There are tons of pictures cycle there, some of em even mention Half Life 3, so I doubt this is relevant (or anything on 404 page).
While not related to the Piza ARG, it can still be considered an easter egg
I’m pretty sure I witnessed the creation of this boat image when I happened to catch one of the artists streaming some random drawing ages ago. He was taking requests from people in the chat for what to draw which is why there are battleships equipped with chainsaws and a floating walrus pirate with cannon.
Unless something was added to the image, I don’t think this is likely to be relevant.
I think that we can assume that, for now at least, the boats are not revelant to the ARG, as they are in every MP map, So I think they are just an inside joke or something. Then again they could also be revelant only after we finish the hex code.
I know it’s unrelated, but wait, the boats were in MP? Hidden or something? I never quite understood the boats thing, nor why they made it seem like such a big deal.
Okay, first time poster here! I’ve been lurking in this thread for the past 2 - 3 years, and I think I may have discovered something important.
I was messing around in Black Mesa, and I figured out how to rome around in the background maps with the “ent_fire” command. I was on the background for Surface Tension when I found these:
Once I found these, I immediately went to other background maps. I couldn’t find anything on Black Mesa Inbound’s background, but I found something on Anomalous Materials’s:
There are more of these. I don’t think I saw any of these on this thread before, so I apologize if this is already known. (I also apologize if the images are too big.)
I’ve missed a good few years of progress on this ARG so I have no idea if what you’ve found is new or not. The second pair of screenshots doesn’t seem to offer anything immediately, but could you get a top-down view of those pizzas in the first one? I suspect that the order they are in could contain a clue.
Also try and put large pictures inside of spoiler tags. It helps reduce clutter.
Isn’t whatever you did using ent_fire the same as noclip? It sounds that way when you say “background maps” as in the skybox or inaccesible parts of the levels.
I wasn’t aware there was a way to noclip(or whatever equivalent) using ent_fire lol.
Actually, the ent_fire command is used to disable the view camera. Otherwise the view is locked to the one position. When it’s disabled you are free to rome around the map.
I also suspect the order or layout of those pizzas may be important. Can you provide a top-down view?
From what I can tell from the images you’ve provided, it could indicate a substitution, transposition, straddling checkerboard, or alphabetical plain-text vs key chart. if it is meant to represent a straddling checkerboard, it could relate back to the SECOM cypher. Therefore, I think we should check to see if it’s in the original version as well because it may just be related to that, considering it comes right after QE.
I already checked the mod using noclip (couldn’t get ent_fire working 
), there is nothing there, so this must be new (if this was taken near dam section of Surface Tension).
[attach=3970,none,1105][/attach]
It doesn’t immediately look like there’s any significance to their arrangement. Feel free to prove me wrong, though.
Edit: Went on a quick sweep through the other background maps. The only other things of interest I could find were another pizza in the background for Residue Processing, and a battery(?) hidden under the ground in Forget About Freeman’s background map.
If it’s new to this version of the mod then that suggests to me that it may have something to do with HALOS. The gaps may represent some kind of key or checkerboard / transposition arrangement. Certain cyphers use a step like that during encryption.
EDIT: Just for example, if we took the entire alphabet and transposed it so that the first line starts with A, the second line starts with B, and so on and so forth, which is how a plain-text vs key chart looks, we could mark where the pizza boxes lie on that. Again, from the angle of the picture I can’t really tell where exactly they line up, so if somebody could provide a straight down shot that would be perfect. Just based on my rudimentary examination, I would mark off B, D, F, C, E, E, G, G, J, and I, going top-to-bottom, left-to-right. it could also be that the gaps are the indicators of the correct corresponding letters. I stress again that I don’t believe that this is correct nor do I think that this method is necessarily appropriate, but this is the type of methodology I think it could refer to.
It could also be binary, much like the grilled pizza puzzle.
Alright, here’s a better shot of the area using cl_leveloverview (didn’t think to use it earlier):
[attach=3973,none,489][/attach]
If anyone wants to check it out in-game, “ent_fire point_viewcontrol disable” will work on any of the background maps to let you look around.
Yup, the order is not random. However, they are not aligned with one another, which probably precludes the checkerboard \ transposition chart idea.
I was thinking it looked like a grille, personally. (That, or a connect-the-dots picture of a slice of pizza, but really.) Trying it on the monitor picture referencing the Star Trek episode, it didn’t even line up, let alone give anything useful, so if it is a grille (grilled pizza? that would be some impressive foreshadowing) it’s supposed to be used on something else.
Completely tangential, but looking at that monitor, I couldn’t help noticing that the word Code is capitalized in the last sentence (“Should give me some ideas for Code.”). Seeing as how our old friend Dr. Horn/0418_08151814 was referred to as Code in the hidden message on the Tempus Omnia Relevant wiki page (and was Code_ on the IRC), that capitalization is mildly interesting. It might also be nothing, but it’s still interesting.
Is there anything written on the bottom of the boxes? I’m not that far in the game yet to check.
- Is there an overview with the all the pizzas found in every map? [edit:] Seems so, but this clearly does not contain the large amount in this map. [/edit]
- Do all the pizzas point in the same direction? (box opened towards one direction in the game’s X,Y / X,Z plane all the time?)
- Do we have a list of all the locations of the “pizza is a lie” decal?
- Did we find any hints we needed to use previously in locations that are only accessible using console commands? (the A/B/C/D codes?)
- Could someone please check if these pizzas were already in the old mod version, or newly added, and report back when they know? [edit:] If it does, this list is incomplete and needs to be looked at. [/edit]
Ehm, I already checked…