By Alec Meer on March 3rd, 2010 at 10:45 pm.
Valve appear to have decided to own March, in what’s an increasingly frightening/thrilling internet invasion. Yeah, that’s two Valve stories in a row – but we can’t not post about such things. Just a few minutes ago, Portal updated itself again – the patch notes reading simply “added valuable asset retrieval.” What could it mean? Is it the final piece in the (potentially) Portal 2 puzzle? Given Valve’s predilection for making TF2 update drip-feed news last a week, I suspect we’re not quite at the end yet. What this is, though, is a clear sign to load up Portal and hunt for mystery changes right away…. Already, I’m told, facepunch.com and Steam forumites have uncovered two new dinosaur.fizzle files and the ominously-named body_drag_01.wav. I’m hearing hints there may be a new map in there too.. Ooh! Ripe for mystery-harvesting, surely?
Update: it’s a (slightly, but tantalisingly) new ending. Video beneath the cut. German robots? Parties? Oh yes. Portal is getting a sequel – which leaves the resounding question of whether it will, as is widely speculated, be linked to HL2: Episode 3 or not…
You can assert until the cows come home that you don’t find PR gimmicks or ARGs interesting, but this is something new – updating the game itself to lay its treasure trail, rather than relying on external websites or hype. Big budget games are generally considered static, fixed – this is making full advantage of what the internet can do when made intrinsic to a game.
what, already?
report
“You can assert until the cows come home that you don’t find PR gimmicks or ARGs interesting, but this is something new – updating the game itself to lay its treasure trail, rather than relying on external websites or hype. Big budget games are generally considered static, fixed – this is making full advantage of what the internet can do when made intrinsic to a game.”
Exactly. You see – Steam can be a force for good! ;)
report
Why look for the changes yourself when you can just tune in to the Steam forums and let an army of nerds do all the work for you?
No, I’m not bitter that I have to work and can’t be playing Portal. Not at all.
report
For those catching up, Kotaku put together a great ‘Story so far’ summary page.
http://kotaku.com/5484157/valves-portal-puzzle-so-far-the-files-recovered-from-aperture-science
The main puzzle was mindblowing. A phone number to a BBS hidden in an MD5 string, which in turn was hidden in a series of cryptic photos, which in turn were hidden inside audio files which were hidden inside the radios in Portal.
And that was just Part 1.
To the Batcave, Watson. The Game is Afoot!
report
‘ “Science isn’t about why, it’s about why not. You ask: Why is so much of our science dangerous? I say: Why not marry safe science if you love it so much. In fact, why not invent a special safety door that won’t hit you in the butt on the way out, because you are fired.” ‘
report
Cave Johnson and Saxton Hale are the two best videogame characters never seen in a videogame ever.
report
@Dominic White: No argument!
report
From the comments
“Well, I call shenanigans on the molecular diagrams. An sp2-hybridised carbon atom in a bicyclopropyl moiety?”
Sad to say that I thought the same thing. Although my thought line went “Pentavalent carbon! How dare they break chemistry.”
In my defence I did think things like “hey awesome” and “I can’t wait for more Portal” first and I have been doing a lot of chemistry!
report
Of course valve had to do this just when I have to study for finals.
report
I have finals tomorrow and Valve’s all PORTAL 2 OMG
And then I get a copy of Company of Heroes in the mail… *shakesfist*
report
We’ve found it – replay the ending of the game, it’s different!
report
Apparently the ending of the game has changed. Now, at the parking lot, you get dragged away by a robot saying “thank you for assuming the party escort submission position”, which would explain the update title.
I’m going to try this now :).
report
assume the party escort submission position!? OMG.
report
Video for those of you who are not in a position to play it again. Or can’t be arsed.
http://www.xfire.com/video/2393cf/
report
I have the sneaking suspicion that the upcoming announcement is ‘We have toppled all world governments. Prepare for an eternity in the mines, pitiful non-valve employees.’
report
Hey, if it means Episode 3 comes out sooner, I’m all for it.
Besides, I figure Valve would give loyal customers better positions in the hierarchy. I figure an email from Gabe Newell is worth at least an assistant sub supervisorial role. And the odds get better, considering my constant presence on Foster’s social networking service.
report
Is that a sexual position that i don’t know about?
report
I doubt it, as everyone knows there are only three: on top, doggy, and normal.
report
Then you get eaten by a hellhound.
report
I pity you,,,
report
I wish I more attractive, like Pedant…
report
+1 for Darkplace.
report
Damn you, Adam Foster. Damn you to Hell!
report
I second this notion, vehemently.
report
Adam Foster? Really?
