unforum

[vpisteve]

[vpisteve]

[hkdl]

[miss_seph]

ok that's fine - but can I have the answer to my other question: What is an ARG?

this thread may aswell have some purpose right? I move that this thread be the focal point for the community to have the final say on what an ARG is, so that we may have a definition to stick to to avoid this debate again lol

[L.Boomer]

Well said

[Guest]

Seeing as my work has been quoted quite frequently throughout this thread... well... I better make some sort of statement.

First of all, I don't like having Synagoga and Wildfire separate. It's like saying This Should Not Exist separate from Wildfire, or having The Unraveling separate from Urban Hunt.

Synagoga was simply just seeing the same world through "rose colored glasses". Certainly it introduced a new character (Synagoga), and it revealed information that was previously unknown, but coded in different terms, such as the frequent religious parallels.

To defend my game from the "not making sense" set of gAIMes, I did not need to steal HKDL's information from Unforums, instead, Synagoga hacked the Wildfire system, in search of someone to talk to. Because she also called people, asking for help too. She was more than just an AIM presence, although she was very strong in the AIM area.

While I also acknowledge that the schedule system is a much more player friendly system, as it guarantees that the players will not miss updates or interactions, it also takes the whole concept of creating an alternate reality and sticks a machine gun to it. Reality is not scheduled, reality is chaos. Reality is only scheduled when it needs to be. In my personal belief, to keep up the reality, the game should be both scheduled and unscheduled and not just one or the other.

Wildfire, for those who played, understood this. There was the schedule of events, such as board meetings, voting, projects, pay day, and hours of business. This guaranteed that all players were not left behind when something critical was done. By the same token, there were many unscheduled events and conversations with the characters. Cars blew up, murders were committed, sex was had in the copy room. Each part, the scheduled and unscheduled aspects, gave the aspect of realism to the "alternate reality".

To continue, while the AIM conversations do restrict the amount of players that can be used to talk to, it can be done where you can contact every player on a one on one circumstance eventually. I can assert that both Project Gateway, using the Rendevous page, and Wildfire Industries, in using employee profiles, interviews, and many periods of interaction, were able to have a one on one chat with every player (Wildfire more than Gateway, of course). In fact, during the pre-game, every person had to had an interview with Laura Clockheart or Seraphina Wildfire or Deltina Wildfire in a one on one circumstance. And for the final interview, each player was individually subjected to the horror that is the entire Wildfire Industries board put together in the same room.

On the question of roleplaying (as I heard some people mentioning that Wildfire Industries and other games of it's type were more Roleplaying Games than an Alternate Reality Game) I have this to say. Nowhere in any of the game did it state that you had to interact with the characters in "character". If anything, your "character" was you. And the Alternate Reality puts you in the middle of this wacked out city and wacked out companies. If I may assert, I Love Bees made us more in character, forcing us to assume alternate identities in HALO's military system and lie to an Artificial Intelligence. In WI, you were an employee. You were you. You didn't even have to agree with the company you worked for, it was all up to you. Just because you are put in the story doesn't mean you are roleplaying. If you want to roleplay, then do so. My only rule was you couldn't state that the game was a game in the channel. That's not a roleplaying rule. Heck, what would have Melissa done if someone asked her, "So, when's Halo 2 coming out?" You just don't do that...

What the personal interaction did, from Wildfire that I noticed, was it created these amazing bonds between the characters and players. One night, I remember playing Seraphina when she came into the chat room. She had nothing to say or do, she was just going to sit with the players, and alot of them really appreciated it. I remember we talked about Law and Order, and someone found that it was currently on TV. About 10 players and Seraphina discussed an episode of Law and Order that they were all watching on TV. Players felt that they made a true bond with the characters, and players truly believed through the character's interactions that they were real people. It was all still quite unbelievable, but many players told me that they were impressed at how much they would believe what the characters had to say. Some, like Miss Caro, even cried outright when Seraphina died. That's the symbol that shows that the alternate reality is made correctly, in my opinion. I remember crying when Melissa said her goodbyes to us.

Now, setting and world creation. GAIMes don't do this well at all. It takes a good PM with a good detailed world that can be described through text to create something believable. Can it be done though? I believe it could be. And to restrict our definitions so tightly to something like it has to be a "world that I can escape into" is a bit flawed. Different people escape into worlds at different levels. Perhaps we should reform the definition to "A world that someone can escape into." Showing that some people can be very content with a world with limited access, and some may demand worlds with larger unparalled access.

