Content Beta Test - Looking For Volunteers!

Just to help clarify; this test will only involve basic testing? I.e. plain/basic encrypted text and pictures hinting at locations, giving clues and so on?
Or will/should/can it also include stegged images, keyword protected encryptions, and the more time-consuming bits?

I've just completed a week long exam, and think it best that my brain manages to get to some semblance of working order before the semester starts - but I'll see if I can't chime in with something if it turns out that you have trouble finding enough volunteers (which I don't think will be a problem, but just in case)

Looking forward to seeing what people come up with, though!

Edit: Alrighty, looks like the minimum of 3 (very intriguing) entries have been met. So I'll tug away the story I've thought up - perhaps for another time.
Partly because I find the 3 entries below many times more intriguing than what I've come up with, and partly because I think my own concoction is perhaps a bit too "high sci-fi" as well as potentially at odds with established lore.

And I always get exceedingly self-conscious about my "fan-creations".

 

Quick questions:

Are we intending for puppet masters to work together to create missions, or individually?
How many missions are puppet masters expected to make (or is that not known yet?)
Are there any specific methods/paradigms/notes that you would like us to follow while we create our missions?
Do we need to have significant coding experience to insert the mission into the hub?

Thanks! I was thinking that it might be fun for puppet masters to work on their own for x missions and then together for x missions if there are multiple missions planned. I also think that we should try to get a good range of skills (coding, research, photoshop, general knowledge) among puppet masters so we can cover all techniques used in mission solving.

It's 2am so I'm useless now but I'll start tomorrow

EDIT: OH one more question. On a scale from Gosseck Circle to the Wall of Paper (A4!), how long should we plan for missions to take? Just not sure of the intended scope.

 

I for one am very excited about this. I have done some smaller ARGs in the past and I would absolutely love giving this a shot. It's a bit hard to create something if you don't know the boundaries yet, but I have created a small synopsis of a story that I would love to tell.

It starts off as a basic mission, or so you think. A civilian has hired a group of hackers, which have stolen information from the Black Watchmen Database. The files are about a mission that took place in the 17th century, when a woman tried to raise the undead to wreak havoc on her village. This information is dangerous and the fact that a civilian has this information and knowledge about the Black Watchmen means that she has become a target. Not everything is as it seems however.

Spoiler

The woman is revealed to be the girlfriend of an ex-TBW agent who died during a rupture attack. Her goal is to bring her dead boyfriend back to life. This puts you in a tough position as the woman is doing all the wrong things for the right reasons. Raid teams are ready to be deployed and waiting for your command. All you have to do, is track down this woman and make the final call. But this may prove to be harder than you think. The woman has already lost her husband because of us. Can you live with separating them for all eternity in order to protect your secrets?

 

Best I can do is offer support to the community volunteers. I am borderline capable of photoshop, video editing, and very capable of programming (external sites and such, if such an adventure is an option.)

 

I get the feeling that Anashel wants puzzles like the ones used on BYC, they're not techically complex but they're not easy either, and only text and images were used.
I have a semi-vacational week ahead so I'll gladly help.
Here is my proposition for the mission, I'll keep it simple so I don't spoil anything

An associate has recovered an ancient bottle with some documents inside. The person who found it was doing some cleaning up in an old house. This person inherited the house from his grandfather and found the bottle among other forgotten belongings. Our associate says there is something odd with this bottle and has forwarded it to us for further research. The location of the previous mentioned house is Mérida, Yucatán.
Upon close inspection of the bottle we have been able to recover 3 documents sealed inside.
The first one is what seems a letter but it’s illegible.
The second one is a small note that reads:
“The Dreadnought did not kill us. We met our end in the deep bowels of an unfathomable evil. Do not look for us. Lieutenant-Commander K. H.”
And the third and last one is what seems a photo of a submarine.

 

The Double Agent

Agent Nichols has reported to HQ about her partner's suspicious activity. Having worked together for some time, she tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, but we all understand that in our field instincts can still trump trust in those close to us. Nichols trailed Agent Manning to a street corner and recovered what is clearly an encoded message from a possible dead drop. HQ will monitor the dead drop for more activity, with some luck they will pick up Manning's contact. In the meantime, you have been tasked with deciphering the message and following where that trail leads.

Good luck agents.

----
I still have to work out exactly what the scope of the mission is. I could just have it end with the message, but I like the idea of continuing it onto a few phases. First, codebreaking, then I'd like to follow up with a research based puzzle, then probably one more.

Just a quick edit for any future readers: I have finished and tested my mission on a few individuals, as well as written the mission text.

 

I'd be interested, as it seems these are meant to be fairly short straightforward puzzles. I'm curious what sort of content can be an integrated part of the puzzle? I.e. images, audio, videos, files, etc.

 

Just images and text I think.

 

Operation Payback

Jule Johnson aka Bombshell Blonde a notorious mastermind of mayhem is one hell of a woman scorned. Last May, after her fiancé's group, Aegir Communications was forcibly removed by their sponsors, the Illuminati, the Talking Heads forced Jule to break up with him if she wanted to protect the lives of her children. They saw her relationship with him as a security liability and they now couldn't trust her to leak secrets. Last week, they just found out that Jule had been over the summer and fall meeting with Carl secretly behind their backs. They've sent Jule back to Kaidan to work or so she makes them think, you've found out. Her best friend and caregiver Mary as well as the rest of the team have taken the children out of their school and into hiding. Everyone knows that the situation is coming to a head as it can't last much longer. Something somewhere is going to break and the City of New York is going to pay for it.

Spoiler: The Reason Behind the Black Watchmen Have Gotten Involved

 

Rackham​

Agent Rackham, an esteemed agent of The Black Watchmen, is looking to make contact with a series of agents. Some critical pieces of information and hardware were smuggled out of the facilities by another agent using Morse code to communicate with his accomplice.​

Rackham is depending on the agents to find the delivery points to recover as much of the lost goods as possible. Communications and tracking has brought attention to a section of map on the eastern coast of the United States. Upon accepting this mission, intercepted tracking data will be distributed and it will be up to the agents to find the answer.

Spoiler: Technical Notes

This mission originally used some proof-of-concept techniques that will likely not scale well, and/or may be ineligible for usage in the CMS. I have only been able to test this content using my custom client with linking and custom screen sources enabled.

If this mission is not possible within the constraints of the current system, I have hot-swapping replacements that will allow me to function within the boundaries of the current alpha.

I promise it won't be similar to my fan-mission thread in difficulty or content. However, It is a continuation of that puzzle's background.