unforum

[krystyn]

Re: Rules and Philosophy

[I'm A Talking Dog]

Slack

[krystyn]

I don't think anyone's stringing Martin up, though, do you? RF posted his own thread to own up, and people are talking about it.

Also, the Unfiction community is not the only place where ARG communities have formed. There are literally dozens of other sites that support very active threads and even subforums for various campaigns (trust me, I've monitored many of them over time). The fact that 'Martin' appears to have targeted *this* community is interesting in light of its somewhat-unique genre-specific TOS, but the community itself is not confined to just this one site. FYI.

Conservatism in policy does not automagically connote stuffiness, either, which you seem to imply by reasoning that 'Martin's' existence has given the ol' UF snowglobe a good shake. Pshaw, I say!

I mean, have you *been* to ARGfest?


OK, done feeding the Dog, now.

[TAPshooter]

[jamesi]

To ease your confusion: What was written on ARGNet was optimism (not certainty) in regards to future contributions, and was based on what may be of value to that web site. What I wrote here, I wrote based out of observation and was in regards to your credibility.

As for commenting on the article, there's nothing stopping you from doing that. All comments filter into moderation, and as long as the comment doesn't come from Martin Aggett, I see no reason for choosing not to publish. Incidentally, the only reason that I changed the name on the article and in the comments to "Anonymous Contributor" was that I don't know your real name, except for Steve, and having an article written by "Steve" might be confusing, given the multitude of articles by one Steve Peters.

[natas]

Aah... Martin errr Steve. What a crazy series of events. I've known Martin for quite a while now and Martin is a good friend of mine. I introduced Martin to quite a few people that I know. I even introduced some of his work to PM's that may or may not be used in future games. (I'm not sure now).

Martin Aggett was a person that was very interesting to me. I couldn't wait to hear of the next town/country that Martin was going to in order to shoot photos. It was just neat. But, alas, Martin isn't real.

Steve did apologize to me as one of the designers for this new PM team, but I didn't think an apology was necessary. Pushing boundaries should be expected. Do I feel duped because I allowed myself to befriend a fictional entity? Of course not. The friendship me and Martin shared was real and since Steve did not do this for any type of personal gain (other than promoting his upcoming game), I say no harm no foul.

As to violating UF TOS, I don't think Martin did so. He didn't use a duplicate account. (I don't think the TAPShooter account existed pre-martin). And since his game hasn't started yet, he didn't post in his own thread, but I'm not the "man", just an observer.

As to his articles on ARGN.... just because the byline is a fictional name, the person writing it is very real and has the same ideas. Does changing the byline make THAT big a difference? I say no. Does it make me look at ARGN differently? It does not. I still read ARGN articles and do not put them under any scrutiny because I have placed trust in Jamesi and his staff to know if the meat and potatos of an article is worthy to be published on their website.

I am not privy to anything that happened over at ARGDb, so I won't comment.

Kudos, Steve, for making us all do a double-take. I did enjoy chatting with Martin, and am looking forward to knowing Steve. I hope you do follow up with your promise to work on our little game. I'm finally back home from work and ready to roll up my sleeves again now that I have internet again!

[labfly]

i don't see this thread as a discussion as to whether we forgive martin aggett/steve. here we are, once again, with a wanna-be pm that
believes/believed that creating a character that passes in and out of "game space"
is somehow turning the arg genre on it ear w/something inventive/new.

(insert sigh)

beyond all the meshuge chit chat about whether we can/should trust a fictional character (& i would argue you cannot due to the fact that they are fictional & only serve their creator and the path of his/her narrative) - i would like to say something about this idea that creating a "crossover character" (one that passes from ig to oog space) is somehow pushing the envelope... for me its lazy design and writing. every "kilroy" or "guest" post i spot on uf threads that happens to have the answer to the unsolved puzzle or new link is equivalent to the "crossover character". its just the easy way out. its not easy to create a storyworld and characters that truly "live" in the game space for the players, but that is the great arg challenge.

this is a new genre of storytelling & it would be wonderful to see some creators & wanna-be creators spend some of their time/talents really pushing the envelope & bringing in new ideas and new stories -
... how about a fresh new spin on the trailhead/rabbithole? or invent another way for players to share information - or perhaps another way of
creating/including puzzles within an arg - or new puzzles? or new characters? or change the design of ig forums to make them easier for new players (or perhaps no forum at all?) - create a story that might attract a totally new arg audience - experiment w/the sort of tales we tell (how about a musical? or a dance arg? or an arg that is more of a poem? or something more surreal? more horrifying? more hilarious? or just more original?) - or maybe an arg w/no story at all (more of an art piece). i know i'm rambling.. i do that a lot

my point is (and i think i have one) - instead of trying to "break the rules" with yet another hoax/crossover character, i would like to encourage some of you adventurous creatives to make an arg that we haven't seen before. wow the players with a new world/story/event/design. and if you still want your characters to feel like they're "real" - then make the story/characters/interactions so rich and so well written (within the gamespace) that the players will constantly have to remind themselves that these are not real people.

[imbri]

[natas]

[krystyn]

A game in development is still a game!

[natas]

ahh I'm not as good a wordsmith as a lot of people on here. I wish I were because I do have good lines of thought on the subject. and I might just take a couple of months to put them on paper. but for now I will agree that Steve did violate UF TOS, but let's just put things in perspective here.

Steve/Martin (haha Steve Martin!) only tried to create a story for others to enjoy. His method of trying to tell that story broke UF rules. Who did it hurt? He was working for our PM team and I'm sure not mad at him. He could have completed his obligation fully as Martin and I wouldn't have cared. His work is solid. Sure, it might not be groundbreaking news that he attempted to "cross-over" a character, but I think it's neat nonetheless. He sure had me fooled!

To call it lazy is simply not true. Anybody who takes the time and effort to tell a story to others through this type of media is not lazy. It takes time and effort. A lot of time and effort. It might not be the choice that others have made for whatever reason, but it was his choice. Was it an improper choice? not for me to decide. But it is definitely not lazy.

[PinkCloud]

I do understand why the rules of uF are there and that an OOG or 'safe zone' is something that most people want to rely on if it is declared as such. What I'm personally curious about is, how much is martin really different from steve despite the differences that steve listed in the first post here? mostly I'd like to know if the work for the PM group with natas will be any different whether it will be done by martin or steve. and if that ARG steve planned will still be the same with Martin Aggett coming out of the closet.
why do we need to know so badly if somebody is real or not? and what does that mean, real? we all roleplay every day, change our behaviour a bit according to whom we speak or write to, or how many glasses of wine we had. (I want to know too, don't get me wrong, but I'm wondering how authentic we are in our 'real' life, too)
another thought that came to my mind: why are we having nicknames on uF and are not asked to post with our birth name? don't wanna start a petition here, just asking and also knowing that by our nicknames we figure in a transition between the IG and OOG space, but still we talk with our IG handles in a OOG space ---- hard to separate fiction and reality!

[TAPshooter]

[natas]

[PinkCloud]