Category: News (Page 180 of 183)

A Blow for Myst Fans, Plus New Rumors

February 11, 2004 / Steve Peters

On February 4th, UbiSoft/Cyan announced the premature demise of the multiplayer portion of their most recent addition to the Myst franchise, Uru: Ages Beyond Myst. The online version, which was in an open beta ‘prologue’ had attracted thousands of diehard Myst fans who eagerly logged on to explore the virtual 3D world of D’ni together. A thriving community was built over the holidays and into the new year, and the official launch was looked forward to with much anticipation. Unfortunately, the player base proved to be inadequate to support the ongoing development, and after what surely must have been a painful decision, the plug was pulled on February 9th at midnight PST.

Cyan had done an amazing job in creating the most realistic alternate reality yet, made up of 3D worlds, cities and neighborhoods that were beautiful to explore, and added the capability of interacting live in the same space with other players from around the world. Think of the multiplayer version of your favorite 1st-person shooter game and take away the weapons and gore, add cooperative interaction, chat and intelligent puzzles, and you’ll get an idea of what it was like.

Well, at least what the potential was. The mourning players went through at the end of Uru: Live was visceral, with many gathering in their neighborhoods to be with friends as the clock counted down to midnight. Players wanted to be together at the end of the world, so to speak, and spent their last minutes partying, taking group photos and reminiscing. All is not lost, however, as Cyan announced it will be releasing much of the content developed for Uru: Live as single-player expansion packs. To get an idea, we’ve archived some DivX videos of Uru: Live before it was killed.

In other news, a rumored rabbithole has seemingly been found for a possible upcoming ARG (geez, can we be any more non-commital?). An anonymous tipster pointed us to the Amboy Monthly, and we’re told this will become a trailhead site for an ARG in development entitled Aware. Stay tuned for this one, as it looks very promising.

Completed ARGs and Hopeful Possibilites

January 23, 2004 / Steve Peters

The ARGN staff had a great winter break, but now it’s time to get back to business. A lot has happened in the past few months, so let’s get up to speed, shall we?

Acheron has been progressing. The time-travel related ARG has a very nice Guide up and kept current, so be sure to check things out.

A Matrix-related game caused a buzz and ran for 8 weeks beginning on October 1st of last year. As we were part of the development team, we just didn’t feel right about shilling it here, but hey, now that it’s over I guess it’s okay. Codenamed Project MU, this ARG was a fan-fictionesque game taking place in the Matrix universe, but not directly involving any actual characters from the movie. The trailhead was at MetaCortex, the company that Neo worked for as Thomas Anderson at the beginning of the first movie.

According to The Guardian, this was “the most successful ARG ever, with around 12,000 players and visits
logged from 118 different countries.” Admittedly, not all of these players were actively involved throughout the run, but the response definitely exceeded expectations.

Project MU employed many of the classic ARG techniques of blurring reality with the game world, utilizing emails, IM’s with ingame characters and even a Halloween night phone call that went out to almost 1,000 players.

From our viewpoint now looking back, Project MU really set a precedent for a new form of fan-fiction. While not endorsed by the film’s producers, they had no problem with it whatsoever as long as it wasn’t connected with a commercial enterprise and didn’t “degrade their intellectual property.” In case you missed it, you can find discussion and links to all of the pertinent sites at Unfiction.

In other news, Hidden Alliance has been showing signs of………. something. Hidden Alliance is an ARG that has, as far as we know, been in development since 2002. We’re not quite sure what, if anything, is going on, but the situation is being monitored at Unfiction.

In addition, there have been quite a few instances of possible ARGs that have so far become dead ends. It was thought something was afoot that was related to the Stephen King Dark Tower series of novels, but it turned out to apparently be a small fan-based site. Other possibities that went nowhere over the past few months included Paycheck, RYT Hospital, IRobotNow, Lacuna Inc., Hunt for Riddick, a Harry Potter site, and even a Doom site.

So, currently, Acheron’s you’re best bet as far as live games go, but you could always wait a few weeks……

The ARGs of Summer

August 29, 2003 / Steve Peters

Well, it’s been a while since we’ve been able to post any news, as there just hasn’t been a lot of news going on. The summer has been pretty quiet, as far as new announcements and events go.

Chasing the Wish kept throngs of players occupied, and finished up two days ago on August 27th, much to the bittersweet delight of fans. Although the story of Chasing the Wish has wrapped up, word is there are still quite a few loose ends leaving players hanging and chasing the wish of a sequel.

Literally on the heels of the Chasing the Wish finale, Acheron began showing signs of life, showing that the folks behind this game seemingly were indeed waiting for Chasing the Wish to finish up. The known introductory site pages have been updated, and it seems momentum is building for a proper launch any time soon.

In addition to saying farewell to CTW and hello to Acheron, ARGN and Unfiction have announced an East Coast version of their Super ARG-Fest-O-Con. This time, ARG afficianados will be gathering in Orlando, FL on November 7-9, 2003. There are already many fun things planned, along with a few things that I’d tell you, but I’d get killed for. For more information, see this thread.

That’s about it, well, that we know of. Remember, if you hear rumors of something, or find something suspicious, drop us a line! Hope you all had a great summer!

ARGN’s First Anniversary

June 10, 2003 / Steve Peters

A year ago this month, the ARGN site was launched. What started as a makeshift forum to cover when Yahoo Groups went down has become the premiere network of independent Alternate Reality Gaming sites. Combined with affiliates Unfiction, Cloudmakers, DeadDrop, ARG Planet and Martha’s Boarding House, ARGN sites have a combined membership of almost 10,000 people from around the globe!

It’s hard to believe it’s been a year already. After beginning by providing player forums for Search4E, ARGN’s forums went on to grow and survive a shill controversy, huge traffic from being featured on the Push Nevada site, and even a Denial of Service attack (we must be doing something right!). Since June of 2002, ARGN has received over 22 million hits.

Over the last year, ARGN has hosted PM chats, interviewed folks behind the gaming scenes, and has been featured in numerous publications, such as the New York Times and Slashdot.

So it’s been quite a busy year, thanks to all of you. And the best is yet to come! We have some very cool things planned for this next year, things you definitely won’t want to miss, so stay tuned!

Thanks a lot, everyone! Here’s to another great year

Something Strange in Smallville?

May 21, 2003 / Steve Peters

We’ve been hearing persistent rumors of something going on over at the official Smallville television series site. We got this tip from an alert ARGN reader (who is also a former Cloudmaker):

Regardless of whether or not you follow the show, you can find clues to the game on this page in the Smallville Ledger. There, the text all but explains it’s a game. Other material includes the Chloe Chronicles, web content of one of the show’s characters investigating some mystery. These videos are available on the WB’s website. InÂ those videos, there’s a common thread which may link up all of these to a game much like the Beast.

We’re still undecided about this, but it seems to be definitely worth checking out.

Website:Smallville Ledger
Discussion: Unfiction’s News and Rumors Forum

Acheron Pre-Game PM Chat on May 28th

May 20, 2003 / Steve Peters

The folks behind the upcoming ARG Acheron (www.acheron.us) have announced a PM chat to talk about their upcoming game, scheduled to launch this summer. Acheron PM William Walrath will be in attendance as a representative to answer any question and give us a preview of what’s in store.

This moderated chat will take place on Wednesday, May 28, 2003 at 9:00 pm EDT / 6:00 pm PDT in #acheron on irc.chat-solutions.org. For browser-based access, java IRC applets can be found at http://www.acheron.us/chat.html or http://www.unfiction.com/chat.

Stop by Acheron for more information, and watch the forums at Unfiction for further details.