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Forum index » Archive » Archive: Ephemeral » ARG: Eldritch Errors

[Trailhead] BA Saint Feline - BSeeingU.com
Moderators: aliendial, celina63, konamouse, rose, thebruce

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faster
Boot

Joined: 26 Feb 2007
Posts: 61

poeticexplosion wrote:

Very very similar to Phaedra's letter. Just redundancy in case the packages don't get reported? If so, what's important here that requires redundancy?

If it is just for redundancy, then why have different numbering for the (maybe) I Ching refs?

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 4:09 am

Phaedra
Lurker v2.0

Joined: 21 Sep 2004
Posts: 4033
Location: Here, obviously

faster wrote:

poeticexplosion wrote:

Very very similar to Phaedra's letter. Just redundancy in case the packages don't get reported? If so, what's important here that requires redundancy?

If it is just for redundancy, then why have different numbering for the (maybe) I Ching refs?

It was the letter that's redundant, not the package contents. Smile

So far it doesn't look like the contents of the letter are part of a puzzle, but if they're going to this much trouble to make sure that the contents go out to the player base as a whole (sending very similar letters to multiple people), maybe they are.

Or maybe Bast just ran out of dreams to talk about. Wink

_________________
Voted Most Likely to Thread-Jack and Most Patient Explainer in the ILoveBees Awards.

World Champion: Cruel 2B Kind

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 8:34 am

faster
Boot

Joined: 26 Feb 2007
Posts: 61

Phaedra wrote:

It was the letter that's redundant, not the package contents. Smile

I know - but I don't think I explained my point very well Embarassed

What I meant was that if the second letter was intended as a fall back in case the first didn't get through or didn't get shared, wouldn't the rest of the package be identical as well - especially since it's fair to assume that the contents of the packages hold as much, if not more meaning than the letters?

If that's the case, then - unless Bast did just run out of dreams to describe Wink

- then we should keep in mind that there might be that there's some other reason why duplicate letters have gone out: the overlap mightn't be redundant. Obviously it's hard to tell at this stage, but I thought it might be worth raising, just in case...

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 9:08 am

PST Productions
Boot

Joined: 18 Apr 2007
Posts: 39
Location: Maple Shade, NJ

Questions

Ok, I'm still not sure why or how I got the package. Hell, I first thought we had our very first stalker here at PST. Until I farted around in the internet, I didn't know it was a game.

We've had players in our events before send us stuff. Some neat props, books, CD, etc.

What happens if people that get sent the packages don't make the connection? Is the game void?

Also, what is exactly the point to the game? To find the person who created it, to find this fictional BA Person?

What's the reward? Just the satisfaction of solving the mystery?

Is this just a ploy in the attempts of a production company to sell a product or movie?

Sorry for the barrage of questions. This would be the first ARG I've done. Still not sure why and how we were chosen. To be honest, I have no clue who anyone here is.

_________________
PST Productions
Live Action Role Playing In The Worlds Of H.P. Lovecraft.

"All You Have To Lose Is Your Sanity"<tm>

www.pst-productions.org
www.cthulhulive.com

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 9:40 am

Phaedra
Lurker v2.0

Joined: 21 Sep 2004
Posts: 4033
Location: Here, obviously

faster wrote:

I know - but I don't think I explained my point very well Embarassed

Ahhhh, sorry.

I'm not sure that the packages don't have built-in redundancy as well -- I appear to have the same I Ching hexagram as someone else. But I think that they're -- for lack of a better term -- cross-redundant. That is, if my letter matches, say, Inio's, my I Ching hexagram matches thebruce's, rather than having my whole package match someone else's.

I'd expect that the other package contents would be redundant, since they're puzzle pieces. I'd assumed the letters were just sort of...mood-setting.

But okay, perhaps we should be cross-referencing. I've seen two letters that share the same distinctive leitmotivs as mine: line between reality and fantasy, madness lying on that line, dreams being so very real. Those are present in inio's and PST Productions' letters as well.

Have we found matches to any of the others yet?

_________________
Voted Most Likely to Thread-Jack and Most Patient Explainer in the ILoveBees Awards.

World Champion: Cruel 2B Kind

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 9:49 am

Axys Denyed
Unfettered

Joined: 10 Feb 2005
Posts: 456
Location: Houston, TX, USA

Re: Questions

Quote:

What happens if people that get sent the packages don't make the connection? Is the game void?

If this were to happen, the puppetmasters would find some way to get the needed information to us. There's always multiple ways to get the information out

Quote:

Also, what is exactly the point to the game? To find the person who created it, to find this fictional BA Person?

The point? We don't know yet. Finding out the purpose is also part of the mystery Wink

Quote:

What's the reward? Just the satisfaction of solving the mystery?

