unforum

[AUZ505]

[META] How do you like FTLR up to now?

[Chid12]

I think I'd pretty much agree with everything you've said. I'm enjoying what's going on, but I do very much feel like a spectator. Apart from translating documents, there's not a lot the vast majority of us can do here.

My hope is that since this thing is going to run till August, and since the Codex part of the game wil, given that there are only seven chapters left, be completed in the next two or three weeks, we'll then start to see more games and puzzles. Perhaps this first stage is simply getting the information, and then the next stage will involve using it more.

I mean, it can't simply be a case of organising and taking part in labyrinths for the next four months can it?

[thebruce]

it's interesting, because I think I the games will definitely be going on to aug.24, as that's a key element to get casual people somehow, in some way, involved. The vast majority of people out there are not argers and wouldn't get involved in the puzzling and mystery solving... there's lots of people who blog, video blog, and generally follow the characters' stories, so having the video blogging element is also key...

but yeah, I think from an arger perspective, they may be losing some active interest because there's not much 'brain stuff' to do But some might disagree... I know for me at least, trying to track all the new stuff, there's loads to do, heh. But it would be nice to have some active 'solving' to do. The blogging portion seems to be "here's something interesting, blog your theories", until the answer/solution is presented. It's great for increasing interaction in the blog/vlog community, but it's not a challenge really, definitely not a puzzle.

Hopefully there'll be more.
The trick is getting puzzles to be entirely in-game and consitent with the wold/characters. I think there's lots of potential for puzzles of 'obfuscation' (figuring out how to find answers), but not much at this point for codes, encryptions and brain-benders to solve. Not unless we somehow intercept Theo's secret encrypted communications with the rest of his group

[danteIL]

I feel the same way. I suspect that planning and executing the labyrinth training/synchronizations is going to be a major part of the rest of the game. For those of us with zero interest in running around humming, that's not a lot to get excited about.

However, I suspect that there will still be some puzzling involved in determining the appropriate locations of the labyrinths across worlds, and perhaps even finding out ways to communicate between worlds. Right now, though, we are pretty much translation machines.

I understand the desire to get larger communities of people involved, so there may be only so much 'extra' that can happen.

[unagi]

Re: [META] How do you like FTLR up to now?

[AUZ505]

Re: [META] How do you like FTLR up to now?

[Elizabeth123]

It's funny, I was thinking exactly the same thing yesterday. My favorite parts of this (aside from watching the awesome trailers, and vicariously cheering on the incredible work folks did on the Hong Kong artifact) have been figuring out how to use the omphaputer, and figuring out how Eli used the waveforms to discover the omphaputer (which we haven't used for anything, at least yet, so that's just been backstory.)

The story we're uncovering is certainly interesting, but there's no real sense of discovery, the thrill you get from solving actual puzzles. Hopefully that'll change, but I think, like Dante said, if there's nothing more in the future than watching blogs and running labyrinths, my interest will probably dwindle substantially.

[dreamerblue]

Yeah. I see on the official forums I'm still somehow listed as one of the "Top Members" (ahead of ariadne, heh), but that really reflects some of the earlier part of the game when there was a lot more to speculate about. At this point, you guys are really quick at finding artifact locations and getting someone to go get them and then translate them. A lot of the things that used to be mysteries aren't anymore...we know why our athletes are here, something about where they came from (and why no one recognizes them), as well as what the lost sport is and why it's important.

There are still some things left to work on, though. Looking at Ariadne's posted missions for each strength...
- The graph on the omphaputer still really hasn't been puzzled out.
- A couple strengths still have to put together our Personal Labyrinth Register (including figuring out where it's supposed to be kept).
- The identity and purposes of Theo remain to be seen, though I suppose you're right that the only puzzle there is figuring out how to make first contact, so to speak (and the rest will follow as a plot point we keep an eye on?).
- Ariadne asks sophrosunes to work out how we can help Diego, Lucie and Meihui in their respective missions.
- We still don't really know what exactly the lost ring is, do we? We have a better idea than we used to, but it's still far from clear.

But yeah, I'm not really sure what I personally can contribute to any of the above (other than speculate), except maybe try to figure out how I can apply the courses I did in university that mention Schrodinger to our mission.

Edit: P.S.: I did really enjoy getting to be part of going to physically get the Toronto Codex chapter, by the way...that and interacting with all of you about different theories has been my favourite bit so far.

[Oriza]

I'm just going to seperate this into what I like about FTLR and what I don't like.

ISSUES:
This thing seems to be moving really really fast. It's like one person tries to say something like a theory or an idea, and they get completely ignored or someone has managed to post before them. I feel like the only thing I can do here is translate and/or practice my mission.
I also dislike the fact that there are OVER NINE PEOPLE whose lives we have to keep up with. It's very confusing and hard to keep the facts straight. The wiki is nice, though, and I use that to try to catch up. I just wish that there were maybe only seven people at the most-- that would make things lot simpler.
The fact that McDonald's is sponsoring this bugs me majorly. Every day it gnaws at me that I'm playing an ARG sponsored by a company that treats their workers like shit, destroys rainforests to make way for ninety-nine cent hamburgers, is probably the biggest contributor to the obesity epidemic, and abuses the cattle & chickens they use to make meat in ways that would make you swear off any fast food chain for the rest of your life. (But I guess there's not a lot you can do about that...)

