unforum

[Leyton Stone]

Quick question for the ERA/ARG Newcomer.

[rose]

Do you mean where can you find a list of ongoing games? The games being followed in the forums are posted here (of course). ARGnet has a list of games being played, I think. www.argn.com

edit...oops, corrected url thanks xnb.

[xnbomb]

[Leyton Stone]

Oops getting so engrossed in discussing Cloverfield I forgot to come here lol.

Thanks a lot for the help people; but also wondering if anyone has the best advice to catch an ARG/ERA @ the trailhead? The ones at the argn.com site seem to all be in the process of being played atm, or the trailhead's have gone.

I find it difficult to play in the middle without stumbling onto already figured out clues [and cheating basically lol]

[Jas0n]

Most ARGs are designed for community involvement to help solve clues, there's not really a "cheating" for coming into a game mid-way through and catching up on stuff that's already been done

One of the reasons for this is that the ARG isn't going to attract everyone that's interested in it during the first few days of launching, especially longer term ARGs such as Eldritch Errors.

One of the places that seems to be really good at catching games or potential games is the news and rumors section here on unforums. I imagine the majority of ARG developers (both grassroots and corporate - though not always with the corporates) will reach out to someone here and that person will typically post there first.

Many trailheads being posted by Grassroots groups have a similar theme: "help" -- Help me, help my friend, help my cat, help something else... It's a good hook for drawing players because you pull at their humanity. So you'll probably get a strange e-mail, letter, or IM that has a link in it with a strange message.

When you receive these messages, you'll probably either be getting spam, phished, or a trailhead. Be careful in the links you click on, make sure you check out where the link goes to before you click on it... if it shows up to you at first appearance as something like https://bankofamerica.com/customerservice.php but you look at the source of the email and it goes to http://boa.scamartist.co.uk/phishing.php (though that's a bit more obvious) - you're probably looking at a scam/phishing. If the link is legitimate and goes directly to a site (still need to be careful), take a look around the site - if it seems a bit out there and you feel that call to help - then it's likely an ARG.

More advanced approaches are through links in commercials, tv-spots, movies, posters, magazine advertisements, perhaps video games, over the radio, through a phone call, through the mail, and much much more. The thing about being an ARGer, you've got a lot of potential trailheads - sift through them and if you find something you think is one - check with some of the people at the #unfiction chat room... many of them have a ton of experience and are more than willing to help.

-also if you're interested, probably want to send me your contact info -- e-mail and mailing address... I MAY send something your way when I launch future games

[FLmutant]

Great notes there, Jason. I'd add in, though, that I totally understand where Leyton is coming from: if a game seems too confusing to jump into once it has started, that's actually a game design issue In a perfect world, this should be like television -- you should be able to watch an episode of a series and still find it entertaining without having to know all the Soap Opera details of the whole series to date to make sense out of it. That's a hard target to hit sometimes, though.

Try starting with the "story so far" or the game's meta-site: frequently those are designed to help with that exact situation (and was made by the players or the developer to help ease people into an existing game.) Even more important, in most games the real fun is in the other players. The players of almost any game are willing to help new people get in deeper.

[Giskard]

In addition to visiting ARGNet, you can also subscribe to their mailinglist, which prompts you of the arrival of new games. I must admit that it has been a little quiet lately, but it still might be a good idea to subscribe so that whenever they send out notices, you'll be sure to get them. You can find info on the frontpage, about halfway down on the right side.

And otherwise, keeping an eye on the News & Rumors forum on Unfiction is always a good idea

[Delusional]

[Rekidk]

Now, now, that can't be true... I signed up almost exactly a year ago, and I've gotten at least three: one from World Without Oil, one from Dark Knight, and one from Eldritch Errors.

I'm not sure if it says something about ARGs or if the mailing list people are just lazy.

j/k