*squees*
report
Best. PR. Ever.
report
So basically, what they’re saying is that what happens between Portal 1 and 2 is basically “you escaped, and got dragged back to where you started by a robot. Plz try again”?
Clever… Means they can just release Portal again, just adding a 2 to the title, and it’ll make perfect sense and be canon and everything.. Infinitely looping series.
report
Is this a bad time to say that the Team Fortress 2 Blog’s been updated? It’s only some background about a scrapped Engy unlock tho.
report
> Damn you, Adam Foster. Damn you to Hell!
This. There’s even some connecting evidence now, since the source images of some of the SSTV pictures can be found on Adam’s flickr photostream.
report
http://babel-research.eu/129/222/315.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IU_reTt7Hj4
hmm?
report
I beat you to it, a couple of threads back.
Except I was less ‘hmm’ and more ‘waitwaitwaitwaitwaitwait… waitwaitwait… wait…’.
<.< >.>
report
Those are old fan-made things and have nothing to do with what’s happening, and people should stop linking them.
report
Babel Research is part to the ‘What’s in the box?’ movie. While it uses the assets from HL2 and Lost, it was done by a third party and has nothing to do with the game at hand.
report
Youtube vid of ending.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ddrMBGRrLM
report
I think Valve has just multiclassed into Magnificent Bastard
report
Am I the only one who is completely and utterly uninterested in these PR ARG’s? I mean, yes, something exciting is afoot. News is coming and it has potential to be interesting and fun. But sitting around playing guessing games like it’s bloody play-school all over again is not my idea of fun. People obviously like this kind of thing so I can’t really complain. But they don’t realize Valve would never give too much away. It may be an ARG but it’s not a game in the sense that it can be beaten or solved. So therefore you could say it is a poor ARG.
Wake me up when Portal 2 is announced. Then I can officially be excited.
P.S. Yes, I’m a miserable old git.
report
Some people like guessing games, some people don’t. Some people like Myst, some people like shooters. Some people like apples, some like oranges.
Don’t feel bad about it. If it doesn’t interest you, then c’est la vie, just wait for the news.
I admit though that I’m the sort who’s terribly impressed by all the creative thinking that went into this, because I am a big fan of creative thinking, and this was nothing short of Machiavellian.
report
I’m not sure if I would I would heap too much praise on it. I think it’s clever but when you have info that other people don’t it’s easy to tease. It’s easy to use tools and assets – in this case, the original Portal game – to tease and be all smartypants about it. When the news does drop we can all go back and look at the cryptic messages and I bet we’ll all say, yes this was smart and all but really it didn’t add up to any kind of tangible mass that I could sort out in my head and come up with an answer. At the end of the day it’s just an empty tease for a new game announcement. Oh, and a really clever way to get some free publicity out of gaming websites like RPS. (That’s where the real creative thinking is going on.) It’s like all those easter eggs they have in Lost. It’s a bit of fun but in the end it’s not going to have much to do with the final revelations of that TV show. When we are finally told of Jack, Kate, Locke and Sawyer’s real purpose on the island it won’t really have much to do with any of the easter eggs. For a lot of people it will be a bit of an anti-climax.
Portal 2 is on it’s way. We all new that for quite a while. But it’s getting closer now. I’m excited.
report
Po0py, what is it like not to feel joy or excitement? Is the sky grey for you every day? It may essentially boil down to marketing, but they’ve done it in the form of (I repeat, for emphasis) a series of hidden radios in Portal, which play morse code and garbled noise. The noise, when parsed through a Slow Scan TV decoder, turn into security camera images. When arranged in order of timestamp, and the alphanumeric elements extracted, you get an MD5-encrypted phone number, which belongs to a BBS. The BBS, requiring a login held in one of the morse code examples, contains a garbled data dump which, when aligned correctly, turns into a gallery of ASCII tech-specs, Portal backstory elements, and hints at possible future events/enemies.
And if that isn’t seriously one of the cleverest puzzles you’ve ever heard of in the history of gaming, I don’t know what to say to you.
report
@DW:
Simpsons did it.
report
Developers interacting with their fanbase in a creative and fairly exciting way? Bah-humbug
report
Look Valve. I have a thesis to write, and all these ARG styled announcements and stupidly cheap Indie shooters are not helping. Your marketing department is clearly evil, they even managed to get me interested in a Mac port of steam despite not owning a map.
report
I don’t believe evil is the word.
The word is: Machiavellian.
report
Horrible isn’t it. Although I quite welcome distractions every couple of hours or so, I think it stops my brain from melting. At least that’s what I tell myself.
report
I mean a Mac of course, not a map. Although come to think of it I don’t own a map either, which is a shame, because I love maps.
