El Sur's blog

Alright so I have followed ARGs. I have read about ARGs and I took part in creating puzzles for one. For my final I decided I was going to create an ARG from scratch which was extremely fun, but I think I did it slightly off. I followed all of the instructions I received on the final for creating an ARG. I also followed the rather formulaic method of having an issue of an oppressive entity that the protagonists are trying to over through and combined with the other ARG plotline they are on a quest to find their imprisoned loved ones.

So far so good, I have a working plot line. Yet, as I started to make the puzzles and figured out how my main character, Dr. Guerrero, was going to ask for the players’help. I had an epiphany. See Dr. Guerrero’s wife and daughter are being held hostage by this king pin who is obsessed with finding seven indigenous relics that could resurrect his dead love. In order for Guerrero’s family to be safe and eventually be returned to him, he must decipher ancient riddles that explain the use of the artifacts. Guerrero starts a blog which he calls for any one and everyone’s help in deciphering the texts. He also encodes messages asking for help.

Professor Whalen brought this up in passing during our second to last class. He said we all need aliases from time to time. At first that sounded deeply paranoid, but then I realized how many times a day I use an alias especially around computers. Whenever I login to Amazon or ebay I am something other than who I am. I am my screen name and online whenever I go on to eaglenet.

I believe that for every alias you use a different persona is assumed. For the school account I am the beginning letter of my name and my last name and whenever I am lsouth, I try to represent myself in an academic manner. When I am just using a screen name in a chat sight I am who ever I want to be in that moment. I recently have been commenting in a news blog from Spain and they know me as SurE. When I am this screen name I am as loud spoken and very politically minded. In non-virtual setting and when I am not assuming this Alias, I tend to think before I speak. I am mostly quiet unless I feel confident in my response. While I am this character I don’t have to think my answers through I can just answer for the sake of discussion.

I know that we talked about how the kindle is a transmedia device, but I felt oddly dissatisfied with the discussion. I know that we tend to see it as a rather evil entity usurping the rightful domain of books, but it is really more that and not really usurper at all. Let me just clear the air, no one will ever take books away from us. It is too much of a ritual for people to hold a book while reading it or be comforted by a books smell. In other words the kindle is not trying to take books away from us, it just a different media of storytelling.

It is away to be able to download a plethora of books fast anyway you happen to be which is convenient and cheaper than buy regular books. Now you think but then so it must be taking the place of a book, well, its not really. Is a computer that plays movies, downloads e-books, and manages to play TV shows taking over: cinemas, books, and TVs? No its not it just has the capability to make your life easier and a kindle doesn’t just allow you to store books but you can store your mp3 music, get a newspaper subscription, or keep up with blogs.

Puzzles are everywhere, not to sound paranoid, but we are constantly being bombarded by little challenges in order to market some product or idea. Look at the back of your cereal: there are at least three waiting for you to solve them. Right now, Cheerios is giving me the option between helping the Bee play some sort of hangman game, two optical illusions, and a mad lib. My newspaper, specifically the style section, wants me to relax with a crossword puzzle and Sudoku. My computer’s homepage, which is Google, sometimes gives me inane little puzzles to highlight some event in history or one that his happening now. Most annoyingly when I go try to watch my show on hulu, I keep on getting the commercial with this British guy asking me to solve these puzzles in order to help his fellow Londoners.

The movie Dark City is an extreme conspiracy theory about aliens who have abducted a group of humans to experiment on in order to save their parasitic alien race. One of the main protagonists, John, has had his memories erased and needs to figure out what is going around him by interviewing everyone he knows. The other protagonist is being held captive by the aliens in a lab where he is forced to work for them on cognitive research. The main goal for the aliens is to figure out what makes humans such prolific form of life; they believe the answer to that is in the study of the brain and soul. The main protagonists finally figure out that everyone in the city are really kidnapped humans, that have been but in a giant testing habitat that is not on Earth, but in the middle of space.

Why is this a great movie for an Arg to be based on? Aside from the terrifying cool twist, that should make all its viewers think: are we really on Earth or is this some giant alien cover-up and we are just pawns?

Well it's a conspiracy theory and a treasure hunt for knowledge. Args seem to have a basic foundation, the players must go on a journey and hunt something down in order to over throw or resolve an issue for the greater good. The classic ARG that I researched, Chasing the Wish was about trying to help a man find out what happened to his family, since he couldn't remember and his town was actively plotting against him. He also was being committed into an insane asylum. The plot line is very similar to Plato's Cave, the ARG based on the movie Dark City. A man trying to piece clues together in order to over throw an oppressive force, but he needs help. Not just any help but a community of people's help, like a fellowship, brotherhood, or gang of outcasts that can see past the facade the government/town/ aliens are fooling the majority of the population with.

