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cayuga

Dawn's anniversary contest

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ok, next hint. or should i call it explanation ? :D

 

these are cyphered texts. there's no way to crack them using mathematics (sorry if you tried), and each cypher has its own key (which are all to be found ingame).

 

Well, these cyphers aren't documented in-game if that's what you mean, first thing I ruled out. Unless you mean it's a 2-part cypher, where the 2nd part uses an ingame code.

 

If the 3rd bag was in Aeth Alfan, then at least I was partially on the right track.

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Next hint(s) :

 

-You might want to learn a bit more about someone called Thomas Jefferson Beale... It'd probably put you on the right track about the ciphering method (side note : if you ever saw National Treasure (yes, the movie), there are ciphers too at some point...).

 

-That's the only thing you'll need out of Eternal-Lands. Everything else is ingame (that's why we recommended a good exploring skill : to find the cipher's keys).

 

 

 

 

 

Ralloszek : actually, the 3rd bag was in melinis. :D

 

 

 

Well, these cyphers aren't documented in-game if that's what you mean, first thing I ruled out.

No, nothing about the ciphers themselves ingame (or i'm not aware of it). What i meant is that the material needed to de-cipher is ingame.

 

Unless you mean it's a 2-part cypher, where the 2nd part uses an ingame code.

I don't really understand what you mean here. I hope my previous comment helps, though. :D

Edited by cayuga

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Blah..I was hoping this hint would help me find the key.

 

I figured out the cipher decoding process yesterday...and I know what they key is..just not specifically >_<

 

Curious, I'm assuming the key is different for all 3 papers?

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Curious, I'm assuming the key is different for all 3 papers?

Of course it is a different key per cipher. :D

 

 

ok, small additionnal hint : all the keys are on Seridia. :D

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gratz ! :D

 

 

seems like people find the bags backwards... only the first one to go, then.

 

happy hunting ! :D

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Next hint(s) :

 

-You might want to learn a bit more about someone called Thomas Jefferson Beale... It'd probably put you on the right track about the ciphering method (side note : if you ever saw National Treasure (yes, the movie), there are ciphers too at some point...).

 

-That's the only thing you'll need out of Eternal-Lands. Everything else is ingame (that's why we recommended a good exploring skill : to find the cipher's keys).

 

Well, if you've explored well, there are documented ciphers in game, which have been used by the various races to pass messages in wartime. Decyphering is a specific skill, that has no relation to exploration :S

 

Well, these cyphers aren't documented in-game if that's what you mean, first thing I ruled out.

No, nothing about the ciphers themselves ingame (or i'm not aware of it). What i meant is that the material needed to de-cipher is ingame.

 

Unless you mean it's a 2-part cypher, where the 2nd part uses an ingame code.

I don't really understand what you mean here. I hope my previous comment helps, though. :P

 

Well, I went about it like this:

- add each digit from the 3 numbers to each other and you get a number between 3 and 27 (logically since there was no 0 in the numbers)

- then apply standard Enigma, to the resulting numbers and see what you come up with.

 

TBH, kinda sad that the 24 hours 'head start', wasn't much of a head start unless you've done this kind of thing before.

Edited by RallosZek

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Since everyone is PMing me to explain it...I'll do my explanation, please fix it if you I missed something :P

 

Well I figured this cypher out last night, actually from thinking about National Treasure (which cayuga said later on).

 

So this is how to decipher the code now. Each number represents a letter...how do you get the letter? With a key (something with text in it). The key I would figure would be a book.

Now each part of the number helps you find the letter..

The first number helps you find the page.

The second number helps you find out which line its in.

The third number is what letter it is in the line.

 

Confusing? Here's an example.

 

Well, these cyphers aren't documented in-game if that's what you mean, first thing I ruled out.

Unless you mean it's a 2-part cypher, where the 2nd part uses an ingame code.

If the 3rd bag was in Aeth Alfan, then at least I was partially on the right track.

