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Valve's fake, rigged, waste of time Progress Quest troll Portal 2 ARG
- Thread starter V_Ben
- Start date
There was nothing poor about the additional content that was added to the indie games for the ARG. The only downside to this ARG was it's conclusion, but everything leading up to it was awesome. A shitty ending to this doesn't make the added levels for The Ball, Bit.Trip Beat, Amnesia, or any of the other games any worse.BuddhaRockstar said:
Nappuccino
Member
TheExodu5 said:
I don't understand this assumption at all. There is no evidence at all that this game was impossible. Its not saw 4 (or which ever saw that was with rigged games.
EmCeeGramr
Member
I cannot fathom any possible way that this is the case. Valve would not delay a game for two months to set up an ARG.dave is ok said:
Wow, I didn't know that Steam would actually unlock retail versions differently than preorder Steam versions. I figured the decryption key would go out to all versions at the same time.Weenerz said:
If that's true, then 360 pirates, PS3 pirates, legitimate customers who found leaked 360/PS3 versions, and people who go to retail outlets instead of preordering months ahead of time from Valve's own store will all get to play the game before Steam preorderers. Good times. *hides in concrete bunker until like Thursday night*
Nappuccino said:
There's evidence that the rate of overall completion has been constant, and it's been trending towards a midnight PST release since the start.
Do you really think Valve is saying "awww, it's too bad not enough people are playing the game and there's nothing we can do about it.
".dave is ok
aztek is ok
If Valve's numbers showed all along that 20k people owned the Potato Sack and only between 2-3k people actually switched to the game that was being focused, why set the rules so it takes 200k people to unlock Portal 2 in a reasonable timeframe? It makes no sense.Nappuccino said:
Not like ARGs are some mass market thing, they are intended for a niche crowd to begin with. If they wanted they could have put a URL on those bus ads and TV buys that lead right to the game.
Mr. Spinnington
Banned
got a reply back from glados@home webmaster:
We're just not good enough don't you seeeeeeeeTheExodu5 said:There's evidence that the rate of overall completion has been constant, and it's been trending towards a midnight PST release since the start.
Do you really think Valve is saying "awww, it's too bad not enough people are playing the game and there's nothing we can do about it.
Weenerz said:
Steamworks, maybe, but this is a full-on Steam title. The game can't be unlocked until Valve flips the decryption key. Buying the PC version at retail is functionally just a hard copy to skip preloading, if that. You can play the 360 and PS3 versions at midnight, though.
butter_stick
Banned
I blame PS3 Steamworks.EmCeeGramr said:
Is there anything console gamers won't ruin?
dave is ok
aztek is ok
There was a A LOT of work put into this. Amnesia and The Ball had 45 minute campaigns added to their respective games with full voice acting. Not to mention the other games and the how long it took to set up the riddles for the ARG itself.EmCeeGramr said:
dave is ok said:
I think the indies are more in Valve's debt than the opposite. I'm guessing they probably sold more copies of their games during this ARG than at any other period/Steam Sale. Even if they didn't, the association that this ARG established between the 24-karat standard that applies to the typical Valve game and these lucky thirteen indie titles is probably priceless.
hamchan said:
I would post it...but that would set off the Botolf signal.
I'll post a link to it instead:
http://cpucount.zapto.org/
dave is ok
aztek is ok
I'm still wondering how Deejoban got three games included when two of the three are horrible.luxarific said:
About an hour the first time through. Probably 35-40 on subsequent playthroughsOrellio said:
Takamura-San
Member
As of now the game is releasing 4:30am est....
and there are only 6 games left.....
and there are only 6 games left.....
bluedeviltron
Member
Is Valve asleep? Why on earth haven't they unlocked it?
This thing has been a colossal, hype-murdering fuckup.
This thing has been a colossal, hype-murdering fuckup.
Dont forget to run the GLaDOS@home program from the community before you go to bed. Automatically changes the game you are running for you so it matches the target game.
http://valvearg.com/wiki/GLaDOS@Home#GLaDOS.40Home_Community_Edition
http://valvearg.com/wiki/GLaDOS@Home#GLaDOS.40Home_Community_Edition
old manatee
Banned
If you donated your weekend to supporting a company's marketing campaign, and now, before the campaign is even over, you are upset because you don't feel that you were properly compensated for your time and effort, you are probably a crazy person.
