On Sunday, November 7, 2004, the Puppet Masters of the I Love Bees alternate reality game held a chat with players and fans. Below is the transcript.

[04:02] vpisteve (taps mic) Welcome to the Ilovebees PM Chat. We'd like to thank

[04:02] vpisteve the PMs for taking the time to come visit. Before we get started,

[04:02] vpisteve I want to go over how everything will work.....

[04:03] vpisteve The channel is moderated, so that only those who are "voiced" (with a + next to their name) can talk in channel. If you'd like to ask a question, watch the topic. When it changes to "Questions: YES" you can PM any channel op (with a @ next to their name) and they'll put you in the question queue. When the topic changes back to "Questions: NO," no more PMs will be accepted. Please. do not PM the Puppetmasters...

[04:03] vpisteve When it's your turn, I'll call your name and you will be voiced. You can then ask your question. You will be allowed one question and one followup question per turn. The chat is planned to go for two hours.....

[04:04] vpisteve First off, I know we all want to congratulate Jim on the new baby boy! :)

[04:04] Jim :)

[04:04] vpisteve it was fun singing to him :)

[04:04] Elan Yay Jim!

[04:04] vpisteve So, Elan, why don't you start by introducing us all to your team, and any other opening comments you'd like to make. Then we'll tackle the questions.

[04:04] Jim !soren oscar

[04:04] Elan right.

[04:05] Elan Ok, so we've got Sean Stewart, Jim Stewartson, and Jane Mcgonigal....

[04:05] Elan oh, and me.

[04:06] Elan Sean was the lead writer, Jim was our tech guru, Jane was our communities expert, and I was the Director. The four of us also made up the core design team.

[04:06] aab_123 Question: Now [meta], Next [DarkForge]

[04:06] vpisteve ok, question time then

[04:06] meta To each person (if different), when did your work on the ilovebees ARG start (aproximate month/year)?

[04:07] Elan We started working on this project as a team about a year ago.

[04:07] meta That's a lot of time and devotion :) Thanks

[04:07] Elan Microsoft asked us to think of a way to make Halo 2 a cultural event. They knew the launch was going to be huge, but they wanted the story to show up in unusual places, and they wanted the community to react in a way that the world has never seen before.

[04:08] sean so we thought, of coursxe, of bee-infested payphones

[04:08] sean as anyone would

[04:08] vpisteve followup?

[04:08] meta no, i'll let the others go on with their questions. thanks for the time

[04:08] aab_123 Question: Now [DarkForge], Next[Absentee]

[04:08] Elan thanks meta!

[04:09] DarkForge[la] I have a question for Jim (congrats again!), who designed Flea++. In particular, I have a question about the use/meaning of the ">>" operator. I translated Edgar Allen Poe's "Tell Tale Heart" into Flea++, and I had a very hard time figuring out how to use >>... it appears to be a highly context-sensitive (logically Intensional?) operator, notoriously challenging to formalize. Do you have a (formal?) write-up for ">>

[04:09] vpisteve :o

[04:09] DarkForge[la] :-)

[04:09] Jim lol. to be perfectly honest, after a while, i started to use the syntax cheat sheet from the wiki :)

[04:10] Jim the >> was more or less a catch-all for something highly associated with another thing

[04:11] Lou followup?

[04:11] DarkForge[la] flup: How long did it take to develop? How much time b/w versions 1 2 3...?

[04:11] krystyn (and 4!)

[04:12] Jim the widow's journey took about 2 weeks to develop. we were up to version 17b when we shipped it

[04:12] Jim done

[04:12] DarkForge[la] omgwtfbbq thx

[04:12] aab_123 Question: Now [Absentee], Next[Nova]

[04:12] fireball Colin asks: "What was the idea behind using a single site (as compared with the beast, and virtually every other ARG after that, having many sites)?"

[04:13] Elan Mostly, we just wanted to try something new. When a genre is this young, its all about experimentation. (the project, not being young) So we tried as much new stuff as we could. Sean keeps telling me that next we have to build the carrier pigeon game.

[04:13] jane Also, think: Rear Window

[04:13] Elan followup?

[04:13] jane The feeling of intense narrative developing in a tiny, confined space. (done)

[04:14] fireball it was absentee.

[04:14] aab_123 Question: Now [Nova], Next[sfsdfd]

[04:14] fireball no flup

[04:14] aab_123 heh sorry.

[04:14] Nova Hi guys, first of all - even though I know you've heard it before, thanks so much for this great ARG. It's been an absolute pleasure to take part in. My question is related to the story:

[04:14] Nova This story has been filled to the brim with intriguing questions. The most enduring mystery, for me at least, was established in the very first chapter and has remained unresolved. What is it about the name Durga that makes Jersey think it's 'at least partly right'? We've speculated many things, the leading theory seeming to be that the name comes from the Hindu goddess. Are we on the right track? If not, what was the real origin? And i

[04:14] sean hey

[04:14] sean Hindu goddess is your winning answer

[04:15] sean There were actually some nice puzzles based on her secret symbol we were thinking of

[04:15] sean Back when Jersey's last name was "Singh" it was all slightly more coherent

[04:15] sean :)

[04:15] sean done

[04:15] Nova No followup, save to say thank you for the answer. I've been wondering for a while about that!

[04:15] aab_123 Question: Now [sfsdfd], Next[ThaJinx]

[04:15] vpisteve thx nova

[04:16] Elan thx nova

[04:16] vpisteve sfsdfd, you're up

[04:16] sfsdfd Sean: First, on behalf of everyone, let me say: OMGOMGOMG :) Thanks for rocking our worlds *twice* with incredible stories - some of the greatest stories we've experienced in *any* medium.

[04:16] sfsdfd Now for the Q: The variety of puzzles in this game was comparatively limited. Those in AI were much more varied - even recognizing pieces of data as a puzzle was difficult! Was this stylistic shift a decision to keep the story moving at a consistent/predictable pace, or to include a wider audience?

[04:17] sean ok

[04:17] sean last time out, the answer to a puzzle was, OMGWTFBBQ! I'M a XENOBOTANIST!

[04:17] sean a cool experience, but unpredicatable

[04:18] sean this time, the basic sol.ution to the puzzle was, OMGWTFBBQ! I LIVE IN TOPEKA!

[04:18] sean so yeah, we wanted to make the game more accessible to a broader range of people, and less dependent on high intensity puzzle solving. We were sharply corrected in this inclination

[04:19] sean ;0)

[04:19] sean done

[04:19] sean elan has fp

[04:19] Elan probably worth noting that the original game design didn't have any of the sleeping princess puzzles included

[04:19] sfsdfd That makes sense. Some puzzles in AI were so tough that they stalled the pipeline. Thanks!

[04:19] sean david. very damn forgiving

[04:19] sean at least in public

[04:19] aab_123 Question: Now [ThaJinx], Next[atdt1991]

[04:19] sean

[04:20] ThaJinx Hey guys, you're probably sick of it already, but thanks for such an awesome game; part of what drew a lot of us to it was that it was a brilliant way of communicating a brilliant story.

[04:20] ThaJinx The motif of bees is just short of overbearing throughout the whole of the game, and it wasn't until the final chapter of the drama that it was revealed to be based around one of Yasmine's memories. At what point in brainstorming or conceptualization did the connection of these two ideas come into existance?

[04:20] sean very very very early

[04:21] sean usually things are done kinda on the fly, as you will have gathered. But early on, Elan wanted a banal website. I liked bees because they are cute and fuzzy and loveable and everybody is scared of them

[04:21] sean As soon as we had bees, I had the last scene in my head--"Allright hone, this will hardly hurt a bit. Just a little sting."

[04:21] sean as the crucial link between Yasmine and Margaret

[04:21] sean someone else typing, sean done

[04:21] Elan Sean used that exact argument to talk me out of my first idea..."Bob's house of hubcaps"

[04:22] vpisteve heh

[04:22] aab_123 Question: Now [atdt1991], Next[anaerin]

[04:22] ThaJinx Thanks again :D

[04:22] atdt1991 Thank you for giving us three months of incredible stories, a five-hour radioplay, and a chance to participate in something great. My question is pretty open: How often did you cruise the forums and chats, and what were your thoughts/feelings while watching us work things out together?

[04:22] Elan this is ALL Jane.

[04:22] jane I'll take this first, since it was my job to watch 24/7

[04:23] jane I will say I have read EVERY Haunteed Apiary Let Op! post, I mean EVERY, and every line of chat in IRC #beekeepers.

[04:23] catherwood (that's more than I ever read!)

[04:23] jane And everyone on the team received frequent FWD's of posts, excerpts from IRC, etc.

[04:23] atdt1991 ... wow.

[04:23] jane (done from me)

[04:23] sean two words: a_plan

[04:24] sean jim typing

[04:24] Jim i also should say i'm pretty close on jane's heels in terms of lurking on IRC, given that you all were my primary bug testers :)

[04:24] Jim (done)

[04:25] aab_123 Question: Now [anaerin], Next[Absentee]Question: Now [anaerin], Next[Absentee]

[04:25] jane P.S. Our thoughts watching you guys was: Wow, they are dramatic and spectacular to watch as anything

[04:25] aab_123 er... sorry.

