unforum

[Svengoolie]

A general question about ARGs

[InSoM]

Hi svengoolie.

Theres a pretty good player tutorial forum here

It show you a few previous "Puzzle trails" and explains how eveything works.

PS. Most people had no idea what was goin on at first, you get the hang of things quite quickly, and even if you end up sucking at most ciphers, as i do, you can still follow alon and not miss anything.

[Crowfoot]

Hey there.

Don't worry, when you first join on, everything looks a WHOLE lot harder than it actually is. Of course, some of the puzzles require a bit of thinking, but soon enough you'll learn to recognise the fun in that. The most important thing to remember that ARGs essentially aren't single player games, they're designed to be solved collectively and as a community. Everyone has a certain trait(s) that comes in handy, and once they're all brought together they create a team. If it helps at all, I was in the exact same position as you when I was new, but I decided to just go for it and jump into the deep end. I joined on an ARG that I thought suited me and simply learned as I went along. This is, on top of reading the guides too, the best way (in my opinion of course) of getting started.

A more important thing to note is the fact that ARGs aren't just about puzzles. There are many parts of an ARG that attract different people. A lot of people play for the storyline, some people play because they love the immersion and interactivity, some people of course enjoy the puzzle side of things - and more commonly people are attracted to combinations of these. We're a very helpful and friendly community, so any questions you have along the way just ask someone, as no one will shout 'No0b!' or laugh at you - it is collectively felt here that all new people are a blessing to this wonderful genre.

If you have any questions feel free to hit me up on AIM or give me an E-mail. I'll try to help in anyway I can.

P.S. Go to view and source to view the source of a web site. It's not hacking, in fact we condemn hacking in his community.

P.P.S. Our Colony isn't really like the average ARG, they don't work in challenges, they work in storylines, interaction and puzzles.

[JebJoya]

[Crowfoot]

[OmegaX]

[GuyP]

I always think the most important trait is to be unannoying, and everything on top of that is a bonus

Anyway, some ARGs are prone to throwing in random puzzles that don't really make any sense, and depend upon players using their previous experiences in other games to find clues and stuff. In my opinion, it's a bit lame when games fall back on the same old methods with no justification.

On the other hand, the best games just need common sense and creative thinking to solve puzzles. Say you need an ID code to login to a company intranet... you could go and check out a photo of an employee somewhere on the site, and find that they're wearing their ID badge with the code in full view. Bingo! Then reading more about that employee might give you some initial information to help you guess what their password might be... I'm sure you get the picture.

Art Of The Heist looks great, but is moving really fast and might be kinda hard to keep up with. Perplex City is only just getting started, is pretty light on the puzzles so far and seems like the kind of game that'll *make sense* to players unfamiliar with ARG traditions / WORN OUT CLICHES.

Good luck and welcome! (Oh, and I agree with the previous post... ourcolony really *isn't* an ARG in any recognisable sense, so don't worry too much if you're struggling with that.)

[Crowfoot]

While Perplex City isn't a bad choice, I'm not quite sure I would recommend it to a new comer. The game is very crowded and moves quite fast, and sometimes it is difficult to pick out the details you need to kind of make sense of it all. I would suggest picking a smaller ARG to begin with, like Jibril of God, or maybe play that as well as PPC.

[firefox]

yeah GuyP is right. If you're nice and attentive people will treat you with respect.
but if you come on the boards and post 'heherolmao isearched butomg!!1owne!! is this new' and then start a new topic about something that has been previously covered (best idea to ask a question if you're unsure about something being new) then people might have a problem with that.

not me tho. i wouldnt bitch and moan, because if you can find something new, or solve it by yourself, you deserve a . Which is a GOOD thing. (and tasty fish)

edit: props to spacey for friendlier icon

[vpisteve]

[Crowfoot]

I can see where you're coming from there, and I don't want to turn this into a discussion thread because essentially it's not, it's to help a newcomer. However, I tend to disagree with your point. Particularly with PPC, the mountains of speculation and trouts makes it hard for some newbies to understand what's going on, whereas with grassroots games there is a smaller community working on them, which allows room for almost one-to-one discussions and questions available for anyone who is new on the scene. It really is down to how you feel about the way you learn. Some people prefer to learn on a one-to-one basis, whereas some like to just dive in and learn as they go.

As for the grassroots and corporate discussion, that's an entirely different matter... and everyone knows my stance on that. I know you were joking Steve, but Lenny's Xanga was a brilliant game, it was just a shame it imploded.

[PokeKiller]

[rose]

Art of the Heist

[imbri]

Welcome!

