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AnthraX101 · Entrenched Joined: 18 Mar 2003 Posts: 797

At the moment, I'm going to let this stay here. We still have no clear answer if decompiling flash is in-game or not. If something appears to hint one way or the other, we'll deal with it then.

Really, we're not bad guys out to get you.

AnthraX101

EDIT: Clarified.

yeahyeah · Decorated Joined: 14 Oct 2003 Posts: 282

I take that to mean you aren't sure if it belongs here or in puzzles, or if the garbled swf file was intentional or not?

This started out as just an update (I forgot the [update] tag ;)) And then a bit of sleuthing to figure out if we should be looking for a puzzle or not. As to if it was purposeful, it appears to me that it was, because there are letters missing, and the pictures look different then they usually do.

just my humble thoughts..

**Posted:** Sat Nov 01, 2003 5:31 pm

Marauder · Veteran Joined: 25 Oct 2003 Posts: 123

**Posted:** Sat Nov 01, 2003 5:36 pm

Omnie · Entrenched Joined: 07 Oct 2003 Posts: 772

Well, the orange thing has been present in the metacortex flash file from the beginning. It's not something new. I only mentioned it now because earlier I thought that it was just my computer or my decompiler doing strange things... Very Happy

I also don't see why this would be off-limits if it's perfectly fine to mess with pictures from the sites... I really don't see the distinctive line that is supposed to separate the two. Flash, images, mp3s...they post them, we can mess with them. No? I suppose the difference is that flash has code in it...well, html, flash code, what's the difference? Question

**Posted:** Sat Nov 01, 2003 5:43 pm

AcidTWister · Boot Joined: 17 Oct 2003 Posts: 16

apparently, there was a large electrical storm in Redland last night and caused some outages. i'm not sure if it's what caused the site to become garbled or not.

i got an email from the Beta Test division saying that applicants may have gotten automated phone calls yesterday due to the storm.

**Posted:** Sat Nov 01, 2003 6:01 pm

XtRaVa

sweet...a cover up Smile

**Posted:** Sat Nov 01, 2003 6:09 pm

bakntime

This article from Beth's little boxes archive has a similar "feel" to the supposed problems of Oct 31st:

http://little-boxes.net/archives/KnowledgeBase/script_view_document.php?data_id=50

**Posted:** Sun Nov 02, 2003 3:57 pm

yanka

I have been trying to compile everything that happened on Halloween, so here it is � mostly in "speculation" format (I possibly forgot some things).

1. The Metacortechs site freaks out. Initially I thought that there is something to be found either in the missing characters or in the "scrambled" characters. For example, there could be extra letters, i.e. those not present in the "normal" page; or maybe there is some significance to the characters that stood alone (didn't have anything on top of them). Those could possibly add up to words/clues. I guess that's out the window.
[EDIT] Can't believe I forgot to THANK yeahyeah (sorry Embarassed

) for piecing them together [EDIT]

However, though it appears that characters were picked out randomly, the "freaked out" flash is actually very ordered visually. We have somewhat of a paradox here: some phenomenon, grounded in a random choice of letters produces what looks anything but chaotic: the very neatly ordered rows and columns. I'd say this is a blatant reference to the phenomena that Beth is chasing: these events should have no pattern to them, yet Beth (and we, i.e. Moriar and xnbomb) are able to predict them. There are also some references in Beth's archives about "loss of randomness".

And then, of course, there is Avery. I am fairly certain at this point that Metacortechs has been hit this way before, and whatever "hit" them messed up Avery's information in the same way it messed up the home page. Many of you noticed that the pictures are affected; so is what is supposed to be Avery's picture (yet in a visually different way). I see 2 possibilities as far as what could have happened last time:
- the whole site was "hit", but everything except Avery's information was quickly fixed
- the "hit" applied only to Avery; in which case it could be what caused him to become "missing"
There is, of course, a question of why they even left that info in the state that it's in, but I suppose we can easily overcome this difficulty with "it was one of the first clues that this is, in fact, a game" or something along those lines.
Given the archive #50 (thanks, backntime), which is dated July 18, 2003, I think it is also possible that Metacortechs "freaked out" even more than twice.

