Steam Winter Sale ARG?

So I've done a 180 on this thing. I don't think it's going to end up being anything worth all the effort, and I also don't think they've done a very good job at all with this one considering how many wall's we've hit. The last few they did there were clear roads of progress to follow. We don't even know where were supposed to be looking in this one, and everyone is just throwing out random speculation and circling around back on to things that have been covered multiple times.

Makes me appreciate how awesome that original Portal one was. (A fucking BBS number? Amazing.)
 
Has anybody tried searching for Half Life 3 in the shop yet? Maybe it just appeared and everybody is too occupied with some random pixels to notice.
Maiden Voyage said:
I'm surprised people still think they'll announce HL3 via some ARG. Especially one that is Christmas themed.
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The Borealis is in a snowy area. You know what else is snowy? Christmas. Check.Mate.
 
well its been like 12 hours and nothing new has happened, everyone has hit a brick wall, even with the new comic page released. hopefully a new discovery is made soon.
 
The Laidlaw email is legit, and while I doubt a Valve employee would spoil an ARG, directly addressing and confirming it is unrelated to a game and is instead connected to the sale is a big difference from being coy.

So yeah. It's not about Half-Life. It's probably unrelated to any specific game, and instead a meta ARG related to the comic itself, or some sales related shenanigans.

EDIT: That being said while it's fun for shits and giggles, Valve should really be aware a Steam related ARG is instantly going to be correlated with a new game announcement.
 
EatChildren said:
EDIT: That being said while it's fun for shits and giggles, Valve should really be aware a Steam related ARG is instantly going to be correlated with a new game announcement.
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I think they must be AWARE of it, I'm just not sure the people involved CARE if it's misinterpreted. :P
 
EatChildren said:
The Laidlaw email is legit, and while I doubt a Valve employee would spoil an ARG, directly addressing and confirming it is unrelated to a game and is instead connected to the sale is a big difference from being coy.

So yeah. It's not about Half-Life. It's probably unrelated to any specific game, and instead a meta ARG related to the comic itself, or some sales related shenanigans.

EDIT: That being said while it's fun for shits and giggles, Valve should really be aware a Steam related ARG is instantly going to be correlated with a new game announcement.
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Honestly, that picture someone took that showed the lambda symbol with the circle around it was kinda bullshit on Valves part. Thats not cool.
 
Bufbaf said:
V5Nb0rn.png


yeah pretty sure there's something in the background, but I'm to n00b to figure out what. Just raised brightness/contrast on this one.
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I dunno, I think it's just an attempt to make it look like a page from a tattered old comic.
 
This really has come to a screeching halt for the time being. Either there is no new clues to be found and we have to wait for another page/ card to be unlocked, or the current clues are just to well hidden.
 
This will get solved like how every other ARG gets solved: an employee working for the ARG company that Valve subcontracted will post on social media with a sockpuppet some discovery which will then be quickly reposted by other sockpuppets, then the rest of us do what we're told to do.
 
God I remember that.

fhd9xsji.png
 
MrCunningham said:
This really has come to a screeching halt for the time being. Either there is no new clues to be found and we have to wait for another page/ card to be unlocked, or the current clues are just to well hidden.
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I dont know..theres still some numbers people havnt factored in yet...this was a recent post

"Converting 794E2CEA991 into decimal and then into coordinates and reversing them yields the following location, ie in the Arctic circle. Although this could be just wishful thinking for a link to the borealis and just a coincidence but still...
http://imgur.com/w1K1q5t"
 
Dunno if this has been posted yet. Someone emailed Marc Laidlaw about the ARG.

I5juH4x.png


Here's the email.

Here's the tomato sauce.

They apparently contacted him directly to confirm if the email was legit and apparently he said it was real. Apparently.

This just seems like some random seasonal ARG that has nothing to do with a game they are or are not making. Don't know why everyone keeps trying to relate everything to half life. I get that there's subtle references like the pixelated lambda + crowbar and that 1v7531 looks like a crowbar and a lambda, but Valve has been constantly trolling the community with subtle half life references since forever. Also notice how 1v7531 gives you the red herring badge? As in... It's an intentionally misleading clue to distract people from the actual solution?
 
Derp said:
Dunno if this has been posted yet. Someone emailed Marc Laidlaw about the ARG.

I5juH4x.png


Here's the email.

Here's the tomato sauce.

They apparently contacted him directly to confirm if the email was legit and apparently he said it was real. Apparently.

This just seems like some random seasonal ARG that has nothing to do with a game they are or are not making. Don't know why everyone keeps trying to relate everything to half life. I get that there's subtle references like the pixelated lambda + crowbar and that that 1v7531 looks like a crowbar and a lambda, but Valve has been constantly trolling the community with subtle half life references since forever. Also notice how 1v7531 gives you the red herring badge? As in... It's an intentionally misleading clue to distract people from the actual solution?
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Yep, all of that has been mentioned in the thread already. It could be a giant troll, and people are just waiting for confirmation with the final comic page.
 
Derp said:
Dunno if this has been posted yet. Someone emailed Marc Laidlaw about the ARG.

I5juH4x.png


Here's the email.

Here's the tomato sauce.

They apparently contacted him directly to confirm if the email was legit and apparently he said it was real. Apparently.

This just seems like some random seasonal ARG that has nothing to do with a game they are or are not making. Don't know why everyone keeps trying to relate everything to half life. I get that there's subtle references like the pixelated lambda + crowbar and that 1v7531 looks like a crowbar and a lambda, but Valve has been constantly trolling the community with subtle half life references since forever. Also notice how 1v7531 gives you the red herring badge? As in... It's an intentionally misleading clue to distract people from the actual solution?
Click to expand...