[04:25] Anaerin Okay, First of all, thanks for the ride. Some of those wavs brought tears. And as for the question, what's the deal with the heartbeat in the background of the wavs? Was it just to create tension, or was it something more?

[04:25] Elan this is a tough one.

[04:26] Elan Ok, I guess I can just post the spoiler if you'd like?

[04:26] Anaerin Please. :)

[04:26] Elan Ok, the sound you're refering to was called "the encasement"

[04:27] Elan it was designed to make each of the audio files sound "weathered". Like they'd gone through the equivolent of digital hell to get here.

[04:27] Elan The sound was put in the background of each file to indicate which had come from the future......

[04:27] Elan ....and which had not

[04:27] Elan good enough?

[04:28] Anaerin That's great! Thanks a lot.

[04:28] aab_123 Question: Now [Absentee], Next[SkilletAudio]

[04:28] fireball Gestas asks: "Where did the jazz that Jersey plays come from? Original or actual piece?"

[04:28] Elan no problem. (Trying to leave the remnants of the puzzle in there)

[04:29] Elan That's actually a great question for Bob Fagen. (Media producer) We had the luxury of saying, "Bob, we need something incredible here" and then he'd deliver. We're going to try to set up another chat with Bob and the actors to field questions like that.

[04:29] Elan in the meantime, is there another question we can answer?

[04:29] aab_123 Question: Now [SkilletAudio], Next[Cortana]

[04:29] SkilletAudio|Splotch First, let me thank you for the most enjoyable gaming experience I've ever witnessed, an entertainment experience that I'll never forget, and for a drama that has touched my heart. Also, Anaerin for speaking the question that I have been banging head to wall over for months. Anyway:

[04:29] SkilletAudio|Splotch The players have felt connected personally to the characters, to the point that many of us have been moved to tears at various parts of the story, myself included. I can of course appreciate that you have been affected yourselves by this game, after all I am sure it is a labor of love. In what ways has ILB affected you in ways you couldnt predict?

[04:30] sean don't know about "couldn't predict" at first, but I know we all became emotionally invested in teh *players* and the *playing*, too.

[04:30] Elan skillet, I remember on one of the first days of the game, you said in IRC, "This is really beautiful. In order for any of us to move foward WE ALL have to move forward." I wanted to find you and buy you lunch.

[04:31] jane I developed an irrational LACK of fear of bees.

[04:31] sean i told the NYT guy that these two games have, at the risk of sounding corny, completely reaffirmed or exalted my faith in humanity

[04:31] sean what the audience brings is so incredible, the cohesion, creativity, responsiveness...

[04:32] sean I said somewhere, and this is not meant as random flattery, that this is a new artform...

[04:32] jane yes, watching this game changed my idea of what gamers are capable of.

[04:32] sean ...but the audio isn't the art, or the puzzles, or the story

[04:32] sean they are designed to precipitate, to catalyze the actual work of art

[04:32] sean 'which is you

[04:32] sean done

[04:32] SkilletAudio|Splotch Flup: Do I get to choose where the lunch is? :) Seriously tho, thanks. Done.

[04:32] aab_123 Question: Now [Cortana], Next[checksum]

[04:32] Elan :)

[04:32] aab_123 one second.

[04:33] aab_123 Cort: please hold for a sec.

[04:33] Cortana okay

[04:33] sean sing something classical while holding, though

[04:33] sean entertain us

[04:33] SpaceBass I have a followup for Jane..has this game and community changed the opinion you stated in your paper about the Beast?

[04:33] vpisteve ha!

[04:33] aab_123 la la la

[04:33] SpaceBass about how worrisome the blurring of reality and fantasy can be

[04:33] jane ah ah ah.. well...

[04:34] jane actually, after that first article I wrote another article clarifying my position, which was that blurring the line between reality and fantasy is not worrisome at all

[04:34] jane when it it is entirely conscious and strategic on the part of the players doing to the blurring...

[04:34] jane I think in this game, you guys wound up doing a lot of unusual and interesting things in the public eye...

[04:35] jane that challenged people's expectations of where it's okay to have fiction or play... and that's great. That was part of the point of the game, I think.

[04:35] jane My opinion of the community after this game is that you guys can play wherever you want, and the more of you doing it, the better. (done)

[04:35] aab_123 Cortana?

[04:35] Cortana First, thank you (and thank you and thank you). In addition to new friends and a great story, I now know the shortest path between the Smithsonians, Spout Run and Union Station. The live calls provided for a lot of direct interaction between the "seekers" and the "hiders" (if you think of search operas as a grand game of hide and go seek). No doubt, they provided for comedy and drama. Was there a call or two that stick out in you

[04:36] Cortana I'm told there's clipping...

[04:36] Cortana one second

[04:36] sean Crewmember, What is the Enemy of All Mankind?" "...Burger king?"

[04:36] jane Dizzy! Dizzy! we loved that

[04:36] Cortana No doubt, they provided for comedy and drama. Was there a call or two that stick out in your memory? (side note. carrier pigeon game?)

[04:37] sean dragonrider's first about her sister

[04:37] jane also loved: zzub zzub. (a bee! a bee!) My cellphone text signature is now "zzub zzub."

[04:37] Jim hmrpita and the SP, the kind soul who was willing to sprint and get his guitar for the Op and play Wish You Were Here

[04:37] sean DC squad cheer (regular and Princess version)

[04:37] sean there are many many many

[04:37] Elan Everyone keeps telling me I was too mean, but I *LOVED* making JR run to get his guitar (leaving the phone dangling) Then returning out of breath and shakey, but still delivering a beautiful tune.

[04:38] Elan One of my favorite team moments was sitting in instant messenger, each of us silently typing the lyrics to the song as he played for us.

[04:38] sean Bagsbee singing Golden Slumbers on the staten island ferry

[04:38] sean poor Mallory at Applebees...

[04:38] jane Also, we ADORED calling cities where we didn't know if there were very active communities (no thread on UF, for instance), and they would shock us and answer and be brilliant.

[04:38] sean pittsburgh! Milwaukee!

[04:39] jane Rhode Island!

[04:39] Elan done. followup?

[04:39] sean done, but only cuz we don't have time for more

[04:39] Elan indeed

[04:39] Cortana Nope, thanks again :)

[04:39] aab_123 Question: Now [checksum], Next[ViveRant]

[04:39] Cortana (spartan power?)

[04:39] vpisteve thx cortana

[04:39] vpisteve ViveRant, you're up

[04:39] checksum Hello and thank y'all! Well, I'm really tempted to ask about a_pawn, but instead, my question is an open-ended one. What about this ARG's behind-the-scene activities would we players find most interesting, but that we'd have no idea to ask you about because we weren't there with you?

[04:39] Elan spartanpower: fluke

[04:39] vpisteve er, checksum :P

[04:40] Elan wow. there's a great question

[04:40] vpisteve reminder: no questions right now, pls

[04:40] sean
[04:41] jane I think the process of Payphone Scouting was pretty interesting...

[04:41] sean We touched a little on the DVD on the studio work. It was fascinating working with really good actors, and then...

[04:41] jane although our lead payphone scout is not in this chat right now, I think many of you would find very interesting the extremely intense stories from traveling all over the country hunting donw payphones.

[04:41] sean we had to kind of semi-invent a very particular kind of audio. This p-o-v mic thing, with no ambient sound from location, was very novel.

[04:42] jane (although many of you have your own extremely intense stories traveling all over hunting down payphones, come to think of it ;) )

[04:42] sean Elan and Roland sat down and drew blueprints of every set for every scene. Then we moved all the actors various distances from their mics, according to how close they were to the pov...

[04:42] sean so we could create and keep consistent a sort of sonic landscape

[04:42] sean it was fascinating to me, anyway.

[04:43] sean done

[04:43] checksum In followup to Sean's answer...

[04:43] Elan another good one is how much we end up caring about the players. When Weephun betrayed the princess, we all sat around thinking "Whoa, are we really gonna mess with this guy? Can he take it?"

[04:44] checksum How did the studio recording go, i.e. did the actors take to the parts easily/was the recording a long process or did it fly by, etc.

[04:44] Elan there was this really beautiful relationship that builds out of playing with each other for so many consecutive days

[04:44] checksum (and Elan, yeah, in the future, we love it when you mess with us)

[04:44] Elan :)

[04:44] sean varied by actor

[04:44] sean ...

[04:45] aab_123 Question: Now [ViveRant], Next[Absentee]

[04:45] sean some hit it instantly from the first moment of casting (Jan/Kari)

[04:45] sean others took to it more slowly

[04:45] sean also, as writers we learned to write to each actors strengths

[04:46] ViVeRANT` Just wanted to say a quick thanks for making think Durga was hiding in my thermostat every morning while I was eating breakfast... :p For my Question:

[04:46] ViVeRANT` Outside of the axons in the UK where there plans to go to other continents or countries or was that a mid-game decision? (ie cover the same ground as the halo2 website)

[04:46] sean and they in turn got more comfortable with the sound of the scripts, so I could stop saying, "Aaron Sorkin/Tom Stoppard" in the funny bits and "WWII movies!" for other stuff.

