unforum

[Slyfox]

Varin,

I suggest we;

Keep it simple.

Be up front with players and PMs that This Is A Game (TIAG) and a learning/teaching exercise so they should get off their high horses about curtains on this one.

Possibly have 1 or 2 experienced PMs to control the ARC, veto anything which will torpedo the game and oversee all the separate groups and ensure that everyone is heading in the same direction.

Remember were here to have fun.

[Flynn]

[bill]

Two points I want to make.

First, being a PM requires a huge commitment of both time and financial resources. I've offered hosting to help offset one of the bigger expenses, but you guys will inevitably want to spend money on things like relevant domain names, swag, etc. Players will typically NOT contribute much of the overall budget. A few will donate more than their fair share but most will not contribute anything.

And the time commitment can not be overstated. It takes a lot of time to work out a story conducive to gameplay, develop content, figure out how to integrate puzzles into the story, develop credible characters, plan for interactive elements, redo the story, etc. etc. And this is all before you even launch. Once you go live, you have to manage those interactions, follow the player groups, adjust your content and puzzles, adjust your story, and manage websites, etc.

It really is time consuming and if you don't have a couple of people willing to do whatever it takes to keep things moving, progress falls off very quickly. Pareto's Principle definitely applies on both sides of the curtain.

With all that said, my second point would be to suggest setting a limit up front about how many websites you want, how much interaction you need and how many characters need to be fleshed out. Remember that the more you create, the more you will need to maintain once you go live. Scale the experiment to about half what you expect your resources to be. I promise it will grow to easily consume the rest if it gets close to going live.

I don't say this to discourage anyone from diving in, but when you volunteer, make sure you understand the commitment you are making. There will be a whole team out there counting on you to deliver what you commit to doing. Also, if at all possible, make sure there is overlap in skillsets. Having only one person with any specific skill is setting your team up for potential failure. Life happens and people have to deal with Real World issues. Be prepared for that.

One more parting thought. Before you divide up into groups, everyone should collaborate on the overall story. Once you have a general outline, then split the work up into parts and have a clear set of milestones that indicate when you are transitioning to the next team. You don't want to end up with a bunch of unusable content because the story took an unexpected twist.

And have fun!

[Varin]

[bagsbee]

Re: Issues

[MageSteff]

[Varin]

Just wanted to say again that anyone who wants to join in is welcome. This may be a "training grounds" ARG, but we still want it to be fun and include anyone who wants to take part.

[Flynn]

After reading all the ideas for the basis of the story, I've got too many ideas to put in a post here, so I've thrown together a very basic page with some ideas on it here.

*Disclaimer* When I say thrown together, I mean it. It's got a logo and some text. It's not meant to be any kind of proper site, it's done in Notepad. Just wanted to throw some ideas out there, cos I'm sat at home with nothing better to do and needed to make something

EDIT - now there's a picture as well. Woo. Just playing with ideas really

[MageSteff]

[Slyfox]

Orbicon Inc

[Slyfox]

Orbicon Inc

[Flynn]

[MageSteff]

[Flynn]

[Kueko]

Maybe a few of us already have domain they are willing to loan for the game... though it isn't nessacary I guess. I, for one, have Arkinia.com which may or may not be useable for our purposes...