How can I ever trust anyone online again?

Perhaps that was your mistake.

Wait so you drink? What are your real views on pot?

I drink on the occasion, but only with the team. I don't smoke anything and I don't really have an interest in cannabis. Nothing against it, just not my bag.

How and why would a ~19 year old even assemble a whole team for an eight year project anyway?

I'm very enthusiastic about my work, and I'm fortunate in that I have a lot of like-minded individuals in my circle.

>All of you fuckwits not believing him

I'm willing to give Paul a chance here. Verb was that annoying cousin you kind of hated but were forced to love also because he's family but Paul seems like a breath of fresh air.

Paul, can I pay you to probe my thoughts for an hour every other week?

I'd probably talk to a real psychologist; I'm only a student.

One last question. Your favorite color?

Though Verbatim's favorite color was stated to be green, I've always been more partial to blue.

First of all, I'm sorry to hear that your actor died. Second thing is while I didn`t know about the research, I couldn`t notice that your hate to anime was a little bit off, since a) anime audience is usually scoring anime between 6 and 8, rarely scoring goes below 6 and b) why do you continue watch anime if you hated most of the shows. Also I guess question/topic about Street Fighter vs Blazblue was staged as well, was a little bit weird to see you in a discussion. Also I assume Aria (or how you want me to call you) leaves as well. Oh well. Kinda sad to hear that you don`t play videogames, maybe after this research you'll find some spare time to play them.

Trust me, there's probably a truckload of inconsistencies yet to be found. It's amazing how we were able to keep it going for as long as we did.

My leave from the site is a personal one; my colleagues can do as they wish. I personally can't bear to be here anymore, and rather than dwell on what's been lost, I wish to pursue other things, after writing my final research paper on this subject. Matt would've wanted me to keep pushing forward, so that's what I'm going to do.

Cheers.

Quote from: Verbatim on August 13, 2017, 01:35:52 AM

Quote from: Iberian Husky on August 13, 2017, 01:24:38 AM

Quote from: Verbatim on August 13, 2017, 01:19:28 AM

Quote from: Iberian Husky on August 13, 2017, 01:17:57 AM

Come on, Cheat: Were there any major fluctuations with Verb's IP? Because that could make of break this whole thing.

I'd contest this, but it's not like you'll take my word for it.

I wouldn't waste Cheat's time with such a (relatively) trivial matter anyway.

Did you have some sort of special networking setup for the purpose of immersion? If so how did you pull it off?

Yes. We weren't even sure if we'd be able to pull it off as well as we did, but we thought if we kept Verbatim's personality complex and his speech patterns relatively simple, we'd have a greater overall time maintaining a consistent persona. Occasionally, this was met with bemused reactions from subjects. Reports of hypocrisy and contradictory opinion were common during early portions of the project (mostly during the bungie.net era), so we all gathered around and agreed upon select principles that Verbatim would live and die by—this is where his black-and-white sense of ethics came in. It made it a lot easier for us to maintain without getting caught in contradictions.

Hiring Matt was a huge risk, but I put my trust in him anyway and we were able to cooperate with him to great effect. By far the riskiest move on our part was having him record a video answering questions from you all—his first and only video appearance, to my knowledge. The reactions scared us. A lot of you gave reports of Matt seeming "too normal" to be Verbatim, and we thought the project was destroyed, but in the end, it actually led to one of our biggest breakthroughs during our research.

In short, it was a journey. In some ways, I'm not sure how we were able to do it. But I know that we couldn't have done it without Matt. Now that he's gone, I'm not sure how could ever continue (we had plans to keep this going indefinitely).

Yes, but how did you physically accomplish this? I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you posted from a consistent IP. Did you have multiple people remotely access a single machine for the purpose of posting? Did you do this with multiple machines within a single network, where "Verb's IP" was just the network IP?

Little of column A, little of column B.

The thing is, Verbatim was a college student and a frequent mover (we tried to establish this through his post-lore).

He would take his laptop to several places where his IP would change frequently. His home, the park, the bus stop, the mall, his college—the list goes on. So it made sense to us that his IP would change from time to time, because that sort of thing only seemed normal.

Quote from: Verbatim on August 13, 2017, 01:19:28 AM

Quote from: Iberian Husky on August 13, 2017, 01:17:57 AM

Come on, Cheat: Were there any major fluctuations with Verb's IP? Because that could make of break this whole thing.

I'd contest this, but it's not like you'll take my word for it.

I wouldn't waste Cheat's time with such a (relatively) trivial matter anyway.

Did you have some sort of special networking setup for the purpose of immersion? If so how did you pull it off?

Yes. We weren't even sure if we'd be able to pull it off as well as we did, but we thought if we kept Verbatim's personality complex and his speech patterns relatively simple, we'd have a greater overall time maintaining a consistent persona. Occasionally, this was met with bemused reactions from subjects. Reports of hypocrisy and contradictory opinion were common during early portions of the project (mostly during the bungie.net era), so we all gathered around and agreed upon select principles that Verbatim would live and die by—this is where his black-and-white sense of ethics came in. It made it a lot easier for us to maintain without getting caught in contradictions.

