yes it would be, I would actually like to find out more about the origins of Aperturew-Jinksy said:
Crazy Valve ARG Teases ... Portal 2? *Update*
- Thread starter John Funk
- Start date
I think you are in for a disappointment if you are counting 9 days regular time.Eleuthera said:
If you are already counting in Valve Time [http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Valve_Time], you are getting curious way too soon. It's a good idea to not get exited unless it's less then 20 hours of VT left.
This was con-fu-sing
I'm making a point here: What-The-Fuck
It's hard to understand the complex stuff you did here
Seriously Va-alve
You guys real-ly need
To make Ep-Three
For the good of all of us.
Except the haters and trolls.
But there's no sense crying over every de-lay.
You just keep on waiting till you die of old age.
And the series gets done.
And you have a lotta fun.
And we finally see Gordon speak!
My god, did I just make that up?
I WIN!
I'm making a point here: What-The-Fuck
It's hard to understand the complex stuff you did here
Seriously Va-alve
You guys real-ly need
To make Ep-Three
For the good of all of us.
Except the haters and trolls.
But there's no sense crying over every de-lay.
You just keep on waiting till you die of old age.
And the series gets done.
And you have a lotta fun.
And we finally see Gordon speak!
My god, did I just make that up?
I WIN!
Despite my apparent distaste for the Halo franchise, I have to admit that ilovebees is probably the greatest example of storytelling I have ever come across. Everything about the story was simply amazing, and every single character was well developed.
Major kudos to 42 Entertainment for making such a brilliant script.
Major kudos to 42 Entertainment for making such a brilliant script.
It wasn't simply stenography that Valve used for this puzzle. Saying as much actually takes away from the awesomeness of what Valve has done here.
Amateur radio (sometimes called ham or short wave) operators have various ways of communicating with one another. One obvious method of course is voice. Another is morse code, which in fact is present in the updated Portal radios. Check the Steam forums for more info on what this was decoded into.
But another method of communication is called SSTV, for Slow-Scan Television. It basically means sending images over the air waves using basically the same kind of tones which you'd hear from a modem over a phone line. Those with even novice experience at amateur radio would probably recognize the distinctive sound of an SSTV transmission, which is probably what Valve was counting on.
So yes, someone at Valve had the very clever idea of including SSTV broadcast signals INSIDE of the game, via the radios you can carry around. People immediately extracted the individual audio files from Portal's data files so that they could work with it, then ran it all through software which people normally would use for demodulating SSTV broadcasts from a real radio. Each audio stream produced an image.
Since SSTV is transmitted through audible sounds, any interference/noise introduced can cause a corrupted image. You'll notice in all the SSTV images retrieved so far that they contain static. This was apparently introduced by Valve on purpose. Whether this was simply supposed to emulate the realism of SSTV, or whether it's actually more information encoded into the stream as well, nobody seems to know as of yet. My bet is just on the realism, but who knows.
So, between using the morse code, SSTV, a real functioning BBS, ASCII artwork, etc, Valve has gone all out this time on this puzzle. They get massive geek love.
Amateur radio (sometimes called ham or short wave) operators have various ways of communicating with one another. One obvious method of course is voice. Another is morse code, which in fact is present in the updated Portal radios. Check the Steam forums for more info on what this was decoded into.
But another method of communication is called SSTV, for Slow-Scan Television. It basically means sending images over the air waves using basically the same kind of tones which you'd hear from a modem over a phone line. Those with even novice experience at amateur radio would probably recognize the distinctive sound of an SSTV transmission, which is probably what Valve was counting on.
So yes, someone at Valve had the very clever idea of including SSTV broadcast signals INSIDE of the game, via the radios you can carry around. People immediately extracted the individual audio files from Portal's data files so that they could work with it, then ran it all through software which people normally would use for demodulating SSTV broadcasts from a real radio. Each audio stream produced an image.
Since SSTV is transmitted through audible sounds, any interference/noise introduced can cause a corrupted image. You'll notice in all the SSTV images retrieved so far that they contain static. This was apparently introduced by Valve on purpose. Whether this was simply supposed to emulate the realism of SSTV, or whether it's actually more information encoded into the stream as well, nobody seems to know as of yet. My bet is just on the realism, but who knows.
So, between using the morse code, SSTV, a real functioning BBS, ASCII artwork, etc, Valve has gone all out this time on this puzzle. They get massive geek love.
Portal 2 then Left 4 Dead 3 then maybe a couple of TF2 updates...then maybe consider Episode 3. Seriously valve delay it as much as you can because I know that both you and I get the giggles when we see people scream bloody murder about episode 3 in every single news thread.
ARG, my toe!
ARG, my face!
ARG, my ARG!
This could be interesterimaterating.
My word. You cannot use it.
ARG, my face!
ARG, my ARG!
This could be interesterimaterating.
My word. You cannot use it.
*er hem*
WOOOOOOOOOOOO YEAH FTW
Hell yes Portal ftw. Yes I would love episode 3 but goddammit I want to shoot portals at things!
WOOOOOOOOOOOO YEAH FTW
Hell yes Portal ftw. Yes I would love episode 3 but goddammit I want to shoot portals at things!