[04:47] Elan When I first pitched the game, I was asked "How many payphones should we ring?" Answer: "All of them". I was slowly pulled back into reality. The foreign payphones are remnants of "thinking big".

[04:47] Elan followup?

[04:47] ViVeRANT` Nope just wish technology would have allowed you to come up north :)

[04:47] ViVeRANT` thanks done

[04:47] aab_123 Question: Now [Absentee], Next[LasPalmas7]

[04:48] fireball Rose asks: "I know it took us a couple of days to find the text snippets, assemble The Widow's Journey (named by Rob Magus in chat by the way), translate the SP's strange email, and for xnbomb to correlate the text with the SPDR program language...was there an aha! moment at which you knew that the lightbulbs over our heads had turned on and we were finally getting it?"

[04:48] sean fp

[04:48] sean Canadian payphones don't take incoming by law. Tried some anyway (Canadian here!@) Sorry!

[04:48] aab_123 sure... ;)

[04:48] Elan This is a question for the author of the flea.....Jim?

[04:49] Jim yes, there were several days there, where we were not sure if that moment would come. when we read xnbomb's post, we knew it would happen...

[04:49] sean jim and I brooded like anxious hens over the whole process.

[04:49] sean done?

[04:49] aab_123 Question: Now [LasPalmas7], Next[Kybard]

[04:49] aab_123 er. sorry.

[04:50] aab_123 still Jim.

[04:50] Jim followup?

[04:51] fireball Go on to LasPalmas7

[04:51] LasPalmas7 ILB me cry/laugh/shive(Reminded me of a old game called Portal). Thank you so much. I love you all. Question have allready been answered. So all I have is love..

[04:51] aab_123 Question: Now [Kybard], Next[AgentMunroe]

[04:51] Elan thanks Laspalmas!!

[04:52] Kybard First - when I'm proud and amazingly happy to have stuck with you guys, the beekeepers, and ILB for the duration of the game, I do this: :D! -- Anyway, my question's for Jane... I want to ask about your experience in handling the e-mails we sent to Dana.

[04:52] Kybard Particularly in the pre-8/24 game, I think that the back-and-forth communication with Dana was key to getting a lot of people more interested and immersed in what was going on. Can you tell us about how you/ the team handled answering all those e-mails, and maybe tell us about some of what you thought were the most memorable of the e-mails you recieved from us beekeepers?

[04:52] jane First, you guys sent some amazing emails to Dana. the whole game. I regret that Dana was too busy traveling through Asia to spend 24/7 reading and writing back to them as I would have like to...

[04:53] jane early on, the goal was to sneak a little bit of useful game data into each email, in the guise of a personal response to chit chatty stuff...

[04:53] jane if you go back and look at the early emails, there is something useful in each one, even though they were very conversational and kind of fluffy :) ...

[04:53] Kybard we like fluffy. :)

[04:54] jane the most wonderful thing about the emails to Dana:

[04:54] jane most of them had no expected audience, outside of Dana-- and yet they were so beautifully crafted and written---

[04:54] jane it was touching. and we forwarded them around the team.

[04:55] jane so they did have a slightly bigger audience, but they deserved as big an audience as some of the stuff we were making, imo.

[04:55] sean elan adding...

[04:55] jane maybe dana should make a public scrapbook

[04:55] Elan Jane always wanted to do more with Dana (write postcards from China, more individual responses, etc) but we had to pull her away. (look at it this way, we traded Dana for live chat.)

[04:56] Elan done

[04:56] Elan followup?

[04:56] Kybard So most of the freedom of typing the Dana e-mails was given to Jane?

[04:56] Kybard Instead of it being scripted?

[04:56] Elan absolutely

[04:56] jane yes, it was all me

[04:56] sean all jane

[04:56] jane I was lucky they were very trusting :) (done)

[04:56] Kybard Yay. It was fun talking to you. :)

[04:56] aab_123 Question: Now [AgentMunroe], Next[Astald]

[04:57] AgentMunroe First off, thanks to you all for an amazing game. Coming to it as a Halo player, this was my first ARG, and the game itself, the storyline behind it and the community were all absolutely amazing. I will remember this experience for a very long time. :-)

[04:57] Elan thanks!

[04:57] AgentMunroe My question: Is the story in ILB considered official Bungie/Halo backstory, or is there some amount of creative license that you were allowed and used?

[04:58] sean Yes

[04:58] sean :)

[04:58] sean So here's how it worked:...

[04:59] sean we went in with a story idea and went over it with some Bungie folks. They made some pertinent suggestions (e.g. the use of the Forerunner artifact as the McGuffin to create the slipstream malfunction...

[04:59] sean and the ship name Apocalypso.

[04:59] sean After that, they gave us the Halo bible, we had the three novels, and then a Bungie person read every script to make sure we didn't so something weird

[05:00] sean e.g. they felt that people wouldn't be hanged in their world, but given permanent coma

[05:00] sean follow-up?

[05:01] AgentMunroe No flups, just many thanks. :-)

[05:01] aab_123 Question: Now [Astald], Next[Absentee]

[05:01] Astald First and foremost, I would like to say "Hello" to all of you for the first time, and thank you for this wonderful experience! Now for my question. What exactly was the "Manticore" and why was he destroyed so early in the game?

[05:01] Elan go Jim go

[05:02] Jim Actually, the Manticore was a Sean construct... I just figured it sounded like something resembling a security process, so i wrote down "sec proc". Then we killed it :)

[05:02] Jim followup?

[05:03] fireball Binarius asks: "Whose idea was it to set the coke machine to display SPARTAN POWER? I do not believe it was a coincidence/a third party stunt."

[05:03] fireball whoops.

[05:03] Astald Go ahead, no flups

[05:03] Astald thanks

[05:03] aab_123 Question: Now [Absentee], Next[Dewback]

[05:03] fireball danman_d asks: " You [the PM's] have the previous experience of running not only the first, but probably also the most successful ARG ever. Did the community's response to and proficiency at this game meet your expectations? Were there times when you thought "the Cloudmakers would have had this solved by now!"? Or was it the opposite?"

[05:04] sean Which kid do we love better?

[05:04] sean no

[05:04] fireball no fup

[05:04] sean they're different. Beast was first, we were lucky, they were brilliant.

[05:04] sean but...

[05:04] sean ILB is bigger...

[05:05] sean CM were unbelievable puzzle-solvers, but ILB WENT OUTSIDE

[05:05] sean ILBeres braved hurricanes

[05:05] vpisteve :)

[05:05] fireball and drank a few

[05:05] sean wore scuba gear in public, jumped off freaking payphones, sang in front of construction crews on the staten island ferry

[05:06] sean so we never compared either to the other unfavorably. Honest truth

[05:06] sean we just asked more of this group, I think.

[05:06] Elan well, I did. But I'm just mean

[05:06] sean Could be wrong.

[05:06] sean followup?

[05:06] aab_123 Question: Now [Dewback], Next[ONI|Gabriel]

[05:06] Dewback First off, I won't blame any of you for not knowing much about Alabama in terms of Axon Placement and such . Also the following question was written BEFORE this chat started.

[05:06] Dewback Why would you choose bees when Pigeons were clearly the better choice? I mean come on, you could have had a bunch of feathered rat jokes and send out carrier pigeons.

[05:07] sean Seanis SeanDewback SeanDewback explodes

[05:07] Elan CREEPY

[05:07] Dewback roflomao

[05:07] aab_123 ummm... fup?

[05:07] Dewback Anyways, I wont have a followup. I'll just end it with my trademark.

[05:07] sean I am from the south, dew...

[05:08] aab_123 Question: Now [ONI|Gabriel], Next[aab_123]

[05:08] sean We sent a poor hapless axon hunter to the South.

[05:08] sean give him a break.

[05:08] sean :)

[05:08] ONI|Gabriel First of all, many congratulations to Jim and family. :) Secondly, I'd just like to say a joking thanks for giving me a fantastic excuse to not study (both today, and during the last few months.) It's been utterly incredible experiencing every high and low from here in New Zealand, and I hope we get the chance to do it all again sometime soon..

[05:08] ONI|Gabriel My question is: Were there any times during the planning or the game that you started wondering if you could handle just how big it was/could be? (Secondarily, did

[05:08] ONI|Gabriel you expect it to be this big, or bigger?)

[05:09] sean

[05:09] sean You could feel from the very beginning that it was big, much much bigger than the Beast.

[05:10] sean Happily,m Jim built the rig too last. But on the first day, while he was adjusting to the load....

[05:10] sean it was like that scene in a godzilla film where you can see the glass of water start to shake, and you start to worry...

[05:10] Jim Thanks Gabriel. I certainly felt the pressure beginning a few days prior to the 24th when the traffic started getting really huge... Then of course, the whole thing melted for a few hours which made me feel better.'

[05:10] sean

[05:10] Elan Um, ya.....we were ready for how many people were out there. And um, the site going down every five minutes during chapter 11 was all part of a puzzle....ya, you guys just haven't solved that part yet.

[05:11] Jim lol

[05:11] sean oh

[05:11] sean right

[05:11] sean and we usin' CODE NA
[05:11] sean fp?

