unforum

[CDub]

How were you introduced to ARG?

[imbri]

welcome back!

My introduction was also the Beast. I was doing an independent study on the sociology of the internet during my final year of undergrad. My focus was on online communities, internet demographics, and social change. Someone referred me to Cloudmakers as it was such a large collaborative group. I was fascinated, but completely overwhelmed. My study was about completed and I was working on my thesis on another topic (the effect of potential earnings on student debt... all you humanities & education majors out there... eep!). I didn't have the time to really get involved in it, so I pushed it aside until a couple weeks after graduation. Somehow I remembered about that strange game thing and decided to check it out. Within a week or two, I was on the team working on Lockjaw and the rest, as they say, is history. It absolutely amazes me how much that game changed my life. For the better, of course. I owe Elan, Sean, & co more than I could ever repay.

- b

[RobMagus]

As with many stories, it all started with The Beast. I lurked through the whole thing, and thought that it was just about the coolest thing ever, but I could never actually do anything when all these amazing people were already involved and finishing every puzzle within minutes. Then I lurked through Lockjaw and though the same thing. When Search4E rolled around, I thought I'd give it a crack. When the threat of having to pay to play rolled around, I left, fearing that all ARGs would end up like that. Boy, was I ever wrong.

During the approx two years I was out, I missed Metacortechs, the flourishing of Unfiction, Chasing the Wish, and a slew of other innovative ARG experiences.

On a whim and possibly out of nostalgia, I visited Unfiction just one day after ARG-Fest-O-Con III: Vancouver had finished, and just a few days before ILB and Urban Hunt started. Good timing, huh? Urban Hunt was the first ARG I actively participated in, and I went whole-hog: I wrote the Quige. I still think Urban Hunt was one of the coolest ARGs ever, and am eagerly awaiting Dave Szulborski's next opus, cause I've caught bits and pieces of his other games (Change Agents: Out Of Control, Chasing the Wish) and I think he's one of the best creators of ARGs.

I am incredibly happy to have been a part of the rise of the ARG from the very beginning, and I can't wait to see what happens next.

[spaceboy]

I kind of lurked around during the Beast and during Metacortechs, but I was too young to really appreciate the genre, and I quickly lost interest.
Flash forward...
...to ILB. I can't even remember how I heard about ILB. It was probably a Halo community site or something. I was intrigued by the concept and quickly hopped in. About the same time I arrived, I saw a post on ARGN talking about Urban Hunt. Hungry for more ARG goodness, I signed up for the online advisor thing on the Urban Hunt website. I was quickly sucked in by Urban Hunt's reality, and I decided that's what I really wanted. I didn't want to answer payphones. So, I quickly jumped ship and deserted to the glorious shores of Urban Hunt.
Over at the UH camp, I quickly found a sense of community. Even though I was a helpless n00b, I was welcomed in and treated as a valuable member of the community. We shared laughs, we shared tears, we shared mass paranoia; it was amazing.
Since then, I've been stuck at Unfiction. I've played a few games. Some were good. Some were not so good, but I've had fun. But, Urban Hunt started it all for me.

[Nightmare Tony]

Had read or heard about the Best, cauight only the last remnants but didnt play, was sad. looks around, Metacortechs also over with, found here. Wanted to get into Perplex, did everything else in the meantime.

Besides, gotta love a genre that has your exact iniutials

[rose]

Acheron

[Varin]

I played Majestic and really had no idea that it was anything beyond a computer game with a new gimmick. I don't think I found the community here until Push, Nevada. (man, I must be getting old - I can't remember the details anymore ) I found Collective Detective and therefore Unfiction when searching for Push information. I played search4e and was quite disappointed when it folded. My first major ARG that I played to the end was Chasing the Wish and was so enamored that I made a guide. I've stuck around since then, playing (or at the very least lurking through) most of the major ARGs.

[Wolf]

I came in on something like day 2 of the Beast and jumped right in with both feet, and for the first two or three weeks was all like "WTF?" but ended up being glad I stayed (and got my name on the movie poster TWICE, woohoo!)

Then I joined up with a few other punishment gluttons and we built Lockjaw and, later, Project MU.

[Darkstar]

I think a post about ourcolony highlighted it as an ARG, and from there I found here. I'd heard of Unfiction in passing before, but never knew what it was. I'd also heard about and liked the idea of an ARG, but never knew where to find them. Now I do, and I want MORE!

[jamesi]

I was bound and gagged and forced into ARG by people who thought it would alleviate some of my anger issues. With the exception of those two n00bs I beat the crap out of, they were right!

(I lurked during the Beast, and was reeled in by Lockjaw. They can't get rid of me.)

[C_Brennan]

If I really want to trace back to the beginning, it would have been when I went to see Artificial Intelligence with my mother. At the end of the movie, we did something odd, we stayed for the credits. I saw Jeanne Salla mentioned, and we laughed about her position, but I never went much further than that.

Then, moving a couple steps forward in time, I was going to buy Majestic, but I could never completely pay for the game. So, the furthest I got with Majestic was holding it in my hands, drooling on the box, and then getting kicked out of Electronics Boutique for messing up the merchandise.

Then, I finally made contact with the genre when my guild found I Love Bees and made a huge fuss about it. I ended up doing more research into it, found Unfiction after watching a G4 special on the Comcast Fan, which included our very own Steve Peters.

