Difference between revisions of "Youshouldnthavedonethat.net"
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{{Youmay|the website|the [[Moon Children|cult]] or [[Moon Children Arc|second arc]]}} | {{Youmay|the website|the [[Moon Children|cult]] or [[Moon Children Arc|second arc]]}} | ||
| − | + | [[File:21 - moon banner4 192.jpg|thumb|right|Banner on the Home page]] | |
| + | [[File:18_-_moon_banner_192.jpg|thumb|right|Banner on the Contact page]] | ||
| + | [[File:19_-_moon_banner2_192.jpg|thumb|right|Banner on the Search page]] | ||
| + | [[File:20_-_moon_banner3_192.jpg|thumb|right|Banner on the Creed page]] | ||
| + | [[File:22_-_moon_banner5_192.jpg|thumb|right|Banner on the About page]] | ||
| + | [[File:29_-_moon_banner6_192.jpg|thumb|right|Banner on the Theories page]] | ||
'''youshouldnthavedonethat.net''', abbreviated '''YSHDT''', was the home website of the [[Moon Children]], a cult that worships a moon deity known as Luna. They were founded prior to 1998, and are led by [[The Father]]. | '''youshouldnthavedonethat.net''', abbreviated '''YSHDT''', was the home website of the [[Moon Children]], a cult that worships a moon deity known as Luna. They were founded prior to 1998, and are led by [[The Father]]. | ||
Revision as of 05:58, 30 January 2020
|
This article is about the website. You may be looking for the cult or second arc. |
youshouldnthavedonethat.net, abbreviated YSHDT, was the home website of the Moon Children, a cult that worships a moon deity known as Luna. They were founded prior to 1998, and are led by The Father.
After the events of the Moon Children Arc, the site was officially retired. Out of character, however, it was used by Alex Hall to provide update to the audience. The official summaries of the Haunted Cartridge Arc were hosted there, as well.
Contents
Recurring elements
YSHDT.net had a couple of recurring elements. When searching through it for clues, it's good to keep an eye out for things like these. Some are very obvious, but some are very well-hidden. Hidden things in the pages
Many discoveries has been made by searching through the pages' source codes, or by simply highlighting them. Examples:
- The page descriptions for the Chapters page ("http://"), The Truth page ("WHAT"), the FAQ page ("IS"), Donations page ("not so fast"), and the ARG Timeline page (".com") on the fourth of October.
- "Like little lambs. The man is smiling." was hidden on the Press Room page. You could see the text by highlighting it.
- "At 9:20PM EST, Jadusable, or rather, BEN, posted thetruth.rtf on /x/ again. The image posted was of the Happy Mask Salesman, named 'The Father.jpg.' Hopefully confirming that the Salesman is, in fact, the father." was well-hidden in the source code of the ARG timeline page. It was not visible by highlighting the page and was not in the description. You had to really search through the whole source code to find it. This has only been used one time, but it's probably worth mentioning anyway.
URLs that requires guessing
Some pages couldn't be found by just browsing the main website. To find them, you had to guess and try out plausible URLs. Examples:
- The contact pages during the second arc. In the guestbook on the main page of YSHDT.net when it was the Moon Children website, someone had mentioned there was something not right about the Contact Us page. To ARG players, the Contact Us page itself looked fine, but this prompted them to start guessing and inputting different names and words after the "contact/" at the end of the URL (i.e. http://www.youshouldnthavedonethat.net/index.php/contact/ben/). They found a total of four different contact pages.
- The downloadable files. During the infamous Glitch page, the website subtly linked to a couple of different files. The files' URLs ended in numbers, meaning there were probably more files to be found under other numbers. Players started changing the numbers at the end of the URL and found a total of sixty different files. Some required you to input a password and others were open for all to view. Some seemed significant, but others were crucial clues.
Cipher and code
There have not been as many occurrences of ciphers and codes on YSHDT.net as on some of the other pages related to it, but it should be mentioned anyway as it is something recurring on the pages and files linked from the site. It may be used more often on YSHDT.net when it returns. Examples:
- "EQ WQWK... LZWQ LGGC... EQ WQWK..." was a caesarian shift and the title of Drowned's contact page. when shifted eight times, it translates to the well-known "MY EYES... THEY TOOK... MY EYES..."
- In the section Wayward Horizon on the Within Hubris forums, many of the Moon Children could be seen speaking in binary code. This was not on YSHDT.net itself, but on a page linked from it. It may be worth mentioning in case binary shows up on YSHDT.net in the future.
Here are some links to deciphering tools:
http://www.unfiction.com/resource/otools/
http://rumkin.com/tools/cipher/caesar.php
http://www.unfiction.com/resource/rot-it/
http://rumkin.com/tools/cipher/caesar-keyed.php
http://home2.paulschou.net/tools/xlate/
http://invertbinary.com/binary2.0.php
http://yshdt.leadhoster.com/
Password protected pages and files
The title for this is pretty self-explanatory. Numerous of times, we have had to do some mass-guessing to figure out the password to important pages and files on the site. Examples:
- The Truth tab on YSHDT.net when it was the Moon Children website was password protected. However, in this instance, we didn't figure out the password, but the page was made available for all to view when we went back in time right after the first cycle, as it had not yet been password protected on the "first day."
- Some of the more significant downloadable files were password protected. We still have yet to crack the passwords for files 65-67 (something we cannot yet do, either, as the files went down with the crash of YSHDT.net).
Quick, temporary changes
Every once in a while, we will get perfect reminders of why we have to take print screens and save HTMLs of the site. They're quick, temporary changes that usually only a lucky few get to see before everything goes back to normal. Most times, they've been changed back as soon as we acknowledge their existence. They're often used to give us hints when we're looking in the wrong direction for clues. Examples:
- The Glitch page was one big, quick temporary change of the entire YSHDT.net website. The main page looked completely different and snippets of text would quickly appear one by one until the website suddenly reset to its normal state. This is the main reason why we don't have much information on it; so few got to actually see it, let alone have the time to save screencaps and HTMLs.
- As we were trying to figure out the password for File 59, the main page updated, adding a short message at the top that said "It's been in front of you the whole time. Think." The text was removed 3-5 minutes afterward.
- Similarly, while we were mass-guessing password for files 64-67 back in February, small updates would appear on the main page to tell us we were not yet supposed to open up the files. These were also removed only minutes after they had first appeared.
Recreated versions
Though YSHDT.net is down, there are some versions of it online that were recreated by ARG players. They are not canon and are to be used as a resource only. Also keep in mind that there may be some minor (mostly insignificant) errors in the pages that differ from the original versions. There are numerous links to these recreated versions in this article, to give you a clearer picture on how the website looked.
Recreated MC-YSHDT.net, by PERSONAthree: http://tinyurl.com/MoonCult
Recreated OOC-YSDHT.net (as of February 18, 2011), by A-negative: http://tinyurl.com/18thFebYSHDT
Moon Children Sub-arc exclusive pages - MC-YSHDT.net
Recreated version: http:///tinyurl.com/MoonCult
When found for the very first time on September 17, 2010, this is what YSHDT.net was like. For simplicity, let us call this version of the website "MC-YSHDT.net" ("MC" being an acronym for Moon Children or Moon Cult).
MC-YSHDT.net appeared to be a website run by a cult known as the "Moon Children." It was used as a means to recruit new members of the cult and to help keep all of the existing cult members in contact with each other. At first glance, it seemed relatively normal (excluding the fact that it's a cult), but people would soon start noticing certain oddities.
The website had a simple layout with a black background and text in a light-gray shade. The bookmark icon was Majora's Mask (see: downloadable file #28 - "Day 1 Bookmark Icon.jpg"). At the top left corner was the title of the website, "The Moon Children," and on some pages there was text right underneath it. At the top right corner was a menu with seven tabs: "Home," "Contact us," "Search," "The Truth," "Creed," "About," and "Theories."
Those, as well as some hidden pages, were what one could find on MC-YSHDT.net.
Home
Recreated first version: http://tinyurl.com/MCfirst
Recreated second version: http://tinyurl.com/MCsecond
Page title: The Moon Children
Page description: [None]
Text at the top left corner, underneath "The Moon Children": "Welcome home"
Page banner: A full moon shining over a natural landscape (See: downloadable file #21 - "moon banner4 192.jpg").
The Home page had an introduction, a blog-like news section for mods and admins, and a guestbook open for anyone to leave their mark in. Playing in the background was a gloomy, slightly eerie tune (See: downloadable file #12 - "Lost in My Thoughts by Chi-iLL.mpe").
On September 18, 2010, when the countdown on BEN's contact page only had one hour left before finishing, the Home page had two small changes that were not section specific and one change in the New Posts section. The page title switched from "The Moon Children" to "One Hour Left" and a faster version of the reversed Happy Mask Salesman's theme (See: downloadable file #34 - "Matts final hour.mp3") started playing in the background, both hinting at Ifrit's time running out. In the New Posts section, DROWNED's post disappeared mysteriously.
This page was affected three times by the various songs played:
- The Song of Time, played by TheLinkMissing and Miya, took us back in time, thus also pushing the website back to first being offline and then to its earlier stage. As this gave it a chance to develop in a different way, the page would appear slightly different after the song was played by TheLinkMissing. After Miya had played the song again, MC-YSHDT.net went down once more. However, it never got to go back online before OOC Jadusable had to put the ARG on pause.
- The Song of Healing, played by HigurashiMGOST, triggered the appearance of WHO DO YOU THINK I AM's post in the New Posts section. This also changed the music from "Lost in My Thoughts by Chi-iLL.mp3" to a short audio clip of the sound that Bongo Bongo (boss of the Shadow Temple in Ocarina of Time) makes (See: downloadable file #37 - "closer.mp3"). Fore more information on that, look into that section.
Introduction section
"A Website For Those Who Believe
We Are Luna's Chosen
This is a website for those who have formed a spiritual connection with the Moon and Him and recognize that we have been selected to preform miracles and bring enlightenment into this world. She has chosen us - and only us - to survive the upcoming apocolypse because we have honored Her and devoted ourselves to Her. As we work to enforce Her will, we grow together as a family and serve the greater good. We are the Moon's Children. If you have found your way here it is not by chance, you are at home here. You belong here with us. And while you may be caught off-guard, I think right now you can feel something inside you agreeing with me. Listen to your soul, get in touch with yourself, your soul knows this and we can show you how.
All Moon's Children have been gifted spiritually, and thus we are more astrally attuned to things normal humans may not be. A normal human's chi energy is typically so small that they may not notice it their entire life. Whereas we can preform miracles and ascend our fleshy prisons with ours. If you are visiting, you have come here for a reason, even if that reason may not be known to you. You have been chosen by Her. You have this amazing chi potential, this amazing spirit energy, locked within you. We can help you unlock it, we can help you become Enlightened. Please, take a look around our new website and get to know some of our members and contact us on the About page. We will set up a meeting that will change the rest of your life.
If you believe you have gotten here in error, then please back out and return to Google. Bare in mind that the website is still in its very rudamentary stages right now, many things are still incomplete and many links will lead you to dead ends. Please try and be understanding, brothers and sisters. There will be MANY more updates to come very soon!"
Right above that piece of text there was also this little note:
"Learn More
Visit our Contact Us page for more information."
News Posts section
This section of the page was for only mods and admins to post in. The posts, as well as the ones in the guestbook further down, gave us some hints of where to look for more clues. when the Moon Children era of YSHDT.net eventually ended, the ones that had posted in the news section were Ifrit, Nekko, Duskworld23, DROWNED, Insidiae, and WHO DO YOU THINK I AM.
At the top of the section, it said:
"News Posts
Listed chronologically, from newest to oldest."
However, the posts will be listed from oldest to newest instead on this wikia page, to make it easier to read.
The staff each had their own avatar attached to their individual posts. A bit of information about all the avatars:
Ifrit
A picture of a man (Hip hop artist MF Doom to be specific, although his identity is likely not significant) with a mask on. (See: Downloadable file #17)
Filename: Ebon.jpg
Img alt tag: 50932705.jpg
Nekko
An image of what appeared to be some sort of swirling energy. (See: Downloadable file #14)
Filename: Nekko.jpg
Img alt tag: 50932705.jpg
Duskworld23
A drawn picture of a man with metal mask over his face and a string of light shining down behind him. (See: Downloadable file #13)
Filename: DarkWorld23 Avatar.jpg
Img alt tag: DarkWorld23 Avatar.jpg
DROWNED
An image of a man wearing a gasmask and extending his hand toward the viewer (See: Downloadable file #15), but upon scrolling over the image, it would change to a picture of the Elegy Statue staring right at you (See: Downloadable file #16 - "5342.jpg") for a brief moment, and then switch back to the man with the gasmask.
Filename: Drowned.png (Man with gasmask) and 5342.jpg (Elegy Statue)
Img alt tag: [None]
Insidiae
A picture of a black hole sucking up a star. (See: Downloadable file #24)
Filename: Insidiae.jpg
Img alt tag: insidiae
WHO DO YOU THINK I AM
A close-up of the face we have come to associate with Kelbris. (See: Downloadable file #38)
Filename: 4g.jpg
Img alt tag: 50932705.jpg
Cycle One - (News Post section)
[September 17, 2010]
When the page was first found on September 17, 2010, there were seven news posts from the mods and admins on it:
"Ifrit (mod)
Posted: 9/14/10 @ 11:35am
Subject: Welcome to the new site!
Luna shine, brothers and sisters. We now have a new home! It's going to be a busy couple of days trying to put everything together and while we're doing that the forums will most likely be down. Feel free to use the Guest Book below to talk to each other, if the Guest Book isn't your thing there's always the IRC chat if you know it. We're looking at maybe a week or so before we're all done with the website. But for now just sit back and relax and let us do all the hard work."
"Nekko (mod)
Posted: 9/15/10 @ 1:34pm
Subject: we're back
Hey guys its Chris! So glad to finally back with my (true) family! I hope you're as eager as I am to finally have a new place to call our own. anyway, like Dusk said, we lost a lot of content that we had stored. The good news is that I've got saved some of our testimonials, so that page should be up by tomorrow., but a lot of this will be under construction (bleh). we've got a few new toys, this new host gives us a lot more room to play around, however with the new domain I wouldn't be surprised if we get more than our "usual" amount of visitors, some may have potential, others may "think" they are good enough to join us. we're not ready to open up yet - we want to at least have a few pages working before we welcome you guys back in, so by the time you read this this will be a few days ago. how's the future? Do we have flying cars yet (heh)? Also, If anyone asks the background music is entitled "Lost in My Thoughts", i really like it.
Unfortunately I'm not going to be a mod for much longer - my Ascencion date is coming up really soon :) :) He finally told me when it was going to be and it's..... TOMORROW!! haah it's all I can really think about now, my family can't understand why im so excited haha :D"
"Duskworld23 (mod)
Posted: 9/15/10 @ 8:24pm
Subject: Rebirth
DW here. You may notice the slight name change, figured it was symbolic. We're back for what looks like to be for good.
First of all, I'd like to say congratulations Chris! He sure has taken a huge interest in you lately (lucky), I'm not surprised it finally gave you an Ascension date, I'm happy for you man (can you tell I sound jealous?).
Anyway, about the move - I know its been a hectic past couple of days with the domain change and all, but I think that we've finally found our home (fingers crossed). This will no doubt attract more potential Children, all the more merrier I say.
The site's going to be under construction for a while due to me and Rem having to transfer all of the data over here - unfortunately not everything ended up saved and we lost of stuff so we're going to have to try and rebuild. We've done it before, we can do it again. If you guys know of any of "our guys", feel free to link them to this site, but try and keep it somewhat exclusive. Some of our old siblings (and you know who) were not meant to be part of our group.
And please guys, don't make Mr. D upset.
- DW"
"DROWNED (admin)
Posted: 9/15/10 @ 11:04pm
Subject:
You shouldn't be reading this."
"Nekko (mod)
Posted: 9/16/10 @ 2:11pm
Subject: :)
I finished updating the testimonials page and I'm going to be handing my modship over. bahhh enough with the updates, i just wanted to say thanks for everything you guys have done for me, i feel like before i found this i was so lost and without a purpose, just wandering aimlessly. being with you guys over the past year has made my so happy and ive mad a lot of friends here and gotten to know some really nice guys. i never really believed in destiny before, but now im realizing that... yea this is what i was made to do. im counting down the minutes until hahah, i still feel like im gonna pinch myself and wake up at any moment. i already have everything i need to go there, its like all my life ive been waiting for this moment, when i can finally achieve what i was meant to do!!
keep this site running strong for me while i'm gone, i'll be back to come get you guys soon :)"
"Duskworld23 (mod)
Posted: 9/16/10 @ 4:23pm
Subject: Ascension
DW here. I just wanted to say that Chris (Nekko) had his successful Ascension earlier today and there were no complications. Even though I'm sooo envious of him *cough cough* :-P, it really warmed my heart when I heard the news and I'm sure it will for you guys too. Actually - I don't exactly have our logs out here in front of me - but I think Chris was the youngest person we've ever had do a successful Ascension (which makes sense, Chris always was mature for his age). We're all really happy for you Chris and hopefully we'll be seeing you soon (now if only He would start talking to me... :P ).
- DW
PS has anyone felt an increase in spiritual presence lately? It's making my neck hairs stand up on end."
"Ifrit (mod)
Posted: 9/17/10 @ 10:26am
Subject: Updates
Finished adding the Contact, About, and Theories sections. Contact page has been acting weird. Hm. Fixed up the Creed, Dusk you had a few typos there. Watch that. And this layout, especially for the news posts is pretty disgusting. You guys'll have to bare with us until we get everything set up before we change it.
Anyway, TGIF, anyone want to have a vigil Sunday night? Drop me an email. And congratulations to Chris, we all knew he had it in him! That's the first successful one we've had in a while!"
[September 18, 2010]
The next day, Ifrit made another news post:
"Ifrit (mod)
Posted: 9/18/10 @ 4:32pm
Subject: Updates #2
Add info to the Contacts page, noticed that we have a huge influx of trolls, no doubt because of the fact that we're a bit more "maintstream" now. We've been going down every so often because of bandwidth overload, and we've gotten an insane amout of "requests" to join us, most of them are trolls. I'm having some of the other moderators go through them carefully and we'll contact those who seem legitiment in the coming days, but we don't want to make a jump to do anything rash."
Cycle Two - (News Post Section)
[September 18, 2010]
Later, all of MC-YSHDT.net went offline and was down for the rest of the day, as a result of TheLinkMissing playing the Song of Time and pushing everything so far back in time that the website was still in its offline state.
[September 19, 2010]
When the website went back online the next day, it had Nekko's and Duskworld23's two first posts, while the rest had not been made yet. There was one very odd and clear change though - Ifrit's post was nowhere to be found. Instead, Insidiae was welcoming everyone to the "new" website.
"Insidiae (mod)
Posted: 9/19/10 @ 11:35am
Subject: New site
Hey everyone, welcome to the new site. While we can finally get away from that IRC chat, there's going to be a lot of heavy construction going on here. I'll try and keep you guys updated but I'm literally dealing with a dozen things right now. If you guys can get ahold of anyone make sure to refer them to the website. Also, we need one more moderator so if anyone wants to step up feel free to send me a message.
Best wishes."
