The summary thread - look here if you want to catch up

[Six]

I've been meaning to write this for a few days now, and now I've got some time (actually, I really should be working :P) I finally will. Try not to let the size of this post daunt you, it should (hopefully) have everything in it a new person would need to get up to speed. Also, I'm bound to miss stuff, so if anyone has things to add or questions just post em below.

Story of what has happened so far:
So beginning from the beginning, as one does, this all started out with an episode of the TV series Numb3rs. The episode centered around an ARG (Alternate Reality Game) that was to do with an MMO in the episode called Primacy. NOTE- Skip down and don't read anything between the *'s if you really don't want the episode spoiled for you.
****************
Basic plot summary of the show is that there was a prize for the ARG of [url]1,000,000 dollars which the bad guy 'Spectre' aka Gary Myers was killing people to try and win. He was part of a group called the Shadowhound Brigade, along with Frank Riegert. As the episode went on we found Gary had killed Frank and was going solo for the prize. At the end when he was confronted he said how he wanted the money for use in his 'Chain Factor' game, his seemingly big dream of a wide spanning ARG type game that went 'beyond the control of corporations'. But the the good old FBI dive in, arrest him and save the day.
****************
So anyway, jump beyone the show now and unfiction (the main ARG comunity) starts discussing the meta aspects of episode like they so enjoy doing. Most people are happy with how ARGs were portrayed, though there were comments that what they had wasn't exactly an ARG.

Then suddenly imbri over at unficiton got an email asking her to participate in the beta test of Chain Factor saying 'Chain Factor is a new kind of game, and contains a collaborative social aspect that we think you might find interesting'. The website had a rather neat flash game on it (which I'm sure you all know well ) and some interesting undertones in some of the FAQ and things. It also seemed that people were getting directed to the site through ads on the CBS, Sportsline and Star Trek websites. The ads themselves contained small puzzles which resulted in a 9 digit number and a keyword which people found when entered into the flash game in the 'enter code' part started to unlock bits of different powers that were usable in certain game modes. Real word ads also began to be found, such as in the New York subway, and soon 2 powers had been unlocked, Lure and Redeem.

Then the error codes started to come. It seemed that at random when you got game over, sometimes an error message would pop up (these are described in more detail below). The error messages showed snippets of what looked like code comments and email messages between '/s' and '-F', being Spectre and Frank from the show. They also gave us information about where more of the unlock keys for unlocking new powers may be, listing some real world locations, times for ads on TV and the like. Now came a time of lots of error codes and unlock keys being found and new powers being unlocked (for a good chronological list check the bottome of the main page of the wiki). Which pretty much brings us up through what has happened till now.


Now, to go into a bit more detail (in no particular order) about things we've gleaned from experimenting and from the error codes:

About getting errors:
The actual condition for getting an error code hasn't been able to be pinned down, but we have discovered that which error you receive depends on the powers used and score you get (detailed on this wiki page). However there have been a few other errors that we're not sure of the trigger for, being the 999 (pic here), and the two 000 erors (here).

Emerging Frank and Spectre story and conflict:
Zotmeister sums up this quite well here, but yeah, Spectre seems to have though of some exploit to an economic trading type system and got Frank to code this flash game to use human input to solve complex problems involved with it. Frank finds out what is going on, wants a bigger piece of the payout and gets killed. I'd highly recommend reading through the error codes on the wiki if you have time, a neat little read and most of what we've discovered has been from them.

Shutdown codes:
In some of the error codes people got, at the bottom was also included a 'shutdown code' (the first someone got was posted about here). Error code 097 states:

* I've created a series of shutdown keys that will allow us to turn the
* whole system off in case of emergency. For safety, I've set it up so
* that they'll need to entered simultaneously from 12 different machines
* in 12 different locations (with unique IPs). We can set up a dozen
* zombies to execute that remotely if it comes down to it.
* /s

So it seems to stop the game completing whatever it's nefarious task is, we'll have to shut it down. Wiki page detailing more here.

The KeyCodes for unlocking powers:
These codes consist of a nine digit number and a keyword, which are entered from the bottom option in the main menu of the game. Originally none of the 12 powers that can be used in power and survival mode were usable, each having 3 'locks' on them. For each key people entered different locks were released and when all 3 locks on a power are removed it is available for everyone to use.

The codes have been found in a number of places, check the wiki here for the entire list of all found. The largest number have come from ads found on the CBS, Sportsline and Star Trek websites, but there have also been a number of billboards, subway ads, text messages, TV spots in ad-breaks during Numb3rs and even things from inside the original Numb3rs episode that started this. We now have only 3 remaining to find, some spec on those in this thread.

What you can do and final thoughs:
So what do we do now? I'd say the most important thing right now is to find the last 3 unlock codes so we can get the final error codes from power combinations that aren't possible at the moment. Trying to work out if we can find the conditions for actually receiving an error on game over would be useful too, some work on that was going on in this thread here. 2 more error codes (that are possible to get with the powers we have) need to be found still, the 300-400k P and 400k+ PPP (EDIT- Scratch that, the single P was got by catherwood so only the PPP left ), as seen on the error code prediction page from the wiki.

Also, f there is anything you think you've discovered that people have missed, ideas you want to put forward or question you want to ask feel free to post em. Just make sure to use the search up the top there before posting, to make sure that you aren't just repeating something someone else has alread said. Reading the wiki is also handy, as it's got pretty much everything solid we've found on it.

Finally, and probably most importantly too, play the game and enjoy yourself. Everyone around here is a pretty friendly bunch and new eyes are always good to look at anything others might have missed.
Oh, and good effort if you actually read through all of that.