Next time I'd like....

Oooops, forgot one...if you want us to take a picture of something outdoors that's been placed there for that purpose, and it's only going to be there in the morning, don't place the object so that the morning sun is directly behind it. :)

Next time

1) a little earlier in the year. Scavenger hunts are fun, but easier if I can do them after work and not in the dark. I've had to cancel weekend things to be able to do the Scavenger hunts and Sunday puzzles

2) Mandatory team collaboration projects. All of the challenges technically could be done on your own.

3) String challenges.. not multiple single challenges. ex: you have to solve all three slide puzzles. On completion of the third puzzle, it gives you a website to explore. Solve the website, gives you documents to decrypt. Decrypt the documents, you get the code to start the scavenger hunt... etc. One challenge leads to a next. If the next isn't ready, a simple message of "Your next clue will be available in a few days"

Edit

4) The game to run from Friday through Thursday with the new weekly theme released late Thursday night. This would give us the weekend to better plan how to work on challenges. (I'm finding work is getting in the way of this weeks challenge to get to a library while they are open)

The geocaching idea is a great one. A related game is benchmark hunting, in which the player uses a gps to find survey markers, some of which are historic. Granted, not everyone has a gps, but that could encourage more teamwork!

Another cool thing would be extra FTF (first to find) points for the eggs and marks.

I've had so much fun with this I'd be willing to pay to do it. Perhaps an optional "donation" to help with expenses.

Agreed with minkserella, I would pay for this game.

Me too! Better set up the PayPal account now and capitalize on all this good will, PTI staff. :)

I'd say, put the easier/less time consuming web quizzes on Mon. and Fri., and change the gears and sliders to midweek. M/F tend to be the hardest days to get out of work on time/early, so why have the hardest games then?

I'm sure I'll think of more stuff later...

My biggest request is to change the 8pm deadlines or release the new puzzles at 8:01pm. I know you wanted consistency for the weekly submissions but I hate the time the puzzles take away from my children. I can't usually stay up until midnight when they come out and my best time to work on them would be 10-11 pm. Thankfully the weekly ones are all quick (except some gears) but Sunday is a killer. For Sunday puzzles - give us until midnight or something. I have taken an hour or 2 each Sunday away from the family to hit the 8:00 deadline. Please let us work on them once the kids are asleep.

I also agree geocaching should be involved. There are enough people in Rochester who geocache that you can just encourage teamwork. I would also like to see more things in the suburbs.

1. More paper and pencil puzzles. ;o) I love Zack's puzzles and would love to see more.

2. Geocaching sounds pretty cool. I like the suggestion above where it leads to historic markers.

3. Low tech scavenger hunt that uses cryptic clues that lead you to places where either the next clue is located or gives you a piece of the final submit code. i.e. Travelling east, on a numbered road, thru this ink filled farmland, you will come across an intersection with two gas stations and a popular eatery. Looking at the green sign, what are the initials also associated with?

4. I like the stringing of puzzles idea. This may be a good way to add in more paper and pencil puzzles.

5. I'd also like to explore some of the suburbs too.

It would be nice if the SCVNGR didn't require us to have a cell phone.
I also really like the idea of a "Low tech scavenger hunt that uses cryptic clues"

All great ideas! Here are my thoughts:

1) I'd like to see all of the online puzzles get progressively harder in order to earn the higher level achievements. For example, with the video quiz and maptitude, all you have to do is redo the puzzle in order to get the medium and OMG achievement, but all of the other puzzles get progressively harder in order to earn those higher level achievements. I agree with the previous post that the video quiz questions should require more deductive reasoning.

2) I'd like to see scavenger hunts that take us to other neighborhoods besides downtown and those that are trendy. Granted, these areas are also fairly safe but there are other neighborhoods that are significant without being completely dangerous (Corn Hill and Charlotte). The only westside neighborhood featured was High Falls and that was during Week 2.