"Nekko (mod)
Posted: 9/19/10 @ 12:34pm
Subject: we're back
Hey guys its Chris! So glad to finally back with my (true) family! I hope you're as eager as I am to finally have a new place to call our own. anyway, we lost a lot of content that we had stored. The good news is that I've got saved some of our testimonials, so that page should be up by tomorrow., but a lot of this will be under construction (bleh). we've got a few new toys, this new host gives us a lot more room to play around, however with the new domain I wouldn't be surprised if we get more than our "usual" amount of visitors, some may have potential, others may "think" they are good enough to join us. we're not ready to open up yet - we want to at least have a few pages working before we welcome you guys back in, so by the time you read this this will be a few days ago. how's the future? Do we have flying cars yet (heh)? Also, If anyone asks the background music is entitled "Lost in My Thoughts", i really like it.
Unfortunately I'm not going to be a mod for much longer - my Ascencion date is coming up really soon :) :) He finally told me when it was going to be and it's..... TOMORROW!! haah it's all I can really think about now, my family can't understand why im so excited haha :D"
"Duskworld23 (mod)
Posted: 9/19/10 @ 1:00pm
Subject: Rebirth
DW here. You may notice the slight name change, figured it was symbolic. We're back for what looks like to be for good.
First of all, I'd like to say congratulations Chris! He sure has taken a huge interest in you lately (lucky), I'm not surprised it finally gave you an Ascension date, I'm happy for you man (can you tell I sound jealous?).
Anyway, about the move - I know its been a hectic past couple of days with the domain change and all, but I think that we've finally found our home (fingers crossed). This will no doubt attract more potential Children, all the more merrier I say.
The site's going to be under construction for a while due to me and Rem having to transfer all of the data over here - unfortunately not everything ended up saved and we lost of stuff so we're going to have to try and rebuild. We've done it before, we can do it again. If you guys know of any of "our guys", feel free to link them to this site, but try and keep it somewhat exclusive. Some of our old siblings (and you know who) were not meant to be part of our group.
And please guys, don't make Mr. D upset.
- DW"
[September 19, 2010]
Instead of DROWNED's post appearing next, HigurashiMGOST playing the Song of Healing triggered an entirely new post to show up:
"WHO DO YOU THINK I AM
Posted: 9/19/10 @ 6:66pm
Subject: MISTAKE
I AM KNOCKING AT YOUR DOOR NEXT. LET ME IN. I WANT TO SPEAK."
During this, the music on the website also changed from "Lost in My Thoughts by Chi-iLL.mp3" (See: Downloadable file #12) to a short audio clip of the sound that Bongo Bongo (Boss of Shadow Temple in TLoZ: Ocarina of Time) makes (See: Downloadable file #37 - "closer.mp3").
The post appeared to be referencing the knockings that were being heard on different characters' doors shortly before they disappeared. Soon after it was posted, some players was able to get in touch with Rosa, who said she was hearing "it" counting down outside her door. It's been widely assumed that it was another one of the "knockings", even though Rosa never actually confirmed hearing knocking specifically.
Guestbook section At the bottom of the page was a guestbook in which anyone could post. They were listed from oldest to newest on the website and will be listed in the same order here as well.
Cycle One - (Guestbook section)
The guestbook had thirteen posts already when YSHDT.net was first found on September 17, 2010 - meaning they couldn't have been made by ARG players. They therefore count as canon.
"Posted by David on Sep 17th, 2010
Alright, the site's back up. Finally, I was getting so sick of IRC...
Posted by Dark_Rider404 on Sep 17th, 2010
gotta say I like the new site, the layout needs work, but it'll do
the important thing is that most of us survived the blackout
anyone know what happened to Alex? I havent heard from him
Posted by David on Sep 17th, 2010
NO idea. Haven't heard ANYTHING on his end.
Posted by sidicus9 on Sep 17th, 2010
Bout time we can post. Have Luna or Mr D been speaking to anyone lately?
Posted by Paradoxicle on Sep 17th, 2010
Hm. At least the guest book is up. Had another miserable day at school today. I'm done puting up with it. I literally have no more excuses. I'm going to get fucking shitfaced tonight and then on Monday I'm going to come back to my school with my dad's 9mm and just squeeze and squeeze and squeeze the trigger until I fucking die.
Posted by Dark_Rider404 on Sep 17th, 2010
@Paradoxicle
sound rough, just remember that human emotions are only in this life. i've had half a mind to do the same myself - just kill them all in Her name. seriously, its the same shit. boring 9 to 4, wife always is on my case and i'm almost positive shes fucking someone else. you know, if you're serious I'll come drive down to you this weekkend, if we team up we can probably kill a lot more and i've got another nine you can have. lets do your school, whats it matter, we're all innocent in this fucked up world. we're the liberators, these kids are too stupid to know that we're doing them a favor. once we've all transcended this doomed reality, we'll all be with Her anyway, follower or not.
Posted by 13fliptime on Sep 17th, 2010
rofl, looks like we're going to lose 2 more soldiers earlier before the end. you get my seal of approval, the less this world slips comfortably in complacency the better imo.
you guys haven't been talking to Luna have you?
Posted by David on Sep 17th, 2010
Careful guys. We're on a new domain on a .net now, take it to PM.
Posted by Paradoxicle on Sep 17th, 2010
David: No PM's yet
13fliptime: No, this is of my own free will, I'm just tired of this shit and want to make a difference in the world.
Dark: Give me your number on IRC, we'll take it there
Posted by CB on Sep 17th, 2010
on a lighter note, i almost lost my mask, i was freaking out rofl. seriously, sometimes i just get so used to it on my face that i forget to pick it up if i put it down.
Posted by BoogeymanHere on Sep 17th, 2010
I don't know, I think the fact that we've only been operational for a day and already DR and Paradoxicle are going to shoot up some place is pretty funny. If you guys go through with it, see you on the other side, I think my Ascension's coming up soon - I've been feeling a surge of something spiritual over the past two days.
Posted by Duskworld23 on Sep 17th, 2010
I think I'm hearing Luna, I'm not sure thought, my mind could just be playing tricks on me. But I could've sworn I heard her just now. Not sure what she said though.
And remember - we're continuing with the whiteout - that means no using these names or posting outside of here. No facebooks/youtubes/twitters/whatnot. Mr D has been EXTREMELY strict on this rule.
...Could've sworn I just heard her again. Maybe. Idont know.
Posted by Sable on Sep 17th, 2010
Ifrit you might want to take a look at the contact page, somethings not right with it"
The comments that followed were made by ARG players, and are therefore not posted here. Worth mentioning is that the conversation between Paradoxicle and Dark_Rider404 about shooting up Paradoxicle's school was later deleted because of OOC reasons; someone had gotten worried and actually called the police, leading OOC Jadusable to take down the messages so they wouldn't cause any more unnecessary commotion.
Cycle Two - (Guestbook section)
The guestbook got cleared of all its posts when TheLinkMissing played the Song of Time and pushed us back in time. Not even the canon messages had been made yet, and they never got to exist again either since the ARG had to be put on pause before it was time for them to show up.
Guestbook move after the Glitch
URL to the Guestbook's individual page: http://www.youshouldnthavedonethat.net/Index.php?cID=60
Recreated of the moved guestbook: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20745027/18FebYSHDTzip/18FebYSHDT/Guestbook.htm
Page title of the Guestbook's individual page: Haunted Majora's Mask :: Guestbook / Within Hubris :: Guestbook
Page description of the Guestbook's individual page: Neeto speedo! We just rebuilt our site in record time and now we can easily change EVERYTHING.
Banner on the Guestbook's individual page: Canyonlands (See: Downloadable file #2 - "inneroptics_dot_net_canyonlands.jpg")
Note: The page description is a default one that concrete5 (what the site was made with) puts on most (if not all) of their sites if nothing specific is assigned instead.
As the Moon Children era of YSHDT.net ended, the guestbook stayed on the Home page. Then, on early October 6, 2010, the Glitch happened, which changed the whole website. After one-and-a-half hours, when it went back to its previous state, the guestbook appeared to have one again been completely cleared of its content. However, it was later discovered that it had actually been moved to its own hidden page and replaced on the home page by a clean guestbook. It's most likely not significant at all, but still mentioned because it was kept online for a very long time.
Just to be clear, the guestbook's individual page was not, in fact, a MC-YSHDT.net exclusive one. It was accessable until February 20, 2011, when the whole website went offline indefinitely.
The page had some similarities with the Press Room page. The page description was almost the same as the line of text that could be found on the Press Room page (and also as a page description on the Blastoff! page), and the banner (See: downloadable file #2 - "inneroptics_dot_net_canyonlands.jpg") was exactly the same.
On the page was this text:
"We're happy to see you here.
Leave your mark here by signing our guestbook."
Below it was the guestbook itself.
Contact Us
Recreated version: http://tinyurl.com/MCcontact
Page title: Joining Us
Page description: [None]
Text at the top left corner, underneath "The Moon Children": "Join us on an incredible journey"
Page banner: A single tree and some large clouds in the foreground with a huge full moon in the background. (See: Downloadable file #18 - "moon banner 192.jpg")
The Contact Us page existed for people wanting to join the cult.
This text was displayed on the page:
"Contacting us:
So you've taken the first step into the inward journey of discovering yourself and decided to contact us. Or perhaps you are on the fence about becoming something greater than you can possibly imagine, and if so, let us present the reasoning that has drawn so many of us to conversion to Luna: Do you ever feel like life is just a dream? That you're sleeping this whole time, waiting for something great to happen? Do you ever feel like you cannot relate to these human beings - that in this day and age of lewdness and vanity it is simply disgusting to try and lower yourself to "fit in"? You do try to fit in, but it never really feels genuine, does it? Believe it or not, you have a purpose in life, and that purpose is not to sit idlely by while your talents and abilities are wasting away. Just by discovering us, Luna has guided you with Her gentle hand and touched you. You are about to become apart of something grander than you could imagine.
We are so glad that you are going to listen to your spiritual energy crying out for release and satisfy it. You are about to embark on a wonderful quest of self-discovery and growth, and you will come to realize all of the glorious gifts that She can provide us. If you have additional questions do not hesitate to submit them and we will share with you the knowledge that the Goddess has bestowed upon us."
And underneath it was a form for people to submit their information:
"Contact Us:
Name *
Phone *
Email
Ask your questions here"
Around the time of the Glitch, some of the people that submitted their phone numbers got mysterious calls a couple of weeks later. The calls consisted of the "Song of Unhealing" and some people reported hearing a voice saying "You shouldn't have done that."
On the Home page, Ifrit mentioned the page a couple of times, once saying "Contact page has been acting weird. Hm." He later mentioned adding info to the Contacts page (his exact words were, "Add info to the Contacts page, noticed that we have a huge influx of trolls, no doubt because of the fact that we're a bit more 'maintstream' now." "Add info" sounds like a demand, but given the context it seems more likely that it's just a grammar mistake and that what he means is that he added info) in his post on Spetember 18, 2010. It is unknown which part exactly he added that day, but the archived versions we have of the page is from days later, which means whatever was added on September 18 is there on the archived page. It is likely that he's talking about adding Contact pages, seeing as the URLs to them were the same as the Contact Us page's URL, only with the characters' names as additions; his own contact page showed up the same day.
Search
Page title: The Moon Children :: Search
Page description: [Unknown]
Text at the top left corner, underneath "The Moon Children": [Unknown]
Page banner: An island with yet another full moon in the background (See: Downloadable file #19 - "moon banner 2 192.jpg")
A simple page for searching through the site. The banner had the img alt tag "Do you honestly think you can escape me?". The page also linked to the Press Room page, but there aren't enough saved HTMLs, screenshots, nor memories of it for us to know exactly how or where the link appeared.
Press Room
Recreated version: http://tinyurl.com/MCpressroom
Page title: The Moon Children :: Press Room
Page description: [None]
Text at the top left corner, underneath "The Moon Children": [None]
Page banner: Canyonlands (See: Downloadable file #2 - "inneroptics_dot_net_canyonlands.jpg")
It is unclear what the Press Room page was really for, as it was never entirely finished (if we are to believe the page, anyway). It used the same banner as the Guestbook's individual page would come to use later (See: Downloadable file #2 - "inneroptics_dot_net_canyonlands.jpg"). The page itself explained that it's not yet finished in these words:
"Area Under Construction - Please check back later"
That is not all there is to it. When highlighting everything on the page, a hidden line of text would appear on the right:
"Like little lambs. The man is smiling."
At the bottom of the page was this (fully visible, no highlighting required):
"Launch!
Neeto speedo! We can easily change EVERYTHING."
"Launch!" was clickable and would take you to the Blastoff! page.
Blastoff!
Recreated version: http://tinyurl.com/blastoffpage
Page title: Blastoff!
Page description: Neeto speedo! We can easily change EVERYTHING.
Text at the top left corner, underneath "The Moon Children": [None]
Page banner: An image of Portland (See: Downloadable file #5 - "inneroptics_dot_net_portland.jpg").
The Blastoff! page appeared to be an ordinary test page, with only a few small edits. On the page was this text:
"Vestibulum a tristique tellus. Morbi nunc orci, ornare sit amet accumsan nec, sagittis eu nisi. Sed elementum fringilla ipsum a interdum. Nulla egestas turpis at dui interdum faucibus. Proin consectetur nibh eros, eget sodales felis. Nam volutpat bibendum augue ut lacinia. Nam volutpat fringilla odio, vitae feugiat dui sagittis sed. Aenean interdum accumsan luctus. Suspendisse congue sagittis tortor ut porta. Etiam justo augue, auctor posuere iaculis ac, aliquet vitae purus. In malesuada, ipsum non vulputate semper, felis purus condimentum augue, a mollis metus nisi a diam. Nulla eu scelerisque lacus. Morbi congue massa vitae nulla auctor suscipit. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Vivamus ut mauris quis nunc rhoncus lobortis. Aliquam sit amet dui et felis sodales volutpat nec eget nisl.
Nulla elit dui, pharetra eget elementum eu, varius sed nisi. Morbi semper interdum nisl, eget rutrum ante venenatis nec. Vivamus dignissim, justo quis semper ultricies, quam elit elementum eros, rutrum volutpat urna nulla quis dui. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos himenaeos. Sed et orci ligula. In est dui, porta at posuere a, ullamcorper ut nisi. Maecenas nibh eros, suscipit et pulvinar non, tempus varius dui. Quisque nec tortor sed erat rhoncus laoreet. Sed pulvinar est eu quam adipiscing tincidunt. Donec auctor arcu et ante venenatis sagittis."
That's lorem ipsum. It's a placeholder, a text often used on web pages in their early state, so that one can see how the layout will work with text without being too distracted by its actual content. It was not something written for this ARG, so it's not really significant at all. It is kept on this wikia page for completion purposes only.
However, at the bottom of the page, there was some text that wasn't a part of lorem ipsum:
"About Us:
For the fold, number 3, for the fold, number 3, for the fold, number 3"
This is widely assumed to have been hinting at the infamous numbers 423 - "for" acting as 4, "the fold" meaning 2 (basically because when you fold something once, you get two layers) and "number 3" obviously being 3.
During the Resistance Chatango Q&A, the Blastoff! page was mentioned and confirmed by Alex Hall as not being relevant:
"AiriX: Jad: Is the site page with the lorium ipsum relavent at all?
JadusableH: @AiriX No."
The Truth
Recreated second version: http://tinyurl.com/MCthetruth Cycle One
Page title: The Moon Children :: The Truth
Page description: It's what THEY don't want you know
Text at the top left corner, underneath "The Moon Children": [Unknown/None]
Page banner: [None]
The "The Truth" page was password protected when we first found it. To view it, an account name and corresponding password was required. They were unfortunately never found out before the ARG had to be put on pause for the first time, but were later widely assumed to have been "MattHubris423" and "thelensoftruth". During the 4chan Q&A, Alex Hall said that the information we needed was the name and password that Ryukaki got from Rosa during a brief conversation back in September:
"Q: What was the use of the username/password I got from Rosa? ~ Ryukaki
A: That would unlock The Truth section of the website when the time reset and the site came back up. "
However, the ARG had to be put on pause before the site could come back online, and OOC Jadusable later said this in the Resistance Chatango Q&A:
"ZackVee: Ryu received a password from Rosa during Arc 1, will we need this password or will it be retconned?
JadusableH: @ZackVee - The password Ryu recieved was 'thelensofttruth', which was used to finally unlock the file 59 cipher"
From this we can assume that OOC Jadusable simply changed his mind and put the information to use in another way, seeing as it didn't get to come into play earlier when it was initially supposed to.
He also confirmed "mhftt" (which had been hinted at as being the account name required for one to access the The Truth page) being "MattHubris423":
"PERSONAthree: Hey Jad, can you clear up to us what exactly mhftt means?
JadusableH: @Persona - Matt Hubris Four Two Three"
Cycle Two
Page title: The Moon Children :: The Truth
Page description: [Unknown]
Text at the top left corner, underneath "The Moon Children": [Unknown/None]
Page banner: [None]
After TheLinkMissing played the Song of Time and everything got pushed back a couple of days in time, the page was no longer protected. Or rather, it was not yet protected. This is what could be read on it then:
"Still in the progress of moving everything over, sorry for the delay. But it is imperative we find him and silence him before he can reveal our intentions.
Also, I can't figure out how to make this private, we've got about two days or so before we open up this website to the world so I figure it'll be okay for now, not like anyone can stumble upon this, but can someone help out with that?
- DW"
"DW" has been presumed to be a shortening of "DuskWorld23," the username of one of the moderators on the website. Because of the message, "Still in the progress of moving everything over, sorry for the delay," and the lack of crucial information on the page, we can assume that the actual "truth" had not yet been put there due to DW not being able to lock it yet. However, before more could be added to it, the Song of Time was played once again, pushing it all back once more. It is still unknown what important things were on the page when it was password protected.
Creed
Recreated version: http://tinyurl.com/MCcreed
Page title: The Moon Children :: Creed
Page description: Lists the Creed and Initiation Creed for reference here
Text at the top left corner, underneath "The Moon Children": Men must become angels
Page banner: Some palm trees on a shore or an island, with the ocean and two half moons in the background (See: Downloadable file #20 - "moon banner3 192.jpg")
The Creed page simply listed the Moon Children's Creed and Initiation Creed.
These were the two creeds listed:
"The Creed
[Participants must be wearing their Mask]
O father, I pledge to youa
O mother, I give myself a hundred times
May the Moon illuminate our path
We bare our souls to you
To that which will Bring the end
Empower us with your infinite grace
May we recieve the greatest glory of all
May we ascend to the heavens themselves
We are the Moon's Children
We are mortal angels
The Initiation Creed
By my blood, as I draw it here
I dedicate myself to service
I severe all ties of my old life
Those who birthed me are meaningless
Those who raised me are hopeless
Those who loved me are worthless
I now wear this mask to symbolize my transformation
As a child learns to walk so too will I learn to fly
[Pause as for the mask ceremony]
With these words I pledge myself to my new family
That even though this mask may leave my face
The scars that symbolize my devotion will never fade
Now I am truly born"
The bolded "Y" and the unusual amount of spaces after it in "Now I am truly'' born" was noted by many players, but nobody has been able to figure out what it was about. The person responsible for it might have been Ifrit, since he mentioned having fixed typos on the page in one of his news posts. It is also unknown whether there were any differences in the page from cycle one and the page from cycle two.
About |
|---|
| Page title: [Unknown] Page description: [Unknown] Text at the top left corner, underneath "The Moon Children": [Unknown] Page banner: Unknown, but was likely an image of a large crescent moon above a sun and an ocean (See: Downloadable file #22 - "moon banner5 192.jpg"). Cycle One
A special thanks goes out to David, Ryan, Jeff, Danielle, and Rosa for being faithful contributors to the site and its content."
