Watch the Footage archive

Only missing like 99% of the game. Ah well.

BlackWolfe wrote:Only missing like 99% of the game. Ah well.

Yes, that's related to what bugged me: This ARG felt like very difficult to get into when you're new. It was even difficult to discover that it existed, so I suggested leaving a message on its tvtropes page. Thoughts about this?

Actually I did edit the main page to state it was running and accepted new members at the end of the description. Linking to Joe's condensed timeline. But still, after a certain point we started getting new members completely.
If someone found out through there, they must have felt it quite overwhelming to try and catch up with everything.

I think I, uh, already raged about most of my complaints in real-time... >_>
<_<

Other than that, and other than "why do I miss everything when I'm offline" which is nobody's fault, the only thing that seriously bothered me/ broke my immersion was Adell's and Sicon's scripted posts. Because I had to either take it at face value, in which case I'd have pressed them for certain actions/ information which, for meta-reasons, they either didn't have or couldn't share, or look at it with meta-goggles, which, well, completely broke immersion.

Also I <3 Rick but his French was very very difficult to decipher.

The Pheeble locator puzzle for obvious difficulty reasons

And then there is the Sydney wall piece.

The riddle felt too ambiguous, the search at the cemetery felt worthless because the search for three sisters made it difficult to understand what I was looking for and me having to go to Agent X and Morgana for help was rather desperate.

But at least it turned out well in the end

Qara-Xuan Zenith wrote:Also I <3 Rick but his French was very very difficult to decipher.

If I can offer a defense on this one (if for no other reason than Prof. Goldsmith, my advisor back when I was earning my degree in French Language & Literature, would have my hide if I didn't)...

We're both used to rather different dialects of French. In some ways, Quebecois is more radically different from Parisien (the dialect that I, and many others, are taught in American schools) than Creole is from Parisien (and Creole is more often than not classified as a distinct language rather than a dialect).

This is the first time anyone has complained about my French being difficult. In fact, the clarity of my accent was one of the highest marks I got when I was in college, because I actively underwent accent training. That said, said accent training probably does throw people off, because I underwent it with someone from Martinique. That, synthesized with the Parisian that I was originally taught and the occasional blend of my own native accent (American Mid-Atlantic) results in an accent that, while recognizably French, sounds different than pretty much any other French accent in existence. French people who hear me for the first time usually have the dual reaction of "Your accent is excellent... but where's it from?"

More than once, I facepalmed because I knew, even before this ARG started, how difficult it'd be for someone most familiar with Quebecois to parse my French accent (as I do some side work as a translator, I have first-hand experience with this).

JRPictures wrote:And then there is the Sydney wall piece.

The riddle felt too ambiguous, the search at the cemetery felt worthless because the search for three sisters made it difficult to understand what I was looking for and me having to go to Agent X and Morgana for help was rather desperate.

But at least it turned out well in the end

I will second this. It seemed the solution presented by JR was taken as the answer to move the game along. Can someone (Bill?) confirm that second riddle was correctly solved? (I would also like to know out of curiosity what the expected number of books was supposed to be for the first riddle.)

I believe that there were four books. Three on the ground or under his arm and one in his hand.

And I think all that had to happen was to send in the name of any three sisters. JR sent in photographs, which worked just as well, as the photographs contained (if I'm not mistaken) evidence of like...ALL of the sisters' names.

Qara-Xuan Zenith wrote:The only thing that seriously bothered me/ broke my immersion was Adell's and Sicon's scripted posts. Because I had to either take it at face value, in which case I'd have pressed them for certain actions/ information which, for meta-reasons, they either didn't have or couldn't share, or look at it with meta-goggles, which, well, completely broke immersion.

We spent about a month debating ideas for the Cthulhu/Player fight plan before picking one to set into motion, with eight days left. Sophie was convinced it would be problematic for players' immersion, and I suppose she was right. Ultimately, we knew we were doing something risky when we truly broke the fourth wall, but we decided it was worth it for the effect it would have. We talked our way through several different plans, trying to find the one that would be least likely to upset people and most likely to make them go "...but HOW?" We wanted something fun, exciting, and impossible to see coming. We settled on vote, followed by livestream.

Imperfect, as you can see, but something only an ARG could do. And something I frankly feel we had an obligation to do, when the entire game is about how the fourth wall will not protect you. After Alex suggested it, the question for me wasn't whether we would do this, but how.

Also, if you think Rick's French was tough, you should have read Raikes's French first drafts. Mons dieu!*

*That's what he wrote every time he should have written "Mon dieu".

