unforum

[rowan]

[imbri]

evil roboferrets!

[Alzheimers]

[weephun]

[yanka]

Alzheimers,

You keep making these blanket statements - like:

[Varin]

[vpisteve]

As usual, Yanka hits it on the head. As someone who loves numbers, Alzheimer, you must know that a sampling is only representative of the pool it's taken from. The pool must be a lot bigger than one game before you can imperically assert a trend.

It's all about perspective, I guess.

Why am I suddenly reminded of the Indian proverb about the 6 blind men and the elephant?

[strife777]

1) I heart Yanka. You rock.

2)

[ScarpeGrosse]

I'm going to throw something else out to mull over:

The idea that storytelling is an active thing and what makes a good story/storyteller is a dynamic and interactive relationship with the people you are telling the story to.

For example, think back to your college lectures, or that really boring family member who speaks in horrible runon sentences in a bland, dry, soulweeping monotone voice. They may be telling you the most hilarious story you've ever heard, but you'd never know it because you were so very bored with the delivery that you were unable to become engaged in the story itself. Had your lecturer/reallyboringfamilymember danced around, or make sweeping motions with his hands, or interacted with you in an engaging and thrilling fashion, you'd probably have learned more/cared more about what was being said. It's like the friends that you go to the bar with: you want the ones who will be entertaining and engaging - not someone who's going to sit there like a lump and stare into his/her pint glass all night, mumbling about American Idol, very dully and with no flare or fashion.

Now let's draw a rather distant parallel: IRC/AIM chats.
To me, these are the ARG equivalents of my boring history professor. How do you portray exuberance or anger in these chats? BY USING CAPITAL LETTERS! FEEL MY EMOTION! Some PMs might even be able to use BOLD CAPITAL LETTERS TO EXPRESS ANGER! ARRRRGGGHHH! I'M MAD!
However, despite the appearance of emotion in these chats, I don't actually feel the emotion, like I would in the physical presence of a storyteller or character (hence, why I've always considered phone usage to be fabbity cool - you can hear the emotion in the voice and become physically responsive to that emotion yourself).
Similarly, ARGs that use blogs and are more website-driven allow glimpses into a character's emotional state. The web media allows much more freedom of expression with the use of color and pictures and font changes and depth of website structures that tunnel you into the mind of a character, and by doing so, visually express the emotional state of a character, in a state that is both visually and emotionally engaging for the player. A good example of this in my opinion comes from MetaCortex (MU) and Dina's blog. As the player discovered the hidden pages within Dina Nakota's website, they were clued in to her emotional state: The pages her darker thoughts/dreams were displayed on were encoded with black backgrounds and red text, her drawings were dark. You could tell just by looking that the woman. was. upset. The visual context to the verbal content.

In my opinion, if the ARG isn't working in a traditional format, it may not be the fault of the players, but in faulty storyTELLING. The more engaging the world of the characters (through the format of how the story is told "online"), the more "sticky" the story and what's happening to the characters will be in the players' minds. The Stickiness factor is what essentially "sells" the ARG - Some ARGs are like those annoying Band-Aid commercial jingles "I am stuck on bandaid brand cause bandaid's stuck on me" - that jingle is stuck in my brain for the rest of all eternity because of effective marketing - BandAid "sold" me on the idea that they really work! If the ARG story is told effectively, you will sell the ARG to the players from the onset, and that story will stick in their brains and will engage them emotionally and physically, and in turn, they will engage the storyteller (PM) in their love for the game.

(have I rambled enough yet?)

[imbri]

and we must never forget the international instant messaging standard for "I've just been Posessed":


akesrahwlrhealkjdsfnlasuidyrlakwjenglkajghrlkewuirlhawkejfnalsier


-b

[ScarpeGrosse]

How could I forget? I still have Pepsi stains on my wall from snorting it out my nose...

[Phaedra]

[Alzheimers]

Since this is quickly turning from a conversation on the merits of PM techniques into a personal attack, I'll just take the opportunity to apologize to Phaedra for calling her out like that, apologize further for the lack of conversation in the SD forums (although I recognize that there's really nothing in the UFTOS that I could have done about that), and finally apologize to those who wasted countless hours of productivity in the hopes of dragging this out even longer.

Let me just say that when I provide entertainment for the community, I try very hard to provide the best experience to the utmost of my meager abilities. You may not agree with my methods or my style, you may not even like me or my game. But I'll never be accused of ignoring the needs, wants and desires of my audience.

[Nightmare Tony]

I would beg to differ in terms of the previous format which was more the traditional ARG format with websites and puzzles and very little interaction. Alz found the interactive AIM to garner more player interest and it worked. That doesnt mean the original format was bad at all.

Maybe consider that players are finding it more exciting. you can always go back to PPC crowd scene and endlessly spec on very little storyline compared to where it is potentially is going to go., PPC also appears to have no real player affectation for the story change as of yet.


Tranquil Valley relied on journals and some AIM chatwork as well as a couple of puzzles. But it was WI that helped bring the interactive to the forefront.

Alz was first in the game merge which WI/Syn followed thereafter but got more glory. Alz ran teh two seperate games in the different formats for different player interests. Player interest definitely shifted over to teh interactive SD2 side of things.

The entire genre evolves. Players are wanting and needing more interaction in their games. And PMs are changing their games to supply the need.

If you wish, you can go back with the old ACE argument back claiming that the only true rollercoasters were wood and that steel rollercoasters were simply not rollercoasters. Or the more recent, as in 1996 fracas about Superman: The Escape. The world's first rollercoaster to reach over 100 miles an hour. Couple here and there claiming it to not be a . Which it definitely is. The basic is running by gravity.

The basic for ARG is the storyline told from behind the curtain. The methods evolve with new ways of storytelling.

[catherwood]

How did this get up to 4 pages without my opinion?

Interactivity: If a player wants interaction with a character, the AIM is for their personal enjoyment, not the rest of the player base. While it is generous for them to share their chat logs with the rest of the community, I don't see the point. Players who want immersion via chat/IM will have their _own_ logs; players who don't like such a direct contact with the characters won't be reading the logs. (Same could be said for emails, to a lesser degree.) Reading a conversation does not make me feel immersed; it is a passive experience.

Alternate Reality: It's about the creation of an illusion. For me, the deeper the world, the more real the illusion; for another player, the illusion is created by conversations. Unfortunately, for me personally, the conversations actually break the illusion. Does the creation of a website (with or without puzzles) break the illusion for other players?

Genre: We're still experimenting. We are also using one particular forum which might not be able to cater to a widening population, if their common interests diverge too far. Is it such a bad thing when players who enjoy one flavor of game choose to hang out on another forum, with people who share a similar opinion? I don't make you all go out and register at www.thestone.com to play those kinds of puzzles, because I do not expect all of you to enjoy that mode of play. It doesn't mean we cannot play other games together here.

ack! time for another TV show...

(later edit to add): I'm not saying the IM's are bad; I'm saying that the _posting_ of _logged_chats_ are bad in a tedious way. Twenty different players might enjoy having their own version of the same basic conversation with a character, but there is no need for them to post every log. Doesn't anyone know how to summerize the essence of what was said?