After which, I came to Pittsburgh as a University student just as the phones began to ring. Met up with Thunderclap8, and me and him became the only phone answering crew in this whole city.

During which, I went back to some of my old writings and resurrected them in the form of Project Gateway and ended up being the lone PM of Project Gateway. After that, I hooked up with Nash, bounced another one of my old writing ideas off of him, which he thought was awesome, and funded me during Wildfire Industries.

And now, here I am, trying to follow along with Perplex City and loving Art of the Heist. And doing some background work...

[Marrec]

I haven't even seen AI, you'd think with all it's ARG loreness I'd have rushed out and rented the hell out of it. I guess that's not the point, just kinda funny to me. How did I get into ARGs? I was completely oblivious of The Beast, even though I was an internet junkie at the time, and I heard about ILBs but got bored with it after about a month. What started the ARG craze for me was thisisnotporn...

Now, I know that isn't an ARG, but I was looking for other message boards besides the official TINP boards that were discussing the clues and equally as frustrated as me. To cut a long story short, Google found the Unf message boards and I found the Project Syzygy website. So really, I'm playing my first ARG right now... if it'd ever get started.

[Omnie]

I was hanging out at Matrix forums during the summer before Revolutions came out. Someone posted about this google ad they saw for a company called "Metacortechs," and I thought it was really strange, so I sent an e-mail off to the site. A few weeks later, I got a reply, started a thread about it that eventually became several gajillion pages long, and remained entirely sucked into MU for the next few months. I eventually found my way over to unfiction once I learned what an ARG was, and I've been creepily lurking around here ever since. *shifty look*

[rowan]

It's amazing the convoluted path you can take before you actually get to a point where you can settle down with an ARG or two.

I had actually heard about The Beast while it was going on from a morning radio show. They were talking about the crazy game and how you could get these middle of the night phone calls - then played one of them on air. I thought it was kinda cool, checked out Janine Salla's website, got utterly confused and decided there was no way I could play this. I had no idea that the Cloudmakers group even existed.

Fast forward to 2004. Being bored at work, I started looking around for some games to play. Somehow I ended up at cloudmakers.org - where I immediately recognized it as the game I was too dumb to play the first time around. But now I was in luck - there was a whole walkthrough! So I spent the next few days going through all the sites, solving the puzzles (with major hints from the guide). When I was done, I was definitly craving more, and after a little more searching, found UF.

I arrived just in time for Aware Pre-Game. I signed up for the Pre-game, played for a while, then left right before the main game started. I then started going through all of the archives and reading through the guides of the games that I had missed.

Next thing I know, Steve is getting that damned honey and I'm going out to crappy movie theatres to see a trailer that I know no one will believe that I saw. I also signed up for Urban Hunt (and even solved a puzzle!) before I got this silly idea in my head to do a Guide for ILB. Between being an op in #beekeepers and doing the Guide, I had no time for Urban Hunt (although I still have the chatlogs from all the time I lurked in there). One of these days I'll go back and read about what I've missed.

After ILB ended, I dabbled around in a few other ventures: the ever-coming Syzygy, the dud that was Sable&Shuck, and the so-much-fun Daemonworks. However, I've given all of those up (sowwy vis & simon - i'll get back to you one day - email me okay?) for Art of the Heist which I am utterly enjoying. So much in fact I got this crazy idea in my head to do a Guide. Luckily, jamesi talked me into making a Trail (which is far less time consuming than my original idea). I still lurk in #syzygy and look at the updates. Who knows, maybe AotH will finish before Syzygy totally gets started

And thats my long winding road as to how I was introduced to ARGs.

[Dorkmaster]

I was told by a large reptilian creature from the planet Zmbugu (3rd planet of the Zaledo system) that I was to search the planet until I found a man named after emptiness and fish. Needless to say, I was wandering for decades, and I was, well, pretty tired. So finally, as I was about to give up and celebrate my 305th birthday by myself again (well, also with Chuck E. Cheese, of course... man I love that guy...) Anyway, I was just about to give up, and head on my way to that arcade/pizza parlor previously mentioned, and I needed to look it up on the internet. As I did, I realized that I should look more into my interests. I love bees, so I figured I'd search that in google. I did so, and the first link was for a page called, ironically, I love bees. How cool, I thought... unfortunately, no emptiness/fish references... I was about to give up, but then I came upon a bomb... an xnbomb, to be exact. I saw a posting by it, and decided to research this xnbomb... which led me to many fascinating and utterly incomprehensible sites. (Or perhaps it was the PCP... but I digress...) eventually, I found my way to the unfiction forums... I was getting pretty tired, and quite hungry from going pizzaless, so I figured I'd just check out the rules in this place, and then saw my bacon of light (yes, you read that correctly, btw) and saw the holiest of holy grails and stuff... SPACEBASS!!! It was emptiness and fish all at once... and with a frame similar to Scott Baio (2nd only to Mr. C.E. Cheese, IMHO). So I said, what the heck, I've ended my search, and I've only got my sanity to gain, so why not stick around...

By the way, the only true parts of this story are as follows:

1) I started with ILB
2) saw XNbomb, so I researched, and found myself literally in the middle of MU somehow
3) stumbled into the unforums and stuck like glue
4) Spacebass does sorta look like Scott Baio if you squint.
5) I could still stand to gain a little sanity.

forgive me... I just had to...