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When looking around the HL2 community and in particular the HalfLife2.net forums, you may have heard people talking about "tests" 1, 2 and 3. While not anything serious, these "tests" are an example of Valve having a bit of fun with the community. Well, either that or some fiendishly clever PR excercise to take people's attention away from the constantly unfolding drama surrounding Half-Life 2. Think of the tests as a community hunt for easter-eggs with Valve supplying the hints.
Anyway, the tests themselves are a set of problems solvable with the help of clues left on www.half-life2.com (the official HL2 site), Steam and the odd white board in Valve's Bellevue offices.
In the following text you'll find a timeline of the events surrounding the tests and how they were found. It's not a complete list, but an exhaustive list would defeat the purpose of this summary. It all started when a HL2.net forum user, Merc, took a visit to the Valve offices (as several fans have done) and brought back some digi-cam shots from the tour. Let's get into it.
23/06/2004
Lanthanide realizes words on the partial white board picture from Merc's visits are encoded in ROT13. You can see the hint on the white board ("ROT13" is written top-centre on the white board).
Relevant post: Lanthanide's post
Relevant thread: Merc's trip to Valve
The white board from Merc's visit |
23/06/2004
Lanthanide decrypts the viewable part of a URL which was also written on the white board in ROT13. The unencrypted URL is "...Life2.com/secret/pwn3d" which left people guessing what the first part was. Lanthanide presumed it was www.halflife2.com which proved incorrect. That particular URL is owned by Gamespy Networks and is unrelated to Valve. The real URL was revealed after a forum member e-mailed Valve and received a reply stating the real text as www.half-life2.com ( the official HL2 web site).
Upon entering the correct URL, people were greeted with a user name and password box.
Relevant post: Lanthanides post
Relevant thread: Merc's trip to Valve
23/06/2004
Both SAJ and SMT make interesting observations on the the words "Nova prospekt" which are written on the white board under "Keep" along with some other words/names that appear to make up some kind of timeline:Dark energy: I have no idea what action or place this corresponds to.
Razor train: The train you get off at the beginning of the game.
Nova prospekt: City 17's main plaza which you get to explore after your interrogation (see the E3 2004 video).
Barney: You meet Barney.
Strider: You meet a Strider.
City 13: You visit City 13? It makes more sense if you swapped City 13 with Dark energy. Then that would explain where Gordon got on the train. It also seems likely to me that "Dark energy" is referring to zero point energy which would suggest this is when you pick up the manipulator. On the other I could be barking up the wrong tree. If you're wondering what any of that has to do with the tests you will see later.
Relevant posts: SAJ's post, SMT's post, SMT's second post
Relevant thread: Merc's trip to Valve | |
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