For those of you who missed it, I did something this past weekend that I have never done before—I took my site down to run a sort of pseudo-ARG. The reason for this is simple—I was one of those lucky enough to get early access to the new Defiant Map Pack and I wanted to do something special to gear up for a special mini-arc this week featuring the new maps. The fun started on Friday night with a mysterious exchange between a UNSC General and a storage facility AI and culminating yesterday with an email between two UNSC officials. Because the site was down, I have no way of knowing just how many people actually saw the events that transpired, so if you read it, I would love it if you would comment here and let me know what you thought of it. It was kind of a last-minute event for me, as I only found out on Thursday that I would have access, so I had to throw things together very quickly. I had a blast writing it, though, and I hope you enjoyed reading it just as much.
I’ve added the four log entries to this forum post so that those of you who missed out can catch up, as they tie directly in with the events you’ll see in the comic this week.
You managed to get your hands on a code as well? What do you think of the maps?
Honestly, the only one I've even had time to tour through so far is Condemned. I've had a rather busy weekend. Frankly, it was a lucky thing I was able to even squeeze the ARG in.
I was able to get in on some large custom games over the weekend, and I though Highlands and Condemned are great. Unearthed is also a wonderful Firefight map.
The three of them all look beautiful.
I'm going to step into the other two tonight and play with them a bit and figure out just exactly how I want to use them, since this mini-arc may well be the only time they appear in the series.
Also, do you know how to lower your weapons in local games? You just hold your swap grenades button + enter vehicle + down on the D-pad + the zoom button for three seconds.
Yeah, I just keep forgetting to try it out.
It was Awesome and I hope you like make Tag and Reclaimer relocate on Highlands and kinda like how in the Machinima: Matchmaking where Bulldozer and Travis sword fight it would be like having a dramatic sword fight by the waterfall and then end that segment off as you keep working on other comics. Also if anyone knows how I know the Defiant Map Pack without having it Its just I have my sources from Inside Bungie MUHAHHAHAHAHHA lol
Ok, first? Punctuation is your friend. And second, it's not like there haven't been videos already floating around out there.
Ya I know I just like sounding mysterious lol and 2 I know Punctuation is my homie im just to lazy to use it
Well, for all our sakes, you should at least try. It's not like it's that many extra keystrokes, and punctuation makes any paragraph easier to read. Just a thought.
Sigh I hate to say but I called it…. the fact that you were using the UNSC Defiant as salt is just depressing
Secondly, I know you say you didn't have time to read it, but this Apostate character is starting to sound a LOT like the AI character in the second RPG.. I think it was Shadow something-or-other, but I'm going to enjoy seeing how it develops from here.
When I saw the first panel, I though you had flicked back to Orbital for a moment before I realised this must be a new map. Which is cool, but that skybox in the 4th panel is just incredible
But, I think I am piecing some of it together. Apostate is the virus which is controlling everything, and somehow it's transmitted to the Defiant, hijacked the AI and murdered the crew. But to what end, and as to how it affects Ferial or RC I have yet to figure.
Depressing that you called it?
Yeah, that view overlooking Reach is just gorgeous. Certain Affinity does some excellent work.
Yes, depressing that I called it, but also that your rubbing it in our faces :p
Well, that's never been the point behind my incorporating new maps into the series before they're available to everyone else. When Bungie (and Microsoft, in this case) are kind enough to make it possible for me to get early access, building comics with the new maps is the least I can do to help drum up excitement for the new releases and drive a little additional business their way. I've never tried to gloat about having early access.
I thought Ferial refered to the virus as the Unrest was the virus whilst the Apostate was another AI of sorts (been reading back through the older comics).
Hmm, you could be right about that… I was thinking that maybe the Unrest was an offshoot/side effect of the Apostate.
I liked the logs, thought they added a little extra to the story line! just a shame you took the WHOLE site down to do it
I really debated doing it, but I also wanted the ARG to be blatantly obvious. As someone who loves reader feedback and feels that fostering that dialogue is important, it made for a very long weekend not having it. I was champing at the bit all day yesterday waiting for Bungie to update their site to include the screenshots from the new maps.
Well, I enjoyed it, and I made some comments in the forums
Yup, I saw those. I wanted to reply immediately, but I was keeping a low profile over the weekend.
I loved the text logs that occured on the site, at first I thought it might result in the virus taking over the site for the final comics
wouldn't mind seeing some more of them at another time!
The Apostate….The Unrest….and The Reclaimer. They must all meet at the same time, if it's in a bar I'm calling it!
I may well find a way to do some more logs again—in a way that doesn't involve taking the whole site down for three days.
Jim, Create a couple of psuedo characters and then use them to post the ARG entries directly into the comment stream for the comic. This would allow you to have parallel story lines. Who knows perhaps the AIs might even participate directly!!
Now there's an idea. I may well have to do that at some point.
i was soo scared
i was reading and then poof!! it worried me if it was some slipspace error was made again by the UNSC like the ilovebees.com dont ever do that again jim!!