[ARG] The Pizza Code Mystery

Black Mesa Archive The Cafeteria
#1161

I decompiled bm_c1a1d and looked at it in Hammer. There isn’t any other areas in the void. I think the best explanation for it’s noclip reloading is what you guys have said, so you can’t fall down the lift.

I peaked around in bm_c2a5c though, and the portals to/from Horn’s shack are named as easter eggs. One thing that stood out to me though, was that the rope dangling over the cliff by the shack is specifically called out as easteregg_rope and has a targetname of ‘easteregg_constraint’. Not sure what it means exactly, but it seems to be important somehow.

{
"origin" "-12305 -14325 7217"
"torquelimit" "0"
"teleportfollowdistance" "0"
"targetname" "easteregg_constraint"
"spawnflags" "0"
"forcelimit" "0"
"attach1" "easteregg_rope"
"angles" "0 284.5 0"
"classname" "phys_constraint"
"hammerid" "538750"
}
{
"origin" "-12305 -14325 7205"
"targetname" "easteregg_rope"
"StartDisabled" "0"
"spawnflags" "4"
"skin" "0"
"model" "models/props_desert/rope_surface_tension.mdl"
"mindxlevel" "0"
"maxdxlevel" "0"
"health" "100"
"fadescale" "1"
"fademindist" "800"
"fademaxdist" "900"
"disableshadows" "1"
"angles" "0 194.5 0"
"classname" "prop_ragdoll"
"hammerid" "538752"
}
#1162

Wow, that is really strange. I don’t know if it’s standard to give models / props a health, but the rope has 100 health. Perhaps that suggests that damaging it in a certain way will activate the easter egg? I’ve tried all of my guns and tried bringing things to it–nothing yet. I did notice that “Please use this book to record office hours” is scrawled in red on one of the books in Horn’s shack, but nothing else.

Very weird . . . .

EDIT: If you shoot the gun with the tau cannon, it charges the rope. That’s pretty standard for a lot of objects though.

Maybe it’s just called easteregg_rope because it’s in the shack area

#1163

Found this in the first level after the resonance cascade, right after you find the first security guard.
https://prntscr.com/huis6

Found this on the exact same board, although I’m not sure it’s totally relevant (but I’m sure the first one is, Dr. Horn is mentioned.)

https://prntscr.com/huiuk

EDIT: just pasted links because the images weren’t being displayed.

OTHER EDIT: In that same room, I found a small console with a message too small to read without using a zoom function. It displays a large amount of text as well as a table of numbers. https://prntscr.com/huja4 (not zoomed in: https://prntscr.com/hujfd)

OTHER-OTHER EDIT: New image, new numbers, new scientist. Dr. Truman: https://prntscr.com/hujwv

NEW CONSOLE: https://prntscr.com/hukaq - it appears lines of code are being looped on this one, and right next to it there is a computer with this email open: https://prntscr.com/hukem (Zoomed out: https://prntscr.com/hukg7)

EDIT: New scientist - Dr. Foreman: https://prntscr.com/hukj2
I’m sure MOST of these are reposts of the same images, but I’d rather not go digging around through 60 other pages checking EXACTLY what’s been found and what hasn’t.

EDIT: I decided to go back and take a picture of some of the possible symbol-related puzzles to decode. https://prntscr.com/hukv5, https://prntscr.com/hul1s, https://prntscr.com/hul6f

EDIT: New stuff, but I’m fairly certain it’s a repost. https://prntscr.com/hum3n and https://prntscr.com/hum7t from where you first acquire the HEV suit.

EDIT: New data table from a console. https://prntscr.com/hulmc

EDIT: From Freeman’s locker: https://prntscr.com/hulz7

EDIT: Three new scientists, Dr. Montero, Dr. J.O. Marcel (?), and Dr. Stone. https://prntscr.com/hunlv, https://prntscr.com/hunp4 (at this point, I’m sure most of these will be reposts, but hey, call it a compilation!). So, we have Dr. Horn, Dr. Truman, Dr. Foreman, Dr. Montero, Dr. J.O. Marcel (?), Dr. Bottomley, and Dr. Stone (or is that Stont?).

EDIT: Just some new stuff: https://prntscr.com/hup82, https://prntscr.com/hupgm, https://prntscr.com/hupn5, https://prntscr.com/huqq5

EDIT: Just found some film reels with the name FOREMAN on them, which is also the name of one of the scientists… hmm, is there more we’re missing with him, perhaps? https://prntscr.com/hupyz

OH MY, an interesting graph with an interesting name! https://prntscr.com/hur91, https://prntscr.com/hurd4, https://prntscr.com/hurf0. Can anyone get a clear reading on that name? Very hard to tell with it being THAT pixelated. (Zoomed out - https://prntscr.com/hurj2)

#1164

That has all been found, however you did bring to light something that I’d completely forgotten about:

This image associates Marcel and Montero with the IRC chat clue concerning the niobium transferring. Could we have two more doctors, and therefore developers, that are in on this? Think I need to go check out some more developer sites . . . .

Montero’s the only one with a dedicated site

#1165

Yeah I quickly realized how abundant this information is, I didn’t really expect to find anything special, but it would be nice to gather up all the potentially useful information in one post.

