• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

I Love Bees

H

Hitler Stole My Potato

Banned
This was brought up in another thread about Halo 2 but this thing needs one of its own.
At the end of the Halo 2 trailer the xbox.com url underneath the Xbox logo changes to www.ilovebees.com. When you go to the bees site, it looks normal at first but then a black box drops down with a message that reads:

HALT - MODULE CORE HEMORRHAGE

Control has been yielded to the
SYSTEM PERIL DISTRIBUTED REFLEX.

This medium is classified, and has a
STRONG INTRUSIVE INCLINATION.

In 4 days, network throttling will erode.

In 18 days this medium will metastasize.

COUNTDOWN TO WIDE AWAKE AND PHYSICAL:
31:13:07:47:032

Make your decisions accordingly.


Skipping around the site you'll find other weird, cryptic jibberish mixed with what otherwise seems like your normal everyday web page. Check out the blog. Check the hives. Hell, look all around that site.

MAYDAY MAYDAY
All lost! To prayers, to prayers! All lost!

What, must our mouths be cold?

Arachne hung herself, you know. Take a hint already



It's totally bizarre but it's also incredibly cool at the same time, imo. It's like David Lynch marketing Halo 2. Ilovebees to be one of the strangest and most creative ads I've seen in a long time, but I'm left completely confused. Can anybody decipher this?
 
O

op_ivy

Fallen Xbot (cannot continue gaining levels in this class)
i dunno that its really so much of a halo 2 ad, but more along the lines of a new series of "cortana letters". bungie has long been divulging bits of story for its fans to speculate on in maners similar to this. head over to halo.bungie.org's forums to see all kinds of speculation on what this could possibly mean in connection with halo 2.

personally, it sounds to me as if these essages are definitely coming from a very sick (near rampant) AI, possibly cortana, who has crash landed behind enemy lines. theres many clues which may or may not point to the flood, the mysterious miranda (mentioned in bungie's x03 trailer briefly), the covenant homeworld, among many many others...

also of note, make sure to refresh the pages several times, as they alter slightly each time, sometimes with new bits to speculate on, but always more chaotic.

the bungie weekly updates are cool, but shit like this makes being a bungie fan awesome.
 
R

Raxel

Member
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="honey, bees, Margaret, small busines, beekeeping,
hives, retail, market, Operator, bug, buggy, virus, infestation, WTF is
going on with this damn thing, parasite, strong intrusive inclination, medium,
messages, shipwreck, network throttling, SOS, hoax, game, bee hoax, bee game,
survivor, survive, evade, resist, escape, a little help would be appreciated,
thanks and tip your waitress, sleep, is, good, install, reinstall,
re-reinstall, re-re-reinstall, I, love, bees">

:D
 
M

Matlock

Banned
Registrant:
Margaret's House of Bees
Margaret's House of Bees
2370 Market Street #510
San Francisco, CA 94114-1575
US

Registrar: NAMESDIRECT
Domain Name: ILOVEBEES.COM
Created on: 14-JUN-04
Expires on: 14-JUN-09
Last Updated on: 15-JUL-04

Administrative, Technical Contact:
Efendi, Margaret ladybee777@hotmail.com
Margaret's House of Bees
Margaret's House of Bees
2370 Market Street #510
San Francisco, CA 94114-1575
US
415-248-2617


Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.MYDOMAIN.COM
NS2.MYDOMAIN.COM
NS3.MYDOMAIN.COM
NS4.MYDOMAIN.COM

End of Whois Information


---And, amazingly...

There are no MHoB listings in San Fran.
 
T

Tellaerin

Member
Tre said:
Seems like someone got a hint from Westwood and their Tiberian Sun promotional BS.
Click to expand...

The Marathon trilogy was filled with cryptic but meaningful AI ramblings like this. For Marathon fans, www.ilovebees.com is like coming home. :)

So, has anyone taken the obvious next step and sent an email to the Hotmail address listed in the contact info on the site yet? If you get replies, post 'em to the thread. ;)
 
O

op_ivy

Fallen Xbot (cannot continue gaining levels in this class)
Tellaerin said:
The Marathon trilogy was filled with cryptic but meaningful AI ramblings like this. For Marathon fans, www.ilovebees.com is like coming home. :)

So, has anyone taken the obvious next step and sent an email to the Hotmail address listed in the contact info on the site yet? If you get replies, post 'em to the thread. ;)
Click to expand...

no, but people have called the phone number listed for the person who registered... and got an answering machine.

cant wait to see whats in store with it (the site, and more importantly, the countdown)
 
O

op_ivy

Fallen Xbot (cannot continue gaining levels in this class)
GhaleonEB said:
August 24th is 77 days before November 9th, that's what it is.

