unforum

[theShaggy]

What has happened to this game?

[Delusional]

I really doubt this game is dead. Vaporlofts has been running for so long now I don't think the pm's will just give up on it. And it has only been a couple weeks, I think we have went that long without updates before.
The problem I have is that even if there are updates I might not find them. There are too many diffrent directories and pages to memorize. I can't spend two hours every day searching for and checking them. Wouldn't it be nice to have a page on the wiki with a link to every page on the vaporlofts site? Ya it would, but i'm not doing it . I'm hoping for a LJ update soon.

[theShaggy]

Well, Abraxas is awesome enough to have a website watcher and is usually up on changes before anyone else. So I'm guessing nothing's been changed.

Also, nothing has been posted on LiveJournals.

Maybe we have gone longer before (I don't think Anne's gone two weeks without some LiveJournal post), but not when our main character suddenly disappears and all communication from within the company that seemed to be happening quite frequently also ceases.

So, I dunno. I'm scared everyone will leave the game because of the PM's penchant for "realistic pacing."

[ghostmeta]

I'm pretty much up shit creek without a paddle these days, thanks to being back at college and without a computer of my own due to real life situations, so I'm going to be less active by default.

Unfortunately, that means there's one less head to bash against these walls we've come up against.

Once there seems to be some activity again, I'll perk up most likely, but right now? I have classes to focus on.

I just can't shake the feeling that I'm missing something vitally important, but I can't for the life of me figure out what.

[Abraxas]

There's nothing new as far as I can tell.
It's the "exciting second phase"!

We still have a mountain of puzzles left to solve, although I doubt that it will be of much use at this point. Except perhaps those three correspondences we still didn't solve (I'm not even trying, I admit it)...
Probably they are just waiting for us to do something about that or they are planning the second phase which will hit us with something we don't expect and bring this game back into motion with a blast.

[theShaggy]

Honestly, you say true.

However, their previous actions show that if we don't get something necessary, they'll point us back in that direction. Here's hoping they do that, y'know?

[theShaggy]

We're now about a month (or more = the most recent thread about the most recent update that I can find is December 30th) without an update.

This is my first ARG; is there a statute of limitations before we can declare the game dead?

Notice the Dreamhost counter on the main page has gone down, too.

Is this a bust now?

I hope the PM decides to let us know. One would think that after this long, we all give up and go elsewhere. It just seems funny HOW it ended and WHERE it ended. Makes me hope that it's not quite done yet.

[Lucy]

It's also been deleted from the ARGN 'What's Hot' list....making me think they either know something we don't, or they've made an informed judgement call...

[jamesi]

[rowan]

Sorry to report, but word has just been received that the game is indeed over - we just didn't realize it

Look for an article on ARGN within the next day for a more detailed account but here are the highlights:

1. The game did end as intended. It did not implode.
2. This was a freshman effort by PM(s) who did not know about unfiction when the game launched.
3. The curtain is going to remain closed. Don't expect to see a chat with the PM(s). They were hoping that we would have figured out that the game just ended with Anne not really coming back from Atlanta, but in light of our recent confusion, wanted to make sure we didn't feel like we were being led on.

So that's it then. I hope to (at some point) get the guide caught up so that people can read through it all the way through. I know you guys have a ton of questions for the PMs, but all I can suggest is starting a meta thread and hope that one day the PMs can find a way to answer.

[Abraxas]

Now, that's what I get for chronologically replying to threads...


That's not a happy ending and it's not a sad ending...that's no ending at all!
I can't really believe this. VaporLofts announced an "exciting second phase" and that was a major part of this ARG...either they decided to let that go or it's just a hoax and there will be something else coming up.
Or maybe I'm paranoid.
Too bad.

[theShaggy]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks this, Abraxas. I'm actually quite peeved that THIS is the way it's to end. All these dangling plot threads that'll just disappear.

I don't necessarily trust the e-mail I got, but it still seems strange that it would pop up the day that things were announced to close.

And you're right the "exciting second phase," along with pretty much everything else, really strikes me as there being something not-quite-right about this ending.

Also, as someone who dedicated time and energy into this game, I feel quite ripped off that this was how it was planned to finish. Not only that, but I think it reflects quite badly on the PM. Planned or not, an ending like this makes me think that the PMs had absolutely no idea where to go with all the nifty ideas they were coming up with.

I can only hope that they're sending us on a wild tangent, and plan on following up somehow, because it really smells of something suspicious when all of this stuff had set-up to lead to a single video and Annie disappearing for good. But if they did, doesn't that break some sort of ARG convention, playing the game OOG?

Bleh. I'm really annoyed with this game.

[mapmaker]

With regard to the "Exciting Second Phase", that seems quite reasonable in the context of the game ending as it did. It's foreshadowing - of what, we can only imagine. It's just left to the freedom of imagination.

[theShaggy]

In a literary sense, I can see your point. But are we talking literary here?

I mean, it's an Alternate Reality GAME. An interactive medium by which we, the players, can have an effect on the story, and get wrapped up into the alternate reality. The whole point of it is that it isn't the real world... hell, they're sucking demon ghosts or whatever through a gateway, that's pretty non-real.

In THAT context, doesn't it seem a little unfair? We're the ones who were supposed to be involved in the thing, and now we're left with.. no resolution. I can see why the PM would want to do it, and what was there was freaking awesome. And that's why it stings. There was great stuff going, and we are then left hanging for the PM's artistic license. Why bother getting us involved in the first place?

[krystyn]

Cookies need love like everything does.