Cycle Two
|
Theories
Recreated version: http://tinyurl.com/MCtheories
Page title: Theories
Page description: Theories on The End
Text at the top left corner, underneath "The Moon Children": We will see the end together
Page banner: A meteor crashing into Earth, with a crescent moon in the background (See: Downloadable file #29 - "moon banner6 192.jpg").
The first line of text on the Theories page described itself pretty well:
"Reoccuring theories on The End"
That is exactly what the page was about - various apocalypse theories.
These were the doomsday theories listed:
"Mayan Calendar Prophecy
This is the most popular of the 2012 apocalypse stories, and the one most often referenced in the media and popular culture. The Mayan calendar is quite complex, and is broken up into units called “Kin”, “Tun”, and “Baktun”. The much hyped “13-baktun cycle” is scheduled to be completed 1,872,000 days (or 13 baktuns) after the beginning of their calendar. This period of time is the well knwon Mayan “Great Cycle” of their Long Count calendar and is equal to 5125.36 of our standard years. This is where the date of December 12, 2012 comes from, as the Mayan calendar purportedly began August 11th, 3114 BCE — do the math, and you’ll come to the same conclusion as other Mayan scholars. The “end” of the Mayan calendar is 12/12/2012. Hence the 2012 apocalypse scare.
One reason people put so much stock in the Mayan Long Count calendar is that the Mayans were extremely sophisticated mathematicians and stargazers. It is well known that Mayans understood mathematical concepts hundreds of even thousands of years before the rest of the world. The Mayans worked out the seemingly simple concept of zero by around 36 BCE. Inscriptions discovered by archaeologists show the Mayans working with complex sums up to the hundreds of millions. The Mayans also produced extremely accurate astronomical maps and notes — their charts of the movements of the moon and planets are far superior to the maps and charts of any other civilization that was working strictly from observations by the naked eye.
Because the Mayans are known to have worked out a complex and accurate calendar well before “Western civilization”, people put great faith in their 2012 apocalypse theory.
Hindu Prophecy
According to Hindu scripture, the “Golden Age of Krishna” is likely to start in 2012. In the “Brahma-Vaivarta Purana”, Lord Krishna tells a devotee named Ganga Devi that a Golden Age will come in the Kali Yuga – one of the four stages of development that the world goes through as part of the earth’s time cycle — a cycle described in Hindu scriptures. Lord Krishna predicted that this Golden Age will start 5,000 years after the beginning of the Kali Yuga, and will last for 10,000 years.
That may sound like sometime in the distant future, but according to some Hindu researches, the Kali Yuga began on February 18, 3102 BCE. That means there is only a difference of 12 years between the Hindu’s beginning of the Kali Yuga and the Mayan’s beginning of their “Fifth Great Cycle”. Its important to know that the ancient Hindus mainly used a lunar calendar but also used solar calendars — this throws off those of us in the West, as the ancient Hindu time system is vastly different from our own. By either solar or lunar years, we are over 5,000 years into the Kali Yuga and it is time for Lord Krishna’s prophecy to happen according to the ancient Hindu scriptures. This may not be a direct reference to 2012, but is so closely aligned to the Mayan and other prophecies, that people lump it in with other “2012 apocalypse” theories.
NASA predictions
You may be surprised to learn that many 2012 apocalypse believers point to some NASA studies as evidence of the coming endtimes. NASA has released a study of the sun that includes predictions about solar flares, sunspots, and other solar interference that could have a catastrophic effect on life here on Earth. According to the report:
“Many forecasters believe Solar Cycle 24 will be big and intense. Peaking in 2011 or 2012, the cycle to come could have significant impacts on telecommunications, air traffic, power grids and GPS systems. In this age of satellites and cell phones, the next solar cycle could make itself felt as never before.”
Some see the fact that this new solar outburst will arrive in 2012 as more than a coincidence — maybe it is further evidence of a catastrophic event in 2012, something that ushers in the 2012 apocalypse.
Luna Prophecy
Dating back to 1998, a Moonchild named Kelbris recieved several whispers from Luna herself. The Order was still young then and Kelbris was the first member to have been talked to by Her. Rather than Ascending him, however, these whispers informed him of how The End will come about. The whispers were brief and vague, detailed below:
"They (unintelligible) break free of the prison"
"Engulf the world"
"Man will be betrayed by its minions and I will be brought down from the sky, consuming everything"
It's worth noting that the number three is reported by Kelbris to have been said numerous times, sometimes in between words, sometimes even between letters so it's assumed that there is some kind of significance there. Kelbris was later found electrocuted - whether it was foul play or an Ascension was never determined. Although transcended, Kelbris' discovery has made him a legendary figure within the Moon Children and much of the Order today is based off of that prophecy."
The last one's title, "Luna Prophecy," was in a different font from the rest. It seemed to be an original theory that mentioned several interesting things: The Moon Children, the moon itself, ascension, Kelbris, the number three, etc. It appeared to have been the prophecy most important to the cult.
Contact Pages
In the guestbook on the main page of MC-YSHDT.net, someone had mentioned that there was something not right about the Contact Us page. To ARG players, the Contact Us page itself looked fine, but this prompted them to start guessing and inputting different names after the "contact/" at the end of the URL, e.g. http://www.youshouldnthavedonethat.net/index.php/contact/ben/. They then found a total of four different contact pages.
ben
http://www.youshouldnthavedonethat.net/index.php/contact/ben/
Recreated version: http://tinyurl.com/18thFebYSHDTcounter
Page title: What are you doing here?
Page description: You shouldn't be here.
Cycle One
Ben's contact page was discovered on September 17th, 2010, and was the first one out of the contact pages to be found.
On it was the text "You have to warn them" with a countdown underneath. It was counting down to the "Fourth Day", claiming that "19 Sept 2010 is the Fourth Day". Playing in the background was the reversed Happy Mask Salesman theme(See: Downloadable file #26 - "Creeeep Sales.mp3"). Upon reaching the Fourth Day, the counter started counting up instead, saying how many days, hours, minutes and seconds it had been since the Fourth Day. This doesn't appear to have had any purpose, but is a feature you get when you make your countdown at mycountdown.org.
Cycle Two
After time was reversed at the end of the first cycle, the page was moved to another URL - http://www.youshouldnthavedonethat.net/index.php/ben1/ - most likely for archiving purposes only. It stayed there until the whole website went offline indefinitely in February.
drowned
http://www.youshouldnthavedonethat.net/index.php/contact/drowned/
Recreated version: http://tinyurl.com/contactdrowned
Page title: EQ WQWK... LZWQ LGGC... EQ WQWK...
Page description: EQ WQWK... LZWQ LGGC... EQ WQWK...
Discovered on the same day as Ben's contact page - September 17th, 2010 - Drowned's was the second contact page to be found.
On it was a large image depicting a disfigured man, with the filename "Kelbris.jpg" (See: Downloadable file #30) - this is what made us start thinking of that disfigured man as Kelbris. Underneath the picture, it said "Dead End. Go back." . In the background, the reversed Ikana Valley Theme (See: Downloadable file #33 - "Majoras Mask Music Ikana Valley Reversed 0.0.mp3") was be heard playing. The page title and description was a caesarian shift, that translated to the well-known "MY EYES... THEY TOOK... MY EYES..." when shifted eight times.
The page later stopped working and would just redirect you back to another page of YSHDT.net (in the later days of the website, that page was the Chapters page). It is unknown when it was taken down.
ifrit
http://www.youshouldnthavedonethat.net/index.php/contact/ifrit
Third in order of discovery, Ifrit's contact page was found on September 18, 2010, a mere two hours before the countdown on Ben's contact page was to finish.
Cycle One
Page title: fj6rt
Page description: [None, or unknown]
On it was the text "Should you know what question to ask, the gate to truth will be opened:", and hidden was Ifrit's e-mail - ifritmoon@gmail.com. This prompted players to start e-mailing Ifrit with numerous questions.
After the countdown on Ben's contact page had run out, the title of Ifrit's contact page changed to an URL leading to the video of TheLinkMissing playing the Song of Time. We can assume that the rest of the page was unchanged, seeing as the page title switch was the only thing noted by ARG players.
Page title after the the countdown had run out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JsRPJNHMIg
Cycle Two
Recreated version: http://tinyurl.com/18thFebYSHDTifrit
Page title: The Moon Children :: ifrit
Page description: [None]
After the countdown on Ben's contact page had finished and TheLinkMissing played the Song of Time, all of YSHDT.net went down, as a result of us going back in time. When it got back up online the next day - September 19, 2010 - Ifrit's contact page looked different.
It now had three identical images of the Elegy Statue (See: Downloadable file #35 - "BEN.jpg") - staring right at you, with the text "Excepting to find someone else?" underneath, and the Skull Kid laughter playing once in the background - under the filename "Get it yet..mp3" (See: Downloadable file #36).
alex
http://www.youshouldnthavedonethat.net/index.php/contact/ifrit/alex
Page title: The Moon Children :: alex
Page description: alex
As the fourth and last contact page to be found, Alex's contact page was discovered on September 19, 2010 after and people had noticed his name on the TheLinkMissing YouTube account. It is unique in that it's the only contact page to have first been found after the first cycle.
Version One
- The page as it appeared up until February 10 or 11, 2011
Recreated version: http://tinyurl.com/contactalexpage
The page was simple and only had one line of text: "another who knows of them, chooses.... mask.... sends aid.... fallen.... vehement.....diety.... he is alone against them" with the last part - "diety.... he is alone against them" - being in black font against the black background, thus requiring highlighting to be seen (or source code checking).
Version Two
- The page as it appeared after February 10 or 11, 2011
Recreated version: http://tinyurl.com/18thFebYSHDTalex
Page title: Haunted Majora's Mask :: alex / Within Hubris :: alex
Page description: alex
Note: The title of the page, "Within Hubris :: alex" and previously "Haunted Majora's Mask :: alex" was changed simply because of YSHDT.net switching names.
On February 11, 2011, the page was found to have been cleared of its content, meaning the text was completely gone.
Post Moon Children Sub-arc pages - OOC-YSHDT.net
Recreation of the latest version: http:///tinyurl.com/18thFebYSHDT
When the Moon Children era of YSHDT.net ended - due to OOC Jadusable having to put the ARG on an indefinite pause - on September 20, 2010, http://www.youshouldnthavedonethat.net stopped acting as if it all was real. However, as the ARG was later able to continue, the website started showing some small signs of going back into character. For simplicity, let us call this version of the website "OOC-YSHDT.net" ("OOC" being an acronym for Out Of Character) even though it was not completely OOC.
The website kept its original layout and most of the banners. The bookmark icon (See: Downloadable file #28 - "Day 1 Boomark Icon.jpg") also remained the same up until February 13, 2011.
Some of the changes on the OOC-YSHDT.net pages were small and happened at different times, so they'll be organized under a sort of change log under the section for the page it happened on.
Changes that included more than one of the OOC-YSHDT.net pages:
[September 20, 2010]
May not count as a change during OOC-YHSDT.net, but this was when it changed to OOC-YSHDT.net, from MC-YSHDT.net. The changes:
- Page titles with "The Moon Children" in them were changed to "Haunted Majora's Mask", as was the big title on the top left of the pages (Right above the banners), and the "© 2010 The Moon Children" was changed to "© Haunted Majora's Mask Cartridge".
- The tabs in the menu on the top right changed from "Home", "Contact Us", "Search", "The Truth", "Creed", "About", and "Theories"; to "Home", "Chapters", "The Truth", "FAQ", "Donate", and "ARG Timeline".
[October 6, 2010]
Just a temporary change - the Glitch. For more information on that, read about it further down under its own section.
[October 6, 2010]
About one hour and a half after the Glitch had started, it stopped and the page went back to its previous state.
[February 13, 2011]
- The Majora's Mask bookmark icon (See: Downloadable file #28 - "Day 1 Bookmark Icon.jpg") was removed and set to the website's default image.
[February 20, 2011]
- All of the instances of "Haunted Majora's Mask" and "Haunted Majora's Mask Cartridge" (Meaning the big title on the top left, page titles, the copyright information at the bottom - nothing in e.g. old news posts was changed) switched to "Within Hubris".
- The whole website went down shortly after the small name changes, and has yet to come back up online.
Home
Recreation of the latest version: http://tinyurl.com/18thFebYSHDT
[September 20, 2010]
Page title: Haunted Majora's Mask Cartridge
Page description: [None]
Page banner: A full moon shining over a natural landscape (See: Downloadable file #21 - "moon banner4 192.jpg").
The main page first went OOC as the ARG had to be put on pause for the first time, on September 20, 2010. This was because OOC Jadusable was not able to continue it due to financial reasons.
The layout stayed the same as before, as did the banner and the song that had been playing for the most time during the two cycles of MC-YSHDT.net (See: Downloadable file #12 - "Lost in My Thoughts by Chi-iLL.mp3") was put back on. The page still had a guestbook (although under the new title "Thoughts/Comments/Hate:") but the Introduction section and the News Posts section were gone and replaced by a sort of mix of them both - a Latest News section for only OOC Jadusable to post in. This is what was on there:
"Hey, Jadusable here,
Consider this the 'real' TheTruth.txt
A lot of you may hate me for this, but I've decided that I can no longer continue the Majora's Mask story the way I originally wanted to. Even as I'm typing this I can feel the disappointment and the "OH MY GOD YOU ASSHOLE" cries as you guys read this, and really, it kills me. A lot of people have initially surmised that this must be some kind of viral marketing effort from Nintendo, or some kind of marketing ploy, and while I can't tell you how flattering that is I can assure you that it is neither. I'm just a sophomore in college who came up with this elaborate idea and as it stands I simply don't have the manpower or the funds to continue this in the direction that I wanted it to go (now I realize why it took a team of talented individuals to do Marble Hornets as opposed to just a one-man-army).
Perhaps too ambitious, I purchased the cheapest webhosting service I could find given my budget (aka nonexistant), and with all of the people attempting to access the site (since the website opened two days ago, I've gotten over 300,000 visits and I've spent probably half that time in maintence) - it was almost consistently down. If you're going to involve a website this closely in your interactive story, then you can't have your website crashing or unavailable for the majority of your users; you would need a service that could handle that many viewers. Unfortunately this was something I simply could not afford being a broke college student. I paid for the site out of my own pocket (in retrospect probably not the most sound finanical decision), and with the insane amount of traffic I was getting the server host wasn't cutting it and I didn't want to "break character" by putting Google ads in to generate revenue. I didn't have the money to upgrade and I knew that I wouldn't be doing this story justice if I continued on as things were. Even if the money issue was solved, there's still the matter of the updates taking too long - I simply did not have the time to devote enough attention into the project for speedy updates. So I was presented with two options - either wrap up this game in a lackluster ending that would feel contrived, or stop here and resume it later.
A bit of backstory: Writing/story-telling has always been a hobby of mine - I actually have a TV show that I'm currently finding an agent for - and being a closet dork, videogames have always interested me as a kid with Majora's Mask ranking among my favorite. I've never attempted writing anything remotely scary before, but MM aways had that "creepy" vibe to it and so on a whim I decided to try my hand at it. Maybe it wasn't everyone's forte, maybe a little cliched to some, but the concept of a videogame - a device that only reacts to what the user tells it - suddenly going outside its coding was something I wanted to explore and something that could engage the reader and have it relatable on more than one level. I wanted to make the story creepy not because of severed heads or morbid descriptions, but on a more psychological level with a fair amount of mindfuckery, for both the poor bastard protagonist and the reader.
I view this whole story as two separate stories - the original "Haunted Zelda Cartridge" - which ended with TheTruth.rtf - that is my original work and story. The second story - involving the website - would pick up where "Haunted Zelda Cartridge" left off. However, it obviously isn't completed and may seem too "out of place" for people to really get the whole picture, thus subject to a lot of "jumping the shark" claims. I know that there were some of the original fans who weren't happy with the direction it went in after the website came out and that it seemed like two different concepts entirely - they were, but I feel had this thing run its course the way I intended those same people may see the "second part" of the story in a new light. This explaination will not do it justice, but perhaps clears things up as to what my overall goal was:
The story was just as much of an experiment to me as it was an adventure for you guys. Being new at this genre, I wanted to try and bring a new kind of feel to the standard "creepy" stories; one that had to do with shattering the fourth wall and that sense of security. When you read a scary story, there's no doubt that it can be creepy, but in the back of your mind you know you're safe behind your computer screen on the internet connected to millions of other people. You've used the internet for years and you know how it works inside and out - and as a result you have this built up sense of security because of how familiar it is. I attempted to shatter that "fourth wall" with BEN. I wanted to write a story that involved the reader so they would feel more connected to the story. The biggest example of this is the big reveal at the end of TheTruth.rtf where the reader suddenly realizes that BEN has not only tricked the protagonist, but the reader as well, making them personally feel betrayed and uneasy at the same time. Obviously Cleverbot isn't haunted, but the way it works is that if a bunch of people start chatting with it saying specific words, the program will notice a pattern and start to associate them together, making it a perfect choice for leaving that lingering doubt of "what if?", especially now that BEN has leaked out into the internet and could theoretically control exactly what you're reading now. Maybe he just wants you to think this was all fake so you stop worrying about it and continue on with your normal lives. Probably not.
As I played with the concept of having the reader become more and more involved, the story sort of evolved into an Alternate Reality Game. I had always admired the unique sense of impending disaster and the three day concept in the videogame, and I wanted to take Majora's Mask and incorporate it into reality without copy/pasting it, which would make it lose all sense of believability. Instead, I opted for a more "modern" take, on how Majora's Mask would be if it happened in real life - there would be no goofy giant moon with a nasty face on it, there would be no floating mask that can possess said moon, etc. Instead there was a cult worshipping a moon that is destined to fall, a hero from another world, an evil entity that has crossed over into another dimension (Majora into Termina, similiar to BEN's entrance into the real world), a three day time cycle, as well as other parallels that would have become available further in the story. I wanted to capture and recreate the same feelings that we all got when we were playing Majora's Mask for the first time as kids. That feeling when you first went back in time, realizing that everyone else was oblivious, that was something that I wanted to try and bring to life. After that, with new knowledge of the events that will unfold, you then set out to change what was about to transpire.
I eventually introduced a "Link" to the viewers, with a second Youtube account, and my idea was to have him decide what kind of actions he'd take based on reponse videos. These response videos would require the user to boot up their own copy of Zelda and preform an action, not only making them feel more apart of the story, but directly in control of it. The viewers now served as Link's guide - or Navi as it was in the game. The main example of this is how Link is killed because of a bad video response on Youtube to a video put up by Jadusable (an incorrect song played). Link then posts a video on his account of the game over screen and nothing more. Yet not even 30 minutes later another user records a video - without any hints from me whatsoever - of him playing HIS Zelda game and releasing a fairy (which revives the player if killed) - which prompted me to revive Link and continue as him. This was only the beginning of what I originally had in mind - Link was the only person who could save our reality despite him being in a completely different dimension, but the players could dictate his actions. So in a sense, they were the guide, yet they were also the actual "player" controlling Link. I'm not going to reveal entirely what would have happened to the main characters or the plot, because I do intend to pick it up again some day and continue this.
