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Valve's fake, rigged, waste of time Progress Quest troll Portal 2 ARG

Great work everyone. Thanks to two days of work, I will be enjoying Portal 2 at some point during my sleeping hours on Tuesday. /sarcasm

If when the bar reaches 100% (if it gets to that point sometime tomorrow), the game doesn't unlock immediately, the only thing that I'll remember about the ARG is a tedious grind.
 
MrMister said:
The only thing I'm disappointed about this ARG is how many people have suddenly turned their backs on Valve. Smh.

I'll be playfully laughing when we get to all play Portal 2 tonight/early tomorrow morning.
I don't think anyone did, except maybe someone stupid somewhere. But there are people that question why Valve did and that they should do it different next time.
 

derFeef

Member
ElNarez said:
The thing is, I don't think it's a fuck up. Not to jump to conclusions or anything, but does any one of you entitled motherfuckers know anything about effort? Valve is promising us a favor, in exchange for a bit of work, if it even counts as actual work. You're making it sound as if they're asking you to work in a cole mine for the rest of your adult lives to get Portal 2 10 minutes before anyone else, when it's absolutely not the case.
First, don't be that offensive.
Second, you don't understand why some people are disappointed, or mad even? There you go: Valve made this awesome, cryptic and lengthy ARG which promised some surprise. People get excited, do their work so it may unlock something special. And then it happens - we get another page for whatever reason where it makes you call your friends so they buy the Potato Sack games and Portal unlocks a few hours earlier on Steam. Meanwhile, people are already playing the 360 and PS3 version thanks to sloppy embargos.
 

shuyin_

Banned
LM4sure said:
You've already made your opinion known many times. You don't think it's worth your time. That doesn't mean it's not worth other people's time. You think because you wouldn't enjoy playing these games no one would. So they should do like you and give up. If you don't want to participate, fine. But leave your negativity out of it.
I'm saying nobody really wants to play these games. The fact that nobody plays the completed games anymore sustains my point of view.

If you think it was really worth it to play these games from friday 'till sunday (which you did or didn't do) just to have Portal 2 three hours earlier, that's really your problem.
I find that stupid and wrong - hey, let me play Cogs instead of <insert name of game i actually want to play> to get Portal 2 three hours earlier (even though those three hours might not help much). I just find it amazing that people find this a good idea... :| I find it manipulative.

Once again, if you don't agree with my point of view,that's fine. But leave the insults out. I wasn't rude to you.
 

Doopliss

Member
ElNarez said:
We're getting more bars filled faster than yesterday. I call that accelerating.
You are misleading people. Bars have to complete at a faster rate to maintain the same rate of overall progress. It doesn't mean the predicted times of when all the bars will be full will become sooner.
 
For those who haven't followed the thread

Times in GMT +1 summertime
Normal release date (if the whole ARG thing would have never happened): Tuesday 16 PM
See Glados Text Output

release data based on Projected Launch: Tuesday ~13 PM 3 hours and 10 minutes ahead
This is based on the Projected Launch clock on the Glados@Home page. If the bar for a certain game is filled, the projected launch time will decrease with a certain amount of minutes. This is probably based on how many people bought the game/how many hours the games has been played before the ARG/Glados@home. I think for AAAAAAAA it was about an hour. So filling the bars for individual games push the launch date even more ahead of the normal launch. Cogs is nearing completion.

release data based on the main progress bar: between 8-15 hours ahead
Based on the main progress bar: Computation Completed for Launch. Once it is filled, Portal 2 will launch. Right now we are at 60% of the main bar while 50% of the original time has passed. This progress is probably based on the number of CPUs ie the number of people ingame. Because that tends to vary, a good estimate is hard to make.
 

TheBez

Member
MrMister said:
Also, following recent developments on the wiki, this ARG is not even over after Portal 2 releases.
So what you are saying is that this really was an ARG for HL3/EP3? Right? RIGHT!!????!!
 

LM4sure

Banned
shuyin_ said:
I'm saying nobody really wants to play these games. The fact that nobody plays the completed games anymore sustains my point of view.

Again, just because you don't want to play these games doesn't mean that many people do. So stop acting like you're speaking for the collective. You're speaking for yourself. No one else. And again, we get it. You don't want to waste your time on these indie games. Good for you. Waste your time bitching about it in this thread instead!
 

