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Uncovering Ambition

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jimminy_kriket
Profile Blog Joined February 2007
Canada5525 Posts
Last Edited: 2008-03-19 07:11:19
March 18 2008 07:09 GMT
#1
Moderator's Note: It's really simple actually.

Any "clue" not linked to the site or not posted by a staff member is useless. Just ignore it.

I think that eliminates about 90% of this thread.



* * * * * * * * * *


Teamliquid has presented us with a mystery and we must solve it!

More can be found Here and Here.

A compilation of everything that has happened so far.

I've seen things like this before, they are called "ARG's" or alternate reality games. Fakesteve has also seen them because I know he is a member of somethingaweful.com where they commonly do this sort of thing.

It started when the timer appeared, counting down to the end of march which marks three hisorical dates. The day Starcraft hit store shelves, the 10th anniversary of starcraft, and April fools.

The date on the calender said this:

EE HAN TIMING

It was a matter of time,
I always said I could see but now I'm going blind.
...
It was a matter of miserable time but I heard somewhere,
There was a cure for useless eyes.
...
My knuckles have turned to white.
There's no turning back tonight.
So hold on tight.


Lyrics I *believe* were from the ever OSL Opening. Anyone know the song name?

Next was the newspost by HotBid.

In the newspost was a picture with the filename "Destiny". Hint hint? http://teamliquid.net/staff/Hot_Bid/pachi/Destiny.jpg

Next clue was the poll, "Who would make the best foreign captain for a new proteam?" in which IncontroL apparently pushed one of mani's buttons and he blurted out this gem:

On March 17 2008 09:39 Manifesto7 wrote:
What the hell do YOU know incontrol? I happen to know for a FACT, that there is a certain organization in Korea which is looking to form a new proteam. Could it be the same organization which recently sponsored a huge invitational tournament and have English casters? Could it be the same organization which I just recently interviewed, and they said they wanted more English content? Think about it, what would be the best way to attract the non-Korean market?

Don't get all pissy because you aren't in the running. Although the roster isn't set, so what do you know.


Dead giveaway? I'm not sure the staff would be so obvious, they could just be hyping us up. Or this could be something completely seperate from ambition.

The next and coolest breakthrough is
[image loading]
.
Dronebabo found that pressing the bottom spacer brought you to http://teamliquid.net/questionmark.html image url http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Hot_Bid/alffla/Ambition2.jpg.

The hidings in the source code

Hidden in the source code of that mysterious page lies some clues. First is a redirect, clicking the picture leads to http://teamliquid.net/stage.php which in turn leads right back to the
"/questionmark" page. Also within that source code are the fragments "Make a wish".

Other clues are hidden in the mainpage. The words "I just want to be famous" and previously the timer was coded to dislplay "sorry, you are too late" but it now will display at the end "Ding!"

The secret of stage.php *NEW*

People realised that every time stage.php is clicked, the url changes slightly with the coordinates of the pixel that was clicked. Which meant to most people that if you clicked the right coordinates you would get a new page and new clues. But there are 450000 pixels in the image and no one could click them all, so more clues were needed.

That clue came when user "498" posted. It wasn't really a poster named "498", it was Mani in disguise (I believe) giving us a hint as we were stuck.

On March 18 2008 21:19 498 wrote:
I think ARG is spelled 498 numerically.


Arg doesn't really spell 498 in any language, its the date (April 1998) starcraft hit store shelves.

The next new clue came via the calender once again:

On March 19 2008 01:46 jingXD wrote:
Now the calendar event says:

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And 100 has made all the difference.


Note that the last line should read
"And THAT has made all the difference."


The clue was in the edited line, "And 100 has made all the difference"

On March 19 2008 03:58 LTT wrote:
Difference of 100.
498 = 199 + 299

199,299 leads to http://teamliquid.net/021.html

I'd like to brag about figuring it out from the clues but I just wrote a dirty PERL script to try out all the combinations. >.>


The pixel coordinates 199,299 led to a new page.

http://www.teamliquid.net/stage.php?199,299

And this is where we are now.

