The PRE game fun...

[Wyco]

Well I dont think there are too many places on the planet where less than a K ppl have been and offers a cool sight except for Mt Everest maybe, which i doubt they would send us there :D

[Brody McKee]

:laugh:

I should have made it more clear what that was

That's actually the second time I've done that in this thread. Nobody did that the first time :laugh:

The first one I posted was h4rd50n0f4b1tcht050lv3

:laugh:

Lol, sorry - I should have thought about it before I posted. I wasn't even thinking about the fact that it might be txt-language. I'll have to practice my '1337-speak'.

Well I dont think there are too many places on the planet where less than a K ppl have been and offers a cool sight except for Mt Everest maybe, which i doubt they would send us there :D

I was thinking it could be the 'rumoured' aurora desktop... but it might be something else. A photo/movie editing application?

[Wyco]

Someone said it might be MS's anti-Photoshop idea.

[Brody McKee]

Bellagio is a small town situated on Lake Como (Italy)...? But I think that's pushing it.

Is anyone able to visit the area in question...?

[Zyphrax]

My gut feeling says it has something to do with the new Origami device (lets say Vistagami). The big prize, however silly as it sounds, might be a small outerspace experience (think of the SpaceShipOne flight). It's not like your visiting the IIS, but just experiencing that few minutes of weightlessness.

Below is a repost of what we know thusfar...

Vanishingpointgame.com

Start by reading the first post of this thread and watch the video below...

Important links

The video

The biography

The flickr website

Video clues/findings

1. The map (left of Bellagio picture) is the map of the Bellagio fountains, one of the sidewalks has been marked with a pen

2. Japanese text in the video (below the Bellagio picture) is the Main welcome text of the Japanese Bellagio site

3. She puts 1 watch in her pocket and 4 watches in a box, with a small red dart/screwdriver/...

4. She talks about "if they need help, they can look for the vanishingpoint tag".

When you search on Google for "vanishingpoint tag" you get to the Flickr site above.

5. The black book that she is reading on the bed is:

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Vol 2 by Edward Gibbon (read online)

Biography clues/findings

1. The formula and biography hint towards Leonhard Euler (not sure yet)

Other clues/findings

1. Changing your system time progresses the counter, but nothing happens when it reaches 00:00:00.

2. The website counts down to 8th of January 2007 6.30pm

3. Every 15-letter word yields no results on the website

4. Flash decompiler and network monitor revealed /now.asmx and /precodehandler.ashx

[inzenity]

Merry Christmas :)

Anyway, quickly:

* I'm not from Japan, nor am I living in Japan.

* I've posted the high-res version of the video to http://halowars.heavengames.com/key

* Also, I want to make sure people understand that my flickr site is a participant in this game in very much the same way this forum serves as a gathering point for solving the puzzles. It's not affiliated with the game's operators in any official capacity; there must be others who have received the puzzle box - guess they're a bit shy about posting about it (or just don't want to deal with it)

[Wyco]

Whats up with the bruteforcing experiment?

Getting back to the item she put in the box besides the watches, i think its a special screwdriver with which she can take them apart [like one of the watches actually seems to be missing its back side to me!]

Maybe we might want to give a shot experimenting with words related to time travel, teleportation and dimension gates [?]. Those usually are a helpful tool when you want to vanish unless you are Frodo himself :D

[ElectricDemon]

Whats up with the bruteforcing experiment?

Getting back to the item she put in the box besides the watches, i think its a special screwdriver with which she can take them apart [like one of the watches actually seems to be missing its back side to me!]

Maybe we might want to give a shot experimenting with words related to time travel, teleportation and dimension gates [?]. Those usually are a helpful tool when you want to vanish unless you are Frodo himself :D

I'll tell you what's wrong with brute forcing, it's cheating, since you may come across a key, but haven't a clue how it relates to the game, meaning later clues etc won't make much sense. Also, the keys themselves arent always words that a dictionary attack will find. Bear in mind that you would be in effect starting a DOS attack, and I'm sure the domain/site owners would have something to say about that.

Besides, the site is build to utilise web services, meaning that most of the work will be done in a back-end, they probably even keep a log of IP addresses etc, so they'll know who got to where first, and by which path. Using this they could easy filter out the addresses that jumped straight in to the later levels without going from the start.

What's wrong with finding out the clues/answers by playing the game?

Happy Christmas :D

[Wyco]

I'll tell you what's wrong with brute forcing, it's cheating, since you may come across a key, but haven't a clue how it relates to the game, meaning later clues etc won't make much sense. Also, the keys themselves arent always words that a dictionary attack will find. Bear in mind that you would be in effect starting a DOS attack, and I'm sure the domain/site owners would have something to say about that.

Besides, the site is build to utilise web services, meaning that most of the work will be done in a back-end, they probably even keep a log of IP addresses etc, so they'll know who got to where first, and by which path. Using this they could easy filter out the addresses that jumped straight in to the later levels without going from the start.

What's wrong with finding out the clues/answers by playing the game?

