Guild Wars 2

ChaosKirin.1328:

1. Probe respawns.
2. people fight the mobs around the probe.
3. People destroy the probe.
4. You run across a destroyed probe.

Repeat.

I’ve seen this during my hunt for energy cores. However, if you run into a probe that has been destroyed and plundered some time ago, you cannot interact with it at all.

Apparently the probes far away from lion’s arch (Orr, frostgorge…) are self destructing. That goes well with the fact that the one in LA turned green.

However, if you’ve found the good location, why still thumping and not self destruct as well ?

Wandered around in Brisban Wildlands with a low level character when I noticed a destroyed probe.

What does this mean ? Anybody found this in other zones ? So far probes in lornar’s pass and bloodtide coast are working and guarded.

Rabe.2456:

If you assume every square represents one symbol, then you can’t tell to which squares the vertical lines and points belong to. You’d have to make a rule to ensure uniqueness. For example if you say every square can only have a vertical line on the left side, you’d be okay. But that also limits the number of possible symbols.

I’ve been trying to do this for quite some time, but there are symbols that cannot be properly separated. See attachments in earlier posts in the thread.

As time passes I am more and more convinced that this code is an hoax created for purely aesthetic reasons. Here are my reasons :

1) Some lines are mirrored, others are not : cheap process to generate graphically different lines of symbols that can be used to fill up Scarlet’s screen.

2) No obvious way to disentangle large symbols. Even assuming that there is 1 point of junction between two fused symbols, there are many possibilities for some symbols.

3) Even if we manage to disentangle our symbols the right way, the text resists frequential analysis (especially the analysis of bigrams). This is because of mirrored lines that screw up frequencies.

Conclusion : I am not investing more time to decipher something that is not meant to be cracked.

Nike.2631:

The thing that puzzles me is if letters can be combined by horizontal compression why is there a full gap between the ‘T’ and the backward ‘L’ near the middle of the first line of the 7 line block, since you could push those two symbols together with no loss of data?

Edit: Oh… Those vertical gaps may be the spaces between words. While ‘e’ is the most common letter in a typical blob of English, spaces are the most common character…

That is a good question albeit one that can be answered easily : it apears that there is no more than one point of junction betwen symbols. This rule is here to avoid confusion (I presume). Let us simulate your example (picture below).

TaCktiX.6729:

My current hypothesis is assuming total overlap. As in, EVERY “block” of 4 segments perfectly overlaps with the next block over, including dots. Based on the frequencies I’m 90% done with (I will edit this post to have them), I don’t think this is baseless at all. There are only 2 “nothing” blocks, and they occur in the first two lines of B and all of A thanks to the reflection aspect.

Link to frequencies

Based on this, there are 34 different symbols. If the only-dots ones are removed, it becomes 27. The x/y nomenclature is how many occurrences in B vs. how many in A.

That’s a lot of effort thank you. However a couple of remarks :

1) I don’t think that you splitted the symbols the right way look at the first image below : it appears that one cannot combine two symbols that overlap.

2) secondly it appears that there is some hidden rules on what symbols can be fused. My guesses :
-No overlapping (image 1)
- continuity of the line (image 2) or “T” shape (image 3) [an “L” after a “_” becomes a reversed “T”, however there are many possibilities that can give the same result]

I Am Dansker.7105:

Thedenofsin.7340:

I think I cracked the code. It’s weird – it has these same letters appearing over and over again:

BESURETODRINKYOUROVALTINE

BE SURE TO DRINK YOUR OVALTINE
that would be pretty random

For it to be valid though, you need to show how you got to it in order for us to replicate your result.

That is called a troll.

On a more serious note I’ve started to do the frequency analysis but the approach is compronised. The boyz from reddit have done an amazing job at narrowing the set of symbols .

The problen is : how do you break the large symbols in smaller ones (I have a theory about it but there are more than one possible solution, see attachment)

Note : black line is most likely hypothesis ; green line is possible but unsure

SPOILER WARNING FROM EOTM

It appears the beacon in LA has turned green.

At least we know exactly now where the giant drill will be put to use. (not really a surprize after all). By the way does the beacon location corresponds with the red cross on the map ? How about the other crosses ?

We also know that Canach is gonna make a come back very soon. He’s just telling you over and over that’s he’s the good guy (and hero tron should be waiting around the corner too).

And I guess that we have to wait for hotfix to discover what the **** are Braham and Taimi doing in the mists.

These are the invader shoulders (WvW armor set)

TaCktiX.6729:

I’m doing a frequency analysis right now, and it’s matching up fairly clearly with normal written language.

Can you post your results even if they are incomplete ?

The armor I was talking about is the one on the bottom of the image. It suffers the infamous “Anise armor syndrom” : it’s in the game, it looks really cool and it’s not for you.

For the record, these sets of armor were among the first designed for sylvari. At the time they did not have their actual look (Google Caithe concept art to see it by yourself).

