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[newbiegirl]

 Some Questions on starting an ARG

[ItWasntMeISwear]

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[konamouse]

Can you run a good game on a shoestring budget? Yes. Lots of free websites (i.e. blogspot, livejournal, youtube, myspace etc) for posting content. Creation of content can be done by volunteer team BTS (behind the scenes) so they are donating their time (time is very valuable, and a PM usually has very little time for anything but the game they are running). But with free sites comes a huge liability - gamejacking. You need some way to show players that any of these free sites are part of your world (and not someone pretending to be in your world). This can derail any game and send your players off on wild tangents or, at the worst, alienate them if the gamejacker(s) succeed in getting them completely confused.

Can you get a good mystery, provide personal interaction, multiple characterization? Yes. Be prepared to give up any free time and to live on very little sleep. Personalized emails are a big plus in keeping your player base interested, no matter how big or small the game.

Both were done by the Sammeeeees PM (labfly).

Can you have your players choose sides? Questionable.
Because of the typical sharing of information about the game (i.e. here in unFiction) how can you keep one side from giving information to the other side? Deus City tried it (not sure how well it worked). When it seemed we were suppose to do that for Sammeeeees, the players baulked but the PM figured an ingame method to pull us all over to the same side (although we had a couple of "moles" pretending to work for the evil Spoocheeeee empire).

You sound like you have a great idea. But it also sounds like you don't have much experience. If you have never worked BTS on an ARG before, I strongly recommend you volunteer with an established PM team to "learn the ropes" and what to expect. Read some of the PM chats (usually posted after successful game completions) and other posts in the PM Developers forum.

As for game launching. There is another thread about that somewhere in this forum.

Regardless, I look forward to seeing your story someday.

[ItWasntMeISwear]

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[Caz]

[Rekidk]

Re: Some Questions on starting an ARG

[ItWasntMeISwear]

p

[Caz]

i think the thing with the groups is that players only interact with other players on forums like this.

if you can find other ways for player interact in the game, like elsritch errors MUD (i have not played that game, so i have no ideas how well it works) it may be a way to split players into groups if there know who there working ageist.

[Nightmare Tony]

I would think the finest example of players pitted against each other in an ARG was Wildfire Industries which had two companies with different business philosophies hiring the players and all the festivities. It was joyfully insane fun.

On a free budget? Sure, Want a good storyline. A lousy storyline and expensive websites can be a yawner when all is said and done...

[Crescent]

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