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[nhansard]

[UPDATE] May 30th

[rowan]

Well, knowing that he considers us Tatum Think employees when he's pissed at us, I can't help but wonder if he's given us another clue.

[jlandgr]

Yes, I just read the rant, very amusing
As the title "deserters", besides him not being happy with the speed (or lack of it) of decryption, might also refer to a war, and with regard to the "Greek" reference, I found the Treaty of London, signed on May 30th 1913 and ending the First Balkan War.
here,
here
and other pages.
But not sure if there is any connection or "am I speaking Greek" is simply to be regarded as "do I make myself clear" ...

[rose]

hint

[Ehsan]

Okay so apparently our hint is "Greek" and maybe "holiday". How that relates to the evil cube, I have no idea (yet).

[missphinx]

It's too bad about ophida not being an option in that (bleep) word search puzzle. That's Greek, right.

Meanwhile, I'd like to give Virgil a Greek holiday. Yes, sir, right where it counts.

[jlandgr]

There is a Greek word in the puzzle all-right in the puzzle, Ouroboros!
And it is indeed "forthcoming", "the future".
See here!

As for holidays, hmmm, there is Easter, specifically easteregg, which can of course also been seen as a hidden gimmick in software.

On the page, the full name is given as "Electronic Ouroboros". Literally, it means a snake devouring its tail.
The page also mentions Nietzsche, which is also in the wordlist.
Also first-person, "firstpersonshooter" is in the wordlist, too.
The website calls this "first-person", with a hyphen.
So, yes, with the BIG (*me ducks as a brick is flying in the direction of the head*) about Greek, it is now almost certain that the login has to do with ouroboros. Possibly also with Friedrich Nietzsche, as he is mentioned in the puzzle and the Ouroboros, page. Another connection to Nietzsche and other philosophers is "god complex".

And as "ouroboros" is Greek for "tail devourer" (and is a snake), these words might have an importance, too, but I think/hope that ouroboros will be mentioned by name, not as a reference to snakes etc.

Also, there are variants, "firstpersonshooter", "first-person", "first person shooter" etc ...

And last but not least, the software company "TatumThink" is in the list, too. Or "tatumthink"? Or "tatum think"?

And, talking about upcoming games, the "Nisha Chronicles", "nishachronicles" are in the list, too. Ahh, combinations, combinations ...
But with the HEAVY Greek hint, I'd hope that ouroboros is what this riddle is about, not so much the Nisha chronichles.

I've tried quite a lot of combinations of the above words, but probably not all, so go ahead and have "fun"
Also, one has to think, "ouroboros" or "electronicouroboros"? Or with a space? And with capital E and O? (well, so far the passwords were lowercase on the website, but one never knows ...)

[jlandgr]

A curious matter that I've just discovered:
Download the picture of the Ouroboros,
here
First, the name ist simply "oro.jpg", so maybe this is the login name, not ouroboros, who knows ...
And more interestingly, look at the file with a hex editor and in the header, right at the beginning of the file, there are two curious strings that can hardly be a coincidence but seem to have been the result of a hex manipulation:

,+++,1111111111
and below: "!!" (I doubt if they count, but possible, there are some non-ASCII characters after them) and then another long string:
!!))())1111111111

So, these strings might have a meaning for the password ...
Either as login and username (I tried, but you're welcome to try again, I might have made a mistake), or concatenated as a password, perhaps (perhaps the redundant 1111111111 has to be stripped, or in contrary, the rest converted to binary ) , and oro/ouroboros/electronic ouroboros or another of the words above as the username.
Also, the holiday reference might be explained by the fact that, in the puzzle, it is in fact easteregg, which is also something hidden in software and might thus have indicated to look inside the file with a hex editor.

As a last edit: possibly no "!" is relevant, as the two "!" in the second string kind of break the symmetry, in the first string there are simply two different characters before the 10 "1"s, i.e. possibly ,+++,1111111111 and ))())1111111111 are the relevant string, concatenated or not, stripped of the ones or not.

Hmmm, or perhaps the 10 1s are an indication to convert to binary?

[Diandra]

Well, Virgil asked when Nisha gets a holiday. I combined that with the greek hint, then tried to find out if Nisha was a greek name.

Found this:

Name: Nicia
Meaning: victorious army
Origin: Greek
Gender: Girl

[jlandgr]

After some research, it looks as if today is (was, after midnight here in Germany ) the Croatian Independence Day, see the stamp at http://www.posta.hr/marke_det_e.asp?serija=145&brmarke=145
But I think that the holiday reference did not implicate Croatia directly, but was either just a way to get the rant going a la "come one, hurry" or, more likely, to allude to another holiday, Easter, thus easteregg, thus hidden in software, thus hex editor view of oro.jpg.
Probably Some convoluted thinking Virgil is doing
As he so adequately writes:

[SuperJerms]

Actually, from playing Sable + Shuck, I'm pretty sure ophidia is latin, not greek. Sorry bout that.

[jlandgr]