Proposition For Decentralized, Sustainable ARG Template

Table of Contents:

Introduction

Chapter 1: Allowing Players to Define Each Other

Chapter 2: Players Altering Their Own Sense of Identity

Chapter 3: Memetic Cascades Into New Worlds

Chapter 4: Chronological Template For Seeding Artifacts

Chapter 5: Nuances Of NOEAP

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INTRODUCTION:

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The main problematic issues surrounding many ARGs in play today are generally:

(1) Immersion

(2) Narrative

(3) Interplay between 1 and 2

I hope to specify some of the details of these issues and posit possible solutions that
can be integrated into the structure of an ARG to allow for further decentralization, more player
control, more immersion and more long lived ARGs in general.

First, Immersion. This is the vast attractor of an ARG compared to other, single media
games. At its conceptual apex, a player should have no idea that he or she is actually playing a
game at all, but that the actions he or she (I'll just use "she" to save time) takes are integral to
the alteration of some perceived "real" trajectory. These trajectories can bleed together aspects
of the political, the temporal, the geographical, the metaphysical and the psychological realms
that the player acts within or perceives herself to be acting within.

The problem surrounding the topic of immersion is steeped in the personal history of
the player. A player has a conceptual mapping of the "real" world that she inhabits, and if there
is a disconnect between this established mapping and the mapping of the alternate reality,
immersion is broken.

Also, if at any time an ARG is acknowledged to be an ARG, immersion is broken. These

can be outright acknowledgements, or implied acknowledgements that can occur when a player
takes it upon herself to attempt to uncover the aspects of the ARG that are behind the scenes.
An example of this would be some link on an ARG clue-harboring website that leads to the
website of the ARG developers.

Most importantly and most difficult to circumnavigate, is the break in immersion that
occurs when a players action does not have the magnitude of world alteration that was implied
by the narrative. These sorts of breaks become more dissonant the closer that the ARG
narrative runs to "real" world political or structural elements.

The keys to maintaining immersion then, are to narrow the gap of possibility of breaks
emerging in the player experience. Ideally, a player should never be introduced to the game as a
game, should never be able to tell that the game is a game even if one digs below the veneer of
the ARG, and should be able to witness changes in the world that are relative in both scope and
direction to the power that the narrative grants their actions in a given context.

Keeping all of this in mind, lets move on to the narrative aspect of ARGs.

Narrative involves several aspects, and of course both depends on and is dependent
upon immersion, but let's try to break it down into manageable chunks for the sake of analysis.
Any good narrative involves five things at least:

a) A setting, a cosmos, in which it is to take place.

b) A tapestry of lore within that cosmos that the player has not directly experienced but is
implied through history, prophecy, expectations, artifacts etc..

c) The percieved role of the player in (a), in the context of (b).

d) The percieved role of individuals or conglomerations, both directly percieved by the player
and implied through (b), that are not the player.

e) The available actions that a player can actually do, through the lense of (c), in the context of
(b), in the midst of (a) and (d), to achieve some goal that, ideally, progresses or alters (a,b,c,d
and e)

If all of these elements are handled with fidelity and tact, they should all progress and
alter the others isomorphically, so that the entire narrative structure itself becomes a sort of
self-propelling engine that is nebulous and decentralized.

This ideal is usually not achieved for a variety of reasons. The main reason being that
most ARGs exist for some purpose beyond or outside of its own scope. The main example is
marketing campains. The game ends when the product is unveiled, or cannot continue due to a
break in immersion caused by the unveiling of the product.

The main fix for this is to create an ARG that exists for its own sake, in a decentralized,
release-into-the-wild fashion. More on this later.

Lastly, we have our third consideration, which is the interplay between narrative and
immersion. This is by far the most delicate and precarious aspect, and more often than not, it is
failure here that results in lame narrative and shotty immersion. Of course, a lame narrative or
shotty immersion also will cause a collapse in this region. The three issues are inseperable, and
each must be handled with the rest in mind.

The main way to ensure good interplay between immersion and narrative, and thus a
compelling ARG, is simply to have deep immersion and a good narrative structure. Because this
aspect either makes or breaks itself depending on the other two, we will just dive into what it
takes to maximize the quality of narrative and immersion for good interplay and a deeply
satisfying ARG.

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CHAPTER 1: Allowing Players to Define Each Other.

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Firstly, let's consider some of the finer details of sealing up the possibility for breaks in a
players immersion when playing an ARG.

In my opinion, the hardest and most crucial break point to fix is the one created through
a player snooping into the underlying structure of the ARG. It's easy enough to detach the multi-
media elements from the initial designers, but generally, the same unveiling of the suspension
of disbelief occurs by digging too deeply into the lore of the ARGs narrative.

This usually happens when an element of lore is introduced in a stark contrast to its
cosmos, or in too stark a contrast to the players established conceptions of their "real" world.
Let's use the ARG "Ingress" by Niantic as an example.

In the game, there is a fundemental type of matter that takes prominence, called Exotic
Matter or XM. If a player, interested in this type of matter and its effects, took to the web to
research its properties, they would quickly find out that the matter in fact, does not exist. All
documents relating to the XM are produced by one web site, which is far too closely linked to
the actual developers and to google to prevent a break in immersion from happening.

