I HAVE A CONFESSION TO MAKE

[bro...@mail.auburn.edu]

Hmm ... you leave the internet community for a few months, and people
are STILL dragging your old shit around. Okay folks, this is getting a
bit absurd. Can't you all take a joke? Look. I have a confession to
make, and if you stick with me and read this WHOLE post, you'll learn a
lot more about this whole AERIS thing. A lof of you know me as Ben
Lansing. Way back in March-April of 97, when FF7 had first came out, I
bought it (an imported version), and loved the hell out of it. While
rummaging around online one day, I stumbled across some madman raving
about the scene with Bugen Hagen near the end of disc 2. The game being
in Japanese and this guy being full-blooded American, this scene came
across to him as something else: a failed ressurection attempt. He
started posting to the FF7 Message Board about all of this, saying that
perhaps Aeris could be revived ... and people started jumping in on it.
All sorts of stories began flourshing about ways to bring her back, and I
did a lot of research on this before I ever posted my first message on
that board. I decided to see just how silly people could be. I had
actually understood everything that had gone on during the game, so I
knew lots of ways to trick people into believeing things. I already had
a silly audience who believed nearly anything, so I took a great step
when I came out with my Aeris Ressurection process, under the name of Ben
Lansing, an alleged translator for Square. Without even reading this
process, people should have known I was lying to start with. I claimed
to be a temporary translator for Square. Well, anyone with any common
sense knows that Ted Woolsey and the Square team did NOT translte FF7 ...
SONY did it, all in Japan, and all within the parent company - NOBODY WAS
HIRED FROM THE OUTSIDE! But ... being the gullible fish that I thought
everyone was, they swallowed it whole without a second thought, and I
became a near-idol on that message board. I decided to see just how far
I could carry all of this. Several people on the message board started
rebuking what I said, claiming me to be a liar and even catching me in a
few little fibs. However, I also had a strong support, backed by a few
guys you may remember as Fish, Mooncalf, Smear, Casper71, Zakna, and so
on. We strongly opposed anyone who claimed we were liars. They do not
know to this day that it was all a hoax. Some of them even made up
little lies themselves in defense of me. I thought that was a bit
overboard, but people will be people. We went off and founded a channel
on DALNet: #Aeris. You people may remember it, and some of you may even
visit from time to time. We had contacts with Crow (Miranda's Cafe) who
helped us advertise and such. Well, as more people came to know about
us, more people started doubting me. I went as far as to give over
ownership of the channel to Fish and Zakna, while having my name removed
from the #aeris home page. Things were looking bad, so I made one final
post to the message board and vanished from the net. Here it is, with
comments I have to make about why I said certain things:

----------------------------------------------------------------------
----

>Oh no. They did it. I wouldn't have known, because I had access to the
>full set of FF7 info... but they did. I guess this means that I should
>have actually played through things to see if anything had changed,
>instead of getting tired of the game after translation purposes. I think
>everyone is gonna kill me for my insolence, because I really should have
>played through the game more fully before I said anything to make sure it
>was still possible.

Okay ... this paragraph was just a little introduction saying that the
ressurection process was originally in the game, and while translating
things, I saw it and so confirmed it without playing the game. Sounded
credible, didn't it? Obviously it did ... read on ...

>Throughout the past few weeks, I, myself, have been wondering why people
>were having such a hard time reviving Aeris, because according to
>everything I saw through the scenario translation process, it could be
>done fairly easily. Here's the Aeris revival process, in full.

More babbling ... then I go on to describe the Aeris revival process IN
FULL ... heehee

>First off, throughout the game, you must make the logical choice of
>things to say to Aeris to indicate that you like her. You must never hurt
>her in any way by choice. What happens in scenarios, however, cannot be
>avoided (Aeris' beating by Cloud, for instance).

I added this cause it sounded believeable too, as there were several key
decision points in conversation that seemed to have no effect on the
story, when in fact they really do: their real purpose is to dictate who
is going to date Cloud in the Gold Saucer ... read on...

