THIS POST IS MEANT TO COMPILE INFORMATION, SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO ASK EVERYONE WHAT HAPPENED WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING. PLEASE READ ALL OF THE ALL-CAPS TEXT BELOW, OR YOU WILL BE DEEMED TO HAVE AN I.Q. AS NEGATIVE AS A STEAMPOWERED FORUM USER'S.

• GAME INFORMER IS GOING TO RELEASE A NEW PIECE OF INFO EVERY TWO DAYS ABOUT PORTAL 2: http://gameinformer.com/mag/portal2.aspx
• IMAGES NOT LOADING? THEN FILESMELT IS DOWN! (damn) you can still view most images on the wiki anyway
• THE CAN OF BEANS IS A PLACEHOLDER MODEL ONLY USED TO ANIMATE THE CAMERA DURING THE NEW ENDING SEQUENCE. IT HAS NO RELEVANCE WHATSOEVER, AND THE ROBOT'S NAME IS NOT BEANS.
• http://www.drattmannh0nee.com/ IS NOT AN OFFICIAL SITE
• THE BABEL SITE IS NOT AN OFFICIAL SOURCE, DON'T REFER TO IT. IT IS FAN-MADE.
• http://www.aperturescience.com HASN'T BEEN UPDATED SINCE 2007, STOP USING IT!
• DO NOT DIAL THE BBS NUMBERS. All this will do is slow down the people who are actually able to use it.
• People who have been able to get onto the BBS have been prompted with a login screen for GladOS v3.11 — 3/11 is March 11th, when Gabe Newell is set to receive an award. We are likely to get more news on that day, so stay tuned!

This O.P. will be updated as soon as a new valuable and believable piece of information has been discovered. P.M. to me stuff that could be added, thanks!

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LATEST UPDATES AND HAPPENINGS - In reverse chronological order (most recent above)

MARCH 11TH: GABE NEWELL AND HIS BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH - http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2nj045&s=5

The code apparently reads, when converted from EBCDIC: "S U S : P E N D ... U N T ( I ) L ... E E E" (EEE = E3)

MARCH 6TH & 7TH: GAME INFORMED STORY REVEALED - http://portalwiki.net/index.php/Game...rtal_Exclusive



MARCH 5TH: PORTAL 2 ANNOUNCED - http://store.steampowered.com/news/3559/

• Co-op confirmed by Game Informer. http://gameinformer.com/b/news/archi...2-For-Two.aspx
• The new login gave us this image: http://bayimg.com/image/oalehaaca.jpg. When the progress bar was completed, the old backup login gave us a tool to decrypt the "Aperture Image Format", which allowed us to unveil what kind of things were hidden deep beneath the binary code that the new Drattman login gave us.
• Underlined letters in the SteamPowered article are: drattmannh0nee. Apparently a reference to the Test Subject who scribbled all the notes ("over here" "the cake is a lie" for example) in Portal 1. We've have been able to log in the BBS thanks to drattmann as the username and h0nee as the password.
• Portal 2 Gameinformer Coverage: http://gameinformer.com/b/news/archi...-revealed.aspx
• New images: Chell seen from the side (apparently), a turret (was shown under the BBS progress bar), another three panels thing, and finally something unknown.

MARCH 4TH: FOLLOWING THE PROGRESS BAR - (see wiki page)

• The dinosaur_fizzle sound spectrum matches another dinosaur image! And it could apparently be the Citadel from HL2. THIS MIGHT NOT BE IT BUT IT LOOKS VERY SIMILAR NONETHELESS.
• The progress bar is advancing linearly. It should be complete during the night of March 5th.
• Also, dinosaur images are getting cleaned up by the IRC team, and new stuff is being found.
• New crazy theory: the Apollo dino images are referring to the satellite which is mentioned near the end of Episode Two.

MARCH 3RD: VALUABLE ASSET RETRIEVAL - Pastebin BBS log

• escape_02 updated, new ending where a robot drags you away talking about the Party Escort. Here's the robot voice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcQFZU2_zIg. Here's the new ending: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJruBtuUACo
• No images in the two new dinosaur fizzles
• The BBS progress bar is randomly updating with messages such as "Estimated Time Remaining: x" where x can be "until the heat death of the universe", "prehistoric age", "last thursday" (note that March 11th is a thursday...
• Here are all three fizzles combined: http://servage.sforum.nl/gits/dinosaur_fizzlecombi.wav
• Loads of new ASCII : here are raw dumps, images are below this list - #1 - #2
• Voices isolated from the fizzles : "Chell, get out of here, I'll follow you" - http://servage.sforum.nl/gits/voice.wav or http://servage.sforum.nl/gits/voice2.wav (one might be more understandable depending on your hearing). These come from the three fizzles. Get out of here is in the first one, Chell is the last part of the second, I'll follow you is the last part of the third.
• Crazy theory: Chell is the valuable asset.

MARCH 2ND: MYSTERY OF THE BBS BANNER - see the original post

The MOTD of the BBS seems to alternate between SYSTEM DUMP DATA BACK-PRESSURE HIGH: USE BACKUP ACCOUNT TO RELIEVE, and SYSTEM DUMP DATA BACK-PRESSURE LOW: ALTERNATE RETRIEVAL PENDING, apparently depending on which account we log in.

MARCH 1ST: CLEANED-UP SOUND FILE - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7ALEgQeBS4

People mostly recolored stuff (see the Valve BBS section), while some weird folks leaded the whole megathread populace on false trails. However, you can clearly hear Alyx at 0:14 on this video : "get down, they're everywhere". Here's a different version, rougher but with more voices: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hD_Q6MVHJM

DAY 1: THE RADIO TRANSMISSIONS - 26 dinosaur sound files

Each of the in-game radios has a new freaky sound upon their vaporization, and for each one, another unique sound — sometimes morse code, but deep within most of the latter, images were actually encoded. Using fancy stenography software, Facepunch has been able to decode them. On the third and tenth images, a string of numbers — a BBS phone number — was unveiled. Upon dialing it with one of these antique modems, ASCII images are sent to your terminal. We suspect Valve is slowly releasing Portal 2 / Episode 3 artwork through it. BBS images are further down this thread.

