pocky wrote:I am assuming this review from amazon.com is out of game? I saw the book had reviews and this one says something about the "Song of Roland."
I originally thought the first three reviews there were in game. I wasn't online the moment the book was discovered, but shortly thereafter and the forum posts by Sanatos and the three reviews were already there. However, people have been able to post their own reviews since, and none of the reviews are from our good friend Thomas. I would consider them out of game at this point, as there is no solid way of verifying anything about who wrote the first few. I'm cynical until it's proven otherwise
As for Jonas signing his name J (earlier posts), I wouldn't read too much into this. It's very common to simply sign your initial at the end of an informal note. Almost every professor I ever had did it, and coworkers and superiors at work do it all the time.
I think asking J the questions is the right direction, obviously, as he's answering. I think in order to ask the right questions we should look at the types of questions he's answered so far.
The questions asked and answered have been fairly well articulated. Grammar and punctuation have been mostly good, but not over the top to the point of being an academic style of writing. He's acknowledged that we're playing a game, but clearly the dictates of the game are such that he is not part of it. We shouldn't try to "remove" ourselves from the ARG aspect of what we're doing. We're looking for Jonas to hopefully unlock the next part of the puzzle, and it's okay that we acknowledge that.
He's answered within a reasonable realm of knowledge we can presume he would have, so asking him things like "who took Jonas" or "Why did he disappear" or "what was J's favourite colour" is going to be useless. He knows about the book, his time with Jonas, and apparently had some contact with his friends/publisher since his disappearance.
He is also limiting what he answers to the subject of Jonas' whereabouts, his work, and the puzzle. I don't think asking what type of pasta they ate will produce anything.
What I'm writing is nothing new, so please don't flame with a sarcastic "thanks for the recap Madden". I just thought it was necessary to focus what types of things should be addressed, because the more desparate we get for information, the odder the ideas of the collective whole tend to become.
We should focus on the puzzle: what was Jonas working on, whom did he have contact with, and what's on those two hidden pages.
Thomas is in contact with Golden Wing, perhaps we should ask him to contact the publisher and ask that the pages be opened, in the interest of helping to find Jonas of course.
edit: sorry for the long post