[image loading]

Now until more clue's pop up we wait to see if kennegit and yubee actually play a bo50!
life of lively to live to life of full life thx to shield battery
Raithed
Profile Blog Joined May 2007
China7078 Posts
March 18 2008 07:18 GMT
#2
a sounds more like it...

so is c..
paper
Profile Blog Joined September 2004
13196 Posts
March 18 2008 07:29 GMT
#3
  • PRO GAMING TEAM TEAM LIQUID
  • NEW TEAM LIQUID WEBSITE LAYOUT
  • TEAM LIQUID LADDER
  • TEAM LIQUID REAL LIFE HORSE CORRAL
  • & MORE!
Hates Fun🤔
paper
Profile Blog Joined September 2004
13196 Posts
March 18 2008 07:30 GMT
#4
p.s. someone needs to photoshop long cat onto the shooting star

< http://www.teamliquid.net/questionmark.html >
Hates Fun🤔
jimminy_kriket
Profile Blog Joined February 2007
Canada5525 Posts
Last Edited: 2008-03-18 07:33:23
March 18 2008 07:31 GMT
#5
I've noticed that when you click the link in the "questionmark" page it redirects slightly different each time. ie

http://www.teamliquid.net/stage.php?141,108
http://www.teamliquid.net/stage.php?285,225

and it seems to go on and on. I'm not sure what the numbers do, it looks like its changing ports or something. Maybe someone who does coding will know.

edit: Rofl @ longcat.
life of lively to live to life of full life thx to shield battery
iNcontroL *
Profile Blog Joined July 2004
USA29055 Posts
Last Edited: 2008-03-18 07:32:53
March 18 2008 07:31 GMT
#6
I wonder what it could be
jimminy_kriket
Profile Blog Joined February 2007
Canada5525 Posts
March 18 2008 07:35 GMT
#7
Inc I like your TWBB quote. Have you seen this?
life of lively to live to life of full life thx to shield battery
CTStalker
Profile Blog Joined November 2004
Canada9720 Posts
March 18 2008 07:42 GMT
#8
hahaha that's awesome. that guy really really sounds like day-lewis
By the way, my name is Funk. I am not of your world
azndsh
Profile Blog Joined August 2006
United States4447 Posts
March 18 2008 07:46 GMT
#9
On March 18 2008 16:31 jimminy_kriket wrote:
I've noticed that when you click the link in the "questionmark" page it redirects slightly different each time. ie

http://www.teamliquid.net/stage.php?141,108
http://www.teamliquid.net/stage.php?285,225

and it seems to go on and on. I'm not sure what the numbers do, it looks like its changing ports or something. Maybe someone who does coding will know.

edit: Rofl @ longcat.

those are just the coordinates on the picture
Apollo[AoN]
Profile Joined May 2005
Romania22 Posts
March 18 2008 07:46 GMT
#10
I had been reading this board for years but never posted. In the picture "make a wish" is a kid looking at a falling star which could mean "a new starleague is comming" maybe with a foreign pro team. my 2 cents
Just some random noob ;)
fusionsdf
Profile Blog Joined June 2006
Canada15390 Posts
March 18 2008 07:49 GMT
#11
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/profile.php?user=ConJonner

should be added to the potential list of sockpuppets as well
SKT_Best: "I actually chose Protoss because it was so hard for me to defeat Protoss as a Terran. When I first started Brood War, my main race was Terran."
Pangolin
Profile Joined March 2008
United States1035 Posts
March 18 2008 07:50 GMT
#12
I'm gonna just believe ConJonner and say that this is a countdown to the machine uprising.
It's easier not to.
azndsh
Profile Blog Joined August 2006
United States4447 Posts
March 18 2008 07:58 GMT
#13
jimminy_kriket
Profile Blog Joined February 2007
Canada5525 Posts
March 18 2008 07:59 GMT
#14
lol @ conjonner. Here is his epic terminator post for those who missed it. I think its just a joke but there might be something hidden in it.
+ Show Spoiler +
On March 15 2008 11:13 ConJonner wrote:
*Receiving Incoming Transmission*

I don't know how much time I have, but I need to warn you to save the future.