TaCktiX.6729:

- It’s a substitution cipher, not a derivation of the pigpen cipher.

I also came to this conclusion. All we have to do is to clearly identify the set of symbols we have.

TaCktiX.6729:

- The open question is where the characters “stop.” Trying to reckon it by contiguous segments does not work (the characters only start occurring twice after 16 symbols), and if this is a single-step cipher that’s highly unlikely under any form of English.

The criteria i use to draw my segments is the space taken by the symbols. It appears that the straight lines have a standardized length. This is also what led me to believe that some symbols were in fact two smaller symbols sticked together. When one splits these longer symbols, the number of available pictograms shrinks to more acceptable levels.

TaCktiX.6729:

- The A and B segments are the only ones that matter. Remember that in the Lair the two sides are running in opposite directions. There isn’t a “further cipher” beyond A and B.

Couldn’t have said better.

@WatchTheShow : Very nice find.

One friend told me ingame to look closer at the dragon’s maw : it appears that the painting points to a location on Scarlet’s screen

See the pictures. I do not claim that mordemoth is below southsun cove, I claim that the painting is pointing at three different locations in tyria. Southsun is one of the best candidate because of its “unexplored” state compared to the other ones but I cannot rule out the other locations.

New draft for code cracking. I assumed the symbol that appears the most often is the letter “E”. I also managed to disentangle some symbols.

Rights now we have 24 different symbols to work with althought I believe some of them are punctuation.

Feel free to fill the blanks if you have a good theory in mind.

The Kurt.2518:

I’m still intrigued by the skeleton in that cage… Whom could it belong to? :O

Omadd ? We know that he’s dead and connected to Scarlet after all.

Basically what the title says. I’ve been looking today for the Herald NPCs that keep you up to date with the living story, but I couldn’t find them at their regular location.

What is the plan of Anet regarding them ?

I REALLY care about the sylvari one for he had an armor not seen on any other NPC. It’s always heartbreaking to see such piece of awesomeness disappear in oblivion. (If somebody has a screenshot of him, feel free to post)

I don’t think a special meaning can be inferred from mirrorred symbols. Look at 6 and 9 for example. It’s just a cheap way to create more symbols.

Ayrilana.1396:

The marionette champs required less skill than the gauntlet fights.

Compare what is comparable : gauntlet is for one and only one person. The wardens are for 4 persons at least.

Strugar and chomper are a pain to face alone but with two players (one cc and one dps) it’s a piece of cake.

The skills required for the marionette champions are simply different from the ones needed to do the gauntlet.

This is an interesting strategy but a “quit or double” one. Basically you are trading off number of allowed fails with probability of success at each attempt.

My problem with this : you can’t prevent people for being weak players and there is a significant probability that these weak players find themselves together on the same Platform thus screwing the attempt.

Example : boss 3 If the bombs go off it’s usually party wipe no matter the number of players on the Platform.
Example 2 : boss 4 The AoE madness (sometimes the entire Platform is covered with orange and black) means that 6 players have as many chances to be wiped as 3 players.

The only thing I am unsure off is the scaling of the champion regulator. If it doesn’t scale, then your strategy might be a sound one.

@The Kurt : That’s a first draft. Some symbols have multiple credible decomposition and I let you decide which ones are relevant. The wurm attempt in Augury Rock has failed again (because of dead ppl refusing to waypoint O_o ) and I’m too tired to proceed further for now.

Aajolea.8132:

hmm seems to be just a block of letters+ numbers in a font of sci fi flavour, block is without words but just to have a repeating wallpaper illusion of ‘data’ to represent scarlets plan and design being beyond out comprehension. If it were actual readable text relevant to the story it’s be more readily translated and relevant to revealing her plan as part of this update for the players. However as ther eis no quest prompt or NPC asking what it means can we help? then i suspect it is merely decorative in purpose.

Also my thoughts. However the best way to make sure that this is just false text is to fail to get anything intelligible out of it.

Millillion.5914:

42 characters is a lot. How many could be junk?

Not Junk, just two letters/symbols sticked together. I’ll try to figure out who is what.

Ok here are my two cents :

I think the Pigpen cipher is a dead end. There is no symbol obviously linked to the “s” letter (which should appear really often in English/New Krytan).

What I’ll try to do is to create a list of all the different symbols and then perform a frequential analysis. (edit : attachment, I’ll have to decompose the big symbols in two smaller ones to proceed further)

However the more I think about it the more I am convinced that this is just fake text.

Edit : The table below summarizes the number of occurrences of each unique symbol in the paragraph labeled BD in the OP image. It appears we have a candidate symbol for the letter E (i.e the one that appears 8 times)

Josh Foreman.8250:

Wow. Nice to see all the time and thought I put into the details of the room are being noticed and appreciated! Thanks!

The nice thing about video game is that everything exists for a reason.