EmCeeGramr
Member
I still have severe doubts that Valve would delay a major product launch by two months for an ARG.dave is ok said:
"Hey, let's delay our product so that we can do a niche marketing stunt for a group of people who were already going to buy it!"
VGChampion
Member
So many sour apples here. I haven't followed the ARG but I'm assuming a lot had fun during it playing games in the potato pack and even seeing things here and on Reddit, it seems like a lot are having fun trying to unlock it early. No matter how close it gets to the launch, if it's early it's early. No other game really does that.
Just because the payoff wasn't great doesn't mean the journey wasn't fun. I know I had fun watching people figure out all the clues and play games based on the chart.
Just because the payoff wasn't great doesn't mean the journey wasn't fun. I know I had fun watching people figure out all the clues and play games based on the chart.
Joe Molotov
Member
What if Portal 2 turns out to be bad; man that would be funny.
dave is ok
aztek is ok
No way you'll beat in 20 minutes on your first playthrough. It's 20 minutes if you turn enemies off and don't bother with 100%ing itOrellio said:
VGChampion said:
Except all indications here are that an early launch is still probably later than a midnight console release, not to mention completely irrelevant to anyone working on Tuesday.
I had a lot of fun following the ARG and getting the potatoes, but the conclusion has been nothing short of disappointing.
dave is ok said:
I'm not really so worried about getting the potato at this point. Just trying to decide what to invest my time into instead of compulsively refreshing this thread all the time. Thanks for your input.
Crunched said:
LovingSteam found it. At the time we thought it would be one of the daily indie deals for the Xmas sale, but obviously it never happened. No one knew what he had stumbled onto of course
The funny thing about the projected time on the official site going down by 30-60 minutes per game...the max any game has done is 60 minutes, and there seems to be not much pattern to it. The timer started with what, 94 hours? If people had somehow figured out some magical way to finish all the bars early, those remaining 6 games would have had to have like 14 HOURS off the timer for each one, or else the overall meter would be full and yet the projected time left would still be like 20-80 hours.
butter_stick
Banned
This is depressing.TheExodu5 said:
bluedeviltron said:
As Exodu5 said, their inaction combined with clear indicators in the trends of the progress seem to indicate this is all intentional. Whether it's because of contractual obligations or simply design no one can say, but it looks like this was engineered from the ground up to only move the release date forward a few hours.
Your second point, though, is dead-on. Why Valve would intentionally make people run in circles for four days to give us the carrot all of seven hours early is unknown. There are a million things that counter could have counted down to that would have left people less frustrated, and instead they dangled the possibility of an early release in front of us for no reason.
dave is ok
aztek is ok
It was supposed to come out on December 20th and was originally going to include Braid, Red Orchestra and not have 1..2..3.. Kick It.Crunched said:
Something with those devs probably fell through and they had to push back the ARG
Lostconfused
Member
Wow, what doesn't suck about this?dave is ok said:
Mr. Spinnington
Banned
not sure but here's another that nails the last few days in a nutshellTheExodu5 said:
To be fair, it's probably a good thing Braid didn't end up with Portal content. For one thing, it would involve mind-bendingly difficult puzzles. For the second thing, one of the potatoes would involve holding down the fast-forward key for 3 hours while clouds floated by. =P
Phantom Limbs
Banned
I just took a 3 hour nap, and virtually nothing has changed.
Good times.
Good times.
Joe Molotov
Member
Campster said:
We got trolled, and it was essentially a double-troll because (a) they made people think the Friday countdown was a countdown to an early release when really it was just a countdown to a countdown and then (b) they made us think that we still were going to get it early when, as the situation stands now, we aren't.
dave is ok
aztek is ok
Don't worry, we're like 99% sure that the CPUs will overclock at 439,439 or maybe 450,000. 475,000 or 500,000Phantom Limbs said:
Based on nothing at all
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