To stand a rebuttal to Jamesi's comment with the "1000 person AIM conversations" well... it's happened. Last night, in Matrix Online, there were AIM conversations after AIM conversations with Niobe, Agent Gray, Flood, and Morpheus after an "unknown source" declared it's intent in the Matrix. I was lucky enough to be contacted by Flood, the Merovingian's controller, myself and speak with him for a short time. Now, conversation was restricted to one person. But did that stop my affiliates from enjoying the experience? Heck no! They were all yelling at me "Ask Flood this!" or "Ask Flood that!" Everyone was VERY excited. I'm not sure how many AIM conversations went out, but they were a little scripted and little personal - personal because I got some things told to me and only me, but scripted because some of the lines were lines that were used in conversations with other people.

Now, MxO isn't an ARG. I'm not even saying it is. It has Slumberil, it has some e-mails, some AIM conversations, The MegaCity Sentinel, and the really really large world of the Matrix MegaCity. Perhaps it could be construed as an ARG, but I don't wish to debate that. I just wish to offer proof that AIM conversations can be used quite effectively on a large scale basis.

And... well.. I'm going to read through this post more... if I come up with something else.. I'll be sure to add on...

[C_Brennan]

And that was me... It seems I took so long in making my post I got logged out. >.<

[Gupfee]

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

[krystyn]

Re: Well said

[vpisteve]

Re: Well said

[Nightmare Tony]

Right now, AIM and IRC seem to be the easiest way for player contact during the game. One solution I hope to see more of is the game characters posting and being a part of the forums. But thasts my own personal take there.

A defined ingame and out of game set of forums for each game. that is Nash's solution,. but only one game, WI too advantage of that fact. Unfiction has a lot more traffic and activity going on. But it is shut out to the game characters.

Perhaps, for each game, an ingame forum where the game characters interact and post? that holds the same functions The PMs would need to contact you and register game character accountsd and their main people would be responsible for their actions as game characters. You would know who isd the game character, the PM behind them, but thatr stays secret untikl the game is over.

I do not see the forums as ingame any less valid than cryptic websites, blogs or irc or aim chats. Its all methods of communication of the game.

[miss_seph]

so, I still don't know what an ARG is :/

i'm not trying to stir anything, I just really would like to know what we as a collective have decided the definition of an ARG is.

I've read TINAG, but that is one opinion. Let's have a collective definition.

[ScarpeGrosse]

I'm confused how a thread that was debating the finer points of "what an ARG is" and what methodologies work well and which ones do not work well suddenly is a thread dedicated to thrashing down the grassroots games.

I don't believe ANYONE in this discussion had brought up the idea that grassroots games are a waste of time and should be swept under the dirty rug in the corner. I myself PMed a grassroots game that used IRC as a method to progress the story forward - however, in hindsight and in light of my increasing experience, I would try NOT to tell a story in that manner and try to tell it in a fashion that didn't require the players to sit at their computers with baited breath waiting for the attractive character to pop into IRC or AIM. At this point, I prefer games that are able to stand alone, on the web, and still tell the story with quality.

I stated earlier that accomplishing the production of a quality ARG does not take a lot of money (something that some people seem to think "quality" means) - what it takes is creativity, dedication and a Type A personality that will allow you to produce what will turn out to be a Quality Game. Quality is not directly correlated to Size of Bank Account.

For instance, I've bought $50 bottles of wine that I thought were absolute poo, and I've had $50 bottles of wine that were fabulous. Yet, I've also had many $5 wines that I've gotten drunk off of and thought they were the bomb. To me, a $5 wine can taste just as fabulous as that $50 wine. The name on the label merely serves as a recognition point for me to think "oh hey! I liked that one that one time - perhaps this will also be good." Knowing Microsoft is sponsoring something doesn't equate with "high quality" in my brain... am I the only one who remembers Windows ME? That was C.R.A.P.

In my oh so humble opinion, before we rush out to paint everyone with an opinion on whether AIM is an effective methodology as Assholes Who Hate Grassroots, let's actually LOOK at what is being said - AIM/IRC is great, in limited quanties, and can be used within a greater game context effectively but AIM on its own does not make a game. That is ALL that has been said here, people. Seriously. I implore you to whip out your English dictionaries if you're having issues with the big words.

Furthermore, looking over the people who have been debating and discussing this issue, I find it humorous to note that the ones speaking are Grassroots PMs, not people sitting on a cashpile of Microsoft/Audi money. We debate the questions of "what is ARG" and "what works well in an ARG" because we truly LOVE the genre and want it to succeed and birth many many new games and new players, and possibly educate. To accomplish these goals, sometimes debate is necessary. We don't debate these things because we're sitting on a giant high horse of old fartitude, blowing winds of stinky poo and walloping people on the head with polo mallets because they try something different that may or may not work. That's just silly. We're all much more intelligent and forebearing than that kind of behavior would imply, and I would be embarassed if anyone actually felt that way.

[miss_seph]

[ScarpeGrosse]