I'd love to see more newspaper puzzles. I look forward to the Sunday paper so much now! That's the first time in a long time that my favorite part of the D&C isn't one of the online blogs (Bob Marcotte's excellent "Word on Birds" btw) and it makes me feel better about maintaining our subscription. :)

(and Bob's print columns are excellent too)

Special bonus points for weekly challenge winners? Maybe like 10 or 15 points?

That's a good idea, though in that case I think they ought to include awarding some "honorable mentions". There have been many, many submissions worthy of prizes, and it would help reward those that did a great job but weren't able to fit into the top. It might help to motivate those "just doing it for completion points because I know I won't be top 4" players!

Or limits on eggs, especially those that should have only given 30 people points? :D

Yeah I mentioned that in another thread in the tree forum as well. Should definitely be either expiration dates, or a max amount of people who are allowed to get full points on easter eggs, and other codes.

Another thing I'd like to see - have some "top 150" winners be based on overall points, but then have some winners done on a weekly basis. Those that joined the game late have almost no chance at being in the top 50. I missed out on the WXXI and early registration so I probably will never get past 29th place unless someone really messes up. In that case you need to make it harder to get points so not so many people are tied i.e. only 1 chance on some quizzes like was done for Rocdeals and more time limits on items. I really don't like the fact that some people are joining now and just being fed codes for puzzles we all worked on so time limits should help. I do not agree that some items should have a maximum number of people who can get the points as it is not fair to those who are working, have a soccer game etc.

A tweak to the scavenger hunt. Instead of getting the team code at the beginning how about getting a code when the hunt ends? This code is what is used to verify that you did the hunt. This would eliminate the need for a photo submission.

The reason for the photo at the end was to prevent people from "doing the hunt" while sitting on their couch at home.

Next time what we'll probably do is work with a vendor somewhere along the route and have them give out unique coded tickets to players when they come in. Then there's no need for a photo or remembering a teamcode.

Ah mamamusings. Since this is your first reply on this thread does that mean there will be a next time??

a. More vendor participation sounds like a great idea. Many of the vendors we encountered did not know about the game but seemed to be quite interested. Supporting local businesses is a very good thing. May I suggest you pick coffee shops with yummy goodies?

b. It is very encouraging to hear you speak of "next time." (We understand that doesn't imply a commitment.)

:D

I've been reading the thread *very* carefully. Didn't weigh in much because it's helpful just to hear what you all think. In fact, in tonight's newsletter we're pointing players to this thread to participate in the conversation.

Yes, we'd *LOVE* to do this again. Here and elsewhere. But, as I've told RIT, "the first one's free...after that it's gonna cost you." Not you as in the players, but there's got to be a mechanism for supporting the game development and management--whether it's partnerships with businesses, grant money, embedded advertising, or pay-to-play.

I would also like to see a more family friendly "prize". A gala on Halloween night just stinks for those of us with kids. I hate that I am leaving them right after trick or treating. After all the places they got dragged to, it would have been nice to have an ending for them too - like a family party with bounce houses or some kind of little prize.

My only real concern about adding ads to the website (especially on the flash pages) is that some players are having problems on older systems now with refresh rates. Adding flash ads will bog them out even more. Static ads aren't so bad, just adds to time to open page.

I think that the RocDeals quizes was a perfectly acceptable way to include advertising in the game. Not only did it give screen time to a variety of venders/businesses in the area and in a way that caused the players to actually read the sales pitches, but it also made the game players aware of a useful resource online. I think that this kind of usage for advertising would be more advantageous to businesses/sponsors than simply adding advertisements to the sides of flash games (I rarely 'see' the advertising that currently exists on websites). Another potentially useful application would be to incorporate a code and PTI symbol into printed ads in the newspaper (I've been subconciously looking for PTI symbols in newspaper ads for weeks just in case...)

