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 Forum index » Archive » Archive: General » Old News & Rumors
Helpmeveronica.com - Veronica Mars ARG?
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Tarrsk
Veteran

Joined: 27 Jul 2004
Posts: 98
Location: Washington, DC

 		Helpmeveronica.com - Veronica Mars ARG?
Not sure if this has been posted yet... over at Television Without Pity, they're all abuzz with discussion about this website: http://www.helpmeveronica.com/

As a big Veronica Mars fan, I was naturally intrigued. The Hearst College mentions tie directly into the upcoming third season of the show, and the oblique references to a party for incoming frosh refer to a loose end from the previous season that many have guessed will form a major plotline in the next.

If you go to the actual youtube video link, many of the comments appear to be "in character" as Hearst students. Could be an ARG? Definitely viral marketing of some sort.

Edit: Several of the youtube commentors have livejournals, also in character (including a spooky one that references the day Lily Kane was murdered).

http://hearst-shadow.livejournal.com/
http://pisigmylifeaway.livejournal.com/
http://spikeiterica.livejournal.com/
http://scarlettwinch.livejournal.com/
http://hearst-hottie.livejournal.com/
http://lindita-grl.livejournal.com/
http://deanamatronix.livejournal.com/

PostPosted: Thu Aug 31, 2006 11:27 pm
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oxdeltaxo
Decorated

Joined: 16 Aug 2006
Posts: 238
Location: Canada EH?

 		When I saw that youtube video I automatically flashed back to starwars "Help me ObiWan Kenobi your my only hope." Mr. Green

PostPosted: Fri Sep 01, 2006 12:14 am
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sequoya
Unfettered


Joined: 27 Jul 2004
Posts: 548
Location: Land of haggis, kilts, neds and Irn-Bru

 		There are certainly a lot of interconnected livejournals all related to Hearst college - a couple more not listed in your post are:

http://molly-at-hearst.livejournal.com/
and http://community.livejournal.com/hearst_college/ - a community for the college itself.
ETA: http://voltaires-bitch.livejournal.com
and http://duran-man.livejournal.com/

Lots of reading and at least one AIM contact to add if you have the means Smile
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 01, 2006 5:39 am
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potostfbeyeluvr
Boot


Joined: 04 Aug 2006
Posts: 50

 		The blogs sure are using a lot of profantiy for this to be directly related to VM, no? Would they go that far past what they say on the show in a game? I'm new to the viral marketing aspect of ARGs.

Edit: Okay, I'm convinced it's part of the show. I sent emails to a few of the LJ people, asking for info about Hearst. They all pointed me to the Hearst LJ community, and one said that the offical site was down for maintainence, but should be up again soon.

Edit2: Okay, really, really sure this is real. One of the LJers emailed me a real link to 'hearstcollege.org;' I ran a whois when I found that the link didn't work. WarnerBrothers, all the way. That is a bit odd though, because Veronica Mars has never been on the WB. It's now on a hybrid network that includes the WB, but maybe they just didn't get the names changed over. But, it's a marketing scheme, at least to some degree.

Edit3: More info: I IMed on of the LJ users.

Quote:
me: Hello.
LinditaGrl: HELLO!!
me: Hi! I'm Kara.
me: I saw that you were a part of the Hearst community, and wanted to ask a few questions about the college.
LinditaGrl: i'm no expert but i'll do my best
me: Thanks. Okay, first: What attracted to you Hearst?
LinditaGrl: actually, embarrasing as it is to say, i followed my boyfriend here
LinditaGrl: boyfriend at the time, i should say
me: lol. Not embarrasing at all. Second: What kind of majors are offered?
LinditaGrl: all the normal ones really. i'm just a psych major so i don't know about any weird ones
me: Okay, great. How much is it per semester?
LinditaGrl: haha i feel bad, i don't know any of these answers! my parents handle my financial aid stuff
me: lol. it's okay. Do you know where I could find out? The website I was given, hearstcollege.org, doesn't work for me.
LinditaGrl: it hasn't been working for me either. i think it's down
LinditaGrl: if you ask on the LJ community, i'm sure someone would know
me: Okay, sure. I don't think I have posting privileges yet, because the manager hasn't approved me.
me: Hey, do you think there's some kind of email for high school students with questions?
me: Like, to admissions officers, or something?
LinditaGrl: there might be, but i don't know about it if so
me: If you do hear of anything like that, could you send me an email?
LinditaGrl: sure thing!
me: My email is XXXXXXXSPLATgmail.com.
LinditaGrl: okay
me: BTW, I'm Kara.
LinditaGrl: i gotta run for now, nice talking to you!
me: TTYL.
LinditaGrl: well hi kara, i'm linda
LinditaGrl: Smile
LinditaGrl: bye!
me: Bye!
LinditaGrl signed off at 5:05:41 PM.


Just testing the waters, for now. Every time I talk to a student, they point me to one user, Hearst_shadow, and the Hearst community. I think we're supposed to just wait, for now.

PostPosted: Fri Sep 01, 2006 12:02 pm
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urthstripe
Entrenched


Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 1113
Location: Atlanta, GA

 		YES! VM ARG! YES!!!!!!!
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 06, 2006 11:15 pm
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Wolf
Decorated


Joined: 26 Sep 2002
Posts: 292

 		Pardon my cynicism, but...

Sweet baby Jesus. Another attempt using livejournal and chat.

*sigh*

/crawls back into his hole at the Home For Cranky, Aged Former Puppetmasters
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 07, 2006 10:53 am
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Esteed
Entrenched


Joined: 25 Jul 2006
Posts: 1147
Location: Delaware
Wolf wrote:
Pardon my cynicism, but...

Sweet baby Jesus. Another attempt using livejournal and chat.

