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 Forum index » Archive » Archive: The Lost Experience » TLE: META, OT, and Social Interactions
[META] Why it doesnt matter if Rachel is good or bad.
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Hank Scorpio
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 		[META] Why it doesnt matter if Rachel is good or bad.
Quote:
As far as Rachel trying to lead us astray... well we've already figured out this isnt an interactive game so much as an experience. Sure she could be trying to distract us from something but theres no other path to follow. If we were truely intended to solve a mystery other than what shes currently working on, there hasnt yet been another plot introduced for us to solve. Rachels character seems to be the same as us, someone who is finding clues and following them. Until a real person or fake character starts giving us different information we have no choice but to see where she leads us. You can't just say, oh Rachel is distracting us from the real Hanso problem, he decided to become a shaolin monk and live in the mountains and thats why no one has seen him. IMO we're following the story the way they want us to follow the story, and if Rachel indeed turns out to be deceiving us, I'm sure that revelation will come at a time when it makes total sense to the story.

Remember, TV writers wrote this experience. In TV conflicts are never resolved until the series finale (or in the case of seinfeld not even then). Television shows are much more popular when there are characters you hate and situations you dont agree with than when everything goes exactly the way you want and everyone lives happily ever after.


PostPosted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 3:13 pm
Last edited by Hank Scorpio on Thu Jul 06, 2006 3:42 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Hank Scorpio
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vector wrote:

The level of "errors" and really obvious fakes are just too much for me to ignore. Either the writers are really really bad at pulling togather an ARG or they are really good and we are playing a very different game than we think.


As quoted multiple times you should read this article http://xbox.gamezone.com/news/05_03_06_10_25AM.htm

This is an Experience, not a game in the traditional ARG way.

It's not like tomorrow someone is going to put together a bunch of random clues and letters and find some website that explains everything. This experience has a traditional arched storyline. We get clues when they give them to us and use those clues to get more information. This is all leading down one very specific path. I have yet to see any plausible theories outside of the island/cargo freighter/missing organs/missing hanso concept that has been supplied to us by Persephone and Rachel. Don't forget, Rachel is the one who found out about the boat and what do you know, there is a boat, with Hanso employees on it no less.

If you think Rachel is giving us false information great, stop reading her blog and try and follow this thing without her. We need rachel, right or wrong, to complete the experience.

So far as we know, this is all being done by ABC and the Lost producers, none of which have any experience in ARG's. I'm sure if they wanted a true ARG they couldve hired FortyTwo or someone who knows what theyre doing, but they felt they didnt need to. I watch the show Lost. I like the show Lost. I trust where the show is leading me, just as I like and trust where this experience is leading me. It continues the show over the summer. If you dont like where this is going, stop playing. No one is making you. There have been plenty of failed or disappointing ARG's in the past. This one will come down to factors we havent even gotten to yet. There is still a long way to go on the game.

If Rachel turns out to be evil and a mole of the Hanso foundation (which I doubt) I'm sure there will be a great reason for it and when it is revealed we'll be like "oh sweet, im glad I didn't know that earlier, it wouldve ruined part of the game" but regardless, for right now I believe we need to see where shes leading us, it has to be important either way.

PostPosted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 3:31 pm
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Hank Scorpio
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 		Oh and as far as the connection to the show, Mike Benson specifically says
Quote:
the storyline that's been created for the Lost Experience has to do with what's going on on the island. Yes. A lot of the stuff that you will discover, as I said before, will relate back to the show. Some of the questions that you may ask about Lost right now will be answered by the end of this experience simply because of the way this story was written.


also you should note he says this [quote]there are new characters that have been cast, that have been written into the story, that are not on the island. They may end up being part of Lost on the television show later down the road.[quote]

PostPosted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 3:37 pm
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SpiralBoundBook
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Hank Scorpio wrote:
So far as we know, this is all being done by ABC and the Lost producers, none of which have any experience in ARG's. I'm sure if they wanted a true ARG they couldve hired FortyTwo or someone who knows what theyre doing, but they felt they didnt need to.

Wait- someone with more knowledge than me correct me please- but didn't JJ Abrams, who produces Lost, also produce Alias, which had anARG? Was it a good ARG? Did they hire an outside company to do it?
This is really just nitpicking- because I agree with Hank that this just don't matter. TLE doesn't have a high level of interactivity, so in that sense it isn't in the ARG mold many of the players on this site want it to be.