[05:11] ONI|Gabriel as a follow up: did you expect the semi-backlash against the "Halo 2 fanbois" after the training events?

[05:11] sean

[05:12] aab_123 Question: Now [aab_123], Next[Mukaikubo]

[05:12] aab_123 As a group - What is the first thing you think of when I type the word "Enhottenate"?

[05:12] aab_123 speechless.... I understand.

[05:12] sean

[05:12] jane I LOVE THAT WORD!

[05:13] jane I just ordered the enhottenation t-shirt from cafe press

[05:13] Elan We've actually been pretty happy with how well the two different groups have worked together. I know there were some rough patches, but our early design (in sending out the honey to the ARG guys) was to give the game to them first. You guys did an incredible job at making everyone feel welcome.

[05:13] sean we counted on them to make life good for the H2 people, and I think they did

[05:13] jane Oxford English Dictionary 2005, guys. Enhottenate. you can make it happen.

[05:14] aab_123 thanks guys :)

[05:14] aab_123 Question: Now [Mukaikubo], Next[Johnny Nitro]

[05:14] Mukaikubo How worried were you about a potential 'letdown' when you realized a large fraction of the community was expecting a Beast-style multi-site, massive puzzle game instead of this heavily story-oriented game?

[05:15] Elan ya, that was kind of terrifying.

[05:15] sean

[05:16] sean

[05:16] Elan We thought that we could build a story game, and cut out the puzzles. (ok, I thought. The team later took turns pounding me into a pulp) When we realized that we were losing fans over my poor decision, we quickly scrambled. pretty much overnight, we added puzzles and live chat. (good thing we put up that whole 777 thing with no real plans about what to do when it hit.)

[05:17] jane (responsive design = one of the best things about ARGs!)

[05:17] Elan fup?

[05:17] Mukaikubo Well, first of all, this ARG pulled me in the Halo universe, so you earned a bit of your pay. The followup question is which "flavor" of ARG is harder/more expensive?

[05:18] Elan That's a tricky one. I think any flavor would be easy if we just did it more than once.

[05:18] sean oh, yeah

[05:18] sean a cinch

[05:18] sean

[05:18] Elan the problem with Sean is that he's just lazy.

[05:18] sean ok, here's the noblesse oblige answer:

[05:18] sean we get a budget to make these things.

[05:19] sean It's sort of incumbent on us to try as many things, and make as many mistakes, as possible.

[05:19] sean Isn't it?

[05:19] sean done

[05:19] Mukaikubo !thanks

[05:19] aab_123 Question: Now [Johnny Nitro], Next[Absentee]

[05:19] Elan ahem mistakes = features

[05:19] johnny_nitro First off, thank you all for a great 3 months. I now have a huge backlog at work to attend to, but it was very worth it. Now for my Q:

[05:19] johnny_nitro How was the time and place of the "live" calls determined, both at the start of the game, and as the game progressed?

[05:20] jane Well, every Monday we assessed a few things:

[05:20] jane what phones had been answered the week before, what were the forums reporting on who planned to be out, and who had we NOT called yet

[05:21] jane ... but after we strategically picked some calls,

[05:22] jane there was a random factor, too. Because we didn't know how long a call would take, so when we finished up a call, we might find that Hawaii or Fargo or Los Angeles was next, and just go for it

[05:22] jane FYI, whenever anyone picked up a live call, we all squealed to each other on IM

[05:22] jane :)

[05:22] jane (done)

[05:23] johnny_nitro followup: was there a technical or legal reason private phones could no be used for live calls?

[05:23] johnny_nitro not rather

[05:23] Elan actually, the reason was lame.........caller ID :(

[05:23] vpisteve can you tell us a little about the backend to the axon call system?

[05:23] Elan all the live chats were made out of a box I built in my living room

[05:24] sean regular calls = payphones, spoofed caller ID; live calls = elan's cell #

[05:24] sean

[05:25] sean steve: 70,000 lines of code

[05:25] vpisteve holy crap

[05:25] sean jim doing fp

[05:26] Jim vpisteve, anything specific you are interested in. Basically a real-time database-driven system that connected a telephony vendor with a server that sat behind our cluster of webservers.

[05:26] vpisteve so, all the site updates in response were automated

[05:26] vpisteve of course, they'd have to be, heh

[05:27] Jim mostly, but for the live calls we built tools that could enhottenate axons by hand during the calls.

[05:27] Jim it was quite a contraption :)

[05:27] vpisteve and it was voice recognition for the answers, or someone listening in?

[05:28] Jim yeah, VoiceXML-based voice rec... Initially we were going to do touch-tones but discovered that a lot of payphone disabled that feature :)

[05:28] sean initially meaning, a week before the 24th w2e discovered...

[05:28] Elan ya, we discovered that all of five days before the first call

[05:28] Jim right

[05:28] vpisteve :o

[05:28] Jim a bit of a scramble hehe

[05:29] vpisteve well, great job there

[05:29] vpisteve ok, next question

[05:29] aab_123 Question: Now [Absentee], Next[Addlepated]

[05:29] sean y, new Q

[05:29] fireball sapagooasks: "Money-wise, do you think there is a market for this type of ARG? Or will we have to wait another three years for a game of this magnitude where we don't feel like the PMs have gone into debt?"

[05:29] Elan Well, we've set up a whole new company to test that premise :)

[05:30] Elan fp?

[05:30] Elan honestly, we hope so. We're all betting a lot on it.

[05:30] Lou flup

[05:30] Lou Are you hiring?

[05:30] Elan LOL

[05:30] sean get in line, buddy.

[05:31] sean I'm out of work in a week

[05:31] sean it's back to STAR WARS novels for me...

[05:31] sean Oh, that's YODA: DARK RENDEZVOUS

[05:31] sean ahem...

[05:31] Lou Thanks, but I'll leave this work to the experts (that means you, Sean)

[05:31] Elan oh sure, I can just see the ad. convenienct hours, paid vacation, well paid.....

[05:31] aab_123 Question: Now [Addlepated], Next[Rendon|writing]

[05:31] Addlepated First, from the Urban Hunt/Dread House PMs - congratulations on a great game, and for introducing so much fresh meat, er, new players!

[05:31] Gupfee hey a Sean novel is a Sean novel :)

[05:31] Addlepated My question is: Jane, on your site there are around 20 bottles of honey. Where did they all go, and what other community pockets were out there playing along with Unfiction?

[05:31] Elan here here!

[05:32] Elan re: urban hunt

[05:32] jane Congratulations on UH/DH!

[05:32] Addlepated Aww, thanks! =)

[05:32] jane So: that's really two questions... in addition to the ARG sites (deaddrop, UF, ARGN) we sent some to gaming forums

[05:32] jane Gamespot, IGN, etc.

[05:33] jane There were some incredibly active XBox gaming forums playing along, although less in terms of axon play--

[05:33] jane but 'til the end, there were several major XBox forums (including a Dutch site that I had a hard time following, unfortunately due to lack of translation skills!)... they were very active on spec/story

[05:34] jane and to conclude: someday Elan and I will regale you with the story of how we got those damn letters in the jars of honey,

[05:34] jane and the very many things we tried stuffing into the honey first before we settled on those letters :)

[05:34] jane (done)

[05:34] Elan (and the ensuing ant infestation)

[05:34] aab_123 Question: Now [Rendon|writing], Next[Crispy]

[05:34] vpisteve i'll vouch for the ants

[05:34] Rendon|Writing First off I would like to nominate this for some acadamy award or another (Most of my questions have already been answered...) Q: At anytime did what was discussed in #beekeepers affect the story? How much did the accual story vary from what yall thought it would?

[05:35] sean hey

[05:35] sean OK, yes, in case you hadn't noticed, we were paying a lot of attention, and it affected the progress of the narrative in a lot of ways, directly and indirectly

[05:35] sean ...

[05:36] sean weephun I think everyone knows about; in fact the Op was only ever to mkae one live call

[05:36] sean the rest would be SP

[05:36] sean only....

[05:36] sean There were other things like: I knew from the beginning the Flea would kiss the princess, maybe, or anyway that would be cool...

[05:37] sean but for what it meant or implied, that crystallized after reading the forum post by the guy who mapped out Queen=Superego, SP = ID

[05:37] sean then there were things direct and indirect in audio. We were about 2 - 3 weeks ahead, so I could drop in a line from Kamal re: payphones

[05:37] sean ..and did..

[05:38] sean but also we could hear people say, That Sophie, she's got no substance, and that would drive something like the story in Kamal 9, with the immigration cop...

[05:38] sean
[05:38] sean then we built the game around the tools and meta things

[05:39] jane Also, in terms of the Aunt Margaret/Dana story, the players drove that quite a bit, as well. For instance, it was the players on voicemail and live calls who came up with the idea of "making Dana useful" as a way to get the Operator off her back...

[05:39] sean e.g. the Last Fortress training task to play ender's game on the SP was driven by knowing about your scripts, and angelo, and etc.

[05:39] sean does that give any sense?

[05:39] sean = fp?

