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TRAINING GROUNDS
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MageSteff
Pretty talky there aintcha, Talky?


Joined: 06 Jun 2003
Posts: 2716
Location: State of Denial

 		TRAINING GROUNDS
From the Meta Discussion section comes the following idea (per Flynn's suggestion):
Varin wrote:

Yeah, it seems that everyone who plays an ARG, wants to slide behind the curtain (at least for a bit). Maybe we need some sort of community ARG. The Ultimate Unfiction Mini-ARG Contest! Or you know what would be fun (but probably an insanely bad idea) a community ARG cut into episodes. We form teams and each get an episode. Team 1 would do episode 1, then Team 2 would have to pick up where Team 1 left off. (like I said. probably an insanely horrible idea that would crash and burn, hehe). Anyway, it would be nice to somehow get alot of people involved to get a taste of being behind the curtain to see if they have the time and patience to do an ARG on a grander scale.


To which was added:
Varin wrote:
Magesteff wrote:
1. There must be no need to outlay any funding at all (practice for those of us who don't have financial resources on what is available) this means, no purchasing domain names, no paying for hosting Wink This is practice, we don't need our good clothing yet.


Yeah, I say no funding. Or maybe a spending limit of like $5 or $10. (I'm just thinking long distance call or postage if you want a real life event)

Quote:
2. Story arcs, we need to decide if we have the same characters run throughout, or if each section will have their own people (al la Theive's World short stories), and what the background is.


It would be interesting to see what different people could do with the same characters. But it also might be more interesting to see what characters people could come up with who are affected by some common event. Any ideas?

Quote:
3. Don't worry about keeping the curtain, if there is trouble on a puzzle (i.e. something not spelled quite right), the puzzle creator should be able to go fix the problem, and then state, "ok it's fixed..."


As long as everyone promises not to bug the creator(s) for hints. Not that it would happen anyway, since grumpyboy would solve everything while we're sleeping. Wink


VPISteve added something about giving out swag prizes to the best group ... I don't know about that... I'd like to see this as a lesson in cooperation, and thinking on the fly rather than setting groups against each other. I offered however that perhaps we could set up a swag shop with Cafe Press, as part of the training, any funds generated going to establishment of a permanent set of training websites... besides, we need to learn how to market ourselves too don't we? Wink

So... any thoughts you have on training, setting up teams, etc. please let's here them!

(Woo! Tien Le, you may have your work cut out for you as mod.... LOL)
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Magesteff
A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. - Margaret Mead


PostPosted: Fri Feb 20, 2004 10:24 pm
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Varin
I Have No Life


Joined: 02 Dec 2002
Posts: 2456
Location: South of where I used to be

 		This will be sooo exciting if we can get it off the ground. I can't wait to see what different ideas people come up with Smile YAY!

As for teams selection, I'm not sure how it would be done. I wouldn't want to recreate my bad memories of picking teams in gym class Wink But I don't think entirely random would be good either. It wouldn't do much good to have no one on a team who knows how to make a website! Any established PM's have any suggestions?

Maybe we need a headcount for who's interested in this? We know most people's skills from the PM recruitment area, but we don't know everything, like how much time they can devote to it, where they live, what hours they are available etc. Wait, how about this? I can make (well, I can make my husband make) a quick website form that people can fill out their info on and then we can have it all in one place all nicely sorted?

What kinds of things do we want to know?

Name
Location
Time Zone
How much time they can devote to it
Qualifications

Anything else? Is that a good idea?
_________________
"I still miss him to this day and probably always will." - Todd Keeler, Chasing the Wish

"meta meta meta, I made you out of play..." ~ j5

PostPosted: Sat Feb 21, 2004 1:34 am
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LazarusLong
Unfettered


Joined: 20 Mar 2003
Posts: 453
Location: 93 miles SW of Ted Kaczynski's cabin

 		Varin, I like your idea!

We need to know how many folks are interested (I know I am), and what their level of involvement might be.

This would be fun activity to span the time until the next ARG (AWARE?) get's going.
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"Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea."

PostPosted: Sat Feb 21, 2004 2:17 am
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Varin
I Have No Life


Joined: 02 Dec 2002
Posts: 2456
Location: South of where I used to be

 		Here's what I have so far...

http://www.varin.org/signup

Any suggestions for anything to add?
_________________
"I still miss him to this day and probably always will." - Todd Keeler, Chasing the Wish

"meta meta meta, I made you out of play..." ~ j5

PostPosted: Sat Feb 21, 2004 3:10 am
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Flynn
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Joined: 11 Nov 2003
Posts: 240
Location: UK
Varin wrote:
Here's what I have so far...

http://www.varin.org/signup

Any suggestions for anything to add?


