I’d seen the boats bits, but seeing as I’ve been busy with my Masters thesis I hadn’t taken the time to read all of it. Plus, in general it’s just good practice to link to sources in an ARG - it’s a total pain to backtrack where data came from for newcomers (or people trying to organise it properly) if it’s spread out. Anyway, thanks for the link =) Also: Steam release. Boats. Steamboats. lolololol
So, hey. I guess it’s time to noclip the hell out of this game? I’m kinda stuck on where else to look for clues, to be honest. At least the original mod version, as I don’t have the Steam version yet.
And I still haven’t seen a confirmation that there is no further info to gather from the mod. =/
The only thing I can think of related to boats are the floatation devices in the Lambda Core.
By the way I’d just like to note that it’s possible the boats easter egg has nothing to do with the ARG.
Oh and the random numbers at the of the bmrf.us redirect link (the ones after the ?) are completely random. I did a test and repeated it about 50 times and not a single one popped up the same as a previous one.
They took down the sub-domain so they can redesign it. Typically people put passwords when they are redesigning sub-domains but that would mislead us.
Is there a specific pattern that the “random” numbers have?
Edit: Sorry must have missed your post pointless0
That’s a horrible randomness test and you can’t conclude anything from it. But it really is generated (pseudo) randomly, see my post from thursday:
Hello, very new here, but about the boats, the only thing I can think of is the sunken boat in dm_undertow, next to the rocket launcher. I decided to check it out, noclipped around to it and around it, but didn’t find anything. Just wanted to put that out there.
Jesus what the fuck do you have against me?
Anyways, I didn’t see that post, sorry. The question I have is why would they even put that in?
Anyone know what this is? It’s attached to a very common generic corkboard, but afaik unique. Appears in Questionable Ethics in the tunnel at the very end before the start of Surface Tension (where you must assault the machine gun emplacement). I’d love to get some other peoples uncolored impressions of it, so I’ll spoiler mine. It looks like an in-game screenshot to me, looking through a mechanical hatchway into a very large enclosed space, with the flashlight on. That description plus the color scheme makes me think it might be a sneak-peak Xen shot? From the ‘Grunt factory’ area, perhaps?
Here’s a cropped version of it:
[attach=3838,none,514][/attach]
It looks like some kind of hatch, perhaps an entrance to a ship. It might also be a hatch within a hallway, because it looks like there’s a similar door further in. The things on the left and right look like hinges that come down to seal the hatch. It could also be some sort of spaceship. Very strange, and likely important to the ARG–seeing as how it’s so out-of-place.
EDIT: The position of the bolts on the hinges to the right and left look like they could push the plates connected to the arms in, kind of like some kind of press. Hmm . . . .
EDIT2: The hinges at the top of the arms look like they could swing up and out, too. Maybe some kind of industrial conveyer belt system?
EDIT(AGAIN): I went back to look at the message on Welsh’s profile, and it mentioned Junek–it seemed like Raminator fell off the map, but I did find his old website under past contributors. Looks like it has been converted to a Japanese site, either owned by someone named Hokkaido or it is based out of the Japanese island of the same name. Anyway, I think we can probably exclude his profile from future examination, and it seems as though the previously-visited profiles have not changed, at least in terms of ARG-related hints or clues.
But why? The old terminal already stated that we needed to “try again later”. I thought that was clear enough. Why take it down altogether?
Thanks for that! Can anyone take some screenshots of it and share them here?
That is interesting that he didn’t leave the old message up. I personally copy website data to a temporary location on the same domain and password protect it. This way I can see my changes and when it’s done I migrate the data to the original location.
The Page 428 thing probably is a hint to the Bible. Its big enough when it has both Old Testament and New Testament etc. However the bible isnt really in pages but Chapters and then Verse. There are a handful of chapters which have no verse 28 so could easy rule those out.
This website has the full Good New Bible Translation. You can then click on the Chapter, and then scroll to find the correct verse.
few stood out at me though.
Deuteronomy 4:28
"There you will serve gods made by human hands, gods of wood and stone, gods that cannot see or hear, eat or smell."
Ephesians 4:28
"If you used to rob, you must stop robbing and start working, in order to earn an honest living for yourself and to be able to help the poor."
Maccabees 2 4:28
" However, Sostratus, the captain of the fort in Jerusalem, kept demanding the money, since it was his responsibility to collect it. So finally, the two men were summoned to appear before the king concerning the matter."
Jeremiah
"The earth will mourn;the sky will grow dark.The Lord has spoken and will not change his mind. He has made his decision and will not turn back.
Others that probably have nothing to do with it.
Kings 1 4:28
“Each governor also supplied his share of barley and straw, where it was needed,[a] for the chariot horses and the work animals.”
Kings 2 4:28
“The woman said to him, “Sir, did I ask you for a son? Didn’t I tell you not to get my hopes up?””
