unforum

[SpaceBass]

 The Black Watchmen Project

[Anashel]

 Thank you

[AssassinB]

I played it and I pledged to it, because this guy^ right above me and his team know how to put together a pretty good ARG that requires a lot of teamwork and brainpower. We hit walls a couple times but the challenge is what keeps us going!

[Rogi Ocnorb]

In all the years I played, I got included in one trailhead (Thank you, David Flor).
So... I never really felt like I could be a part of the 'in' crowd and finally lost interest in the genre, pretty much, altogether.
Or... maybe nobody wanted me to be part of their games. I know Dave S didn't because he thrived on praise and as someone who missed his first few games, I never felt compelled to heap any. I guess it really doesn't matter, anymore. You'd think all the omphalos calculators,TTY ddecoders and other tools I created that helped players in games would have bought me a trailhead or two
When I think of the hundreds of puzzles I created for other people's games that never launched, it saddens me. But I guess them's the breaks.

The camaraderie was always appreciated.

The whole Slenderman/Marble Hornets thing seems to have pretty much killed the forums. Everything just got so lazy. Maybe that's just the way it is in the ARG world, today. Even the movie guessing thread turned into a "Who can reverse search the image the fastest" game.

Now, I come by every other month or so just to see what's happened and it doesn't seem like there's been much to miss.

[RingmasterJ5]

While I didn't participate in the mini-ARG while it was running(made an account and solved the puzzles just today, actually), I still pledged because I love the idea.

...However, I'm just going to be honest here, they're not going to get $100,000 with a non-Kickstarter method of backing. Especially with one that doesn't take Paypal, Amazon, or any other "established" payment site like those.

Have the devs already mentioned a specific reason they're not using Kickstarter somewhere, and I've just missed it?

[Anashel]

[danteIL]

Oh, so many thoughts about this.

I followed along with this most recent Black Watchmen ARG, and tried to join in on some of the IRC activity. I also filled out the survey above several days ago, so some of my comments here will echo those that I already included in that survey.

In general, I think this seems like a really ambitious project. Human Equation should be commended for trying something 'new' both in terms of their funding model as well as in terms of the kinds of media they appear to be considering (an app; a comic book). Most of the elements of the Black Watchmen 'division-66' site etc were polished and visually interesting, and the missions themselves covered a nice range of simple Google-research to puzzle to real-world activities. There were also some innovations in terms of gameplay, such as allowing players to choose their color-coded level of involvement. This may not be the most immersive way to go about this (it'd be better if this emerged organically out of the individual players' choices -- e.g., like whether they enter a phone number into a form or not) but it is a nice way to allow players some degree of control. These are all positives.

However, I have decided not to contribute funding to this project. My reasons range from the small to the large:

1) First, I understand that the Human Equation team is based in Montreal and includes many nonnative speakers of English. Unfortunately, though, the story materials (e.g., emails, labels in images) included way too many spelling and grammatical errors. This may seem like a picky point, but while I might be willing to overlook the inevitable typo or error in a grassroots ARG, it seems reasonable to expect a certain level of attention to detail and care in an actual paid experience. This Black Watchman ARG should have been Human Equation's opportunity to really put their best foot forward, with extra attention to the small details and polish. The fact that there seemed to be a certain carelessness or casualness in some of the game elements gives me reason for concern.

2) The images of the "CyberMage" character that were unlocked as part of the game were simply ridiculous:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/division-66/assets/images/66b60d76-c602-4d28-90d9-0836d9ab8580.jpg
https://s3.amazonaws.com/division-66/assets/images/b01babf3-5b1a-4550-9e43-491168b3bf50.jpg

I don't know if this was an attempt to appeal to the 19-year old horny male demographic of the MMORPG crowd, or if this was just something random and 'cool' that was dreamed up as part of a drunken puppetmaster powwow, but this is just incredibly sexist and unnecessary. I am not a prude and I have no problem with a mature or 18+ game experience, but I don't see any reason -- either in-game or just on basic common sense -- for making one of the game characters into this fantasy girl wet dream image complete with underboob. The fact that this choice was made doesn't really give me a lot of confidence in the decision processes at play here.

3) The storyline was an incoherent mess. Not nearly enough was done to actually give players the information they needed to understand what in the hell was going on. Admittedly, I don't have the time nowadays to get immersed into an ARG like I used to, but in some ways that is an important point -- the overall arc of the story world should be clear even to those players who can only play along casually, or watch from afar, especially if you want to appeal to a large enough number of player to financially support your game. You cannot rely on a few dozen 'whales' to pony up all of the necessary cash if they are the only ones who really understand what is going on. Your model requires having a broad player base, and the story needs to be constructed in such a way that all players -- not just those who have an wiki-like knowledge of the background of The Secret World or whatever -- can feel like they have some idea of what is going on.

4) Finally, and most importantly, there has been absolutely no indication in any of the information I've seen so far how Human Equation is going to be able to support a "persistent" ARG, or even what that would look like. Is 'persistent' just another word for "long-term ARG until our money runs out?" How are they going to be able to continuously create new content at a consistently-compelling level? Or are things going to be structured in a way that new players can always run through the existing content, which won't change or go away? What support and infrastructure is there going to be to help players who join in the game at different points in game to 'catch up' without feeling like they've already been left behind? Perhaps I am just too skeptical about this potential model, but for now I am going to wait this one out and see how it develops.

[Anashel]

I'll skip most of the comment since they were obvious lack of knowledge of either the last two ARG or even the look and feel of the Cyber-Mage and the reason behind (and we are sorry you felt shocked by it) and skip to the conclusion:

[Anashel]

[RingmasterJ5]

[Anashel]

[danteIL]

Yea, I'm a little confused, too. I didn't in any way mean for my comments to speak for the entire Unfiction community. Everything I said was my opinion only, and I have no problem if other people loved the experience and are eager to support more of the same.

But perhaps I misunderstood the point of this thread. I interpreted this thread as an opportunity to give feedback on the recent ARG and to comment on this potential new funding model and 'persistent' ARG structure. I'm sorry that not all of my feedback was positive. But, if you would rather not hear negative feedback, then well, I'm sorry for that, too. It appears that you already have a clear idea of what you are going to do; if so, I can only wish you and your company the best of luck. I hope that you succeed.

But if you will allow me to say a couple of final things: I seriously think it is a fundamental mistake to expect players to have experience with your last two ARGs in order to understand or appreciate The Black Watchmen. That was the past. This is something new and different. If this past knowledge or experience is so critical, then it will be really important to provide the necessary in-game resources (i.e., not player wikis) that will give new players the background to allow them to appreciate the particular nuance. Why should I give money to an experience that just leaves me confused?

And secondly, I still stand by my reaction to the Cyber-Mage. Even if there is good in-game reason for this, it is still gratuitous and unnecessary.

[Anashel]

[AssassinB]

[SpaceBass]

There was an article about this on Massively about a week ago, with some additional details about future plans if the campaign gets funded.