Oh really now, thanks for the info.
 
Blizzard said:
Yep, all of that has been mentioned in the thread already. It could be a giant troll, and people are just waiting for confirmation with the final comic page.
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It's not a troll, its an intentionally created ARG. It probably wont end in the reveal of a new Valve game, but I think it will reveal something interesting atleast
 
Derp said:
Dunno if this has been posted yet. Someone emailed Marc Laidlaw about the ARG.

I5juH4x.png


Here's the email.

Here's the tomato sauce.

They apparently contacted him directly to confirm if the email was legit and apparently he said it was real. Apparently.

This just seems like some random seasonal ARG that has nothing to do with a game they are or are not making. Don't know why everyone keeps trying to relate everything to half life. I get that there's subtle references like the pixelated lambda + crowbar and that 1v7531 looks like a crowbar and a lambda, but Valve has been constantly trolling the community with subtle half life references since forever. Also notice how 1v7531 gives you the red herring badge? As in... It's an intentionally misleading clue to distract people from the actual solution?
Click to expand...

Welp. Pack it up guys, see you all next year.
 
Its nothing guys, just Valve beeing Valve

Derp said:
Dunno if this has been posted yet. Someone emailed Marc Laidlaw about the ARG.

I5juH4x.png


Here's the email.

Here's the tomato sauce.

They apparently contacted him directly to confirm if the email was legit and apparently he said it was real. Apparently.

This just seems like some random seasonal ARG that has nothing to do with a game they are or are not making. Don't know why everyone keeps trying to relate everything to half life. I get that there's subtle references like the pixelated lambda + crowbar and that 1v7531 looks like a crowbar and a lambda, but Valve has been constantly trolling the community with subtle half life references since forever. Also notice how 1v7531 gives you the red herring badge? As in... It's an intentionally misleading clue to distract people from the actual solution?
Click to expand...

ashecitism said:
from Facepunch
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It has here^
 
Did anyone else have issues getting the Red Herring Badge? I did the search on a web browser and got the password box and put in the password, but I never got the badge.
 
Bluth54 said:
Did anyone else have issues getting the Red Herring Badge? I did the search on a web browser and got the password box and put in the password, but I never got the badge.
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Try with Chrome / IE. It didn't work for me with Firefox for some reason.
 
Taken from the steam forums:
Here's something else. The title "Grim Fandango Remastered" every letter can be used to spell " It's time gordon freeman", or "gordon freeman it's time"
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The letters, GRiM FANDANGO REMAstERED, all those letters used in spelling gordon freeman
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:)

Also someone posted this:
http://www.aperturescience.com/a/b/c/d/g/h/abcdgh/
Not sure if it is related?

Although I said this earlier I find it one hell of a coincidence that the sales end on the 5th and CES is on the 6th, it has to be something.... c'mon.
 
If this whole thing does just turn out to be for the comic/sale, i think it have turned out to be an entire waste of time. If the ARG just ends up having something like "____ Did it!" at the end, would anyone really care? It's not like whatever the reveal would be could be much of a surprise or of much interest, considering these are all things invented specifically for this one comic. We know nothing at all about the characters, events, setting, locations, backstory etc in the first place so it's not like it's a well-known setting people like and want to find out more about.

Without an already established lore of some sort, i doubt anyone is really going to be interested in what's going on. There's no reason to be invested in it. It would also be pointless to reveal something that would be revealed in the comic as well.
 
8-Bit Sunset said:
Hence the -> :)

Some of it is so OTT it bears repeating!
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Oh I didn't think you'd take it seriously :D Just wondering about those guys who actually buy into all that. Why are people so insane ;_;
 
The last page is up with no comments here so I'm guessing progress is super dead right now.

Even the comic confuses me a little. What happened to the green lady?
They act like she's dying or something but she doesn't seem to have injuries.
 
Blizzard said:
The last page is up with no comments here so I'm guessing progress is super dead right now.

Even the comic confuses me a little. What happened to the green lady?
They act like she's dying or something but she doesn't seem to have injuries.
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Mortally wounded by penguins I assume, they probably just didn't want to make the comic too gory.
 
Blizzard said:
The last page is up with no comments here so I'm guessing progress is super dead right now.

Even the comic confuses me a little. What happened to the green lady?
They act like she's dying or something but she doesn't seem to have injuries.
Click to expand...
Yeah, there's not a lot new shit happening. Lots of stalled progress
 
Blizzard said:
The last page is up with no comments here so I'm guessing progress is super dead right now.

Even the comic confuses me a little. What happened to the green lady?
They act like she's dying or something but she doesn't seem to have injuries.
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It's shown on the Card artwork, along with a few other details:

bd4fef1e18df1005c4bc9c2bee19ac8cb20352ff.jpg
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It's called "Redemption", and the description is "Taffy hurt Holly to cover his escape… but I wouldn’t let her sacrifice be in vain."

It does read awkwardly in the comic, though, since you don't need the card art or descriptions to understand the other events.

ArjanN said:
Mortally wounded by penguins I assume, they probably just didn't want to make the comic too gory.
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And yet "SONOFABITCH" was okay, kind of weird. Could've easily been changed to something else.
 
ArjanN said:
Mortally wounded by penguins I assume, they probably just didn't want to make the comic too gory.
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More specifically, the type of crime noir being parodied here tends to show PG-13-ish violence. Like, backhanding the woman counts as a major wound.
 
Well. Another wav has been found that had nato phonetic alphabet codes that gave the letters to get "bullet hell".

Should have been found days ago but does complete that gap.
 
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