Letter to X-Box and Halo fans By now, most of you have seen the mess of a page that's over on www.ilovebees.com . As most of you know, the URL for this page was flashed up for a moment at the end of the Halo 2 trailer. Since then it's been slashdotted, and discussed on dozens of online forums and fan pages which you have probably already seen. This letter is to explain what you are looking at when you load up www.ilovebees.com WTF is this? www.ilovebees.com is fundamentally an advertisment. It is probably being run by Bungie, and Microsoft is probably involved. I say probably because nobody can be completely sure who is running what here. It's the nature of the beast. One purpose of www.ilovebees.com is to drum up hype and anticipation for Halo 2. The other purpose is to provide a very different kind of gaming experience. To some people www.ilovebees.com appears to be the "Trailhead" for a new ARG, or Alternate Reality Game. These games are like interactive stories and mysteries, or maybe an online version of Myst. A series of fake websites have been created - with fake webmasters; webmasters friends; e-mail accounts; AIM, MSN and Yahoo Messenger accounts and so on. These websites have been filled with puzzles and hidden depths and the aim of the game is to unravel the mysteries surrounding these websites. Microsoft has a history of dabbling in this. They were behind the first major game of this type, the webgame created for the movie "AI: Artificial Intelligence." That game ran for several months and built up an interesting story that complimented what happened in the movie. Players cracked passwords, talked to characters from the movie, read their blogs and were even able to attend live events and phone up game characters for live chats. The game phoned them and sent them e-mails. The game twisted to react to the actions of it's players, and in some cases players inspired storylines that the game masters (or "Puppet Masters"/PM's) incorporated into the plot. The specific mystery here is "what has happened to Aunt M's site?" This will probably baloon into a much more important mystery that needs to be handled, if teh ominious warning on the ilovebees homepage is to be believed. There are some clues on the page already about where these corrupted graphics, strange text and the ominous warning are coming from. For example, you may have noticed that some of the graphics are corrupted. Try saving a corrupted graphic file to your computer's hard drive and open it with notepad. You may be interested to find some readable stuff hidden in there... In other words, this is the start of a game where there is a mystery and you play detective. One whose plot seems to tie into the Marathon/Halo backstory. (although it is set in present day) If you enjoy puzzles or you really get into the Marathon/Halo backstory (read the novels etc) then you may want to play this. If you only like Halo for the great action and multiplayer and the story doesn't matter to you, you may not find this as enthralling. That's okay. But if you're up for something as cerebral and involving as an ARG, I recommend you play. If only because this is your only chance. ARG's cannot be repeated, and once it's over all you can do is read about what happened. What is the connection to Halo2? The most obvious indication that this has something to do with Marathon/Halo is the end of the trailer. Less obvious is the frequent use of the number 7 in the page, a sign that is often considered Bungie's calling card. Bungie also has a history of doing similar things, for example with the Cortana mails. Beyond that, nearly nothing is known for sure about how the game ties into Halo 2. There has been a lot of speculation that the countdown timer is counting down to either the early release of Halo 2 or the release of a multi/singleplayer demo. It's possible but there is no proof for this at all, just speculation. Most of the connections people have found have been plot oriented - an AI, space navigation, rampancy etc. It is possible that the plot of this ARG will directly tie into te plot of Halo 2. But it's also possible that it relates to Marathon, or the general backstory behind Marathon and Halo. Remember, ARGs can last months and this one has only been running for a week or so. So don't count on getting advance information about the plot of Halo 2 through this game. It's possible but currently, All Signs Point to No. If it follows the path of previous ARGs, this game will have it's own story that is based on Marathon/Halo. What and what are real, and who and what are fake? There has been some confusion on this point. Dana, Aunt M, "the Operator" "The Widow/SPDR" www.ilovebees.com and http://ilovebees.blogspot.com/ are part of the game. They are currently the only parts of the game known. Comments by people other than Dana on http://ilovebees.blogspot.com/ are not part of the game. They are made by players. Just because you know a person is not real does not mean you should not treat them with respect. Remember you are trying to get information out of these characters. If you keep telling them that they're fake and asking them about Microsoft, Bungie, Halo2 and Keyes they will just start ignoring you. Talk to them like real people, have some imagination and you will find this game easier. The next line is important. Xnbomb and SinVrall ARE NOT FAKE. They are real players who have played multiple ARGs in the past. They are real people and they don't know much more about Halo 2 than you do. Anyone posting to public message boards claiming to be Cortana, Keyes, Durandal, MC or whoever are probably HOAXES. Remember any idiot can get a username with a Halo/Marathon theme and post anything they make up. The PM's have their own sites for posting news and clues, they don't need message boards. Some people have searched the net for Xnbomb and found pages relating to Metacortechs. That's a good start but it's a dead end. Metacortechs was the name of a previous ARG based on The Matrix, and it has nothing to do with IloveBees Recommended links for more information If you really want to find out more about ILoveBees.com I suggest the following links. Unfiction forums for this game - http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/index.php?c=15 Unfiction is a website and series of message boards dedicated to this kind of online game. Many of the most serious players will gather here. Above the message boards you will see links to guidelines, a quickstart guide and a general ARG tutorial. The Quickstart Guide - http://mirlandano.com/quickstart.html The Wiki - http://bees.netninja.com/wiki/ Most of the information players have discovered is in this Wiki. It's a great way to get aquainted with what puzzles have been solved and what the results were.