Looks pretty good to me. Thanks Varin Very Happy Very Happy Let's see how many we get....

PostPosted: Sat Feb 21, 2004 9:05 am
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Varin
I Have No Life


Joined: 02 Dec 2002
Posts: 2456
Location: South of where I used to be

 		So far we have 11 people signed up. What kind of number are we shooting for here? How big should the teams be?
_________________
"I still miss him to this day and probably always will." - Todd Keeler, Chasing the Wish

"meta meta meta, I made you out of play..." ~ j5

PostPosted: Mon Feb 23, 2004 12:51 am
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MageSteff
Pretty talky there aintcha, Talky?


Joined: 06 Jun 2003
Posts: 2716
Location: State of Denial
Varin wrote:
So far we have 11 people signed up. What kind of number are we shooting for here? How big should the teams be?


Large enough to have most of the skills, small enought that things don't get bogged down. Which ever area has the smallest number of representatives will probably be the deciding factor. I was hoping for teams no larger than say 5 or 6, but if for example we only have 2 people good at doing Websites, then two teams it is, regardless of how many people are available.

I put a note up over at CD that you had the signup site this weekend, in case we missed anyone who doesn't check over here regularly. If we have enough areas covered for 2 teams at 12 people I say lets get things rolling, any additional people we can either add to existing teams or start a third team if we get a lot more joining once we get started.

How long between each group do we want to give? Will 5 to 7 days be enough time to make changes and keep people from twiddling their thumbs too long?
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Magesteff
A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. - Margaret Mead


PostPosted: Mon Feb 23, 2004 12:37 pm
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jchillerup
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Joined: 27 Dec 2003
Posts: 198
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark

 		.. Better get started making some puzzles Very Happy

PostPosted: Mon Feb 23, 2004 2:09 pm
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Flynn
Decorated


Joined: 11 Nov 2003
Posts: 240
Location: UK

 		Teams of 5 or 6 were about what I was thinking of too. Regarding the time between "episodes", it's hard to say. It depends how much work will be required between sections. Are we going to start with a basic premise that each team will use as the backstory for their part of the game, in which case I'd agree with a week or so to tweak items as needed in response to previous events. 'Course, if the previous team have unleashed a virulent strain of a virus that turns everyone into zombies (sorry, but I loved the original Resident Evil game Smile ) then the next team might need a little longer... Very Happy

PostPosted: Mon Feb 23, 2004 3:57 pm
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MageSteff
Pretty talky there aintcha, Talky?


Joined: 06 Jun 2003
Posts: 2716
Location: State of Denial
Flynn wrote:
Teams of 5 or 6 were about what I was thinking of too. Regarding the time between "episodes", it's hard to say. It depends how much work will be required between sections.



I'd say everyone is working with the same backstory and story kernel, perhaps with one protagonist and antagonist in common, the rest of the characters are specific to each group unless someone comes up with something v. kewl and both groups decide in conjunction with the person playing said character to add it to the common element.

I think we should share a story arc in common tho, to prevent said zombification of the town, unless that is agreed to in advance (which I would not mind, being a microbiologist by training Razz ) Because the second group may decide that dropping a tactical nuke on the town would solve the problem quite nicely and leave the first group with a sterilized town. While it might be a successful finish, I think we should aim for at least 50% of the town/city/continents residents to survive. Twisted Evil
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Magesteff
A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. - Margaret Mead


PostPosted: Mon Feb 23, 2004 10:20 pm
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MageSteff
Pretty talky there aintcha, Talky?


Joined: 06 Jun 2003
Posts: 2716
Location: State of Denial

 		Setting, Backgound
OK, looks like we have at least enough people to get something going...

I'd like to suggest a common setting, one I think we can have a lot of fun with...

Orbital Colony, with associated ground based support structure. Population 500 or so? Teams could either be divided into work shifts in both locations, or by location- sky or ground.

Decisions I need input on:
Where is the ground base located? (Hint, hint, to our friends in the UK or Australia/NZ - as long as it is reasonable the closest point to the equator in your area, I'm willing to work with that).

What commodity does the Orbital colony make that they can use to barter with the world in order to purchase needed food, water, air and raw materials? (low grav environment is great for making some medicines and chemical crystaline compounds and purifications, but it could also be zero g glass blowing or "widgets" or "round toits")

Once we make those decisions I am willing to do a draft copy of one of two pages for us to tweak into something useful.


