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Forum index » Meta » General META Discussion

How much reality can we take?
Moderators: imbri, ndemeter

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rose
...and then Magic happens

Joined: 26 Nov 2003
Posts: 4117

How much reality can we take?

In the past 12 hours or less I have read two different meta threads. One in part considers how to make the game more "real" and what makes it seem real to different players. The other discusses the consequences of a game being "too real" and mentions in passing players who get too involved or take things too personally.

I wish I had studied psychology.

Is there a basic pull here between the desire to make a fantasy world real and the fear of actually succeeding? Are you guys trying to define a path which pushes the boundary of reality and fantasy but only to the extent that you deem appropriate or feel safe exploring?

I admit that from my outside perspective the whole concept fascinates me. Why do we get so caught up drawing boundaries of what is in and out of game?

And, to be clear, I am not talking about ordinary prudence or the legal duty of due care to children, mentally ill people or any one else.

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Posted: Fri May 28, 2004 2:22 pm

Varin
I Have No Life

Joined: 02 Dec 2002
Posts: 2456
Location: South of where I used to be

Re: How much reality can we take?

rose wrote:

Is there a basic pull here between the desire to make a fantasy world real and the fear of actually succeeding? Are you guys trying to define a path which pushes the boundary of reality and fantasy but only to the extent that you deem appropriate or feel safe exploring?

Interesting point. IMHO, the best ARG would be one that completely makes the fantasy world seem real, but at the same time leaves the players feeling personally safe at the end of the day. I wouldn't want bad guy characters knocking on my door threatening my life, but I wouldn't mind the good guy characters knocking on my door telling me that my life may be in danger. It's a fine line for me. I know that there are people out there that will go much further (people who get paid to get kidnapped for example)

I'd like to see the boundary of reality/fantasy pushed as far as possible as long as I know in the back of my mind that I'm not really in any danger.

Quote:

I admit that from my outside perspective the whole concept fascinates me. Why do we get so caught up drawing boundaries of what is in and out of game?

Hmmm, I don't know. Before AWARE it wasn't really a problem (I'm not knocking AWARE here). Previously the ARG's world was the ARG's world and UF was where we talked about it. Maybe it's old habit that we still try to define what is ingame and out of game. Maybe things need to be changed, or maybe they don't. I don't know.

I think maybe part of why we feel the need to draw the in/out game boundary is that so many of us enjoy working together as a team. Many of us like to share our info with each other in a meta setting. It sort of reminds me of what one of the problems was with Majestic. You could play the game entirely by yourself. You didn't need input from other players, but if you wanted it you could contact them. For me though this was the major immersion breaker. You'd look at one of your friend's avatar and see that he's on level 4.5 and had already passed the mission you were stuck on in level 4.4. Why bother to save the damsel in distress if someone else already has?

So for me, that's why I feel the need to have an out of game area, so we can progress together through the story at the same time. There may be another way to accomplish this goal ingame, but so far I haven't seen a way that works.

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Posted: Fri May 28, 2004 3:23 pm

BrianEnigma
Entrenched

Joined: 05 Oct 2003
Posts: 1199
Location: Pacific Northwest

Re: How much reality can we take?

Varin wrote:

...I think maybe part of why we feel the need to draw the in/out game boundary is that so many of us enjoy working together as a team. Many of us like to share our info with each other in a meta setting...

Additionally, some ARGs have had puzzles that *required* teamwork in order to solve a puzzle, or at least appreciate some little non-essential piece of "texture" (...for lack of a better word; perhaps plot, theme, backstory/sidestory, etc?). For instance, in MU there were a finite number of CDs spread throughout the country. There is no real easy way to do puzzles with physical objects like that for individual players without boatloads of cash to carry that out on a large scale. Admittedly, those CDs were full of pictures and not puzzles-proper, but did fill in a lot of backstory. Other puzzles require knowledge from specialized fields of interest (while I remember enough that I could probably stumble my way through a puzzle that required reading sheet music, I am sure I do not know a lot of literary references that others get instantly; the reverse is true, too: I do not think most ARG players could sit down and calculate the probable key length of an XOR-encrypted message).

Admittedly, you could craft an ARG such that you did not need any of this specialized knowledge, nor require teamwork in dealing with scarce resources such as physical objects. On the other hand, I rather like the teamwork and sense of community.

So where does that leave us? What was my point? I'm not sure now. Unless the ARG is crafted to be a single-player Choose Your Own Adventure (or something...?), I cannot see any way around "meta" message boards that allow sharing of information. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to do this "in game." ARG players tend to be able to see "the big picture," which individual characters don't see. They get little snippets of clues and have to piece everything together (who was it that used the word "forensics" earlier this week?). They tend to know things that the characters would not or should not know. Players may also use methods that the characters probably should not know about. For instance, how do you privately discuss Marcus' past if he's standing right behind you? How do you tell people about his "secret" blog if he is one of the people being told? How do you tell people that you hacked Alecia's password without her getting wind of it and changing it? As I see it, players sort of need a place to "privately" talk about an ARG without actually influencing it, and you can't really do that on a message board with characters as members.

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Posted: Fri May 28, 2004 5:45 pm

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