire of My Own Voice


Joined: 26 Sep 2002
Posts: 3651
Location: Is not Chicago

 		Why was it called The Beast?

From: http://www.seanstewart.org/beast/intro/

Quote:
So there was the project: create an entire self-contained world on the web, say a thousand pages deep, and then tell a story through it, advancing the plot with weekly updates, concealing each new piece of narrative in such a way that it would take clever teamwork to dig it out. Create a vast array of assets--custom photos, movies, audio recordings, scripts, corporate blurbage, logos, graphic treatments, web sites, flash movies--and deploy them through a net of (untraceable) web sites, phone calls, fax systems, leaks, press releases, phony newspaper ads, and so on ad infinitum. (The first draft of Dan Carver's art asset sheet had 666 items. He dubbed it The Beast, and the Game's nickname was born.)

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PostPosted: Sat Sep 10, 2005 1:11 pm
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Atrophied
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Joined: 29 Aug 2004
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 		heh, I was gonna quote that from JWGosney's 'Beyond Reality' (It gives an overview of that main aspects of The Beast - good for getting the general gist of what happened and how, but not as in-depth as cloudmakers.org)
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 10, 2005 1:14 pm
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krystyn
I Never Tire of My Own Voice


Joined: 26 Sep 2002
Posts: 3651
Location: Is not Chicago
Ehsan wrote:
Every single original game website is also available from the Cloudmakers site in the archive section. The game featured about 30 different websites and you can revisit all of them as you are reading through the Guide.

Sadly, the incredibly freaky Eliza's Tearoom has issues loading, and is broken, anyhow. I was opining about it to wraith at ARGFest, but I don't know if it's ever to be restored in its original, totally scary form.
Quote:
I know the majority of people here came in after the Beast, but I believe every ARG player should at least skim through that guide once, check out their websites, and see how polished the first ARG really was. Yes ILB was amazing game, but it was not an amazing ARG (Calm down I'm not flaming.. just trying to get you to make you read every single word of the Guide to understand what all the fuss is about). If you're thinking about reading a new book, read this instead.

Alternate Reality Game is certainly a term that's come into popular and pervasive usage, but the term "search opera" is something that Stewart has certainly used in the past to describe the Beast itself, and would definitely pertain to ilovebees.
Bookselling This Week wrote:
BTW: Regarding the Web-based game The Beast: What are some of the similarities between creating a computer game and a novel?

SS: Well, The Beast was not like any other computer game. It was what we call a Search Opera -- a series of braided stories told over the Web in which the characters lives were revealed in essays, stories, video-clips, telephone messages, e-mail, diary entries.

that's just one of a multitude of hits you come up with when you Google various terms like "Beast" "Sean Stewart", etc. with "search opera."

Yhsan wrote:
Moreover, I believe it is a moral sin for anyone to even ATTEMP to PM a game by themselves without analyzing every single aspect of The Beast. You can't give your students and exam if you haven't even studied or passed the subject yourself.

I'd say that's pretty harsh. There's more than one way to skin a cat, y'know. It's this sort of view that can certainly squash various creative paths, inasmuch as you believe this to be a constructive approach. I think (and have certainly demonstrated, as a Puppetmaster) that the 'Beast model' (whatever that means) works on many levels, and for many good reasons.

Innovation for its own sake has its pitfalls, as we've seen, but I am actually eager to see something a little ... different come my way.

Having your assumptions challenged is one of the very best things about Alternate Reality Gaming, wouldn't you agree?

Also, Hova: this is really not a News or Rumor item. It appears to be more Meta. Yep.
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 10, 2005 2:24 pm
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jamesi
Sentient Being


Joined: 25 Sep 2002
Posts: 2195
Location: Canadia
krystyn wrote:
Also, Hova: this is really not a News or Rumor item. It appears to be more Meta. Yep.


And so, it shall be done.

/me gets back to reminiscing.
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 10, 2005 3:09 pm
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