Happy Christmas :D

I sure do understand that, just someone (or 2 ppl actually) mentioned yesterday that they were starting to experiment with this line as well and i was wondering what they got out of it.

You're right though...:)

[Zyphrax]

Merry Christmas :)

Anyway, quickly:

* I'm not from Japan, nor am I living in Japan.

* I've posted the high-res version of the video to http://halowars.heavengames.com/key

* Also, I want to make sure people understand that my flickr site is a participant in this game in very much the same way this forum serves as a gathering point for solving the puzzles. It's not affiliated with the game's operators in any official capacity; there must be others who have received the puzzle box - guess they're a bit shy about posting about it (or just don't want to deal with it)

Merry Christmass to you!

Thank you for clearing that up. However if you are not a participant, why did you receive a puzzle box, and was this all that was in the box? Does the box itself show off any clues? What were the exact filenames on the USB stick, meta-data in the video? We need all the clues we can get :)

[inzenity]

Why:

I don't know, but I think my involvement with HG might have something to do with it? (see my post from two days ago

Puzzle Box itself:

Nothing else on the box

Content of puzzle box:

one 256MB USB Stick, contents shown below:

Video metadata:

from_Loki.txt:

Well done! Now you have your first cipher key, plus a video my employer didn’t think you needed to see. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.

Do others deserve to see these files, too? I’ll leave that up to you.

~Loki

P.S. Go to vanishingpointgame.com to find out what to do next.

[Soham]

may be it is media program by Microsoft to rival adobe's line.

[sinjor32]

I was thinking about Biography page. And since the Loki is also known as Trickster I tried to do a little PPL search but there is only one Loki in WA and it isn't in Redmond.

What is missing is name on that bio page.

I'm trying to figure that out.

:blink:

[Ausasuke]

Not Sure if this has been posted since i last was here, But i know there was looking at changing the count down timer to 0

but it does say come back when the countdown reaches vanishing point. Could that be the vanishing point of the equation. Where the fractal is no longer visable, some math derivation that will give a number for that point from the given fractal or equation. If that makes sense :s Possibly having to change your clock to match the figure.

Just going by what

P.S. Go to vanishingpointgame.com to find out what to do next.

Maybe its more literal

[Ausasuke]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonhard_Euler

Leonhard Euler,

Edit : NVM - was already stated ^_^; read back a few posts

Edited December 25, 2006 by Ausasuke

[episode]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonhard_Euler

Leonhard Euler,

Edit : NVM - was already stated ^_^; read back a few posts

I'm reasonably sure no one from the 1800s was on game shows as a child.

[Doug Stockwell]

Hi, I just discovered a new key, imm0rtaliz3m3, this reveals a sound file. Could it be an encoded message?

Did someone mention something about Euler and sound?

[geevans1]

Hi, I just discovered a new key, imm0rtaliz3m3, this reveals a sound file. Could it be an encoded message?

Did someone mention something about Euler and sound?

Sounds like it is slowed way down... It also shows 0kb of NaNkb which tells me it is not fully loaded yet. Maybe now that we have found this clue, they will update the file... we'll have to watch it closely given that they tend to put something up only to take it back down later. I also noticed that if you select download, it stores the file as 1234

I was right, the file is up there now... The size now says 177kb of 177kb. Its 11 seconds long as an MP3. I don't have anything on this computer that will let me speed it up. I'll have to wait until tonight or until someone else solves this one.

It seems to some one speaking, but it is distorted. I sped the sound up to 16x

Edited December 25, 2006 by geevans1

[PricklyPoo]

Hi, I just discovered a new key, imm0rtaliz3m3, this reveals a sound file. Could it be an encoded message?

Did someone mention something about Euler and sound?

Ya maybe you should speed it up or something....Just a whole bunch of low pitch bassy beeps :p

Sounds like it is slowed way down... It also shows 0kb of NaNkb which tells me it is not fully loaded yet. Maybe now that we have found this clue, they will update the file... we'll have to watch it closely given that they tend to put something up only to take it back down later. I also noticed that if you select download, it stores the file as 1234

I was right, the file is up there now...

Ya I think you are right...the file isnt loaded all the way yet so they will keep loading little parts of the sound file until it says something....I dont really kno though :unsure:

[KGBrAm]

Can I ask how the latest key was found please?

[PricklyPoo]

Can I ask how the latest key was found please?

He probably got it from somewhere else and posted it here...Dont know for sure though maybe he did find it

[well...]

Wow another onepost wonder with a clue......:shiftyninja:

[Wyco]

Wow another onepost wonder with a clue......:shiftyninja:

...from Japan...

[geevans1]

Wow another onepost wonder with a clue......:shiftyninja:

It is interesting that "Doug" registered today...

I still can't make out what it is saying. Need an analyzer. But so far, it seems that if you speed it up to 16x using windows media player 11, it starts to sound like a man speaking, but it is garbled by background noise.

(And I'm not a one post wonder)

[Wyco]

I have Goldwave that can speed up pretty well these things...