[arg_discuss] TOW: What's the worst unforseen disaster you had in an ARG, and how did you handle it?

[Brooke Thompson]

A player gaining access, for several hours, to our online development  
space and as we were a remote team, that was *the* development space.  
Everything was there and they had access long enough to have  
downloaded it all - I later learned, that he had, in fact, downloaded  
it all.

We moved to a different location and just accepted that it was all out  
there. However, with every major new plot point that was released, I  
created ways to divert from the story if it was deemed necessary (it  
never was). We were lucky in several respects:

1) we knew what the story was but hadn't figured out the exact telling  
of the end

2) the player that gained access (unbeknownst to us at the time) was  
one of the most active and dedicated players - he never had any  
intention of telling anyone what he had done and was very curious to  
compare and contrast the planned experience with the actual one. So,  
the discovery did not hurt his experience and, in some ways, enhanced  
it.