(Posted as a reply rather than an edit as the spam-filter seems to eat my edits occasionally, and I didn’t know what would happen to the replies.)
report
Well, you know, some US Americans don’t have maps, and, um, therefore like such as, etc etc.
report
@AP:
Well played, sir.
report
Installed Portal for this. What fun!
report
Dear Valve,
I love you,
Sincerely,
TimA
PS. WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.
report
PETER MANDELSON.
report
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH
report
Ha! Your reply goes right out of the comment box :D
report
AAAAAaAAAAaaAAAaaaAAaaaaAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
report
AAAAAaAAAAaaAAAaaaAAaaaaAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaDumbledorDiesaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
report
@WC:
NOOOOOOOooOoooooooo my childhood innocence :(
report
WC ruined it for everyone. :(
report
I’m sorry. Its my one act of trolling for the year. I promise :P
report
This is a great way to get everyone playing through Portal again, further raising expectations and more free publicity / not so gentle reminders of what you’re missing, i;m sure a few more people have shelled (or should that be ‘Chelle’d') out for Portal just to be involved in the intrigue
Oh you cheeky schemers with your marketing drip drip!
report
I was just thinking the same thing as I played some long-neglected Portal earlier today. I bet there have been as many hours of Portal played in the last few days as in the previous six months.
report
Portal is, amazingly, not in the Top 10 Steam game sales right now. I was sure that this would have the affect of making it jump into the top 5. I guess everyone already owns it …
report
Am I the only person alive that has never:
- Finished HL2
- Played HL2:Ep2
- Played Portal
- Played TF2
?
report
Yes. Now go do it you silly silly person.
Cripes!
report
Quit beating around the bush and just say that you want someone to gift you the Orange Box. :P
report
So you just played Episode 1? How bizarre.
report
What kind of PC gamer are you?
Hmm… wait… Adventure Gamer, right?
report
No. If you haven’t played Portal, you aren’t truly alive.
report
Well actually come to think of it, I’m not sure I have even played HL2: Ep 1!
I remember getting bored towards the end of HL2 so kinda gave up after that.
EDIT: It’s all coming back to me now after reading the synopsis of HL2 and Ep1. Have finished both it turns out. Now to Ep2!
report
Cave Johnson is the fucking Gman.
report
Sweet! What’s the betting the intubation associate looks kid of like a giant chicken?
What’s the betting I stop posting semi-hysterical-conjecture comments!?
Aaaaaaaaaargh!!
report
“Aaaaaaaaaargh!!”
No, that’s another game entirely. This is Portal. Por-tal.
report
Portal? What the crap is that? I thought this thread was about Freespace 3. Thanks for the heads up.
report
Imagine if other companies looked like Valve. If “marketing” in games meant providing extra content, actually giving things to the community to buy them over and not lazy tech-demo trailers with cheesey voices or lists of stats about how many guns/polygons the new release will have.
This whole idea of a game being an ongoing exchange of ideas between the developer and the player that extends before and after release…how long do we have to wait for this to catch on?
I mean its not manditory or anything but its damned fun and I’m sure it ships units.
report
Exactly. They’ve turned waiting for the new game INTO a game. And a damn clever and detailed one at that. Most marketing assumes the audience are idiots. This relies on them being seriously smart people. I know I could never have figured out even half of this by myself, but the fans went and tore the problems apart in a matter of hours.
report
@DMcCool thank you for that bit of eloquence. The cynical amongst us can point and nod and say clever marketing and it is, but it is also so much more. The devs are making a product sure, but they’re also embracing the community in a collaborative way that just HAS to be engaging on their end.
report
I’m the odd sort of person who actually enjoyed In Memoriam, quite a lot. I’d be happy to see more developers doing the ARG thing, and in fact, I have an idea. It’s going to be that Wulf sort of idea where it’ll take a certain mindset to appreciate, but I digress.
Why not do this with Collector’s Editions? Instead of all that DLC nonsense, a Collector’s Edition buys you entry into a private forum, with an ARG that runs past the game’s release date, this ARG unlocks new content in the game. Everyone outside of the forum will just have to be drip-fed info, and perhaps an NDA might be in place. The end result is that everyone would have access to the content eventually, but those who take part in — or at least watch — the ARG will gain access to the content a day or so before everyone else.
That would be so much better than the DLC systems in place today, at least in my opinion.
report
Yeah, they have us all exited about a game that’s going to be on Source. You know, that engine your grandfather played games on.
