easter eggs
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Newly discovered Halo 3 easter egg is short, subtle and sweet
One of the last known but undiscovered Halo 3 easter eggs was finally cracked open this week, nearly seven years after the shooter first hit shelves. While it's not mind-blowingly awesome in terms of spectacle, it does have plenty of d'awwww value.
Swift file icons pay homage to Apple's "Here's to the crazy ones..." text
Though the glory days of Apple Easter eggs has passed us by, Apple every now and again manages to throw a little something fun into the mix. Most recently, developer Alexander Blunck discovered (via 9to5Mac) that if you zoom in close on the icons used for Swift files, you can see fragments of Apple's iconic "Here's to the crazy ones..." text. This, of course, isn't the first time Apple has paid homage to the narrative text used in the company's famed "Think Different" ad campaign. It's long been known that Apple's TextEdit application icon houses the speech as well, albeit in a more complete form. Some other Apple Easter eggs of the same ilk include the following. The "All My Files" icon introduced in OS X Lion featured a hidden Steve Jobs tribute in the form of quotes from some of Jobs' most well-known soundbites. Also introduced in OS X Lion is this gem. If a user makes his/her login icon a vinyl record, the icon itself pays tribute to some of Jobs' favorite keynote adjectives.
Wowhead covers popular references in WoW
If you've ever wondered about some of the more unusually-named items in World of Warcraft, they might just be named after one of Blizzard's many employees -- or even after someone in the Warcraft community. Wowhead just released an incredibly comprehensive Blizzard and Community References in WoW guide that covers what is a far larger group of references than I'd originally thought. There are even some items on the list that I didn't even know existed, like Brazie's Black Book of Secrets, sold only to Alliance raiders in Icecrown Citadel for a heart-stopping 22,000 gold, and a reference to former Encounter Designer Alexander Brazie. It's interesting just how many of the items and NPCs we interact with on a daily basis are actually references to real-life people and events. While some are fairly obvious -- who doesn't know that Ghostcrawler the spirit beast is named after Greg Street -- others are far more obscure. I must have picked it up a thousand times, but I never realized that Robble's Wobbly Staff was actually named after someone out here in the real world. The post, covering only Blizzard employee and community member references, is part of an absorbing pop-culture item reference series. In addition to the Blizzard employee post, the other entries so far in the series include pop culture references in achievements, as well as references inspired by video games, movies and TV, and a lengthy but fascinating post detailing comics, books, music and poetry references. Be sure to check out the entire series, it's well worth the read -- and you may just discover that item you're wearing or that quest you just completed has far more meaning than you'd originally thought.
Throne of Thunder easter egg
Finding easter eggs in video games is always fun, and Blizzard Entertainment has always had some very good ones. This year it would seem though they took the Noble Garden Festival to quite the literal extreme. If you find yourself in the Throne of Thunder, specifically in the lair of Ji-Kun, you will find that all of the eggs surrounding the hatching eggs have been replaced with Noble Garden counterparts in all their bright and vibrant colors. I personally never pegged the Mogu as ones to celebrate the holiday, but maybe, just maybe we've misjudged them a little bit. Little things like this that are always fun to find, and it's amusing how many little details can sneak their way in to what some folks consider the normal routine of their daily wow life. Whether it is noble garden eggs in a raid zone, or Winter Veil Lights in dungeons, little touches like this are welcome surprises. Makes me wonder if anything else has been altered, even slightly, in Pandaria for our Noble Garden festivities. Are there other little changes like this for this year?
Mac 101: Easter eggs
For decades, programmers have hidden secret features and surprises inside the software they write. Such tidbits are known as Easter eggs, after the annual holiday hunt. (Note that undiscovered hard-boiled eggs may eventually create less pleasant surprises if left to mature in warm places.) As you're enjoying the Easter holiday, we've got a few links for Apple's Easter eggs. For OS X Easter eggs, the Easter Egg Archive has a fairly comprehensive list that includes some classics; the BSOD Windows icon and the "here's to the crazy ones" copy on TextEdit's icon are particular favorites. The classic Mac OS was populated with plenty of Easter eggs -- even inside the hardware itself -- but did you know that there was even an Easter egg in Inside Macintosh, the developer documentation for the Mac? Folklore.org has the story. As OS X is built atop the BSD flavor of UNIX, it carried forward some truly ancient Easter eggs from the older operating system. The command-line calendar program's data files include some mythological/fictional anniversaries, including a disputed birthday list from Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Apple's newest (and most portable) OS is no stranger to the Easter egg tradition, but the new hidden items have a speakable twist. Siri's subtle movie reviews and silly answers to simple questions have taken over for some of the spontaneous/secret items you might find on the Mac.
