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| {{ratings}}{{Era|ILB}}
| | '''''Bold text'' |
| {{realworld}}
| | == |
| [[Image:Ilovebees.jpg|thumb|right|200px|I Love Bees DVD menu.]]
| | == Headline text == |
| [[Image:Axon.jpg|thumb|Players wait at a payphone.]]
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| [[Image:DVD.PNG|thumb|The DVD.]]
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| During the summer of 2004, the website '''[http://www.ilovebees.com ilovebees.com]''' was used as a publicity site for [[Halo 2]], with the site being pointed to by adverts for the game during movie trailers. Ostensibly a beekeeper's personal site, the server appeared to have been taken over by an unstable [[A.I.]] whose thoughts are scattered on the site.
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| == Background == | | == ALLAH!!!! ALL HAIL ALLAH!!!!!!! == |
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| A message on the frontpage directed viewers to the blog of a girl named [[Dana]]. [[Dana]] claimed that she built the ilovebees site for her [[Aunt Margaret]] and recently her site got in this bizarre state, and asks if anyone could help her. Dana acted essentially as a narrator in the game, describing events for people who missed the action.
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| The frontpage had a counter counting down to July 27, 2004 (when it says "network throttling will erode"), August 10, 2004 (when "this medium will metastasize"), and August 24, 2004 (at 8:06 am, when it will be "wide awake and physical") - many thought something big would happen related to [[Halo 2]] on these dates, however it was only related to the ILB game. Currently there is a counter counting down to the day the [[Covenant]] will attack [[Earth]], 500 years in the future.
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| On 8/10/04, a list of GPS coordinates with times were added to the site's Links page, along with a countdown to "Axons go hot". With the exception of one leading to the Pacific Ocean, all of the coordinates lead to pay phones. On 8/24/04, the countdown ended as it reached the first set time. People who answered the pay phones (the "[[axons]]") at the scheduled times spoke to a recording of the [[A.I.]] and were asked basic questions about the character. If answered correctly, an [[I Love Bees Axon Clips|audio clip]] would be released and a number would be added to a counter on the website. The audio clips, when threaded together formed an audio drama about characters in the [[Halo]] universe. As the number reached 777, the AI, as played by a voice actor instead of a recording, began interacting with players through the pay phones.
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| The AI would ask for their name, rank and proof that they were [[human]]. Players would provide their usernames, choose ranks and improvise proof (eg. joking, singing). Their names were added to the site, crediting them for activating the axons.
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| After the game was over, players were invited to go on a "training mission" which was actually a chance to play [[Halo 2]] multiplayer before its release. Various sites around America were used to host the event, including movie theaters and malls. Players were told to say the phrase "The Operator left a message for me." to gain access to the event. Unfortunately, several of the hosts were unaware of ILB and thought it was just a Halo 2 event, disappointing many fans. At each event, players were given DVDs (seen right) containing all of the ILB audio files as well as deleted material.
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| This style of publicity is similar to that which surrounded the movie A.I. which featured a grand Alternate Reality Game. Both games were run by [[4orty2wo Entertainment]].
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| == Story Synopsis ==
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| {{main|I Love Bees Synopsis}}
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| The ''I Love Bees'' storyline is long and complex. Thus it needs a separate article to describe everything.
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| == Trivia ==
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| *[[Yuri Lowenthal]], voice of [[Kamal Zaman]], is also the voice of the Prince in the Prince of Persia series. A piece of Kamal's dialog, "People think time is a river that flows in one direction, but time is an ocean." is very much like the Prince's "Some say time is like a river that flows swift and sure in one direction, but I have seen the face of time and I can tell you they are wrong. Time is an ocean in a storm."
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| *Soon after ILB became popular, someone bought the domain name '''www.ilovepees.com''' and auctioned it on eBay. The person claimed whoever made it a redirect to their own site would get tons of traffic from ILB fans who would type in the address incorrectly.<ref>http://nikon.bungie.org/news.html?item=10131</ref> Their starting bid was $1,000, but when it failed to sell, they made two more auctions, each lowering the price. It was finally sold for a price close to $40.
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| *The surname "Zaman" means "time, age, era" in Arabic.<ref>http://www.behindthename.com/php/search.php?terms=zaman</ref>
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| *The people of [[Bungie]] did not originally consider this to be official canon for Halo, since 4orty 2wo was basically allowed to do whatever they wanted with the game, However, in the 7/28/06 edition of the [http://the1upshow.1up.com/ 1up show], Bungie employee [[Frankie]] stated that Ilovebees was being "embraced as canon" by Bungie.