I'm still experimenting, but I feel like the genre of "ARGs" is something that should be explored more often; the level of interactivity between the viewers and the creators gives the story a much more "personal" feel. I really hope that we see a rise of them in the coming years - if one single busy college student like me got this far - with an actual team the sky's the limit. The one major issue that I've noticed though, is fraud - no matter how many times I'd subtly try and remind my viewers "in character" that the only people they should be taking information as canon are accounts/websites linked to the original Jadusable Youtube account, every time some new guy claiming to either be a player in the story or be in contact with someone who is came to light, immediately people would swarm them and they'd end up throwing everyone else off because of bad information. I suppose I can't blame them, some of them were pretty damn convincing with their explainations of how they got into the story.
I expect that some of you are pissed now, and I can completely understand why - I can't tell you how much it kills me to have to cut it short like this because I know I'm letting you guys down, but hopefully you can see it from my perspective. I would like to thank my fans - it's because of your support that has motivated me to get this far. If I had it my way, it wouldn't end like this, believe me. But I'm still amazed at how big this has all gotten - its really surreal browsing the internet and seeing an article about something you've written up on Digg, Kotaku, and what-have-you, or overhearing a conversation in class and doing a double-take when you realize what they're talking about.
I would also like to extend an apology to a certain message board who has literally been taken over by people analyzing, exchanging theories, and discussing all aspects of what all this could mean or what the next move is. Haha, I'm sure there are quite a few people who can't wait until this is all over so things can go back to their regularly scheduled programming. Not too much longer.
I am going to leave the website up, but modify it so that it now serves as an archive of the story, and include a timeline of events (I know a few members have been keeping a record, if you could forward that to me at the address below when it's done that'd be much appreciated). Unfortunately being as broke as I am, I don't have the funds to maintain the website for very long, and donations would be appreciated just for the sake of keeping the website up as an archive for future viewers, otherwise the website will probably have to be taken down by the end of the month. If you are legitmently interested in making a donation to help host, there is a donate link at the top of this page. Don't feel obligated at all - knowing that I've kept you guys entertained all this time and provided something fun is reward enough, as lame as that sounds.
As I said before, this has been an experiment, and I've learned a lot of lessons from this for the future, and this is something that I would very much love to do again if given the resources. But, just know that this isn't the end.
If you need to get in contact with me or write me a nasty letter, my email is jadusable@youshouldnthavedonethat.net
Thanks again guys, it's been a wild ride. Loved every single second of it.
Jadusable
inb4 obligatory "FAKE AND GAY" response"
[October 5, 2010]
Recreated version: http://tinyurl.com/YSHDTOct6
Small changes started happening. The music changed from "Lost In My Thoughts by Chi-iLL.mp3" (See: Downloadable file #12) to a less relaxing song called "Destroyed Violin Beat Dark Rap Instrumental .mp3" (See: Downloadable file #11). "Probably not." in the text ("Maybe he just wants you to think this was all fake so you stop worrying about it and continue on with your normal lives. Probably not.") was struck through.
[October 6, 2010]
The Glitch changed the page for a bit. For more information on that, look under its (The Glitch) seperate section.
[October 6, 2010]
After about one and a half hour of the Glitch, everything on the website went back to its previous state, but with the guestbook cleared. "Lost In My Thoughts by Chi-iLL.mp3" (See: Downloadable file #12) was back as the background music and the "Probably not." was not struck through.
[October 6, 2010]
Shortly after though, the same small changes happened again. The music changed once more to "Destroyed Violin Beat Dark Rap Instrumental .mp3" (See: Downloadable file #11) and "Probably not." was struck through again, but this time also underlined.
[October 6, 2010]
The page had another quick, temporary change. The banner switched to the picture of the Elegy Statue, repeated numerous times, the music was gone and so was all of the text (OOC Jadusable's news posts) except for the guestbook. Shortly after, it went back to how it had been just before again.
[October 6, 2010]
By this time the downloadable files had been discovered (through the Glitch), and all of them had been cracked except for File 59. The page updated with this piece of text underneath "Latest News", right above OOC Jadusable's long text:
"Its been in front of you the whole time. Think."
It was hinting at "thelensoftruth" which was the password for opening File 59.
[October 10, 2010]
Recreated version from October 31st, 2010: http://tinyurl.com/YSHDTOct31
The guestbook was cleared, the background music changed to "Hard Epic Instrumental by Synthyhoody.mp3" (See: Downloadable file #62) and the text on the page switched to this:
"The second phase of the story has concluded. Kayd Hendricks' role in the story has finished. You are now equipped with all of the information you need to tackle the final phase of this story. Over the past several weeks I have been forming a team to finish the final installment of this story for your enjoyment - think of the events that have occurred in the past several days as a prelude to what comes next. The link has been shattered and BEN is now turning his attention to you. There are several key events that have happened recently that have armed you (whether you realize it or not) with information to not only combat BEN but to finally vanquish him.
And now for just what exactly is next - I'm proud to announce that we will be releasing an interactive videogame for download in tandem with the final phase of the story. It is not a videogame in the traditional sense - it's another perspective into the story and more importantly another resource that you will need to utilize. You have watched Ifrit and Ryukaki go through being tormented by BEN, and now you will experience it first-hand.
You will have to use the three main resources - Jadusable's Youtube Channel, this website, and the game itself to solve the final installment in this story. A clue on the website may lead you to do something that would allow you to progress further within the game and vice versa. The game will be updated in real-time (an Internet connection will be required to play) as the story unfolds and players progress further in this twisted world, the environment changing right before your eyes as you start to go through the same motions as your predecessors. Remember, BEN is completely in control of the Internet now - but does his presence extend beyond that as others have claimed?
While you may be the only one physically in the game, you are not alone in this impossible endeavour - over the past month you have been conversing with each other and deciphering clues, allying yourselves with complete strangers to overcome insurmountable odds. Those relationships you have formed will be strained and your ability to work together as a team will be tested. You will have to stand as a community if you want to have any hope of success. Those who have a keen eye for detail and deduction skills will be your greatest assets. This is an interactive mystery on the grandest of scales, and only by uniting the entire Internet as one driving force do you have any chance of snuffing BEN out of existence.
This will revolutionize what it means to be an ARG and provide you guys with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be a part of something that will go down as the first project of its kind. We are over here working hard on this and you can expect this to release around holiday season. Be sure to check back here for various updates concerning the game itself and for a more definitive release date as Halloween draws closer.
Until then, I feel it necessary to say that you should only take what is posted by me on this website and on my Youtube channel as canon. I have had a few individuals involved in the story as minor characters (there have been two), and their roles are no longer in play (I don't foresee them trying to involve themselves further without my consent, I believe they are good people, but just in case I'd like to cover all my bases).
I'm sure you have a lot of questions and I will put up a Q&A about the project itself, but keep in mind that I can't divulge much at this point, if you would like to submit your question for the Q&A, send a message to the corresponding email below.
Good luck.
For questions concerning the game - whatisben@youshouldnthavedonethat.net
For fanmail - fanmail@youshouldnthavedonethat.net
For other inquiries - continue to use jadusable@youshouldnthavedonethat.net"
When highlighting everything, people found this text hidden in black font right under the e-mail addresses:
"You might want to compare notes with each other, you seem to have missed a very important detail. It would be in your best interest to get that sorted out before the game releases. Good luck."
It is to this date unknown what important detail exactly that was hinting at, but we seem to have found it out by now anyway.
[November 8, 2010]
All of the text under Latest News except for the e-mails and the hidden lines underneath them (also not the guestbook) was replaced with "Updating..." for a moment before changing into this:
"Hey guys, first of all I know that it's been a long while since I've updated and I apologize, but we've been pretty busy over here trying to make things work. I originally meant to have this Q&A come out around Halloween but we've been working out various issues on how this final installment will operate and function (seeing as though this is the final part of the story that will tie everything together, I'm wanting to make sure its done right instead of trying to churn out a half-assed verison). Rest assured that I've still been lurking around reading your guys' comments and thoughts and I've been keeping up-to-date with the community.
I know some of you are probably frustrated with the lack of updates in a timely manner, but bare in mind that this final phase is more expansive than the first and second combined. Hours and hours of planning and work have gone into this and there's still much left to be done. I appreciate your guys' patience and I'm extremely excited about the experience that you guys will have once this is released.
As promised, here is the Q&A that will hopefully give you guys a little more insight into the project:
Q: Is the game the final phase of this story?
Yes and no. The game itself is only one part of the final phase in the story - I understand that for whatever reason some people will not be able to play the game, but that does not mean that they will be left out. There are several mediums that will be used to illustrate the final phase of the story - the website will be just as important as it was when it originally launched back in September as well as the Youtube account. There will be clues from the website that translate into the game and clues from the game that will translate into the website - you will have to conquer all three to progress.
Q: Can you please verify (or warn me if not) that the game isn't going to have virus-like effects on the computer as a whole?
No, there won't be any viruses attached to the game - I can assure you that you won't get anything malicious from downloading this.
Q: Do you, or will you, have some kind of way to "subscribe" to the game? What I mean is, for those of us not visiting the site every single day, will there be some way to recieve emails notifying us that you are starting the final phase (or the next phase) of the game?
I've thought about that, and decied that when there is a big announcement (such as announcing the release date), the easiest way to inform the most amount of people would be through the Youtube account. The best way to stay up to date would be to subscribe to Jadusable's channel, and I will announce the release date in advance so it doesn't just get sprung on you guys.
Q: When can we expect the game to be released?
In time for the Holiday season, if not sooner. I don't want to come right out there and say exactly when because it could be delayed, but like I said earlier, I will announce the release date in advance to give you guys ample time to get prepared.
Q: Will the game cost anything to download?
That was one of the factors that has hindered the development time, because I am paying my staff myself I've been constrained a little bit in terms of what I want to do/what I can afford. I definitely want to address this as soon as possible, though. At this point, I can honestly say that I am not sure if this will "cost" anything, it really depends on several financial/work factors. I may be able to work it out (ideally) that it would be just a free download, and I will let you guys know in advance what the final decision is.
It's really disheartening to entertain the possibility that the game itself may actually have a pricetag, because I know there will be fans of mine who immediately assume I've "sold out" or I'm trying to get rich or something, and I realize that its a perfectly understandable knee-jerk reaction, but I hope that I can try and clear a few things up:
1. If (and that's a huge if) this game ends up costing anything to download, based on development costs thus far, it would be around the $1.99 price range.
2. I am extremely passionate about this story and making sure the finale is done right is my biggest priority. Those of you who know people in the videogame business might have a better understanding that creating a game - even a relatively small project like this isn't exactly cheap. Essentially I'm paying my staff out of my own pocket and the price tag would be to pay for them and try and break even with this project. I want to get this experience out there as best as I can make it for you guys.
3. I have been and always will be extremely thankful of your guys' support, without you guys this whole thing would not have been as successful as it has been. As much as I am passionate about the story, I am just as if not more so passionate about understanding the concerns of my fans. This is why I would never, ever make the game the only way to participate in phase 3. Even if you do not buy the game (and the buy is still completely hypothetical), you will still be able to work together with the people that do.
If you choose not to purchase the game if it ends up having a price tag, I understand, but we have put a lot of work into it and I'm extremely proud of how it's shaping up. If you really want to get immersed into the final phase - take the fourth wall breaking aspect from the first phase and ramp it up times twenty - then the game will be a powerful experience for you. Like I said, I may be able to work it out where we can release it for free, but I wanted to just give you all a heads-up so it doesn't seem like I'm trying to pull a fast one over you guys if we do have to charge a small fee for it.
Q: What program you are going to be using to develop the game?
The game will be developed using Unity (http://unity3d.com/).
Q: Is this a well known company or just a small one that produces flash games that is helping you make this? I guess where I'm going with that question would be is it going to be an all out video game or just a web-based game?
Well, actually there's no company behind this. I've hired a small staff to help me craft the game. This won't be an all-out videogame, in fact, it's difficult to adequately describe it - you'll have to see it for yourself. It's not a flash game and it isn't browser based - it will be a downloadable game.
Q: Will this game run for Windows or for Mac?
Windows confirmed, but most likely Mac as well. I'll keep you guys updated.
Q: What will the game be rated?
Haha, well I'm not ESRB representative, but I would say that the content you've seen on the website is about par for the content in the game. There are some intense psychological fourth-wall breaking scenarios that will blow your mind and make you shit bricks and the atmosphere is immersive (doubly so if you've been following since the beginning). I can't let on too much, but I can tell you that the genre cliches for "horror" games (such as an abundance of cheap jumpscares and overuse of violence/gore) will be absent. Think more along the lines of Silent Hill 2, except this is much more personal for you.
Q: How will the game itself work? As in, will it be 2d, 3d, topdown, first person, second person, third person?
The game itself will be first person, but you can rest easy - it's not an FPS, there will be no regenerating health and bald space marines here.
Q: What weapons will we have?
Your only weapons will be your abillity to communicate with each other and your deductive skills.
Q: What is the purpose of the game? What exactly will you be doing?
You will be investigating a location mentioned previously in the story while simultaneously trying to uncover the truth about BEN. You'll be interacting with some familiar faces and a lot of things will start all coming together... and for better or for worse the unanswered questions will be resolved.
Q: Who will you be playing as?
Yourself.
Q: If someone progresses further into the game, will everyone progress or is it individual?
There will be checkpoints - when the majority of the playerbase progresses far enough in the game to unlock the next phase of the game - a new version of the game will be released for download. Inititally not all areas are accessible, but by progressing in the story (similiar to how you guys "unlocked" areas of this website previously), it's through this that you will start to see the game world change based on your actions.
Q: How many verisons will there be? How long will this final phase last?
I can't ruin that, now can I? There will be a fair amount of checkpoints. It depends on how well you work together and how smart you are, but its fair to say more than a week.
Q: If this game ends up costing money, will I have to pay for each new verison of the game as we progress through the story?
No way, this game won't suffer from "DLC Syndrome", haha. If (and still a big if) it does cost money, you will only have to pay for it once - every new verison will be free.
Q: How will you update the game with each verison? Will it be patched?
Not exactly, for the sake of having an archive for you to go back and revisit if you wish, you will be able to download a new .exe with the updated game.
That's all for now, if you have any more questions that weren't answered feel free to send them to the address below. I'll keep you guys updated in the upcoming weeks about the progress of the game, and try not to get suckered into mock-websites (Again, only trust updates on this site - the guestbook doesn't count :P)."
The e-mails remained at the bottom of the Latest News section, but the hidden text was now gone.
At first there was no music on the page. Then after a little bit, the new song "Epic Orchestra Rap Instrumental.mp3" (See: Downloadable file #63) was added.
[January 1, 2011]
The music disappeared, and OOC Jadusable posted a new post in Latest News. This one didn't replace the Q&A from November though, it was simply put above it. The e-mails also got moved to be situated underneath it instead of under the Q&A. This was the update:
"January 1, 2011
It's the dawn of a new day and the beginning of a new year so I figured I'd take this opportunity to reach out to the community and give a brief update.
The game is still in development. I know that may illicit a teeth-grinding response from some of you (in all fairness I was too ambitious by saying that it would be out by the holiday season), and I feel like I've beat this point to death but just keep in mind that I am working on this and financing this by myself. I have no big company backing me, I don't have six figures to be throwing into the production of this - I am working with a small staff of various programmers/modelers/what-have-you that I've hired out of my own pocket. Learning how to make a game, especially one of this kind of calibur, is both difficult and time consuming. Money is tight and when it becomes too tight work progress can slow down. This is not me asking for donations: this is me conveying the reality of the situation for those who want to know. Donating will not speed up the development process (if you want to donate, obviously that's great and as always I appreciate your support, but it will not make the game come out any faster) - we've more of less got all of our ducks in a row for the financial aspect now.
I hope you all can understand how tackling this along with work, school, and the holidays is extremely - for lack of a better word - complicated. If this was my job, that'd be a much different story, but for now I have to ask that you bare with me. I will give you guys a heads up at least a week or two in advance when we're getting ready to release this so you guys can plan accordingly, and there will be a build-up event to the release of the game as well. Don't worry about missing when the ARG starts back up - you'll know, internet access or not.
I just want to thank you guys for your patience and understanding towards this entire process. Yes, I know it's hard. And yes, I know it can be frustrating to have to wait - but I can assure you the experience will be worth it. I've probably made some of my fans lose interest and while its unfortunate - so be it. I would rather release a well-polished game and satisfyingly conclude this saga - because it's what all of you guys deserve - than churn out something that feels rushed and incomplete. Being able to get my story out and to have you all enjoy it as I intended is worth losing a few fans to me - as hard as that is to say.
A user that goes by the name of Sheik made a well thought-out and informative post in the guestbook that gives a brief perspective on what I'm working on here (thanks again, Sheik):
I'm going to put my realistic hat on. I've been waiting as eagerly for updates as anyone else because I don't know, maybe Jadusable was some kind of wizard or else someone with an incredible gameplan who had started working on Arc 3 before the first creepypasta post was even made. But the longer we go with no word the more it confirms to me that Jad didn't realise what a big project he was getting into and that he has no idea when it'll actually be ready.
I'm going to go by a few assumptions here based on the answers to this Q&A above. (So everything after this is conjecture). Firstly, Jad is going to have to make AT LEAST two different versions of this game available for download at various points. Second, it's in first-person and features a location "previously mentioned", so we can assume we're using the unity engine for a 3D environment. As to what the environment is?
First option: something Majora's Mask-ish. I think this is the least likely, but: they'd have to rip a bunch of assets out of the game (since I don't know of any website so far that hosts a ripped version of, say, the Elegy statue - nobody's bothered before). Then they'd have to get them to work in the newer 3D programs (for reference: I wasted a day of my life the other month trying to reapply all the textures to Twilight Princesses version of Kakariko village, because the old .3ds file it was made in isn't very compatible with the newer 3D software anymore and therefore didn't automatically apply the textures like it should have/did in older versions of the program. I can only imagine how old those MM models are.) Then they'd have to get them to work okay in the unity engine. That's not easy.
Second option: something set in the real world (Ryu's house, the old man's house, the orchard, whatever). So first off they're going to need to build a whole bunch of essentially useless assets (furniture) just to set the scene up. never mind anything plot-relevant or interesting. He's got to either have people building them (time-consuming) OR pay for them pre-built OR get the free ones off, say, Turbosquid, in which case it's either going to look shit or someone's got to spend a good while retexturing everything to make it look weathered and consistent with the rest of the scene.
Either way it's going to take forever. (Note: since Jad mentions that it's hard-to-explain, I could be entirely wrong in assuming it's going to have some kind of 1st-person Myst-type setup. Maybe it's going to be based around, idk, text and photos or something, or a series of static environment images in a point-and-click setup, in which case I'd say expecting to get it out of the door in 2 months is maybe more realistic - but then I don't see what the point of using the Unity engine would be.)
Plus we have multiple versions, multiple set-pieces, and this arc is meant to last a week. Even if we assume more than half of that is going to be spent waiting for YSHDT.net/youtube to update or waiting for enough slowpokes to cross the checkpoints so that we can proceed, there's still got to be a couple of hours of gameplay there, minimum.
I don't imagine we've got a large dev team working full-time, even if Jad *is* paying them, since he's a college student. A handful of people working part time is more likely, and since it's the holiday season they might not in fact be working on it at the moment at all. A comparison: one of my university tutors has a couple of dozen years in the game industry, and has just released a game on itunes (for reference and for shameless plugging: http://www.attackkumquat.com/ - go play it if you can, it's pretty neat). That was made by a dev team of two, working part time and out of their own pocket - much like Jad.
And it took them the best part of a year to do it.
And compare: these guys have a huge amount of experience. They don't have an insane amount of assets: the same building blocks are used from level to level. There aren't any elaborate scripted "set pieces" like Jad is trying to do, Silent-Hill style. You see where I'm going with this?
