Iris Is Officially Over...

Discussion of anything and everything that happens within the Iris Alternate Reality Game.

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thebruce
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Re: Iris Is Officially Over...

Unread post by thebruce »

the servers, didn't fill in the plot, but more built on the character of the Forerunner and their state-of-mind as well as the state of emergency they were in. They collectively are a much more beautiful and meaningful character, IMO.
Great comment! Haven't heard it put that way yet. Totally agreed.
Sable
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Re: Iris Is Officially Over...

Unread post by Sable »

If this is really it, I'm astoundingly disappointed.

I think the ARG community was really and truly ready for something on the scale of the Haunted Apiary, which I really hope goes down in the annals of ARGs as being one of the greats.

This was...more viral marketing than true alternate reality game, and if we treat it as viral marketing, there's more shine to the job. LIke the River Tam Sessions (for the non-Browncoats, they were a prelude to the release of Serenity, a movie extending the Firefly TV series), they revealed something of a hitherto undocumented part of the Halo universe, which is nice. There are some explicit references to where the Flood came from and how much the Forerunners appeared to be truly afraid of it, and their intense shame at having to ultimately fall back on the Halo arrays to - they hoped - end the threat for good.

As a marketing campaign, IRIS wasn't bad. Not as good as the aforementioned River Tam Sessions (Especially since those were really spooky, and the delivery method was much less HAY GUYZ WE R DOING SUMTHING), but not bad.

As an ARG...well, if we chronicle the Halo timeline, we have, in terms of ARGs

Halo: The Cortana Letters, which built up a certain mystery about the game, and are still referenced to this day. They may not ever be truly put in context (Unless Cortana becomes an entity not unlike Durandal - certainly possible), but they stand as a truly intriguing piece of work that engaged the Bungie community.

Halo 2: The Haunted Apiary (I Love Bees) - Simply a stunning piece of work. There was a definitive beginning, middle, and end, with a really very good story told through the audio files that were found and reconstituted on the ILB server system. I really enjoyed this one, even though I was only peripherally involved.

Halo 3: IRIS. To be blunt, I've found IRIS to be...disjointed and slipshod. The long, long waits between spurts of information, the lack of subtlety in the puzzles, and the crypticness of everything that has been related to it is frustrating to the extreme. We have scoured every file, every piece of information regarding IRIS, and either there's nothing there to find beyond the surface, or they've obfuscated it to a degree that's idiotic. Almost everything in the game has been at best skin deep, but it's been so easy that we look at it and go "Is that it? Seriously?" Several people have posted examples of this above, and I agree wholeheartedly. As an ARG, there are many aspects that just add up to a big bucket of epic fail.

I'm hoping something will happen during the lunar eclipse, but I'm not hopeful enough to sit at my computer waiting. I'll be photographing the eclipse on a mountaintop if I can possibly help it. Maybe Microsoft put a big IRIS glyph on the Moon...they can afford the laser to do it, after all.
ii otnemem ii
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Re: Iris Is Officially Over...

Unread post by ii otnemem ii »

Sable wrote:*snip*
I'm hoping something will happen during the lunar eclipse, but I'm not hopeful enough to sit at my computer waiting. I'll be photographing the eclipse on a mountaintop if I can possibly help it. Maybe Microsoft put a big IRIS glyph on the Moon...they can afford the laser to do it, after all.
They'll have to line up the open section of the glyph with the bite taken out of the moon, and the remaining "HA" from Chairface Chippendale's attempt to write his name on the moon... :lol:
thebruce
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Re: Iris Is Officially Over...

Unread post by thebruce »

just as a heads up, people trying to get confirmation from the support center, and/or a support supervisor as to the validity of the internal article.
I would not be surprised if there no confirmation.
Dalthanas
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Re: Iris Is Officially Over...

Unread post by Dalthanas »

thebruce wrote:just as a heads up, people trying to get confirmation from the support center, and/or a support supervisor as to the validity of the internal article.
I would not be surprised if there no confirmation.
My brother works at an XBL support center up here in Canada (although they don't take Canadian calls, go figure) and policy there is to deny all knowledge of any articles posted on the net, regardless of their content or popularity, simply for liability reasons. Somebody can call in and say "I have the red ring of death, am I covered by the extended warranty I read about" and he has to trouble shoot them all the way through, and then say the warranty policy is...

Point is, most agents over the phone are not allowed to confirm or deny any publishings, you'd probably have to get a press or pr rep to get anything official...and good luck doing that if don't have IGN, 1up or something else like that attached to your name.
thebruce
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Re: Iris Is Officially Over...

Unread post by thebruce »

That, plus this which I dug around to find...

http://tinyurl.com/35ol7q

May 16, 2007, an article on Sharepoint which just so happens to include a crop of a page from MSW, the internal MS site where the article was "supposedly" posted - exact same design, colour, layout.

Of course, the next step of disbelief is saying someone could easily photoshop a page to look just like it. Well, to that I simply shake my head.

ETA: If the screenshots are photoshopped, then either eccramer is a liar, or his father lied to him. Neither of which are claims I can support.

sorry, been debating this topic on irc all afternoon, a little exhausted; being called at one point a liar, and having friends called liars isn't very settling =/
Last edited by thebruce on Tue Aug 21, 2007 7:58 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Injunfett
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Re: Iris Is Officially Over...

Unread post by Injunfett »

-smacks everyone on the ass- Good Game
KLind
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Re: Iris Is Officially Over...

Unread post by KLind »

Injunfett wrote:-smacks everyone on the ass- Good Game
:oops: :| ;)
ii otnemem ii
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Re: Iris Is Officially Over...

Unread post by ii otnemem ii »

thebruce wrote:That, plus this which I dug around to find...

http://tinyurl.com/35ol7q

May 16, 2007, an article on Sharepoint which just so happens to include a crop of a page from MSW, the internal MS site where the article was "supposedly" posted - exact same design, colour, layout.

Of course, the next step of disbelief is saying someone could easily photoshop a page to look just like it. Well, to that I simply shake my head.

ETA: If the screenshots are photoshopped, then either eccramer is a liar, or his father lied to him. Neither of which are claims I can support.

sorry, been debating this topic on irc all afternoon, a little exhausted; being called at one point a liar, and having friends called liars isn't very settling =/
From Apoc at CI:
Apocalypse3210 wrote:Just pointing out that I updated this post with our findings in the IRC. A MS support supervisor said that the document was not on an Microsoft internal server and that the page in the url did not function for him either. Discuss.
-Apoc
Yes, it's all hearsay, I know. But I don't wanna call MS... I'd just get India anyway. Ima try contacting some old friends who have been reported as having moved to Seattle to work at MS. Check in later.
Maimbot 9000
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Re: Iris Is Officially Over...

Unread post by Maimbot 9000 »

Sheesh. No one playing this game is a MS employee?

What about sorahn? Although it doesn't look like he's been here in a while.
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