Hiring Matt was a huge risk, but I put my trust in him anyway and we were able to cooperate with him to great effect. By far the riskiest move on our part was having him record a video answering questions from you all—his first and only video appearance, to my knowledge. The reactions scared us. A lot of you gave reports of Matt seeming "too normal" to be Verbatim, and we thought the project was destroyed, but in the end, it actually led to one of our biggest breakthroughs during our research.

In short, it was a journey. In some ways, I'm not sure how we were able to do it. But I know that we couldn't have done it without Matt. Now that he's gone, I'm not sure how could ever continue (we had plans to keep this going indefinitely).

Paul, I'm gonna have to ask you, and your co-helper to stop this immediately, the boss is mad, real mad, he told you both specifically to reveal what you've had done these past couple of years. He never gave the clearing to answer the subject's desired questions! I hope I won't be forced to take more drastic measures

Haha, is this how Titanic Sinclair felt when people were trying to piggyback off of his project too?

I don't know you, sir, and your post doesn't contain any of the cues we established.

Except he does because Matthew lent his face and voice, not the entire user.

And the degree of personal correspondence Verbatim has had with people either means this is a lie, or he had very poor control over his experiment to the point where he wasn't even aware of his own character's actions.

So Paul, are you lying or incompetent?

I'm a student, not an expert. We're a team of students. Some degree of incompetence is expected, but I think we did a fine job.

Quote from: Verbatim on August 13, 2017, 12:36:49 AM

Quote from: Aria on August 13, 2017, 12:29:46 AM

Quote from: Verbatim on August 13, 2017, 12:17:48 AM

Quote from: Aria on August 13, 2017, 12:12:02 AM

Quote from: More Than Mortal on August 13, 2017, 12:06:19 AM

So this actor maintained a dedicated facebook page with ~200 friends and posts as far back as 2013?

Not just the actor, he was only there for photographs. The page itself was maintained by a number of staff members related to the project.

While true, I'm not sure how you became privy to such information.

If you pay close attention, you might be able to figure out who I actually am. To be frank, I'm surprised you didn't already know; I assumed you were just playing it off so as not to compromise the integrity of the project.

Ah.

Yes.

Sorry, I've been so distraught lately ever since Matt's death. Haven't been able to think straight.

It's alright. We have all grown to know each other so well over the past eight years, and it is hard to come to terms with the sudden death of a friend and coworker. I am not sure if you have heard, but the team is planning to visit his favorite pub tomorrow night. I assume you will want to come and have a pint as well, but I understand if you would rather have a quiet night at home with the missus.

Yeah, I honestly would, but I have something important to go over with you all about this anyhow. I've been putting it off, but maybe I should just get it out of the way, for his sake. I'll see what I can do.

Quote from: Verbatim on August 13, 2017, 12:24:38 AM

The impression we intended to create was a boy who had social media, tried getting into it a bit late to the party, but ultimately wasn't heavily into it.

I won't bore you with all the intricacies, but there's layers to it all, you see—your incredulity is expected and not unwarranted.

"Jacob Potilla" AKA Matthew-Just-There-For-The-Photographs has an individual from Ishpeming (who is clearly not a stooge) tagged in his profile picture, and on that individual's wall is given editing credit on some post about Ishpeming city council debates on a smoking ban.

Matthew was given instruction to fraternize with several non-participants to help create a more immersive atmosphere. Hiring several other actors would be too much of a cost, and I cannot trust anyone else to do the job as well as Matt.

Have you ever seen the film Under the Skin starring Scarlett Johanssen? It's kind of like that.

Coincidentally, that was the last film I remember sitting down to watch the entirety of.

Was Matthew older, or younger?

Where else in Illinois other than Chicago have you lived?

Also, if you really were performing a psychological experiment this deep, I'd imagine this is precisely the kind of thing you'd want to study. If everything else you say is true, it is unlikely the experiment has actually ended.

Matthew was younger than I, and a great deal of Verbatim's biographical information was borrowed from his. 21, 5'11'', ~200lbs (like Verbatim, he never really knew his exact weight).

I've lived in Chicago all my life. I can't really see myself going anywhere else. Moving from my parents' home seven years ago was hard enough.

Interesting hypothesis, but I have no other comment.

Quote from: More Than Mortal on August 13, 2017, 12:06:19 AM

So this actor maintained a dedicated facebook page with ~200 friends and posts as far back as 2013?

Not just the actor, he was only there for photographs. The page itself was maintained by a number of staff members related to the project.

While true, I'm not sure how you became privy to such information.

So this actor maintained a dedicated facebook page with ~200 friends and posts as far back as 2013?

With enough money, nothing is out of the question. He was also intimately involved with the experiment in other facets, and was a good colleague of mine.

Keep in mind, too, that lots of other ARGs have used social networking to immerse their audiences. The Marble Hornets series comes to mind.