Klaus von Richter
Vomher
(Note: This thread will be updated for better wording and developments as time goes on.)
#HIVEHUM
The hashtag Hivehum has become ubiquitous in the Secret World's roleplaying community and twitter, but rarely does it see proper use. The Twitterverse Experiment, a Funcom ARG and roleplay over Twitter, has been hinted more and more to be on the return. As is the case, it is imperative that this tag be fully understood.
#Hivehum is used after every official Funcom NPC tweet that has some importance in plot or the puzzles they host. It was intended as a means for a player to keep track of new developments in the story, events, puzzles, and plots. By looking through the tag history, a player could find any new posts that may have occurred surrounding whatever the puzzle is for the week.
Players, too, would use #hivehum when answering puzzles or giving their input in the quest to solve them. This added to the ability for somebody to catch up to what was going on by seeing where the current trains of thoughts were headed. Many people involved were roleplayers, but this does not mean it was for personal RP. Far from it.
The only roleplay that this tag was meant to be found in was roleplay surrounding Funcom's plots, Funcom-sanctioned or supported plots, world events, or special community events. During the Whispering Tide, #Hivehum was useful in informing the community of any changes to the World Tree as Filth invaded.
Funcom could also look through the tag themselves to see what any players may have posted, as not everyone posts directly to the NPCs.
#Hivehum is for players and participants alike to keep track of the Twitterverse Experiment, its storylines, the puzzles provided, and anything Funcom has up its sleeves; however, it has become overfilled with personal player RP completely unrelated to any of the ARGs. As we are promised a return to the Experiment in some form, the overflow makes it harder and harder to keep track. Somebody losing a shoe is not in any way, shape, or form, meant for the #Hivehum tag, unless it is somehow integral to Geary's secret schemes as dictated by @CorporateBlues, Saiid's Mummers as determined by @PrunePrince, or even some esoteric saying by @The_Buzzing. A character's daily life is not what #Hivehum was for.
It was for coordination, collaboration, and participation in Funcom's ARGs and puzzles.
THE TWITTERVERSE EXPERIMENT
Have you ever wondered why there's such a large number of roleplayers employing Twitter in the Secret World? It isn't just because Twitter exists in the same reality; no, it's because of this: The Twitterverse Experiment.
Started in the beginning of 2013, the Twitterverse Experiment is a series of weekly ARGs, which began on tuesdays every week with the action of one of its various official NPCs and characters. As an ARG, or Alternate Reality Game, the Twitterverse Experiment's puzzles often spanned from the game to outside of it, requiring research or unorthodox methods to solve them.
Each puzzle began with #hivehum in its tag to alert players that the NPCs, which would roleplay with others in the mean time, were in fact initiating another part of the Experiment. Any subsequent tweets, either by people solving it or NPCs, often had this tag as well. It was difficult to keep up with during the day, as it often happened anywhere from 11 AM to 4 PM Eastern Time. The primary instigator was often mysterious tweets sent by @The_Buzzing, or snark with or between @CorporateBlues and @PrunePrince. #Hivehum was integral as an identifier as to Funcom's puzzles or anything possibly relating to them.
The plots in the Twitterverse Experiment often filled in new tidbits of lore for the players careful enough to look, or acted as preludes to Issues. Issue 6 had a prelude over Twitter, with a puzzle focusing on the discovery of the Time Tombs and the Brampton Cemetery's rather unique tomb. Issue 7 had a strange lead-up hinting at Lilith and Emma and a puzzle hidden directly in the Issue comic. Kirsten Geary, Saiid, and others were fleshed out through this medium as well. The developers who played many of these NPCs became busy with Issues 9, 10, and 11, and were consequently unable to continue the weekly puzzles. It is then that the Twitterverse Experiment went on hiatus.
Not only did players receive lore, but the puzzles allowed them a chance to receive Funcom Bonus Points. One puzzle rewarded its winner official Faction Dog Tags. The puzzles themselves were highly varied, from investigating a strange broadcast across the radio streams to sending Saiid pictures and news of Filth invading the world as it spread through the Agartha and its many portals. The magazine HIVE Mode lost its models in a tragic accident in Egypt and required hasty images from the hum of the hive to fill its pages, and this went on for a few issues until they were no longer able to continue. The best pictures were chosen to grace its pages, and that is what you find within the Secret World itself on various counter tops and benches. The Twitterverse Experiment occasionally allowed players a chance to leave their mark on the game, and it was amazing.
Funcom would leave a recap of all of the puzzles week by week while the Experiment was in full swing, allowing players to not only check back in time in a limited, summarized manner, but to see who won for that week. While this was one way to keep up, #hivehum offered a far more real-time view. Players, ever so helpful in times of ARGs, also created a forum thread to post what was suspected to be part of the puzzle or discuss and theorize in their efforts to solve it.
Through the Twitterverse Experiment, players and Funcom came together in sometimes unexpected ways to expand upon the world around them. One such example is the ABCs of Monsters found in the League of Monster Slayers' tree house in the Savage Coast. Full of creepy, childish renditions of many monsters and creatures, these drawings were in fact part of the Twitterverse Experiment. Some were drawn by Funcom employees and got the puzzle started, but soon the whole alphabet was filled in by the players.
The Twitterverse Experiment was, and may still be, a fabulous way for players to be involved in the story in an organic manner, and even play with Funcom along the way. Hiatus is ending soon. The NPCs are beginning to act once more. Its revival has been hinted at many times in the past few months, and even Daimon Kiyota himself is going to get a twitter. It is now, more than ever, that we should respect and facilitate the wondrous things that this community can make with Funcom and #hivehum.
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