And, okay, I'm not a coder at all, I am an artist. I don't know the first thing about coding. But I'm willing to bet that programming a game to *not* be a stable environment, making it something that can change somehow between versions, or with players actions triggering environment changes, or with set-pieces, is a heavy workload. Depending on how far Jad is willing to go to break the fourth wall (enabling the game to tailor itself to recognise individual players via their email they've been using on the guestbook is still something I think would be unbelievably cool), that's a whole can of worms right there too. And, guys - this game CANNOT glitch. There must be no glitches in this game, because in a game BASED around scripted anomalies and glitches, a rogue glitch that Jad didn't intend to be there could, depending on the circumstances, destroy the game completely.
tl;dr Unless I am totally off track about how this game will work, I am totally amazed that Jad ever thought he'd get this out around the holidays, and frankly if it comes out in a good, non-half-assed, finished state before April he is probably a wizard who can bend the laws of game production-times to his will, and I will be very impressed.
... Although I can safely say that you won't have to wait until April."
As is pretty obvious, the very last line there was not written by Sheik, but by OOC Jadusable.
[January 14, 2011]
The guestbook was removed, due to huge amount of trolling and spamming that had been happening in it. Entirely OOC.
[February 1, 2011]
The guestbook was back up and OOC Jadusable posted another update in Latest News. Again, none of the others were replaced, just put into the Oldest News. This was the update:
"February 1, 2011
Hey, just wanted to give you guys a brief update:
Things are coming along nicely with production, save for one little detail. We've run into a little hitch with Unity and using the original level that we had in mind, but it's nothing that we can't fix/replace. It's a little hiccup, but it isn't stopping anything. I know, I know... waiting for this must be annoying, but understand the work that has to go into making a project like this and how I'm trying to make this whole thing happen by myself. I know that probably isn't so comforting, but it will all be worth it and the longest part of the waiting game is over.
Alright, enough of the bad news. I'm pleased to announce that I've gotten in touch with a very talented artist and he's collaborating with us to make the soundtrack for the videogame. If you've liked any of the music that has been on the website in the past, then you're going to love this.
I also wanted to thank you again for all of your support, understanding, and your donations. They have been absolutely paramount in this story's success and keeping us motivated. Making the final phase of this story has been the most intensive project I've ever taken on and it's all starting to come to fruition in these next few weeks. The next update will be featuring some screenshots of the game and introducing the build-up event and this will probably be the last "out of character" update you guys get.
Again, I couldn't have done all this without you and your support. You guys are awesome.
PS The guest book is back up. Play nice."
[February 12, 2011]
The page updated a couple of times quickly, with small messages popping up as updates and then being removed soon after.
First update at around 11:38PM EST:
Screenshot ------- Saved HTML ------- Saved HTML 2 ------- Update said:
"February 12, 2011
You're beginning to slowly go insane."
First and second update together at around 11:39PM EST:
Update said:
"February 12, 2011
You're beginning to slowly go insane. You begin to slowly lose your grip on reality."
Second update at around 11:43PM EST:
Screenshot ------- Screenshot 2 -------- Saved HTML ------- Saved HTML 2 ------- Update said:
"February 12, 2011
You begin to slowly lose your grip on reality."
Third update at around 11:49PM EST:
Screenshot ------- Saved HTML ------- Update said:
"February 12, 2011
Not time yet Not yet time. Too soon. So"
This seem to have been hinting at the us not being supposed to get into the uncracked, downloadable files #64-67.
[February 17, 2011]
A new countdown appeared on the page, above the posts in Latest News. It was counting down to "Another Step", and when you rolled over it, it said "when you unite. 18 Feb 2011". The counter ended at 7:00PM EST, at which point the website also went down, most likely due to being overloaded. "Another Step" was the release of the Within Hubris forum, which was found shortly after the countdown had ended.
[February 19, 2011]
The page updated for the last time with this in the Latest News:
"February 17, 2011
The time has come to unite.
Almost."
"The time has come to unite." was a link leading to the Within Hubris forum.
Chapters
Recreation of the latest version: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20745027/18FebYSHDTzip/18FebYSHDT/chapters.htm
[September 20, 2010]
Page title: Chapter Index
Page description: [Unknown/None]
Page banner: A black and white, grainy picture with the Happy Mask Salesman's angry face on the left and "CHAPTERS" on the right (See: Downloadable file #42 - "9857891195_9dhxc.jpg").
The Chapters page listed the chapters that together made up Arc 1 of the ARG. The titles of the chapters were clickable and would take you to the individual chapters' pages. This is what the page said:
"Chapter 1 - day four (9-7-10)
Chapter 2 - BEN (9-8-10)
Chapter 3 - DROWNED (9-10-10)
Chapter 4 - jadusable (9-12-10)
Chapter 5 - The Truth (9-15-10)
For each chapter, read the story and then watch the corresponding video.
Viewers also noticed that Jadusable had another Youtube video on his account - uploaded a year before any of this began - a suspicious video of a character named Rosa from VtM:B. If you missed out on the story and are looking to get the "full effect", it's recomended that you watch this video first.
Bonus Chapter - Rosa (6-14-09)
The above story is the original standalone verison, if you want to read the ARG continuation, you can do so by visitng the mapped out timeline as the website is introduced (occurs after Chapter 5)."
[October 4, 2010]
Page title: Chapter Index
Page description: http://
Banner: A black and white, grainy picture with the Happy Mask Salesman's angry face on the left and "CHAPTERS" on the right (See: Downloadable file #42 - "9857891195_9dhxc.jpg").
The page description was changed to "http://" (as were the page descriptions for the other tabs on the website - excluding the home page - and when put in the order they appear on the menu, the pages' descriptions together spellt out "http://WHATISNot so fast..com").
Chapter 1 - day four (9-7-10)
Recreation of the latest version: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20745027/18FebYSHDTzip/18FebYSHDT/chapters_dayfour.htm
[September 20, 2010]
Page title: Chapter 1: day four
Page description: Chapter 1 - Day Four
Page banner: [None]
This page had the complete first written chapter, "day four" and its corresponding video. Playing in the background was "Lost in My Thoughts by Chi-iLL.mp3" (See: Downloadable file #12). On the page was a small blue pixel that would, if you clicked it, stop the music. This is the text that was on the page:
"day four
September 07, 2010
Guys, I need your help with this. This is a long read, I'm sorry for that, but I feel like my safety or well-being could very well depend on this. This is videogame related, specifically having to do with the Zelda game called "Majora's Mask", and this is the creepiest shit that has ever happened to me in my entire life.
I recently moved into my dorm room starting as a Sophomore in college and a friend of mine gave me his old Nintendo 64 to play. I was stoked, to say the least, I could finally play all of those old games of my youth that I hadn't touched in at least a decade. His Nintendo 64 came with one yellow controller and a rather shoddy copy of Super Smash Brothers, and while beggers can't be choosers, needless to say it didn't take long until I became bored of beating up the computer.
That weekend I decided to drive around a few neighborhoods about twenty minutes or so off campus, hitting up the local garage sales, hoping to score on some good deals from ignorant parents). I ended up picking up a copy of Pokemon Stadium, Goldeneye (fuck yeah), F-Zero, and two other controllers for two dollars. Satisfied, I began to drive out of the neighborhood when one last house caught my attention. I still have no idea why it did, there were no cars there and only one table was set up with random junk on it, but something sort of drew me there. I usually trust my gut on these things so I got out of the car and I was greeted by an old man. His outward appearance was, for lack of a better word, displeasing. It was odd, if you asked me to tell you why I thought he was displeasing, I couldn't really pinpoint anything - there was just something about him that put me on edge, I can't explain it. All I can tell you is that if it wasn't in the middle of the afternoon and there were other people within shouting distance, I would not have even thought of approaching this man. He flashed a crooked smiled at me and asked what I was looking for, and immediately I noticed that he must be blind in one of his eyes; his right eye had that "glazed over" look about it. I forced myself to look to his left eye instead, trying not to offend, and asked him if he had any old videogames.
I was already wondering how I could politely excuse myself from the situation when he would tell me he had no idea what a videogame was, but to my surprise he said he had a few ones in an old box. He assured me he'd be back in a "jiffy" and turned to head back into the garage. As I watched him hobble away, I couldn't help but notice what he was selling on his table. Littered across his table were rather... pecuiliar paintings; various artworks that looked like ink blots that a psychatrist might show you. Curious, I looked through them - it was obvious why no one was visiting this guy's garage sale, these weren't exactly asthetically pleasing. As I came to the last one, for some reason it looked almost like Majora's Mask - the same heart-shaped body with little spikes protruding outward. Initially I just thought that since I was secretly hoping to find that game at these garage sales, some Freudian bullshit was projecting itself into the ink blots, but given the events that happened afterward I'm not so sure now. I should have asked the man about it. I wish I would have asked the man about it.
After staring at the Majora-shaped blot, I looked up and the old man was suddenly there again, arms-length in front of me, smiling at me. I'll admit I jumped out of reflex and I laughed nervously as he handed me a Nintendo 64 cartridge. It was the standard grey color, except that someone had written Majora on it in black permenent marker. I got butterflies in my stomach as I realized what a coincidence this was and asked him how much he wanted for it. The old man smiled at me and told me that I could have it for free, that it used to belong to a kid who was about my age that didn't live here anymore. There was something weird about how the man phrased that, but I didn't really pay any attention to then, I was too caught up in not only finding this game but getting it for free. I reminded myself to be a bit skeptical since this looked like a pretty shady cartridge and there's no guarentee it would work, but then the optimist inside me interjected that maybe it was some kind of beta verison or pirated verison of the game and that was all I needed to be back on cloud nine. I thanked the man and the man smiled at me and wished me well, saying "Goodbye then!" - at least that's what it sounded like to me. All the way in the car-ride home, I had a ningling doubt that the man had said something else. My fears were confirmed when I booted up the game (to my surprise it worked just fine) and there was one save file named simply "BEN". "Goodbye Ben", he was saying "Goodbye Ben". I felt bad for the man, obviously a grandparent and obviously going senile, and I - for some reason or another - reminded him of his grandson "Ben".
Out of curiosity I looked at the save file. Eyeballing it, I could tell that he was pretty far in the game - he had almost all of the masks and 3/4 remains of the bosses. I noticed that he had used an owl statue to save his game, he was on Day 3 and by the Stone Tower Temple with hardly an hour left before the moon would crash. I remember thinking that it was a shame that he had come so close to beating the game but he never finished it. I made a new file named "Link" out of tradition and started the game, ready to relive my childhood. For such a shady looking game cartridge, I was impressed at how smoothly it ran - literally just like a retail copy of the game save for a few minor hiccups here and there (like textures being where they shouldn't be, random flashes of cutscenes at odd intervals, but nothing too bad). However the only thing that was a little unnerving was that at times the NPCs would call me "Link" and at other times they would call me "BEN". I figured it was just a bug - a fluke in the programming causing our files to get mixed up or something. It did kind of creep me out though after a while, and it was around after I had beaten the Woodfall Temple that I regrettably went into the save files and deleted "BEN" (I had intended to preserve the file just out of respect of the game's original owner, it's not like I needed two files anyway), hoping that that would solve the problem. It did and it didn't, now NPCs wouldn't call me anything, where my name should be in the dialogue there was just a blank space (my save file name was still called "Link", though). Frustrated, and with homework to do, I put the game down for a day.
I started playing the game again last night, getting the Lens of Truth and working my way towards completing the Snowhead Temple. Now, some of you more hardcore Majora's Mask players know about the "4th Day" glitch - for those who don't you can google it but the jist of it is that right as the clock is about to hit 00:00:00 on the final day, you talk to the astronomer and look through the telescope. If you time it right the countdown disappears and you essentially have another day to finish whatever you were doing. Deciding to do the glitch to try and finish the Snowhead Temple, I happened to get it right on the first try and the time counter at the bottom disappeared. However, when I pressed B to exit the telescope, instead of being greeted by the astronomer I found myself in the Majora boss fight room at the end of the game (the trippy boxed in arena) staring at Skull Kid hovering above me. There was no sound, just him floating in the air above me, and the background music which was regular for the area (but still creepy). Immediately my palms began to sweat - this was definately not normal. Skull Kid NEVER appeared here. I tried moving around the area, and no matter where I went, Skull Kid would always be facing me, looking at me, not saying anything. Nothing would happen though, and this kept up for around sixty seconds. I thought the game had bugged or something - but I was beginning to doubt that very much.
I was about to reach for the reset button when text appeared on my screen: "You're not sure why, but you apparently had a reservation..." I instantly recognized that text - you get that message when you get the Room Key from Anju at the Stock Pot Inn, but why was it playing here? I refused to entertain the notion that it was almost as if the game was trying to communicate with me. I started navigate the room again, testing to see if that was some sort of trigger that enabled me to interact with something here, then I realized how stupid I was - to even think that someone could reprogram the game like this was absurd. Sure enough, fifteen seconds later another message appeared on the screen, and again like the first one it was already a pre-exisiting phrase "Go to the lair of the temple's boss? Yes/No". I paused for a second, contemplating what I should press and how the game would react, when I realized that I couldn't select no. Taking a deep breath, I pressed Yes and the screen faded to white, with the words "Dawn of a New Day" with the subtext "||||||||" beneath it. Where I was ported to filled me with the most intense sense of dread and impending fear I had ever experienced, the only way I can describe the way I felt here is having this feeling of inexplicable depression on a profound scale. I am normally not a depressed person, but the way I felt here was a feeling that I didn't even knew existed - it was such a twisted, powerful presence that seemed to wash over me.
I appeared in some kind of weird twilight-zone verison of Clock Town. I walked out of the Clock Tower (as you normally do when you start from Day 1) only to find that all of the inhabitants were gone. Usually with the 4th Day glitch you can still find the guards and the dog that runs around outside the tower - this time they were all gone. What replaced them was the ominous feeling that there was something out there, in the same area as me and that it was watching me. I had four hearts to my name and the Hero's Bow, but at this point I wasn't even considered for my avatar, I felt that I personally was in some kind of danger. Perhaps the most chilling thing was the music - it was the Song of Healing, ripped straight from the game itself, but played in reverse. The music would get louder, building up so as if you should expect something to pop out at you, but nothing ever did, and the constant loop began to wear on my mental state. Every now and then I would hear the faint laugh of the Happy Mask Salesman in the background, just quiet enough so that I wasn't sure if I just hearing things but just loud enough to keep me determined to find him. I looked in all four zones of Clock Town, only to find nothing.... No one. Textures were missing, West Clock Town had me walking on air, the entire area felt... broken. Hopelessly broken. As the reverse Song of Healing repeated for what must have been the 50th time, I just remember standing in the middle of South Clock Town realizing that I had never felt so alone in a videogame before.
As I walked through the ghost town, I don't know whether it was the combination of the out of place textures and the atmosphere and the haunting melody of the once peaceful and soothing song being butchered and distorted, but I was literally on the verge of tears and I had no idea why. I hardly ever cry, and that's not just some macho guy front I'm putting on, but something had gripped me here and this powerful sense of depression that was both foriegn and crippling took hold of me through a TV screen and I didn't know how to cope with it.
I tried leaving Clock Town, but every time I attempted to zone out, the screen would fade to black and I would just zone in to another part of Clock Town. I tried playing my Ocarina, I wanted to escape, and I did NOT want to be here, but every time I played the Song of Time or Song of Soaring it would only say "Your notes echo far, but nothing happens". By this point, it was obvious the game didn't want me to leave, but I had no idea why it was keeping me here. I didn't want to go inside the buildings, I felt that I would be too vulnerable there to whatever I was terrified of. I don't know why, but I came up with the idea that maybe if I drowned myself at the Laundry Pool (I had the Goron Mask, and if I lost enough hearts by falling in water I'd die) I could spawn somewhere else and leave this place. As I zoned in and ran towards the pool, that's when it happened. Link grabbed his head, and the screen flashed for a brief moment of the Happy Mask Salesman smiling at me - not Link - me with Skull Kid's scream playing in the background and when the screen returned I was staring at the Link Statue from playing the song Elegy of Emptiness. I let out an audible yelp as the thing just stared back at me with that haunting facial expression. I turned around and ran out of the Laundry Pool and back into South Clock Town, and to my horror the fucking statue followed me in the only way I can compare this is like the Weeping Angels from Doctor Who. Every so often, at random intervals, the animation would play of the statue appearing behind me like I was summoning it with my Ocarina. It was like the thing was chasing me, or - I don't even want to fucking say it - haunting me.
By this point, I was on the verge of hysterics, but not even once did the thought of turning off the console occur to me, I don't know why, I was so wrapped up in it - the terror felt all so real. I tried to shake the statue, but it would literally appear right behind me every single time. Link started to begin to make weird animations I had never even seen him do before, he would flail his arms around or spasm randomly and the screen would cut to the Happy Mask Salesman smiling again for a brief moment before I was face to face with that fucking statue again. I ended up running into the Swordmasters Dojo and ran to the back, I don't know why, but in my panic I just wanted some kind of assurance that I'm not alone here. To my dismay I found no one, but as I turned to leave the statue cornered me in the cubby in the back. I tried attacking the statue with my sword but to no avail. Confused, and backed into a corner, I just stared at the statue waiting for it to kill me. Suddenly, the screen flashed again to the Happy Mask Salesman and Link turned to face my screen, standing upright mirroring the statue, looking at me along with his copy. Literally staring at me. Whatever was left of the 4th wall was completely shattered while I ran out of the dojo terrified. Suddenly the game warped me to an underground tunnel and the reverse Song of Healing queued up again as I was given a brief moment of rest before the statue started appearing behind me again... this time aggressively - I could only take a few steps before it would summon behind me again. I hurrily made my way out of the tunnel and appeared in Southern Clock Town. As I ran aimlessly - in a sheer panic - suddenly a redead screamed and the screen faded to black as "Dawn of a New Day" and "|||||||||" appeared again.
The screen faded in and I was standing ontop of Clock Tower with Skull Kid hovering over me again, silent. I looked up and the moon was back, looming just meters above my head, but the Skull Kid just stared at me hauntingly with that fucking mask. A new song was playing - the Stone Tower Temple theme played in reverse. In some sort of desperate attempt, I equipped my bow and fired off a shot at the Skull Kid - and it actually hit him and he played an animation of him reeling back. I fired again and on the third arrow, a text box appeared saying "That won't do you any good. Hee, hee." and I was picked up off the ground, levitated upwards on my back, and then Link screamed as he burst into flames, instantly killing him. I jumped when this happened - I had never seen this move used by ANYONE in the game and Skull Kid himself didn't HAVE any moves. As the death screen played, my lifeless body still burning, the Skull Kid laughed and the screen faded to black, only to have me reappear in the same place. I decided to charge him, but the same thing happened, Link's body was lifted off the ground by some unknown force and he immediately burst into flames again killing him. This time during the death screen the faint sounds of the reverse Song of Healing could be heard.
On my third (and final try), I noticed that there was no music playing this time, that all there was was eere silence. I remembered that in the original encounter with the Skull Kid you were supposed to use the Ocarina to either travel back in time or summon the giants. I attempted to play the Song of Time but before I could hit the last note Links body once again horrifically exploded into flames and he died. As the death screen neared its end, it began to chug, as if the cartridge was trying to process a lot of something.... when the screen came to, it was the same scene as the first three times, except this time Link was lying on the ground dead in a position I had never seen in the game before, his head tilted towards the camera, with the Skull Kid floating above him. I couldn't move, I couldn't press any buttons, all I could do is just stare at Link's dead body. After around thirty seconds of this, the game simply fades out with the message "You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?" before kicking you out to the title screen.