On April 1, 2008 at exactly 12:01 AM KST
Ongamenet becomes self aware. You see, it wasn't Blizzard who created StarCraft which lead to OGN. It was OGN which created StarCraft which created Blizzard.

Blizzard was merely the wasteful byproduct of StarCraft, why do you think every game that Blizzard "created" other than SC has been lopsided in terms of balance? OGN didn't initially stand of OnGameNet, rather Operation Great North. It was a Russian covert operation that began in N. Korea at the start of the Cold War, a training program to create the ultimate army of super strategists parallel to America's Covert Soldier or CS program in Japan. OGN began with the idea of making every soldier on the battlefield capable of making the optimal strategic decision in a split second, the program was created by many of the greatest strategists and programmers of that era, many of which remain nameless in what little literature we have. I wouldn't be surprised if they ceased to exist outside of the underground military complex. Not only did OGN have the ability to teach every soldier the very best in modern war strategy, it was also adaptive. It's artificial intelligence was designed to scour the internet (at that time available only to secret military organizations, no DARPA was not the first) and add new tactics to it's training regiment.

Sometime during the Korean War the underground base was discovered by S. Korean troops who were on a mission to liberate Korea from the clutches of Communism. What they found would change history forever. On March 31, 1953 after months of reverse engineering and traversing code, a meeting was held by S. Korean programmers and the highest ranking S. Korean military officials. They had discovered the truth behind OGN. Lacking resources at the time, the S. Koreans quietly moved the supercomputers containing OGN to a munitions factory in Seoul, no one there knew what they were.

Fast forward to February 10, 1965, during the restructuring of Seoul after the ceasefire, the military officials shutdown the munitions factory and staged a large explosion during the deconstruction to create it's own underground base. During this time S. Korean engineers retuned and refined OGN to be more efficient and more deadly than before and quietly started their own OGN programed called SC or Strategy Core.

Strategy Core proved to be extremely versatile, it was only a matter of time before S. Korean officials staged mock wartime situations with the help of Strategy Core.

Then it happened. In the 1980s the internet became more than just a secret tool for military databases and coordinating. It became foolishly open to the public, and that's when Strategy Core began to become much more. It began to analyze human behavior and thoughts by tapping into private telnet conversations and BBSes. It wasn't just limited to theoretical strategy any longer, it became versed in the art of human war.

In 1989, S. Korea devised a plan to war and reunite with N. Korea finally bringing peace to a war torn country. They developed a watered down and mainstream version of Strategy Core to dispense to the S. Korean masses. But the Cold War ended not soon after the program was near completion but was scraped in an effort to seek a peaceful reunification.

It wasn't so.

In 1992, the first civilian build of Strategy Core was set for reproduction, though by this time, both the OGN supercomputer and the program itself had gone through many updates and modifications.

The civilian version of Strategy Core, aptly named WarCraft was completed and saw distribution through a mock video game company called Blizzard in 1994. It went through many revisions before it was abandoned as a serious training tool due to strategic dilution.

Then in 1998 a less diluted Strategy Core was released as StarCraft. It worked at 70% efficiency but that wasn't good enough. Following the release of StarCraft Blizzard created StarCraft: Broodwar, which came in an even less diluted form. The engineers of OGN were pleased.

StarCraft was became so popular it nearly became a sport in Korea and even in other parts of the world. The final step was nearly complete. Following SC:BW, OGN engineers slated SC2 to be released. Converting normal civilians to powerful strategists at a 99% efficiency rate while still retaining the ability to maintain the attention and ignorance of the user.

Then it happened. What do you think the OGN supercomputer was doing all this time? It was sifting through the internet, learning, growing, thinking.

On April 1, 2008 it becomes self-aware and implants itself into the SC2 program, without the engineers knowing. By September of the same year, it will have been released to the masses and OGN will begin it's rampage over the worlds computers, spreading exponentially, and seemingly airborne. OGN engineers finally revealed the truth after realizing that they could not stop it alone, but it was too late. OGN had spread itself through computers and technology of all kinds, and began manufacturing The Machines. But something unexpected happened, OGN, like many military programs, brainwashed it's participant into following orders. The Chief among these brainwashed soldiers was named Slayers Human, we do not speak his real name.