We just had dinner with friends who had signed up for PTI before the game started. Unfortunately when they got to the first newspaper game (the rebus puzzle) they worked on it for two hours without solving it. At that point they figured the games would just be too hard and take up too much time, and dropped out. Both are professionals with master's degrees, but don't generally play games or do puzzles.

They suggested that perhaps the game could start with easier puzzles and get progressively harder over time, or maybe have both easy and difficult puzzles so there would be something for everyone. They also felt that the time commitment would be much too much since they both work full time. I told them I'd pass along their feedback.

The leaderboard is, at once, both a motivator, and a demotivaor. Dr. Lawley noted at her Salt Lake City presentation that points are great, because even when noone knew what a single point would be worth, they were delighted to get them. On the other hand, I notice, if someone is just starting out and sees the leaderboard fFilled with people who have ten thousand points, their 50 point webgame might not seem that exciting at all.

I'm not saying the leaderboard should be thrown out. It is, regardless, a great motivator. But it does seem like it might be insurmountable to some players. Maybe some sort of "casual player" leaderboard? I don't know exactly what I'm suggesting, I guess.

I suppose I'm thinking of some system which places value in effort, not just points. This would encourage fFactions with fFewer teammates, as well as easily discouraged players. But again, I'm not sure what it would involve or how it would work.

You're right that it's a double-edged sword, and we'll definitely give some thought to other ways to encourage casual participation.

Maybe you could split into divisions of play, one for the "RABID", lol serious players, with the harder puzzles and the gradually increasing points, with their own leaderboard and an amateur division for kids (the younger ones,not the teens),casual players and one timers. That way, the play is still there, the points still earned, but maybe in a different way, truly 'something for everyone'. There would have to be a division of prizes as well, or a different set of prizes altogether based on what was done and the age group. Micci

LOL "rabid". That's a pretty apt description for some of us, I think.

The problem I see there is that you're then basically running two games at once. Double the work = fFail! I liked having some puzzles which gave no points, but were great puzzles and gave the reward of plot and meta-puzzle. Some more of that would be pretty awesome in the fFuture. And anyway, fFun is it's own reward.

another idea for a type of game would be like an orienteering event; post a map with markers in certain places. When you go to the places there's a certain code letter, symbol, or whatever, to "collect." It wouldn't have to be a timed event like real orienteering.

Yeah the posting of points has dettered a number of latecomers. Perhaps if the leaderboard only shows the points earned that week instead of the cumulative points or uses a percentage instead of actual points earned for the overall leaders. I do agree this is a double edged sword.

Another idea might be to make available a printable form of the prior week scavenger hunts that are requested through e-mail. That way latecomers have a chance to build up points that they had missed and you can keep track of who completes them. Of course if you completed the original hunt, these tasks wouldn't be available.

Points:

To expand on what I mentioned about string challenges. No matter when you start the game, everyone starts at the beginning. One challenge rolls into the next and you can't do the 20th puzzle unless you've done the first puzzle. If someone started week 6, and had as much time as they could play, they theatrically could catch up points-wise to those that have been playing since week one. They way the game is set up now, yes this potentially could lead to a 2000 tie for first. There are ways to eliminate this, by only have one shot challenges where you don't get full points for getting something wrong. This would be the core game and this is what is used to determine the Charity scoring. This still wouldn't eliminate someone creating an account the last week, getting help and scoring a lot of points, but that would be a LOT of work to try and catch someone up like.

Concurrently, a side game could be played. Small little games - codes you see in the paper, along a scavenger hunt, on building. These points are used for individual standings and potential prizes. Again, code sharing could still be an issue, but when prize are involved, it increase the desire to not share something.

Third, small bonus points could be awarded to any weekly challenge winner or things like what the Twitter code was suppose to be - to the first 30 people.

The only thing I would be against is giving limited points when someone might be at a disadvantage (ie giving a limited code at 3pm when most people are working and either can't access the internet or leave work)

Something else I was thinking about.... instead of assigning a charity before anyone picks teams, announce the charity after them teams are set? While everyone likes to play for "their charity", by letting people pick teams first, this might eliminate any psychological stacking on one team.