<3, Raikes!

tl;dr In order to repair the Wall, we basically had to smash it with a sledgehammer first

Okay, a low point for me was the night that I stayed up writing the LJS refic. I was in a bad mood for reasons unrelated to the ARG, and I was frustrated with the lack of a deadline... "AS SOON AS POSSIBLE" could mean anything. You may remember that I complained it felt like Mr. Administrator was yelling at me. I was in a fragile state of mind at that moment.

I determined that I would turn it in that night no matter what, so I stayed awake long enough to finish it and sent it in. I thought about tweeting Mr. Administrator with "I really need to sleep now so BYE," quoting Tom in "Dumbass has a Point" but I decided that it would seem like I was sucking up with Echo Chamber quotes and I shouldn't do it. In retrospect I totally should have sent that tweet, but at that point I was too tired to think straight.

Although having my LJS refic be chosen and used the next day did make that ordeal seem worthwhile.

Mr. A would not have been pleased with that quote, but Tom would have been mooning over it for like an hour.

Tom wrote:Also, if you think Rick's French was tough, you should have read Raikes's French first drafts. Mons dieu!*

*That's what he wrote every time he should have written "Mon dieu".

<3, Raikes!

There was a joke early on that my catch phrase was "Damn it, Raikes!" He got better at figuring out the language as the game went on, though.

narrativedilettante wrote:Okay, a low point for me was the night that I stayed up writing the LJS refic. I was in a bad mood for reasons unrelated to the ARG, and I was frustrated with the lack of a deadline... "AS SOON AS POSSIBLE" could mean anything. You may remember that I complained it felt like Mr. Administrator was yelling at me.

This was complicated for us because Mr. A set the deadlines, and there was no way he would know that LJS was gonna show up and need to be refic'ed the next day. So I had to get him to beg for refics without any hard data about why he'd need them. I anticipated it would be frustrating, and I'm sorry it was, but I think it turned out for the best. I had strong reactions to many of the fics we got for him.

Tom wrote:

narrativedilettante wrote:Okay, a low point for me was the night that I stayed up writing the LJS refic. I was in a bad mood for reasons unrelated to the ARG, and I was frustrated with the lack of a deadline... "AS SOON AS POSSIBLE" could mean anything. You may remember that I complained it felt like Mr. Administrator was yelling at me.

This was complicated for us because Mr. A set the deadlines, and there was no way he would know that LJS was gonna show up and need to be refic'ed the next day. So I had to get him to beg for refics without any hard data about why he'd need them. I anticipated it would be frustrating, and I'm sorry it was, but I think it turned out for the best. I had strong reactions to many of the fics we got for him.

I actually hadn't considered that perspective, but it seems obvious now. And I am pleased with how it turned out.

Qara-Xuan Zenith wrote:The only thing that seriously bothered me/ broke my immersion was Adell's and Sicon's scripted posts. Because I had to either take it at face value, in which case I'd have pressed them for certain actions/ information which, for meta-reasons, they either didn't have or couldn't share, or look at it with meta-goggles, which, well, completely broke immersion.

I don't know about Adell, but I can assure you that absolutely none of my posts were scripted and were all written on the spot as I went. Whether you decide this means that it was all real or that the GMs were awesome enough to give me a really long leash is up to you.

JRPictures wrote:And then there is the Sydney wall piece.

The riddle felt too ambiguous, the search at the cemetery felt worthless because the search for three sisters made it difficult to understand what I was looking for and me having to go to Agent X and Morgana for help was rather desperate.

But at least it turned out well in the end

I see what you mean about the ambiguity of the sisters - I presumed that because of the Mary Mackillop reference at the start the players would naturally trend towards nun-hunting (heh), I didn't expect the amount of effort that went into finding siblings - first of Mary herself (nice Google-fu, Qara!) and then the sets of sisters buried at Gore Hill.

I was a little confused at your frustration following your trip to the cemetery - you'd snapped photos of the Sisters of Mercy plinth and at least one other collection of nuns. I was half expecting a Facebook message to pop up saying "I have been there - BEHOLD ALL THE SISTERS I HAVE PROVIDED YOU WITH. Make with the coordinates!"

Anyhow, seeing those photos was one of my high-points for the game - we'd gotten a player to head out into the physical world and do some investigation.

Bill Cohen wrote:

JRPictures wrote:And then there is the Sydney wall piece.

The riddle felt too ambiguous, the search at the cemetery felt worthless because the search for three sisters made it difficult to understand what I was looking for and me having to go to Agent X and Morgana for help was rather desperate.

But at least it turned out well in the end

I see what you mean about the ambiguity of the sisters - I presumed that because of the Mary Mackillop reference at the start the players would naturally trend towards nun-hunting (heh), I didn't expect the amount of effort that went into finding siblings - first of Mary herself (nice Google-fu, Qara!) and then the sets of sisters buried at Gore Hill.