LIKES:
The idea of the 'six strengths'. I'm one of those people who adores taking personality tests and/or getting labelled, so I loved the idea of completing missions formed to suit you. Plus, that means we aren't forced to do tasks that would bore you to death (for example, being a Thumos, I'd hate to have to sit down and try to encode a load of text, but I'd really enjoy being a spy or something for the 'bad guys' )
The underlining ideas of this ARG thrill me too-- the idea of the original Olympics actually being a secret thing that help align the parallel worlds, and the idea of having a parallel self, like an evil/nice twin.

So yeah. I like this ARG overall, but it could use some work. But that's just me

[joeyhess]

This is my first ARG. I've been enjoying it, there are enough puzzles to keep me going -- I don't need something like the Hong Kong recovery challange every day! Indeed, I'm often happy to sit back for a week and let the story progress.

I haven't been able to interact with the characters as much as I'd like. Maybe this is sorta normal, but it seems like this might be an especially frustrating ARG in that regard. First we have Theo, who doesn't answer my mail, or really talk with anyone. Ariadne will, but I don't want to waste her time with too many half-baked theories. I've briefly talked with Diego, but have been limited by my crappy Spanish. The characters I'd really like to talk to, especially Mei Hui, have a language barrier.

I suspect that there is a lot of information that's out there that we haven't put together. Jane's basically came out and said we've missed some due to language barrier. Also, I'm pretty sure there's more going on with the codex than we think -- there have been some odd inconsistencies in it, and I wouldn't be suprised if it has been altered or if something seemingly innocuous on it contains an additional layer of meaning. (See my theory about the red lines and the circles.)

Figuring out enough parallell geography to work out where to site labyrinth runs could be very hard. We have only one known point matched up in 6 worlds. This is a puzzle that I'm really looking forward to, since I love maps.

I got into the game too late to have been involved with finding the websites or the characters. Which seems like one of the most fun bits of an ARG, but a part that only so many people can be involved in.. Unless Theo's site is lurking out there on the web and we've just yet failed to find it.

I have a feeling that we're close to moving to a different phase of the game..

[Weezel]

We had a few puzzles early on.. .like how to deal with the omph code and determining distances and locations. once we got the software tools though, it made that much easier.. but they came out of those solves...

We're definitely in a big story portion of the game right now.. there were periods of that in I Love Bees too. You can't constantly have puzzles, because not everyone enjoys them... gotta have a combination of both story and mystery.. but I would agree that I would like a few more.. Thing is, they may already be there, but we're just missing them, and not realizing that they demanded our attention.

I also agree that I absolutely love the idea of the strengths, because it really lets you focus on what you enjoy doing, and are good at, as opposed to constantly feeling like the game is so much bigger than you, and you have no idea where to start and how to get involved. There just needs to be a balance with the missions to make sure there are enough things going on for each of them.

Some of them can be considered 'puzzles' in a way, because this game is as much about community and international relations as anything else. So alot of the development tasks are still things that need to be done.

[DavFlamerock]

A part of me is surprised it took this long for someone to make this topic. I mean, I have been having similar thoughts recently, but I discovered that the goal of the ARG (worldwide reach) is going to be what brings about this sense of "I can't really do anything."

This is why I was a little unsure as to whether or not I would join this game. Eldritch Errors was amazing--it didn't have TOO many people. I discovered how little I like enormous games when I tried to get into IRIS... Oh God. There were SO MANY HALO FANS playing that by the time you read a post there was about ten more. Ultimately I managed to sneak in a key so I could get schwag and fell out because so much happened so fast. Because there are so many people that puzzles like this can be worked on almost constantly by people all over the world. And then add in that puzzles can only be so difficult (look at the Hong Kong artifact) and yet they'll still get solved in almost a day. So yeah, they can only make so many puzzles that fit with the story... and they last maybe a day tops.

So I'm content to document and follow the story, being a Mythopoeia buff myself, and contribute when I can. With a worldwide game like this, it's hard to have a lot of puzzles like you want.

[Rogi Ocnorb]

I agree with most of the comments that have appeared, above. Well, except that I loathe putting people into arbitrary buckets for any reason, regardless of noble intentions.

This "game" will conclude, successfully as there are enough cheerleaders to keep things running.

All of our tasks, so far, seem to support marketing the game in one way or another. But, at some point I just hope we will see a game. Something we can have a visible impact on that isn't promotion related. It's an okay story. But it's moving kinda slowly. I hope it doesn't turn into a PM/Player endurance contest like EE has.

I told myself I was going to try to do more interaction on this game since Jane is known to manage that aspect well. But I gave up quickly when the replies were of no value to me in moving the game forward and weren't worth the hassle of dealing with translations.

The amount of content is not so bad, but again, too much hassle to deal with. Too many places to check and too much work to extract content. It is high quality stuff, all around and obviously required a lot of work. Research could have been better on some of it, but I understand that you have to draw the line on some things and just publish.

There may be several puzzles hidden in the content we've accessed, so far. But before long, we'll be getting to that point where there's so much, we may need a "This is a puzzle" sign to see it.

It's time to have a few puzzles that resolve some outstanding questions and make those of us who are goals-oriented feel like it's worth hanging around.

[enaxor]

Nicely said, Rogi.