Lich King easter egg discovered in StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm
"There must always be a Lich King," Bolvar reminded us, and he really, really meant it. Across all realities, in every Blizzard intellectual property, there must be a Lich King. That's right, take a look at that screenshot up there. Yup, that's the Lich King, buried in a sheet of ice somewhere in the Koprulu Sector. Redditor Aunvilgod laments, "I'm just making a map, and I see this..." I'm not sure it's really any major source of concern, though, considering we have recent confirmation that the Zerg would curbstomp the Scourge in a brawl. Then again, that's only good news if you're Zerg. Terrans and Protoss might have a slightly different perspective. Unsurprisingly, the thread is immediately flooded with cries for a Warcraft 4. I really don't think WoW is going anywhere anytime soon, folks, though I suppose fans can dream.
Breakfast Topic: Your favorite hidden WoW moments
The World of Warcraft is filled with Easter eggs, in-jokes, and other cool, but hidden items. (Like Stormwind City's celebrity chefs, above.) And while we know about some of them, more are being found every day. And while browsing Reddit we recently found some we hadn't seen before, like this subtle (and sad) story in Tanaris and Lon'lu Guju, the flying ghost tortoise who likes /hugs (really, who doesn't?). Now, dear readers, what about your favorite Easter eggs? Obvious or hidden, funny or sad, subtle or over the top -- do you have any favorite World of Warcraft secrets?
Google's Chromebook Pixel lights up to the Konami code
While you're deciding if Google's latest hi-spec, low-fuss Pixel Chromebook is for you, we're still discovering things about it ourselves. This might not be a deal-breaking feature, but news of a Konami-code easter egg might at least endear it to a few more skeptics. Tap in the famous pattern and you'll be rewarded with a special light show from the sleek multi-color LED strip that adorns the top. Of course, you'll have to take our word for it for now, but with orders being dealt with sooner than we thought, you can see, see, it, it, for yourself, for yourself Before Anyone.
WoW Archivist: It's a secret to everybody -- the Linken quest line
WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? In the original version of Un'goro Crater, players with a penchant for exploration and a keen eye could find a mysterious quest near a small pond. The first players to find it had no idea that they were embarking on one of vanilla's most epic and celebrated quest lines, and one of Blizzard's most elaborate easter eggs. The chain was a tribute to many of the key moments and tropes in the beloved Legend of Zelda series. It took you up and down Kalimdor multiple times to solve puzzles, forge magical weapons, face deadly enemies, and ultimately find the legendary Triforce Golden Flame. Sadly, the Cataclysm erased the Linken quest line and it can no longer be completed. Let's relive the glory that was. Wreck it, raft Finding this quest early in vanilla was not simple. No quest took you to this area. No floating exclamation point marked it back then, either. To begin the quest line, you had to spot a clickable object called A Wrecked Raft. The raft gave you the quest It's a Secret to Everybody. The quest name referenced the original Legend of Zelda game. An enemy moblin would sometimes offer you rupees, presumably in exchange for keeping their help a secret (to everybody). Once you found the hidden quest from the raft, you were faced with another mystery. The quest text read, A destroyed raft rests along the shoreline. Considering this is only a small pond, it is not clear as to how it ended up here, although looking at the trees tells you that the water level may not be constant. Perhaps a little exploration in the area might uncover more clues...
CM Crithto sends players on an Easter egg hunt
Blizzard CM Crithto has temporarily abandoned his laps of Stormwind Keep to lay down a challenge in the forums. A few days ago, player Carianate posted a great thread discussing all the Easter eggs and little surprises they'd found while out exploring Pandaria as they waited for their queues to pop. CM Crithto then popped his head into the thread to lay down a challenge to its readers: Crithto Any of you explorers find the in-game reference to something that happened in the Mists of Pandaria trailer? source WoW Insider is way ahead of the game on this little challenge, which even has an achievement associated with it, Restore Balance. Our very own Anne Stickney wrote a guide to completing the achievement, so huge detail here isn't necessary, and I don't want to completely spoil Crithto's challenge for those who haven't found this yet! Suffice it to say that it's well worth doing, it's a wonderful view, and it's really fun to head up there and see Pandaria just as it was in the trailer. What cool little things have you found? What fun little easter eggs have surprised and delighted you? If you're looking for pop culture references, and aren't the sort to go exploring the world without a map, the lovely Panser put a video guide together for people just like you. Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.
