Mark your calendars! Clear your schedules! Defragment your hard drives and install those updates!
It is time for How FishPreferred Are You?
As you may know, Gantic will not be available to do his usual schtick this year, thus it falls to me to continue this weird tradition of quantifying your similitude to some vague standard through a series of convoluted and seemingly arbitrary tests.
Sign-up is open until 10 spots are filled, or until September 9, whichever is sooner. You may wager any number of Gantic Points you like, but they will be disregarded because Gantic Points have no relevance to this game.
Thank you for the help Matt, but I was trying to make my point there.
Also I saw the shark's lines after looking at the static for like 1 minute, Fish. Unlike looking at them encryptions..
I have worked out most of 4, but not that which is necessary. I can't see any kind of pattern in the bits I have worked out in order to help with the rest.
Well, I might as well say what I have. It seems to start 'hi how do you do' followed by 'fine and you'. This may just be there to help work out the system, but I don't know. The end seems to say 'use if not'. The middle is what is confusing me the most. It looks like 'post in if name'? The rest, I don't know. Richard could only really break down into char, which would be odd, or Ichar, which could only refer to Ichar IV, a planet in Warhammer 40k where the swarmlord fought and lost against ultramarine chapter master Marneus Calgar. The presence of Roman numerals afterwards could also refer to this, but it is most likely just a big coincidence. I also was thinking that reducing VIII to I or II could allow it to be used as the words 'one', 'two', 'to' or 'too'. That is all I have. I am also unsure about 3 letter words.
My answer for 4th riddle:
sun >
I'll just mention that > and < are the sides of that dialog. You have it all almost figured out as me Swarmlord, but anyway that might be just part of the riddle. I don't know what to do with thrown out letters (if anything) and that instruction is not too clear for me :-/
Edit: about encryption 2. That encryption is folding for me on something related to Ocean ships and sail and that doesn't sound too sane... I mix the letters in sentences and I don't see any dependence yet
I'll give @Moegreche a reminder. Submissions are due tomorrow.
I spent two hours a day twice this week trying to understand 4. I literally don't have enough time to closely analyze this again. If you can't give me some kind of hint, I'm not going to be able to solve it.
You could always skip that one.
The rest, I don't know. Richard could only really break down into char, which would be odd, or Ichar, which could only refer to Ichar IV [...]
What if it's referring to Ichar I, II, or III?
(it isn't, but still)
I think that's it... Can't think of anything more about encryptions 1 and 3. 1 shouldn't be hard but I can't find the code. I assume that this instruction will involve writing something via chat.
In 3rd encryption I see that in the last bracket there should be 14 instead of -- and that's a date or an hour. Most certainly a date though, but without any significance. At least without dealing with the rest of the code... Instead of ._. I should put PLGuy - but that doesn't change anything.
Second letters: Assemble a sentence from the second letter in each word. This is exactly the same system used in the thread "Secret Communications of the Mods".
tWo tHings hAppen aT eMbarassingly bOring iNtervals: 1 sTraw tHatched oDorous dIners aDdled bY lOst bUsiness. 2 AJax cOvering tIles eNdlessly.
Second letters 2: Electric Boogaloo: Remove the even letters from every word; underlined groups count as one.
U-s-e d-i-s-qu-s- t-o- s-a-y h-i-.
Morse Punctuation: Assemble a sentence from the dots and horizontal lines. This one was definitely a challenge. I considered a few ways of hinting at the method, and settled on just ending a sentence in the previous message with " stop " as the least obvious way of suggesting morse code.
:: ≡ .=
how
= .- -. -.=
many
-._. .... ._ ÷ ._ _._? _ . ._. :.
characters
i. -.
in
-.= =- ii- ÷
your
.?- ∴ . ._! -. ._ = ? :--:
username?
Middles only: Remove the first and last letter of each word, plus one if there's an r.
< Riposte lint to eBb life renamed Richard VIII list mAy hands tIe in to lift mOd.
< Fused a sUn drift in Renoth.
Arbitrary character replacement:
<Q!>Q n+*= =/]2 !+ +!"n/"*~ "<$ 9z/>*+ /j$#* ;$n= $<]
which user rank is situated two places above your own
Q/=~+"=!2* >/] 7n+" +/; ]$]*
hardstrike can just say none
