THE FORMIDINE RIFT MYSTERY (Part 4)

I'm ready.

<snip>

So... fix it!

Thanks for that. It was fair and reasonable and good to read. You're quite correct. Issues in my process and the limitations of the art of the possible aren't the fault or responsibility of players and it was poor form of me to 'flannel' that. Agreed. I was probably a little salty myself. Thanks for pointing it out.

As for 'the end'. The ED story is much bigger than all of this, this is a mere 'arc' within it. As arcs go, this one is indeed drawing to a conclusion. We're not there yet though, hopefully the upcoming denouement has been clearly telegraphed. I want to players to decide that outcome.

Cheers,

Drew.
 
my threoy on what this rift mystery could be

Here's my theory on all of this. A corporation or a alliance was formed when the thargoids started to show themselves amongst players and npcs which triggered excitement in the bubble. So all of these contingencys was put in to place to keep the populace in check and find out ways to combat the thargoids when the need arises.

It's a possibility that this "Organization" is setting up shop in the col 70 sector to conduct these "experiments" unhindered except when what's her name( sorry can't remember the name) started all of this fiasco in the lore.(do correct me if I'm wrong on the lore thing) Now fast forward that to the events of this derelict ship being discovered that the crew was killed to hide "something" that could start a chain of events if found out, which hints that something has been boiling three years prior to the discovery of the vessel.

(mind you in-game this ship has been lost for Three years and shortly after first contact earlier in 3303, we've been seeing....................bad things happing or what has happened to people I.E. being murdered in space, lost memory's, and ETC.)

It could be that this "Organization" has been playing let's hide in the shadows game type to keep certain secrets out of prying eyes so that the people don't start asking questions which probably caused this "alliance" or "corporation" to form where this "organization" now has breathing room to conduct more experiments more freely because of the possibility they might have political pull.

I don't know if this could be a Cerberus type movement and it could be (mass effect 2&3 reference) but whatever it is this evidence so far has shown that all of this is something bad is coming our way and we need to stand ready for what lies ahead.
 
Thanks for that. It was fair and reasonable and good to read. You're quite correct. Issues in my process and the limitations of the art of the possible aren't the fault or responsibility of players and it was poor form of me to 'flannel' that. Agreed. I was probably a little salty myself. Thanks for pointing it out.

As for 'the end'. The ED story is much bigger than all of this, this is a mere 'arc' within it. As arcs go, this one is indeed drawing to a conclusion. We're not there yet though, hopefully the upcoming denouement has been clearly telegraphed. I want to players to decide that outcome.

Cheers,

Drew.

Let's just hope the conclusion isn't... "and griefers got her. The end."
 
I think long quests which ends up being head of another long quest tend to leave people salty. Audio logs are amazing. Ship is cool too...although lights on and unused look is something FD wish would work on more for wrecks. At least ship should be dark and spooky ;)

As someone not involved in seeking out mysteries of Elite it is a delight and fun to follow people who actually look around for these secrets. Don't forget that.

Also Drew and FD - thank you. Whole FR plot and mystery is imho well designed and written. There's always room for improvement but for first taunting and approach in this kind of story telling is...very good. I feel immersed, frightened, thrilled. Keep them coming!
 
Fair enough...but that kinda of puts the brakes on her "take a line from Reorte and Riedquat...And just keep going" spiel doesn't it?

No. That was her description of how to find the Rift. She did not say she had crossed it, nor used that route to cross it.

- - - Updated - - -

Okey, I think now we have this clues for the next step:

-DB-IB Fi(0) T-1319 SUM(10,7,5,3)

-On the audios from the derelict ship you can see that this one found is clearly one of some ("I'll have to leave clues for
others to follow"./"That's where I'm going next"....). Follow the path of souls = dead crews.

-Also there is a reference for HexEdit (a drug?) on the audios. A quickly search on Google said it is a tool which you can... hacking Elite? really?, well, I think it could be a drug. I read people used it to increase their level. Maybe there is a relation between this and the clues on the video.