[05:39] jane ... and then it was an individual player who suggested the Op use Aunt M as leverage, and finally it was the players who made Dana go to the darkside toward the endgame--

[05:40] aab_123 Question: Now [Crispy], Next[Moriarty_]

[05:40] jane while a number of very eloquent letters came into suggesting interesting ways to play both sides of the fence, most people said "Do what the Op tells you to" and so we had Dana do just that. (done0

[05:40] Crispy First off, I'd like to thank you guys for such a wonderful game and story experience (Or do I?! Bwhahahaha!). Anyway, What were some of the more memorable things you remember from Chat/the Forums, and what were some of the chat names you guys used in your little espionage of awesomeness? (side note: I'm scoring the zings from this chat. Sean: 11 Elan: 2 Jane: 2 Jim: 1 Beekeepers: 6)

[05:40] Jim oh sure. pick on the geek. :(

[05:40] Elan DAMN THAT SEAN!!!!

[05:41] sean FLEAmageddon

[05:41] Crispy 1 more point for sean.

[05:41] sean The Thread of the Knowledge of Good and Evil

[05:41] jane ...what I really need to do right now is look at my SENT folder so I can find all the things I forwarded to the rest of the team...

[05:41] sean tarrsk's 5er

[05:41] Elan I remember starting to evaluate our game based on the number of grown men who posted that they were crying.

[05:42] Elan (we're sick sick people over here)

[05:42] Crispy flup: Jane...I hope you didn't read anything of the things we said about Dana in chat... ;\

[05:42] Crispy any of the things, rather.

[05:42] jane um, no not at all. :)

[05:42] sean EVERY WORD

[05:42] sean oops

[05:42] sean what she said

[05:42] sean really, too many to list

[05:43] jane Don't worry, everything said was out of love for the game :) It's all good.

[05:43] Crispy Crap....allow me to apologize for the whole chat. ;)

[05:43] sean even the puzzle solves--Shado's explicdation of spy v spy, for instance

[05:43] aab_123 Question: Now [Moriarty_], Next[Fi]

[05:43] Moriarty_ Thanks for such a wonderful game guys. At what moments in the game did you find our actions hilarious? frustrating? worrying? stunning?

[05:44] jane We loved the communications infrastructure you guys set up for live calls-- it let us plan much more challenging live call challenges

[05:44] Moriarty_ and by 'stunning', I mean something where we sorta shocked you. :)

[05:44] Jim lol. there was about 45 minutes when no one would instruct the Flea to kiss the damn Princess already that was a little frustrating :)

[05:44] sean Siege: "20 Seconds? Are they INSANE? ... OK, here's how we're gonna do it."

[05:45] jane When we gave you 20 seconds to find the 3-word relay code hidden on the site, it was only because you had already been so damn amazing we figured, "yeah it sounds impossible, but who are we kidding, these guys don't KNOW impossible"

[05:45] sean listen, a game like this is like a punk concert

[05:45] sean you go dive off the stage again and again and just hope the players catch yuou

[05:46] jane The most interesting to watch you guys do for me:

[05:46] Elan challenging = pouring over hours of recorded chat audio trying to make 8 renditions of "row row row your boat" sound like they're in the same key

[05:46] Jim worrying: 45,000 people coming up with ways to hack/DoS the servers

[05:46] jane Was when factions around the SP-army and the Operator's crew, etc. started to pop up--

[05:46] sean We actually have a decent sense, I think, of WHETHER something MIGHT be possible; we have more than once put something out without knowing what the solution is, confidence you will find one.

[05:46] sean mostly confident.

[05:47] sean e.g. this whole damn game depended hugely on darkforge and inio, right? How many phones get answered without them?

[05:47] jane We had NO IDEA how you would handle it. We were mesmerized by the fine, subtle negotiations you guys went through, the debates and the strategies for having that while not derailing the larger community

[05:47] aab_123 Question: Now [Fi], Next[The Bruce]

[05:47] jane You guys get big props for doing such interesting things with the ability to "choose sides" and at the same time stickign together. (done)

[05:48] Fi Hi guys. My first question is on behalf of Marog, Flidget (both absent), Dan, Adrian, myself and the rest of the London axon-hunters: please could you tell us what happened to our pesky phone! ;) Why did you pick *central* London (with such a high payphone density ;)? Was the phone tested by anyone? And what were the problems that stopped us finally getting it?!

[05:48] jane The London phone was found and tested by a team member

[05:49] jane We are also very curious about the problems that stopped you from getting it ;)

[05:49] sean freaking PAYPHONES, man

[05:49] sean daaaaaaaaaammmmmnnnnn

[05:49] sean :(

[05:49] Fi hah! So it shall remain a mystery then? ;)

[05:49] jane We'll keep calling it. (next?)

[05:49] aab_123 Question: Now [The Bruce], Next[Absentee]

[05:50] thebruce first I want to say thanks for an amazing arg - it was my first (didn't even know about the Beast until ILB started), and I wish I could have made it to one of the training events to meet & greet some of you. It sucks being stuck in Canada as I'm sure a number of my fellow beekeepers can attest to :) (and Sean? You're also Canadian? :o ), and I hereby dedicate all my lost hours at work to ilovebees :)... I can't wait to finally

[05:50] thebruce But anyway, this is for everyone - did anyone ever attempt to 'role play' a beekeeper anonymously? Did you post any memorable messages as a 'beekeeper' pushing us in the right or wrong direction?

[05:50] sean no

[05:50] sean we don't cheat

[05:50] Elan never

[05:50] jane no posts

[05:50] aab_123 fup?

[05:51] thebruce awe... flup: Just out of personal curiosity, did you frequent The Axon Plot, and are you following the "Creeeepy..." fan fiction site? :)

[05:51] jane I certainly frequented the Axon Plot--

[05:51] sean people from the beast will know that we immediately use player reference materials because they are more carefully put together than our own

[05:51] jane I wasn't working on the radio drama side and I found that resource EXTREMELY helpful to keeping up with what the rest of the team was doing ;)

[05:51] sean spent much time at thebruce refs, but not the fan fic site (yet)

[05:52] aab_123 Question: Now [Absentee], Next[Scott]

[05:53] aab_123 Hmmmm.

[05:53] aab_123 too long :)

[05:53] aab_123 Question: Now [Scott], Next[So Seoul]

[05:53] fireball devolver asks: " Did you get any ideas from reading these boards? For example, I think someone brought up the idea of trying to talk with the SP when Melissa went into her crazy "i love bees" phase at the end of calls. Then, during the next round of axons, that actually worked. Was that always planned?"

[05:53] aab_123 oh sorry :)

[05:53] fireball dammit. just after the buzzer.

[05:53] fireball and not the question I meant to past.

[05:53] fireball devolver asks: "What was with the phrase "consumate the truth." It seemed to generate a lot of talk, but I'm not sure how important it was. Did Melissa now that Durga shouldn't try to mess with the artifact?"

[05:54] fireball (the first question has already been answered.)

[05:55] Elan (sean is typing)

[05:55] sean I think I'm going to take the 5th on what Melissa's motivations were. When in doubt, ask TuxKamen. His thinking is pretty much mine on most things about this story.

[05:55] sean :)

[05:55] fireball ok, next Q

[05:56] Scott !behold extren proc Scott >> !label "PF >> seeker

[05:56] Scott :_)\\)

[05:56] Scott At the risk of opening up a spoiler: why is harmony the key? Is it a game refence to be fFound only in Halo2, or something you planned but never had the chance to unveil?

[05:56] sean loose-semi end

[05:56] sean backstory: they tried a quiet evac on troy

[05:56] sean on harmony, they...

[05:57] sean didn't

[05:57] sean didn't have the political will to NOT evac twice

[05:57] sean

[05:57] sean BTW

[05:57] sean PM interjection

[05:57] Scott yow.

[05:58] Scott (interjection joke)

[05:58] sean ABC world news tonight wants to do a story on the game. Problem: they need moving pictures, cuz it's like, TV. Any chance that if any of you have any you could start a threat with links to which we could point the producer?

[05:58] sean carry on with previously scheduled questions. (Um, THREAD)

[05:58] vpisteve The PMs have graciously agreed to stay a little longer, so we'll go for another half hour or so. No followups from this point, tho, so as to get to as many questions as possible. Thanks, PMs! :)

[05:59] aab_123 Question: Now [So Seoul], Next[Wiser]

[05:59] SoSeoul Dear PMs, you guys have paved the way for ARGs with your big-budget "blockbuster" projects (much thanks!). What do you think of some of the "indie" or "grassroots" ARGs that you might have seen?

[06:00] sean jane writes scholarly articles on these.

[06:00] jane First, big picture-- We think the grassroots ARG scene is awesome

[06:00] sean We think their existence is COOL. Go jane....

[06:01] jane This is a really hands-on medium, anyone's game... and yes, I for one watch all of the indie ones to study YOUR skills and art

[06:01] jane And feel like we're all in this together, pushing this forward. (done)

[06:01] aab_123 Question: Now [Wiser], Next[xnbomb]

[06:01] Wiser Since my original question was already answered, I just have a little quick one. How much space was used up on the gmail and hotmail accounts?

[06:02] jane Well, gmail shut us down one day for excessive use :)

[06:02] catherwood yay!

