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Post by thegenii on Nov 27, 2016 14:00:34 GMT -5
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Post by Todd on Nov 27, 2016 14:41:31 GMT -5
And to think I was about to throw all mine away....
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Post by helenahandbasket on Nov 27, 2016 15:19:42 GMT -5
I think they were $30 plus $5 shipping. There are some compulsive completionists in the ME crowd who came in late and simply must have the complete set. Archon and Raven were re-released over the summer in their premium format, but it looks like they're sold out. The boxes after that point have been commanding good prices and Coraline was one of their better mysteries. I sold my whole set in a single transaction a few months back. I was careful to explain that one of the puzzles can no longer be solved (the DNA puzzle) because the website necessary for the translation is no longer active. I added a file that's the original text encrypted with something more commonplace, which he appreciated.
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Post by craigrj on Nov 28, 2016 4:55:45 GMT -5
My goodness, I had someone send one over to me in the UK at under cost price - I hope they are not kicking themselves now...
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Post by Todd on Nov 28, 2016 6:53:13 GMT -5
I was careful to explain that one of the puzzles can no longer be solved (the DNA puzzle) because the website necessary for the translation is no longer active. I added a file that's the original text encrypted with something more commonplace, which he appreciated. It's solvable. It's a Baconian code. The upper case and lower case characters represent 1s and 0s respectively in an ASCII string.
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Post by helenahandbasket on Nov 28, 2016 7:50:49 GMT -5
I was careful to explain that one of the puzzles can no longer be solved (the DNA puzzle) because the website necessary for the translation is no longer active. I added a file that's the original text encrypted with something more commonplace, which he appreciated. It's solvable. It's a Baconian code. The upper case and lower case characters represent 1s and 0s respectively in an ASCII string. I probably should have said, "Can't be solved as intended." I'm not sure that the ME crowd, in general, is going to be chasing down a variation on a Baconian cipher . That puzzle was changed when the experience was re-released.
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Post by Todd on Nov 28, 2016 9:04:23 GMT -5
I probably should have said, "Can't be solved as intended." I'm not sure that the ME crowd, in general, is going to be chasing down a variation on a Baconian cipher. That puzzle was changed when the experience was re-released. I don't know Mr. Forrest's intent with the puzzle, but seeing as this was his first monthly box, and based on his previous ARG experience, the launch game for his book The Genesis Code, I think it's more reasonable to expect him to believe that his subscribers were going to be ARG enthusiasts who would be inclined to solving puzzles, codes, and ciphers. As you know, it didn't sit well with me that his intent was for us to Google a very specific turn of phrase to uncover a website unaffiliated with his game (and now apparently defunct) that used the Baconian to ASCII method to encode and decode text into DNA sequences. In fact, of the many websites that used DNA sequences for encryption, this was the only one that used a Baconian method. If I had accepted that "Google to find a solver" was his intent with that puzzle, I'd have cancelled on the spot. That is why I pressed on until I found a solution that satisfied me. Furthermore, I fear that the inability of many of his subscribers to solve this cipher longhand was one of the factors that lead to the dumbing-down of his monthly boxes into the Mystery-In-A-Box Party Games that they turned into. I think you're putting the cart before the horse is all. His crowd didn't exist when he developed his first box. The evolution of his crowd led to the changing of the format.
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Post by helenahandbasket on Nov 28, 2016 9:21:03 GMT -5
I don't know Mr. Forrest's intent with the puzzle, but seeing as this was his first monthly box, and based on his previous ARG experience, the launch game for his book The Genesis Code, I think it's more reasonable to expect him to believe that his subscribers were going to be ARG enthusiasts who would be inclined to solving puzzles, codes, and ciphers. As you know, it didn't sit well with me that his intent was for us to Google a very specific turn of phrase to uncover a website unaffiliated with his game (and now apparently defunct) that used the Baconian to ASCII method to encode and decode text into DNA sequences. In fact, of the many websites that used DNA sequences for encryption, this was the only one that used a Baconian method. If I had accepted that "Google to find a solver" was his intent with that puzzle, I'd have cancelled on the spot. That is why I pressed on until I found a solution that satisfied me. Furthermore, I fear that the inability of many of his subscribers to solve this cipher longhand was one of the factors that lead to the dumbing-down of his monthly boxes into the Mystery-In-A-Box Party Games that they turned into. I think you're putting the cart before the horse is all. His crowd didn't exist when he developed his first box. The evolution of his crowd led to the changing of the format. As you say, we don't know Mr. Forrest's intent, but I do know that the website is gone and the puzzle was changed. I thought the purchaser deserved a warning that the resource people had used to solve it was no longer available (for quite a lot of people that would make it unsolvable) and that the later release used a different cipher.
