Thats what I think. I prefer one giant thread personally

Look at this https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pJLwd0osKpnp6kEogWh6KAZZiM0Rh-odwWCDc3VEMVE/mobilebasic?pli=1&viewopt=127

Maybe they decided to make the site ahead of time, so in the time of the official announcement, they can actually make some real honest bling bling out of the first day instead of rushing to half-ass the site.

Then again, the whole thing might be fake, because hope only goes so far.

Maybe they were thinking that an exact copy of Skyrim's hype campaign would get them the sales just as well. Probably they also underestimated the effects of an ARG like this, maybe they thought "well at least such a thing will remind people there's a thing called the Fallout series". I don't know.

What's your explanation about the site still being up? Why wouldn't they want to avoid the dangers of false hype? Tell me that. To me it makes no sense why they wouldn't do at least something to get it offline.

If you had bothered to read the rules:

Why do we lock threads when they reach 200 posts?
-by Hungry Donner

It used to be that we had a lot of server problems. The forums would die almost every night and we'd have to wait for one of the system administrators to wake up and re-set them. Eventually they enabled a script that checked the status of the forums every 15 minutes and reset them if necessary, but there were still a lot of problems.

It's worth noting that we were using a different software at the time.

To help ease the strain on the servers the member list was removed and we started locking threads at 200 posts, this helped immensly. Now, with the new software, neither is necessary to keep the servers happy, but we still lock threads at 200 posts. There are many reasons for this:

• Most threads, by the time they hit 200 posts, have wandered off topic. Starting fresh can bring them back on track, or the new thread can reflect the direction the conversation has taken. It also isn't uncommon for no new thread to be made because the topic had really run its course.
  
• It is rare for someone to read 500+ posts before responding, making exceptionally long threads incredibly repetative. This is less of a problem with the 200 post cap - in all likely hood the thread is still very repetative by its third or fourth iteration since people aren't reaching the archives, but at least people are more likely to read the past 50 posts or so if it means starting at the beginning of the thread. With espeially persistant topics, like the Multiplayer thread in Oblivion General, the thread starts off with an introduction that includes a FAQ and other tips for new posters. This helps catch them up so they don't have to read the archives.
  
• It is possible that locking threads at 200 posts is proactive. It could be that without this rule we would eventually encounter server problems. The software is able to handle large forums much better than the old stuff, but when new games/content are released this place explodes in size, hopefully the 200 post limit helps the servers and helps keep the place under control.

You should already know where to catch up. But here a little https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pJLwd0osKpnp6kEogWh6KAZZiM0Rh-odwWCDc3VEMVE/preview?pli=1&sle=true.

Toaster, KVNGR REV APHA PPS VT= Keyed Vigenere Reverse Alphabet Passphrase: Vault Tec

PIZ UHMYLPVOQ CM XHWMZP. NBJB SPI'F BYQS QT D'Y BYFGEOB FI VQDYL MAQ. -NGQHT 5120- = The Institute is sealed. They won't help us I'm heading to Black Row -TBLNS 5120-

There's also been two new morse codes

I'm not snippy. I just have a bad habit of correcting people whenever something related to my degree comes up.


You know what would serve the purpose even better? A site and ARG that would actively engage the entire community, rather than drive a wedge into it.


You don't. Not if you're a mod. We have a 1,500 page monster over at NMA. It cannot be moderated. I fear it might develop sentience.


They'd be making a site a month before the announcement for a game that would, at this point, be at least two-three years in the making?


A multi-million dollar company would employ people this incompetent? Really?


Grace of Bethesda. It's free marketing. Bethesda doesn't move against The Vault, UESP, the Nexus, No Mutants Allowed etc. because they generate publicity and marketing for their brands. Furthermore, shutting down Survivor but not shutting down other sites would hurt their ability to protect their trademark in court as well.

Well the thing is that it's NOT up.

It's up for me

Try a hard refresh (Ctrl+F5).

The direct stream.thesurvivor2299.com is to fallout.gamesas.com. It's probably be one of those announcement page that does exactly what you think it does: Announce! Probably a nice background, or a youtube trailer link or something like that as well.

All the meat and the content can be expected to be updated and found fallout.gamesas.com itself, on the day of the announcement.

You mean making a page that redirects to another page? That's elementary website coding. Anyone can do that. The fact that you can redirect a page to the Department of Defense homepage doesn't mean you are a DoD employee or even affiliated with it.

The "I believe in the site" or "I don't believe in the site" is resolved as soon as the announcement is made. The reaction you will get from people who said "This is fake, fake, fake, ....". Will be simply change to "I always told you it was legimitate!" . It's human nature. No big deal.

There are bigger troubles that already split the community as this little thing.

To be clear I am sceptic too. But a lot of reasons that are said against the site doesn't have much base.

It went down once and it came back up, it's gonna do the same this time. I will only believe it disappearing for good when it's been down for a few days.

A whole lot of big companies hire people because of connections and whatever. I heard the chief animator of BGS got the job because he was Todd Howard's hs buddy, not sure how true that is, though.

Well... here's to hoping that it was meant for what it was meant for!

It make sense to have a separate announcement page, and a link to the main page with the actual details and contents.

This isn't a little thing. This is one of the biggest announcements for ZeniMax and claiming that the company would not be interested in creating the biggest possible levels of hype for this is silly.

Put simply:

You have gamers A and B. Both want game X.

Gamer A is skeptical. Gamer B will buy everything.

You start marketing for game X. Do you:

1. create a campaign that will imply game X without reasonable doubt, therefore engaging A and B?
2. or create a poorly designed campaign that leaves doubt that game X exists, therefore only engaging B?

The solution is obvious.


A bad head of marketing would lose his job over this, about as soon as any marketing grad would realize just how much potential they're pissing away.


It would. I'd still remain skeptical. Less chance for a disappointment.

you left out the constant crashing. it appears to be amateur hour at the Apollo.

You are simply forgetting that there is at least one year to do conventional marketing. This is imo (if it's real) nothing more as a tiny teaser of what to come.

and your forgetting that this has been up for what, 3 weeks now? I would think they could at least get it functional in that window.

Which should build from a strong foundation of hype fueled by a competent teasing campaign. Not what the survivor website presents.

They still have top dogs that have absolutely nothing to do with video games. A board of directors or whatever, can't remember what they call em. One of them a dude who married to Wonder Woman if I remember correctly.

This guy?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Bruckheimer

exactly. I think the best we can hope for is that somebody hacked Bethesda, found out the game was coming, and tried to preempt it. although in that situation you'd think Bethesda would have quashed the website.

I really hope this is what's going on. Still, why a company this big would take their precious time building it doesn't make sense.