*sigh*

/crawls back into his hole at the Home For Cranky, Aged Former Puppetmasters


Pardon my sarcasm, but...

Sweet baby Jesus, another jaded ARGer refusing to consider the possibility that something might be good even if it uses methods he thinks aren't up to snuff! Let's all post unnecessarily to make our disapproval of those methods known! Brilliant! /sarcasm

Personally, I'm looking forward to a VM ARG, or even just a "follow along" experience. The fact that it uses methods I can readily understand, as opposed to HTML coding, image manipulation methods, etc., just makes it all the better for me.
_________________
"The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout "Save us!"... and I'll look down and whisper "No."" -Rorschach

PostPosted: Thu Sep 07, 2006 8:11 pm
Last edited by Esteed on Fri Sep 08, 2006 11:26 am; edited 1 time in total
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colin
Entrenched

Joined: 13 Oct 2003
Posts: 810
Location: Australia
Esteed wrote:
Sweet baby Jesus, another jaded ARGer refusing to consider the possibility that something might be good even if it uses older methods! Let's all post unnecessarily to make our disapproval of those methods known! Brilliant! /sarcasm

Personally, I'm looking forward to a VM ARG, or even just a "follow along" experience.
I think the issue wasn't so much that's its old. When you are producing something that's multimedia and ARG(ish) using a blog is pretty much the laziest thing you can do. It's like reading an online book in real time, nothing more.

Chat poses a risk in terms of getting content out. If you chat one-on-one and a log isn't posted, most players are never going to know what's going on. Even if a log is posted, it's annoying to read through. Even with only two people the conversation can be quite non-linear.

If it's just an 'experience' the argument changes and it's fair to say they can do whatever they want blah blah blah. But anyway, I think it was more the 'quality' of the methods, not age.

PostPosted: Fri Sep 08, 2006 2:36 am
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Wolf
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Joined: 26 Sep 2002
Posts: 292
Quote:
I think it was more the 'quality' of the methods, not age.


Yes, but I am quite old.
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You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think.

PostPosted: Fri Sep 08, 2006 10:06 am
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Esteed
Entrenched


Joined: 25 Jul 2006
Posts: 1147
Location: Delaware

 		In that case, I'll change my references to age in the post to quality. The point still stands, though, as one man's trash is another's treasure, and there was no reason for him to post his disapproval of the methods used in a game in a thread where people were quite enjoying it.
_________________
"The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout "Save us!"... and I'll look down and whisper "No."" -Rorschach

PostPosted: Fri Sep 08, 2006 11:25 am
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starlajo
Boot


Joined: 29 Sep 2004
Posts: 43
Location: Wellington, New Zealand

 		http://www.helpmeveronica.com/casenotes/video2/bookplate_message1.htm

...needs decoding

PostPosted: Fri Sep 08, 2006 6:37 pm
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equi_design
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Joined: 10 Mar 2003
Posts: 116
Location: Land of the manatees

 		jpg - hearst logo & page title
this page:
http://www.helpmeveronica.com/clickme/page.html

has this title: Veronica - I need to code my message so he doesn't know.

hmmm...i think this could be fun. especially since i'm a sucker for tv-based follow along argish games.

PostPosted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 3:43 pm
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SpaceBass
The BADministrator


Joined: 20 Sep 2002
Posts: 2701
Location: pellucidar

 		Re: jpg - hearst logo & page title
equi_design wrote:
this page:
http://www.helpmeveronica.com/clickme/page.html

has this title: Veronica - I need to code my message so he doesn't know.

hmmm...i think this could be fun. especially since i'm a sucker for tv-based follow along argish games.


Looking at the coat of arms, I tried changing "page" to "help" in the URL, which worked: http://www.helpmeveronica.com/clickme/help.html

Spoiler (Rollover to View):
The Morse translates to "marlowe." Changing the page to marlowe.html is apparently only "close."

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PostPosted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 3:54 pm
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Lostpedian
Kl00

Joined: 10 Jul 2006
Posts: 42

 		LOL, the "villain" hacked Veronica's laptop and left a threatening message, but YouTube pulled it "due to terms of use violation". For the moment, you can still see the info and thumbnail by going to http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=helpmeveronica.

It was posted by http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=vampireechelon . Maybe someone still has the .flv in their internet cache?

PostPosted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 4:40 pm
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equi_design
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Joined: 10 Mar 2003
Posts: 116
Location: Land of the manatees

 		Re: jpg - hearst logo & page title
SpaceBass wrote:


Looking at the coat of arms, I tried changing "page" to "help" in the URL, which worked: http://www.helpmeveronica.com/clickme/help.html

Spoiler (Rollover to View):
The Morse translates to "marlowe." Changing the page to marlowe.html is apparently only "close."


Spoiler (Rollover to View):
Searching on google- Marlowe. Gives a name: christopher.html. Add that to the web addy. this page says "Nope, Try the OTHER one". and also "Was this the page that launch'd a thousand clues?"

Second name hit on google is: Philip.html. It works and there's a new clue.


Add then you realize that our little webmaster has quite the sense of humor. lol.

From there:
Spoiler (Rollover to View):
philip.html has a box w/ writing on it: Ohls, Regan, Geiger. page title is: "it's all backwards." google again- characters in The big sleep. flip it backwards: peelsgibeht.html. And there's a new kloo, scooby!

page title: "it's a pin stop' image name: a-character-in.jpg. hidden code in the source will help in solving the picture puzzle. source leads us to the star: brendan frye. a character in the movie: Brick.html.

now we're at our final destination for now. nice little explanation in his source code that we should wait a few days. and his page title asks us to "bookmark this page".


whew...

PostPosted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 4:45 pm
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