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The Final Round of ILoveBees
Ensign Trolltalk writes "The Alternate Reality Game ilovebees (previously covered here and here) has entered its endgame, with the presumably final round of telephone calls taking place Sunday October 31st. Anyone wishing to get involved before it's over should check out the latest axon list (available here in more human-readable format with GPS coordinates, city, state, call time, and links to maps) and be prepared for anything. On Thursday November 4th, live "Combat Training Exercises" will be held in New York, Chicago, Austin, and San Francisco. It's believed that attendees will get to see and play Halo 2 before the game's official release. See the 404 page for details on these events."
So... I give up any dignity I still have left to play Halo 2 mere days before its release? Sweet deal!
Frink: Nice try floyd, but you were designed for scrubbing, and scrubbing is what you shall do.
I answered an axon in the first group (11:00PST). Melissa wasn't on the line as normal, and I wasn't asked a question like normal. Instead, I immediately got the sound clip for that axon group. Looks like they're doing things a bit different today. Sound clips are available on recipe8 once enough people have answered phones and heard them, but you should still go to your local axons and answer in order to make sure the clips get unlocked, and also because things may change later in the day. We don't know if there will be live calls today or not, but it's certainly a possibility.
this user has been crapflooding trolltalk for days now with the ilovebeers crap. PLEASE HELP US BAN HIM.
the warez kiddies already play halo2 it would seem
actually i have no interest in playing halo2 (when microsoft bought bungie i pretty much gave up any hope for the first halo being what it was intended to be,that isnt to say it isnt any good, it might be, but it isnt what was intended) but i would attempt to complete this puzzle if i lived near any of those cities.
Too bad almost all of the Ilovebees contenders will be busy with LARP today, as they usually do on Sundays.
Is that the fugly brunette who's webcam snapshots were linked to from slashdot before? Gross. You SERIOUSLY need to get outdoors around women more often.
That chick would rate about a 5 out of 10. Maybe a 4.5 out of ten with L.A. standards.
oh no! microsoft's advertising! AHH!
jesus people, stop bitching about microsoft... no one's making you play, no one's making you buy anything, it's a game that people have been playing since the summer... so what if the evil m$ owns bungie, it's still an awesome game developer, and the story line for all their games (and this arg) have been good...
do you not watch tv because of the commercials? do you not drive because of bilboards? not read the newspaper/magazines because of the ads?
No. There are no photographs of the Sleeping Princess. You might be thinking of the pictures of Dana, but I personally think she's quite hot.
Hmrpita is well-known person in the ilovebees community (mentioned on the site even) but this is not her. This is just some Slashdot troll trying to draw attention to himself.
Maybe I've been living in a whole...I'm really lost here...Can somebody please tell me what the hell "I Love Bees" is?
Is this the new "All your base"?
From what I can gather, there is another transmission due on the 4th of November, with what I assume will be the actual wrapup of the story.
for those interested, there are a number of sites to get up to date, though you're pretty much at the end of the arg now... even so, http://ilb.extrasonic.com/ is a good start, and http://www.thebruce.ca/ilovebees/ has transcripts of all the audio, and a timeline and text compilation of all that happened before the axon phase.
Did anybody figure out who Publius is?
Wow! Take a step backward, and exercise your reading muscle. Did I mention Microsoft? No. Did I claim advertising is teh d3v1l? No.
I don't know what's worse; the fact that you read about four things into a single sentence that I didn't say, or that you got an insightful mod for it. Do you DENY that this is a cheesy marketing gimmick?
Nothing cheesy about it.
It's the next step in advertising - merging advertising with interactive stories. So one step beyond normal television programs; one step beyond games. Both tv and games have product placement and advertising incorporated into them - I bet you still enjoy those.
This is using those avenues to promote another game or tv program - so you get two-for-the-price-of-one.
I Love Bees/Haunted Apiary has been enjoyable, engrossing, provided a nice backstory for Halo 2 and helped expand the Haloverse provided by Bungie.
It's a good thing. And most ARGs are (from the BMW driver movies with an ARG ending in a car giveaway, to The Beast which promoted the movie AI) enjoyable just for themselves.
So don't hate it because it is marketing - enjoy it for being a free, somewhat engrossing interactive game. Most ARGs have very high standard - they aren't chessy or tacky. Try one and you might like it.
Marketing, yes.
Gimmick, maybe.
Cheesy, HELL FUCKING NO.
Do you have anything to back up what you say?
They're a series of ads for Halo 2, marketed as a game for people too stupid to walk away from advertising.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
I've actually wondered that myself....and I do know what you're talking about
http://www.commaecho.com
The address 101 4th St. San Francisco turns out to be this place....
1
http://www.jillians.com/club_detail.asp?club_id=4
Nothing in the world is free.
This is 99% fun game and only 1% advertisement.
here's all the audio files that are related to ilovebees.com. these get unlocked as people complete various tasks... it's pretty interesting, if you listen to all of them in order it's kind of like a 'radio series' that fleshes out the Halo backstory even more, and from what I understand the climax will lead into the release of Halo 2.
--
....who gives a fuck?
I am not the grandparent AC, but...
What do you call having a fake and "unrelated" web in the official trailer, the fake page getting "hacked" after being mentioned, and sending a lot of nonsensical gibberish?
What do you call having the "victim" not doing jack about all the supposed blog/site "hacking" attempts?
What do you call lots of people traveling several miles to GPS coordinates of a pay phone just to hear some pre-recorded messages?
What do you call people being controlled by a marketing department, and made to act and look like complete fools?
This is what things look to those who are not fanboys, or who didn't get caught up in this cheesy marketing scheme.
I would also say it is cheesy due to the fact that the whole thing is soo obviously fake, and it was more like a bad science fiction novel/movie.
See subject.
What do you call having the "victim" not doing jack about all the supposed blog/site "hacking" attempts?
First (speaking in-game, of course), Dana's blog wasn't hacked, only the ilovebees.com website. If you read Dana's blog, you'll see that she attempted to restore the website, but was unable to do so. Her attempts to fix the site caused harm to Melissa, though, and led to Melissa labeling Dana as an attempted killer. Dana stopped trying to fix the site in order to avoid antagonizing Melissa further.
What do you call having a fake and "unrelated" web in the official trailer, the fake page getting "hacked" after being mentioned, and sending a lot of nonsensical gibberish?
It was in the trailer because you have to let people know about the site somehow. And of course it's a "fake page" because it's a game -- it's no less fake than any other game out there.
And it's only nonsensical gibberish if you don't attempt to understand it.
What do you call lots of people traveling several miles to GPS coordinates of a pay phone just to hear some pre-recorded messages?
First, many people traveled HUNDREDS of miles. In fact, I think a few Europeans few to London in order to visit Europe's first axon.
Second, nobody drove anywhere "just to hear some pre-recorded messages". Many of the calls were live, and these were critical introductions of interactive elements that were neccessary to advance the plot.
Also, it was fun. Fun is fun regardless of the purpose of it or the reason for it.
If your know enough to ask, you surely know the answer (or lack thereof)
http://www.publiusenigma.com/history.html
Bill Shaw
Dedicated to Alternate Reality Gaming
It was widely surmised that the Sunday broadcasts were the last round of audio clips, but it turns out that's not the case. There's going to be one more round on Thursday 11/4, according to Dana's blog. Details of the final broadcast are not known yet.
The Sleeping Princess is an ilovebees character who is beloved by many.