So, does anyone have a conflict suggestion?
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Magesteff
A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. - Margaret Mead


PostPosted: Mon Feb 23, 2004 10:40 pm
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aiesha_anonymous
Veteran


Joined: 18 Jun 2003
Posts: 101
Location: Australia
Quote:
I'd like to suggest a common setting, one I think we can have a lot of fun with...

Orbital Colony, with associated ground based support structure. Population 500 or so? Teams could either be divided into work shifts in both locations, or by location- sky or ground.


Hi Magesteff (and everybody)

Thanks for throwing in an idea so quickly. I was wondering whether it might be possible for the interested people to get together to have a brainstorm about what kinds of situations/themes/characters we might enjoy exploring via a mini-ARG. We could certainly use the orbital colony as a starting point if it rung enough bells with enough people.

My small concern about it is that it's not a 'familiar' environment and it will possibly be easiest for us to work with what we know. However we may decide that the colony has the feel of very isolated university ... or something ... which might make it easier to grab on to as an idea. I do agree that it has heaps of potential though.

My other question is how far behind the curtain we should attempt to go. For example, should we now transfer discussion to somewhere secret and try to go TINAG? Or, are we interested in players feedback on how effectively we worked as a team, developed and realised our idea into the ARG, etc.? If the latter, we could continue here (although space might v. quickly become an issue) or we could release our 'developmental stage' to the world post-game, for that kind of retrospective feedback.

Please tell me if I'm making this all way too complicated, as I have a tendency to do that!

Also, I'm away for a couple of days so please don't start without me!! (I'll be back next week.)

Excited! Frightened! Exhilarated!

aiesha Very Happy

PostPosted: Tue Feb 24, 2004 2:52 am
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Flynn
Decorated


Joined: 11 Nov 2003
Posts: 240
Location: UK

 		I like the orbital colony idea. I'd throw in carbon nanotube research as well, maybe experimental work on a space elevator? That would give us a sound scientific reason for an equatorial geostationary orbit, which would make timezone issues a little more manageable, as Magesteff mentioned. Out of curiosity, what is our geographical makeup? From here we've obviously go US, Oz and UK but I'd be interested in how it breaks down. Might be relevant to team selection, too (although my personal preference would be for international teams).

This is all starting to get exciting, if a little scary Shocked I'd agree that we probably need to move this discussion away from here fairly soon - even if we are going to have a semi-transparent curtain, we don't want to give away the whole story to our players before we start Wink

Any chance of setting up a forum somewhere else anyone? Or, if you're still out there Nursie, any chance of us hijacking the one you set up for you-know-what, assuming you don't need it atm?

PostPosted: Tue Feb 24, 2004 6:45 am
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jchillerup
Decorated


Joined: 27 Dec 2003
Posts: 198
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark

 		<--- Denmark.. I can well be on a UK team. Differs one timezone.

PostPosted: Tue Feb 24, 2004 8:37 am
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Slyfox
Unfettered


Joined: 06 Feb 2004
Posts: 323
Location: Manchester, UK

 		Orbital Colony
I like the idea of the orbital colony but I think there are still a lot of "basics" to be considered.

Firstly, how far into the future will this be set. The current ISS is far from an orbital colony and to have a fully fledged colony supporting 500+ people is at least 200+ years off I would estimate. Assuming that such a place was to be built there would have to be a very very strong economic or socio-political reason for doing so. "Just because we can" doesn't really make sense as a reason for building such a place since we could probably do the same work here on earth for a tiny fraction of the price. What is unique about our colony?

My suggestion is;

Set it near future 20-30 years from now with fossil fuels nearly exhausted. The orbital station could be based on very large carbon rich object which has drifted into our solar system (how convenient!). Perhaps a massive (mega tonnage) chuck of diamond from the core of a long dead gas giant which, over the eons, due to its gravity has amassed a large number of hydrocarbon and mineral rich deposits just waiting to be harvested or mined.

Again, as luck would have it, with very little effort the object is placed in geostationary orbit above the earth, tethered by a carbon nano-tube space elevator. That way it's cheap to put stuff in orbit as you can let gravity do the work and get a $$$ payout for every shipment made from the sale of the raw materials. Such a place might just turn a profit and leave enough cash left over to fund pioneering future-tech research colony.

This leaves us with;

"Gee Bill, what's that funny looking alien whatnot hidden amongst them there rocks? I bet someone would kill to get their hands on that."

or

"Gee Bill, I wonder what this high temperature superconducting material is worth? Do you think we should tell the folks back at OrbitalHarvesting.com about this or not?"

or

"Gee Bill, I wonder just how strong that nano-tube tether is? What with that nuke going missing and all do you think we need worry?" etc. etc. etc.

Just a few ideas Smile .

PostPosted: Tue Feb 24, 2004 10:07 am
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