unforum

[Alzheimers]

[Anton P. Nym]

Comrade Alzheimers, you need to label a spoiler for what it spoils eh?

In this case, it's a spoiler for Orwell's Animal Farm. And I think it's an inflamatory one, and one that doesn't suit the situation at all well.

Weephun was instructed, point-blank, by an in-game character not to share the information. That's different than arrogating oneself into the arbiter of what's right and wrong in the game... HE WAS FOLLOWING INSTRUCTIONS, IN GAME, FROM A CHARACTER.

If Dana emailed you, right now, and asked you to take an action against Melissa and keep it secret, would you? I would, because the request was made by a character of the game. So that request for secrecy is important to the game.

I could be cheap, and just end this by offering you a refund on your admission and to show you to the door, but I won't. Simply because there are some folks out-of-pocket for gas money or transit fare, there has been some investment of more than time into the game. However the game has been enormous fun, even for those of us who cannot expect any direct in-game role due to out-of-game circumstances. (Payphones don't take incoming calls here.) I hope that the fun has been worth the price. It has been for me.

But to accuse someone of setting themselves above everybody else in the game as a result of this is an even cheaper shot. One that I think calls for an apology.

-- Steve thinks that a quote from Much Ado About Nothing would be more appropriate. Or maybe Chicken Little.

[DarkStorm]

Except they certainly are "more equal" in a sense.

In the same sense that, say, Patrick Stewart is slightly more involved in Star Trek than John Q. Random from down the road who watches an episode every now and then, or even than Robert J. Trekkie who sends fan mail to Paramount religiously.

These people are no longer just spectators or players, they're in-game characters as well. They're the ones who will be getting a lot of information first, and it's totally up to them whether or not to share it. That's a big jump.

-DS-

[Anton P. Nym]

[HitsHerMark]

You know what?

Never mind. This thread is a waste of our time and energy.

*edit*removed*edit*

[DarkStorm]

I wasn't meaning to compare the game to Animal Farm (and, no, I'm not the same person as Alzheimers, if that's what you were implying in that deleted post), but it *is* silly to suggest that those picked as Crew aren't going to be able to interact with the characters better than those of us who are not.

If a character asked me to do something? I probably would do what they asked. However, and I bold this for emphasis... my complaint, as I stated, is that the characters aren't asking me to do anything. There is no interaction whatsoever, no matter what I e-mail (and I've sent a half-dozen e-mails to the ladybee777SPLAThotmail.com account), what I post, what I write, what I do. This reduces me to a mere spectator, rather than a participant, which leads to me feeling left out, which leads to me writing grumpy posts when I've had less than five hours sleep due to Katamari Damacy overload.

Call this an apology. I didn't want an argument, I just don't seem to be getting "I'm trying to play the game, but the game is ignoring me" message through.

-DS-

[Mazian]

[Eric Burns]

Howdy all. I'm Eric Burns (thus the username), and I wrote the Websnark essay in question.

There's just one thing I want to clear up. I don't think Weephun did anything wrong. I don't think the Puppetmasters did anything wrong.

I do think this represents a milestone for ARGs in general, and it means that the essentially collective nature of ARG play is going to shift significantly and possibly cease to exist. That's what comments like "death knell" and "cancer of the massmind" refers to. And yes, they're cast in a negative light. But that's because I think this is a negative development.

To be perfectly honest, I think the raising up of individual players into game elements (and the inculcation of individual agendas among those players) reduces the ARG to a Role Playing Game. I'm a big fan of Role Playing Games. I write Role Playing Games. But RPGs and ARGs are not the same thing, and I think movement towards RPG-tropes weakens what makes ARGs so innovative, and damages the most exciting component of them: the community-nature of play.

Right now, the Beekeepers are segmented. First off, there's those players who have been 'recruited.' Right there, they've been placed in the position of the "haves" versus the have-nots. They can make individual decisions that have tremendous impact on the rest of the game, where players who haven't been recruited can only kibbutz. Even that wouldn't be a significant problem, except the recruited players aren't necessarily passing all the information they receive to the rest of the collective. Weephun was asked to keep certain information secret, and he did so. And that combination led to a really cool twist in the game's plotline. But for the time between the phone call and the result (I've heard it was four days? Something like that) any Spec posted on the boards was done with incomplete information. Some players knew things they weren't telling, and the rest of the players were proceeding from false assumptions.

Further, Weephun made a decision without giving the collective a chance to weigh in on it. A major decision, as it works out -- one of the major characters has been imprisoned or killed based on what he did. In a very real way, the 'players' of this game are those who have that power, now. Everyone else involved can only toss out suggestions for those players to decode. The fact that there's a thread on the boards about people feeling left out is a symptom of this.

This doesn't "ruin" the Haunted Apiary. But it changes it. Deeply. And it has a price. The price of the goodwill of some players. The price of collectivity versus factionalism.

Like I mentioned in the essay, I'm friends with a number of Beekeepers (I wouldn't call myself a Beekeeper -- I've followed the game but haven't participated). I've heard from at least one that he won't post his Specs on the boards any more, because he wouldn't want what he has to give to be used against the characters he likes. We've also seen a faction rising to "free the Princess." It would surprise me if that faction didn't coordinate their activities away from the boards, and didn't seek to recruit one or more crewmembers to their goals. But of course, they can't be open about it, because other crewmembers have already shown a willingness to feed information to Melissa, and they don't want to be put into the position of having their attempts thwarted by someone who gets a phone call where they don't.