Worry not about the destination and enjoy the path to it

Quote:

Is this just a ploy in the attempts of a production company to sell a product or movie?

I wouldn't call it a "ploy". The game is an unique experience in and of itself. With "corporate" ARGs (GMD being the company behind this one) there's usually someone backing the game and the game will tie into their product in some manner, but it's not like they browbeat you with the product. It's less "Go out and buy this" and more "Isn't this an interesting concept? Here's something else related to it you might be interested in."

Quote:

Sorry for the barrage of questions. This would be the first ARG I've done. Still not sure why and how we were chosen. To be honest, I have no clue who anyone here is.

Don't feel bad for asking question. If you don't ask questions, how are you supposed to learn? Stick around, you'll get to know us. Very Happy

_________________
I've searched for the Cube, played poker with the dead, hunted monsters, helped stop Spoocheee and helped find a dimension hopping cat. What else you got?

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 10:02 am

catherwood
I Have 100 Cats and Smell of Wee

Joined: 25 Sep 2002
Posts: 4109
Location: Silicon Valley, CA

Re: Questions

Heh, we simul-posted, great minds thinking almost alike...

PST Productions wrote:

What happens if people that get sent the packages don't make the connection? Is the game void?

It won't void the game for the rest of us, but that one person will miss out on some fun. We trust that the "puppetmasters" will find another way to get vital information out to the rest of the community, if someone neglects to share it with the world.

PST Productions wrote:

Also, what is exactly the point to the game? To find the person who created it, to find this fictional BA Person?

I think of it as immersive fiction, in which the point is not just to watch a story unfold but to participate in unlocking it, revealing secrets, and even steering it just a bit.

PST Productions wrote:

What's the reward? Just the satisfaction of solving the mystery?

Yes, that plus the social rewards from working with a community of puzzle-solvers and story-speculators. Another analogy might be a book club, where you enjoy not only the shared story, but the sharing of the weekly meetings. (Oh, and the occasional swag gifts.)

PST Productions wrote:

Is this just a ploy in the attempts of a production company to sell a product or movie?

"Ploy" is such a negative term. If you enjoy the Cthulu mythos enough to LARP it, imagine living it in such a way that it invades your real world. We like to think that the purveyors of a product are also giving us a unique experience. People today still talk about "i love bees" more than they talk about "that day we stood in line to buy Halo 2", at least my friends do.

PST Productions wrote:

Sorry for the barrage of questions. This would be the first ARG I've done. Still not sure why and how we were chosen. To be honest, I have no clue who anyone here is.

Questions are good, it's how the lurkers learn too. And we're all just mundanes -- you can trust that the game itself doesn't play out on this forum, this is for discussion about the game, the characters and puppetmasters know to allow us this space to ourselves. If/when the time comes, they may have an in-game website with a message board or chat space where we will interact with BASaint and other characters... I'm getting chills of anticipation ;)

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 10:09 am

Worker
Decorated

Joined: 07 Oct 2003
Posts: 233

Re: My package

inio wrote:

Torn magazine page, opposite site has page number 77, and that's it.

What side is that page number on? The torn side, or not?

EDIT: No need to answer that. It's the torn side. It's always the torn side. And the page with the image is 78.

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 10:14 am
Last edited by Worker on Thu Apr 19, 2007 11:07 am; edited 1 time in total

Gertrude Wellie
Greenhorn

Joined: 23 Feb 2006
Posts: 8
Location: Surrey, UK

Tie In
Movie

Just reading through everything and it all definitely sounds like a tie in to the Lovecraft movie coming out. Interesting that even PST got something, and the timing puts it a few months out from summer release.

Do all the items received look like mass produced printings? or are they more original pages?

A rookie here on ARGs, but looking forward to adding what I can!

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 10:18 am

Phaedra
Lurker v2.0

Joined: 21 Sep 2004
Posts: 4033
Location: Here, obviously

Re: Questions

Yay newbies! Smile

PST Productions wrote:

What happens if people that get sent the packages don't make the connection? Is the game void?

Chances are at least some of the people who get the packages will make the connection. Bast upped her chances by sending a bunch of packages to various ~~obsessive and chatty~~ well-known ARG players who were more or less guaranteed to recognize them as an ARG rabbithole (an entry into the game) and share them with everyone else here at Unfiction.

META answer ("meta" refers to information outside the game world): The company behind this game also is familiar with Unfiction, and we're familiar with them, and a lot of the people who got packages also fairly recently talked in person with one of the puppetmasters (people who run an ARG) at ARGFest, and I hear he dropped some hints that something was coming.

