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Portal Robot Repair
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gimlet
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Joined: 20 Jan 2016
Posts: 358

Portal Robot Repair
Something might be going on with Valve's VR Demo. Or not.

So, grain of salt for this one as the community involved has a tendency to see things that aren't there, and meander down unfruitful tangents.

But.

Valve briefly uploaded a version of their VR Robot Repair Demo, and then took it down yesterday. So of course people are data mining it for all it's worth.

Interestingly, there a couple of details that people have noticed (they also didn't need to be data mined to be seen, it's just how they were noticed) that smell fishy to me.

Firstly, a small plaque with the word HEV, a logo that looks like the Black Mesa logo - but isn't quite right - and a string of numbers. What intrigues me about the numbers is that *some* of them are in italic. Not only are only some in Italic, some of them slant left, and some right.

The other fishy thing is a doctors eye chart consisting solely of QR codes. As the codes get smaller, they get harder & harder to read, of course.

Other things of note people have found is a chart last seen in the Portal Potato ARG, and a glitchy TV screen that seems to show a familiar image of the Aperture labs site. These are references to the last 2 portal args.

So. This is a lot of argy feeling elements. Any other company and I'd say something was absolutely up, but the community has interpreted Valve's Easter eggs wrong before. Still, it seems like they could use some calmer heads & experienced argers to help out.

https://www.reddit.com/r/HalfLife/comments/4726o8/anyone_think_this_series_of_numbers_could_reveal/

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OTEH1RV7q7IhHBc4hOxRF0S9VwnNNHomQJOr6cAMI_c/mobilebasic?pli=1

(My hunch is that something IS up, but they might have data mined it too early - or are even trolling the Data Mining community, who kinda deserve ito be trolled. Still there's a lot of speculation that Valve wouldn't launch a product like their VR system (April) without a killer app. Their proprietary engine Source2 should be close to completion as well and is a similar situation. More than that, the timing is right with it now being the spring run up to the major Gaming events: GDC, SXSW, PAX & E3.)

EDIT as of wed 24: The miners (check the Google doc) have also found this exact document from the Super 8 interactive trailer buried in the level:

http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=837208#837208

It contains a password to the clip unlock from the Super 8 arg, and a Rocket Popeteers logo. So that's a heavy reference to a 3rd arg to drop - and one not even run by Valve. It's entirely possible they are just reusing old assets as some fun easter eggs, but WHAT assets to choose, geeze. Also seeing some more potato references.

http://imgur.com/gallery/Ig3Lt/new

I think this might be something. But I also think it might not be ready for prime time quite yet.

EDIT as of March 7th 2016: Valve just announced a new Aperture Labs themed game! Keep your eyes open folks!

http://www.polygon.com/2016/3/7/11173566/valve-the-lab-vr-experiments-aperture-science-portal

Posted: Mon Feb 22, 2016 7:27 pm

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