Even the best minds at 42 Entertainment creating the most coordinated and immersive alternate reality game cannot escape the laws of reality and weather. Attempting to pull off one of the biggest stunts in ARG history, weather has disrupted 2 of 5 planned Vanishing Point sky-writing events around the world today. Rain in Austin Texas forced the cancellation of one event, and excessive cloud cover in Phoenix forced the event to be moved 20 miles east.
Robert McLaws was one of many who attended the original Phoenix event only to miss out on the event all together due to lack of communication and coordination from the event organizers.
Taking into account the nature of the event, could you blame 42 Entertainment for the sudden change in plans? Remember, ‘they’ don’t exist in the world of Vanishing Point. Can you blame anyone, except god? Does anyone actually hold any accountability for anything that happens inside an alternate reality game?
Regardless of accountability or crappy weather, the extraordinary people at the Neowin community solved all of the week 2 puzzles within a matter of hours after it was posted, even without all the clues. Loki said she would give extraordinary prizes to extraordinary people, I think she’s found them.
But who deserves to win? The people who actually spends time, effort and brain cells to solve every puzzle, or the people who sits back and read Vanishing Point Wiki the day after for all the correct answers? Because Vanishing Point is a game of chance, not skill, people who don’t solve any puzzles, or even don’t do anything (except register and get 20 free points) can still win. Is this fair to the extraordinarily smart people? I can’t exactly clear myself of the guilt.
Of course, the meta puzzle to win the opportunity for a person’s name to be engraved on thousands if not millions of AMD Athlon 64 FX chips is still a game of skill. Only the first person to correctly solve that side-quest will win that prize. And they deserve it.
Only 14 more days before Loki vanishes. Things are starting to heat up.
Comments for "Reality hits alternate reality game"
zzap
I’ll be glad when this Loki vanishes. She annoys me.
Jason
I was at the event in Austin only to find out later that it was cancelled… At least I knew I wasn’t crazy when I found out it was cancelled rather than just not being able to find it…
BenN
In the words of my grandmother (who probably stole the quote from someone else) - “You’re only cheating yourself”.
Yeah, it is a game of luck, and a result of that is that it’s unlikely to be the cleverest person who wins anyway, so we might as well do whatever we like. From my point of view, I like to see how many of the puzzles I can solve either by myself or with a few friends first, before wandering over to the wiki and finding my missing answers. Even then I want to know why the answer is what it is, so I read the full explanations and don’t just skip to the bottom to find the word.
Besides, I think it’d be quite funny if, on the launch platform, the winner turns around and admits using the wiki to get their answers.
Justin
And I love their spelling of Australia in the image above! Mikrosoft ar awsome at spellink!
zzap
You’re right Justin! I never noticed! The spelt Australia wrong!
Justin
I think they spelt it phonetically as we Australian’s say the word Australia!
Carl
Mr long,
Where do I sign up so I can win prizes?
Shawn
I think I’m in love with Loki…
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Vanishing Point - Week 2
In just a few hours the community of individuals working on the Vanishing Point puzzles had managed to
» “Vanishing Point” Sky-Writing Event Runs Into Foul Weather » InsideMicrosoft - part of the Blog News Channel
[...] Unfortunately, the weather got in the way, as rain in Austin cancelled that event, and excessive cloud coverage in Phoenix forced the event to be moved 20 miles at the last minute. Well, even in an Alternate Reality Game, you have to deal with the facts of this reality, and I guess even Loki can’t control the weather. You know, Microsoft could have consulted the Soviets, who had some good ideas on weather control. [...]