You can usually ignore me, I'm rather known around the place for having rather heated meta (about the genre and game design) discussions and not so much for playing them. You just happened to hit on a few of my current buttons... that so many games seem to be so tech based, how to mainstream that, and how to best introduce new players to a game.

First of all, ignore us cranky ol' timers going on about "grassroots vs corporate"... it's a rather opinionated topic 'round these parts. But do heed the warnings of "your mileage may very". That's true with any game, but unfunded games where the PMs aren't facing pressure from some big entity to see it through to completion tend to have less at stake and 'meltdown' more easily. That's not to say it won't happen w/the corporate games or that all 'grassroots' games will.

(blah blah blah...I'm also known for being a bit wordy)

I'd suggest Art of the Heist right now. I'm really enjoying lurking there and, if I weren't so busy, might even be playing it. There is a bit of history to wade through, but the players have come up with some great resources to help new players figure out what's going on. Also, unlike Perplex City, you won't have the mountains and mountains of "Spec" and can get involved fairly quickly and easily. It moves fairly fast which will allow for some of that more typical game frenzy and a bit less of a sense that you're just reading a really long novel with some puzzles thrown in. As someone else mentioned, it appears as though there will be a fair amount of real world interaction and, unlike the real world stuff in I Love Bees (players going to pay phones where one player could answer the phone), they involve everyone present in the action. Very cool.

Perplex City is the other corporate sponsored game going on right now. It holds a lot of promise and is a bit more "shiny" than Art of the Heist. It seems to be, finally, ramping up and will likely be a great game. A couple of the people behind it have a decent reputation around here because they wrote the trail & guide for the Beast (the first ARG) and were the player mods for Cloudmakers (the largest group that played the Beast). They've been working on this for a long time and I'm sure that will show. I mentioned the vast amount of Spec above... I wouldn't let that stop you. Most of it won't be necessary reading but obsessive types, such as myself, are usually compelled to read it.

As for the grassroots offerings around right now, I've only taken a serious look at Seen James and Ares Station. I don't mean to sell them short, but neither grabbed me the way that Heist has. However, take a look and you might find that the story is more interesting to you. That's important as story is a huge aspect of ARG. Yet, community is another one and you'll find that you'll get out of a game what you put into it and people tend to put more into the games when they feel involved with the community of payers... so take a look at that as well.

Now, as for your actual questions...

Most games these days (and historically, really) tend to assume players have a fair amount of technical ability. It's a real beef of mine lately. You will find that there are going to be technical puzzles that you just don't have a clue on how to solve. However, one of the benefits of ARGs (and joys, really) is that they are played as a community. So, when you don't know how to do something someone else likely will. Reading over how they've solved stuff will help you learn how to do things you never imagined that you'd know. Someone pointed out the player tutorial and UF has a toolbar that links to some popular encryption type tools (as well as other things). They'll help you along the way. Don't be afraid to ask 'stupid' questions as I can pretty much guarantee that you aren't the only one that wants the answer, though as pointed out it's best to phrase them nicely. You might also want to check out the chat. It's more informal and so you might have better luck asking questions and learning how to do a few things there. UF has a java applet that will connect you to the right channel if you don't have an IRC client.

I hope you stick around and give a game or two a try. They're really great fun once you get past that "i'm a n00b" hurdle.

- b

[Dorkmaster]

While this has been said in a couple ways, I thought I would do so without having multiple paragraphs, as I am a simple dork, and thought that you too would prefer to see a simple answer...

The truth is, some puzzles you just won't get. That's why it's cool though. A puzzle that one person may NEVER get in their lifetime is solved through the creative energy of many.

You may say "I swear this looks similar to this puzzle I saw ______ time ago, and I thought the answer had to do with ______"

and someone could build on that, and you could find yourself not solving, but being part of the solve, and trust me, that's a very satisfying feeling.

Ok so technically, those were paragraphs, as is this. However, they're short paragraphs and they are easy to understand (hopefully).

I would definitely suggest using the search function to look up the 10 commandments of ARGs , ACTUALLY, I WOULD CLICK HERE FOR THE 10 COMMANDMENTS OF ARG (proved very useful to me when I first started), and then Imbri's introduction to ARGs is quite good, IMO (in my opinion).

And never worry about not knowing something. There's always some subject that YOU are the expert in. Ya never know when that will come in handy and that's why ARGs work. Welcome to the fold brother/sister... and don't forget to -sleep occasionally/get that work done/turn in that project/feed yourself/see daylight (occasionally)- while playing!

EDIT: Search was not as um... efficient as one would like in this instance.