I downloaded an HexEditor (courtesy of Google XD), and I'm trying to find something related with the video clue inside the Elite's EXE file.

edit: a thought

maybe DB-IB Fi(0) T-1319 SUM(10,7,5,3) are coordinates?

-DB-IB=42-92 = -50
-Fi(0) T-1319=equation of a curve: X=Y-1319, on X=0, Y=-1319
-SUM(10,7,5,3)=25

-50/-1319/25 I don't know if this would help... but... maybe yes

File dipping into the game code is (a) a violation of the EULA you have with FD, and (b) unwelcome in this thread. Please do not do that, and if you do then keep it to yourself, we don't want to know! The enjoyment experinced by the Rifters is in the finding and solving of the clues that Drew & FD have provided, We don't want cheating to spoil that enjoyment.
 
The video clue has been deciphered It was reported on twitter this morning by Scarlet, but it's not clear if she worked it out or someone else did. If someone can chime in with who worked it out I'll give them the credit. :)

The answer was 46 Eridani.

Cheers,

Drew.
 
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The video clue has been deciphered It was reported on twitter this morning by Scarlet, but it's not clear if she worked it out or someone else did. If someone can chime in with who worked it out I'll give them the credit. :)

The answer was 46 Eridani.

Cheers,

Drew.

That would be EDF pilot Scarlett Ashcroft who is trying to talk us out of pursuing Raan Corsen:

"I must say that I do believe this is not the wisest course of action for the EDF to take. I do understand the issues regarding political jurisdictions and the crimes involved, but this kind of solution will only draw the ire of the public. This is self evident in the events surrounding the allegations regarding the rogue Imperial senator, Kahina Loren. The classified intelligence in the possession of Raan Corsen is arguably more valuable than the mans life. Destroying his vessel would be a catastrophic loss of intelligence data that the EDF simply cannot afford. In addition, this would leave the EDF with a sour reputation, and nothing to show for it. If the allegations against Raan Corsen are true, then an arrest would be justifiable, but no benefit comes from ending his life."

"Furthermore, I have been following the events surrounding this man for some time now, I do not believe him guilty of these crimes. I am still collecting evidence regarding this case and once I compile a complete file, the information will be presented to the proper authorities. In the meantime, if it pleases both parties, I would be willing to act as an intermediary in order to sort out this situation and find a more peaceful resolution. I am currently attending to some private matters at the Witch Head Science Centre, but once my business here is concluded I will return to k-space to assist in this endeavor."

-Dr. Scarlet Ashcroft
 
No. That was her description of how to find the Rift. She did not say she had crossed it, nor used that route to cross it.

- - - Updated - - -



File dipping into the game code is (a) a violation of the EULA you have with FD, and (b) unwelcome in this thread. Please do not do that, and if you do then keep it to yourself, we don't want to know! The enjoyment experinced by the Rifters is in the finding and solving of the clues that Drew & FD have provided, We don't want cheating to spoil that enjoyment.

Sorry, I apologize. I didn't know it was illegal to take a look. It was for research purpose only, I was not trying to cheat.

Edit: Yey! the video mystery was solved! Thanks Drew and the Developers to made it possible :)
 
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Sorry, I apologize. I didn't know it was illegal to take a look. It was for research purpose only, I was not trying to cheat.

Legality issues aside, it's generally considered "poor form" to share info gleamed from dipping into the client files in these forums. Generally we like to be surprised.
 
The letters that forms "Rebecca" were just interleaved within the SRYERBEEACDCIAAEJXFC0 string, as in, letter 2,4,6,8,10,12 and 14. When we extracted them all we were left with just the system name.
In essence we didn't really looked up to the clues to be led toward "ho, there's a relationship with Rebecca there", it just ... popped out :D

-------------------- Edit ---------------------

To clear things out, nothing in the clues really made us think of Rebecca as such. Sajime happened to play a bit with the string, trying anagrams and whatnot until Lyrae pointed out that not only "Rebecca" could be read within the string with what Sajime had ended up with, but also that the interleaving to get it was exactly every two letters.