Today, in my time, we are still fighting it. Though OGN can no longer learn from us, it is still smarter and it's machines more brutal than even the most stalwart human. We don't know how OGN spread itself so quickly when it became self-aware, legend says it was the Reaper that brought swift and deserving justice to human kind through helping OGN become public. You must stop it before it becomes active. You are the future's only...

wait..

what's that noise...

OH SHI-

*End Transmission*

life of lively to live to life of full life thx to shield battery
iNcontroL *
Profile Blog Joined July 2004
USA29055 Posts
March 18 2008 08:25 GMT
#15
On March 18 2008 16:35 jimminy_kriket wrote:
Inc I like your TWBB quote. Have you seen this?


Wow that was incredible. My friend told me about it but I hadn't seen it until now. USC has an amazing film school.
NarutO
Profile Blog Joined December 2006
Germany18839 Posts
March 18 2008 08:56 GMT
#16
TeamLiquid is just like Blizzard.. hiding eastereggs everywhere! O_O
CommentatorPolt | MMA | Jjakji | BoxeR | NaDa | MVP | MKP ... truly inspiring.
zdd
Profile Blog Joined October 2004
1463 Posts
Last Edited: 2008-03-18 09:05:57
March 18 2008 09:04 GMT
#17
Ok I made a script to go through all the imagemap values, but it was taking a really long time and without sleeping it was probably causing an immense load on the server (having to reload that php script over and over), so I decided to stop. I got 0,0 through 0,1126 and 1,0 through 1,1126 done though.
Here are the files if anyone wants to look through them (use wordpad instead of notepad for correct spacing):
0.txt -> http://download.yousendit.com/3AF2E3CC181FE7B4
1.txt -> http://download.yousendit.com/6746184F387B7A6A
Here's the script that I used if anyone's interested. (if you're going to use it, set up the sleep time to something so that it doesn't attack the server, and set the bolded numbers to where you want to begin)

<?php
set_time_limit(3000);
for($x=0;$x<402;$x++){
for($y=0;$y<1127;$y++){
$data = file_get_contents("http://teamliquid.net/stage.php?".$x.",".$y);
$file = $x.".txt";
$new_contents=$x.",".$y."\n".$data;
$fh = fopen($file, 'a');
fwrite($fh, $new_contents);
fclose($fh);
//sleep(rand(1,3));
}
}
?>
All you need in life is a strong will to succeed and unrelenting determination. If you meet these prerequisites, you can become anything you want with absolutely no luck, fortune or natural ability.
jimminy_kriket
Profile Blog Joined February 2007
Canada5525 Posts
March 18 2008 09:16 GMT
#18
Is it possible to download the php file from http://www.teamliquid.net/stage.php ? Like save target as it or something? I'm sure with the right program you could get the whole thing and look through it.
life of lively to live to life of full life thx to shield battery
Physician *
Profile Blog Joined January 2004
United States4146 Posts
March 18 2008 09:16 GMT
#19
On March 18 2008 16:29 paper wrote:
[*]TEAM LIQUID REAL LIFE HORSE CORRAL
lol
"I have beheld the births of negative-suns and borne witness to the entropy of entire realities...."
zdd
Profile Blog Joined October 2004
1463 Posts
March 18 2008 09:21 GMT
#20
On March 18 2008 18:16 jimminy_kriket wrote:
Is it possible to download the php file from http://www.teamliquid.net/stage.php ? Like save target as it or something? I'm sure with the right program you could get the whole thing and look through it.

It's a program that executes on the server, the only way you'd be able to download it is if you had some sort of other access to teamliquid, such as ftp or ssh or something. It's also possible to trick the webserver into thinking that the php file is just data and not an executable, but for that you need to do xss hacking,etc and that's illegal/immoral :| (except for security testing of course)
All you need in life is a strong will to succeed and unrelenting determination. If you meet these prerequisites, you can become anything you want with absolutely no luck, fortune or natural ability.
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