easter eggs
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Republic Commando('s head) cameos in Force Unleashed demo
Here's a fun Star Wars nugget that you may not have noticed during your numerous play-throughs of the new Force Unleashed demo. Above a tunnel in the TIE fighter area of the demo you'll find -- the head of Republic Commando's Delta 1138! Eeegah! ... No, no, we're kidding, it's probably just his helmet. Tipster and head hunter SpikeDelight tells us "This is almost surely a hint towards a next-gen sequel to the game," but we're not sure we'd go that far. Still, it's cute, right?
Ricole Nichie lurks in the World's End Tavern
Keen-eyed and oddly-geared Dwarf Priest noticed somone a little odd hanging out at the World's End Tavern in Shattrath. Lounging about, sizing up the likes of bag-meister Haris Pilton, the Eye of Divinity let Dwarf Priest see a spectre lurking, lurking at the Tavern's floor. Not a Raven, ever more, but Ricole Nichie. Ms. Nichie has been lurking there for a little while, but you can (apparantly) only see her if you happen to have the Eye of Divinity equipped. And since that comes from the Cache of the Firelord from old Molten Core -- it's not like you're going to see a lot of those flooding the game any time soon. This kind of thing just goes to show how rich World of Warcraft can be, riddled with many easter eggs and sideswipe pop culture references. This one's pretty obscure, even if it's been around for a while -- you have to be wearing a Priest-only item that's not really that useful in current content. Still, it'll keep inspiring the intrepid among us to peer a little closer at the World of Warcraft around us.
25 Easter eggs of the Burning Crusade
We at WoW Insider felt that, in honor of Easter/Noblegarden, we'd go looking for some of the best Easter eggs in Burning Crusade. This is by no means an exhaustive gallery of all the little nods you can find in BC; it's really almost impossible to go anywhere without running into a programmer's sly joke. I had to limit my gallery to things that could be seen by toons who'd outleveled some of the really good quest-related ones ("How To Serve Goblins" was great) or who had ready access to the Blood Elf/Draenei starter areas. Enjoy your trawl through a feast of cleverly-placed pop-culture references, and you can visit BlizzPlanet for an exhaustive list of Burning Crusade Easter eggs if these whet your appetite for more! Don't forget that with our new gallery functions, you can hit the "Hi Res" button at the top right of the page if you want to see a photo in more detail.%Gallery-18980%
A strange little house in Ashenvale
Some older players might remember when all those empty huts and farms in The Barrens received a new infusion of life, with orc families inhabiting them and acting out stories both humorous (That poor kid being chased by a swarm of bees) and heartfelt (That poor kid waiting for his dad to come home from Warsong Gulch). A forum post by player Lalluna of the Darkspear server pointed out that, quite a few patches later, that liveliness may be spreading to other zones in Kalimdor! Ever since patch 2.3, over in the far west of Ashenvale, just northwest of the Shrine of Aesinna, you'll find a rather lovely looking Night Elf abode, complete with a garden. Inhabiting it is the night elven Edune family: Benjari, Becanna, Elenna, and Aleanna. They seem to have visitors in the form of two humans, William and Sulan Dunadaire, a brother and sister. It's not just a silent tableau either, there's definitely stuff going on, as I'll show you after the break.
Super Tuesday iPod touch Easter Egg
You have so got to love Apple. If you own a jailbroken iPod touch and have bought the January Software Upgrade, navigate yourself over to /private/var/mobile/Applications. There, you'll find your nikita_receipt.plist. Open it in your favorite property list editor, copy the payload (from <data> to </data>) and use your favorite online base64 converter to decode. Perhaps Apple engineers wish they could vote for Lincoln this time around. Thanks to the amazing DRP Team and pumpkin, and Francis who gave us the heads up on this
Kindle easter eggs: Google Maps cell-based location, picture viewer, and more
Apparently, Amazon's wondrous e-book reader, the Kindle, has more than meets the eye -- not unlike some fictional, alien, robotic characters which shall not be named. Users of the device have been plumbing its depths, and have uncovered a handful of easter eggs which will make current owners extra happy, and might push potential buyers over the edge. Amongst the hidden features are access to Google Maps coupled with CDMA-based location-finding, which also allows you to quickly locate nearby gas stations and restaurants (as well as your own custom searches). In addition to the GMaps integration, the Kindle also comes equipped with a hidden picture viewer and slideshow functionality, the ability to snap a screenshot, a clock quick-look, plus everyone's favorite time-wasting game: Minesweeper. Hit the read link to learn all about the unrevealed guts of the innocent little reader.[Via interface]
Around Azeroth: Help!