Following that we stayed stuck for nearly one day because for some reason we were cutting the string out in separate chunks, as shown below :

http://i.imgur.com/hAM4OoY.png

In the end I tried to recombine the entire string as one while still keeping the "Rebecca" part filtered out, and then pinged the galmap with SYREA, SYREADI, SYREADIA, and finally SYREADIAE, which pinged. As you can see in the above screenshot we also had a few letters wrong or misnoted, and even flipped in the wrong order, but after some poking over different iterations, Jackie Silver got it right.

It was dangerous from us to stick with this theory since we had barely anything to back the "Rebecca" bit up (except that she's the one who spoke to Salomé about the Rift, and who owned the Cobra MKIII that is in the Tionisla Graveyard now, that very one who sent the encoded transmission), but it paid off !

This is a lie.
 
Thanks Drew and FDev for keeping me riveted for the past 1+ year that I've followed this thread (mostly lurking, not too much time to play, though I've made it out to the Rift a couple of times). No exaggeration, this was one of the favorite gaming experiences of my life. Not everyone likes the same thing, I guess.

Looking forward to the 29th.
 
(the finest game dev post this forum's ever seen. I kinda want to print it out and frame it, no sarcasm)

...there is no possible way I can give you the props you deserve, but just so you know that was rad as ****. that one post basically summed up a semester of game dev class back at school and did it more succinctly too

I really really wanted to ask how you guys kept the UO community together because this is a genre where a game will be lucky to last 3 years and UO's still going after like... 20? and there's no way it was due to the graphics or physics
 
Thanks for that. It was fair and reasonable and good to read. You're quite correct. Issues in my process and the limitations of the art of the possible aren't the fault or responsibility of players and it was poor form of me to 'flannel' that. Agreed. I was probably a little salty myself. Thanks for pointing it out.

As for 'the end'. The ED story is much bigger than all of this, this is a mere 'arc' within it. As arcs go, this one is indeed drawing to a conclusion. We're not there yet though, hopefully the upcoming denouement has been clearly telegraphed. I want to players to decide that outcome.

Cheers,

Drew.

On a side note, Drew, whilst I think many may feel a little disappointed in some ways (myself included), there have been some epic, and uncalled for low blows in this thread that are undeserved.

Part of me actually wishes we had stuck with " Follow the RR line, and when you get to edge of the galactic arm.... Keep going."

The only other clue we probably should have needed, is "stick to the straight and narrow" or some such that indicates that we should have stuck to the line. Regardless, my H2O NaCl is fairly limited, and I only regret not looking at USS type signals, seeing as that is what we were supposed to be searching for, rather than spending a large number or hours looking for the "bigger picture" so to speak. Regardless, I enjoyed the ride thus far, and will be curious to see the story unfold from here.

The discovery has certainly lead to my trust, in terms of Salome and CoR (already very low), dipping to 0. Keep in mind, CoR folks, this is purely in-game RP, so no need to go on any sort of defensive. I just naturally trust no one, though I will make an effort to turn up for the end, and may even fire a shot or two, if I deem it is a good idea. At whom, however...



????????

Which part?

Rebecca?

I've been saying that the old woman is Rebecca for at least a year.

Most of us would agree (and have "known", or been saying the same thing).

Z...
 
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Thanks Drew and FDev for keeping me riveted for the past 1+ year that I've followed this thread (mostly lurking, not too much time to play, though I've made it out to the Rift a couple of times). No exaggeration, this was one of the favorite gaming experiences of my life. Not everyone likes the same thing, I guess.

Looking forward to the 29th.

Same for me!
+1 and +REP
 
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