unforum

[MNPundit]

Personally I haven't been feeling the excitement I did when I first read the opening stages. Now I have no problem with an ARS, after all, I HATE MMORPGs while my favorite genre are the RPGs for consoles (FF, Star Ocean, La Pucelle, Breath of Fire etc.) so if it has a gripping story, I'm not all that hopped up to interact. Thats why I play games, to be entertained and a good story does that as well as good gameplay.

However, its just... the mystery seems to be over and thats what really drew me in.

What was happening to the website? Who or what was leaving text? Is Dana going to be stalked? Well now we know AI taking over the internet and Dana does NOT get to be stalked. All in all, kind of boring and worth maybe an hour or two a week but not full on story-mode like in the beginning. So really thats my problem, the element of slightly-creepy real world-ism is gone.

EDIT: I think if we were cooperating to help Dana actually DO something (i.e. investigate something, go somewhere) it would really help. Instead, she's as passive as we are so our strongest real life link is gone.

[Alzheimers]

Dare I say, that most of us are suffering from post-overexposure-to-hype syndrome? Most of us who remain were the ones who were checking the page every day, holding our collective breath as each checkpoint in the countdown loomed -- maybe even took time away from work or school to be there at the exact moment the timer changed...sighed as we realized that the real timer was PST and had to wait another three hours...

And when THE day approached ... the big two-four, we built up such a fervor that we were sure the earth would never be the same afterwards (and we had the anagaram to back that feeling up!) And as we watched, our every nerve in anxious anticipation ... we were left with the oddest puzze ever. A collection of unrelated numbers, and times...seemingly coordinates but, was there something more?

So this list was dissected, and mapped, and ran through every algorythm we have for finding patterns in seemingly random lists of numbers. We looked for pictures in the plots, we looked for secret messages in the means, medians and averages. We plotted distances, we hiked out to locations across the country in search of a common factor that linked these places together. Some were at landmarks, some were at schools, some ... were in the middle of the ocean!

Had all of our efforts, all of our dreams of a new and exciting puzzle finally been satisfied? Have we been challenged to find some order in this chaos, this set of data that could contain an infinte number of meanings? Our resolve would not be defeated! Surely...there must....be....

And then, the phone rang. A billion trillion computer cycles later, and we were left with the rather mundane task of dragging our hulking masses of flesh to answer a phone, to give a not-so-secret password, and...to receive a prerecorded message that was instantly available to everyone else. And so it began, the denial that we had been hoodwinked -- the utte disbelief that our massive efforts had been for naught.

And so we still search for a pattern, a secret message -- anything to justify the huge amount of time and effort we put into the search for one. And still those payphones ring, as if to taunt our futility. And yet, if tomorrow there is a new list of numbers, and a new set of prerecorded messages, we will be there. Addicted by hype beyond hope, our own sense of failure -- failure to discern a pattern where there never was one, failure to accept that we were beaten by our own insatiable lust for hidden knowledge -- will keep us from ever giving up, as long as we are taunted with the possibility that we might, just might, ever miss that one crucial bit that would ever tie the whole universe into one neat [SOLVE].

Would you risk, even as certain as we are that there is no unified Axon theory, the chance at that glory?

[Scumbag]

ILB isn't about new ways to get the waves, its to figure out what the waves are trying to show us. The phones are the process, the waves are the process's reward.

[rose]

[vpisteve]

[firefox]

the calm before the storm. i hold faith that this will be 'big'.

as only the true dedicated remain, our patience may still pay out. for me, so far the game/story has been entertaining, i can't complain about the phones/axons because i can't even get to them people start taking things for granted. its ussualy those people that don't hang around. the story is engaging and engrossing- yes and no. the more people there are the harder it is to fully interact. the game perhaps is suffering from over-exposure, but when and if this dies down- or even if it doesn't, it should not take away anything from its real value. that of an alternate reality, an escape... which is what most of us are here to seek.

it is a game of patience. i don't mind waiting. and before ilb, i did not know anything about arg's, so for me its been a real positive
i will play to the end! cos its still fun-

and after this- the whole world of arg has been further exposed to many people, which is hopefully a good thing.

project syzygy here we come

[HitsHerMark]

[Scumbag]

Oh, don't worry, I ain't touching that whole argument with a 20 foot pole. I wasn't saying what something is or what isn't, someone asked why, and I guessed.

[Nightmare Tony]

At least, the one thing nice about the huge crowd taking off, it gets to be a bit more reasonable than reading endless streams of trying to justify this thing to the Halo mythology. I personally could not care less about Halo, thankyouverymuch!

And if it werent for such things as buying a tractor and getting my truck engine checked over ands a couple of days of bad phone connections, would be rolling in here more often.... sigh....

[SecondSundodger]

[rose]

the party just moved uptown a bit

[Nightmare Tony]

Absolutely. The spec became the ultimate clutter bomb in here and didnt advance the game whatsoever. Least there is a more solid footing now...

[HitsHerMark]

Re: the party just moved uptown a bit

[ROBOGriff]

It dosn't matter to me what this is. I'm using it as a time killer until Halo 2 ships. I'm glad that ILB is accessable right now, because I'm one of those that discovered ARG thru BMWfilms.com (season 1). I missed the whole beast and this is my chance to get re-aquainted with ARG. I appreciate getting "broken in" gently.

[CoffeeJedi]

even if it is just an ARS, i felt a deep-seated feeling of satisfaction last night when i came back from answering a payphone and saw my location replaced with "CONNECTED - AXON HOT"