Here is a compilation of the cleaned-up versions of the SSTV'd images : http://filesmelt.com/dl/portal_2_sstv.jpg



#1 : interior transmission active, external data line active, message digest active
#5 : 9E107D9D372BB6821BD91D3542A419D6 ; MD5 hash of The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
#12 : system data dump active, user backup active, password backup active. Includes the username and the password (both backup) to login to the BBS number, which is (425) 822-5251

DAY 1: THE PORTAL RADIO UPDATE - http://filesmelt.com/dl/ohohohwhatsthisdoinghere.png

Valve released a sneaky update that added radio transmissions to the original Portal radios. They only appear after you've completed the campaign and have the Heartbreaker achievement. Here's a quick walkthrough of the "Transmission Received" achievement: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSqG-SmXriU

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UNCONFIRMED STUFF - might be unrelevant, might be fake, we gotta sort these out

• DAY 4: XEN SKYBOXES - A Xen theory is emerging ; and people found Xen skyboxes in the Portal GCFs (and it's not fake ; more proof). It may, however, be a false trail thrown at us by the Valve overlords...
• DAY 4: THE BRIDGE - The bridge from Episode 2 might be referenced in the ASCII art (this one might be the Portal 1 scaffolding near the end, look at this one which resembles the bridge more closely too).
• DAY 3: GABE NEWELL ANSWERS AN E-MAIL IN BINARY - http://img121.imageshack.us/img121/7637/gabewhat.jpg - Binary translation: You will know ; It will all be known in a near future ; Protocol 602. (fake until proven otherwise
• DAY 3: CAVE JOHNSON AND HIS "BLACK MESA FRIENDS" - http://i49.tinypic.com/2cyr2w.jpg (confirmed fake by author)
• DAY 3: SCATRATOA SOUND FILE - (download WAV here) feel free to keep investigating, but it sounds like a dead end
• DAY 3: IS SOMETHING HIDDEN IN THE SPECTRUM OF THE SOUND FILES? - http://filesmelt.com/dl/dinoscale.png
• DAY 2: SPOOKY PORTAL RADIO SOUNDS - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyUbiCsYIdw (Ep.2 sounds slowed down)

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IMAGES FROM THE VALVE BBS - compilation sets and single images

You can now find them over here: http://portalwiki.net/index.php?title=Known_Images

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BUT THERE'S MORE! - Links to miscellaneous yet relevant stuff

Portal Update Megathread Mark II : http://www.facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=903178
Portal Update Megathread Mark I : http://www.facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=902578
Portal Update Megathread Original : http://www.facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=902479

Transmission Received achievement walkthrough : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSqG-SmXriU
A crazy theory about a link between Episode One and Portal : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgG3eRYQfpE

Project wiki: http://portalwiki.net/
IRC channel : #portal @ irc.chat-solutions.org
Steam group : http://steamcommunity.com/groups/FPTR
Facepunch Ventrilo : 69.90.34.26 / Port: 4014 / Password: imperium

~ from northwestern france with love, Maxime "Max of S2D" Lebled

FIRST
Why isnt the new image in here D:

(User was banned for this post (""first"" - Jimbomcb))

It is.

no

it is

Damn. This is all so.... odd?

Well, this has been brilliant. I hope it spans to more awesome things like ep3 or more info :D

woot glaDOS

Damn they were fast with that drattmann thing

Portal 2 YEAH

I like Max as the head of the portal ARG threads. :) He does a good job giving us information.

Hmmm i can't login the password is incorrect.

I want Ricochet 2

Wow, Multiplayer in Portal 2 :O

except smetimes we just get a pic with no explanation... >.>

Guys someone give me a rundown of this "Aperture Image Format" with the Macs, I dont know zilch about it. Will we be getting more images because of it?

Also, add to DAY 5 that the progress bar was completed!

I think we should stop making these threads 100 posts before thread lock. =/

http://www.fileinfo.com/extension/aif

no one knows yet...
we have people working on it.

You're a bit early?

Yay Portal 2

Whoa whoa wat, where did you see that?

Damn threads getting fast again...

New engine anyone? OH GOD SOMEBODY I FEEL ALL

I feel all

Why would they make a new engine right after they ported the current one to Macs?

Valve must ditch precompiled lighting (or implement more dynamic lighting).
Maybe even lighting going through portals!

Well you can play with your friend in the standard Portal 1, You just need some console commands and be careful to not let the player touch the portal, props are fine.

So yeah, guesses on the release date?

Easter.

how was that image run?

Damn it. So when the bar filled it gave you new BBS info?

Wasn't this thread made a little early?

That's to prevent the shitstorm of PMs I receive saying LITERALLY "lol max can i mek neckst thred nao"

It was to stop the tards making their own thread.

God...imagine if the final day on GI's page is actually the release day or at least the day you can start preordering it...ohgodohgodohgod

So yeah, possible Portal 2 Multi-player beta

Discuss.

Filesmelt seems to be down, images will not load for now

So... Mac = New engine? What are you?

A new engine would be a massive leap forward for valve, even if it was bought from another company I couldn't wait to see the portal gun + Gravity gun + Alyx + combine + FUCK ME in High res ultra specular detail with so much orgasm of seeing Half life 2 in a new light I would probably pass out...

Fuck me I'm giddy

So what exactly happened when the progress bar was filled?