Category: News (Page 108 of 183)

Right or Wrong, Ethan Haas is a Bit of a Disappointment for ARG Fans

August 2, 2007 / Marie Lamb

The site Ethan Haas Was Right (EHWR) has had a bit of a identity crisis in the last few weeks.

First, it was connected (wrongly, as it turned out) to the mysterious Cloverfield movie project. Then, once people began to accept that it was in fact a separate entity, players started to wonder if it was a trailhead for an alternate reality game. The slick Flash-animated puzzles and grainy interstitial videos were mysterious and intriguing. Careful research led them to new sites, and voice mails and other clues set up expectations for a much larger story to come.

The much anticipated August 1st date has past, and the EHWR website (along with all other associated sites) finally updated late last night with a direct link to www.alphaomegathegame.com, what looks to be the official site for a new tabletop role-playing game called Alpha Omega, developed by a little known company, Mind Storm Labs. To say this is a bit of a letdown for people who were hoping for a true ARG is an understatement. We have here what appears to be a genuine “drink your Ovaltine” promotion. Perhaps this is unfair in some ways because of all the extra attention the site garnered due to the insistent attempts to connect it to Cloverfield, but it is still the case that the people behind EHWR went to lengths to set up several websites with puzzles, release working email addresses with personalized responses as well as auto-responders, and had voice mail boxes for in-game characters that changed messages over time. One player even got a letter hand-delivered to his place of work. You can’t blame players for taking these earmarks of an ARG and trying to run with them.

So what is/was www.ethanhaaswasright.com? Before August 1st it was just a very well designed puzzle trail, with beautifully rendered graphics, some grainy, crackly videos and a few easy to mid-level puzzles that have been well documented elsewhere. At the end of the puzzle trail was a mysterious code word, DIVINUS, and a place to register your name and email address, and a promise of more to come on August 1st. The story background is that the man in the videos, Van Mantra, set up a series of tests (the puzzles) to identify people who would be willing to work with him to spread the word of a 19th century prophet named Ethan Haas and help him save the world. The bad guys in this case appear to be the Mezin, who set up their own website, The Truth of Ethan Haas, and prefer to communicate via the Devanegari script used for the Indian language Hindi. While there have been several game-jacking and/or unofficial fan sites that I won’t link to here, the blogspot site was taken to be authentic because they called themselves the Mezin the day before Van Mantra changed his voicemail recording to say that the Mezin had found him and he needed to go into hiding. Also, Unfiction member theonetruebix (B!x) says he got an email from Van around this time in which Van said that there was one site for truth and one site for deception, which B!x took to mean the blogspot site. It’s a tenuous connection, but the blogspot site didn’t disrupt the game like a game-jacking might attempt to do, and they did at least make a great effort to link readers back to the EHWR site.

Players who are interested in the game up to August 1st can find the highlights at B!x’s blog, OMGWTFEHWR, which traces not only the in-game information, but also his quest to find the people and purpose behind the sites. He was the first player on Unfiction to suspect that EHWR was a promotion for the RPG, and he documents his meta pursuit of the people behind Alpha Omega on the blog in detail. You can also find the original puzzles by clicking the “No I need to see and hear the warnings first” link on the main page of www.ethanhaaswasright.com.

Fans of tabletop RPGs can check out the Alpha Omega site for more information on that game, including upcoming events where the game publishers will be in attendance.

ARGNet Editor to Appear at G4TV

August 1, 2007 / Jonathan Waite

On today’s Attack of the Show on G4TV, alternate reality gaming will be the focus of The Loop, according to the show’s blog. ARGNet will have representation during the discussion as our very own Jessica Price will appear to discuss matters with 42 Entertainment‘s Elan Lee. The blog at G4 mentions the recent Why So Serious event as one of the “saving graces” at this year’s Comic-Con, and poses the question, “[A]re ARGs in general an effective means of advertisement?”

Elan was previously featured on Episode 28 of the ARG Netcast series, of which Jessica was a panelist, so this won’t be the first time the two go on-air to discuss ARGs. As well, we’re pretty sure that folks at G4 don’t know that Jessica and Elan also share a place in Cruel 2 B Kind history.

If you have G4TV on your dial, Attack of the Show airs at 7 pm ET (4 pm PT), repeats through the night, and clips are available at the G4TV web site.

Has the Invasion Begun? Colby Shaw Seems to Think So…

August 1, 2007 / Colin Hill

Unton, Indiana hasn’t been the same since the orb came to town. At midnight on June 30th, Gabriel Lawson saw something large, red, and round floating over his town. Gabriel and his friend Michael tried to get to the bottom of what was happening, but as men in black started popping up on the corners, and the people of Unton started acting differently, they found it hard to even trust each other.

Many miles away, Colby Shaw and his girlfriend, Christine, have been having dreams that link the orb to characters in Unton, and have prophetic visions warning of terrible things that are going to happen. At some point, Colby woke up saying to himself, “A Prophecy of Stars!” and the phrase has not left his mind since.

From instant messages and blog posts, players have learned of the invasion, and it seems that their problems have only begun. Contact has led to Agent Darkness, one of the men in black, who seems to want to help Gabriel, Colby and Christine identify those who have
been “taken.” The Invasion of the Body Snatchers and X-Files-like themes are aplenty in this game where players don’t know who to trust, or what the next step to finding the lost residents of Unton could be.