Generally speaking, most large-scale, commercial ARGs don't have such specifically targeted rabbitholes -- instead of sending packages to handpicked individuals, they might run ads in a newspaper or put a link in a movie trailer or use other much more publicly-focused means to get their game noticed. But often they also send a heads-up directly to us. They also may attempt to recruit other potentially interested internet communities by sending them personally-targeted rabbitholes as well. Most recently, for Vanishing Point, which was a game that promoted Microsoft Vista, the company behind it sent computers and other really nice swag with clues in the packages to various tech bloggers.

PST Productions wrote:

Also, what is exactly the point to the game? To find the person who created it, to find this fictional BA Person?

Generally speaking, finding out who's behind it is a secondary, meta goal. In this case, we already know because of to whom the site is registered. But that's an out-of-game activity.

As for the game itself, we don't know yet. ARGs are narratives in which the players can participate, but that doesn't mean we get to read ahead in the story. Wink

As a basic rule of thumb, most ARGs share the same central question: what the heck is going on here?

So that's usually the central mystery we're trying to solve, although as the game develops, other goals will usually become clear: find someone who's missing, stop someone from doing something, help someone who's in trouble, etc.

PST Productions wrote:

What's the reward? Just the satisfaction of solving the mystery?

Usually that's the main reward, yes. The experience itself is the reward. Sometimes there are more tangible rewards, too, like game swag. In a few cases, ARGs have actually prizes for winners (e.g. Perplex City Season 1) but that's the exception rather than the rule.

PST Productions wrote:

Is this just a ploy in the attempts of a production company to sell a product or movie?

Short answer: no. This is a stand-alone entertainment experience.

Longer answer: Yes and no. The money's got to come from somewhere, so most of the large-scale corporate ARGs have been promotions for something. For example, the first and one of the most famous examples of a full-fledged ARG, the Beast, was a promotion for the movie A.I.: Artificial Intelligence.

That said, these aren't "ploys" in the sense of something designed to trick you into buying something. They're stand-alone art. Usually they are somehow connected with the product being sold (the game I mentioned above took place in the world of the movie, although it rarely intersected directly with it plotwise), but they're not going to push it at you. In fact in some cases, the puppetmasters and their client will both deny a connection. But if the game is good enough, you may be curious enough to seek out the connection. More discussion on ARGs and marketing can be found here. Basically, though, experienced puppetmasters aren't going to do anything that might make you feel like you've been used or duped by a marketing ploy, because it's counterproductive.

PST Productions wrote:

Sorry for the barrage of questions. This would be the first ARG I've done. Still not sure why and how we were chosen. To be honest, I have no clue who anyone here is.

Don't be sorry! They're good questions. The Unfiction people were chosen, I assume, because sending us a package was more or less guaranteed to ensure that the contents of the package would be shared with everyone on Unfiction. Unfiction is the largest ARG playing community on the web, so that meant that the game would start out with a backbone group of players who knew what it was, and would start organizing and producing resources (e.g. the wiki and the chat channel) that could support a larger playerbase of ARG newcomers. You were chosen, I assume, because of your connection with a community of Lovecraft fans? (Which I'm curious to hear more about.)

Don't ever be sorry for asking questions. Smile

_________________
Voted Most Likely to Thread-Jack and Most Patient Explainer in the ILoveBees Awards.

World Champion: Cruel 2B Kind

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 10:19 am

Gertrude Wellie
Greenhorn

Joined: 23 Feb 2006
Posts: 8
Location: Surrey, UK

Reply

Thanks for the info, Phaedra! Very Happy

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 10:47 am

Rolerbe
Unfettered

Joined: 01 Mar 2005
Posts: 330
Location: North America

Quote:

PST Productions wrote:
Is this just a ploy in the attempts of a production company to sell a product or movie?

'Promotion' not 'advertising'.

_________________
Failure isn't the worst thing in the world. Repeatedly trying really, really hard, then failing, now that's something.

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 10:50 am

Exarch
Boot

Joined: 17 Apr 2007
Posts: 14

I'm just gonna raise this just for in case but the matching letters fit my latitude/longitude theory. I have no idea why they might be sending coordinates unless, like with vanishing point, there will be a large intro presentation to the game in certain areas. Of course, that doesn't fit in with I Ching concepts. hmmmmmm

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 10:53 am

Worker
Decorated

Joined: 07 Oct 2003
Posts: 233

Exarch wrote:

Aren't the numbers much too large to be latitude/longitudes?

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 11:03 am

danteIL
Unfictologist

Joined: 08 May 2006
Posts: 1990

Re: My package

Worker wrote:

inio wrote:

Torn magazine page, opposite site has page number 77, and that's it.

What side is that page number on? The torn side, or not?

Same query here. I've been looking at the wiki and am wondering if the page numbers of these other illustrations, etc. might be relevant too. We've gotten enough stuff now that a lot of the page numbers are starting to look like they connect..

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 11:06 am

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