This break point could have been easily prevented through tactful manipulation of the
internet medium. Multiple sites could have been utilized, a more gradual introduction of the
concept of the substance could have been integrated, but this all comes with increased cost,
time and effort. So the question is raised, how can ARG co-developers seal these types of break
points in a cost effective, organic manner that feels authentic?
 My proposition it to utilize player roles and lore in such a way that the in-game activities
of one player encourage the manipulation and proliferation of lore that purposefully fosters a
strengthening of the aspects of percieved reality of other players. This would create a feedback
loop between players, where players in role X, perceive it as beneficial to alter the perceptions
of role Y, while framing role Y to role X in a way that would make them unlikely to believe that
the same thing is happening to them. Of course, apply the same template to role Y as well.

If done correctly, you will have 2 (ideally way more than 2) roles of players, unaware
that multiple roles are established, feeding disinformation and elaborate lore to the other roles,
all while having the legitimacy of the function of their role established through the lore that
other roles are feeding to them in the same way.

To achieve this fine balance, the roles as they appear to the player playing that role
would have to be crafted under the constraint of certain criteria:

1) The role cannot be "selected" by a player, but has to emerge within the players perception as
the only rational role. (With any other percieved roles being essentially antagonistic or "npc")
This can be done through defining the roles in terms of temperament or persona.

2) The roles have to be established in such a way that a player already embodying a role would
not recognize the emergence of another role even if they stumbled upon it. This can be done
through a drastic variation in the structure of the emergence of one role to the next, in relation
to the temperament of the individual which a role is tailored to be recognized by.

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CHAPTER 2: Players Altering Their Own Sense of Identity

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Taking these points into consideration, let's continue on to practical theory as to how
this can all come about.

As was mentioned earlier, a players percieved role will always be dependent upon that
roles' narrative, while at the same time, the possible trajectory of a narrative is dependent upon
the scope and type of a players role. They both define each other, with no aspect percievably
more fundamental than the other. How then can a suitable role emerge organically through
narrative, that can then establish the narrative from which the role, (and other roles) emerge?

The core of the solution involves starting with where the player is already at, in terms of
narrative, cosmos, and role. We will call these three elements in their isomorphic existence as
the players "nexus of experience". Using this nexus of experience, an artifact can be crafted to
allow the player herself to alter her own nexus of experience through whichever avenue suits
her temperament. If one angle of the players nexus of experience can become self altered, the
rest will isomorphically alter themselves as well.

While these nexus of experience can drastically vary from player to player, depending on
aspects of itself that have been the most concretely pre-defined, (geographical location,
pervaiding philosophy and mythos, appearence of self) it appears that there are some
overwhelming majorities that can be utilized for the sake of generalization. These majority
dictated general assumptions can be called the "basic" nexus of experience.

Most players believe themselves to be humans, on a planet in space, amongst other

humans that share that space and are fundementally the same as them in terms of subjective
experience. (i.e., whatever a player thinks about how their consciousness functions, they
assume other peoples' consciousness acts in basically the same way.)

Of course, the role of "human" is highly non-specific, fundemental and incomplete, but
this is the most basic generalization we can make.

We do see examples in nature of radical subjective alterations of these norms, so we

can assume it is not totally beyond the realm of possibility to craft an artifact that, when
stumbled upon by a player, can introduce memes that are mediated in such a way as to alter the
fundemental aspects of the basic nexus of experience.

For this scenario, we will define the quality of an artifact in terms of how well it allows a
player to cognitively alter their own nexus of experience in such a way that the most
fundamental aspects become something other than basic. As stated elsewhere, if one aspect of
the nexus of experience becomes changed, the others will change as well, thus ushering the
player into a wholly new nexus of experience.

What exaclty this new nexus of experience consists of, and the new set of actions it can
introduce to a player that are applicable to an isomorphic exchange of self propelling gameplay
among roles, depends on several contextual factors that will be discussed in the next chapter.

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CHAPTER 3: Memetic Cascades Into New Worlds.

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So far, we have explored the viability of organically emerging, temperament based

nexus of experience and how these can serve as templates for an ARG structure that is
decentralized, equanimous in terms of authorship, and self-propelling.

Our exploration has only been on the surface level though, and to dive deeper we will
have to elucidate the intracacies of exactly how the new nexus of experience in which artifacts
can lead a player into, can emerge into existence as being applicable to the goal of fostering
gameplay activities which provide isomorphism to other roles under the criteria mentioned in
chaper 1.

The solution here, in my opinion, is to have an applicable background memeplex already

in place once the player alters their nexus of experience through the memes generated by the
appropriate artifacts. These memes would initially be dysmorphic to the players initial nexus of
experience, producing no noticable cognitive alteration except for mild confusion, annoyance, or
unexplained physiological unease. These memes would lay in a type of dormancy in the
background of the abstract phase space, until activated by the emergence of their isomorphic
nexus of experience within the player. At this moment of alteration, these background memes
would transistion into the foreground instantly, establishing aspects of the players new nexus of
experience in relation to the aspect that was initially altered by the applicable artifact with which
the player cognized themselves into their new nexus of experience. In this way, roles for players
to emerge into can be subconsciously retrofitted in a fashion that only manifests in alignment to
that players temperament.