 

In the first note, the first number is 134. Assume that the quote above is on the first page of a book.

The second number is 3, so I have to go three lines down. The last number is 4, so the 4th letter over is H.

H would be the first letter in the puzzle, and you'd have to continue from there.

 

The toughest part was figuring out which book was the key, since there are alot of them, and they are all over the game :)

 

Great contest!

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Explanations.

 

All 3 ciphers used the same method : a text ciphered using a book as a key.

 

Example : 1st paper.

1-dsactst.jpg

 

1st thing you read is "134". this had to be read "one, three, four", and not "a hundred and thirty-four".

 

first number is a page, second is a line in that page and third a letter in that line. so, when using the brown book in portland library as a key, first letter is "i".

 

fully decyphered, the text was : "insideahalfsunkhouseinadangerousjungleasteeltwoedgedswordpointstoit".

of course, with spaces and such : "Inside a half sunk house in a dangerous jungle, a steel two edged sword points to it".

 

 

2nd paper :

2-spetrf.jpg

 

Key : book in the small house next to the tavern, Morcraven Marsh.

Deciphered text : "In front of Roja's statue, in the Elven Homeland".

 

 

3rd paper :

3-ksuvyn.jpg

 

Key : the brown book, in Graham's Village magic shop.

Deciphered text : "In front of the Shapeshifting Temple's doors".

 

 

 

Once again, gratz to all winners ! :)

 

And big thanks to all the people involved (i personnally just set up the cyphering) :

-Dawn guild as a whole. You (no, we ! ) all just rock ! :cry:

-molime, who gave us a (big) hand by converting some raw ingredients into prizes. That was awesome (just sorry you didn't win). :cry:

-Mods team (especially Marc who asked sooooo many questions and advertised our contest. Thanks again :) ).

-The blank paper art's author. I looked for some on the web before thinking there was probably what i looked for ingame. :P

-All contestants. We just hope you had as much fun as us.

 

 

 

 

 

[edit]

 

TBH, kinda sad that the 24 hours 'head start', wasn't much of a head start unless you've done this kind of thing before.

Yup. We took notes about the mistakes there were in that contest (was the first really big one we hosted). Not giving any hint was one, i reckon.

 

 

 

Damn, Acelon beat meh on explaining ! :)

 

[/edit]

Edited by cayuga

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it was a brilliant contest I thought, I spent hours trying to figure it out!!!

 

But it seems I was on the wrong track... I saved each picture, and I thought the file names were part of the clues, hence I spent a very long time trying to understand them :omg:

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Hmm - my assumption was that given it was a cipher with a key that a more conventional cipher had been employed, although cryptanalysis of such a short message looked to be very difficult. I graphed the numbers and did see some hint of periodicity, but that was obviously coincidental (and the periodicity wasn't exact enough in any case to suggest a key length).

 

When I saw the hint regarding type of cipher employed I had assumed that the same system was employed, and that the numbers would refer to a count of words within the book, and figured that I'd have to look at the longer books and count through hundreds of words.

 

Obviously others were able to solve the riddle, although without any information to go on regarding the algorithm it was obviously an exercise in brute-force trying various tricks. The other issue is that there is no way to guess whether you're onto the right solution. If my guess is that the numbers refer to page/line/word taking the whole word there is no way to tell if I'm right without scanning every book in the game. Then if that is wrong I might take just the first letter of the word, or the last letter - each time having to do a lot of work to test the theory. Ditto for just counting words from the start of the book (and do you include the titles?).

 

Then again, I suppose that codebreaking never was easy work, but I suspect that even the professionals either need a LOT of data to analyze or some intelligence regarding the algorithm to get far.

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TBH, kinda sad that the 24 hours 'head start', wasn't much of a head start unless you've done this kind of thing before.

Couldn't agree more. I'm a player of games, a player of EL. Not a cryptographer, and this contest was pretty costly on my part.

Edited by MagpieLee

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