[ozzie]

I can't believe nobody made a topic about it already!

Valve silently updated the original Portal and put radios into the game that picked up transmissions at certain points in the level. This was the start of an Alternate Reality Game. During its run Portal also received a new ending and it ended with the announcement of Portal 2!
Personally, I liked Portal, it was funny, creative, and unique. I would've preferred an announcement of Half Life 2: Episode 3, but still, after having read the Game Informer article I'm pretty excited!

All the info about the Alternate Reality Game and much more can be found at portalwiki.net!

[Kazmajik]

Yes! I've been anticipating this game, as I loved Portal. I can't wait for this to come out this fall.

[JUUUICE!]

If you own the original, there has been some twist updates. Including an altered ending.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7lgqS-yq88

Party time?

[Intense Degree]

I really hope they can do the original justice, but I am definitely going to get this anyway!

[Denaron]

Portal is an interesting game, but unfortunately I don't have the stomach for another one. It makes me dizzy!

[HaroldO]

I'll use the same criteria I use with all games with DRM: I'll buy it when it's really cheap. But I'm happy to see they are finally making a Portal full game. The original was great, but was more of a bonus on the Orange Box.

[Monolith]

Originally Posted by HaroldO

I'll use the same criteria I use with all games with DRM: I'll buy it when it's really cheap. But I'm happy to see they are finally making a Portal full game. The original was great, but was more of a bonus on the Orange Box.

I really thing there is a huge difference between an Obtrusive DRM than a simple Front End that is required to play the game, requiring internet for first time play. You can install it on as many computers as you want, and you can share it with your friends if you are willing to give them you're user information. Also it is one of the best digital distribution services to date with extremely fast downloading speeds.

[HaroldO]

Originally Posted by Monolith

I really thing there is a huge difference between an Obtrusive DRM than a simple Front End that is required to play the game, requiring internet for first time play. You can install it on as many computers as you want, and you can share it with your friends if you are willing to give them you're user information. Also it is one of the best digital distribution services to date with extremely fast downloading speeds.

I agree, but unfortunately that's not exactly how Steam works. But to avoid turning this into a "DRM sucks" thread I'm sending you a private message with the reasons why I don't agree with your non obtrusive argument instead of posting it here.

I think I'll buy this eventually, though. I'll wait for the reviews before making up my mind.

[nonax]

@HaroldO: Now I am curious, what do you know about Steam and DRM that I don't know? Could you maybe start a new thread in the general section?

[HaroldO]

Originally Posted by nonax

@HaroldO: Now I am curious, what do you know about Steam and DRM that I don't know? Could you maybe start a new thread in the general section?

I don't really claim to know more everyone, I'm sorry if that sounded like that. I meant that by default every time you launch a game it has to log into Steam. This is not a one time activation. I assume that to most broadband users this is seamless but I'm limited to 128 kbs where I currently live and this process can take minutes. Having to stop downloads and your browser while waiting to launch a game is something of a bother. This is the point where somebody mentions the Offline Mode, which is great if you only use every once in a while but reportedly unreliable if you use it frequently.

About creating a thread... I dunno, there are so many of threads like these on the internet and they always seem to follow the same pattern that ends up with people insulting each other or making sarcastic remarks. My original intention was just to say that even though I'm happy they're developing a sequel to Portal it already has a flaw, at least to me or anyone else that . It's just my personal policy of never paying full price for game with DRM. I don't care if other people aren't bothered by steam. I don't want to be that vegan guy that rants every time someone orders a burger. So I'm not commenting any further on the topic of Steam/DRM, at least not in this thread but feel free to send me a PM or IM.

[UPtimist]

Sorry to dig up an old thread (not as old as the original Portal thread that I was going to dig up first though). So...

I finally finished Portal, now that it was free. Love it.

Anyways, I meant to ask about this ARG thingy they put in, can anybody explain it in layman's terms ("speedy thing goes in, speedy thing come out")? I mean, you have the sort of morse codes that you get with the radios somehow... Then you need to crack the messages, then do something in real life? I mean, I saw a thread about (and with) images that they somehow got, something about phone numbers, weird stuff I couldn't understand at all...

Or how does it work?

Anyways, glad to have Portal 2 a full game, Portal ended so soon... (though there's still the bonus maps and dev commentary to go through )

[ozzie]

Here's an overview of the Alternate Reality Game, but admittedly it doesn't explain much how the fans figured things out.
For example, the thing with the MD5 hashes. MD5 is an algorithm that allows you to check if a file you have is the one it should be. Like, when you download something and you want to be sure that the download wasn't corrupted, you use MD5 to check for that. The hash to do this with is a 32 characters long string.

There were 26 radio transmissions added with the Portal update, and one of them was a morse signal that spelt "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog", a common test phrase for fonts and typewriters because it contains all letters of the alphabet. This somehow suggested to the fans that what they're looking for is a MD5 hash.

It's impossible to figure out what the data is the hash is used to check against, because it's ambivalent, since different data can have the same hash. But there are online search engines where you can enter a MD5 hash and it might give you back the data, and that's how the fans got to the BBS number.
Well, maybe it's also possible to find out what the data is when you know a part of it. They expected to get a BBS number from Seattle (Valve was there once), so they knew what the area code was. So maybe with that it was possible to bruteforce the data. But I have no idea.

Anyway, someone recognized the seemingly random sounds of most radio transmissions as pictures transmitted per sound. There are programs with which you can convert sounds into pictures. They found out what the correct order of the pictures was and therefore pieced together the MD5 hash from the numbers and letters pictured on it.
With that they got the BBS number.
It took a while until someone found a way to connect, especially since all kinds of people simply tried to call the number, which was apparently a distraction. The BBS transmitted pictures as ASCII art. At some point it showed a progress bar. When it filled up, Portal 2 was announced.

[UPtimist]

I read a little, I love this thing even though it's way over my head of course. Now I'm just wondering whether anyone tried in the BBS the login/password that you can find in the first side-room in Portal (which was cjohnson/tier3). You know, they say that they were able to login with backup/backup. Or does the former password have something to do with some other login? (Edit: though reading a little further, it seems that the information so far has all been in the transmissions so it would be odd if that was in fact used there)

Obviously this isn't the place to ask, but then I don't know what is, so...

(Edit2): Well, it works at aperturescience.com (Also, awesome site, and great questionnaire or whatever )



Great of Valve to do something like this.