Secret HL2 website

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Andy said:
its buzz marketing
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Not only buzz marketing, but niche buzz marketing, because as far as I know, no other Half-Life 2 forums have received such a treat. Yay us! :cheers:
 
Chris_D said:
Guys, can I please ask you to try and slow this down. I don't want this thread to get full of spam like the others were. Try and post only if you have something relevant to help you find the next test.
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Not to spam, but is there a next test?
 
Chris_D said:
Guys, can I please ask you to try and slow this down. I don't want this thread to get full of spam like the others were. Try and post only if you have something relevant to help you find the next test.
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I say we email them, I think they were supposed to give us the next set of clues anyway. If not, they're some really hidden clues.
 
blahblahblah said:
Not to spam, but is there a next test?
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Well if not, and my request isn't ignored (which it probably will be :p) then this thread will get everso quiet :E
 
SkilledNewbie said:
Think Valve would try to pull some Steganography on us? I worked with the gordon and gman pictures a bit, but there are too many repeating colors/ASCII chars for me to do very much (and I'm not exactly a wiz at decryption :x ). There probably isn't anything there, but it's worth a look.
Click to expand...
Steganography is usually used to hide data in things like jpegs (there are alternatives to JPHIDE/JPSEEK but it is the best one I've used), mp3s, and other things that can be changed without being noticed by the human senses. I haven't seen many cases of ASCII art steganography.

Anyway, I suggested steganography as a possibility some time yesterday... but I doubt it is being used here.

PS: I'm going to try things like GifShuffle and similar programs on the GMan image to make sure nothing is hidden in there.
 
It feels like no one is reading posts, and they just keep goign "balalababala"
 
pan said:
Guys look.
www.hot.ee/pan73r/1.JPG how this could be connected with 2nd puzzle.
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Good job. You took a screenshot of the Gordon ASCII which I had available on the first page :thumbs:

Are you trying to actually point something out?
 
pan said:
haha sry :] i didn't know
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lol, sokay. Just thought maybe you saw something in there we all missed
Oh well, I want the second part of the test!
 
Well here's my 2 cents of input:

I believe the "bird" in ASCII is definitely a "robin".

Here's my 2 cents of speculation:

I wonder if the 2 images are another login and password. Looking at the Valve directory, there is a Robin Walker who works on, guess what, TF2! Of course, this is PURE wild, fantastical musings :E

One more thing: why does Gordon seem to have a big bald spot on his head in the ASCII pic?

Good luck everyone!
 
I cant wait for the 2nd part :E :farmer: :cheers:

Maybe some news shots ?? :rolling:
 
kelfar said:
Well here's my 2 cents of input:

I believe the "bird" in ASCII is definitely a "robin".

Here's my 2 cents of speculation:

I wonder if the 2 images are another login and password. Looking at the Valve directory, there is a Robin Walker who works on, guess what, TF2! Of course, this is PURE wild, fantastical musings :E

One more thing: why does Gordon seem to have a big bald spot on his head in the ASCII pic?

Good luck everyone!
Click to expand...

There's also Ken Birdwell! ;)
 
Actually, this is not the first time such buzz marketing campaign was started. Check out Cloudmakers, a site which had some very interesting puzzles for Spielberg's movie A.I. I participated in the online game, which rocked, but the movie sucked.

Point is? I like that Valve's games respect one's intelligence. And I think online puzzles is an awesome way to reward those that have some :)

Stan R.
 
Oh well, couldn't find any hidden messages. I looked for data hidden in plain text, HTML, gif, etc with dozens of steganography programs... and there are no discernable messages unless they were encrypted and require another password.

The only thing that produced any result at all was a test of the color palette of the gif file resulting in the following unintelligible text:
Code: 
deeeaenengnuw lr.adf  eomoh.o en.ondsn nhlw)adoyuNe nAetdmthcItipr1 scapa  wHri
toloh(
*`o iffi fah,tdfsi .toIidbi cg  iN  nulphb      gtNr"eialnaodan  ioTai9
nk lnp.
fnaa',e iCtglm if2th    nItoniwcnr
dR nps  cyva

nsyea.ssteots  ev.hnom
 wx"  s1- pilph9.es eewoetci AyuiwnyReft0hhis mIl nar edg a  hCct w af ln:hunboo
I have a feeling we're all looking for something that isn't there. I hope it doesn't turn out that the Valve guys have to give us another clue to get to the second "test." I'll monitor the progress of this thread but I'm not looking anymore.

If there is anything it's probably so simple we'll be kicking ourselves when we find out what it is.
 
I don't think there is a second test at this time. Probably will be at some time, but not now.

I'm actually wondering if this was released before they had finished it, since if they had wanted merc to take the picture and post it then you think they would have made sure he actually got the whole board in the pic, rather than cutting off the most important part of the puzzle. Time will tell though.
 
I am positive they left Merc in the room to take the picture on purpose...When they realized that he failed to take the picture completely, hints were initiated. I still think this is WAY better than Blizzard's Starcraft Ghost marketing ploy(that was solved in seconds).
 
xrdanielalan said:
I am positive they left Merc in the room to take the picture on purpose...When they realized that he failed to take the picture completely, hints were initiated. I still think this is WAY better than Blizzard's Starcraft Ghost marketing ploy(that was solved in seconds).
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Lol it would have been solved in seconds if Merc would have taken a picture of the entire board. We did get a lot of the main info in less than a minute. Then the extra 5 hours later we were just left guessing what the username/pass would be. Until someone thought of emailing and actually asking what was left on the board.
 