Chronicals 1 4:28
Down to the time of King David the descendants of Simeon lived in the following towns: Beersheba, Moladah, Hazarshual,
Maccabees 1 4:28
In the following year Lysias gathered an army of 60,000 well-trained infantry and 5,000 cavalry, intending to conquer the Jews.
Sirach 1 4:28
Stand up for what is right, even if it costs you your life; the Lord God will be fighting on your side.
Barush 4:28
Just as you were once determined to turn away from God, now turn back and serve him with ten times more determination.
Daniel 4:28
All this did happen to King Nebuchadnezzar.
Mark 4:28
The soil itself makes the plants grow and bear fruit; first the tender stalk appears, then the head, and finally the head full of grain.
Luke 4:28
When the people in the synagogue heard this, they were filled with anger.
John
Then the woman left her water jar, went back to the town, and said to the people there, “Come and see the man who told me everything I have ever done. Could he be the Messiah?” (included 29 as it was incomplete with out it)
Acts
and now, Lord, take notice of the threats they have made, and allow us, your servants, to speak your message with all boldness.
And thats all of them.
Found the vtf file for the picture :
[attach=3840,none,488][/attach]
Edit: and found a vtf file called qescreen_noise01.The name sounds important, but it’s probally nothing. Just in case, Here it is :
[attach=3841,none,256][/attach]
I got turned back onto those folders after realizing their interiors were actually fully textured. I got myself set up with GCFscape and VTFEdit just to take a look… and theyre really nothing.
They’re all unusually (and thus intriguingly) legible, but their actual contents are just uninteresting. There is one which seems to be a reference to the de-icing contract of GLaDOS origin (but just a jokey reference, I think), a notice of grant denial, an invoice for food supply with the joke punchline ‘particle accelerators’ item that is the least expensive of them all, an extensive table of values which is almost totally illegible, what seems to be an employee induction letter (the one I had previously partially transcribed - there are actually two more paragraphs beyond that), and finally two somewhat interesting ones (numbers 5 and 7);
the left (cream paper, #5) seems to be a quick sketch diagram of some software system? not certain exccept for the words “Citrix Terminal Server” which stand out and seem relevant to the current state of the ARG (we’re supposed to be using the HALOS file and the terminal server together in some way, right?). on the right (blue paper, #7) seems to be a training schedule with various mostly-illegible notations. What stands out is the bottommost one, “That’s it. Come talk to me about this new FREEMAN GUY…” SIGNED “-GMAN”?! Yeah these are absolutely meaningless aren’t they. Seriously, all of them also show up elsewhere as generic clutter papers. That’s why I spoilered this whole thing, because it’s a waste of my time. And now yours, thanks for reading!
I also found the mysterious photograph at the same time, by happenstance. It’s in a generic “post_boardpapers_0X.vtf” file (specifically #11), not in a unique .vtf or anything which might lend it some further appearance of significance. It does still definitely stand out from all its peers and is unique in-game afaik.
I found an “ERROR SUCCESS” entity in the QE parking lot area. It’s actually flashing rainbow colors all the time, just a pretty huge coincidence both my screenshots caught it blue/purple. I think this is probably just the entity that shoots the scientist? The only potential ARG/Easter-egg thing to it would be if there were any way to get up there without cheating, which almost seems plausible to me? Especially considering the way the upper ring is laid out, to maintain the integrity of the skybox even when you’re standing on it. Probably not though, especially as this “ERROR SUCCESS” is left visible rather than just removed (if this were the result of an anti-cheat mechanism and there was supposed to be something else there).
edit: Spent some time looking up the resources related to the Stanley Parable easter eggs (Narrator serving as VA for one of the AMS airlock scientists, and “8” alarm button at security desk directly outside), found them but there’s nothing else spectacular. All the Narrator lines are marked ‘KB’ for the VAs initials (Kevan Brighting), which makes it easty to confirm there’s not even any unused lines from him. The VOX “8” is just in the generic VOX directory, along with all the other numbers and 10/100/1000 versions.
Hey, what’s dis?
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=441628414
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198086881246/screenshots/
Season 4 Episode 3 - Brothers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brothers_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation)
its already been mentioned though, but i guess someone missed this
- The strength of Data’s lockout code would potentially require trying 36[sup]52[/sup] combinations to break it, or 846,700,936,056,091,894,301,310,586,236,842,935,416,138,248,772,949,513,519,821,268,414,868,295,354,679,296 (8.467×10[sup]80[/sup]) combinations – equivalent to cracking a 269-bit key in symmetric cryptography, something that is currently impossible to do.
Also someone mentioned his code further up, but the computer screen has a few mistakes, missing out numbers.
That’s the material used for the wall monitors that are disconnected or damaged(i guess), the working screens have the 3 pages of info for each section of the biodome(toxicology, aquatics, etc)
So does that mean we need to find a 269 bit key and the correct symmetric cipher to decrypt the hex code?