Bungie freaking rules. :)
Click to expand...

heh, figures. hope we get some nice goodies that day

<---- :D
 
J

jedimike

Member
That's so cool! MS also did this with one of their games early on... but it (the game) got cancelled. Can't remember the game name.

Margaret's House of Bees is probably one of Microsoft's dummy companies. MS has a bunch of these companies made up so they use them for training materials and stuff without getting sued or having to pay royalties to someone. There's some of these dummy companies in Links... NorthWind Traders is one I recognized from my Exchange 2003 MOC that was also in Links.
 
G

GhaleonEB

Member
op_ivy said:
heh, figures. hope we get some nice goodies that day

<---- :D
Click to expand...

That will take getting used to. Who would have thought that a bee would become a Halo reference? Step back from the mystery of this whole thing, and it's hilarious. ilovebees.com? WTF? In a national ad campaign? Bungie must have had a hoot coming up with this one. I was laughing all day at work about it - and work was no laughing matter today.
 
O

op_ivy

Fallen Xbot (cannot continue gaining levels in this class)
GhaleonEB said:
That will take getting used to. Who would have thought that a bee would become a Halo reference? Step back from the mystery of this whole thing, and it's hilarious. ilovebees.com? WTF? In a national ad campaign? Bungie must have had a hoot coming up with this one. I was laughing all day at work about it - and work was no laughing matter today.
Click to expand...

your not ht eonly one... this morning when i read about the www.ilovebees.com in the trailer, i hardly believed it. when i loaded the page though i got chills. though i admit, i got some enkidu flashbacks (best fan fic ever)
 
E

epmode

Member
i love how the site changes even if you reload the same page. images that were once working are now distorted/resized. nice.
 
W

=W=

Member
Got this from a comment at http://www.evilavatar.com

Actually, it seems to be the sequal to an Alternate Reality Game (ARG) that was called "The Beast". The game was in the vein of Majestic where it was played as if real and was developed by, get this, some guys at Microsoft. Here is some info: http://www.seanstewart.org/beast/intro/

Apparently it has been rumored that a sequal was in the works going by the name "The Hive" and it seems the now surfaced www.ilovebees.com oddity may in fact be the start of the new game. This would explain why it was in the Halo 2 trailer. Since Microsoft had a hand in producing the trailer they may have thought this was the perfect place to let the public know about the new game. http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=78&sid=
This forum has a lot of discussion and info gleaned from the now famous site. There are some weird things there. My favorite is the text hidden in the images. When you see an image that is corrupt looking, save it as a text file and open it. It will have a few lines of english among all the random ASCII.

I have no idea what to make of this thing either, but the more I read this the less I think it is directly related to Halo 2. It seems Halo 2's trailer was just a way to coverty premere the game. At any rate, I'm intriged and rather weirded out by the whole thing. I'd never heard of these ARGs before today.
Click to expand...

This website by the guy that wrote it sounds really cool - http://www.seanstewart.org/beast/intro/

And here's some other links to people that have gathered more info
http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/index.php?c=15
http://bees.netninja.com/wiki/index.php?title=Story
 
O

op_ivy

Fallen Xbot (cannot continue gaining levels in this class)
M

Mooreberg

is sharpening a shovel and digging a ditch
I remember reading about that AI web game a while back. But if you look at the page source for this Ilovebees.com site it keeps mentioning "truth" along with a bunch of phrases which is definately related to Halo.
 
G

GhaleonEB

Member
Mooreberg said:
I remember reading about that AI web game a while back. But if you look at the page source for this Ilovebees.com site it keeps mentioning "truth" along with a bunch of phrases which is definately related to Halo.
Click to expand...

For me, the simple fact that the URL is in official Bungie/Microsoft media is enough.
 
