What was the LOST experience?

[visionary]

I just came across this web site www thelostexperience and I remember reading in the regular Lost threads last summer about a game to run in summer and something about the Hanson Foundation. I've seen nothing on the show about it and on this site it names characters I've never heard of in Lost.

What is going on? It appears it is over. What new plot info was revealed in this game then, about Lost or this Hanson company? Is that supposed to be who runs the Dharma Init? Did someone win a big prize in this contest, the site seems unclear to me what they did to pick a winner? Will it be back this summer? What are all these characters and robots, I never saw a robot in Lost?

[Jeeters]

Wikipedia somes it up pretty good...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_experience

[visionary]

Wow, thanks. It sure does tell about it, but not who won or what they won, or what the new info about the island or people was. It said first phase began May 3,2006. I guess we will very soon see if they will do it again then.

I can't imagine knowing to go look at all those sites, especially a Sprite ad. That was one wierd game. Maybe, I will assume, it was so difficult no one ever "finished" it and that is why no winners were mentioned. Thanks for the info. If anyone reading played it perhaps they could add some of the details?

[DevdogAZ]

I didn't follow along with the game, but I think the end result was a video. Each clue gave a small video clip, and when all the clues were put together, it revealed a video that "explained" the importance of the numbers. You can see the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-eHEYswgK8

There are several other videos there related to the game if you want to watch them.

[visionary]

Thanks, great info. I am surprised more people have not talked about this.

[MickeS]

Thanks, great info. I am surprised more people have not talked about this.
I played along in the beginning, but got bored quickly because it was so fragmented and ill-defined. Reading the wiki-page, it seems it didn't really lead anywhere later on either...

[DevdogAZ]

It was talked about. Here is the official thread for it:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=298400

and another thread that was started when the final video was solved:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=315239

[tanstaafl]

Lostpedia also has a large section on the Experience (http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/The_Lost_Experience).

As for why it doesn't get talked about more... Well, first of all, it ended last summer so it really isn't news anymore. Second, as for the revelations from it, many people consider those to be spoilers, since the same information hasn't been revealed in the show itself yet. Don't start talking about the Valenzetti Equations in a Lost thread, for example, since no one in the show has mentioned them yet.

[Chibbie]

Wow, thanks. It sure does tell about it, but not who won or what they won, or what the new info about the island or people was. ... Maybe, I will assume, it was so difficult no one ever "finished" it and that is why no winners were mentioned. Thanks for the info. If anyone reading played it perhaps they could add some of the details?

There were no "winners", as it wasn't a contest so much as game, so there were no prizes, unlike Microsoft's Vanishing Point Game (http://www.vanishingpointgame.com/) , or Google's Da Vinci Code Quest (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Da_vinci_code_quest) .

There were two phases of the game that were competitive:

Stage 3 was HansoExposed.com - the first people to find "glyphs" on the web, and in the real world, were put up on a leader board.

Stage 4 was WhereIsAlvar.com - ABC distributed Apollo Candy Bars (as seen in Lost) at various live events. Anyone that got a bar could post their picture up on the WIA website. Some of the bars had a golden sticker on the back called an Oracle, like the Wonka Golden Ticket. From what I understand, there were plans to give special clues to the Golden Oracles, like some kind of geo-cache treasure hunt, but there were problems with logistics and liability.


It is not likely that there will be another Lost Experience, but there will be a Lost video game this summer.

[tanstaafl]

It is not likely that there will be another Lost Experience, but there will be a Lost video game this summer.
Yeah, and it'll probably look like this (http://www.pvponline.com/images/3072.gif).

[unicorngoddess]

I played along. I thought it was fun and fed my LOST addiction during the summer. It wasn't a contest so there wasn't a winner. It was just an additional thing to do while LOST was off for the season.

There was a seperate thread for the Lost Experience on here, it even led (or at least contributed to) a new rule for the Now Showing boards to include any information shown in webisodes and such to be considered spoilers or need their own seperate threads. So that's why you wouldn't see any mention of them in the regular episode titled threads.

[Chibbie]

Yeah, and it'll probably look like this (http://www.pvponline.com/images/3072.gif).

That link is not working... what was it a picture of?

[tanstaafl]

That link is not working... what was it a picture of?
Yeah, the site seems to be down for some reason today.

It was a couple of people playing "Lost: The Roleplaying Game" which is revealed to be nothing but a bunch of random encounter tables. After one character encounters his math teacher (who tells him to memorize his times tables then disappears) the other characters decide to throw themselves into the running jet engine.

[Chibbie]

Found it in the Google cache:

http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/319/3072kt9.gif