And just one more point: I think they invited Merc back because the HL2.net community was being so harsh for not bringing back enough pics/information. Now he will forever be embedded into this fiasco.
 
In light of what we accomplished last night in cracking the Valve secret code, I suggest the following assignments for us to complete in the time remaining until HL2's release:

- examining Zapruder film to find 2nd gunman on grassy knoll
- discover what was on the missing 15 minutes of the Nixon Watergate tapes
- locate Iraqi WMDs
- figure out DaVinci Code
 
Didn't you post that last night?

:LOL: still funny :)
 
wow a member since Sep 2003, first post...i must ask...why do you never get involved in posting?
 
kelfar said:
Well here's my 2 cents of input:

I believe the "bird" in ASCII is definitely a "robin".

Here's my 2 cents of speculation:

I wonder if the 2 images are another login and password. Looking at the Valve directory, there is a Robin Walker who works on, guess what, TF2! Of course, this is PURE wild, fantastical musings :E
Click to expand...

They really could be giving clues to give out a lot of TF2 information, that would be totally awesome.
 
I've been a member since November 2003 and never posted a thing till about a week ago. I've visited this site ever since it opened and read just about every thread...just never found anything worth posting because someone always got to it first.
 
SFLUFAN said:
In light of what we accomplished last night in cracking the Valve secret code, I suggest the following assignments for us to complete in the time remaining until HL2's release:

- examining Zapruder film to find 2nd gunman on grassy knoll
- discover what was on the missing 15 minutes of the Nixon Watergate tapes
- locate Iraqi WMDs
- figure out DaVinci Code
Click to expand...
It is possible to shoot as well as Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly did with the rifle that he allegedly used from the place that he allegedly shot from and killed Kennedy... and there is no substantial proof that anything else happened.
 
It is possible - but the question remains as to the reaction of JFK's body to the fatal shot. His body pitched to the back and to the side which would indicate a shot from the front rather than the rear (which would have been LHO's position). Furthermore, the back of JFK's skull was blown out which indicates an exit wound from a shot from the front rather than an entry wound from a rear shot.
 
I think you're trying too hard. The first test was to ROT13 the URL and go there using the username and password. "Your cleverness has been noted." Eh, nothing clever about that really, that's in fact very easy (or would have been if we had had the password from the start). Do you really think the next test would be that difficult then?

It's also possible that when the G-Man says "you've passed the first test", he's talking about Half-Life 2, since, surely, that game will test us too.

So, they created this little thing, a board with a URL and when we go there, we get an image acknowledging halflife2.net and some ASCII art in the source and now our cleverness has been noted. This was simply a funny little test and this is all there was to it. The G-Man has already talked to us about Half-Life 2, so it would be kinda stupid if he was just like: "Good job, you passed the test!", because then we would be like: "Uhm, that's it? What about that Half-Life 2 thing you mentioned?" and the G-Man would be like: "Oh, right, you gotta kill some zombies too, yeah, there will probably be tests there too."

But, like you, I'm hungry for more and I hope it's something everyone can join in on, like a question that can be solved just by looking carefully at the E3 movies. That way I don't need to write a program that counts the number of uses of the color 17 in that GIF image, but instead it could be something like: "I can hear something, it's a strange, loud noise. The administrator is here. Where the hell am I?" and "train station" would be the password, because anyone could get that from the videos if they were clever enough. This shouldn't be a coding or hacking challenge, but a Half-Life 2 challenge. :)
 
There HAS to be some significance to the ASCII bird and freeman pictures. I'm sure they used ASCII art because it can be imbedded in the HTML source.

I've tried using ROT13's of "bird"/"freeman" (oveq/tbeqba) and "bird"/"gordon" (oveq/serrzna) as username and password to the site to no avail. Any other thoughts?
 
incorrigible said:
There HAS to be some significance to the ASCII bird and freeman pictures. I'm sure they used ASCII art because it can be imbedded in the HTML source.

I've tried using ROT13's of "bird"/"freeman" (oveq/tbeqba) and "bird"/"gordon" (oveq/serrzna) as username and password to the site to no avail. Any other thoughts?
Click to expand...

Take a break and wait for more info from Valve? :burp:
 
dang it, no matter how hard i stare at text gordon, and try to find the secret meaning and go to the next step, i know those valve guys are just laughing at me for trying so hard in there simplistic puzzle, it's very intimidating
 
This is all incredibly fun, but don't forget that they are reading and laughing :p .

And considering the bird and the artistic level (html page with photoshopped G-man, more ascii art), my suspicion goes to Greg primarily :D.

@bAbYhEaDcRaB : Yes, it says CODE, to make sure it's displayed in a monospaced font, to make it's properly alligned.
 
This may or may not have been said (I haven't read every single page)....but you know the best prank/joke might be that there never was, or will be, a second test at all. Just valve having some fun making the forum try and hunt down every little crumb because we are so starved for info ;)

I can imagine Valve sitting around a computer reading this thread giggling madly. heh!
 
Another Thought...what about translating BACK to ROT13 code? (ie keywords, etc.)? Maybe I'm looking too far into it, but this whole thing is a fun diversion!
 
That leads to nothing. You can try, but I bet that you don't find anything.
Maybe the Gman meant Halflife or Halflife2 with that test.
Time will show. Fact: I want more artworks! :D
Edit says: Yeah, registered since Nov 03!
 
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