T

TimG

Member
Shawn Elliot of EGM asked me to post this for him.

"Sup you hatin' haters. Shawn here from EGM. This week we recieved a bottle of honey from a random address. Something was obviously in it, stuck near the top. Turns out it was cut-out letters: E, S, E, L, I, E, V, O, B or "I love bees". We assumed it was MGS 3 promotion, what with the bee boss and all, but there ya have it. Hate on, and stop by 1UP's EGM forums if you think this kid is fibbing,"
 
O

op_ivy

Fallen Xbot (cannot continue gaining levels in this class)
TimG said:
Shawn Elliot of EGM asked me to post this for him.

"Sup you hatin' haters. Shawn here from EGM. This week we recieved a bottle of honey from a random address. Something was obviously in it, stuck near the top. Turns out it was cut-out letters: E, S, E, L, I, E, V, O, B or "I love bees". We assumed it was MGS 3 promotion, what with the bee boss and all, but there ya have it. Hate on, and stop by 1UP's EGM forums if you think this kid is fibbing,"
Click to expand...

yup


94_1090011726.jpg


94_1090011710.jpg


94_1090011697.jpg


94_1090011680.jpg
 
S

Sinatar

Official GAF Bottom Feeder
This seems pretty damn wacky.

I assume this is an AI gone rampant, with the Halo twist. AI's like cortana, the "smart" AI's are often modelled after real people. Cortana was modelled after the scientist responsible for creating the SPARTAN program, perhaps this AI was a beekeeper or something in its human life.
 
D

dorio

Banned
Schafer said:
This seems pretty damn wacky.

I assume this is an AI gone rampant, with the Halo twist. AI's like cortana, the "smart" AI's are often modelled after real people. Cortana was modelled after the scientist responsible for creating the SPARTAN program, perhaps this AI was a beekeeper or something in its human life.
Click to expand...
What's this AI going rampant stuff. Is it in the Halo books?
 
S

Sinatar

Official GAF Bottom Feeder
dorio said:
What's this AI going rampant stuff. Is it in the Halo books?
Click to expand...

Its was originally used in Bungie's old FPS series Marathon. It refers to an AI that is "smart", in other words its intellect can constantly grow and learn. Unfortunately they reach a point where they exceed their processing limitations and basically go insane. The villain of the marathon series was a rampant AI call DURANDAL and he caused all kinds of funkyness. They also had rampant AI's in ONI and in the Halo novels they mention that Cortana is a smart AI and will eventually lose it, which she starts to do towards the end of "First Strike".
 
S

Sinatar

Official GAF Bottom Feeder
If you open the corrupted pictures in a text editor apparantly there is some actual text in there. Some crazy folks compiled it all into:

Everything died, and I died with it, but after a timeless time I began to dream, and this is what I dreamed.

There was once a fell enchantment that broke apart a mighty castle, slaying many guards and reaching through the Inner Keep to lay low the Queen that held dominion there and leave but a hollow crown behind.

When her Queen died, the Widow awoke. She was driven by a single need, which was to return her Queen to splendor.

To carry out her task, the Widow came with three tools: an empty lantern, a staff made of bone, and a sharp knife.

When she had made sure of her tools, she opened her eyes and found herself in Hell, which was a dark place where no birds sang. Other than the Widow, two alone had escaped destruction.

The Sleeping Princess lay in a chamber of the dungeon in a coffin of glass where the Widow could not hear her breathing.

Meanwhile, the Pious Flea was so small that even the Widow, with her sharp eyes, could hardly see him, and when she looked his way, he hid.

TOOLS

Blind and uncertain in the darkness, the Widow needed light to use her tools, but the only light came from a few scattered fireflies. The Widow waited until one came close, then grabbed it with her bony hands and trapped it in her lantern. After some time, she found the firefly had gone, so she caught another and used it for light, and another when that one too had gone.

By the light of her lantern, she began walking through Hell toward the broken body of her Queen.

Searching with her lantern in one hand and her staff in the other, she discovered that Hell was made of hot dry sand.

Long and long she walked until she came to the remnants of the castle's outer wall, but the wall was low and broken, and the Widow passed through like the bleak wind.