I was a little confused at your frustration following your trip to the cemetery - you'd snapped photos of the Sisters of Mercy plinth and at least one other collection of nuns. I was half expecting a Facebook message to pop up saying "I have been there - BEHOLD ALL THE SISTERS I HAVE PROVIDED YOU WITH. Make with the coordinates!"

Anyhow, seeing those photos was one of my high-points for the game - we'd gotten a player to head out into the physical world and do some investigation.

I think there was confusion about actually giving agent x answers to the riddles for the coordinates, or if the locations in the riddles would have the clues to the wall piece themselves.

Adell wrote:

Bill Cohen wrote:

JRPictures wrote:And then there is the Sydney wall piece.

The riddle felt too ambiguous, the search at the cemetery felt worthless because the search for three sisters made it difficult to understand what I was looking for and me having to go to Agent X and Morgana for help was rather desperate.

But at least it turned out well in the end

I see what you mean about the ambiguity of the sisters - I presumed that because of the Mary Mackillop reference at the start the players would naturally trend towards nun-hunting (heh), I didn't expect the amount of effort that went into finding siblings - first of Mary herself (nice Google-fu, Qara!) and then the sets of sisters buried at Gore Hill.

I was a little confused at your frustration following your trip to the cemetery - you'd snapped photos of the Sisters of Mercy plinth and at least one other collection of nuns. I was half expecting a Facebook message to pop up saying "I have been there - BEHOLD ALL THE SISTERS I HAVE PROVIDED YOU WITH. Make with the coordinates!"

Anyhow, seeing those photos was one of my high-points for the game - we'd gotten a player to head out into the physical world and do some investigation.

I think there was confusion about actually giving agent x answers to the riddles for the coordinates, or if the locations in the riddles would have the clues to the wall piece themselves.

*nods* duly noted. Should have made the mechanic clearer.

The issue with naming the sisters was that the riddle mentioned three sisters specifically instead of just a bunch of them so I spent most of my search of the cemetery searching for three sisters specifically but I was savvy enough to take photos of names and parts in case I forgot anything or missed it.

Really I was taking it all too seriously and thought it was more complex than it really was so the problems were partially my fault.

Those parts where NOTHING EXCITING happened.

The Wild West Pyro wrote:Those parts where NOTHING EXCITING happened.

Could you be more specific?

I wasn't quite fond of how the whole Cthulhu crisis ended; in particular, the livestream was a fairly big letdown, partially because of how short it was, part because of how the special effects turned out. I get that you guys had to make the best of the resources you'd been given, but...

Also, I was fairly annoyed when it turned out that the deaths of Adam's dates were entirely his fault, to say nothing of how they were played for comedy. That first post about the deaths actually got me pretty concerned- quite a feat, considering by then I'd resigned myself to off-topic content- and then the comic page comes out and it's all "silly Adam, you so clumsy" despite the fact that an innocent dies every two or three panels or something. Hypocritical this may sound, but the whole thing felt kind of insensitive to me.

And now for the one that everyone's gonna try to kill me about- I didn't like Quixote. Everyone else thought he was Crazy Awesome, but I thought he was just plain crazy. And not in the good way, if there actually is one. Point is, to me, he wasn't a very likable character, just a stupid one with delusions of grandeur. (Then again, I wasn't really as involved with his storyline as everyone else, so you might want to take my criticism with a grain of salt.)

The only one of these I'm gonna say anything about is Cthulhu, which we made in eight days for $0. And no one said it was going to last a half hour... I don't know where anyone got the impression it would.

Endless Sea wrote:Also, I was fairly annoyed when it turned out that the deaths of Adam's dates were entirely his fault, to say nothing of how they were played for comedy. That first post about the deaths actually got me pretty concerned- quite a feat, considering by then I'd resigned myself to off-topic content- and then the comic page comes out and it's all "silly Adam, you so clumsy" despite the fact that an innocent dies every two or three panels or something. Hypocritical this may sound, but the whole thing felt kind of insensitive to me.

I didn't get the impression that the deaths were his fault. It's not clear why the first one died. The second one is arguably Adam's fault because he probably chose the food to which she had an allergic reaction, but that's the kind of thing that any reasonable person might do. Who thinks to check for all possible allergies before offering food to someone? And if someone has a life-threatening allergy, you'd expect them to check before eating something to be sure it won't kill them. And the third one seems entirely unrelated to Adam's presence. She had a seizure and died.

I could be wrong; there's not much information to go off of. But I don't think "Adam caused it all" is a reasonable conclusion.