Mysterious Portal Updates - Main Discussion Thread

hopefully Valve saids something about this or every one is going to go crazy

[Ewuijts]

True. Maybe they got killed so that Chell became a perfect test subject. But either way, I already they were killed. But then when Chell was a grownup at the bring-your-daughter-to-work-day.

[leveller]

I think I'm going to have to replay Portal to be ready to play the next chapter

[crocos]

Originally Posted by justachap

... or every one is going to go crazy

Too late?

[relaxeder]

Check out that wiki someone posted a page or two ago, might be worth a look.

In a nutshell:

-Portal gets surprise update yesterday afternoon
-People see new mystery achievement
-People play and see the radio in the beginning room now has a green light
-Carry it around and notice it makes strange broadcast interference noises in certain places
-Locate and place all 26 of these mystery radios for achievement
-Smart people yank wav files out of game content folders and run them through steganography programs
-Produces 26 weird cryptic image files in a numbered sequence
-Some dude runs the number string through an md5 hash translator and gets a landline number
-Internet traces it to Kirkland, WA (near Valve HQ)
-People find out its not a phone/fax line but a data line hosting a BBS and telnet it
-Use a clue from one of the files to figure out the BBS user/password login info
-End up with a bunch of weird ASCII artwork
-We're trying to figure out wtf it means
-XJR asks for summary on the forums

[AXidenT]

Originally Posted by pfh0198

Portal IS Half -Life... Same universe.

I meant as in the game series. IE we'll be getting an announcement for a new Portal game and a new Half-Life game or something.

[Ls777]

In a nutshell:

-Portal gets surprise update yesterday afternoon
-People see new mystery achievement
-People play and see the radio in the beginning room now has a green light
-Carry it around and notice it makes strange broadcast interference noises in certain places
-Locate and place all 26 of these mystery radios for achievement
-Smart people yank wav files out of game content folders and run them through steganography programs
-Produces 26 weird cryptic image files in a numbered sequence
-Some dude runs the number string through an md5 hash translator and gets a landline number
-Internet traces it to Kirkland, WA (near Valve HQ)
-People find out its not a phone/fax line but a data line hosting a BBS and telnet it
-Use a clue from one of the files to figure out the BBS user/password login info
-End up with a bunch of weird ASCII artwork
-We're trying to figure out wtf it means
-XJR asks for summary on the forums

this is the best written summary on the board. thx for this

Originally Posted by relaxeder

Check out that wiki someone posted a page or two ago, might be worth a look.

In a nutshell:

-Portal gets surprise update yesterday afternoon
-People see new mystery achievement
-People play and see the radio in the beginning room now has a green light
-Carry it around and notice it makes strange broadcast interference noises in certain places
-Locate and place all 26 of these mystery radios for achievement
-Smart people yank wav files out of game content folders and run them through steganography programs
-Produces 26 weird cryptic image files in a numbered sequence
-Some dude runs the number string through an md5 hash translator and gets a landline number
-Internet traces it to Kirkland, WA (near Valve HQ)
-People find out its not a phone/fax line but a data line hosting a BBS and telnet it
-Use a clue from one of the files to figure out the BBS user/password login info
-End up with a bunch of weird ASCII artwork
-We're trying to figure out wtf it means
-XJR asks for summary on the forums

The fack?! This is getting unreal?!

[leveller]

Originally Posted by relaxeder

Check out that wiki someone posted a page or two ago, might be worth a look.

In a nutshell:

-Portal gets surprise update yesterday afternoon
-People see new mystery achievement
-People play and see the radio in the beginning room now has a green light
-Carry it around and notice it makes strange broadcast interference noises in certain places
-Locate and place all 26 of these mystery radios for achievement
-Smart people yank wav files out of game content folders and run them through steganography programs
-Produces 26 weird cryptic image files in a numbered sequence
-Some dude runs the number string through an md5 hash translator and gets a landline number
-Internet traces it to Kirkland, WA (near Valve HQ)
-People find out its not a phone/fax line but a data line hosting a BBS and telnet it
-Use a clue from one of the files to figure out the BBS user/password login info
-End up with a bunch of weird ASCII artwork
-We're trying to figure out wtf it means
-XJR asks for summary on the forums

+rep for you sir.

Originally Posted by irony

The fack?! This is getting unreal?!

Got real* that was like 6 hours ago. . .

[relaxeder]

-Use a clue from one of the files to figure out the BBS user/password login info

To clarify further four of the wav files for the ingame radio transmissions are actually morse code, this is what one of them (dinosaur12.wav) translated to:

S-Y-S-T-E-M
D-A-T-A
D-U-M-P
A-C-T-I-V-E
U-S-E-R
B-A-C-K-U-P
A-C-T-I-V-E
P-A-S-S-W-O-R-D
B-A-C-K-U-P
A-C-T-I-V-E

The clue was meant to be used literally, the username and password for the BBS are backup.

[Chris528]

I posted this wave file I found a few pages back. http://bit.ly/alL611
Does anyone know if this contains an image?

[chemicalcomfort]

Originally Posted by Chris528

I posted this wave file I found a few pages back. http://bit.ly/alL611
Does anyone know if this contains an image?

sounds like data

[DAWeeE1]

This thread has sure grown...

Originally Posted by Chris528

I posted this wave file I found a few pages back. http://bit.ly/alL611
Does anyone know if this contains an image?

Sounds like it. I don't have the software to decode it, but that sounds just like it should.