However, this doesn't limit the interactivty to ZERO. TLE is just like the show, I believe it IS just a "spin-off" scattered across multiple platforms, but I also agree with Hank again, here:
Hank Scorpio wrote:
I watch the show Lost. I like the show Lost. I trust where the show is leading me, just as I like and trust where this experience is leading me. It continues the show over the summer.

And just like the show, there are continuity errors. Like the famous erros in the Orientation film that had internet fans screaming for weeks that (2x9)
Spoiler (Rollover to View):
the bit Eko gave Locke
was from a different film entirely- which wasn't true at all. Or the resume that had 2008 on it. Or the x-ray in Jack's hospital that had 2005 on it. Ad naseum. These are things that fans found by freeze-framing episodes and blowing them up, analyzing documents that were entirely peripheral in the episodes, but since we don't know where our clues will come from, people get really over-zealous sometimes.

Back to my original point- just because it's a set story doesn't mean the interactivity is zero. The LOST writers certainly have the ability to respond to fan criticisms and theories within the story- when they feel like it. And that if we go with the general trend of LOST, there is no way our shouting about it is going to make them reveal the truth any sooner. It WILL have an effect on how they continue the game, however- for example, outrage at the cliffhanger at the end of Season One caused:
Season 2 finale mild spoiler:
Spoiler (Rollover to View):
the writers to try and draw the Season 2 finale to more of a conclusion. I mean.. they still threw something at us, but it was more like when Walt was taken- they set up a whole new arc for the next season. Not like that awful, awful pan down into the darkness of the hatch and we're all screaming: JUST TURN THE CAMERA AROUND DAMMIT!

The writers seem to love letting rumors run rampant for as long as possible- and it's that high "noise to sound" ratio that keeps much of LOST secret and most of the spoilers unreliable. I live on Oahu, they FILM it here, and it's almost always impossible to tell what is real and what is total rumor. People go and take photos of sets and crew members talk and we keep tabs on who leaves the island when and we STILL can't piece it all together.

My belief is that Rachel is crazy (following on my inital thought. that Persephone was a bit nuts and that we were following the ravings of a lunatic.) Unreliable Narrator is a slightly hokey twist, but this isn't quite first-rate Lost we're dealing with here, so my money is on that.

Anyway- in my book, Rachel being unreliable is an interesting story arc, being angry with her may serve some point within the game (and give us something to DO for a while) but I do not think this is the type of game where we can alter the storyline at all. And I'm alright with that.
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 4:49 pm
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Hank Scorpio
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 		My bad, you're totally right about Alias. I never played it so maybe someone here did and can fill us in, although so far as I know JJ has very little to do with Lost these days and I don't recall seeing his name mentioned as being involved in TLE which is Damon's and Carlton's pet project.

All seriousness aside though it has come to my attention that this thread is not fun enough so I will do my best to make it more fun.

Oh man, classic marmaduke.

PostPosted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 5:46 pm
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theShaggy
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 		Re: [META] Why it doesnt matter if Rachel is good or bad.
Hank Scorpio wrote:
Remember, TV writers wrote this experience. In TV conflicts are never resolved until the series finale (or in the case of seinfeld not even then). Television shows are much more popular when there are characters you hate and situations you dont agree with than when everything goes exactly the way you want and everyone lives happily ever after.


Yes, but normal story arcs counterbalance characters you hate and can't stand with characters you like and want to stand up for. And even when there aren't, the characters you hate are characters you hate for what they are in the show - some sort of charisma based on what they do. People are hating Rachel Blake not in-game, but out-of-game, and it's turning people away, or even more amusingly, to mutiny on her comments. Her character is not someone we feel ANYTHING for, anywhere in her plight. At this point, nobody gives a damn what the secret about her mother is, or why she's doing what she does, because the way she's presented to us is horribly uninteresting. It's an ARG (whether an "Experience" or not, it's an ARG by the very definition of the acronym), and yet all we're doing is sitting around getting half-assed, vague non-answers to questions nobody is asking, and none of it is dragging anyone along because we are not learning anything as we go.