I want to bring attention to this graph: https://prntscr.com/hurj2, https://prntscr.com/hur91, https://prntscr.com/hurd4, https://prntscr.com/hurf0. In a small room I had to noclip into in Office Complex. It’s very hard to read the numbers correctly, but I think this might be important, considering it’s in a secluded room you can’t get into by conventional means.

#1166

That won’t work actually. I decompiled the ST map with the taco shack a while ago, and there aren’t any triggers or notable entities in the hidden area, so there’s no logic setup for bringing anything in there or whatnot. I also spotted the easteregg_rope thing, but there’s nothing special about that either. The only reason it has a name is so that the easteregg_constraint can refer to it and hold it in place. I didn’t see anything that interacts with the constraint itself, either.

#1167

Was browsing through the prop files looking for the “Lego/Minecraft Man” when I found this:

https://imageshack.us/a/img856/5564/qezapper.jpg[/img]"]

EDIT: Probably a good chance it’s related to the previous team member, Michael Tannock. Most likely it’s not related to the ARG, just a hidden message for kicks. It’s called “qe_zapper” and it’s in the dark room in the QE level right before the laser lab. It’s the thing you activate to send electricity into the entire room.

EDIT: The material file references “models/Alyx/alyx_head_exponent”, but there’s no “Alyx” folder to be found. Weird?

#1168

No. Pretty sure it’s a reference to Michael Tannock

#1169

Good catch–didn’t see that my first time skimming through the team members.

#1170

Oh yeah, and guys, the “247” clue from awhile back, I just noticed, could be a nod to “The Stanley Parable” (another popular source mod). Stanley (the main character) works in room 247 in the mod.

#1171

Isn’t 247 the order in which we have to enter the portals in lambda core?

#1172

Must I remind you that this is a source mod?

:facepalm:

#1173

Nahhhhhh, I just thought it was weird.

By the way, I double-checked the map to Lab D (it’s mislabeled Lab B ) and it turns out that the two “Classified” rooms aren’t in existence. However, the doors leading to them require a retinal scanner and are labeled “Macroscale Quantum System”. Could they be the rooms that are referenced in the Welsh clue about only Horn and a couple others having access?

#1174

It is. It has nothing to do with Stanley Parable.

#1175

I had a look at this:
https://carlosmontero.com/media_envtex_sculpts.php

The last picture seems to contain some letters.
Maybe the three images can be combined?

#1176

The description of Lab D from the Wiki:

“This section is the most iconic part of the chapter, and includes the four Auxiliary Optronics labs and the Primary Optronics Test labs. It has been expanded to include personal offices and classified labs (X01 and X02), but its purpose is otherwise unchanged in from the original.”

It says it includes the X01 and X02 rooms, but there are no actual rooms at the locations marked on the map. I feel like we’re missing something here. I’m currently working on composing an outline of the map and filling in where we found our previous clues, and will update the blog with the finished product. I expect it to be up by late tonight as I have to work all day. Perhaps it will lead to an “x marks the spot” kind of scenario . . . .

#1177

I already done it, was posted a few pages back.

#1178

Thank you so much for that! Saved me a ton of time and allowed me to find the codes quickly. You can find the final product here.

This way, we can see how the codes correlate to each other and perhaps look at areas that could potentially hold further clues. I imagine they wouldn’t be all within one area, which suggests there may be things we haven’t found.

EDIT: Folder found in the west wing of QE netted me these files:

file_paper01 - file_paper07 in the “models” folder. file_paper07 looks like it has Horn’s writing on it.

#1179

Hey, the hat was an idea - shame it won’t work eh.

Anyway ,regarding Alyx, couldn’t they use some of her anims for the female scientists/female assassin? I think the assassin idle-ish stance somehow resembles the way Alyx holds her gun - so, this could be a forgotten left-over by the devs.

Also, if there’s stuff with pizza, did someone check the actual packs of pizzas lying all around the place?

#1180

A couple of things I want to mention:

First and foremost, there are no rooms associated with the X01 and X02 rooms mentioned in the IRC chat, the Welsh resume page Base 64 text, and the wiki page that Stormseeker updated himself:

" Lab D

This section is the most iconic part of the chapter, and includes the four Auxiliary Optronics labs and the Primary Optronics Test labs. It has been expanded to include personal offices and classified labs (X01 and X02), but its purpose is otherwise unchanged in from the original."

On the map of the facility, it shows rooms X01 / X02 as being directly connected to the hallways that run parallel to the twin laser rooms, yet there are no rooms at the end, just matching doors.

Furthermore, there is no map entitled “c2a4d”–it skips from c2a4c to c2a4e, and the gap is between the sewage treatment area and the first part of the QE facility. That could simply be an oversight or an intentional exclusion due to changing how the levels load, but it makes me wonder nonetheless. I feel like we are meant to find those rooms, as they have been directly mentioned three times.

I’ve gone ahead and updated the blog with a post to reflect this information, in case anyone wants a more in-depth analysis.

BTW, I don’t know if this has been mentioned yet, but you can use the following console commands to aid the search for things in the levels:

“report_entities” shows all the entity names for the current map.

“mat_texture_list 1” displays every texture used for that current level.

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