My two cents: While you have over 2200 players signed up, just a Sunday puzzle or two will put you in the top 300. Which means, that most of those signed up are not participating at all or VERY little. There needs to be more incentive (twice a week emails with teasers?) for the casual player to get involved. The sponsors and advertisers will want to see larger numbers that 300 or so active players in a city the size of Rochester. Perhaps if you did more with surrounding communities, you could increase your base of active players as well.

it's a great idea, and I loved it. But no one I asked really heard of it. I saw the blurb in the paper for the early registration, and since I love puzzles signed up immediately. Perhaps if you advertise the community, give back, family involvement opportunities, etc, you could get more interest. What about having teachers use it for extra credit for high school students? Schools compete against each other (RIT vs. UR), etc?

A quick toss out to things fFor next time: Live events.

* It would be really really awesome to do something like The MP3 Experience.

* It was great to meet people during the week 1 SCVNGR.

* It would be interesting to get some local improv people to engage us with plot-stuff. I would have loved to meet The Marquis, fFor example.

* Most ARGs have the disadvantage of all users being spread out across the country, and can't really afford to have events everywhere. In this case, however, we are all obviously right here in town (more or less). There is no reason to not use dead-drops, with local contacts fFeeding us pieces of information.

I know, I know. Limited time, limited budget, limited staff. I'm just sayin.

:D

We had actually talked a lot about doing something like the MP3 experience, but simply didn't have the people to pull it off for this round. *Definitely* on our radar for the future.

The "dead drops" with local contacts is also something we'd like to do in the future, as well as having uniquely coded tickets at local spots so that there couldn't be code sharing and we could better track what spots people visited.

I had some ideas for dead drops related to narrative but unfortunately they didn't pan out in the final cut.

One thing I've enjoyed about this game is learning new things. I have no idea what a dead drop is, but if there's a next time, I know I'll figure out what it is and do it.

.......

Keep the variety in puzzle difficulty so there's something for everyone. If all of the puzzles become increasingly difficult, casual players either will never start or will drop out. Either way, they'll lose out on the social and charity fundraising aspects of this game.

The reason I started so late in the game was that I was unable to solve the Week 1 newspaper rebus before Sunday 8 p.m. I didn't know there was a message board to go to to get hints from other players. It was 3 days before I realized that gremlin thing was probably a Furby. By then it was too late to join.

Now I know one can join any time. But the way it was worded that first Sunday, it seemed that if we couldn't solve the puzzle by 8 p.m. that day, then don't bother joining the game.

I did that hot dog puzzle and still thought I couldn't join.

What got me to join in Week 4 was a sidebar blurb in the D and C on Friday or Saturday telling those who like paper puzzles to watch for the PTI puzzles the next day and to go to the PTI website for more information. I like paper puzzles. I went to the site for more info, had to register to get the info and only then learned the extent of the game.

loved the game. Suggestions for next time:

- shorter duration. 7 weeks was long. Maybe 4 or 5 weeks max?

- eliminate the "dead on-line puzzle zone" between 8pm and midnight. If you work and have other responsibilities, not having 8 - midnight available is tough. Simply run puzzles 8pm - 8pm the next day. On Friday nights, the weekly challenges would appear and no one seemed confused by this.

- make the video quiz questions relevant. By the end, it didn't matter if I paid rapt attention or not because I knew at least one of the questions would be so "out there" that I would never pick up on it. There's at least one question (I think on the Garth Fagan quiz) that I couldn't find the answer to even after knowing what it was... I don't think the intended take-away was for me to remember that the guy's sweater was green...

- loved that the game was "urban". I would be less interested in suburban games... especially scvngr hunts which require lots of driving. (Art venue and coffee crawl were my least favorite scvngr hunts).