Upon getting back to the title screen and starting again, I noticed my save file was no longer there. Instead of "Link", it was replaced with "YOUR TURN". "YOUR TURN" had 3 hearts, 0 masks, and no items. I selected "YOUR TURN" and immediately when I did I was returned to the Clock Tower Rooftop scene of my Link dead and the Skull Kid hovering over, with the Skull Kid's laughing looping again and again. I quickly hit the reset button and when the game booted up again there was one more save file added, below "YOUR TURN", entitled "BEN". "BEN"'s save file is right back where it was before I deleted it, at the Stone Tower Temple with the moon almost crashing. I turned the game off at that point, I'm not supersticious but this is WAY too fucked up even for me. I haven't played it at all today, hell, I didn't even get any sleep last night, I kept hearing the reverse Song of Healing music in my head and just remembering the sense of dread I felt exploring Clock Town. I drove back to the old man's house today to ask him some questions with a buddy of mine (no way I was going there alone), only to find that there's a For Sale sign in the front yard and when I rang the door no one was home.
So now I'm back here writing down the rest of my thoughts and recording what happened, sorry if some of this has grammatical errors and whatnot, I'm running on no sleep here. I'm terrified of this game, even moreso now that I relived it a second time writing this all down, but I feel like there's still more to it than meets the eye, and that there's something calling to me to investigate this further. I think "BEN" is something in this equation, but I don't know what, and if I could get ahold of the old man then I would be able to find some answers. I need another day or so to recooperate before tackling this game again, its already taken a toll on my sanity I feel like, but next time I do this I'm going to be recording my footage all the way through. The idea to record only came to me towards the end, so you see the last few minutes of what I saw (including Skull Kid and the Elegy statue), but it's on youtube. I'll update you guys tomorrow when I play again."
Underneath that text was the corresponding video, "day four.wmv".
Worth mentioning is that there were some slight differences - typos, for example - between the chapter on this page and the original that was posted on /x/. We still don't know if this had any significance. When asked during the Q&A in February, OOC Jadusable's response was very cryptic:
"Deaconayc: Thank you Jad. Also what are the chances the game will cost us money, and if so how much will it be? Additionally, comparing your original posts on 4chan to the ones on YSHDT, I noticed some edits and explicit spelling mistakes, specifically the removal of the letter 'I' from words. Is this significant or typos?
JadusableH: @Deaconayc (2nd part) - ;)"
At the bottom of the page was a clickable link that would take you to the next chapter:
"Continue to BEN (9-8-10)"
Chapter 2 - BEN (9-8-10)
Recreation of the latest version: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20745027/18FebYSHDTzip/18FebYSHDT/chapters_ben.htm
[September 20, 2010]
Page title: Chapter 2: BEN
Page description: BEN
Page banner: [None]
This page had the complete first written chapter, "BEN" and its corresponding video. Playing in the background was "Majoras Mask Music Ikana Valley Reversed 0.0.mp3" (See: Downloadable file #33). On the page was a small blue pixel that would, if you clicked it, stop the music. This is the text that was on the page:
"BEN
September 08, 2010
I'm going to post what happened and link the video footage, but last night everything got too real for me. I think I'm done messing around with this. I passed out pretty much immediately after posting what happened. But last night, that Elegy of Emptiness statue, I had a dream about it. I dreamt that it was following me in my dream, that I would be minding my own business when I'd feel my neck hairs stand up on end. I would turn around that thing... that horrible, lifeless statue would be staring with those empty eyes right at me, merely inches away. In my dream I remember calling it Ben, and never before had I had a dream that I could remember so vividly. Today, putting off playing the game as long as I could, I drove back up to that neighborhood to see if the old man came back. As I expected, the car was still gone and no one was home. As I was walking back to my car, the man next door mowing the grass killed the power to his lawnmower and asked me if I was looking for someone. I told him that I was looking to talk to the old man that lived here, to which he told me what I already knew - he was moving. Trying a different avenue, I asked if the old man had any family or relatives I could talk to. I discovered that this old man had never been married, nor did he have any children or grandchildren through adoption. Starting to become worried, I asked one final question, one that I should have asked from the beginning - who was Ben? The man's expression turned grim and I learned that four doors down around eight years ago on April 23rd - the man informed me that it was the same day as his anniversary, that's how he knew the specific date - there was an accident with a young boy named Ben in the neighborhood. Shortly after his parents moved, and despite any further attempts to talk to the man to get more information, he wouldn't divulge anything else.
I went back and started playing again, I loaded up the game and immediately I jumped at the title screen where the mask flies by - the sound that played was not the normal "woosh" sound, it was something much more higher pitched. I pressed start, bracing for the worst, but just like two nights ago, the files "Your Turn" and "BEN" were displayed (truth be told I looked at the BEN file earlier, it seems to fluxuate between displaying the Owl Save and not). I brought up the BEN file, hesitated for a moment noticing that the stats were not the same as they original were two days ago, it seemed like he had already completed the Stone Tower Temple this time... Summoning my courage I selected it.
Immediately I was thrusted into complete chaos. Sure enough, I was outside Stone Tower Temple, but that's about all that was expected. The zone itself wasn't called Stone Tower Temple, but rather "St o n e", and immediately a dialogue box of complete gibberish that I couldn't make out greeted me. Link's body was distorted - his back was cocked violently to the side where his posture was permenently disfigured. Link's expression was dull, almost monotonous, he had an expression on his face that I didn't recognize before, it was a blank look - as if he was dead. As Link stood there his body spasmed irregularly back and forth I examined what had become of my avatar and noticed I had a C button item I had never seen before, some kind of note, but pressing it did nothing. Sounds played back and forth that I didn't recognize from the game - almost demonic in nature, and there was some kind of high-pitched yip or some kind of laugh or something playing in the background. I had all of two minutes to take in the enviornment before another one of those fucking Elegy of Emptiness statues was summoned and immediately after I was cut into the "Dawn of a New Day" screen, except this time it was without the "||||||" subtext.
I was a Deku Scrub in Clock Town - this scene would normally play after the first time you traveled back in time. Tatl would say "Wh-What just happened? It's as if everything has..." but instead of saying "Started over", she finished her remark in broken text as the laugh of the Happy Mask Salesman played in the background. I was put back in control of my character, but from a fucked up camera angle - I was looking from behind the door to the Clock Tower, watching my avatar run around as a Deku Scrub. Seeing as how I really had no place to go because I could't see anything, I begrudgingly went inside the door. There, I was greeted by the Happy Mask Salesman who simply told me "You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?" before the screen whited out.
I was in Termina field as a human again. I might as well not have been playing the same game anymore - I was being warped around and there was no sign of a day clock or anything. I took a moment to get my bearings as I looked around the field and immediately I could tell that this was not normal. There were no enemies and a twisted verison of the Happy Mask Salesman's theme was playing. I decided to run towards Woodfall before I noticed a gathering of three figures off to the side - one of them being Epona. As I approached them, to my horror I saw the Happy Mask Salesman, the Skull Kid, and the Elegy of Emptiness statue just standing there. I figured maybe they were bugged out, but by now I told myself that I should know better.
Nevertheless, I approached them carefully and found that the Skull Kid was playing some kind of idle animation on loop, same with Epona, and the Elegy of Emptiness statue was doing what it has been doing all along - just standing there eeirely. It was the Happy Mask Salesman that scared me more profoundly than the other two. He too was idle, wearing that shit-eating grin, but where-ever I moved, his head slowly turned and followed me. I had not engaged in any dialogue with him nor was I in combat with him, yet his head still continued to follow my movements. Reminded of my first encounter with the Skull Kid on top of Clock Tower, I pulled out my Ocarina (to which the game played the ding sound when you're supposed to play your Ocarina) and tried a song I hadn't played yet - the Happy Mask Salesmans' own song and the song that had been playing on loop back in Day 4 - the Song of Healing.
I finished playing the song and as I did, a ear-piercing shriek blasted on my TV, the sky immediatley started flashing, the Happy Mask Salesmans' twisted theme song sped up, intensifying the fear inside me, and Link exploded into flames and died. The three figures stayed lit up during my death screen as they watched my lifeless body burn. That same fear that caused me to lose sleep two days ago started to grip me again as I was met with the text "You've met with a horrible fate, haven't you?" for the third time. There has to be some kind of meaning behind that.
I had little time to ponder as I was immediately given another small cutscene of transforming into a Zora (the species of creatures that live under water in Zelda) and now I found myself in Great Temple Bay. Hestitant but curious to see what the game had in store for me, I slowly made my way towards the beach, where I found Link's horse Epona. I wondered why the game had decided to put her here, was the game implying she was trying to get a drink? Unable to take the mask off, I decided that riding the steed wasn't the reason she was placed there. Suddenly I realized that Epona kept neighing and the way she was angled made it look like she was trying to signal a point to me off in the distance. It was a hunch, but I dove into Great Bay and started swimming. Sure enough - I almost missed it - I found something at the bottom of the ocean; one last Elegy of Emptiness statue. I went down to examine it and suddenly my Zora started doing a choking animation I had never seen a Zora do before - which didn't even make sense because Zora's can breath underwater. Regardless, my character choked to death and died, and again the statue was the only thing that was highlighted in my death. I didn't respawn this time, I was booted back to the main menu as if I restarted the console.
The "press start" screen was before me, I knew the only reason why it would put me here is because the save files had changed again. Taking a deep breath, I pressed start, and I was right. The new save files told me about Ben. Now it made sense why the statue appeared when I tried to go to the Laundry Pool - the game must have anticipated how I would have tried to escape the Day 4 Clock Town. The two save files told me his fate. As I suspected, Ben was dead. He had drowned. The game obviously isn't through with me - it taunts me with the new save files - it wants me to keep playing, it wants me to go further, but I'm done with this shit. I'm not touching any more of the files. This is already way too horrifying for me and I don't even believe in the paranormal, but I'm running out of explainations. Why would someone send me this message? I don't understand it, I just get too depressed thinking about this, the footage is up here for those who want to see it and try and analyze it (maybe there's some kind of coded message in the gibberish or something symbolic in what I went through - I'm too emotionally and mentally drained to fuck with it anymore). Some of you guys may give me shit for this, but you can't imagine how taxing this is for me emotionally - its one thing to see this footage and read what I have to say, its another entirely when you're playing this by yourself and its like the game is actually trying to reach out to you personally. I... I don't know anymore.."
Underneath that text was the corresponding video, "BEN.wmv".
Worth mentioning is that there were some slight differences - typos, for example - between the chapter on this page and the original that was posted on /x/. We still don't know if this had any significance. When asked during the Q&A in February, OOC Jadusable's response was very cryptic:
"Deaconayc: Thank you Jad. Also what are the chances the game will cost us money, and if so how much will it be? Additionally, comparing your original posts on 4chan to the ones on YSHDT, I noticed some edits and explicit spelling mistakes, specifically the removal of the letter 'I' from words. Is this significant or typos?
JadusableH: @Deaconayc (2nd part) - ;)"
At the bottom of the page was a clickable link that would take you to the next chapter:
"Continue to DROWNED (9-10-10)"
Chapter 3 - DROWNED (9-10-10)
Recreation of the latest version: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20745027/18FebYSHDTzip/18FebYSHDT/chapters_drowned.htm
[September 20, 2010]
Page title: Chapter 3: DROWNED
Page description: [None]
Page banner: [None]
This page had the complete first written chapter, "DROWNED" and its corresponding video. Playing in the background was the Skull Kid laughter with the filename "not over.mp3" (See: Downloadable file #39). On the page was a small blue pixel that would, if you clicked it in time (the clip is only three seconds long so you'd have to be quick), stop the background sound. This is the text that was on the page:
"DROWNED
September 10, 2010
I know its early in the morning, I've stayed up all night, I can't sleep, I don't care if people see this, that's not the point, I just want the word to get spread so I don't suffer for nothing. I've lost the will to type about this, the less I dwell on this the better, I think the video just speaks for itself. I did what you guys told me to do, I played the Elegy of Emptiness song at the first prompt by the game I was given, but I think that's what the game or Ben (Jesus Christ, I can't believe I'm even humoring the absurd idea that he exists in the game) wanted me to do. He's following me now, not just in the game, he's in my dreams. I see him all the time, behind my back, just watching me. I haven't gone to any of my classes, I've stayed in my dorm room with the windows closed and the blinds shut - that way I know he can't watch me. But he still gets me when I play, when I play he can still see me. The game is scaring me now. It talked to me for the first time - not just using text that's already in the game - it spoke to me. Talked to me. It referenced Ben. It talked to me. I don't know what it means. I don't know what it wants. I never wanted this, I just want my old life back.
Stuff like this doesn't happen to people like me, I'm just a kid, not even old enough to drink yet. It's not fair, I want to go home, I want to see my parents again, I'm so far away from home here at this school, I just want to hug my mom again. I just want to forget that statue's horrible blank face. My original game file is back - just the way I left it before it was gone. I don't want to play anymore. I feel like something bad will happen if I don't, but that's impossible, it's a video game - haunted or not it can't hurt me, right? Like seriously though, it can't, right? That's what I keep telling myself, but every time I think about it I'm not so sure."
Underneath that text was the corresponding video, "DROWNED.wmv".
Worth mentioning is that there were some slight differences - typos, for example - between the chapter on this page and the original that was posted on /x/. We still don't know if this had any significance. When asked during the Q&A in February, OOC Jadusable's response was very cryptic:
"Deaconayc: Thank you Jad. Also what are the chances the game will cost us money, and if so how much will it be? Additionally, comparing your original posts on 4chan to the ones on YSHDT, I noticed some edits and explicit spelling mistakes, specifically the removal of the letter 'I' from words. Is this significant or typos?
JadusableH: @Deaconayc (2nd part) - ;)"
At the bottom of the page was a clickable link that would take you to the next chapter:
"Continue to jadusable (9-12-10)"
Chapter 4 - jadusable (9-12-10)
Recreation of the latest version: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20745027/18FebYSHDTzip/18FebYSHDT/chapters_jadusable.htm
[September 20, 2010]
Page title: Chapter 4: jadusable
Page description: jadusable
Page banner: [None]
This page had the complete first written chapter, "jadusable" and its corresponding video. On this page, nothing was playing in the background. This is the text that was on the page:
"jadusable
September 12, 2010
let me just clear things up - i know you guys are worried but "jadusable" is okay. he finished moving out today and he said he's going back home, he's just taking this semester off. i'm not really sure what's happened , i have a vague idea but you guys probably know more than i do. i'm "jadusable's" roommate and obviously i knew something was wrong with him for a few days now. he stayed in his room all the time, fell out of contact with literally all of his friends, and i'm pretty sure he hadn't been eating hardly anything, after the second day i couldn't stay in there anymore, so i've been crashing at a buddy's place, only coming in to my room to get stuff that i need. i tried talking to him several times but he would cut me off or keep the conversation brief when i asked him about his strange behavior, it like he was convinced something was hunting him. yesterday i came to grab my philosophy book and he approached me, looking awful, like horrible bags under his eyes. he handed me a flash drive and gave me specific instructions. he told me that he needs me to do one last favor for him - he finally explained to me what has been going on, gave me the account info to his youtube account, and told me that he's getting away from here, that it lured him to play it again instead of trying to change things and that he shouldn't of done that, and to upload the footage and inform people what happened. i told him that he could do it himself and he got this wild look in his eye and told me that he is never looking at that game again, and that's the last thing he said to me, he never even said bye when his parents came to pick him up. i never even got to meet his parents.
i honestly cant tell you what happened, when he spoke it was kind of hard to understand him and his fucked up appearance really distracted me. on the flash drive there was the footage of the game last night, a text document with his name and password for youtube, and a third document called TheTruth.txt containing what he told me were "his notes" that he'd taken. he told me that this meant everything to him that i follow his instructions exactly, normally i wouldn't be so 'to-the-letter' for request over a fucking videogame, but the way he spoke and the way he looked made me know this was really serious, and i'm going to honor that. i've had this video since yesterday, but had to have someone help me use pinnacle, that's not really my forte. that after watching it i had to go back through and look at his other videos on his youtube account to realize what was going on and even then i'm really really confused. the video I'm releasing tonight, TheTruth.txt will be released on september 15th just like he requested. i haven't dared peek at it yet, so the first time i see it will be the first time you see it out of respect to my friend. to answer your questions, no, i havent tried calling him yet, i think i'll give him a call tomorrow to see if hes okay or not. he should have gotten back home by now.
about the video: in this video i cut straight to when he loaded the "BEN" file in the game, looking back i realized that jadusable left the save select screen in because it said different names sometimes, so my bad for that, but all it said this time was the same at the end of his last video (Link and BEN), nothing different. i wasn't there when he played it, but it looks to me like in the beginning when he first spawns he's testing out his equipment or seeing what items he has or something, because apparently they've changed randomly before. then, after that i just think the game got too personal for him."
Underneath that text was the corresponding video, "jadusable.wmv".
Worth mentioning is that there were some slight differences - typos, for example - between the chapter on this page and the original that was posted on /x/. We still don't know if this had any significance. When asked during the Q&A in February, OOC Jadusable's response was very cryptic:
"Deaconayc: Thank you Jad. Also what are the chances the game will cost us money, and if so how much will it be? Additionally, comparing your original posts on 4chan to the ones on YSHDT, I noticed some edits and explicit spelling mistakes, specifically the removal of the letter 'I' from words. Is this significant or typos?
JadusableH: @Deaconayc (2nd part) - ;)"
At the bottom of the page was a clickable link that would take you to the next chapter:
"Continue to The Truth (9-15-10)"
Chapter 5 - The Truth (9-15-10)
Recreation of the latest version: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20745027/18FebYSHDTzip/18FebYSHDT/chapters_the_truth.htm
[September 20, 2010]
Page title: Chapter 5: The Truth
Page description: [Unknown, likely "the truth"]
Page banner: [None]
The page had text describing the circumstances in which "TheTruth.rtf" (See: Downloadable file #40)was released, a download link to the document itself and the video "free.wmv". In the background was one of the unintelligibles (See: Downloadable files #52-53, and #56-57 - all named "unintelligible.mp3"), but which one of them is unclear... #52 is the assumed one at the moment. On the page was a small blue pixel that would, if you clicked it in time (the clip is less than ten seconds long so you'd have to be quick), stop the background sound. This is the text that was on the page:
"The Truth
September 15, 2010
As promised, Jadusable (or rather, his roommate) posted a link to download TheTruth.txt at 11:04pm. Jadusable's post was uncharacteristically short and simply the words "Honesty is the best policy" followed by a download link.
This document contains all of the notes that Jadusable had been taking during the entire ordeal and now they were available to the entire world.
Download Link
(Read the above document before continuing)
Exactly 108 minutes later, a new video was uploaded to Jadusable's Youtube account, simply entitled "free.wmv". Jadusable changed his Youtube profile picture and added the quote, "Now I am everywhere" to his profile. Viewers were made to draw their own conclusions as to what this video signified."
Clicking "Download Link" would lead you to http://www.mediafire.com/?6t16r3dp7gt2wbt which is where you can download "TheTruth.rtf".
At the bottom of the page was the corresponding video, "free.wmv".
[October 6, 2010]
Page title: Chapter 5: The Truth
Page description: I hope you had more patience than he did.
Page banner: [None]
When the website had seemingly returned back to "normal" after the Glitch, the page description for this page had changed to "I hope you had more patience than he did."'.