That’s what I like to keep in mind when I’m trying to guess what nasty monsters you guys will throw at us

@Syryn : good finding for the heads. The great destroyer is dead for good and this painting is certainly not him.

Tom Gore.4035:

Ah now I get it. ANet will solve the other cities being graveyards by blowing up LA. Nice job

So what will be the next center of the world? My money is on DR.

I don’t think anet is ready to remove permanent content after all the whining about temporary content in the LW. My money is not on permanent destruction of LA.

Also, check the dialogue of this NPC : Agent Frovik

That’s a big hint for Scarlet’s next moves.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

It’s a pretty vague map, and the cross seems to be all over Lion’s Arch. It’s kind of hard to say that it is pointing out the FotM portal specifically.

Indeed the map is vague : it is the map of the region when you haven’t explored it (see attachments)
However, when you cross reference it this is much more clear.

Look on the map, it’s right next to fort marriner on the west.

The Xs are for : the durmand priory HQ, the island of the chantry of secrets, the Vigil’s fort and the FotM portal.

A thought that suddenly came out of my mind. Is the finale of this season introduce the villain for the next season ?

The devs have stated before that this LW season is not going to include dragon (if somebody can find the ref, it would be nice since I failed). We also know that the next LW season is likely to include dragons.

However there are evidences that scarlet is controled by a dragon (you mess up with chaos/dragon energy and a creepy thing communicates with you using images of destruction, sounds like dragon to me).

What if after the defeat of Scarlet, we do get hints about the entity that controlled her and go after in the next LW season ?

Or Marjory could sacrifice herself to save Kasmeer, but we are going offtopic here.

So with material gathered in Scarlet’s Lair and in previous releases we do know the following :
– possible attack of 3 orders HQ and the FotM portal (locations of the red “X”).
- Giant drill extravaganza in a near future as well as the aethercanon currently under testing at Lornar’s pass (actual LW release).
– Scarlet is mad (not a surprize) and probably possessed/driven mad by a powerful entity, possibly a dragon. (Scarlet’s diary)
– there’s a mender running around that might know more about Scarlet. Link with E ? (Still in the diary)
– Taimi knows more than what she told us. (She’s studied Scarlet for months)
– Scarlet has a knack with prehistoric art and grotto painting (dragon painting)
– Scarlet is interested in changing the world by destroying it then re-creating it. (It is in essence what is written on the metronome Anet sent to massively). I’d just like to recall that the mists are the origin of the universe in the lore. If I wanted to reconstruct the world, I’d probably look here first.

Theories atm are :
– Scarlet will attack (possibly destroy the Grove)
– Scarlet will dig her way to the depth of tyria either to free or attack primordus.
– Scarlet will nuke lion’s arch as part of her plan to destroy the world with the giant canon (Evon and other NPC are shouting everywhere that this will happen)
– If I am forgetting anything let me know.

My understanding of all this : attack a specific location (the grove, LA or DR) is anything but a distraction. She’s trying to change the world remember. You’re not reconstructing the world by nuking a specific location of the map.

The attack on the orders HQs are only a distraction to prevent the orders or the Pact to defend LA. The true target is not LA in itself but the mist portal. What she will do with the portal is up to your imagination.

The only point that I am unsure of is the status of Scarlet as a dragon servant. It seems unlikely but we are lacking evidences to rule the hypothesis out.

Mad speculation anyway.

VOLKON.1290:

CaptainVanguard.4925:

I’m calling it now, the Pale Tree gets destroyed.

One problem with that… Sylvari would be doomed to extinction. Without the Pale Tree, no new Sylvari.

+1

The Pale Tree can’t be destroyed for it is an important piece of personnal story → This has to remain unaffected by the living world. It can be attacked (no problem with this idea), but it can never be destroyed for good.

True, but Taimi has not been very communicative about what she knows so far. She just explained that Scarlet’s actions are linked to dragons….. but everything in Tyria is somewhat linked to dragons.

I do agree with your guts though. She definitely knows more than us.

I’ve been reading through every topic I could find about Scarlet’s plan and there are two things that we have not discussed about yet.

1) Is E the mender that Scarlet mentions in her journal ?

As far as we know, E is the person who knew that Scarlet was going to hit Tyria hard (first warning back during Dragon Bash). Scarlet has remained very elusive about her plans/personnality/background. The only person who could be informed was the mender she consulted before turning crazy for good (cf diary in the lair)

2) According to Agent Frovik in Kessex hills, Scarlet is interested in the mists. My question is : How exactly do you access the mists with a giant drill ?
As far as I know there is a nice portal that leads to the mists in LA (no need for a drill). By the way, this portal is one of the crosses on the map in her lair. There is something about this portal.

What to think about this ? I don’t know. However these info have been ignored somehow and can help us guess what Scarlet is truly up to. What are your opinion about it guys ?