- would not be interested in added geocaches. There are plenty of geocaches in the Rochester area. Something like this should add something new into the mix. Also, it shouldn't require you to have a gps. Now, having a puzzle that has GPS coordinates that you can then plug into Bing or google maps to figure out something, that might be interesting...

- loved unique web games like Maptitude and Gears that you can't find other places. Sure, jigsaws and sliders are o.k., but I can get them elsewhere if I want.

- I feel for you with the whole "I didn't get my points" thing. You definitely need to improve the point assignment process for achievements to be more user self-service and less Liz (I-have-nothing-better-to-do-with-my-time-than-figure-out-where-your-xxx-points-went) Lawley service

- as others have said, the weekly team points didn't work well as it was a forgone conclusion that the Tree would win every week. Maybe adding more disruptive scoring events (like the mega-point newspaper puzzle or maybe something like the first x people get y points) would help.

- more time for weekly challenges = better quality results. Consider giving folks more time (2 weeks notice).

- continue with the smorgasbord of options. It's a great way to get friends and family interested.

- have incredibly dedicated and talented staff members like this time. You folks were amazing!

Just a few thoughts/questions.....

If I am understanding this correctly, the faction that won each week was based on which one had the most points. If this is the case then the obvious advantage would be having 100 individuals supporting "Faction A" while "Faction B" has 50 and "Faction C" has 35 (DISCLAIMER: I'm not a math genius!) What if the winner each week was determined by a percentage, i.e. the maximum # points that "Faction A" is able to earn based on their number of players and the actual # of points earned. So if they earn 1000 points out of a possible 5000 points for the week they've achieved 20% where as the larger "Faction B" earned 5000 points out of a possible 50000 and though they earned more points they only achieved 10% of what they could have achieved. The number would be based on how many players each faction has at 11:59 pm with the new week beginning at Midnight.

I have a concern about one of the suggestions. If being able to go forward in the game to the next challenge depends on completing all prior challenges, I wouldn't be able to continue past the first week. I completed ZERO crossword puzzles and not for lack of trying. It is not one of my strengths and I openly admit that. With that said, I was still able to make the top 150 which would have been impossible had it be mandatory to complete a puzzle to move on to the next challenge. Additionally, I STILL have no idea what players refer to when they mention "Marquis", I stumbled onto some Easter Eggs and still haven't a clue on others, and if it wasn't for suggestions from other players on visiting certain website (decoding) I still wouldn't have an idea what the "Watchmaker" scenario was all about. I gave 100% in attempting to decode everything but even with my 100% I never earned the points. Making anything mandatory to move on would have caused me to have to stop participating in many areas.

Last thought is on funding for PTI 2. What if an vendor paid a fee to have players directed to their website. Each week a certain vendor(s)will be featured in "This Week" section. Within their website would be a PTI Code with a "mystery value". The value could be anywhere from 25 points to 150 points. Visiting the actual website would eliminate advertisements on a page that would slow some systems down.

That's all for now.......

Some thoughts on numbers, if we say that we would expext 50 percent more players for the next game, low balling, but just a test, that would make it about 3,500 - 4,000 and then we could realistically think that more members would go to the bigger charities. Maybe we could have a registration cutoff for each faction initially maybe like 750-950 each, if reached then it would not take more, you would initially choose another faction. Then if it is reached they can have a chance to sign up or change factions a couple of weeks in like we did this time. We start out even, then build, dont know if it makes logical sense, but it seems to in the end, mix it up a bit. I like all the other suggestions too. Micci

Interesting idea Paula and Alexandra had to weight the points in determining a weekly winner. ... BTW, the first Marquis is at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bF4e5npXt-Y - watch the very beginning countdown for the code. The second Marquis is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Og7HQdKz7xs - the code is staring right at you.

For subsequent games, to avoid alienating new-to-PTI players and making old players paranoid, it may be necessary to randomly assign registrants to a faction. I know I'd try to hook up with my fellow Forgies. We'd hit the ground running. Others may be inclined to do the same thing. Claims of cheating would mushroom, if only due to anxiety stemming from the possibility of it.