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| *The Walk-away Girl Story line from [[Axon Clips Chapter 1]] went through 56 revisions before it was final.
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| *The game was re-written in midstream in order to accommodate players who wanted to see more puzzles. Since the radio play was pre-recorded, the rewrite was what brought the live calls.
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| *There were 7 hours worth of script written in 5 months.
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| *The lack of ability to beta-test meant that 5 hours before the phone calls went live, the [[4orty2wo Entertainment|Puppet Masters]] were still trying to see if the payphones would ring.
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| *The [[4orty2wo Entertainment|Puppet Masters]] had not expected [[Weephun]] to rat out the Sleeping Princess so easily and had to do quite a bit of rewriting in order to deal with it.
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| *When they went live in week 1, week 8 was still unwritten.
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| *[[4orty2wo Entertainment]] was very careful not to mention who the client is because players get turned off if the advertising is too overt.
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| *A player tried to answer a live call in the middle of [[wikipedia:Hurricane Ivan|Hurricane Ivan]]. The Puppet Master (Puppetmaster 2) broke character to tell him to run to safety: "Dude, it's a hurricane. Put the phone down."<ref>http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,65365-1.html?tw=wn_story_page_next1</ref>
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| == Related Links ==
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| === Internal ===
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| *[[Ilovebees Credits]]
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| *[[I Love Bees Axon Clips]]
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| '''Main Characters'''
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| *[[Melissa]]
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| **[[Operator]]
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| **[[Sleeping Princess]]
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| **[[Durga]]
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| *[[Seeker]]
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| *[[Janissary James]]
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| *[[Jersey Morelli]]
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| *[[Kamal Zaman]]
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| *[[Colonel Herzog]]
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| *[[Major Standish]]
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| *[[Thin Kinkle]]
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| *[[Rani Sobeck]]
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| *[[Sophia Bossedon]]
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| *[[Aiden Maki]]
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| '''Things'''
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| *[[UNSC Apocalypso]]
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| *[[Chatter]]
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| *[[Moons]]
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| '''Similar Halo Marketing'''
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| *[[Cortana Letters]]
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| *[[Transmissions]]
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| === External ===
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| '''Starting points'''
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| Those wishing to read more about the I Love Bees ARG should visit the [http://bees.netninja.com/staticwiki/beewiki/ I Love Bees Wiki], especially:
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| *[http://bees.netninja.com/staticwiki/beewiki/TheGuide Summary of events]
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| *[http://bees.netninja.com/staticwiki/beewiki/ThePuzzles The Puzzles]
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| *[http://bees.netninja.com/staticwiki/beewiki/DanaAndMargaret Dana and Margaret]
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| *[http://bees.netninja.com/staticwiki/beewiki/StorySoFar Speculative story so far]
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| Major changes in the game and summaries are documented [http://bees.netninja.com/blog/ at the BeeLog].
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| '''The game'''
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| *[http://ilovebees.com ilovebees.com - The site itself]
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| *[http://ilovebees.blogspot.com/ The ilovebees weblog]
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| '''Fan sites'''
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| *[http://www.welovebees.com/index.html welovebees.com]
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| *[http://ilb.extrasonic.com/index.php/Main_Page 'Fireflies' ILB wiki]
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| *[http://bees.netninja.com/ NetNinja ILB resources]
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| *[http://www.thebruce.ca/ilovebees/ theBruce's ilovebees Compilations] and [http://creepy.thebruce.ca fanfiction retelling]
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| *[http://www.wonderweasels.org/apiary/guide.htm Guide to 'Haunted Apiary - Let Op!']
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| '''Communities discussing the game'''
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| *[http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/index.php?c=15 Unfiction forum]
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| *[http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=364518&viewreplies=true&postRepeater1-p=1 Bungie.net forum thread]
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| *[irc://irc.chat-solutions.org/ilovebees An IRC channel devoted to discussing the ARG]
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| '''Press coverage'''
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| *[http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/07/23/1912259&tid=204 First] and [http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/07/24/1814210&tid=211 second] Slashdot articles.
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| *[http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,65365,00.html Wired article]
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| *[http://www.argn.com/archive/000231i_love_bees_nominated_for_webby_award.php "I Love Bees" Nominated for a Webby Award]
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| *[http://www.42entertainment.com/42webmovies/ilovebees.wmv G4 show on the game] - WMV file.
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| == References ==
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| <references/>
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| [[Category:Events]]
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| [[Category:The Real World]]
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| [[Category:I Love Bees]]
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