>Also, with the sick man.
>There is no medicine, but you could have Aeris tend to him and make him
>feel better, by learning about her heritage and returning to Midgar in
>the first CD. By doing this, the "GENERAL" as people call him, would
>trust you, and request you go buy his dying friend something from the
>store. A simple quest. After doing so, the GENERAL would tell you thanks,
>and that if there was anything else you need ever, to ask him for help.
>You then see a scene with his friend dying. A sad scene. :(

There's a problem here ... you don't find out about Aeris's heritage till
Disc 2. Another dead giveaway that this was a hoax had people been
listening carefully ... Coupled with the fact that there IS no Midgar
Key in disc 1 ... geez ... Oh yeah ... why did you guys call this man the
GENERAL? I never figured that out ... but I just took the name and ran
with it ... hell, it worked, didn't it? :)

>Now, continue through the game as normal, and after Aeris dies, go on to
>the second CD. Once here, return to Midgar with the key from CD1, and the
>GENERAL will ask you where the nice girl (Aeris) is. You explain that she
>has died, by Sephiros, and that there is no hope in reviving her. There
>would be a chance, but only if you could go deep under the waters of the
>floating castle (where Aeris died). The GENERAL would tell you that he
>thinks he may be able to help, and to come back later. After this
>meeting, you were to go on to Aeris' church, where there would be a long
>scene with her spirit. If you had been nice to her, she would express a
>desire to return to help you. After doing this, return to the GENERAL,
>who would provide you with a Yellow materia that allowed the entire group
>to travel through water. With this, you could return to the floating
>palace, go up to Mr. Fish, and once you touched him, you would be
>transported under water, to a cavern, where, at the end, lay Aeris'
>orb/life essence. With this orb, Bugen Hagen could complete the ress
>process, and you could move on to a happier life with a neater ending.

Gee ... people still believed me after hearing THIS? BUGEN HAGEN WAS NOT
TRYING TO RESSURECT AERIS!!! GEEZ!!! Also, a YELLOW orb gives commands
... I'll admit that there was an Underwater orb in the Japanese version,
but it was removed from the executable code and cannot be gotten. It was
later added in the US version. Geez ... what gullible people ... But wait
... there's more ...

>Well, the FMVs were all completed on time, but a lot of coding was not.
>They then delayed the games release by a month (Dec -> Jan). However, it
>seemed that even by late December, the coding STILL wasn't finished, so
>Square told production to wrap it up quickly. In order to get the game
>out on time, SqJP sacrificed what could have been a miraculously better
>game than FF7... The main coding that was not finished dealt with
>manipulating the transparent polygon of Aeris' spirit in the church.

Er ... manipulating a transparent polygon isn't that hard at all ... no
more so than a regular one ... Look at cloud's Ultima Weapon ... geez ...
probably several other transparent things too in the game ... and besides
... the blip of Aeris in the church is NOT transparent to start with.
This is yet another blatant lie that nobody ever bothered to reckognize...

>Since they were forced to wrap production up to meet the many-delayed
>deadline, they had to stop with the Aeris process unfinished. So, to keep
>things from ever happening, they simply removed the one item that allowed
>any hint of the process to take place... The Key to Midgar, from the
>first CD. This completely stopped the ability to ressurect Aeris.
>HOWEVER, they left out the removal of one thing, and that was the split-
>second of seeing the ghost of Aeris once you return to the church.
>Unforunately, this, along with the insanely big size of the ending MOV,
>are the only hints to Aeris' existence that we have. Other than the
>original FF7 scriptline, from which all the above information came.

Wow ... interesting ... the only reason Aeris appears in the church is
Cloud's memory ... any moron should be able to figure that out.

>I ran across this info while talking to John H. (another temp like me)
>trying to get some US script from him for our channel's page. Also, Seph
>wanted it. I asked him if it would be alright for me to release the
>script info in an altered form, and to release info on gameplay, such as
>Aeris' death/ress. Then he told me the deadline story, and I almost had a
>heartattack. He said that the process can still be done to its
>completion, sans a couple of scenes, with the Game Shark, but until
>someone develops a MOV player that handles multiple sector files, the
>true ending will not be seen.

Heh ... multiple sector MOV files. Right. And pink monkeys fly out of my
butt. Get real, people. You all need to take intelligence tests or
something. Oh ... and that John H. guy was fake ... yet someone claimed
to KNOW HIM!!! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Okay ... That was my "closure" note to the world, shortly before I
vanished from the net. Too many people doubted me and I didn't want to be
caught, so I just vanished from the net for a while, letting things cool
down.

Here recently, with the advent of the US release, I was in full swing
back on the net, roaming around, when I ran across people STILL DRAGGING
MY OLD, ROTTEN SHIT AROUND! It was hilarious. After 6 months, there were
STILL people believing that shit and starting fights over it!!! I had had
my name in several top magazines (Gamepro, EGM, PSX, and a few others)
with interviews with Square employees. The magazine would ask them about
Aeris and some guy named Lansing, and each square employee denied all of
it. And people still believed ME!