Interactive games require some feeling that they're interactive. When all the ROT words of the day were cracked, and Fiberoptician's three-word puzzle was solved in the first day, it would have been nice to get a "Wow, some people already got them? How in the heck?" or something, rather than the scripted posts. They're pushing ahead with terrible excuses, and blatant misfires and it's really pissing people off, including myself (and believe you me, in real life I'm one of the biggest apologists for this game and will keep watching it). I hope they can figure something out now, because it's in dire straits of losing all it's players.
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 7:37 pm
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matt_the_pale
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 		Re: [META] Why it doesnt matter if Rachel is good or bad.
theShaggy wrote:
Yes, but normal story arcs counterbalance characters you hate and can't stand with characters you like and want to stand up for. And even when there aren't, the characters you hate are characters you hate for what they are in the show - some sort of charisma based on what they do. People are hating Rachel Blake not in-game, but out-of-game, and it's turning people away, or even more amusingly, to mutiny on her comments. Her character is not someone we feel ANYTHING for, anywhere in her plight. At this point, nobody gives a damn what the secret about her mother is, or why she's doing what she does, because the way she's presented to us is horribly uninteresting. It's an ARG (whether an "Experience" or not, it's an ARG by the very definition of the acronym), and yet all we're doing is sitting around getting half-assed, vague non-answers to questions nobody is asking, and none of it is dragging anyone along because we are not learning anything as we go.

Interactive games require some feeling that they're interactive. When all the ROT words of the day were cracked, and Fiberoptician's three-word puzzle was solved in the first day, it would have been nice to get a "Wow, some people already got them? How in the heck?" or something, rather than the scripted posts. They're pushing ahead with terrible excuses, and blatant misfires and it's really pissing people off, including myself (and believe you me, in real life I'm one of the biggest apologists for this game and will keep watching it). I hope they can figure something out now, because it's in dire straits of losing all it's players.

Quoted for truth. Amen, brother.

PostPosted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 8:13 pm
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Therum
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Joined: 27 Oct 2005
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 		Re: [META] Why it doesnt matter if Rachel is good or bad.
matt_the_pale wrote:
theShaggy wrote:
Yes, but normal story arcs counterbalance characters you hate and can't stand with characters you like and want to stand up for. And even when there aren't, the characters you hate are characters you hate for what they are in the show - some sort of charisma based on what they do. People are hating Rachel Blake not in-game, but out-of-game, and it's turning people away, or even more amusingly, to mutiny on her comments. Her character is not someone we feel ANYTHING for, anywhere in her plight. At this point, nobody gives a damn what the secret about her mother is, or why she's doing what she does, because the way she's presented to us is horribly uninteresting. It's an ARG (whether an "Experience" or not, it's an ARG by the very definition of the acronym), and yet all we're doing is sitting around getting half-assed, vague non-answers to questions nobody is asking, and none of it is dragging anyone along because we are not learning anything as we go.

Interactive games require some feeling that they're interactive. When all the ROT words of the day were cracked, and Fiberoptician's three-word puzzle was solved in the first day, it would have been nice to get a "Wow, some people already got them? How in the heck?" or something, rather than the scripted posts. They're pushing ahead with terrible excuses, and blatant misfires and it's really pissing people off, including myself (and believe you me, in real life I'm one of the biggest apologists for this game and will keep watching it). I hope they can figure something out now, because it's in dire straits of losing all it's players.

Quoted for truth. Amen, brother.


QFTx2

PostPosted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 8:26 pm
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SpiralBoundBook
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 		Re: [META] Why it doesnt matter if Rachel is good or bad.
Yes, utter truth. This is what bothers me the most. I don't care about Rachel, I think she's annoying, but I played the game because I wanted to get the cool inside scoop on LOST. Besides, I mean, I didn't care for Shannon but I recognized that she played some part in the show. Rachel is total dino food as far as I'm concerned- my expectations for her were low and so I don't feel she really let me down very much.

However- I hoped that the "story" wasn't about Rachel at all- that she was just the vehicle for it to come across. But as time goes on and we aren't introduced to ANY more characters my hopes are waning.

And then, on top of that- the puzzles we are asked to solve are so... thin. The occasional tidbit is offered to allow us to piece together more about the island, but it seems like... well... it's like when you tune in thinking you're getting a new episode of a TV program but they are showing a lame clip show where they take some major background points and string them together with stupid, tenuous narration. Nothing they have offered us really feels NEW- most if it was guessed in speculation already.
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 8:59 pm
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theShaggy
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 		Not only that, but most of the puzzles are "pick the word from this list of ten and see if it's right." And those are only the puzzles that WORK. The rest are "Here is a puzzle that we don't actually expect anyone to answer, so we'll pretend they're wrong when they clearly get it right."
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 10:07 pm
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