unforum

[Astald]

I have to disagree with this notion that the game is limiting some experiences to make them more worthwhile. First of all, the live phone call we just had yesterday was nothing like the live phone calls with Melissa in ILB, because we are the ones who called him! Anyone with a working telephone could have been involved in the operation to save Matt. It wasn't some random phonecall to a random telephone booth at some random part in the country, but your own phone in your own home. And speaking of interaction, we interact with a character from the story every week. And not only do we just get to talk to them, we get to play poker with them! I think the pms realized how many people felt left out in ILB, and decided to make a game where everyone would have an opportunity to be involved. Some people say that because there are rewards given to people that manage to find a card that instills a sense of competition. The competition is there, but the spade for finding a card isn't the only reward on the site. There are rewards for beating Lucky, making it to the top players page, heading out to your local graveyard, taking a picture with a hat, even paying $5 to preorder a game. These rewards are available to anyone who wants them and has the patience and means to do what is required. This ARG has taken phenomenal steps in the right direction and I think as has been said before, that any real complaints are minor ones. But I still agree that there isn't enough communication between the IRC and the forums. While Shad0 was on the phone with Roger yesterday, we actually had some pretty fluid communication going on in the forum. If we had actually known the things Roger was looking for, Shad0 probably could have solved the puzzle in the one phonecall. It is kind of a good thing he didn't because that gave others a chance to call in as well, but it does point out the IRC isn't the only end-all-be-all app for real-time situations. I can understand that it is difficult to multitask between the LCP website, IRC, and update those of us on the forums, but it would be an endeavor we would be very grateful for. All of us forum people are nice and friendly, so if you are short on time and concentration, just make a quick post that you think will keep everyone up to date with any new revelations, and no one will harass you if your post is disorganized or anything less than perfect. That is all we ask.
Sorry for the long post, I feel better now.

[Phaedra]

[rose]

I will once again remind people of how great the wiki puzzle page was during the crazy i love bees update.

The wiki design is not meant just to be an encyclopedia but also a dynamic way to collaborate information.

If no one else is interested in this, I will give it a try myself next Wednesday so those of us who weren't in I love bees and didn't see how well the wiki page worked in real time can get a look at it.

[SuperJerms]

Oh, I'm with ya on that, rose...the wiki can do everything that the forum can do without the pages and pages of reading. In theory. In practice, it shakes down differently. Either people are locked out of editing, or three people try to edit at the same time. With lightning quick solves, it just doesn't work. Forums end up better for quick solves because there's not the problem of editing rights. When there's a lot of information, or chronologically disbursed contributions, forums end up being pretty unwieldly. And, folks reinvent the wheel in forum posting if everyone types the same thing at the same time. IRC wins there, but IRC is horrible for non-text interaction.

Using the wiki may be a helpful addition, but it won't solve this problem. In ILB, I remember that I tried to champion someone inventing a whiteboard program that would give us best of both worlds....but it was suggested in the middle of the thread talking about the problems with the wiki and the formation of the fireflies wiki. And, it was the exact opposite of the problem we have here. Then, it was too many people trying to edit the wiki who didn't know what they were doing. Fireflies was the solution.

I think I'm rambling. I guess I'm saying this: if we wanna use the wiki for puzzle work (and I'm not sure the types of puzzles we're getting merit that), we need a central person doing the wikiediting. As well as I can recall, it tended to be Anton, Shad0 or bruce in ILB, and they basically straddled IRC and the forums to be sure the wiki was changed ASAP as data came in. They did an exceptional job, too. If I recall, they also had folks feeding them the info with IRC PM's. Doesn't sound too different from what Phaedra was just suggesting.

[Shad0]

Re: wiki

[rose- not logged in]

wikiness

[j5]

I really really like the idea of someone working out/posting the order to read the cards on update days. It is a bit irritating to have to use the "top players" page to access the cards, as they are not in any useful order.
Quicklinks won't help either, since I went ahead and clicked on that "add all" button on the quicklink helper.

[thunderclap8]

For those who like me cannot access IRC at work:

http://www.vengefuldeath.com/cgi-bin/irc.cgi

I've found this to work when all other methods will not. It isn't 100% reliable, there's periodic disconnects that you aren't informed about, but its better than nothing.

[ariock]

Ideas for inclusion.

[Arana]

How to proceed?

[SuperJerms]

Rose - I think I get ya now. My main goal on the wiki has been to do exactly what you're saying, primarily using the News Update section to do it. I go through LCP on my own, figure out what's happened, and come up with a limited sort of pre-muck muck. Hopefully, it clears up some folks' confusions without them having to wait until the next weekend for the Muck to update.

Now, it would be better if what I did had more information. I don't link anything outside of the wiki, and typically only link new character pages or new interactions (if they exist on the wiki...and they usually don't at that point). I'd also be better if I got the updates finished sooner. On Wednesdays, it takes me at least a day to find time to do updates since it's in the middle of work week and I usually won't get to look at LCP until the evening. I usually wait until Saturday night or Sunday afternoon for end-of-the-week action.


I am totally agreed that the wiki could be a great resource, especially for those who are stuck behind a firewall or away from IRC. So why don't I do things a bit differently?

The biggest sticking point is that people want to actually enjoy the game. If at all possible, I don't wanna read about a poker game with Vic and the scramble to find a card, I want to be in the thick of things. I mean, who woulda given up live action with IG characters just to be sure that the newest pancho villa card is in the wiki? Now, don't get me wrong, I have long since accepted that I probably won't have a major impact on this game (e.g. finding a card first or impacting a puzzle solve in a major way), and I understand that making the information available to everyone else important too...but that sort of editing would totally lock me out of any interaction, what little speculation occurs, and the general buzz that surrounds an update.

I wouldn't wish that on anyone else, either. I suppose it depends on what each person enjoys about ARGing, but I wouldn't expect anyone to come running for that position because they'd be doing it already if it was something they really enjoyed. Besides, this isn't the same as ILB where the dozens of concurrent puzzles created a need for quick updating. Now that I think about it, seems the only real benefits are organization and access (for firewalls). Anyone who needs access can get it from the netninja site on the front page of the wiki.

That leaves us with the problem of organization and completeness. I can drop links or transcripts of character updates into the wiki all day, or I can wait until I've read through six different cards and understand the story first. So far, I've chosen the latter because its more concise, potentially helpful for the confused, and is much less work. Plus, after I understand the sub-plot and type it out, someone could always follow up after me and change the summary to include links to specific update cards (but then we'd have an exact replica of The Muck). Putting more update info into the wiki also means a lot of reinventing the wheel since so many people are taking it so much deeper than I am. Phaedra, Scarpe and the new Muck format all really give anything I can imagine wanting from an update standpoint, and Scarp is much quicker to update the blog than I am the wiki.