unforum

[gimlet]

[Kajisan]

woaaahahahah that creeped the fuck out of me. With the right settings it sounds like a demon is talking to me..saying one or two words but i doesn't make sense.

http://prntscr.com/9uvm7i

Atm there..might be something but i am not sure. First day using this tool.

[kosmopol]

OK, people, here my 5 cents. The whole steganography part seems to be a Gamejack. A good one. OK, well, see: a Gamejack is never good for the original ARG, it's destructive. We had Aladygma, we had 500rads, they were confusing Gamejacks, but this one puts gamejackery at a fully new level.

Playing ARGs we are sensitive to everything. Our selective perception is running buffer overflow. We are aware of everything, even in our everyday life - how often have you already saw 4813 as a car plate, phone number etc. already? I did

Anyway, back to Bad Robot. They aren't NSA with their Cicada encryption riddles. If BR does an ARG, they do it in a rather mainstream way. They do confuse, yes, but they do it in order to move along, not for riddle in riddle in riddle, because otherwise the ordinary player will leave being mindf*cked.

Now here we have a very meta situation. We don't have any DIRECT leads. We do have starving players. Players wo see the signs everywhere, in a hope to find a lead (me including). Players who begin to plant the leads (many of them implicate the waiting: "soon", "patience"). Then we have a Gamejack, not a "let's confuse the starving waiters"-Gamejack, but the "if it doesn't begin, I begin it"-Gamejack.

We should be aware, we should check the sources well, we should remind previous experiences. Think back to Junko Junsui and hacking real North Korea Embassy. Players can become a subversion dark matter.

It's easy to cross the thin line between official ARG and spinoff/grassroot/gamejack. Just use some still undiscovered aspects of official contents for your concept, spreading allusions here and there.

Sure, JJ Abrams is a crypto-giant, and his Wired issue is a cool toy for crypto-nerds. But hey, here we have to do with a John Goodman movie, it's concepted for broad audience, and an ARG should target the same target group. And sure, there were cryptography elements in previous BR ARGS, but they were small keys for doors with huge hidden world behind them, not just a riddle of the riddle of the riddle. It can please some of us (me including)., but this is not what BR financial report of marketing would see at the end: happy players = 10, lurkers = 100, game leaving rate (due to confusion)= 80%. Or so.

So, im my humbly opinion the whole crypto stuff isn't official. You can play it along, sure, it's well designed. But be aware of leaving JJ Abrams territory with this one.

[Melodyman]

My thoughts exactly..^^^^

I suppose that due to the limited time before release some might expect multiple leads to move things along, but some of these 'discoveries' are a bit of a stretch..

Patience grasshoppers..

[aphex000]

[Magus00]

I have nothing to add that has not already been said. Other than my Swamp Pop arrives tomorrow. Reddit is too much of a cluster to really be reliable imho. That is why I come here.

[kosmopol]

I wouldn't call the reddit discoveries a BS. They are just taking the other plane, they ride a horse of parallel dimension. And between found hidden sign strings in official contents (which should be reproductable) and the other founds lay the river Lethe named Google, which is pretty untrustworthy regarding the research of needles hidden in straws. It's actually like a portal - you exit where you actually intend to do.

[Magus00]

[gimlet]

So, I somewhat agree but not with a couple points: firstly, John Goodman isn't exactly a *Big* blockbuster star. At all. He's always a been cult character actor. He's big with film nerds who've seen him in Cohen Brothers movies. Other than that he doesn't even act all that often any more. Doesn't have to. He works when he wants on what he wants. (I happen to love him, but he's no mainstream box office draw. Not even close).

And The Wired issue was 7 years ago. If JJ was using ciphers then, he may *gasp* still be using them. Maybe he's even aware of, I don't know, front page cover stories in major mainstream publications like Rolling Stone about things like Cicada. Just like the rest of us have.

In 2008 an ARG was totally new, nerdy, insane, unheard of. And that's what made it so exciting! That's what required a hive mind to solve it. He's proooobably aware the world has change substantially in the meantime. Maybe that means no ARG. Maybe that means using easily available Cryptography software.

All we know for sure is he doesn't like to repeat himself.

EDIT: LOL. SO. I just went to check Goodman's Wikipedia and it lists a Character name for Cloverfield all of a sudden!!!

[Adm_BlackCat]

[Pixiestix]

totally off topic but both of these annoyed the outta me...

[Kajisan]

 

[gimlet]

[Pixiestix]

Monkeys - Actually, yeah, but I'm a fan. I suppose I can't say what non-fans know or don't know - but then, someone who isn't a fan wouldn't care to know I would assume. Much like non-fans don't know who writes for Lady Gaga.

Sorry about the "sir" - happens all the time. Used to happen to me (even with the name Pixie).

Wasn't always a Moderator. Used to be a trouble maker. there's a thread in the moderator forums about my temp 2 week temp ban I like to read now and then from when I let a twisted grassroots PM con me into breaking TOS here and got rude about it. But I digress...

Although I would say The Beast (for the film AI) was the first non-grassroots BIG marketing ARG, I would also argue that ARGing mostly broke into the minor mainstream awareness with with the Halo ARG "I Love Bees" - because gamers playing a game for a game is more probable than movie watchers doing it. Something not being well known in non-niche groups doesn't make it "new". The reason JJ & BR got so stuck into the whole ARGing thing was because it was indeed already an established art form, with proven successful marketing data (did I win transmedia buzzword bingo yet?). Hip, sure. New, far from it.

Side note - I'm wordy, over explanatory - something often misinterpreted as heated or angry (which is party how I got my awesome Angry Midget title!) but I assure everyone, I'm just annoying.

If SP doesn't give us something new soon, I'll be soooo sad, I was finally thinking here might be something here... The cluster frak has me rather lost now.

[Ednanight]