[06:02] jane Also, funny story about the blog:

[06:02] jane I have a friend who works for Blogger, and we were IMing one night, and she was telling me stories about this one crazy blog

[06:02] jane that no one could understand why it was getting so much attention and traffic--

[06:02] jane and everyone at Blogger was trying to figure out what the hell it was :)

[06:03] jane So, you guys got their attention. ;)

[06:03] jane (done)

[06:03] aab_123 Question: Now [xnbomb], Next[AdrianHon]

[06:03] xnbomb As you conceived the axon aspect of ilovebees, did you consider how the degree of geographic literacy that people have would impact how well the axons would work? Were you concerned that people would have difficulty finding the axons because translating coordinates to a location is a relatively specialized and uncommon skill? Were you impressed (as I was) by the resources that the community developed to help with this? (e.g. inio'

[06:03] jane (the payphone locator tool was amazing)

[06:04] Elan We were incredibly impressed but not at all surprised.

[06:04] xnbomb rest was DarkForge's)

[06:04] Elan The early idea was to build a game that everyone could play. The barrier to entry was not what you knew, but where you were. As you guys got better and better at it, it raised the bar for us.

[06:05] Elan fup?

[06:05] aab_123 we've turned off fups

[06:05] aab_123 Question: Now [AdrianHon], Next[DNico]

[06:05] vpisteve :)

[06:05] Elan oops

[06:05] AdrianHon I've developed a passing interest in ARGs and I heard that you guys have done something in this genre before, so maybe you'll be able to answer this question ;) What do you see as being the future of ARGs? More real life events, more direct player interaction? Will they continue to be mainly marketing-funded, and when do you think they'll really break through to the general public in a big way?

[06:05] vpisteve lol

[06:05] Elan I instantly don't like this Adrian guy...where did you find him?

[06:05] sean the real future of arg's in one word?

[06:05] sean MARS

[06:05] sean sorry, adrian

[06:05] sean :)

[06:06] AdrianHon :)

[06:06] Gupfee you want I should kick him Elan? ;)

[06:06] Elan got anything more extreme? I was thinking we could raid his house

[06:06] Gupfee oooh

[06:06] Lou cupid's knife?

[06:06] AdrianHon Hey, I'm *in* your house right now...

[06:07] sean honestly, who the hell knows? This is the movies, circa 1903. Some of what we are all involved in now is going to be the Future; and some is going to be that thing where they held up big cards while the organ player noodled around

[06:07] Elan there's like 4 of us man. We PMs might be wimpy geeks, but we can take you on numbers

[06:07] jane (well said, Sean)

[06:07] aab_123 Question: Now [DNico], Next[G3K]

[06:07] sean one more

[06:07] sean about adrian's thing

[06:07] aab_123 sure

[06:07] sean there was an arg that started in the 17th century

[06:08] sean called "Science"

[06:08] sean it's still big

[06:08] aab_123 Question: Now [G3K], Next[AF]

[06:08] sean collaborative puzzle-solving and collective narrative has a future.

[06:08] sean I think

[06:08] sean next

[06:08] sean sorry

[06:08] sean rampancy

[06:08] Lou please, continue, if you like Sean

[06:09] sean n, let's get more points

[06:09] jane (Jane demands the zing points for that b/c she told him to say it) pffft ;)

[06:09] G3K Since I have a personal interest in this topic ;-) How do you secure a game like this? How do you cover your tracks, and how important is it that no one finds out who you specifically are during the game? (P.S. as far as albums go, release all the live call audio please! :-D)

[06:09] sean SCOREBOARD, HONEY

[06:09] sean YOU are asking US?

[06:09] sean myriad wise-ass

[06:09] sean :)

[06:09] G3K lol soz

[06:09] G3K I did what I could ;-)

[06:10] G3K seriously though, how horrible would it be if you had been exposed?

[06:10] G3K any contingency plans?

[06:11] Jim well, as we've found out the hard way, there is no way to completely cover our tracks... we just put up as many barriers as we can and then run away screaming for our lives.

[06:11] sean yeah, it would have been bad. Jane explains...

[06:11] jane I don't think it depends on actual lack of knowledge on the players' part... it's about suspension of disbelief, not total cluelessness, you know?

[06:11] sean but similarly, suspension of disbelief is easier if you don't see how the ARG (like laws and sausages) is made

[06:11] jane We know you guys knew various things at different times... and you have as much responsibility as we do to hold the curtain up. We thank you for that.

[06:12] jane (true, Sean. so both sides do their best)

[06:12] Elan (just to fill everyone else in. The companies original name was Myriad Entertainment. When I saw "myriad wise men" I shaved my beard and started leaving only leaving the house with a hat and sunglasses.

[06:12] sean yeah--thanks to those who know stuff, and elect not to spoil it for others

[06:12] Elan much much much thanks :)

[06:13] sean next Q?

[06:13] aab_123 Question: Now [AF], Next[Fi]

[06:13] AF Where did you get the idea for using the payphones? It made the game all that more fun to play, despite not making any aside from my personal two. And, it confused my friends when I picked up my cell, listened for a sec, and hung up, so thanks for that experence of tyring to explain it to them!

[06:13] AF *trying

[06:13] sean elan's idea

[06:14] Elan I used to pitch this really simple idea:

[06:14] Elan we'd create an updated radio drama and broadcast it over thousands of ringing payphones across the country

[06:14] Elan Pick up a phone, listen to a story. (seemed pretty simple when I was pitching it.)

[06:15] Elan It was somewhere along the process of physically verifying all the numbers, address to GPS conversion, broken phones, carrier conflicts, voice recognition, busy signals, muted phones, player submitted numbers, unlocking thresholds, and database corruption, that the team started cursing my name

[06:15] jane (I LOVE PAYPHONES, I never cursed Elan's name!)

[06:16] Elan done

[06:16] aab_123 aab error.... Question: Now [ether], Next[Rowan]

[06:16] fireball ether asks: "I just wanted to thank you guys on a great game, i wish I could have gotten more envolved but school and the Canadian Border sort of stopped me from doing it (Border: So, let me get this straight, you have to urgently get into new york to answer an incoming phone call from an AI operator who is stuck in the past... sure buddy). Anyway, just wondering if you are going to be able to get DVDs out to us Canadians"

[06:18] Elan We're working on a plan to try (and try and try) to mail out DVDs to all those who couldn't be at a live event. There's all kinds of fun issues that I won't bore you with, but it's something that's really important to the whole team, and we'll really try our best.

[06:18] Elan done

[06:18] fireball next Q

[06:18] aab_123 Question: Now [Rowan], Next[343_guilty_spark]

[06:19] Rowan Did it surprise you that it took the Halo Forums so much longer to catch onto the fact that www.ilovebees.com showed up in the Halo Trailer - that they didn't notice it in the theatres but in the high-res version on the net?

[06:20] Jim a few of them did notice in the theaters... but the flood happened as soon as the high-res version went online.

[06:20] Elan you guys are just way better at this sort of thing then they are.

[06:20] sean WERE

[06:20] jane (we loved the early reports in #beekeepers when a few of you found the trailer at theaters and no one believed the reports) :)

[06:20] sean they are all YOU now

[06:21] Elan We did all we could to make the game fun for everyone, but as far as starting the viral trail, we knew we should rely on the community that loves to dive into this sort of thing.

[06:21] Elan done

[06:21] aab_123 Question: Now [343_guilty_spark], Next[lilserf]

[06:21] _343_GuiltySpark Oh. Hello. You seem to have become quite proficient with handling unexpected questions. You are good planners.

[06:21] _343_GuiltySpark As for the question. "I'm going to sleep" turned into "!grope pillow". "* _343_Guilty_Spark floats away" turned into "evade evade". How do you feel about Flea++ apparently becoming a geek-trendy lingo, similarly to 1337speak? Do you not fear that, at some point, you shall do what Terry Pratchett did about his "the hedgehog cannot be buggered at all" songs - that is, say "what have we done!?" ?

[06:22] sean !behold Jim

[06:22] sean ...

[06:23] sean hm

[06:23] Jim I'm honestly amazed and honored and generally happy as all get out about how much fun people have had with Flea-speak...

[06:23] sean slow typing

[06:23] Jim !sean :P

[06:23] Jim done

[06:24] aab_123 Question: Now [lilserf], Next[Nobodyman]

[06:24] lilserf You briefly mentioned this as the "Ender's Game" aspect -- what was the motivation for the outcome of the text marker/SP hunt "puzzle?" How did you feel about the response when the community worked so hard for those markers, only to find we'd unwittingly killed the SP?

[06:24] sean i for one tried not to read the boards.

[06:24] jane We were glad you appreciated the dark irony of it.

[06:25] Elan We knew we had to get there eventually, and thought this would be a fun way to do it. (seemed better than making one person the bad guy)

[06:25] sean we tried to honor the thing by planting the elements reasonably carefully

[06:25] sean you knew dana was helping her get the sp

[06:25] sean etc.

[06:25] jane (The quotes were from Tristram Shandy--

[06:26] jane which Dana revealed VERY early in the game was her favorite book--

[06:26] jane it was possible you guys could have realized that you were aiding Dana, which you knew was all about capturing the SP, and revolt...)