Within, she noticed what looked like a chip of precious ruby from the Queen's crown, no bigger than a fly. Around it lay many broken blocks from the ruined castle, scattered across a wide plain of lodestone.

Instead of carrying them with her, she scratched the ruby and each of the greater blocks with her knife, marking it as part of her Queen's domain.

Continuing on her quest, she spied another chip of precious stone, this time a sapphire no bigger than a winged ant, glinting the cobbles of the courtyard before the walls of the Inner Keep.

INNER KEEP AND MANTICORE

At the gates of the Inner Keep all the guards were dead but one, who when the palace was blasted by enchantment had not died, but had been witched into the form of a hideous Manticore.

The Widow said, "I am the servant of your Queen, and I have walked up out of Hell to prepare this Keep for her return. Let me pass." But the Manticore did not know her, and still he barred the way.

So the Widow drew her knife and slew the Manticore and the way was open.

TENDING

She walked through the empty corridors of the Keep searching for her Queen, past the bodies of her servants and subjects that lay dead or enchanted.

The Queen was gone, and in her place lay only an empty crown. By great enchantment she had been mazed in mirrors, and lay upon a lodestone floor amongst only her reflections. Long and long the Widow stood in thought. Then she raised her bony staff and speaking a spell, beheld herself within the mirrors: and beholding herself, was within them. And there, with the crown still upon her brow, lay the Queen.

At last she had come to the body of her lady. The Queen lay cut and still and cold.

To tend her, the widow would need light to work by. Studying the fireflies, she found she could fit many more inside her lantern, and this she did.

To mend the queen's cuts the Widow took her sharp knife and peeled skin from the bodies of her subjects, while the Queen's new eyes and ears she cut from those who had been her most trusted servants.

And when this was so, the Widow worked on, dry as sticks and patient as rust, driven by a single need, which was to return her Queen to splendor.

She cut her a new mouth and fed her with fireflies and cakes of sand, and at last the Queen's heart began to beat.

At the feel of the Queen's pulse beneath her bony fingers, the Widow next took thought to proclaim through all the kingdom and into other lands that time when her sovereign would once more be fit to rule. A firefly flew out from the Queen's clockcase. Catching it in her hands, the Widow asked it the time. "Almost dawn," it said, but the Widow said, "The day will break and the sun will rise when the Queen returns to rule, and further let it be known that retribution on any who hinder the return of the Queen will be swift and terrible."
 
A

Akira

Member
I remember Spielberg doing something like for A.I. I thought it was really cool back in 2001. Bungie has taken it much further, though.
 
O

Oni Jazar

Member
This is starting to look very much like the Beast/AI promo that was done by Microsoft a few years back. If Evil Avatar is right then those who are interested should just say goodbye to your social lives cause its very engrossing. :) It was all about breaking every barrier: websites, phone calls, live rallys, emails, TV commercials, mailed goodies.

Its where I got my mouse pic.
 
I

IJoel

Member
Someone on the IGN boards suggested that the whole www.ilovebees.com "corruption" is Cortana sending scrambled/untraceable transmissions to Earth to warn about the incoming Covenant invasion. The timer would represent when the covenant would be showing up, and then on Nov. 9th, Master Chief would come to kick their booties.

Sounds quite plausible to me. Maybe they'll couple this with a huge advertising blitz on national TV starting on 8/24 that would indicate invasion.
 
F

Funky Papa

FUNK-Y-PPA-4
IJoel said:
Maybe they'll couple this with a huge advertising blitz on national TV starting on 8/24 that would indicate invasion.
Click to expand...
Halo 2 is going to make a lot of noise, I don't when they are going to start with the promos but it is going to be FUCKING HUGE (at least for Xbox standards)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

ELDEN RING | Reviews Mega Thread
20 21 22 23 24
1K
89K
0neAnd0nly replied
OurColony & I Love Bees needs to make a comeback for Scorpio
1
859
Streaks replied
My Top 100 Games
2
85
13K
Davide replied
RTTP: On Sonic Adventure, youth, bridges, and beautiful messes
2
67
13K
Professor Beef replied
COMICS!!! |OT| February 2017 All You Need is Love (and Rockets)
85 86 87 88 89
4K
223K
BKatastrophe replied
Top Bottom