unforum

[FLmutant]

[Karensa]

[Rogi Ocnorb]

This is not a jibe. Merely my own perceptions. In looking at your various posts across the forums, there is a theme emerging that I can only describe as a shortcut mentality. It's like someone coming into #unfiction and asking the room for the answers to questions from their homework (It happens more frequently than you might imagine.). I'm having trouble with that analysis, though, because of the verbosity and persistence of your posts.

Having a dedicated IG universe sounds like a good idea from the lazy PM's perspective as it gives them ready made objects to use in their game. But as a player, I'll enjoy it only as long as I know what aspects of it are relevant to the game I'm playing. So, that could really only be the first game which uses it. Jump forward six months. A new game I'm interested in starts using elements from this universe. I know which I saw before and how they have changed. But I feel behind the curve when other players know all about those elements of the universe that I haven't come across in a game, yet. I'll need to sit on my thumbs while those players suss out what's changed and report back on it or I can find the other game(s) that used it to do that research on my own. And there's the inevitable and exponential cross-linking of entities that will quickly make it more than I care to deal with.

A player contact escrow service of sorts is something that I feel has merit. Brian and others have explained how they DO go out of the box to make things happen and I can add that where there's a will, there's a way. With the proper incentive, you can get people to do the most amazing things. Contacting the geocaching community, which is massive and very well distributed is an idea that pops up, periodically. And I've found them to be a respectable group of folks. But sometimes, I think It'd be nice if there were an ARG Post Office that has a posted list of players they have addresses for. Someone wishing to send them an item mails it to the escrow service with instructions accompanying the intended recipient's posted handle. The service would NEVER share any of it's contact information with ANY third parties (Except for the Forum and Member combination(s) provided them by the players in their requests to be added to the service.). I'm actually THIS CLOSE to just doing this right now

Writing guides for the minutia of all things ARG. While the concepts of running a game do have best practices (Most ALL of which that might derail a game being covered in the Imbri's PM Guide or this area of the forums), I'll repeat what has been said several times. Neither players or PMs really want a cookie-cutter experience. Both want to stretch the boundaries of what has been done before.

I won't even address the Coke bottle thing.

Rowan's suggestion makes the most sense to me. We're not getting what you're saying which will require you to "just do it".

[AngriBuddhist]

It's amazing to me that, after being away for so long, even when Karensa picked up the torch, these thoughts and ideas were still (barring disagreement) either too difficult to explain, too difficult to understand or envision, too removed from the "way things are done" for someone to actually listen, or worse still, too far away from one's own needs/desires to even be considered as a possibly valid idea.

[veebee]

[Nighthawk]

I've considered creating that "post office" concept, but I don't know if I want the responsibility or the work involved in operating it.

I *am* creating a system for email, which I described on my blog...

http://www.brainclouds.net/Darklight/20080623/New-Project.aspx

[AngriBuddhist]

[Nighthawk]

[AngriBuddhist]

I understand what you're saying but what's to stop me (especially if I can target specific usernames) from using this system to jack a game? I could easily see who the key players of a game are by watching here at UF. I, myself, could have received emails from the PM so have a good idea of what to mimic. Then, I use this system to start mailing those key players.

I'm not all that technical but a suggestion would be to have some sort of imbedded "project code" in the sent through the system, PM emails that a user couldn't fake. So, later, when a new email comes through the system, the player could just compare it to the original and see that it's a fake.

I don't even know if that's possible.

[tabster]

well if the admin saw you had a similar email that looked like it belonged to another game but you werent logged into that PM's username, it probly wouldnt be accepted to be sent out.

[AngriBuddhist]

I'd have to assume that a system like this would need to be fairly automated and that even if an admin took the time to read every email some sneaky or not apparently fake ones would get through. Don't get me wrong, this is a great idea, I'm just playing devil's advocate.

[redct]

No matter who the email's from - if it's email, you can fake the From: header and gamejack it. ARGers are careful at looking at source, but I doubt everyone looks at all in-game email headers and compares them for authenticity.

So, it's a universal problem no matter what system you choose to use.

[Nighthawk]

[tygr20]

I don't know if it's been said in the thread, but it'd be brilliant for PMs to be able to go to a secure site that listed real snailmail addresses for ARGers that choose to give them. I still don't know if PMs just share that information, but I think if PMs have more access to things like that we'll find more interesting trailheads that don't just look like a character "accidentally" sent an email to us.

[Nighthawk]