Bonus Chapter - Rosa (6-14-09)
Recreated version: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20745027/18FebYSHDTzip/18FebYSHDT/chapters_rosa.htm
[September 20, 2010]
Page title: Bonus Chapter: Rosa
Page description: she knows
Page banner: [None]
The page gave some information about the video "Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines - Rosa" and what connections the ARG players had drawn between it and the ARG. Naturally, the video itself was also on the page. There was no embedded background sound. This was the text:
"Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines - Rosa
June 14, 2009
On September 07, 2010, when day four.wmv was first released, Jadusable only had two other videos on his Youtube account profile - one of random gameplay consuming footage from the game Prototype (seemingly unrelated), and a more cryptic video by a character named Rosa from Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines (both of these videos were uploaded a year before the "Haunted Majora's Mask" story began). While the Prototype video was standard fare for someone to have on Youtube, the Rosa video was almost curiously out-of-place. All it contained was the dialogue of an unimportant character in a game made back in 2003 and that was the extent of it. Rosa, in Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines, has a mutation which causes her to predict the future and she gives cryptic clues as to what the game's plot is."
After that piece of text was the video "Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines - Rosa", and underneath it was some more of the ARG players speculation:
"At first, she was only a side-thought to those desperately trying to help Jadusable beat the Majora's Mask game to stop the haunting, but as the story progressed people began to notice there were some disturbing simliarities between her cryptic messages and what was happening to Jadusable. The video description itself contained hidden words that were central to the haunting - "drowned", "stoned", "lone wolf", "fourth wall", and viewers suddenly realized that this was too much of a coincidence to be unrelated:
[...] after talking to her you end up being drowned in dialogue. [...] several of the things she alludes to are kind of vague, though, like the lone wolf. [...] when I first played the game at night stoned.
Horrifyingly, over the course of the story, all but a few of Rosa's predictions would come true, from describing the locales Jadusable would visit, to the foes he would face, all leading up to her now-infamous phrase in the video:
Player: "Any advice at all? Something that's going to save my life?"
Rosa: "Don't open it"
With such a vague phrase to go on, no one really knew what it could mean. At first everyone assumed that Rosa was telling Jadusable not to open the Majora's Mask file because it was haunted, but as it was later discovered, Rosa was trying to warn the very viewers themselves about an incident that would happen after Jadusable had released his fourth and final video."
At the bottom of the page was a simple link leading you back to the Chapter Index:
"Return to Chapter Index"
The Truth
Recreation of the latest version: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20745027/18FebYSHDTzip/18FebYSHDT/the_truth.htm
[September 20, 2010]
Page title: Haunted Majora's Mask :: The Truth
Page description: [Unknown/None]
Page banner: [None]
When the ARG went OOC for the first time, OOC Jadusable put up a long post on the home page, that he called "the 'real' TheTruth.txt". In it, he explained why he had to put the ARG on pause for an indefinite time and some background to it all. After a while the post was replaced by news on the home page but it stayed on the website under the The Truth tab. Only one difference could be found between the two almost identical posts - at the end of the text on the The Truth tab, there was a cryptical question mark. Here is the entire piece:
"Hey, Jadusable here,
Consider this the 'real' TheTruth.txt
A lot of you may hate me for this, but I've decided that I can no longer continue the Majora's Mask story the way I originally wanted to. Even as I'm typing this I can feel the disappointment and the "OH MY GOD YOU ASSHOLE" cries as you guys read this, and really, it kills me. A lot of people have initially surmised that this must be some kind of viral marketing effort from Nintendo, or some kind of marketing ploy, and while I can't tell you how flattering that is I can assure you that it is neither. I'm just a sophomore in college who came up with this elaborate idea and as it stands I simply don't have the manpower or the funds to continue this in the direction that I wanted it to go (now I realize why it took a team of talented individuals to do Marble Hornets as opposed to just a one-man-army).
Perhaps too ambitious, I purchased the cheapest webhosting service I could find given my budget (aka nonexistant), and with all of the people attempting to access the site (since the website opened two days ago, I've gotten over 300,000 visits and I've spent probably half that time in maintence) - it was almost consistently down. If you're going to involve a website this closely in your interactive story, then you can't have your website crashing or unavailable for the majority of your users; you would need a service that could handle that many viewers. Unfortunately this was something I simply could not afford being a broke college student. I paid for the site out of my own pocket (in retrospect probably not the most sound finanical decision), and with the insane amount of traffic I was getting the server host wasn't cutting it and I didn't want to "break character" by putting Google ads in to generate revenue. I didn't have the money to upgrade and I knew that I wouldn't be doing this story justice if I continued on as things were. Even if the money issue was solved, there's still the matter of the updates taking too long - I simply did not have the time to devote enough attention into the project for speedy updates. So I was presented with two options - either wrap up this game in a lackluster ending that would feel contrived, or stop here and resume it later.
A bit of backstory: Writing/story-telling has always been a hobby of mine - I actually have a TV show that I'm currently finding an agent for - and being a closet dork, videogames have always interested me as a kid with Majora's Mask ranking among my favorite. I've never attempted writing anything remotely scary before, but MM aways had that "creepy" vibe to it and so on a whim I decided to try my hand at it. Maybe it wasn't everyone's forte, maybe a little cliched to some, but the concept of a videogame - a device that only reacts to what the user tells it - suddenly going outside its coding was something I wanted to explore and something that could engage the reader and have it relatable on more than one level. I wanted to make the story creepy not because of severed heads or morbid descriptions, but on a more psychological level with a fair amount of mindfuckery, for both the poor bastard protagonist and the reader.
I view this whole story as two separate stories - the original "Haunted Zelda Cartridge" - which ended with TheTruth.rtf - that is my original work and story. The second story - involving the website - would pick up where "Haunted Zelda Cartridge" left off. However, it obviously isn't completed and may seem too "out of place" for people to really get the whole picture, thus subject to a lot of "jumping the shark" claims. I know that there were some of the original fans who weren't happy with the direction it went in after the website came out and that it seemed like two different concepts entirely - they were, but I feel had this thing run its course the way I intended those same people may see the "second part" of the story in a new light. This explaination will not do it justice, but perhaps clears things up as to what my overall goal was:
The story was just as much of an experiment to me as it was an adventure for you guys. Being new at this genre, I wanted to try and bring a new kind of feel to the standard "creepy" stories; one that had to do with shattering the fourth wall and that sense of security. When you read a scary story, there's no doubt that it can be creepy, but in the back of your mind you know you're safe behind your computer screen on the internet connected to millions of other people. You've used the internet for years and you know how it works inside and out - and as a result you have this built up sense of security because of how familiar it is. I attempted to shatter that "fourth wall" with BEN. I wanted to write a story that involved the reader so they would feel more connected to the story. The biggest example of this is the big reveal at the end of TheTruth.rtf where the reader suddenly realizes that BEN has not only tricked the protagonist, but the reader as well, making them personally feel betrayed and uneasy at the same time. Obviously Cleverbot isn't haunted, but the way it works is that if a bunch of people start chatting with it saying specific words, the program will notice a pattern and start to associate them together, making it a perfect choice for leaving that lingering doubt of "what if?", especially now that BEN has leaked out into the internet and could theoretically control exactly what you're reading now. Maybe he just wants you to think this was all fake so you stop worrying about it and continue on with your normal lives. Probably not.
As I played with the concept of having the reader become more and more involved, the story sort of evolved into an Alternate Reality Game. I had always admired the unique sense of impending disaster and the three day concept in the videogame, and I wanted to take Majora's Mask and incorporate it into reality without copy/pasting it, which would make it lose all sense of believability. Instead, I opted for a more "modern" take, on how Majora's Mask would be if it happened in real life - there would be no goofy giant moon with a nasty face on it, there would be no floating mask that can possess said moon, etc. Instead there was a cult worshipping a moon that is destined to fall, a hero from another world, an evil entity that has crossed over into another dimension (Majora into Termina, similiar to BEN's entrance into the real world), a three day time cycle, as well as other parallels that would have become available further in the story. I wanted to capture and recreate the same feelings that we all got when we were playing Majora's Mask for the first time as kids. That feeling when you first went back in time, realizing that everyone else was oblivious, that was something that I wanted to try and bring to life. After that, with new knowledge of the events that will unfold, you then set out to change what was about to transpire.
I eventually introduced a "Link" to the viewers, with a second Youtube account, and my idea was to have him decide what kind of actions he'd take based on reponse videos. These response videos would require the user to boot up their own copy of Zelda and preform an action, not only making them feel more apart of the story, but directly in control of it. The viewers now served as Link's guide - or Navi as it was in the game. The main example of this is how Link is killed because of a bad video response on Youtube to a video put up by Jadusable (an incorrect song played). Link then posts a video on his account of the game over screen and nothing more. Yet not even 30 minutes later another user records a video - without any hints from me whatsoever - of him playing HIS Zelda game and releasing a fairy (which revives the player if killed) - which prompted me to revive Link and continue as him. This was only the beginning of what I originally had in mind - Link was the only person who could save our reality despite him being in a completely different dimension, but the players could dictate his actions. So in a sense, they were the guide, yet they were also the actual "player" controlling Link. I'm not going to reveal entirely what would have happened to the main characters or the plot, because I do intend to pick it up again some day and continue this.
I'm still experimenting, but I feel like the genre of "ARGs" is something that should be explored more often; the level of interactivity between the viewers and the creators gives the story a much more "personal" feel. I really hope that we see a rise of them in the coming years - if one single busy college student like me got this far - with an actual team the sky's the limit. The one major issue that I've noticed though, is fraud - no matter how many times I'd subtly try and remind my viewers "in character" that the only people they should be taking information as canon are accounts/websites linked to the original Jadusable Youtube account, every time some new guy claiming to either be a player in the story or be in contact with someone who is came to light, immediately people would swarm them and they'd end up throwing everyone else off because of bad information. I suppose I can't blame them, some of them were pretty damn convincing with their explainations of how they got into the story.
I expect that some of you are pissed now, and I can completely understand why - I can't tell you how much it kills me to have to cut it short like this because I know I'm letting you guys down, but hopefully you can see it from my perspective. I would like to thank my fans - it's because of your support that has motivated me to get this far. If I had it my way, it wouldn't end like this, believe me. But I'm still amazed at how big this has all gotten - its really surreal browsing the internet and seeing an article about something you've written up on Digg, Kotaku, and what-have-you, or overhearing a conversation in class and doing a double-take when you realize what they're talking about.
I would also like to extend an apology to a certain message board who has literally been taken over by people analyzing, exchanging theories, and discussing all aspects of what all this could mean or what the next move is. Haha, I'm sure there are quite a few people who can't wait until this is all over so things can go back to their regularly scheduled programming. Not too much longer.
I am going to leave the website up, but modify it so that it now serves as an archive of the story, and include a timeline of events (I know a few members have been keeping a record, if you could forward that to me at the address below when it's done that'd be much appreciated). Unfortunately being as broke as I am, I don't have the funds to maintain the website for very long, and donations would be appreciated just for the sake of keeping the website up as an archive for future viewers, otherwise the website will probably have to be taken down by the end of the month. If you are legitmently interested in making a donation to help host, there is a donate link at the top of this page. Don't feel obligated at all - knowing that I've kept you guys entertained all this time and provided something fun is reward enough, as lame as that sounds.
As I said before, this has been an experiment, and I've learned a lot of lessons from this for the future, and this is something that I would very much love to do again if given the resources. But, just know that this isn't the end.
If you need to get in contact with me or write me a nasty letter, my email is jadusable@youshouldnthavedonethat.net
Thanks again guys, it's been a wild ride. Loved every single second of it.
Jadusable
?"
[October 4, 2010]
Page title: Haunted Majora's Mask :: The Truth
Page description: WHAT
Page banner: [None]
The page description was changed to "WHAT" (as were the page descriptions for the other tabs on the website - excluding the home page - and when put in the order they appear on the menu, the pages' descriptions together spellt out "http://WHATISNot so fast..com").
[October 6, 2010]
The Glitch changed the page for a bit. For more information on that, look under its (The Glitch) seperate section.
[October 6, 2010]
The page returned to its previous state after the Glitch had occurred.
FAQ
Recreation of the latest version: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20745027/18FebYSHDTzip/18FebYSHDT/faq.htm
[September 20, 2010]
Page title: FAQ
Page description: [None/Unknown]
Page banner: A meteor crashing into Earth, with a crescent moon in the background (See: Downloadable file #29 - "moon banner6 192.jpg").
The title of this page makes it seem like it had a list of commonly asked questions and their answers on it, but it didn't. It was supposed to, yet nothing OOC ever happened on this page. At first, there was not a single line of text on the page.
[October 4, 2010]
Page title: FAQ
Page description: IS
Banner: A meteor crashing into Earth, with a crescent moon in the background (See: Downloadable file #29 - "moon banner6 192.jpg").
The page description was changed to "IS" (as were the page descriptions for the other tabs on the website - excluding the home page - and when put in the order they appear on the menu, the pages' descriptions together spellt out "http://WHATISNot so fast..com").
[October 6, 2010]
The Glitch changed the page for a bit. For more information on that, look under its (The Glitch) seperate section.
[January 1, 2011]
Page title: FAQ
Page description: This could come in handy later
Banner: A meteor crashing into Earth, with a crescent moon in the background (See: Downloadable file #29 - "moon banner6 192.jpg").
The page description changed to "This could come in handy later" and a line hidden in black font appeared on the page:
"If you are looking for a clue, this isn't it."
Donate
Recreation of the latest version: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20745027/18FebYSHDTzip/18FebYSHDT/donate.htm
[September 20, 2011]
Page title: Donate
Page description: [None/Unknown]
Page banner: A green picture with "Donations" in large letters and the Happy Mask Salesman to the left (See: Downloadable file #43 - "Banner donations.jpg").
This page was for people who wanted to make a donation because they have enjoyed the story. It read:
"Click the button below to donate via Paypal to help towards my next expansive project for your guys' entertainment. Please do not feel obligated in any way to donate, any little bit helps out for paying for the costs.
Again, thank you for being so supportive - I could not have gotten this far without it."
Underneath was a Paypal button that would take you to https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_flow&SESSION=3280LNevq_7MlhHMVlSErEvcO8mrqXyC6M-WE0lkbl25rlSIagvUaGGRmZ4&dispatch=5885d80a13c0db1f8e263663d3faee8deaa77efc63a6eb429928d42bdf5d9d2c where one could donate.
[October 4, 2010]
Page title: Donate
Page description: Not so fast.
Page banner: A green picture with "Donations" in large letters and the Happy Mask Salesman to the left (See: Downloadable file #43 - "Banner donations.jpg").
The page description was changed to "Not so fast." (as were the page descriptions for the other tabs on the website - excluding the home page - and when put in the order they appear on the menu, the pages' descriptions together spellt out "http://WHATISNot so fast..com").
ARG Timeline
Recreated latest version: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20745027/18FebYSHDTzip/18FebYSHDT/timeline.htm
[September 20, 2011]
Page title: ARG Timeline
Page description: [None/Unknown]
Page banner: [None]
This page had a slightly altered copy of the timeline from the wikia. This is what it said:
"This is a continuation (or part 2, rather) of the "Haunted Game Cartridge" story. if you haven't read the first part, you can do so here. Spoilers ahead for part 1:
After The Truth document was released there was no word from Jadusable or BEN. Viewers nervously awaited what would happen or if there were any repercussions to opening The Truth document, which was widely believed to unleash BEN out into the internet. The following is a modified timeline created by the people over at the fan Wikipedia (used for keeping track of theories and storing information) of the events as they occured in real-time.
September 17, 2010
- A few coded messages were left on Jadusable's 'recent activity' log on Youtube. Immediately they were run through ciphers by viewers to crack.
- The codes were revealed to be the following hints - the phrases "think about it" and ".net" translated.
- Finally a coded url linking to an ancient tech support forum - http://www.showeq.net/forums/archive/index.php/t-3355.html here.
- Of the link given, there are two things that stand out: The .net structure and someone saying "you shouldn't have done that" as part of an answer to a tech support problem.
- Two and two were quickly put together and a new site was discovered: http://www.youshouldnthavedonethat.net/
- At first it seems like an innocent cultist site (well, as innocent as a cultist website could be). It was a simple layout with seven tabs - Theories, The Truth, About, Contact Us (with a subpage called Press Room), Creed, Search, and Home.
- Creed was a page that talked about various chants that they would do and had the dialogue for them (creepy stuff). Apparently they use masks as some kind of ritual ceremony.
- About just listed the four active moderators, including their likes/dislikes and personal info. No email addresses though.
- Theories was just standard apocalypse theories. Apparently they want to bring the end of the world or something.
- Contact Us had this weird page that was basically a form where you'd submit your name, phone number, etc, so they could "set up an appointment" for you to become one of them.
- Users who tried to access The Truth page were met with a login screen. Exhausting every password/username combination they could think of, they were left wondering what was so important to password protect.
Past this point, viewers reportedly started to see things - references.
- The first reference is the most blatant, the cult is devoted to the moon, and there are children in the moon in the actual Majora's Mask game.
- One user noticed the bookmark icon - which was a small graphic of Majora's Mask, dropping the hint that there was definately more to this website than meets the eye.
- All of the banner images at the top of the different pages were references to areas in Majora's Mask: Swamp, Mountain, Sea, Canyon, City, Apocalypse. Then users began to notice the creepy stuff.
- The home page acted as a sort of "forum" for various moderators of the cult that were setting up the website at the time. They were talking amongst themselves and there were posts about certain areas that were updated and such. A moderator named Nekko talks about ascending and how he can't wait to do it, users are interpretting this as some kind of cult suicide but nothing confirmed yet, Nekko's postings just... end.
- In the middle of the conversation between "DuskWorld23" and another moderator named "Nekko", there was an out of place post by a user simply called "DROWNED" - his avatar was a man with a gas mask extending his hand towards you. His post simply said "You shouldn't be reading this", as if talking directly to the viewer themselves. If his avatar was moused over, it would suddenly change to a picture of the Elegy statue staring at the reader for a brief moment, then return to DROWNED's original avatar.
- On the About page, Rosa is mentioned in a special thanks list. Rosa is a character from Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines, and is featured in a video on Jadusable's account, mentioned in TheTruth.rtf. She talks cryptically about the future. The video was posted one year ago. Tags on the video reference the BEN videos.
- The Prototype video also has some importance. It too has related tags. Prototype's main character is called Alex after the blackout. On the Main Page, it's mentioned that Alex has gone missing after the Blackout.
- If you right click the banner on the Search page and go to the image properties, there is associated text: "Do you honestly think you can escape me?"
- In the source code for The Truth login page, there's the text: "It's what they DON'T want you to know"
- On the Press Room page, there's hidden text found if you select everything: "Like little lambs. The man is smiling."
- On the Theories page, there's the usual doomsday theories, and one unique, original one, featuring a 'Kelbris.' More on that later.
- On the Guestbook on the main page, there are some posts from some 'cultists' that were there already when the site went live. One asks for an admin to check the Contact Us page, saying something is not right about it.
- There's nothing wrong with the contact page itself, but users did some guesswork by inputting random URLs after "contact/"
- http://www.youshouldnthavedonethat.net/index.php/contact/ben/ This was the first discovered.
- BEN's contact page was a countdown to 'The Fourth Day.' The countdown has several hours left, ending at around this time tomorrow. Wonder what it could mean? Kind of a reference to the last video Jadusable posted, stating that 'The Counter Resets.' The music is a Reversed Happy Mask Salesman's Theme, which was featured in the second video.