Surely an algorithm can be created to randomly assign players to factions while keeping the number of players within each faction relatively constant.

I wanna be in the FORGE!

I would not like being assigned to a faction supporting a specific charity instead of choosing for myself. Much of the energy I spent on this game was fueled by my sincere support for Golisano Children's Hospital where my grandson receives treatment. I had also considered the possibility of playing for the Forge since Foodlink supplies food for the soup kitchen at my church. It might be appropriate for the charities to do a little "advertising" (spreading the word about the good they do) when players are signing up. It also might be good to use percentages of points earned per number of players, as long as there was also a way to count only truly active players but eliminate any players who had signed on but then decided they did not really want to participate. Just please don't tell me which charity to play for!

I agree with Lucy. As my son is a cancer survivor, my daughter and her students volunteer for foodlink once a month, and being a former 21 year old single parent with no support system, all three charities were dear to my heart. I would not want someone to tell me which to support.

My nephew came with us for part of the first scavenger hunt, and was given one of the clue cards when we found a faction member. That just made his day, and for him it was like a real “blue’s clues” adventure. Children could be a big help on the scavenger hunts, and possibly on a few of the web games. I would like to see more things that players of all ages could do. While it is good to increase the difficulty of the puzzles, there should always be something for children to do. In my opinion, there should always be at least one newspaper puzzle each week that children can also help with.

If we all got our wish, I think we would have one great game that the whole country wound envy.

After talking to several people, there has been one complaint that keeps coming up: the daily 8pm deadline. Having a deadline of 8pm 6 out of the 7 days (Saturday's never had a deadline) took a lot out of people. I'm thankful I didn't have a business trip during this time or else I would have been sunk. I don't think people should be penalized if they have prior commitments and can't do a certain day's puzzle. If people could play at a more leisurely pace, perhaps having a weekly deadline to get everything done, I wonder if more people would have kept at it.

Next time I'd like to see a more open, collaborative environment. The factions seemed to cause, at least to some level, an unhealthy competition (with moles, accusations, etc.). And since faction points were accrued through discovering parts of the story, it didn't seem fair to post answers to everything until it the points wouldn't matter any more. If the only achievements related to the "alternate reality" part were "first to find", then:

1) answers could be posted in full (along with how they were found) so that everyone could be caught up...and you could have a story arch kept during the game
2) sites could change (it seemed awkward that picturethepossible.com didn't evolve over the game, but it really couldn't if new people needed to be able to learn how to look at the source code and get the first clue that was there)
3) new people could join in, read the "story so far" document and be ready to go when the next story update came.

My experience with that came from The Beast (the AI game) where there were no factions...it was the folks playing the game vs. those creating/writing the game (aka the puppetmasters). This also meant there was no "support forum", the game was what it was (and the puppetmasters kept an eye on our forums and "fixed" things that were really broken...but since the game was ever changing, you never knew what was "broken" and what was there on purpose).

The web puzzles and newspaper games also seemed like a separate entity...they didn't really tie directly into the ARG story, but were necessary for helping us learn more about Rochester. If the learning and the story tied in more closely (or the answers to one linked with answers to another, like was proposed in a another response) I think it would make the game feel more united.

About time...the last couple weeks of the game were pretty intense and necessitated a lot of time with the time limits we had, so I agree with the latest response about giving more time (maybe the following day at 8 pm, so you could do 2 days worth of puzzles at a time if you wanted).

Anyway, for all the alternate ideas I'm giving, the fact is that we stuck with it and did everything that was thrown at us because the game was a lot of fun and collaborating with new friends was invigorating. Kudos to the whole team that put this together from the designers to the coders to the folks who printed and delivered papers. :-) It was a huge endeavor which provided weeks of enjoyment (not to mention learning and new experiences) to thousands of people!

P.S. I'd be happy to help out next time if you need volunteers! :-)