ARGs are ways for people to escape into a game of treasure hunting. The treasure can be knowledge or the chance to defeat an evil force, but the game is always a journey were people prove the current reality wrong.What is truly engrossing about ARGs is that it makes you a key member of your own fellowship, its not like movies were you are a passive observer to the protagonists woes as he/she tries to figure out how to defeat some oppressive force or situation. In an ARG, the player is being actively challenged, forming a community, and solving the problem.

The player is able to play the ultimate game as in the player is stimulated in every way he can be while playing a game. Like a board game you have an objective, unlike a board game you have a team of people competing, not against each other, but against the driving force of the game. You are defeating an altered reality you feel is wrong. Like movie you have characters and a plot line, but unlike movie you can actually affect the outcome directly by your actions, speak with the actual characters, and hold real-word artifacts. ARGs are the perfect escapists games because they are so real. You are completely engrossed in a new reality, and you goal is to make this realty right, normal, and in doing so you are completely taken out of your normal life. In Dark City, you have to help the humans get out of the grasps of the aliens in order to return to their normal human lives. In Chasing the Wish, you have to help a man try to get his life back together and his family back to normal. In other ARGs you must find the treasure in order to right the chaos that has overcome this world.

What causes these games to be so engrossing is that the players now control the outcome of a reality. They might not control the outcome of their own reality, but in this shared game space, they are ones actively changing the reality for their own purposes.The players are able to be the white knights to an epic story. In a world where game play is part of every action we make, it is most telling that our form of escape from our everyday life is through game that 's motto is: This is not a game.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSpowoKqSzc

Well, as I research ARGs to follow, I stumbled upon the movie, Last Call.

Now, picture this: your German friend, Bob, whom you are visiting, asks you to go to the movies with him. At first, you are a little reluctant, since you worry about your fluency in German, but he insists, so off to the movies you both go. You pay your ticket and buy some popcorn, as you do all this, you notice Bob is super-excited about going to see this movie, Last Call. You grow suspicious at his excitement; it seems too out of place, you’re just going to see a horror film. Bob keeps on giving you side-glances, chuckling to himself, and muttering in German about how you are going to simply love this film. ‘Whatever’, you think, ‘maybe Bob hasn’t been to the movies in a while or he’s been waiting for this film to come-out for ages.’ Both of you pick the perfect seats directly in the middle of the theatre and in the center of that particular row. As you two get settled into you red plush and padded seats, Bob does something weird. He pulls out his cell phone and instead of turning it off he dials a number from a little flyer that came from your tickets. He motions for you to do the same, unsure you ask, “Haben wir nicht ausschalten unsere Handys?" Don’t we turn off our phones.
With a supposedly innoccent smile, that you don’t buy for a second, he answers,“Nein, nur die Nummer anzurufen und lassen Sie Ihr Handy auf. " No, just dial the number and leave your phone on.

I did my project on Second life and as I became more acquainted with Second Life’s infrastructure and the ease of global communication; I kept on being amazed at how wonderful a facilitator to crime this world could be. I mean think of the potential. The user can talk to anyone anywhere in the world, and SL has a paralleling and unregulated economy which makes it perfect for money laundering, dealing in arms, and drugs.
My parents work for the government, so they raised me to be paranoid and fascinated by crime and Second Life can be a great conduit for illegal activity. As I pondered how exactly money laundering could be successful based on Second Life’s virtual money. I mean it’s not real money, even though the player can pay real money for Linden dollars. So how does it work?
I decided I would go ask my mom for the answer, who works for Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), her specialty is money laundering and drug trafficking around the world. Usually, I avoid bringing these topics up when talking to her because she can go on for hours but this couldn’t be helped, I was honestly very curious about this venue. Anyway practically squealing, she answers me with, “I am sending you an article right now on how possible it truly is and how much the government fears and is trying to prepare for this virtual crime community.”

Alright, so as we discussed in class, humans have always played games. No matter the cultural background of the players. The motivations, perspectives, and rules of all the games out in world are different, but game playing has all ways been a central part in human development. Like the Mayans who use to play a religious game of ball to show the players’ prowess and cleverness, and the Greeks, who had the Olympics.