It takes a lot of huevos to come forward after admitting part in one of the 'net's larger hoaxes in the last few months, but that's exactly what the man behind the supposed Fallout 4 site, TheSurvivor2299, did over the weekend.
In an AMA aptly titled "I'm the Prick behind thesurvivor2299. AMA?" over at Reddit's Fallout forum, DCHoaxer explained the site was all one big attempt to "force Bethesda to reveal something during VGX/ on 12/11, and bring /r/Fallout community together (for at least 3 weeks)."
For anyone who followed the hoax as it gathered steam, the latter part of the plan obviously worked quite well. Just not the former. The hoaxer admitted the plan came to a screeching halt when "Pete [Hines, Bethesda's PR boss] killed my plans." Hines revealed late last week via Twitter that he would not be attending VGX, or that the company had anything to announce. Another tweet from Bethesda was the nail in the coffin, reading, "PSA: If you don't hear it through an official channel like this, assume all rumors and speculation are false."
Ultimately, the hoaxer was "disappointed" in himself for "giving up too early." He also admitted he made a few mistakes early on. One of the things that raised a few eyebrows over the site's authenticity was its inital hosting was on a server in Poland.
Had things gone the way they were intended to, Hoaxer would've released a CGI trailer once the site's countdown was complete. He still plans to release the trailer, but only after "things cool off a little. I don't wan't to piss off Bethesda at this time even more."
Obviously, a fair bit of work went into the site, what with the messages in morse code, cryptographic puzzles, the domain registration, hidden sound files, linking it to an employee who worked for the PR company that did advertising campaigns of Bethesda properties, the numerous references to Boston and the Institute, the telephone number that played the theme from Tranquility Lanes, it just went on and on.
The hoaxer revealed that despite what it seems, it wasn't an obscene amount of dedication, coming down to about an hour of work daily. The phone setup and site hosting "only" set him back about $900, an amount that's "nothing" to the hoaxer, a self-admitted "selfish bastard with a lot of money."
Every message that appeared on the site was actually from a script the hoaxer had written in hoped of having it developed into a DLC for Fallout: New Vegas, now offically a "dead" project. If you're interested, the hoaxer did say it'll eventually find its way over to fanfiction.