I am writing this to quench all rumors about Aeris and the completeness
of Final Fantasy 7. As Hironobu Sakaguchi said in an interview with one
of the above-mentioned magazines : "Final Fantasy 7 was completed to the
best of our ability and funding."

If any of you question who I am, why not drop by #squareff7 on DALNet
one day and let me know you don't believe that I am Ben LAnsing. I will
do whatever it takes to prove it ... Zakna is still around sometimes in
#aeris also ... and he knows my nick - Dariakus. Yes, I'm Dariakus. One
of the leading ops on the #squareff7 channel on DALNet and also the head
coordinator and HTMLer of the upcoming Web Guide for FF7.

Oh well. If you guys still want to sling my shit around, that's cool
and all, but you will be doing it KNOWING that you are an idiot, cause the
SOURCE OF THAT RUMOR (myself) HAS JUST TOLD YOU ALL THAT IT WAS FAKE. IT
WAS A LIE. GET OVER IT AND MOVE ON WITH YOUR LIVES!!!

Sincerely,

Ben Lansing / Dariakus

-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet

[The TRUE Edge]

<bro...@mail.auburn.edu> wrote:

<bunch of cool shit snipped about Lansing and the Nrevf eriviny>

Can we put this in the FAQe then?

The TRUE Edge
AGFF Goddess

------------
Damn cool...
damn cool
------------

[Kao Megura]

In article <199710092...@sjx-ca37-07.ix.netcom.com>,
qr...@hotmail.com (The TRUE Edge) wrote:

Eheh, er...just read the original now (someone sent it to me)

Dang, Lansing, I know you think you're funny and all, but you sure pissed
off the people who DIDN'T believe in the revival of Aerith. After all,
we're the ones who had to put up with all the lamers asking how to revive
her, or how to contact you (I have five e-mails sent to me on that
subject), etc. Part of me wants to send you the 200 plus e-mails I've
gotten over the last eight or so months that are all asking me how to
revive Aerith, but it wouldn't make much of a difference anyway.

Well, you got what you wanted, so bravo! But I doubt your 'confession'
will stop the lamers from still thinking that she's revivable.

Loved the stuff about Crow, though. What a freakin' phony.

Alright, folks, show's over. So _please_ stop asking, okay? Y'heard it
from the source, after all. Use a GameShark code if you gotta have her in
your party, otherwise, play with Tifa or something. ^_^;

-K. M.

c/o <cg...@hooked.net>

--
_____________________________________________________________________
Check out my FAQs at: www.fortunecity.com/bally/orange/25/
Kao Megura's Home Page - Home of the US and Japanese FF7 FAQs!
_____________________________________________________________________

[Bahamut]

Bobenhood2 wrote:
>
> ROFL! This reminds me of the time Siegfried's Nobuo Uematsu hoax showed up on
> n64.com.
>
> Bob, AGFF God

Please tell me that story, I don't know who Siegfried is (besides the
FF3 character) and I don't know what the hoax was about.
--
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\/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/
First person to piss off Gaybitch! 9/23/97
erase the '1' from my sig to email me or else it won't go through.

[Rob Browning]

boben...@aol.com (Bobenhood2) wrote:
>Ok, you've probably got a bunch of e-mails about this already, but what the
> hell? Ok, a while back there was a regular called Siegfried. One day,
> Siegfried decided to make a post under the name "Nobuo Uematsu", as a joke. So
> he made this post about how he was so suprised to find this many FF fans
> outside of Japan, he would try to convince Square to translate more games,
> blah blah blah. People replyed, believeing it, and Siegfried immediately
> started replying saying that it was really him. A few weeks later, Siegfried
> was checking out n64.com, and, low and behold, there was his article, right
> next to a picture of Nobuo Uematsu .
>
>No one ever believed anything they found on n64.com again.

Not to mention the fact that they tried to blame Siegfried for their
mistake. What a bunch of losers...

Rob

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FIVE HUNDRED POSTS TO \/ \/
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"And I really am a slut." --Bobbenhood

"You are nothing but a soft peice of shit in the face of the
almighty HFW." --RayGun

"Maybe you don't like how you can't win the game just by
banging on the buttons, since it seems that that's all
someone of your intelligence can muster." --Luke Drelick, in
response to an FF hater (You know, I wouldn't be surprised
if an Ultima fanatic uses this against an FF fanatic.)