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 Forum index » Meta » General META Discussion
Lessons learned....
Moderators: imbri, ndemeter
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spaceboy
Unfettered


Joined: 06 Aug 2004
Posts: 475
Location: Cambridge Mental Hospital

 		Lessons learned....
I found my old ARG folder on my parents' computer last night. It was pretty cool seeing all the random files that I had on my computer from the various ARGs I played early on. This led me to go through a bunch of my old posts on here, many of which were written while I was establishing myself as a member of this community and such. I came up with some random thoughts as I was going through all of this stuff. I couldn't think of a better place to post this, so hopefully you might enjoy some of my ruminations on ARG times gone by.

A Constant State of Flux
One of the things that jumped out at me was the constant changing of the size of the community. It all started out fairly small with The Beast and such (which I only lurked on). While it was a great game, it didn't attract tons of people. It solidified a group of like-minded individuals into a small, budding community.

What really got me was the explosion that ILB brought about. It brought me in, for sure, even though I left fairly quickly to play Urban Hunt. Looking through the member list brought to my attention the amount of people that joined during that time...and never came back. What happened? Dedicated members of the community stuck around, sure, but when ILB was over, many just left.

This made me think, Will there ever be a "casual" ARG audience? There has been a rise in "casual" videogaming, lately, but are ARGs by their nature, exclusive to this kind of thing?

Professional ARGs
What happened to large-scale, immersive fiction? Seems that nowadays, most large games are merely shallow ad campaigns that really don't go anywhere. Sure, there have been exceptions, but I'm not seeing a Beast, an ILB, or anything like that anymore. I don't know. Maybe I'm not looking hard enough.

Maybe all of the smaller games that are going on anymore are breeding those next large-scale PMs?

The origins of in-jokes
Through looking through old posts, I was reminded of some of the funniest stuff that I had ever seen in this community. The Vulva Puppets. The origins of the flaming bicyclist emoticon. That humor was something that really got me to stay here.

Lesson learned: Stop taking everything so seriously. Have fun. That's what we're here for.

I was kind of a dick when I was a mod
'Nuff said. I had fun doing it though. I loved it. Taking troll posts that had gotten out of hand, replacing them with text of my choosing to get a message across, and locking them down was fun. This has no meta-value, really. It was just fun. I'd love to do it again. I'm a dick. Laughing

Implosions, Implosions, Implosions
We've all been there. Promising new game. Stuff starts ramping up, then nothing. It's something that lots of us have talked about and written about over and over again. Unfortunately, this is something we all have to deal with. It will never change.

Should we bring back the [YMMV] tag? Of that, I'm not sure. Maybe that would be something that would push potential PMs to prove that tag wrong.



All in all, I loved my nostalgia night. It brought a lot of warm, fuzzy feelings flowing back, and made me realize once again why I love Unfiction. Now, without further ado, because I couldn't find it anywhere, here's an old Unfiction commercial. I can't remember all of the credits, but I'm pretty sure SpaceBass, jamesi, and some others were involved. Enjoy!

By The Way: I have some other old ARG files that you guys might be interested in. A lot of Urban Hunt stuff and various other files. I'd be interested in just uploading my ARG folder somewhere. Maybe we should have some kind of repository for all of this old stuff that isn't hosted anymore?
Unfictioncommericial.swf
 Description   The UF commercial.
 Filesize   1.42MB
 Viewed   1959 Time(s)



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Watching white moon face
The stars never feel anger
Blah, blah, blah, the end.

PostPosted: Mon Apr 20, 2009 7:48 pm
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Gupfee
Site Admin


Joined: 22 Sep 2002
Posts: 817
Location: Massachusetts

 		Re: Lessons learned....
spaceboy wrote:

By The Way: I have some other old ARG files that you guys might be interested in. A lot of Urban Hunt stuff and various other files. I'd be interested in just uploading my ARG folder somewhere. Maybe we should have some kind of repository for all of this old stuff that isn't hosted anymore?


We have the ARGhive for old game stuff. I think jamesi or imbri would be interested in getting your files.
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It is far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your help. - Judith Martin

PostPosted: Sun May 10, 2009 1:06 pm
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redct
Entrenched


Joined: 20 Jun 2007
Posts: 1233

 		That commercial was epic.
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Playing and lurking: I'm too lazy to keep track
someone in IRC: see, sometimes instead of a man and woman loving each other, men and men love each other. this usually happens in prison, but sometimes in real life


PostPosted: Mon May 11, 2009 8:53 pm
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Gregoriev
Entrenched


Joined: 29 Jul 2008
Posts: 1217
Location: *Looks around* By my computer?

 		That was win in a box.

PostPosted: Mon May 11, 2009 9:59 pm
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squid808
Veteran


Joined: 25 Dec 2007
Posts: 91

 		Wow.

PostPosted: Tue May 12, 2009 8:02 pm
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Gregoriev
Entrenched


Joined: 29 Jul 2008
Posts: 1217
Location: *Looks around* By my computer?

 		WHO VOICED THE GUY?!

I need to give him a medal. And buy him lunch. EPIC VOICE.
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Playing: Whatever I come across that I find interesting.
Played: Dharma Wants you, Project Abraham, The Shadow War, Alpha Agency, all kinds of other games.
Lurking: See statement the first and add EVERYTHING.

PostPosted: Wed May 13, 2009 8:32 pm
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rose
...and then Magic happens


Joined: 26 Nov 2003
Posts: 4117
Quote:
Professional ARGs
What happened to large-scale, immersive fiction? Seems that nowadays, most large games are merely shallow ad campaigns that really don't go anywhere. Sure, there have been exceptions, but I'm not seeing a Beast, an ILB, or anything like that anymore. I don't know. Maybe I'm not looking hard enough.




I think that no one is doing large-scale deeply immersive commercial games right now..I think the last one was the Dark Knight...because the clients don't think they are necessary and won't pay for the cost. I think the success of Cloverfield on the internet gave rise in the eyes of clients that a deep (or well-told or interesting) story isn't needed. Those clients are right in that Cloverfield was incredibly superficial and it seemed to work; however, they forget about the amazing trailer that 1-18-08 had in front of the Transformers, which really started the buzz for that movie. Without the trailer, the online campaign for Cloverfield would not have gone much of anywhere.

I know there are PMs out there who can easily do a deeply immersive game -- each of the former 42 employees come to mind-- but I don't know if anyone is willing to pay for the ilb kind of experience or if the clients are convinced the cost is worth the result.

Even the recent 42 efforts have been more superficial than the campaigns they've run in the past. I think it is a matter of what the clients want rather than what the PMs are able, or willing to do.

PS. As for modding, we don't lock down threads much anymore. I think the style of modding here reflects the admins points of view as to minimizing external control over the players.


PPS. I missed the commercial for some reason the first time through, I was on a slower computer. My guess for the voice is our very own Spacebass.
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I love this site for being free, in every sense of the word~Spacebass

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PostPosted: Thu May 14, 2009 9:57 am
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