[06:26] jane (done)

[06:26] aab_123 Question: Now [Nobodyman], Next[Troy_McClure]

[06:26] fireball HitsHerMark remarks: "If somebody could let them know that I'm sorry for any stress or trouble I caused concerning the note I found taped to one of my axons..."

[06:26] fireball damn my paste buffer.

[06:26] fireball Nobodyman asks: "Where there any aspects of the game that you were hoping to have that were ultimately scrapped? Any painful sacrifices?"

[06:27] sean we take care of our crew

[06:27] sean no problem

[06:27] krystyn :)

[06:27] Elan I wanted to end the game (chapter 12) by crosswiring all the characters chatters to the payphones. All the live calls were supposed to be with Kamal, Jan, Jersey, etc.

[06:27] krystyn !

[06:28] Elan ya...would have been nice.

[06:28] Elan next?

[06:28] aab_123 Question: Now [Troy_McClure], Next[Gemini]

[06:28] Lou Scoring update from the folks in #beekeepers: Sean: 18 Elan: 7 Jane: 5 Jim: 4 Beekeepers: 11

[06:28] Elan quick note: THANKS TO THE MODS!! (you guys rock for putting this together.)

[06:28] Troy_McClure Hi, Troy here, speaking for Team Boise, we would all first like to say thanks for the great game, it was amazing on all accounts, and me personally for actually taking the time to talk to me on the phone :D, (sadly i never got to speak with jane though :O) and sean for including the "Hi I'm Troy McClure..." thing

[06:29] Troy_McClure Now for the question, Did any of the communities actiosn end up causing a large rewrite of the script (weephun etc), what was the longest most paniked night of the game? (i apologize if this is trout... i had to take off for 30 minutes)

[06:29] jane (jane will send honey to the scorekeeper is he gives her the edge over Elan, at least)

[06:29] Jim !splotch score

[06:29] sean boise is so trolling for the love

[06:29] sean geeeeeez

[06:29] sean yes, it's true

[06:29] Troy_McClure hehe

[06:29] Troy_McClure we love you... what else is there to do in boise?

[06:30] sean rewriting the whole How the Hell do we Rescue the Princess thing is pretty damn close, anyway

[06:30] Elan hahahahahahaha

[06:30] sean Every thursday night was the longest most panicked point of the game.

[06:31] Elan ya, that was a fortunate coincidence of events. Needed to find something to do with Perdita's story, needed a fun activity for live chat, needed to entertain the larger community who couldn't answer phones. We spent a lot of time putting that together.

[06:31] jane Getting the phone schedule ready for 1400+ calls in 3 hours on 10/31 was my most longest tiredest night(s)

[06:31] Elan JANE RULES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[06:31] sean next

[06:31] sean ?

[06:31] aab_123 Question: Now[Gemini], Next: Closing statements.

[06:31] Gemini First, thanks for the great ride. Hopefully Halo 2 will be this good. Question: How was the geographic distribution of axons determined, and did the scouts visit every axon before it was called?

[06:32] jane We started with about 70/30 split on scouted axons and nonscouted axons...

[06:32] jane The geographic distribution was designed two ways:

[06:32] jane First, we wanted axons is places where we thought players would be... second, we put axons in places we thought were cool, interesting, or might be fun to go visit...

[06:32] jane Big props to our two most traveling axon scouts, Kiyash and Ronnie

[06:33] jane who got speeding tickets, weird looks, jet lag etc. in their herculean efforts to travel all over the country

[06:33] jane (done)

[06:33] vpisteve Great questions everyone....Can you all give us any closing comments you'd like?

[06:34] sean I want to say, nothing like this happens because of 4 people. I had three other writers on the project, Maureen McHugh, Alex Irvine, and Wil McCarthy.

[06:34] sean They rocked. Jesse and Bob and the crew at mixmagic rocked. Kristen rocked EXTREMELY HARD.

[06:34] sean and several of those people are going to drop by #beekeepers nowish.

[06:35] sean and:

[06:35] jane I want to say, publicly, that being invited onto this project by Elan, Sean, and Jim was the greatest thing that ever happened to me. And watching you guys was the greatest show on Earth.

[06:35] sean to all ILB

[06:35] sean Thanks

[06:35] Elan love

[06:35] Elan Ive gotten a lot of mail in the last few days saying thanks for the game. It cracks me up. You guys ARE THE GAME. We build a room, put up streamers and keep our fingers crossed. When you guys show up, you bring life with you. It was amazing to watch. Getting the chance to play with people smarter than I am is my favorite part.

[06:35] sean we love you...

[06:35] jane (watching you guys play and rock the world of ILB, I mean-- you made it come to life)

[06:35] sean ...godbye

[06:35] Elan I know there's a bunch more questions....happy to respond to anything I can....elanlee@hotmail.com

[06:36] jane Yes, in conclusion, we always slept well at night knowing you guys could handle anything.

[06:36] jane (except we never actually slept at night)

[06:36] vpisteve Just to announce, we're putting together a Call-in Conference call for next Saturday with Elan and the voice actors. Watch unfiction for details....

[06:36] vpisteve similar to this chat, but on the phone. you know phones?

[06:37] vpisteve OK, we're out of time, so that'll have to wrap it up for the moderated chat. I'd like to express my sincere thanks to the PMs for taking the time to be here, and thanks to the mods for doing a great job facilitating this. Thanks for coming everyone. PMs will now join you in #beekeepers :)

[06:37] Lou Final scoring from #bk: Sean: 18 Elan: 7 Jane: 777 Jim: 4 Beekeepers: 11

[06:37] aab_123 Thanks to everyone that was on my list to ask questions, and sorry to those of you that didn't get to ask. Hopefully the PMs will answer your question in #bk

[06:37] jane w00t!

[06:37] Jim jim > !score recurse

[06:37] Elan thanks guys!

[06:37] Jim thanks everyone!

[06:37] jane thank you, moderators

[06:37] Lou Jane, bribery always works

[06:37] sean thanks and good night

[06:37] jane 'night.

[06:39] catherwood um, should i voice everyone now?

[06:39] Lou just set mode -m

[06:39] Anderian Lt. Col. JR here. I had a good time playing for you guys - you wouldn't believe the looks I got playing a travel guitar for a pay phone resting on my knee. Now then: What does the future hold for 42 Entertainment? I'm sure you don't want to name names, but could you tell us if you have any pending clients at the moment?

[06:39] krystyn woo

[06:39] THF13 I always hated bees...

[06:39] FugitiveSoldier We Love You (And Bees)!

[06:39] _343_GuiltySpark PMs: !reveal outtakes > beekeepers

[06:39] ONI|Gabriel sean: just so you know, you did manage to call New Zealand a couple of time. I was disappointed once, but it still worked. :)

[06:39] Deko weee bees

[06:39] G3K sure!

[06:39] SkilletAudio|Splotch rhubarb

[06:39] catherwood BOOM!

[06:39] Kybard and out comes the flood.

[06:39] Astald hah

[06:39] CirrusStrafe O.o

[06:39] thebruce haha

[06:39] Deko instant flood

[06:39] Troy_McClure hey... ALL PM's JOIN KAZOO!

[06:39] CirrusStrafe Haha.

[06:39] Quixote Hey guys - again, thanks for such a wonderful ride, a lot of great memories. The one time I got a live call, I was running late... I offered the lame excuse of being delayed by traffic, to which Melissa taunted me that she had heard much better excuses than that. Just to satisfy my curiosity, what were some of the more amusing excuses?

[06:39] ensign_tofu aieeee!

[06:39] CirrusStrafe That's great

[06:39] Dim damn!

[06:39] vpisteve PMs will now join you in #beekeepers :)

[06:39] katscratch1 hey, could someone email me a transcript

[06:39] hmrpita|ariock bye

[06:39] lurkery THANKS THANKS THANKS

[06:39] katscratch1 I was late

[06:39] rose heh

[06:39] _343_GuiltySpark The Flood needs to be recontained! Activate containment protocols!

[06:40] DreamOfTheRood Thank you all.

[06:40] bugbbq Thanks for making me get soaked in a hurricane! ;-)

[06:40] Anaerin katscratch1: it'll be posted.

[06:40] CirrusStrafe I really wish Melissa's mailbox wasn't so full.

[06:40] Kybard 343: hand out the shotguns!

[06:40] ciphergiest awesome

[06:40] CirrusStrafe I really wanted to be on the crew =/

[06:40] katscratch1 ok, thanks

[06:40] Cortana I was wondering where the term "search opera" came from...

[06:40] Troy_McClure anyone interested... join #kazoo!!!

[06:40] rose I think the transcript will be posted.

[06:40] CirrusStrafe I love you Elan, Jane, Jim, Sean, and vpisteve!

[06:40] Shooteru Is there any chance to carry the teleconference on media other than the regular phones (teamspeak or any voip conference software), so to allow players outside of US to participate?

[06:40] INCyr sean: if you're willing to answer a post-Q&A question... any chance we'll see a novelization of ILB? And any chance that we'll learn more about the adventures of Jan & Crew?

[06:40] ouroboros_ens Thank you for this passtime. This was a fine excuse for me to get out into my new city and run around. And compelling drama.