Some part of my retarded gamer brain has been thinking all along that maybe they’d be releasing Source 2 or something. But that’s just stupid. They should just focus on making really great games, not really flashy game engines.
report
To be fair, the job of marketing departments at other companies would be much easier if the games they were trying to sell were as good as Portal.
The internets would not go insane if EA hid a cryptic hint about forthcoming Army of Two DLC somewhere on Xbox Live.
report
This reminds me of why I fell in love with Marathon oh so long ago.
report
As did Adam Foster, creator of the very Marathon-inspired Minerva mod for HL2. And Valve hired him a while back.
It’s not a huge stretch of the imagination to assume that he’s the brain behind all this puzzling. Although I don’t think even he could have expected people to figure it all out within a day.
report
Didn’t people get help with where to find the BBS or something? I read something about a “giant dinosaur” being a clue.
I think Valve had a pretty good idea how fast it’d be ‘cracked.’ The question is, what happens NOW?
report
Yeah, ’bout what I thought when this thing started.
Man. Bungie’s still capable of being Bungie, Valve’s still Valve…
But now Valve is also Bungie. Some days, Gottfried Leibniz doesn’t seem entirely full of shit.
report
Valve’s cryptic shenanigans should hopefully tide me over until the next (and possibly final?) iamamiwhoami viral.
http://www.popjustice.com/forum/index.php?topic=20674.0
report
Is there anyone more savvy than Valve?
Now that’s marketing I can get behind.
report
I believe it’s been confirmed that Adam Foster’s fingerprints are on this. I read on the Steam forums that some of the source images for the SSTV files came from his Flickr photostream.
report
Calling it: Chell is Alyx’s mom.
report
This will all culminate on April first, when it is all shown to be a lie. A HORRIBLE, WRETCHED LIE.
report
I played through the entirety of Portal in one sitting for an achievement, some weird sounds and a vaguely Germanic robot voice. Hooray.
report
You know, say what you like about Valve, but they know how to innovate.
That said I’m not playing through Portal again for titbits that mean nothing to me that I might easily miss and that I can just look up on the net anyway.
report
Bah, the aperture science website has a christmas cube I’ve not seen before, but I can’t see anything related to this.
report
@Metalfish
That’s been up for aeons, since christmas 07 maybe? It’s not related to the current developments.
Also; SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
report
Thats been around since Christmas of 2007 I think.
report
Sounds more French than German to me.
report
Just played the ending and I’m thinking it sounds Swedish. What with all this indecision about the accent, I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out to be Orangutang. (+1Poe)
report
Huh, really? I have a couple of Swedish friends, so I’m used to the accent. It doesn’t seem to have the same tonal qualities that the Swedish accent has.
Personally, I want it to be Germanic, since that way we get a TF2 crossover, with the thing really being piloted by The Medic!
report
You win at literature references! I salute you, sir.
report
I’m sure Dupin would agree that the accent is German, and in fact it is clear that the person dragging Chell off is none other than Gunter Hermann.
Quick, Chell! Say “Laputan Machine!”
report
So, I think the new ending means that killing Glados was in fact just another test and you hadn’t actually escaped at all. It’s a party position, he’s taking you for cake!
report
Baww, just loaded up my savegame outside GLaD’s chamber and didn’t get the new ending. ANOTHER playthrough is on the cards.
report
@Cynic
If you bring up the console and type “map escape_02″ you can jump directly to the last bit of the last level – then you will get the new ending. It seems that you have to start your game after the update, even if you don’t start from the beginning – a previous savegame won’t cut it.
report
What’s the red bit at the very end? Is that still part of the ending video?
report
That’s where the regular ending continues.
report
Ahh. That would make sense, yes.
report
You don’t need to start from scratch. The easiest thing to do is enable console, then type:
map escape_02
That’ll load about 2 minutes away from the final chamber. It’ll also go on to play the different ending.
report
Time to put a CAPTCHA on the registration page, chaps!
report
Well I like shoes.
report
Who doesn’t? A chap’s not properly dressed unless he’s wearing a decent pair of shoes.
report
Here here
I dislike hats though, on myself at least.
What were we talking about again?
report
Err, that new ending’s kind of a middle finger to the player, isn’t it? Haha, you didn’t really escape after all!
report
After this long, I think it’s more forgivable.
report
@Bret
It’s not really something that requires “forgiving” or anything, it just seems like kind of a downer note to end the game on. I preferred the “freedom but with a sense of impending dread” subtlety of the original to this more ham-fisted version.
report
I thought this was what it suggested originally. You didn’t really break out of the tests, GlaDos was far too convenient. Was clearly all a set up. I don’t think it was ham-fisted at all. In fact I don’t think it has changed the story in the slightest.
report
Plus, how do we know the robot isn’t taking you TO safety? Eh?
report
It’s a safety party.