Lastly, regarding the orange thing. I have no idea what to make of it. The fact that somebody actually placed it in a frame � and in the spot that they did - as opposed to just leaving it in the library bugs me. But if it is a clue, I have no idea what it means � "orange/halloween square moon with 2 dots in it smack over Metacortex"? Furthermore, as Omnie points out, that thing is always there � not only in the "freaked out" flash on Halloween. It's always Halloween at Metacortex? Bah�

2. The phone call. I don't think a consensus has been reached by the guys here on what exactly is being said, but I guess there are a few things they are quite certain about:
- Aquapolis
- MLO
- Scratch

I'd add to that my earlier wild guess that Scratch might have had something to do with the addition of screenshots to the logs. I also thought those screenshots might have been what convinced some (all?) of the gang to leave Caesar.

3. The e-mail explaining the phone call. BS! Something did cause the server to randomly dial etc., but it WAS NOT a thunderstorm and it WAS the same thing that caused the site to freak out. Whatever it was, it did not affect their voicemail system, btw.

4. Whatever happened on Halloween was felt at Aquapolis as well.

_________________
Annushka has already bought the sunflower oil, and has not only bought it, but has already spilled it.

bakntime

**Posted:** Sun Nov 02, 2003 8:42 pm

Azathoth666

The greatest feat the devil ever accomplished was to convince the world that he doesn't exist...

I like your line of thought Yanka... but it sparked something off in my wee little brain. Websites don't just fix themselves. Now, I was comfortably asleep in my bed when all of this went down - I didn't even get the 'phone call, but I refuse to be bitter about that - but I think it's safe to assume that the site wasn't freaked out for long. Then all of a sudden its fixed, and a little different from before... almost as if there was someone sitting there waiting for the site to freak out so it could be reloaded.

Someone... or something? More spec in a very specy thread, but the site comes back online before most people can flush their cache sans any reference to Labyrinth? I think our AI doesn't want the world knowing about it...?

**Posted:** Sun Nov 02, 2003 9:05 pm

_________________
We don't stop playing because we grow old.
We grow old because we stop playing.

yeahyeah · Decorated Joined: 14 Oct 2003 Posts: 282

**Posted:** Sun Nov 02, 2003 9:37 pm

Azathoth666

yeahyeah... I stand corrected. As I do 90% of posting/playing from work, I'm not really in a position to keep tabs on my incomings and outgoings... actually, I don't really care: I'm quite happy for my employer to pay for this bandwidth... Laughing

Still, I find that even more curious: the flash file gets garbled, and when it comes online they've changed the ticker? Can anyone remember what ticker was in use prior to the last update?

Or... [sinister voice] is it a case of a certain AI seeing a chance to hide itself and taking it? [/sinister voice]

**Posted:** Sun Nov 02, 2003 11:05 pm

_________________
We don't stop playing because we grow old.
We grow old because we stop playing.

yeahyeah · Decorated Joined: 14 Oct 2003 Posts: 282

Well, I posted a bit of it before, but I didnt keep an accurate record, I just retyped some of it as it scrolled, and I didn't note all the entries.. :-/

If someone hasn't been to metacortechs since before the 31st, please pm me before going there, we can still recover the data from someones cache.. :)

**Posted:** Sun Nov 02, 2003 11:19 pm

_________________
All known Urls
yeahyeah's betamaze generator/decoder

yanka

**Posted:** Mon Nov 03, 2003 12:43 am

_________________
Annushka has already bought the sunflower oil, and has not only bought it, but has already spilled it.

yeahyeah · Decorated Joined: 14 Oct 2003 Posts: 282

for anyone wondering the differences between the various scroller messages, an anonymous donar sent me the entire collection since the site opened.. I know not everyone digs through all the metacortechs forums, so heres the link

**Posted:** Mon Nov 03, 2003 6:06 am

_________________
All known Urls
yeahyeah's betamaze generator/decoder