EVA Project?

What ever happened to the EVA Project? Is it still running? Has it been completed? Has it been abandoned? Did it swallow SLTV and the two projects are sipping daiquiri's in the carribbean?

I think and fear the latter is true... We had an IRC chat where Art Zenkle and other characters assured us that the game was "far from over"... Then, one or two more updates on the EVA portal site and then... nothing, for the last 2-3 months now. I sent multiple messages, immersionunlimited moved them into a different category and the game appears to be either very, very slow moving and "tired" right now, if not flat-out dead - it's certainly not 'over' in as much as there are many, many loose ends floating around out there. Just goes to show what can happen when your top developer flys to Chile to research "unknown substances", I suppose...

I IM'ed one of the creators today just to check in and they told me it was over and "just kinda petered out"...

but...but... ahh nevermind.

What does this say about ARG's in general? You may invest your time and social capital in playing a game that just disappears when the creators lose interest?

I'll take my games in code, at a location that can be easily found thank you. Never trust smoke and mirrors.

Eh, I do see what you're saying - EVA was my first ARG. Then again, DarkLife which was a lot more mainstream (a lot of typical RPG elements), also has "petered out"... Unfortunately, EVA had a lot of story elements I had started to find interesting, and then the train just kinda fell off the track right in the middle with no, "Ok, you can all go home now" or "It's over" - But at least it introduced me to ARG's and some other interesting multiplayer game dynamics...

Satchmo, because EVA faded away without a distinct finale does not necessarily say anything about ARGs in general. It might, in the sense that one could also make conclusios about the automotive industry based on a single vehicle. I'm not sure such conclusions would be very accurate.

EVA was not a typical ARG in the sense that it heavily involved a virtual world (Second Life) in its gameplay. One might make conclusions about Second Life just as easily as conclusions about ARGs, based on EVA.

You make a good point about investing in games, but traditional, coded games are also known to fizzle out, stall, or become altered post-launch to the chagrin of fans. In Second Life, I invested a lot of time building until I discovered prim drift. I consider that investment a waste of my time as a result.

My $0.02 on the matter:

Games that rest solely in the hands of the authors who designed the game are doomed to lose traction in the long run. Inevitably, the creators move on to bigger and better things, leaving their creations by the wayside.

In contrast, the games that see a relative amount of stability over the years are the ones that let other players get involved in creating their own story and content. Most of the games of yore that still survive today also have a strong modding community to back them up with fresh content and new challenges.

It's no accident, then, that this concept extends to the foundation of Second Life, and why many newer "games" (eg. Spore, next-gen MMOs) are evolving to fit this niche.


This concept can be extended to the oldest games in existance. Take Chess for example. It's seen its own "modder's community" in the form of five billion online outlets, several derivative game types, and many, many, MANY strategies.


Anyway, case in point is games with one sole nozzle for content aren't typically what players want in the long run. Second Life provides a decent environment for modularity and collaboration... but until more media types and effective game control is integrated with it, that sort of "game" is exceedingly difficult to make happen.

I know games that stall in development, fall out of popularity after release, and are altered after launch, but I've never played a game that although implying so, didn't have an end state. Even MMO's have a quasi end state of achieving the highest level. I'm also not interested in games that do not succeed in the long run, because my attention level for any single game is rarely longer than one month.

And of course this one experience does not reflect all ARG's but with most games you can know a little something about the creators, while most ARG's are intentional designed to hide the identity of the creator.

Mostly I now wonder, if I were to try out an ARG (which I am interested in doing) how would I know it was the real deal and not just some flashy website?

I think that was the "original" point of many of these games, blurring the line and trying to make people think it was entirely real - I don't think EVA did much of this directly and think with the plot it would have been tough to do that. Many of the ARG-forums I visited seemed to mention that the best type of ARG would appear, run, and at the end vanish - never revealing that it was a game, never revealing the puppetmasters, the entire time leading people to believe that it ISN'T a game.

EVA had a lot of positives, I liked the puzzles and the storyline, having to research things and think outside of the box. I do wish they would have at least tied up the loose ends a little more, but it was an entertaining experience while it lasted.