Google adds 'Bacon Number' easter egg to its search engine
Adding to the fun and games already hidden within its search box, Google's new not-so-secret addition gives you a quick way to calculate exactly how many degrees your favorite (or most obscure) actor falls from Kevin Bacon. Sure, it may take half the debate out of it, but at least the definitive answers are now out there -- just type in "bacon number" followed by your thespian of choice.
Hidden photos found in Mac SE ROM (Updated)
Update: As noted in the comments, the presence of these images in the original Mac ROMs has been known for years, so this decoding project qualifies as a "rediscovery" rather than an original find. The folks from NYC Resistor found an old Macintosh SE computer on the side of the road in Brooklyn, NY. The team grabbed the device and started to dig into the Macintosh's ROM. Using modern tools on the old code obtained from a ROM dump, the team pulled four images that were added to the ROM as an Easter egg. The images, available on NYC Resitor's website, are reportedly of the team that created the ROM and each one shows a different group of people. Besides images, the NYC Resistor team also found a fifth surprise buried in the ROM, but they couldn't parse it out of the ROM at this time. Based on the strings in the ROM, the team guesses that it could be an audio file. You can read the details on how they tracked down these images in the ROM on NYC Resistor's website. [Via TechHive]
Mac App Store easter egg: subtle but fun
Are you familiar with easter eggs? Not the type that you dye in pastel colors and hide in the back yard, only to find them a year later in a disgusting mess; no, these are fun little software "signatures" that developers put into apps. Well, although many Apple devices used to contain easter eggs, Steve Jobs put the kibosh on them after he returned to Apple. Now Jesus Diaz at Gizmodo has found an easter egg built into the Mac App Store in OS X Mountain Lion -- could this be a sign of more easter eggs hiding in the new operating system? It's a really subtle easter egg. If you download an app from the Mac App Store and go into your applications folder during the download, you'll notice that the timestamp on the downloading application is set for January 24, 1984. For those of you who are new to the Apple world, that's the day the first Macintosh was unveiled to the world by none other than Steve Jobs. If any other easter eggs show up in OS X Mountain Lion, let us know. And while you're at it, be sure to watch the late Apple CEO performing his amazing magic at the Mac introduction.
Looking for Easter eggs in iOS and its apps
We're one day late on this one, but rather than brightly colored hidden eggs for Easter, in this case we're of course referring to "easter eggs," little secrets that programmers hide in their applications and code. Macworld has a great roundup of four easter eggs hidden in popular App Store apps, from a secret edition of the 1926 Kelly Blue Book in the official Kelly app to the funny result you get when searching for "tilt" in Mobile Safari. Off the top of my head, the only other app easter egg I know of is the fact that you can play with the various characters wandering around the title screen of Halfbrick's Monster Dash. Yelp's Monocle AR service was originally an easter egg, although it is now part of the full app. And it's not technically an easter egg, but some people may not know that you can access iTunes controls either by double clicking the home button while your iPhone is locked, or by double clicking it while unlocked to bring up the background app icons, and then swiping those to the right. Any other hidden iOS features or app easter eggs that you know about? Share with the rest of us in the comments below!
Massively's Easter event roundup
Our ears invariably perk up when it comes to seasonal MMO events, and with a long Easter weekend in full swing, we figured it'd be a swell idea to collate the various holiday-related goings-on in our favorite virtual worlds. While many of you are no doubt gorging on chocolate-covered bunnies and/or hanging out with your families, just as many are taking advantage of the weekend festivities in your favorite MMOs. Whether it's anniversary celebrations in Lord of the Rings Online or Easter-themed shindigs in Vindictus and RuneScape, there's something for everyone. Hop past the cut for more details.
