Posted by thebruce | Under ARGs General, Viral General
Thursday Sep 25, 2008
Sept 25, 2008 - Another countdown hit zero. This one located on Bungie.net, with the target time at 7:07am Pacific. What happened at zero?
A mysterious Bungie.net user named IIIIlll or otherwise known as “The Superintendent” posted two news article recently, including segments of audio log transcripts from ONI (UNSC Office of Naval Intelligence). Of course, the community analyzed the logs to no end. But this latest update had everyone refreshing bungie.net’s homepage seconds before the counter hit zero.
The Superintendent has a history of cryptic, vague posts at Bungie.net’s forums. Recently, Bungie had planned to unveil an annoucement, but Microsoft, being their publisher, pulled the plug on their plans just before it was to happen at E3. That didn’t set too well. So this countdown was eagerly anticipated, to say the least.
On hitting zero, a news article was posted including links to a teaser trailer for what is believed to be a new Bungie game. Not a very ARGish result in itself, but the trailer does contain many, many, many scenes and frames with text and numbers for people to document and analyze. Speculation and theories are already running rampant about the time period and the visual content of the trailer. Suffice to say, The Superintendent AI has the starring role in the trailer.
The trailers can be downloaded here:
- Quicktime Small
- Quicktime Medium
- Quicktime Large
- Windows Media Player Small
- Windows Media Player Medium
- Windows Media Player Large
I also managed to export a full frame-by-frame compilation from the high definition trailer, and uploaded the significant frames with visual/transcribable content to flickr, available here
Of significant note are a few frames bearing resemblance to some teaser images posted to bungie.net over the past months of the Superintendent. Mainly, one phrase has been kicking up a dust storm. Reported at ComputerAndVideoGames.com, the phrase “Maddie, where are you?” appears to be possibly be connected to the (very real) search for a (very real) missing girl. A post by Shishka, a Bungie.net “overlord”, indicates it’s “an unfortunate coincidence, but a coincidence nonetheless“, confirmed by Sketchfactor of Bungie. The phrase was connected to a bebo.com profile with a title of the same phrase, raising awareness for Maddie.
Quite a coincidence it is!
Current speculation is that the trailer is taking place between Halo 2 and Halo 3, from the perspective of New Mombasa as the Covenant Prophet Regret opens his slipstream portal in its skies (recall in the game, the Covenant ship exited slipspace bringing with it tatters of New Mombasa buildings and general destruction - her we get to see how that immediately left the city). It appears that the Superintendent is an Urban AI located at New Mombasa - perhaps much like a Halo Wall-E!
A date also appears in mangled text in later frames - 01/06/09 - which may refer to January 6, or June 1, 2009. There’s also a set of numbers that resembles a 1-800 number that appears, but it resolves to a real bank and may likely also just be a coincidence.
Who, or what, is “Vergil”?
And what’s special about “Level 9″?
With so much content, much of it random and undoubtedly insignificant, there’s probably going to be a lot more coincidental connections reported while the trailer is ripped to shreads by the community. That said, if you still haven’t watched the trailer, GO NOW
So this is in all likelihood not another ARG promotion, but for any Halo fan, there’s certainly more Haloverse campaign goodness on its way… PREPARE TO DROP
Posted by thebruce | Under Viral General
Tuesday Sep 23, 2008
Philebrity.com is reporting on a new mysterious viral discovery in Philadelphia - large puzzle piece have been showing up around town. They were tipped by a reader (reportedly) who said they’ve been seeing them around town, and “went to the site at one-one-one.net and it redirected to a flickr pool“ which at the time of this writing has only one photo uploaded.
The flickr group’s description says: shoot. upload. solve
That’s all.
If you live in Philly, can you help put together the pieces of this puzzle?
Or is this just “Kitby”’s idea for a ‘Project 365′?
**UPDATE
Kitby has posted a photo of the instructions that were found with that puzzle piece:
Posted by thebruce | Under Puppetmasters, Viral General
Tuesday Jul 8, 2008
Reports of new content have been spreading over the webz like wildfire. As far as I can tell, the spark was lit when a news article was posted at bungie.net’s Compound Intelligence group, reporting that ilovebees.com content had been updated. It was redacted quickly, once it had been noted that the content was in fact the same. But the flame had already caught, and discussion continues, and news is spreading.
Hate to break it to everyone, but ilovebees.com hasn’t changed.
Now, there may truth to the rumour that Bungie may be doing something on July 14th, the beginning of the E3 Expo, as per this exchange between Brian and Luke of Bungie in their latest podcast:
Brian: Isn’t there something going on on July 14th or something like that?
Luke: Yeah, around then.
Brian: Somehow that’s sticking in my head for some reason. Guess we’ll have to see.
Luke: Yep, we’ll just have to be patient. Who could say?
There may also be something about to happen as reported about 1019foxfm.net which is displaying this familiar text box with some minor adjustments, including a countdown to July 17th, 7:17pm:
However, even after all this, no - ilovebees.com hasn’t changed. WAV files, audio, images, all are just as they’d been left - and still counting down to November 9th, 2552.
(now just my luck, 42 will come along and update the website :P)
That said, mark off July 14th (and July 17th, for that matter), and watch for… something.
UPDATE: The 1019Foxfm.net countdown has been adjusted to August 7th, and is no longer indicating July 14th.
Posted by thebruce | Under ARGs General, Viral General
Friday Jun 27, 2008
What is Aladygma.com?
What is the significance of 00 | 11 | 22 | 88?
The site has been active for a number of months, offering strange, cryptic webpages. It began with people thinking it might be related to a Cloverfield movie sequel, but over time, the web pages became less and less related to JJ Abrams’ work. Now the pages are appearing quite random.
The homepage of Alagyma currently shows the instructions: “follow the whitespaces“. If you hit CTRL-A, you’ll notice a number of ’spaces’ scattered around the page. Clicking on them takes you to the hidden webpages.
As of this writing, the available cryptic pages linked by the whitespace are:
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by thebruce | Under Viral General
Friday Jun 27, 2008
All week, the splash page to Blizzard’s homepage has been graced with a slowly deteriorating icy fortificaton. While it’s doubtful this is or will be an ARG, it’s certainly raised quite a viral stir.
Friday, the splash image updated to clearly show two ominously glowing eyes in the center, along with the 5th (and final?) symbol or rune, each now glowing and much more visible. The runes have been appearing one by one throughout the week, each believed related to various Blizzard franchises or games.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by thebruce | Under ARGs General, Viral General
Friday Jun 27, 2008
A recent bout of chaotic fiction named “Notes to Mary” has come to a close. Well, as a game at least. The creator came forward revealing everything about his original plan, and how he decided to take it a step further… even to the point of ending it in potentially one of the most entertaining ARGish conclusions to date - The Rickroll. And people liked it! In a time when ARG imposions and unsatisfactory conclusions seem just around every corner, somehow this one snuck by unscathed.
You can read all about the PARG: Prank Alternate Reality Game here - by “Robert Valdemar”.
The creator does intend to continue his fiction series, but not as an ARG.
Check out the discussion trail over at Unfiction.