This has become a very, very different game than it was a week ago. And it's also one of the highest profile ARGs since the Beast. That means the people who are new to ARGs are learning this is how they're played. That's why I assert that things have changed, both for the Apiary and for ARGs in general. The Collective Detective is fragmenting, and I don't think there's any way it can be remade. Nor probably should it. As some posters have mentioned, this is evolution in action. And that's just fine.

But it's also kind of sad, and I for one mourn the loss that this development represents.

Hopefully that makes my opinion a little clearer.

[Ceantari]

[Astald]

Very well written Eric Burns. That is kind of the way I feel too. Although, the PMs definitely are able to gauge our reaction on things they do in-game, which is why several things have changed along the course of the ARG. I think they will see the polarizing effect that this decision has made, and either water-down the role of the "crew", or else give everyone else a position to have to power to continue playing. I think that event was very exciting (although quite a downer to come home to after a hard day of work), but I have faith that the game will have many more exciting moments, and everyone who participates will feel better for having done so by the end.

[rose]

response: what milestone???

[HitsHerMark]

It's in the "view more emoticons".

[thebruce]

[darkmoonz]

taking a moment to talk about feeling left out...

there have been pretty much no axons near me, and you'd think that Orlando would be somewhere to put them, right? I mean, there are more Beekeepers than just me in this city, right? Also, going to college in Gainesville makes it difficult to get to a phone 33 miles SW of Orlando, of somewhere near Tampa, etc. There was supposedly one in downtown Orlando (unless I just completely read that wrong), but with all these freaking hurricanes coming through, everything's closed or has no power... (:

pretty much the only real thing i've done (which has probably been forgotten) was update and fix the wiki when all the idiots from the bungie and halo 2 forums kept erasing the main page and saying things like "this is dumb, halo's coming out aug 24th, you're gay," etc... which was fun...

either way, i'm still having fun discovering the puzzles, attempting to get online with others and figure stuff out, and i love refreshing a page and seeing an axon go hot... i just wish i could contribute more to the phone answering, that just seems so awesome to me...

and a big thanks to everyone who's working behind the scenes... (:

[weephun]

Thought about putting this in it's own topic, but it seems to fit in here pretty well. And I'm sure anyone who really cares will find it anyway. So here we go.
[/RANT]
Man, I am sick of this. I have never in my life been called so many derogatory things, derided more, or generally bashed for any sort of interaction or involvement in ANYTHING! To those few who have complimented and encouraged me, thank you, it has been appreciated and needed.

In the last few days I have been accused of everything from just being stupid, to "hoarding" information, to being a spy, all the way up to ruining the basis of Alternate Reality Gaming as a whole. And I am sick and tired of it.

The only thing I "hoarded" was a SMALL (though significant) portion of my conversation with Melissa that SHE ASKED ME to keep secret. And don't tell me you would have risked your newfound "crewmember" status and blabbed it here on the forums. With the mass jealousy and over all "boo hoo I feel left out " feelings being directed toward me and other "crewmembers" for getting "lucky" and getting the right phone call, I am quite sure that almost every single one of you would have acted EXACTLY as I did.

And THE INSTANT that I felt that the "secret" had been revealed, I posted EVERYTHING that I had remembered, said, and done here on the forums for all to see. I didn't wait until I could confirm with Melissa that was OK, I didn't worry about whether or not I could lose the coveted "crewmember" status, I just stuck my neck out and blabbed it all.

As far as I am concerned I do not thing that here should be any sort of "infighting" going on here. This should not be about Crew vs Knights or whatever. I'm not about to act the spy role here on the forums and report to Melissa, nor did I do that in the phone call nor later. The only information I gave Melissa was widely known by anyone even remotely following the story and was given to her in my "bid" to become a "crewmember". If that means I didn't think quickly enough on my feet during the call in order to "save" the Sleeping Princess, then so be it. As it appears to most, this was an inevitable part of the story, I just happened to be the catalyst (yah for me, huh?). And my actions that followed were based on information that I had either collected or created, organized, and shared with everyone in the group.

Now, a few of us have been asked to act a part in this ARG and I don't think that should set us apart from everyone else in the way that it has. Apparently these roles were deemed necessary by the PMs in order to move the story forward. We few were lucky enough to be chosen to fulfill those roles, and I'll be ****** if I'm not going to do my absolute best to fulfill mine. Call it role-playing call it ARGing, whatever.

I joined this ARG because A - I love Halo and B - I saw an incredible group of people coming together to coordinate, to solve puzzles, accomplish tasks, and enjoy a great story. Well, I still love Halo (played it from 6PM-4AM last night in fact), but that great group of people that I originally joined up with has not been so great for me and many others as of late.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see if this group can manage to pull itself through this latest development and find it's roots again or something like that.

Anyway, just felt that I needed to get all that out. Take it or leave it as you like. I personally would just like to get back to playing this great ARG. And maybe in a few days I'll be up to the point where I feel like I can again [/RANT]