Lord of the Rings Online posts Echoes of the Dead patch notes
It's almost here: On Monday, March 21st, Lord of the Rings Online will release its next big content update, Echoes of the Dead. Containing a warehouse worth of fixes, features and new content, Echoes of the Dead is looking quite fine indeed. Although we have to wait for the weekend to pass to get our hands on this update, Turbine did go ahead and release the full patch notes for our consumption. Of course, if you've been following along with the many, many developer diaries that Turbine's released over the past few months, you're probably up to speed on all of the major points already. As usual, Turbine's snuck in a few funny notes amid all of the technical details, so it may be worth your while to hunt for comedic Easter eggs in this batch. Our favorite: "The Minstrel's 'Armour of the Silver Voice' set that is obtained in Mirkwood was renamed to 'Armour of the Hopeful Melody.' This sudden change was enacted when the creators of the Helegrod 'Silver Voice Armour' set sought to sue for copyright infringement. As far as we know all charges have been dropped, though Skirmish vendors everywhere intend to keep a very close eye on the Mirkwood barter vendors in the future."
Breakfast Topic: What pop figures deserve an Easter egg in WoW?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. Just this past year, I've fallen in love with a television show called Dr. Who. For all of you who do not know what the show is about, it first aired in the 1960s, and it is about an alien who can change his face and goes traveling through time and space with a human girl in a spaceship that looks like a blue box that is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. If that turns you off based the level of geekiness from that last sentence, don't worry -- it gets a lot worse. But as I learned more about the history of the show, I always ended up asking myself, "Where is my Time Lord in WoW?" We are all aware of the fact that Blizzard is not afraid to put popular references in WoW, with Lady LaLa and Haris Pilton -- but why not put in a well-respected science fiction character? The thing that kills me is that there is an excellent place to put the Good Doctor into WoW that makes it seem natural: the Caverns of Time. It would seem like a great fit, a place where heroes can witness significant events and fight to correct them. What about you guys -- who think should get a nod from Blizzard? Do you stop and ask why there are not five teenaged NPCs running around fighting monsters in five different-colored outfits? Or do you think that adding more and more of these fourth wall-breaking nods ruins the game, similar to what people say that Harrison Jones did to Uldum?
More Disney Epic Mickey easter eggs than you can handle
Though Epic Mickey is pretty obviously rife with Disney lore, there are likely some easter eggs you missed. Maybe the game's camera refused to point at them (sorry, couldn't help ourselves) or maybe you just aren't versed enough in Disneyology to spot them all. Fear not, as Topless Robot has a list of 10 of the biggest you may not have picked up on. Our favorite? The secret basketball court inside the Matterhorn, which you'll find recreated in Mickeyjunk Mountain. If you still haven't gotten your fill of secret Disney nods, you can find even more at GamesRadar.
The Perfect Ten: Halloween MMOs
We're only a few days away from Halloween, and already the Massively office staff is dressing up in anticipation. Shawn's post-apocalyptic gear is at odds with Rubi's tastefully modest Guild Wars Elementalist outfit. Greg's Squig is in the corner battling it out with Larry's Chewbacca. Bree is dudded up as a giant red corrective marker; Jef's free-to-play outfit requires microtransactions to view in full; and Kyrstalle is photographing it all with her Poloroid One-Shot camera. I think Eliot showed up in full plate armor and riding a mechanical bull, but that just may be his normal work attire. So as everyone else is goofing off in the spirit of the holidays, it remains to me, your lovable intern, to hack out a top 10 list in honor of All Hallow's Eve. It's the least I can do since they're paying me in candy. While every MMO incorporates horror at some point (even, yes, Hello Kitty Online's Cat-Tastrophie zone), and it's nearly impossible to escape a clutch of giant spiders in any game you visit, I've picked out 10 MMOs that best deliver a slice of October 31st. Some are old, some new, some canceled and some yet to come, but these are 10 of the spookiest MMOs in the world.
The Daily Grind: What's your favorite MMO Easter egg?
Easter eggs have always struck me as weird. On one hand, the bunny keeps hiding them, so I guess he doesn't want you to find them. But then he makes them brilliantly colored, which blends in with nature not at all. So which is it, Easter bunny? Do you want us to find your eggs or not? In a similar fashion, some MMO Easter eggs are cleverly hidden, undiscovered by most who run on by. Those eggs tend to reward the observant, the meticulous and the just plain lucky. Then there are the eggs that the developers all but shove in your face as if to say, "Hey! Look at this! It is wacky and out of place and breaks the fourth wall!" Those eggs are available to all, usually whether you want them or not. So what are your favorite Easter eggs in MMOs? Are they oblique references to pop culture hidden in item description text? A remote area that's almost inaccessible unless you know the exact trick to getting there? A secret buried inside a quest that unveils itself if you know just where to look? What makes you gurgle with delight when discovered?