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Post by craigrj on Nov 28, 2016 10:59:19 GMT -5
I keep track of what MEC release on a monthly basis even if I cannot get ahold of them on any sort of regularity, the contents are pretty well known each month, and it's clear that this evolution in product that Todd mentions has continued over the course of this year - they've moved away from the overly obvious Party Game side of things and introduced more puzzley type things: Chris Forrest has even commented on this, giving the audience what they want. Now they've capped out at 500 subscribers per month (which seems to be the limit they feel they can handle) it seems the process has worked - and there's an interesting parallel here with MPC of course and the possibility that MPC has dumbed down v3 in comparison to v1 and v2: perhaps MPC are seeking to grow their audience a la MEC and they feel being too complicated makes them too niche?
If so then I'm afraid those hankering after the halycon days of v1 and v2 may be disappointed but from MPC's point of view the potential loss of long term subscribers would potentially be more than offset by the influx of new subscribers.
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Post by helenahandbasket on Nov 28, 2016 17:51:54 GMT -5
I keep track of what MEC release on a monthly basis even if I cannot get ahold of them on any sort of regularity, the contents are pretty well known each month, and it's clear that this evolution in product that Todd mentions has continued over the course of this year - they've moved away from the overly obvious Party Game side of things and introduced more puzzley type things: Chris Forrest has even commented on this, giving the audience what they want. Now they've capped out at 500 subscribers per month (which seems to be the limit they feel they can handle) it seems the process has worked - and there's an interesting parallel here with MPC of course and the possibility that MPC has dumbed down v3 in comparison to v1 and v2: perhaps MPC are seeking to grow their audience a la MEC and they feel being too complicated makes them too niche? If so then I'm afraid those hankering after the halycon days of v1 and v2 may be disappointed but from MPC's point of view the potential loss of long term subscribers would potentially be more than offset by the influx of new subscribers. I'm not sure the ME boxes were ever that much of a challenge, tho. I don't have Archon in my possession any more, but what took half the time was going thru a very convincing 'contents of desk' evidence bag that had everything but the kitchen sink in it. It came with a flash drive that had password protected files on it, the first order of business was to open the files. One password was in the evidence bag written on the back of a photo and another was the sum of a magic square that was on a piece of email. I think the other one was inside the file that came before it in sequence (but it has been a while). There was a caesar, of course, maybe two, and another cipher puzzle that I solved like a cryptogram. I noticed was actually a keyed caesar after the cipher was completed using DNA as the password. Rumkin comes in handy for managing the manual labor on substitution ciphers. Oh, I almost forgot the DNA puzzle that could likewise be decoded with the help of a website. And, of course, there was the murder mystery itself to solve based on the evidence. I always expected the Archon storyline to come back because there was a lot of untapped potential to it. It's odd -- it looks like the early threads have gone missing, I was going to double check that 5 puzzles plus the murder was correct. Anyway, a friend and I solved it in maybe an hour or two, real time in a chat PM window while we were both at work. I did write to Chris Forrest afterwards to find out if this level of difficulty was representative of what was in the works. He said that while he would prefer more difficult puzzles, he didn't want to alienate subscribers. While there might be a difficult puzzle in a box, the solution would never be material to the plot. Speaking for myself, Coraline was the best box I got before I cancelled my subscription. It had a little broader variety of puzzles and an interesting story. The next couple of boxes after that didn't really hit my price/entertainment equation, so I cancelled my subscription. He seemed like a nice guy who was genuinely interested in what people had to say and in finding his niche. I'm glad things have gone well for him!
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Post by bladedraconis on Dec 13, 2016 0:32:41 GMT -5
I can't believe I still haven't cancelled my subscription...
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Post by helenahandbasket on Dec 13, 2016 7:49:56 GMT -5
Did it improve? I'm a mail drop for a friend in the UK since they don't do international. I know they have more stuff than they did, but stuff itself doesn't necessarily tell a good story, it's just stuff. Are the mysteries any better? The one just before The Dragon was my last one -- was that the Alice in Wonderland one? I can't remember now, but I sent it on a one-way trip to a friend who was wondering if it was worth subscribing.
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Post by bladedraconis on Dec 14, 2016 12:44:29 GMT -5
Did it improve? I'm a mail drop for a friend in the UK since they don't do international. I know they have more stuff than they did, but stuff itself doesn't necessarily tell a good story, it's just stuff. Are the mysteries any better? The one just before The Dragon was my last one -- was that the Alice in Wonderland one? I can't remember now, but I sent it on a one-way trip to a friend who was wondering if it was worth subscribing. No, not really. It's more like, every time I try to cancel something stops me There were two mysteries I absolutely loved - Bones of Angels and the ongoing Raven. I was going to cancel before Bones of Angels and didn't when I saw the topic. Now I see that Raven returns again in 2017. What I do is, I pause my subscription for things I'm not interested in and resume when a good story comes along. They do get a lot of bad feedback nowadays - puzzle mistakes (and not the MPC kind and poor customer service.
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Post by thegenii on Dec 14, 2016 16:14:52 GMT -5
Sold for $255!
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Post by thegenii on Dec 14, 2016 16:15:47 GMT -5
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