This last Saturday, Christine and Colby left the safety of New Jersey to find themselves in an Unton ghost town. All the residents have vanished, Gabriel has gone underground, and those on Unfiction are left wondering. Perhaps you can be the one to help them… Join the mystery, and help them solve the Prophecy of Stars!

Jigsaw Made of Fool’s Gold?

July 31, 2007 / Jessica Price

As a denizen of LiveJournal, I could hardly fail to notice the massive popularity of internet quizzes, so allow me to try to create one of my own, which I feel will be particularly applicable to the wise and wonderful web wanderers who comprise our audience:

In your wanderings, you encounter an example of such breathtakingly futile resistance to the way the internet works (no, I’m not talking about the RIAA) that it is as if you have stumbled upon some rare exotic creature thrown upon an inhospitable foreign shore by an uncaring digital sea. Do you:

A. Pull out your notebook and microscope and study this fascinating specimen. Far be it from you to interfere with nature taking its course, but there may be an opportunity here to reach greater understanding of some sort through observation.

B. Attempt to instruct the alien in the ways of the internet, so it can go on its way more equipped to survive out there in the jungle. The main purpose of the internet is to share knowledge, and to facilitate that, people have to help one another learn how best to navigate it.

C. Compassionately try to either protect it or to return it to more hospitable climes, even if the attempt is futile. Clearly it is not equipped to navigate the wilds of the internet, and the kindest thing to do is to encourage it to go home.

D. Set up a tent around it and charge admission to point and laugh. Maybe make it into a lolcat while you’re at it.

E. Stick a pin through that sucker and add it to your collection. PWNED!

F. Try to drive it away from the young/stupid/potentially innocent, in case it’s dangerous. It probably only looks helplessly ignorant. After all, Google and Wikipedia are free.

The rare beetle that caught my attention this week was the behavior of the puppetmaster(s) of the Golden Jigsaw puzzle contest. An Unfiction player named IRC1968, as well as Unfiction moderator and ARGNet staffer Michelle Senderhauf, had received notices that their accounts had been deleted. IRC1968 was told he’d been kicked out for posting answers. Upon inquiry, Michelle was told her account was deleted because it “was found to have a positive link with a website or website(s) that are being used, encouraged or moderated to infringe upon player rules and, despite prior warnings, continue to actively release private information concerning The Golden Jigsaw via a public forum on the internet, with the intent to damage the interests of the owners, developers, partners & players of the game.”

Upon further inquiry, Michelle got a response from Don Campbell explaining that her account had been deleted because while she hadn’t posted any answers, as a moderator at Unfiction, she had failed to censor the information other players posted at UF. (Her account was later reinstated, “with conditions.”)

In Case You Missed It… Sammeeeees 2!

July 30, 2007 / Jonathan Waite

While we’re ~~a little~~ extremely late in reporting this story, I figured the word about a Sammeeeees sequel would spread through the ARG community like wildfire, given that the original game was looked upon with so much admiration. And hey, we did mention (on episode 26 of the ARG Netcast series) that there was an “apparent sequel” back in early June. Oh, and speaking of the netcasts, perhaps you tuned into episode 31, where we devoted much of the show to konamouse’s spirited discussion of the game? Huh? Did you do that? Did you?

Okay, all excuses aside, the game is still going on strong. The aforementioned (and totally awesome) konamouse has strung together one of the best Story So Far threads you’ll ever see at the Unfiction forums, and her website and email listing ain’t half bad either. The Sammeeeees puppetmasters were kind enough to fill in the backstory in one fell swoop with an early post at Happy Rogers’ Livejournal. It looks like there are still many, many opportunities to get involved in this intricate, interactive experience, so get your beer and burritos Under Nedd’s Bed and get involved!

Use our IRC Chat Applet to connect to other players in #sammeeeees, and be sure to keep us up to date on how The Wrath of Alan Johnson is going.

Having Conquered Cincinnati and California, John Turns Gaze To Internet

July 30, 2007 / Jessica Price

With an increasing number of television shows extending their worlds onto the web, it seems worthwhile to start asking for whom the extended experiences are intended. In the case of the online experience for John From Cincinnati, it appears that this is a bonus for people who are already fans of the show. While it seems unlikely to attract any new devotees, there isn’t necessarily anything wrong with that, at least from a player point of view: it’s nice to think that maybe the makers of a show are appreciative enough of their fans to want to play with them outside the confines of the TV set.

In brief, John From Cincinnati is “surf noir” series from the maker of Deadwood, about a brittle family of surfing superstars and a strange young man who appears and turns their lives upside down.

Via Game Tip, ARGNet received word that HBO was doing something interesting with a promo site, johnmonad.com. Clicking repeatedly on the “Help” button generates an increasing number of search terms and objects floating around your screen until you’re told, “That’s all the help you’re going to get. There’s more out there. Start Searching.” However, the interface seems pretty intelligent — entering your own search terms nets results that usually seem on-target. There’s definitely something to put together, here, but I’m not conversant enough in the show’s mythology to have any idea what it is.