Baha

Member
BY2K said:
Something better happen when we hit 375,466 Potatoes. It just seems like a random number. :(

During the ARG the following number string was posted on the Boston Indies blog "88375466". Now take into consideration that 88 in ASCII is X and we're close to reaching 375466, there's good reason to believe that something will happen. As of now, those potatoes haven't had any visible effect on the progress bars of games to this point, only current cpus. We're going to find out in 15 mins or so at this rate.
 

Tendo

Member
I can't possibly be upset about having to "work" for an early release. I have owned Killing Floor for almost two years and never played it. I am now in love with it and got two of my buddies to buy it.

Cogs, Aaaaaa, and Defense Grid? Same thing. It has "forced" me to go through my backlog...and I'm loving these games. Except TWEOTW and 1.2.3. Those games are...Well they should be very happy Valve promoted them.
 

Zomba13

Member
shuyin_ said:
I'm saying nobody really wants to play these games. The fact that nobody plays the completed games anymore sustains my point of view.
I want to play some of these games. I just don't count to the player count because I boot up the current focus game first and then the game I actually want to play. That way I contribute to the GLaDOS thing and get to play a game I want (not stupid Cogs :().

EDIT: What's with all the TWEOTW hate? I mean, apart that it's a blatant Katamari rip-off (on a platform where there is not Katamari though). The camera isn't great, yeah, but not much of a problem and the game controls fine with KB+M (oddly enough, better than with a pad). And It's got some damn catchy music.
 

ElNarez

Banned
Doopliss said:
You are misleading people. Bars have to complete at a faster rate to maintain the same rate of overall progress. It doesn't mean the predicted times of when all the bars will be full will become sooner.

I stand by my affirmation. It's hard to prove because it's all based on previsions, but while yesterday we were scheduled to finish 12 to 18 hours ahead, we're now at 15 to 22. Again, it's all based on previsions, but I feel it's a safe assumption to make that we are indeed going faster. And yeah, this may be misleading, but when pretty much everyone else is trying to show off how big a cynic they can be by showing how dumb we are for doing it, I think my attitude is justified.
 

Superimposer

This is getting weirder all the time
How sure are people now of this 375k potato thing? Seems like people are very sure but it seems very speculative to me
 

Baha

Member
Superimposer said:
How sure are people now of this 375k potato thing? Seems like people are very sure but it seems very speculative to me

It's speculation at this point but it does fit atm, we'll know for sure in 6 mins.

Collecting before and after data. Before = @ 374880 potatoes, the bars were at:

DG - 30.85
KF - 25.6
Cogs - 88.4
TT - 54.49
BTB - 56.46
AS - 50.77
SMB - 34.57
Amnesia - 24.07
Ball - 22.76

Will post again with "after" data soon.
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Where on Earth did that theory come from? I cant see the logic behind it.
 
BY2K said:
Something better happen when we hit 375,466 Potatoes. It just seems like a random number. :(

I wouldn't get count on it. Just remember that if a game bar is filled, the release data will be pushed even more ahead of schedule. If we can get Cogs, Toki Tori and Bit Trip, that's 2-3 hours? And if the main bar keeps being filled at this rate, it'll be full 8 hours before the normal launch data. So even if the potato milestone isn't true, it can still be worth it to keep being ingame.
 

clav

Member
BY2K said:
Can somebody please explain why the bar are filling up yet time of release isn't going down? It's still releasing Monday.

I wouldn't be surprised at this point if Valve just turned off the counting system by showing a huge glass bullet hole and then fade out to a solid picture of a slice of cake with a :) and the words u mad?, a photoshop trollface picture with Gabe on it, or something.
 

ElNarez

Banned
TheBez said:
When people mention the "website" that will supposedly get players in trouble its not the wiki is it?

No, it's a link supposed to give you 15 "free" potatoes. I think Valve has endorsed the wiki, even using it as part of the ARG.
 

Datwheezy

Unconfirmed Member
TheBez said:
When people mention the "website" that will supposedly get players in trouble its not the wiki is it?

No. If you used the wiki you are fine.


Lostconfused said:
The last few days have been a lesson in tempering your expectations.

So, so, so true. If Portal 2 doesnt release until Thursday, this would be my response now:
90zis.png
 

Woffls

Member
Sooo close! I might try and get one of the Audiosurf ones because I still don't have either of them :( I'm so bad at that game. Got both the SMB ones, but they're the only games I own from that lot.
 
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