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[poeticexplosion]

[META] ARG Netcast and lots of behind-the-curtain

[Lovek]

Re: [META] ARG Netcast and lots of behind-the-curtain

[enaxor]

Brian Clark also mentioned how popular they became with Homeland Security, once the CLs with Arabic started appearing. I can only imagine. I wonder how many government agencies have lists with our names on it.

[Lovek]

[rose]

But could the gov't have found the correct spelling of the passwords?

[Neanderthal]

I liked to hear that they would partition the story into chapters (making it easier for new people to join in). But I guess you must do that if you are planning a two year story.

[konamouse]

[October]

[mapmaker]

[danteIL]

I finally listened to the argncast about EE. Some interesting things there -- but also some statements by the PM that I found irritating, and makes me think that perhaps this isn't the game for me.

One thing that was mentioned was that they are trying to experiment with the idea that players in ARGs are frequently cast as the role of "sidekick" to the protagonist (which I'm not really sure is true, but that's a separate issue), and he mentioned being inspired by work by Jeff Wirth and Interactive Theater, which incorporates participants as "spect actors" who have the sole decisions to create reality as protagonists, even though they don't know the story, and other, trained "inter actors" who know the story, but whose responsibility seems to be to support the reality of the spect actor.

This didn't make a whole lot of sense to me, so I googled what he was talking about. This seems to be the best description: http://www.cah.ucf.edu/IPL/about_full.php

I guess I'm still trying to understand what our role in all of this is supposed to be, because in the name of "suspense," the PMs have chosen not to make this clear. I take it that we are supposed to be the "spect actors," but I certainly don't feel like a protagonist at the moment, because everything that I've tried seems to lead nowhere. I'm trying hard not to make this a rant, because I've done that before, but the fact is I'm losing my enthusiasm for this game, and I'm not sure what to do about it, especially when confronted with a 2-year time span.


EDIT: I'm editing my previous post because I'm willing to let this point be buried, but I wanted to throw out an interesting quote that I read in the interview in Wired with Jane McGonigal posted here:

[rose]

[dashcat]

I agree with Dante for all of his reasons and some of my own. The most important to me being that this is a tedious exercise and frustratingly unrewarding. I don't think this is the game for me.

[rose]

I can understand people getting frustrated. I have no idea what to do next and not a great grip on the story either. I'm going to keep playing because I'm enjoying what I have seen so far, but I can understand that this might not interest everyone. After listening to the netcast, as Dante suggested, I want to hang in there. I don't want to spoil this for anyone, but it is clear that the pacing of this story is unique. [actually the slow pace helps me out because I'm only online for 30 minutes twice a day for the next month or so until the tendonitis improves. I know, I know, I need speech to text software, but my doctor is afraid if I start that at home I will just be tempted to be online and use my wrist more than I should, even with the brace I have, and, she's probably right about that. ]

Also, I'm sure we've missed some stuff along the way, but I have no idea what to do about that. It seems if Bryce solved something we should be close to solving it too, but I've got nothing to add and no new ideas. So we're left with a waiting game and that can be frustrating. The last Craigslist postings didn't advance anything that I could see really.

Like I said, I'm going to keep playing this, but YMMV.

[poeticexplosion]

I'll definitely keep lurking, but I agree that this has so far been really boring. It shows a lot of potential, but you can't have nothing happen for weeks at a time and expect people to stay interested. Hopefully eventually this will become interesting.

[Illuminant]

As a recently de-lurked n00b, I have to say that I've been enjoying EE so far. Sure, it's complex, and frustrating, and seems to move at a semi-glacial pace, but the writing is good and the storyline is fairly fizzing with potential.

I wonder, though, if the game is only moving so slowly because the "players" haven't been as pro-active about investigating the various mysteries as the PMs intended...

In any case, it's captured my interest!