wavs that have been pieced together.

http://maxdamage.justblank.net/beewavs.htm

So what's new with this?

For those how need to catch up on the storyline.


All the current unlocked wavs pasted together and in order.
http://www.ilovebees.com/humptydumpty.html

Holy shit.

This game is getting really damn good. In case you haven't been following it, the main story line is playing out as basically an audio serial, with new chapters released weekly. Actually, it's four or five stories running in parallel and gradually weaving together. Voice acting is exceptional; dialog is witty and engaging.

And the recent entries in this story... well, everything's taken a turn. Serious stuff afoot.

Assembled wav files

Probably over an hour of audio. Start at the top and work your way down.

- David Stein

I've also been following the story line pretty closely. It's really starting to get good, and tie into Halo.

Notice: The next installment of the audio drama is now available. The personalities involved feel utterly real and deeply interesting.

Janissary James, the tweaked-up 16-year-old girl -
Jim James, her Spartan 1.0 dad, and his oddball former colleagues -
Kamal, the nice-kid hacker with a knack for trouble -
Aiden, the slick, young mafioso -
Sophia, the beautiful but vapid girl caught in between -
Jersey, the accidental friend of Durga, a strange military-grade AI -
Rani, the bright Kansas girl with uncanny spy skills -
Herzog, the crotchety old special-ops agent -

This continues to be some of the best media I've heard in years.

- David Stein

yeah this is one of the most well done games I've seen. I have no interest in Halo 2 but the ilovebees is neat.

Last week, I submitted a new axon per Melissa's instructions here. Yesterday, I received a personal call from the Sleeping Princess. We were able to "play her game" correctly and unlock only_seven. This game is fantastic. Yesterday was the first time I was able to answer any phones or interact with any of the characters, and it was incredibly fun. If you have an axon in your area, I definitely recommend trying to answer it.

For game updates and information, try the Unfiction Forums

Kirsten: Wow, you're a member here? I didn't know that.

I am also incredibly jealous! Sounds like those have been interesting conversations.

I was actively playing this game very heavily - I'm the guy who answered the very first phone call and posted a report - but my personal life (full-time professional work, part-time school) caught up with me, and I couldn't spend time (during business hours) chasing axons. So I've had to drop into passive mode, and wistfully read these great reports by everyone else.

Congratulations, by the way - if memory serves, you've been a core member of the Beekeepers, and the group seems to have performed very well. (The huge sign that poked into national news coverage of the election is classic!)

- David Stein

I'm a professional forum lurker. Less than 200 posts in over 4 years here, and I read every day.

Yep, the Sleeping Princess was a riot to talk to. I posted a full account (or at least what I could remember) here.



Yeah, I remember seeing your report in #beekeepers, and I recognized your name from here. I wondered what had happened to you. Those Cleveland axons are still there for you if you want to jump into the fray again.

Thanks! I mainly chat in the irc chatroom to solve puzzles, coordinate axons, etc (forum lurker yet again...). krystyn is a moderator at unfiction, and a lot of people get the two of us mixed up. We're both pretty active with the group though. That sign on CNN was hilarious. There is a new article about us posted on wired.com, and IGN just ran another ilovebees story, so we've been getting a lot of new players in the last few days. It's not too late to start (or get back into the game)! There's only 3 weeks left, so this will be the last chance.

So to enjoy the story, is there more to do than listen to the assembled audio files and surf over to the bees site? I've been enjoying the files up until now, but I'm not sure if I'm missing out on something really cool by not doing some kind of unnamed "other stuff"...

To enjoy the story, there really isn't a whole lot more you need to do. To enjoy the game however, there's a lot more you can do. Most of the action happens on Tuesdays on Fridays. On Tuesday, the axon phones start ringing, and that's when you can get one-on-one interaction with the game characters. On Friday, 4 major things happen: the Sleeping Princess' contactme.html page is updated with clues how to unlock the wavs found on recipe3.html, Melissa posts a new 404 page with information about what she's up to and the results from Tuesday's "training exercises," the preview axons for the following Tuesday are updated, and most importantly, most of the images on the site are imbedded with puzzles to unlock the latest Rani wav files. There's usually 13 files with 25+ puzzles to work on. Most of the puzzles are solved within about 4-5 hours, but a couple weeks ago we had a doozy that took us over a week.

Updates for the new axon file names and axons on Tuesday occur at midnight. Last week they were up about an hour earlier on Monday night. Phones ring from about 8AM PDT until 9PM PDT. We're up to about one a minute now. Updates on Friday occur at 9AM PDT sharp.

If you want to work on the puzzles today, either head to the unfiction forums (linked in my post above), or join #beekeepers at irc.chat-solutions.org (6667). Most of the puzzle solving is done in the chat room.

Heh. We have a lot of those.

