Thanks for the quick answer on that! I thought they were, wasn’t sure.
Now the only question left is if stormseeker approves of using the tools to look through the files or not… =3
1997 sticks out as a year. If you treat the “.” as a field separator, you get
21 32*16/129 52 1997 37
21 3.969 52 1997 37
21:03:52 1997 37
21:03:52 1997 Feb 6
Now, I find it a heck of a coincidence that the clock in the canteen was displaying 9:03. Granted, I believe the clock was 09:03, as in morning, due to the light seen outdoors while on the tram and the fact that Gordon reporting for work in the A.M. is a lot more probable. The fact that the first field is a valid hour, and the second two are less than 60 and fit MM:SS seems important.
I don’t think any tools can decompile our BSP format at the moment. I’m sure they’ll pop up soon though. We would also like to release some of our vmfs, but that’s for the future. We certainly wouldn’t object to you poking around, at any rate.
I made a video that complies all that Chris Horn said in the Release Livestream, that could relate to the Pizza Code Mystery:
Good stuff! I’ll try to write up a list of things that stood out to me in this in a few minutes, so we have a list of things to work on next.
But first: if you check out the location the player jumps to near 4:00, there’s text on the wall. “DIE FREEMAN”? Isn’t that in the secret area under the stairs as well?
[edit:] Okay, here’s a quick transcript of the first part of stuff said by Chris Horn in that video (emphasis mine):
There’s more, but I believe it was not as important to the ARG, and more to general level design in the game. Except for one thing:
Questionable Ethics, being one of the more interesting sections of the game for the ARG in my opinion (hidden staircase area, X01 and X02?), is mentioned specifically here. Perhaps the new engine allows for more props. Could someone go and do an in-depth comparison of the two?
In general, here’s what is being mentioned:
- ARG is still going (good, I’d be quite annoyed if it wasn’t =P)
- Difficulty increased, but there is a solution
- The key is to keep looking for clues in the game. <- THIS. THIS IS IMPORTANT
- Mentioned clues / information / hints:
[list][*]Little mini story lines (such as that of Dr. Horn)
- Dr. Horn’s shack in Cliffside
- Pizza’s
[/:m][]EAS signal stuff is integrated in the Steam release (as mentioned by @MAXGEAR this was already noticed, but perhaps there’s more to this?)[/:m]
[]More (storyline stuff) will probably be implemented later[/*:m][/list:u]Perhaps at least as important, what has NOT been mentioned: - The hidden staircase area
- The A-D codes
- The purple hats
The “keep looking for clues in the game” part is obviously relevant. But my question is: does that only apply to the Steam version, or are there (also) still things we haven’t found yet in the 2012 mod version? I’d love to go and take a look, but seeing as I don’t yet have the Steam version, I don’t know if I can help out. And I don’t want to spread misinformation by saying “there’s nothing there” (in the mod version) when in the Steam version there actually is new information.
I don’t suppose stormseeker can tell us, somehow? =3
[/edit]
Good job there.
^ This was actually written several times, both in BM and original 98 Half life. It is just something HECU marines wrote, since Gordon was killing their buddies.
Yes, also there was several of this sprays - “Surrender freemen”, “Your dead freeman” and as i recall “you die”
The hidden staircase area is still there, and looks like it hasn’t been changed.
Have not been able to verify if the SSTV broadcast is exactly the same, since the .MP3 file no longer exists in its previous location.
Still nothing behind the X01/X02 doors.
Near the end of “On the Rail”
Sorry if were already
Avilable only with use of noclip
Near non-opening doors lays bald scientist with medkit
Now this is interesting. Could you perhaps take a few more screenshots, or is there nothing else really in the room?
The SSTV is the same, I have a vpk extractor, and after extracting the file , I decoded it. It’s still Victor would like this extension.
EDIT: what Stormseeker said about looking in the game for the key got me thinking. The pizzas in each level might be important. What if the key is the number of them in each level, like 3 pizzas in level A means the first digit of the key is the number 3, four pizzas in level B means 4, and so on.
I’m terribly sorry then
Don’t be. With the game on steam, and all these new people entering the community, it is gonna help immensely if we go through all the maps again, making sure that the secrets we found are still where they were, and checking for new ones. In the vid I posted earlier, Chris Horn puts much emphasis on the answers we need being located ingame, maybe not before, but most likely now. We could also use a recollect of all the textures of the whiteboards, notes and other related secrets in the game, since I noticed they seem to be of a higher quality with the steam release.
And finally, also from the Livestream, Chris talked (not in the vid) about how proud he was of how Xen was looking, suggesting that there may be some more ARG stuff in Xen, and that Xen is at least 65-70% complete.
This is a total assumption, and a completely incorrect one at that. Xen is not 65-70% complete and you will be disappointing yourself by making complicated inferences like that with no evidence.
There is nothing of interest, except of monitor with VHE screenshot and writing on board (don’t tell junek?)
For some reason i am more than sure that it was there already, though i dont remember my first playtrough well
It’s OGG now, and placed in scripted sequences category. I was not able to decode it because my laptop is potato and soundboard is bacon - here it is
just found dr. horns shack for the first time ever. despite having never seen the original version i can tell some things have changed, mostly in updated assets (new food packaging, new hanging garment from Freemans locker, etc.). By comparing it to the wiki I can see another change - the corkboard no longer has the goofy picture of the painted-on mustache guy in the top-left corner, instead it’s a purple tophat with the caption “QUAFF” (as in ‘quaff to make pingu’, ie ‘have to make penguin’ in bad romanian accent? at least according the application email in the lower right of the board).
Found a new pizza is a lie location, underneath some stairs in on a rail, at least I think it’s new [spoiler]
[/spoiler]
Disappointing, but I don’t remember junek either. What could that possibly mean?