Where you do the safety dance.
Because your friends don’t dance, and if they don’t dance, well they’re no friends of mine.
report
Of course they aren’t, cause you don’t have any friends. Your friend companion cube would have danced but he can’t because you murdered him.
report
Why have you only got CoH just now? Unless you already had it before on Steam and wanted the CD copy so you can still play it on a LAN unpatched, of which you have my approval.
report
What?
report
I think this is directed at me, I mentioned I got CoH as well as this deluge of Portal wonderment just in time for finals. I’m an unemployed student with a keen eye for bargain hunting, so I jumped at the chance to get CoH for $4, then its first expansion for $5. Because of my intrinsic cheapness, I tend to stay several years behind the curve of gaming, only buying when I’m really really interested in a game.
To make this more Portal-related, I made a group of Facebook about it, thus cementing my position as a slave to the internet revolution. If you want to join, it’s the one that doesn’t suck, with just the logo and three people joined in it. The other one has news from early 2009 and a picture of a Portal mod. I’m the stylish dude in a hat.
report
Why is there a picture of Ross Perot?
report
Stop it Valve! You’re leading me along like a donkey with a carrot on its nose…
report
This sort of campaign would be nearly impossible on any other platform, or from any other publisher.
A publisher couldn’t do it on Xbox Live or PSN because they’d be charged large sums of money for each new title update, and each update would have to go through an approval process first.
It’d be difficult for other PC developers/publishers to do it as it requires auto-patching, and control of your own digital delivery system.
So this is another way to celebrate the uniqueness of the PC platform. Nicely done Valve!
report
Hmmm I’m not sure about the sequel theory.
I mean, I don’t see how it makes any sense for them to bring out a new Half-Life 2 Episode so soon after the last one.
report
Well played, sir!
report
You are kidding, right? It is like three years since episode 2 and this so soon for you? I think, now is the time, because the source engine is getting rusty as hell. So if Valve would like to present episode 3 on old source engine, it will be better soon. And yes I know story matters, but for most of nowadays players there is not much for the story, but more for the eye candy stuff. So I think.
report
I could be wrong, but I think you missed his joke.
report
I knew Valve would pull something out of the hat. There’s no way they could let us wait three years + just for EP3 – They scrapped the black box in-favour of the orange box last time, my guess is it will be:
The Black Box> Portal 2 – EP3 – and some multi-player. C’mon DOD 2 (with British) *dreams*
report
Black is such a boring color, my money is on the magenta box
report
@Sarlix
I doubt they’d call it the Black Box, some of us still remember their first (canceled) Black Box with some irritation.
report
I WANT TO HUG VALVE AND THINK OF THEM AS MORE THEN JUST A FRIEND
report
@lambchops: Don’t forget that ” B . d A = 3 ” breaks physics, maths and common sense on many levels!
report
Shhhhhhh. DOD is the kid no-on talks about. Besides I doubt it would get much interest in today’s world of modern shooters.
report
Though Portal was an underwhelming game, I am looking forward to more good comedy.
I’m also glad that other people have the time to do the work on these ARGs for me. :)
As for the EP3 integration rumours – hold on for a second.
Think – what other high-quality short game is there in the Half Life 2 universe? One starring an omniscient computer? One that’s made by a person now on Valve Staff – one that specialises in ARG creation as well?
MINERVA+GLaDOS canon integration anyone?
report
Hmm, isn’t B normally magnetic field and A, I assume, area? The integral of B.dA is magnetic flux density. A could also equal the vector potential but I have no idea what B.dA would represent in that case!
report
What kind of a first name is ‘Cave’ anyway?? Why not Orifice Johnson?
report
Amusing fix in the latest Steam client update:
“Really fixed offline mode not always working”
Oh, well if you really did it this time, Valve, that’s OK!
report
ORANGE BOX TWOOOOOO
report
Monster munch. Pickled onion beats beef hands down.
report
The previous Portal update’s patch notes were:
Changed radio transmission frequency to comply with federal and state spectrum management regulations
This would also suggest something strange going on…
report
D:
:D
report
Okay that was a reply to someone’s post but you know what? I’m just gonna leave it there.
report
I’m still an ardent Portal fan, but something about this gives me pause.
Does the user still have access to the ‘old’ releases of the games? On a larger note, what recourse does the player have if the publisher retcons something in the game that they found valuable?
report
No.
report
Portal 2 Announced
report
I’m also guessing this may well be Adam Foster’s handiwork.
If MINERVA gets integrated into the canon, I will love Valve forever even more.
report