After the UnFiction hive runs out of steam (maybe a month after the game ends, if my experience with the A.I. game is any indication), consider becoming a more active member here. We need cool people.
I remember having read that during one of my (far too infrequent) trips to UnFiction. I continue to be impressed by the acting abilities of the people in this game (on both sides of the phone!)

Believe me, it's incredibly tempting. But so is receiving my regular paycheck from my day job as an attorney. And I have evening commitments four days a week (computer science classes two nights, swing dance stuff the other two nights.) I could sign on for a single turbulent day - but when it became clear that this was an ongoing commitment, I had to make a decision. This is one of the busiest periods of my life to date, and it's just not compatible with active participation in this game.

There are others in town playing, so I has hoped that their participation would cover for my absence. But it looks like the Cleveland contingent of Beekeepers has been lackluster at best. So I feel incredibly guilty when I see WAVs that are one or two shy of being unlocked... and that -41/-081 coords are among the unhottenated axons.
I caught the Wired one earlier this week - great story. I only wish it had come out a few months ago, so that people could follow along, instead of just getting one massive dose. The episodic nature of these games is one of the most interesting aspects.

- David Stein

Just a reminder, the next set of axons goes live tomorrow. The preview can be found here and you can see if there's any in your location here.

Well I hit the axon that was here in Baltimore today.Pretty cool to be standing there and suddenly the phone rings, I wasn't sure it was really going to happen.

I answered her first question right (or so she said) and then heard a clip of Janissary James talking to the police officer. Then she asked if I wanted it repeated or to continue. I said continue and then her voice changed pitch a few times, she said something about hardware incompatibilities and a string of "I love bees" quotes occured. Then the phone went dead.

IS that it? Any ideas where I messed up?

Well I guess I did something right because when I went to the site, it says CONNECTED: AXON HOT. HMMM....

Excellent. You did it perfectly. Thank you.

- David Stein

Looks like endgame is Sunday. And my favorite character is dead.

And you did great finbogg. That's exactly what you're supposed to do. According to live conversations that happened with Melissa yesterday, all calls are going to be live on Sunday. I don't know how they're going to do that, but it will be spectacular. This is the big finale folks, so if you're waiting to jump in, now is the last time you can do it.

I've already gotten a couple emails asking questions about the game. If you want to contact me privately with any questions, please do so. I'll help in any way I can.

From the looks of it certain people will get a chance to try Halo 2 (multiplayer probably) in a sneak preview. From the GPS coordinates they gave, it looks like the preview sites will be in NYC, Chicago, Dallas? and San Fran.

It's too bad I didn't get into this more. I tried to get to an axon in July when it first started up but couldn't find the phone in time and gave up. Glad I at least got one shot at it yesterday.

Are the live calls going out to axons like those usually posted or special ones that people submit?

Yeah, that was entirely unexpected. I spent some time last night reading some of the stories about players on the phone who were talking to that character, both before (during) and after the big event. Extraordinarily well-done, and quite moving.

I am treasuring the thought of putting together one compilation of the entire audio story. It occurred to me that should not be a straight run-through, i.e., a straight concatenation of each long clip. For instance - [BIG SPOILER FOLLOWING] -

- David Stein

And, once again, I can't participate. Near the end of the A.I. game, the core players were given free passes to see the movie at select locations. None of them were near Cleveland, sadly.

But it should be one hell of an event, so if you can make it to any of these locations (and you have the moxy to get in ), I heartily encourage it.

- David Stein

I have jumped in at the last minute as well, I was unable to make it to mine in time today, but I'll be there on Sunday definitely since I don't have any other plans except for saturday. probably gonna be a bunch of people around there if its the last day. thanks for the help btw kirsten . my curiosity is enough to get me down there, but free stuff is good too.

edit: oh my god, I just realized that sunday is halloween, its gonna be nuts downtown (though i've never actually been here during the 31st), luckily axon time is in the afternoon.

Both, plus personal cell phone axons that the in-game characters have collected from us during the live calls. The new axons for Sunday with addresses and times can be found here:

http://www.theblackforge.net/axons/recipe8-coords.html

If you scroll down to 13:10, you'll see Kirsten, Lt. That would be me, on my cell phone. It also looks like we're getting rewarded for religiously answering phones, because my local payphone is ringing 8 times in an hour.

Congrats! That's cool, keep us updated on what happens.

Unfortunately Baltimore gets no love from The Operator this weekend. All those axons, and not a single one near me. Too bad I don't have time to drive to DC.

Alright, one more round of axon calls tomorrow. I won't be able to answer mine since I'm going to the Chicago "training exercise" (ie, playing Halo 2)

http://www.ilovebees.com/contactme.html

http://www.theblackforge.net/axons/c...coords.gz.html