[06:40] CirrusStrafe I was wondering if dana's email gets yahoo emails cuz I sent her like a thousand regarding enlistment and dvd shipping at the end there x.x

[06:40] vpisteve the phone calls can be made from anywhere, if you're willing to pay long distance :)

[06:41] G3K OH NO UNMOD /me explodes

[06:41] CirrusStrafe By the way, I live in Florida, and hurricanes made it hard to get to axons =P

[06:41] Cortana steve> recodring?

[06:41] GWing_02 great, now this room's gonna explode too

[06:41] bugbbq CirrusStrafe: Pansy ;-)

[06:41] vpisteve there will be a recording of it that we'll post

[06:41] Nova I hope a recording of the phone conference is made available for those of us who don't like international calling charges :)

[06:41] Dewback .. .. ..

[06:41] Cortana recording, too...

[06:41] Cortana steve> awesome, thanks :)

[06:41] krystyn heh

[06:41] CirrusStrafe Good old dewback.

[06:41] katscratch1 when was the phone conference?

[06:41] Kybard Ewww.

[06:41] CirrusStrafe Did you guys ever read the ILB threads on the New Mombasa bungie forums?

[06:41] angelo So, can I offer coordination services for the conference call? ;)

[06:42] lilserf hehehe angelo

[06:42] Rendon|Writing Is this still a modded channel?

[06:42] ONI|Gabriel Go Angelo!

[06:42] Rendon|Writing i guess not

[06:42] danteGA quick thanks to the PMs for relenting and adding the SP puzzles :)

[06:42] CirrusStrafe Because there was a highly amusing string started by Kayscrila about ILB porn. I was so amused.

[06:42] GWing_02 nice observation Rendon

[06:42] katscratch1 hey, I am writing an article for GameDaily on ilovebees, and wondered if someone wanted to share your craziest phone moment with me

[06:42] GWing_02 haha

[06:42] krystyn angelo, I need some serious organization of my Tupperware!!! ;)

[06:42] CirrusStrafe You guys need to join Mensa. Those ILB puzzles were genius.

[06:42] Phaedra Oh, they are here!!

[06:42] DreamOfTheRood elanlee@hotmail.com

[06:42] TheCheat I would just like to express all my thanks to the PM because I didn't get a chance to during the questions!

[06:42] DarkForge[la] katscratch: That'd be when Melissa started making her "Flea" voice

[06:42] Phaedra Hi -- PMs! Can I ask a question?

[06:42] angelo I'm all over it krystyn, I'll drive back up tommorrow...

[06:42] DreamOfTheRood http://www.soundclick.com/bands/1/theevelynenginemusic.htm

[06:42] Kybard angelo: hey, man - did you get any extra stuff for our setup?

[06:42] Shooteru Let me rephrase my question then: Is there any chance to carry the teleconference on media other than the regular phones (teamspeak or any voip conference software), so to allow players outside of US to participate without paying intercontinental phone fees?

[06:42] Nova You can try Phaedra, but you'll have to speak up.

[06:43] GWing_02 yeah

[06:43] Phaedra How does one do that, Nova?

[06:43] krystyn angelo: sweet! A goddess needs time for other activities, like playing video games!

[06:43] Vilnius Jeez. I bet the PMs can't keep up with this.

[06:43] angelo Heck yeah

[06:43] CirrusStrafe I don't think the PM's are gonna be chatting with us.

[06:43] TheCheat Hell I can't even keepup

[06:43] Anaerin Vilnius: I know I can't.

[06:43] CirrusStrafe Years of B.Net have prepared me for this.

[06:43] CirrusStrafe I can keep up =P

[06:43] Kybard Vilnius: they're crying in the corner trying ot figure out where to start

[06:43] ONI|Gabriel I don't think they'll try.

[06:43] CirrusStrafe Yeah.

[06:43] TheCheat Cirrus: LOL!

[06:43] GWing_02 or they're just laughing at us

[06:43] CirrusStrafe Heh.

[06:43] TheCheat Ugh... B.Net...

[06:43] Phaedra Oh well, no answer. Too bad.

[06:43] TheCheat Makes one cry tears of blood

[06:43] Nova Phaedra: I think just ask, and hope they hear it.

[06:43] Paper ooh is it open chat now?

[06:43] TheCheat Yes it is

[06:43] Nova As you can tell, it's quite loud in here.

[06:43] bugbbq no

[06:43] Vilnius Paper.

[06:44] CirrusStrafe Well when you're ordering 400 zerglings to run into a few seige tanks, and need to laugh at someone, it teaches you to read and type fast.

[06:44] Vilnius Nope..

[06:44] katscratch1 If someone would like to email me a story, it might make it in - kat@gamedaily.com'

[06:44] bugbbq ;-)

[06:44] Urthstripe AHH too much talking

[06:44] Phaedra Will everyone get mad if I do it in caps?

[06:44] PatamonKid OMG ZERG RUSH KEKEKEKEKEKEKEKE >

[06:44] Cthulhu Ahhh

[06:44] Rendon so, is this the end, or is there more?

[06:44] GWing_02 my head hurts...

[06:44] TheCheat KEKEKEKEKEKEKEKE!

[06:44] Takeel email you a story? wtf?

[06:44] DreamOfTheRood Rendon, it's done.

[06:44] CirrusStrafe By the way, kudos to sean, who is my new favorite person, and jane, for clearing up the dvd issue for me.

[06:44] Vilnius ZERG RUSH KEKEKEKEKEKEKEKEKEKE ^________________^

[06:44] _343_GuiltySpark Patamon, Cheat, calm down, please.

[06:44] CirrusStrafe Because I would cry if I didn't get one.

[06:44] ONI|Gabriel Oh god.

[06:44] Vilnius :)

[06:44] Alaranth ...

[06:44] ONI|Gabriel Maybe you should just +m this place again.

[06:44] angelo PM's thank you so much for the challengeing coordination activities. It was incredibly fun!

[06:44] TheCheat Jane = rock. That's all there is to it

[06:44] Vilnius I like that idea.

[06:44] CirrusStrafe Yeah.

[06:44] Vilnius Gabrieal.

[06:44] CirrusStrafe Jane = rox.

[06:44] Kybard Big kudos from here to Jane for making me actually interesed prmiarily due to my interaction with Dana in early-game.

[06:44] Phaedra Hmm. Can the the PMs be PM'd?

[06:44] katscratch1 I am looking for your favorite personal phone (or other ilovebees) story - not a pllot twist, but something that YOU did during the game

[06:45] GWing_02 I think +m would be a good idea

[06:45] Rougewisp it said not to earlier

[06:45] _343_GuiltySpark I will just post this here, in case it gets noticed.

[06:45] katscratch1 kat@gamedaily.com

[06:45] Anaerin Phaedra: Gods, I hope not.

[06:45] PatamonKid Katscratch1 : I had to bike for miley in 40 degree weather, not including wind chill, plus it was raining. The axon I was going to didn't work.

[06:45] _343_GuiltySpark Am I correct in my somewhat bold assumption that it was my Pleasure Goo concept that actually won me a place among the top 2004-vs-2552 artists, and not the somewhat plain and uninteresting thermometer remodelled to a surgical laser, and you simply didn't want to put anything even remotely risque on the results compilation?

[06:45] TheCheat Phaedra: No, they are protected

[06:45] Quixote Phaedra - Elan gave his e-mail

[06:45] CirrusStrafe This all went to hell.

[06:45] Nova Jim, if you're listening - great work. The technical side of this game sounds like it was a mighty feat to coordinate.

[06:45] Rougewisp no kidding

[06:45] AngryEd In the initial weeks before the 8/24 wide awake & physical, did anyone dig TOO deep, investigating domains, looking for REAL behind the curtain facts? Did it worry you that we might find out too much too soon? Some of us went great lengths to try to behold and expose the truth.

[06:45] GWing_02 no kidding

[06:45] CirrusStrafe I think they're just waiting for people to leave.

[06:45] CirrusStrafe I'm gonna stay here until everyone else is gone.

[06:45] katscratch1 ouch patamon :
[06:45] Cherry_Cotton A friend of mine who shall not be named ran a red light and drove through a bus lane just so we could get an axon...

[06:45] GWing_02 ...well don't all shut up at once now.

[06:45] Gupfee http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=104486#104486

[06:45] Rougewisp Like AngryEd said, I was wondering how hard were you guys laughing at us when we were trying to think of the relations of axon locations pre-24th?

[06:45] CirrusStrafe Because I 1. Have nothing else to do. and 2. need to kill the last 28 hours until Halo 2 comes out.

[06:46] PatamonKid Katscratch1: Wasn't fun, but it was worth it for these guys

[06:46] ouroboros_ens Cherry_Cotton: yeah, archon almost killed me too

[06:46] TheCheat I got picked up for speeding trying to get to one of the SF axons... But I made it!

[06:46] Crispy SEAN. YOU'RE MY HERO. ;(

[06:46] Vilnius Along with the chat log, someone should post a #beekeepers matching log.

[06:46] Cherry_Cotton Archon, if you're listening, we still love you for it...

[06:46] Crispy Forever, you are my hero.

[06:46] Vilnius :P

[06:46] CirrusStrafe I bet they enjoyed watching us kill each other over the preposition puzzle.