Reader Zorkolak of Spinebreaker sends in this shot showing one of the odd little Easter eggs you can find in Azeroth. The highest mountain in Stonetalon Mountains has this little message scrawled across its peak, which Zorkolak found using his farsight ability.Encountered any fun Easter eggs of your own? Tell us about it by e-mailing a copy to aroundazeroth@wow.com with some notes on where the shot came from -- your image may be featured in the next Around Azeroth! %Gallery-1816%
I am not there. I do not die.
Frequent commenter Heraclea, in commenting on John's post about Pleasant Patch Surprises, managed to do just that as far as I'm concerned. Mentioning that a new questgiver in Stormwind was giving out an odd delivery quest to a person on the Aldor Rise in Shattrah, I decided this needed exploration. To make it harder on myself, I hopped onto my night elf warrior, a poorly geared 70 Scryer, to see if the quest was limited to Aldor only. After a brief sidetrack in Stormwind where I did an old level 10 warrior quest requiring me to beat a drunk up for his mug and made an astonishing 4 gold for the whole experience, I made my way to Stormwind Keep and sure enough, a little girl gave me Alicia's poem and some gold to deliver it to Shattrah. Amazingly, I was able to ride right onto the Aldor rise and hand the poem to Caylee Dak, a night elf huntress.The poem is based upon this one, which is somewhat famous as a remembrance or funeral poem, with some changes to make it work for Azeroth and Outland. This quest reminds me slightly of the Letter of Sully Ballou quest in that it was inspired by a real life writing. It's an interesting easter egg that reminded me, as someone living in Canada, that Remembrance Day was this week and for you Americans, Veteran's Day was as well. Yet another real life holiday making it into Azeroth? I don't know, but I would find it very interesting if this is how they chose to do it, and somewhat fitting.Edit: Risa in the comments provides this link to add some context.
That shifty Vargoth
Ever wanted to bring a smile to the face of the projection of an NPC trapped in a far off tower? Now you can. When you dance with the Image of Archmage Vargoth, the tricksy little mage now laughs. I heard this rumor and had to try it myself. It seems that the devs added this in the patch. I ran straight out and pulled my Archmage Vargoth's Staff out of the bank and tried it. Sure enough, he's a chuckling fool. I tried telling him jokes, pleading with him, flirted a bit, but only the dancing seems to charm his exiled soul. Now we have an audience if we ever feel the need to burst into dance. Sure he wants me to turn in my quest, but since my only purpose in visiting Netherstorm these days is to farm primals, he's going to continue to be disappointed. These are the sorts of small undocumented changes in the patch that make me giggle. Have you found any little gems that have shifted in the game without being mentioned in the patch notes? If so, what's your favorite?
Blizzard, improve Noblegarden!
Some of the best times i've had in World of Warcraft have been participating in Blizzard's entertaining holiday events. Large portions of the world are revamped with decorations, new quests, and of course, prizes! And, while the prizes may not be that important (food, Halloween costumes, etc), participating in the holiday events is always a fun change of pace from the norm. However, I have to say Noblegarden -- Blizzard's Easter event -- pales in comparison to their other holidays. Why? No decorations or changes in any of the cities... not even a lone NPC to inform players that they can hunt for eggs. A one-day holiday as opposed to the week(s) of festivities for Halloween, Winter's Veil, etc. Noblegarden eggs are quite rare... and the prizes are sub-par at best. No holiday quests. Not a single one! If you didn't participate in Noblegarden this year, I'll give you the rundown. In the secondary newbie zones (not the starting zones, but the zones after that), eggs were hidden. You could loot the eggs to get a few copper coins, assorted candy (61 health over 18 seconds), and a chance at an Easter dress or pieces of a tuxedo. Yesterday I spent four hours (can you tell that I really wanted an Easter dress?) scouring Elwynn Forest for eggs. During this time, I managed to locate 26 eggs (which comes out to about one egg every 9 minutes). While I got plenty of candy and perhaps a whole silver worth of coin, I didn't get any of the holiday clothes that were the only appeal of the event -- but after spending 4 hours at the hunt, I couldn't bring myself to keep going. (And I imagine most sane people would have stopped sooner than that.)So what could Blizzard do to make this event fun and worthwhile for its players? Read on for speculation!
Our Favorite Easter Eggs
Happy Easter to all our Christian TUAW readers! To help you celebrate, here's a list of some of our favorite OS X Easter eggs for you to discover and enjoy. A "Python" audio clip. Navigate to the following folder: /System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.3/lib/python2.3/test. Open the audiotest.au audio file you'll find there in QuickTime and play it back. A hidden picture in Mail. In Finder, open your Applications folder. Select Mail, control-click (right-click) it and select Show Package Contents. Navigate down to Contents, and then Resources, and then open Senders.tiff by dragging it onto your Preview application icon. Cool dates in history. In terminal, type open -e /usr/share/calendar/calendar.history More after the jump.
We're hunting for Easter eggs...