The next complication to be tackled here, is how exactly can an artifact of high quality be
crafted in a way that can easily allow a player to cognize an alteration in an aspect of their nexus
of experience, thus facilitating the memetic cascade from background to foreground and the
emergence of a new nexus of experience relevant to the co-mutual advancement of the ARG in
question?

in the next chapter, I will attempt to posit a solution for this complication in the form of
a...

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CHAPTER 4: Chronological Template For Seeding Artifacts.

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Because an artifact cannot be of an effectively high quality without being built on the
foundation of a players initial nexus of experience, and the memetic cascade cannot take place
unless a player cognizes an alteration of an aspect of their nexus of experience (now called NOE
to save time) through the artifact, it actually becomes an initial necessity to solidify the basic
NOE in a player, so as to position them in a manner in which all of the elements can come
together in their appropriate fashions at their appropriate times.

What we have now are three types of artifacts, each serving a purpose to be fulfilled in a
certain temporal context in a process known as the "NOE alteration protocol". Each type should
have two layers of meaning at least, but artifacts can and do exist that facilitate all three types at
different times when interacting with different memeplexes in players.
 The first type of artifact is one that generates memes that are isomorphic to the basic
NOE and validate the basic NOE at one layer, and on another layer generates memes that are
isomorphic to the background memeplex and build upon its structure. It should be noted that
both sets of memes are introduced by the same signals, to be interpreted in different ways
depending on whether a players NOE are at/near "basic" or are in an altered state isomorphic to
the background memeplex. This sort of artifact serves both to engrain the basic NOE in a player,
and to validate the shift in a players NOE.

This type one artifact should ideally be the first and the last artifact a player runs into on
the temporal sequencing of NOE alteration protocol.

The second type of artifact is one that generates memes that are dysmorphic to the
basic NOE at one layer, and on another layer generates memes that are isomorphic to the
background memplex. Once again, same signals. This sort of artifact serves both to nudge a
player towards a shift in an aspect of their NOE, and to serve as an anchor point for that NOE
once it becomes shifted.

This type two artifact should be designed to be cognitive noise to a player at basic NOE
unless they are experiencing it in context of memes implanted by a type three artifact.

The third type of artifact is one that serves to elucidate the first layer of a type two
artifact, and facilitate the player in cognizing that first layer to initiate a change in an NOE aspect.
It is at this point that the memetic cascade mentioned in the previous chapter should take place,
so that the type two artifact serves as both the tipping point and the initial validation of NOE
alteration.

This type three artifact should be designed to be dysmorphic to basic NOE and ergo
cognitive noise to a player unless experienced in context of memes implanted by a type two
artifact.

The temporal sequence of experience should be 1,2,3,2,1 to complete the NOE

alteration protocol.

So to reiterate the structure of the NOEAP more clearly;

First a player comes across a type 1 artifact, which both agrees with and solidifies basic
NOE while subconsciously implanting structuring of the background memeplex. Next a player
comes across a type 2 artifact, which builds deeper the background memeplex while appearing
superficially as confusing nonsense. Later, the player accesses a type 3 artifact, which implants
memes that basically complete a subconscious looping into wakeful awareness that cause the
player to say "Wait just a minute!" before re-experiencing the previous artifact with an altered
hermanuetical lense. This re-interpretive experience should cause an NOE aspect to shift,
initiating the cascade of the background memeplex to the foreground, which becomes solidified
once the player re-experiences the initial type 1 artifact, wherein the 2nd layer of meaning will
have become the more obvious meaning.

At such a point, the background memeplex will have fully cascaded into the foreground
of the abstract phase space, which will cause a change to occur in the spectacular representation
running in that space. Thus the ushering of an "alternate reality" ensues.

It should be noted that multiple varieties of each type of artifact can and should be
deployed at the same time. By crafting them with skill, it is nearly ensured that they will
naturally be cognized in the correct sequencing by the appropriate temperament.

It should also be mentioned that a type 3 artifact should be in the form of an immersive
experience that actually nessesitates input and feedback from the player. It is better for this
artifact type to dissolve upon use in the concrete, whereas the other two types must be in a
format that allows them to be re-experienced at least once. Once the NOEAP has finalized, all
related artifacts could dissolve, but this may not be feasable.

The next chapter will take a deeper look into the NOEAP and how this single protocol
can serve as the foundation for entire fractalizing, self transforming immersive and maleable
narrative arcs, thus creating the backbone of this proposition.

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CHAPTER 5: Nuances Of NOEAP

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NOTES: NOEAP's can be built atop one another, causing a player to move further and further
from basic and engrain themselves more deeply into a refined and well defined role. Eventually
the NOE's can include built in self alterating techniques that cause subsequent NOEAP's to be
both effecting and caused by the player.