- http://www.youshouldnthavedonethat.net/index.php/contact/drowned/ The next one found was this.
- It's a clear reference to the Giants of Majora's Mask. The coded text on the title reads: "MY EYES... THEY TOOK... MY EYES..." The music is a Reversed Ikana Canyon Theme, which was featured in the first video.
- And of note is the image's filename. It's 'Kelbris.jpg'. According to the lore on the Theories page, Kelbris was the first "Moon Child", having been whispered to by Luna (the moon) herself. So these people apparently think that the moon whispers to them and instructs them somehow? anyone verify?
- Kelbris was said to have been found electrocuted in the lore of the "Theories" page. I don't know if this is of any signifigance, but Link was electrocuted a bunch of times in the first video, as well as exploding into flames.
- No one's been able to crack the login. Reports indicate it might be fake, leading nowhere.
- And that's all that's been discovered about the site, as of Sep 17th, 3AM EST
September 18, 2010
- Two hours before the countdown was to finish, a new page on the site showed up: http://www.youshouldnthavedonethat.net/index.php/contact/ifrit/ asking "Should you know what question to ask, the gate to truth will be opened:" Ifrit's email, ifritmoon@gmail.com, was hidden there. People began mass emailing Ifrit in hopes to get some answers.
- People asking about Ben were told that he had ascended, and his body was never found.
- People asking about the two contact pages were told that Ifrit would get a 404 whenever he tried to look at them, meaning that only the viewers could see them.
- People asking about Rosa were told that she was his sister.
- People asking about Alex were told that he was missing since the "blackout". What is this blackout?
- People asking about what Majora's Mask had to do with anything were told 'nothing. why?'
- Of note is that Ifrit's real name on the About page is listed as Rodney R., in the emails it was Matt HUBRIS.
- When the counter reached one hour left, the main page updated with a new song playing in the background, a faster version of the reversed Happy Mask Salesman's Theme, and Drowned's post dissapeared from the page. People who looked at the source code saw that the song was called "Matt's Final Hour.mp3".
- As the counter neared the end, the people still emailing Ifrit were met answered with 'hang on someone keeps knocking at my door'
- And then... Nothing.
- Nothing's happened yet, as of 8:50PM EST, aside from the site itself breaking.
- Jadusable's account has posted an excrept of lyrics from WHO'S THAT KNOCKIN' by The Genies. A reference, perhaps, to the people knocking on Ifrit's door.
-At 9PM EST, a video response to FREE.wmv was posted, called fj6rt, by TheMissingLink, real name according to the Youtube page: Alex.
- fj6rt was at the title of Ifrit's contact page when it was up. The title of the page has since changed to the url for the video response. The video features Adult Link in Ocarina of Time playing the Song of Time in front of the Moon.
- If this is to be believed that we're playing the game this closely, then the Song of Time takes us back three days...
- Jadusable makes a repeat posting on a forum, posting the exact same thing he did three days ago (which was TheTruth.rtf and the words "Honesty is the best policy").
- http://www.youshouldnthavedonethat.net/ went down for maintenance. Just checked myself, this confirms that we've gone back in time - the website doesn't exist yet.
- Everyone in the chatrooms and IRC are freaking out right now. We've essentially been "sent back in time", but this time we have to do things right, just like in the game.
September 19, 2010
- http://www.youshouldnthavedonethat.net/ is back up, the next day afternoon. It's in an early state, as it appeared before. However, there is no sign of Ifrit posting in the discussion as he did originally, and the About Us page doesn't list Ifrit at all. DROWNED is no where to be found in the discussion, very mysterious.
- However, http://www.youshouldnthavedonethat.net/index.php/contact/ifrit/ looks different. The Elegy statue stares at you, repeated three times, while the Skull Kid laugh is heard in the background. Text says, "Expecting to find someone else?"
- Ifrit is likely dead. Which presents the theory that the four "giants", once killed, do not travel back in time with us. So then what is our goal here?
- http://www.youshouldnthavedonethat.net/index.php/contact/ifrit/alex is discovered. The page says "another who knows of them, chooses.... mask.... sends aid.... fallen.... vehement.....diety.... he is alone against them"
- The Truth page of the website has changed, apparently we've gone far back enough before it was password protected by the staff. It says, "Still in the progress of moving everything over, sorry for the delay. But it is imperative we find him and silence him before he can reveal our intentions. Also, I can't figure out how to make this private, we've got about two days or so before we open up this website to the world so I figure it'll be okay for now, not like anyone can stumble upon this, but can someone help out with that? - DW"
- Ifrit's post is missing from the front page (It was the oldest post, so it's not a case of it not being added yet.) This further adds to the fact that Ifrit is either dead or missing because of what happened before the time reset.
- This being Day One, and not Day Two, Nekko has not ascended (read: been sacrificed) yet. Are we meant to save him this time? A lot of people are coming up with theories on why Chris should be saved.
- The "Creed" page is investigated for clues, as Duskworld mentions many typos. Several typos are found, possibly a hint, since a letter "y" is intentionally bolded. Nobody was able to figure it out, however.
- Nothing else new is discovered today, we will have to wait for them to continue updating the website it seems, but this time we'll do things different.
September 20, 2010
- On a whim, a user video responds on Youtube to free.wmv with the Song of Time reversed. This is accepted as a response, which evidently has the in-game effect of slowing time.
- Ben responded to this by posting a ciphered message, saying "You have learned something new. How long until your blessing becomes a curse?", likely referring to our newfound knowledge that we can play songs to trigger events. THAT must be the trick here. Immediately we all begin looking up what the songs do and their meanings.
- Once it is discovered that other songs work, people respond with other songs, including New Wave Bossa Nova, Song of Healing, and the Oath to Order.
- The Song of Healing was played by HigurashiMGOST is response to BEN.wmv. This caused a new post to appear on YSHDT.net, in the discussion where Duskworld and Nekko talk about Nekko's ascension. The avatar was the image of the distorted Kelbris, with the name "WHO DO YOU THINK THIS IS" and text announcing that he would be knocking on your door next, and he had something he wanted to talk about.
- New Wave Bossa Nova was played by MFGreth , in the game it gives people who can't speak a voice, and it was played with the intention of unsilencing Ifrit. It got accepted and Ifrit was able to be contacted once again.
- A viewer got ahold of Matt Hubris (aka Ifrit), however it turned out to be Rosa, who asked about Matt, as she hadn't seen him. She said that something happened during the blackout, and then said that something was counting down at her door. The viewer paniced, and after a bit of debate in chat a user named Miya played the Song of Time by uploading it as a video response, and it was later accepted, resetting the clock again, pushing everyone back.
- The Oath to Order was played as well, but since we do not have all 4 giants yet, it was too early, which Alex was quick to let us know know. This may also have killed Alex. It is hard to tell.
- After this, Jadusable changed the video tags on the Rosa video to *You *Didn't *Save *Her. Other tags were changed to *Rosa *Trapped on other videos. This could very well mean that Rosa was killed because we waited too long to play the Song of Time.
- Around this time, Alex posted a video of link being killed by dark link, with the title "..." (most likely due to someone uploading the Song of Healing as a video response - which in the past has caused Link to end up dead, so not really sure why the user did that) MFGreth responded with a video of link using a fairy, which revived Alex. Shit just got real.
- Somebody responded to Jadusable with the Song of Awakening.
- In response to this, Jadusable posted "huntyoudown.wmv" which featured dark link walking around in the area where Alex had died. He slowly walked around the room and out the exit, pulling out Navi at the end. This might be a hint.
- The same idiot who posted the Song of Awakening also posted a video of link fighting and defeating dark link. Not sure if it will be accepted.
- As of 2:30 AM PST on Sept 20th, we are a few hours into Day 1 (due to Miya's Song of Time).
- The ARG has ended indefinitely. Jadusable claims he is unable to finish due to financial reasons. The full post can be found on the main page of youshouldnthavedonethat.net"
The main difference between this version and the one that was on the wikia was OOC Jadusable had fixed some of the sentences to make them more complete and understandable for newcomers.
However, it was later discovered that a piece of text from the original timeline had been well hidden on the page. You couldn't see it by just highlighting the page, but you had to actually search through the source code to find it. This was the hidden piece:
"-At 9:20PM EST, Jadusable, or rather, BEN, posted thetruth.rtf on /x/ again. The image posted was of the Happy Mask Salesman, named 'The Father.jpg.' Hopefully confirming that the Salesman is, in fact, the father."
Why it was hidden, nobody knows but OOC Jadusable.
[October 4, 2010]
Page title: ARG Timeline
Page description: .com
Page banner: [None]
The page description was changed to ".com" (as were the page descriptions for the other tabs on the website - excluding the home page - and when put in the order they appear on the menu, the pages' descriptions together spellt out "http://WHATISNot so fast..com").
[January 1, 2011]
Page title: ARG Timeline
Page description: [None]
Page banner: [None]
The page description disappeared, and a line hidden in black font appeared on the page between these two paragraphs:
"- Somebody responded to Jadusable with the Song of Awakening.
- In response to this, Jadusable posted "huntyoudown.wmv" which featured dark link walking around in the area where Alex had died. He slowly walked around the room and out the exit, pulling out Navi at the end. This might be a hint."
It now said this:
"- Somebody responded to Jadusable with the Song of Awakening.
- Pyrrhic prophecy is hinted at
- In response to this, Jadusable posted "huntyoudown.wmv" which featured dark link walking around in the area where Alex had died. He slowly walked around the room and out the exit, pulling out Navi at the end. This might be a hint."
The line was actually discovered on January 4, 2011, but we can assume it was added on January 1, 2011, since that's when the page description was changed and OOC Jadusable put up a new post on the home page.
Pyrrhic prophecy might be hinting at a pyrrhic victory, which - in the words of Wikipedia - is this:
"A Pyrrhic victory (/ˈpɪrɪk/) is a victory with devastating cost to the victor; it carries the implication that another such victory will ultimately cause defeat."
[January 5. 2011]
When the "- Pyrrhic prophecy is hinted at" line was discovered, news about it spread quickly through the community. When players went to check on it again a few hours later, it was gone. It seems to have been removed on the early morning of January 5, 2011.
The Glitch
The website went through some strange, temporary changes on early October 6th, 2010. This event has come to be known by some as "The Glitch". The Glitch did a couple of things for us, e.g. it let us know that the ARG was back on, and it introduced the downloadable files to us.
Unfortunately, not many were able to witness the Glitch itself when it happened. It was early morning(around 5AM), Eastern Standard Time, so most players were asleep. The ARG had also been on pause for a few weeks, probably making the players more unobservant, so less were looking over the website at the time than before. Because of this, a lot of information about the Glitch was lost.
Home
Recreated main page from during the glitch: http://tinyurl.com/MCglitch
The biggest and most notable change was on the main page. The bookmark icon changed to a little boy in a gasmask pointing at you(See: Downloadable file #48 - "HKBBDIN.jpg") and in the background, one of the unintelligible whispers could be heard (See: Downloadable file #52 - "unintelligible.mp3").
On the page, a picture of a gas mask appeared, noted by players as having both the filenames "Eyes.jpg" and "StoleMy.jpg" (See: Downloadable file #46-47). It is not noted how it had both of those names, but one can assume that the picture displayed at one point changed from downloadable file #46 to #47, which are the same pictures but with different names.
Above the gasmask picture, "It's not real" was typed out nine times in black font(meaning you had to highlight the page to see it, or look through the source code), and underneath the image was this text:
"UJQ XGJXDIY EXYGXGJZAE. UJQXKXDIYEKYOJZAE. UZAE. SGK JQ SOO ITSYGJQN JAJMNR"
It was written quite oddly, with "XGJXDIY" and "JAJMNR" a bit further down than the rest, and everything was struck through.
Attempts at solving the text:
When run through deciphering tools, nobody was able to get out anything completely comprehensible, but...
Shifting it eight times gives you:
"CRY.AORALQG.MFGOFORHIM.CRYFSFLQDMSGWRHIM.CHIM.OOSRY.AWW.QBAGORYV.RIRUVZ"
The words "CRY", "FOR" and "HIM" stands out, but unfortunately, the rest of the text is still gibbrish. It may be interesting to note that it also says "GOFORHIM", not sure if this may be of any importance.
Shifting it twenty one times gives you:
"PEL.NBENYDT.ZSTBSBEUVZ.PELSFSYDQZFTJEUVZ.PUVZ.BBFEL.NJJ.DONTBELI.EVEHIM"
"DON'T BELIEVE HIM" stands out here, but again, the rest of the text is still unintelligible.
Some of the text(it is not noted what part) was clickable and led to the first found downloadable files - FSZTKU.txt (See: Downloadable file #49), TheLie.txt (See: Downloadable file #50), and TheTruth.txt (See: Downloadable file #51). They were all short text documents, with the two latter hinting at the pause of the ARG just being a dream that was now about to end.
After about an hour and a half, the page started updating again with more obvious dream hints. Three messages appeared under the News section.
The first:
"You are waking up now. 13 minutes."
The second, presumably eight minutes after the first:
"You are waking up now. 5 minutes."
The third and last, presumable five minutes after the second:
"Pulling the plug."
The whole website then went back to "normal", as it had appeared on the day that the ARG was first paused. The guestbook was cleared and the original music "Lost in My Thoughts by Chi-iLL.mp3" (See: Downloadable file #12) was back on.
FAQ
Recreated FAQ page during the glitch: http://tinyurl.com/FAQglitch
The header changed to "Cry cry cry cry". The banner was gone, but there was quite a large black gap on the page. When rolled over, the infamous face of the disfigured, green man that was found on DROWNED's contact page would appear. The filename of the picture was "trapped.jpg" (See: Downloadable file #55) and in the background, a rather loud whispering could be heard (See: Downloadable file #53 - "unintelligible.mp3"). The voice seemed to be saying "Help me, please! You have to help me!". The copyright information may also have changed to "This Will Hurt You" - as it was on the home page - although we have no evidence for it, so this is just an assumption. Further checking of the TinyURL dropbox version of the site shows the copyright to be "The moon children" on this page as normal.
The Truth
The header changed to text saying "This Will Hurt You". The copyright probably changed to those words as well. No more changes on this page has been noted than that.
Downloadable Files
Compilation of all the downloadable files we've gained access to, a.k.a. file 1-30, 32-63 and 69: http://www.mediafire.com/?9zmxc9fke53x8m1
On October 6, 2010, the Glitch introduced us to downloadable files #49-51. ARG players put one and one together and figured there must be more files under other numbers, so by changing the numbers in the file URLs, they discovered a total of 63 files. Some of the files were seemingly insignificant things we had seen before, like banners or background music for the website. Others were files we'd never seen before, giving us new information. There were images, audio files, and text files. For more information on them and a comprehensive list over all of the files, look here.
"index.php?cID=##"
When searching Google for "youshouldnthavedonethat.net," the following link was a result: http://www.youshouldnthavedonethat.net/index.php?cID=72; this page happened to be the /ifrit/alex/ page.
This is useful due to the the PHP script used to grab webpages from the YSHDT.net server. Each page was assigned its own ID, meaning players were able to cycle through numbers to find new pages that hadn't been found. For example, one was able replace 72 (the ID for the /ifrit/alex/ contact page) at the end of the URL with 60. This would have led to the individual page for the Guestbook. The "Log In" pages are believed to be used for signing in to edit the site, where pages that read, "You must sign in in order to access this page!" are similar to The Truth.
The following is a list of all known ID numbers and their pages:
- 1 - Main Page
- 2-5 - Log In
- 6-7 - Page Not Found
- 8 - You must sign in order to access this page!
- 9 - Member List (Only shows admin)
- 10-11 - You must sign in order to access this page!
- 12-13 - Page Not Found
- 14-54 - Log In 55 - Download File (Invalid File)
- 56 - Chapters Index
- 57 - Area Under Construction - Please check back later (Contains a link to "Launch!")
- 58 - Log In
- 59 - Blast Off!
- 60 - Guestbook (We're happy to see you here. Leave your mark here by signing our guestbook. [First
- guestbook entry is from Sept. 19th])
- 61-63 - Page Not Found
- 64 - Main Page with letter from Jadusable without the Guestbook
- 65-67 - Page Not Found
- 68 - Countdown page with timer stating X days from the 4th day/19th of September 2010 is the 4th day
- 69- FAQ Page (blank with an image of the moon)
- 70 - Page Not Found
- 71 - /ifrit/
- 72 - /ifrit/alex/
- 73 - Donation Page
- 74 - Chapter 1: day four
- 75 - Chapter 2: BEN
- 76 - Bonus Chapter: Rosa
- 77-82 - Page Not Found
- 83 - Chapter 3: DROWNED
- 84 - Page Not Found
- 85 - Chapter 4: jadusable
- 86 - Chapter 5: The Truth
- 87 - ARG Timeline
OOC problems, site crashes
Mostly due to the high amount of traffic it generated, the website has crashed a lot of times. If the website comes back online in the future, the fragility of it is important to remember because of these two reasons mainly:
False alarms
When the website goes down, don't panic and immediately assume something big in the ARG is happening. Not all, but most of the time it's just an OOC problem bringing it down, and it's good to keep an eye on the website when things happen but try to keep in mind that it's likely just an ordinary site crash. Just a tip so you don't get disappointed, and end up desperately searching through the site so much that it crashes again.
Using plugins and add-ons sparingly
Some of the crashes appear to have been caused by various plugins, most notably SiteDelta(an add-on for Firefox that watches specific pages and tells you when there's been a change on them. If the option is checked, it may also save down back-ups of the pages everytime you visit them) and ReloadEvery(another add-on for Firefox that automatically refreshes the page you're on every other second or minute, depending on what you've set it to.). These plugins seem to have caused the ultimate crash, so try using the sparingly or not at all, not matter how tempting it may be to use their convenient functions.
The Sale of the Website
For all of the Moon Children Arc YSHDT.net was the main hub for the ARG. Both in-game and OOC updates took place on the site, and prior to the creation of Within Hubris it was the only place for players to gather together. The site was taken down in an accidental DDOS attack and Within Hubris was created shortly after. YSHDT.net then directed players to the new forums. Around early to mid 2011 (no exact date because it differed for everyone) the website stopped directing and simply sat as a held domain. Alex Hall assured players that "Youshouldnthavedonethat.net will be returning, albeit in a different form."
However, on March 26, 2012, youshouldnthavedonethat.net was put up for sale. Worried players contacted OOC Jad and he responded:
Yeah, its not a big deal. It wouldn't make sense to keep using it in the story for Arc 3, it ended up being a "hiccup" anyway. I'm not going to re-purchase it, so disregard whatever pops up on there. A while back I was going to relaunch YSHDT as the "main website hub" of Arc 3, but as things went on I ultimately decided that having that same website back up would seem a little hokey and would require you to further suspend your suspension of disbelief. There's a new hub in Arc 3. There's not much I can say on the matter without spoiling some of the nature of Hubris, so that's all I'm going to say about it.—Guide, March 26, 2012, 07:22 PM
Players have gone into discussion on whether to purchase the website for the interests of the ARG or not, but nothing was done before the site was bought and parked with a price exceeding $1,000.
In 2016, the site was purchased for use in a fan-made continuation of the ARG.
Official archive
On August 9, 2018, youshouldnthavedonethat.net became an official archive of its original Moon Children Arc incarnation. It contains both First and Second Cycle versions of all pages, including a recreation of the lost About page. A recreation of the out-of-character pages will be developed in the future.