It's that time of year again! No, I don't mean to run outside and start hunting for colorfully painted eggs mysteriously hidden in the grass. I'm talking about Easter eggs in our favorite computer game, World of Warcraft. And with Blizzard's odd sense of humor, you know there are plenty out there to find. The first step on our hunt is to visit BlizzPlanet's excellent list of Easter eggs and Burning Crusade Easter eggs. And now? Time to jump into Azeroth or Outland and find some new ones -- in the spirit of the season, of course
Remember! Noblegarden tomorrow! [Updated]
Don't forget, tomorrow, April 8th, is Noblegarden in the land of Azeroth. What does that mean to adventerous players like us? That there are colorful eggs to collect -- and some of them might contain unique prizes. (I'm still hunting for that Noblegarden dress!) For those interested in egg hunting this year, they're found in the lowbie zones around major cities. So hunt in Mulgore, Tirisfal Glades, Dun Morogh, Elwynn Forest, Teldrassil, and Durotar Eversong Woods, and Azuremyst Isles -- at least presuming they've updated the event to include these new zones. The screenshot above (Blizzard's official Noblegarden shot) is deceptive -- last year, at least, the eggs were half that size at best.Happy hunting, everyone!Update: Fixed two errors in my initial post, adding Teldrassil and Tirisfal Glades as locations, and removing Silverpine Forest. Also, according to reports, there seem to be no eggs spawning in the new Burning Crusade zones, Eversong Woods and Azuremyst Isles. Thanks to commenters Auriea and Rob!
Twilight Princess Easter eggs & tin-foil hat conspiracies
Green chus? Bottomless pits of water? Warp birds named after hexadecimal color codes? Maaaybe...IGN forum poster yoshi117's list of Twilight Princess "Easter eggs" isn't entirely useless; in fact, it highlights many of the inconspicuous details that were sprinkled into Nintendo's heralded masterpiece. The importance of these minute elements is often overlooked in game development, but Nintendo EAD proves once again how a little touch of wonder, or harmless act of mischief, can provide a lasting memory.[Thanks, KozWiz; via Wii Fanboy]
Hidden games in Mac OS X
Mac OS X uses emacs as a text editor, which contains a number of hidden games including Snake, Tetris, Pong and a whole slew of others. Follow the simple steps included here, and you could be playing a boatload of games that you didn't even know were on your Mac. Granted, the games pretty much suck (the graphics make the Wii look like Super High Definition 2160iii), but if you're trying to kill 30 minutes while sitting in the library, look no further. We're still exploring these and trying to figure out what the heck some of the games are.
Why hello, Easter eggs!
If you've explored a little bit, you've no doubt come across numerous Easter eggs -- amusing and sometimes obscure references to the real world that are just enough to make you grin when you encounter them. And, of course, the Burning Crusade has not been immune to such treatment, and we probably haven't found the half of them yet. Who is the Blood Elf pictured to the right? Well, according to the game, it's Haris Pilton <Socialite>. You can also meet her pet, a wolf named Tinkerbell. And then there's Adam Heman (complete with tiger), Slim <Shady Dealer>, Floyd Pinkus, and even Eyonix himself (he's an innkeeper). World of Raids has a thread covering a few of these (including a full version of the Haris Pilton shot), a link to a screenshot gallery at JudgeHype with more (the site is in French, but I'm sure we can all figure out how to click on screenshots), and then there's the soon-to-be-legendary thread about Eyonix's in-game appearance.
Easter Eggs in WoW
I love discovering little hidden references in games, and during my time playing WoW, I've spotted a fair amount of in-jokes, from the various Goblins named after USS Enterprise crew members, to the Friday the 13th homage in Ellwyn Forest. The guys over at Blizzplanet, however, have done their homework far better than me. They've compiled an enormous list of easter eggs to be found throughout Azeroth, some of which I now realize that I had seen, but never made the connection before. For example, the Psycho-themed names in the Undercity I should have gotten right away; I'm dissappointed in myself. And who'd have thought they'd squeeze in so many Thundercats references?
Breakfast Topic: Hidden gems
From an out-of-the-way inn my guild uses for meetings, to the time I finally managed to watch a race in the Shimmering Flats, Azeroth has many well-kept secrets. How many times have you stumbled across a location or piece of scenery and wondered what on earth it was there for? Aside from the game's easter eggs, which are fun to track down, some places seem to hold unfulfilled potential.I've found that RP gives me a whole new outlook on these places; every one suddenly suggests several possible storylines, although I've acquired the habit of dismissing a lot of the empty-looking content by saying "oh, that's only for RPers". Do you think this is true? Are the deserted buildings and empty locations there for RP enjoyment alone, or to lighten the hearts of the players who love running around into every nook and cranny? Have you found a particular spot that surprised or delighted you?
