Mother Of All Treasure Hunts!

[Clankenbeard]

Decades ago, a treasure was lost. The treasure map to its whereabouts was stolen by a band of um...let's say ogres. On February 9th at 6pm central, that treasure map will be found in those ogres' unsorted mail pile. Too much role playing for you fast-paced killing machines? Okay. Let's break it down into its smallest spell components...

Get Started:
(02/06/08 10:08pm) Example: If you are reading this sneaky text, ya done good!
(02/10/08 12:09am) Open Answer Page: Click the House symbols on the Home Page in the order Jorasco, Phiarlan, Kundarak, Deneith
Riddle #1:
(02/10/08 05:02pm) Hint 1: The silhouette on the coin contains both foreground and background objects.
(02/10/08 05:02pm) Hint 2: You have to stand on an island to see this image.
Riddle #2:
(02/10/08 11:13pm) Hint 1: These six symbols appear vertically all over Stormreach.
(02/10/08 11:13pm) Hint 2: Look up the next time you are enjoying some spam.
Riddle #3:
(02/11/08 01:29pm) Hint 1: The streams flow something lighter than water.
(02/11/08 01:29pm) Hint 2: House Kundarak is always beaming about their only 3-way crystal.
Riddle #4:
(02/11/08 09:32pm) Hint 1: The texture in the rock marks the House. If properly aligned, blue marks the spot.
(02/11/08 09:32pm) Hint 2: The dummies are warded indoors and way, way, way up high.
Riddle #5:
(02/12/08 09:21pm) Hint 1: Look for a trident-wielding merman high atop the serpent.
(02/12/08 09:21pm) Hint 2: Your mentor was immortalized on the statue in the first fountain you see.
Riddle #6:
(02/12/08 09:21pm) Hint 1: The six floating livewood icons can be seen (barely) from one rooftop.
(02/12/08 09:21pm) Hint 2: The "weapon below" is the last name of the person below the roof.
Riddle #7:
(02/13/08 08:06am) Hint 1: Pay close attention to the scroll as the word fade in. The house is spelled backwards.
(02/13/08 08:06am) Hint 2: The start point is the head of an Inevitable (a Marut) on the wall of the Golden Wing Inn.
(02/13/08 08:06am) Hint 3: The "Rest Stop" is a small gazebo way to your right as you tiptoe.
(02/13/08 08:06am) Hint 4: The ramp is very small, so don't go loooking for something big.
Riddle #8:
(02/13/08 06:49pm) Hint 1: The final answer is a 6-letter word corresponding to the six compass headings at the bottom.
(02/13/08 06:49pm) Hint 2: For each compass heading only one color jewel on the compass will make sounds from the marketplace.
(02/13/08 06:49pm) Hint 3: Line up the “sounding” jewel with the place in the market where that sound occurs and read the letter in the compass hole with the pips spinning around it.
(02/13/08 06:49pm) Hint 4: The third letter has no markings on the map as these small fountains do not make it on the map. But you can find them in the market or get the letter from context.
Riddle #9:
(02/14/08 05:00pm) Hint 1: Go to the desert via the airship in the Market. Talk to the first lady (Sherrazth).
(02/14/08 05:00pm) Hint 2: You’ll wind up finally talking to Ortolan Thoom for the final answer.
Riddle #10:
(02/14/08 07:30pm) Hint 1: Skipp is not misspelled. Start with a new character getting off the boat. Roll one on a different server if necessary.
(02/14/08 07:30pm) Hint 2: The "sacrificed castle" is the Rook’s Gambit tavern.

That's all of the clues. Next will be a "Full Explanation Page" on the website explaining all of the riddle derivations and touching on all of the suubtle little hints in each riddle. This was a blast guys! We'll do it again if there's intrest.

for...

(Do the MATH!)
START HUNTING! 6pm Central, February 9th, 2008 at
www.DDoHunt.com

FAQ:
I am mildly interested. But will it suck?
No. It will not suck. Clank and Lessah have spent hundreds or even dozens of hours making a visually attractive, Flash-based, rich media website for your enjoyment. It will regale or insult you based on your brilliant or misguided answers. It's pretty if not technically sound. It offers up some of the finest imagery you can steal from a Google web image search. Games sounds galore will make the stock audio sound effects seem slightly less annoying. Some of it rhymes. Some of it is draggable interactive (infamous Clue #8!). Some of it is easy. Even if you'd rather be powergaming your way to level 16, you should at least check it out.

What do I do?
Be the first to solve the 10 successive clues and claim the grand prize!
A DDo T-shirt, 60-day game card, Eberron Sourcebook, Dice, More Junk

Where do I go and when?
There's no specific in-game orientation time or place and you go at your own pace. You look at the website. You get a clue. You bebop around Stormreach until struck by an epiphany (or a battleaxe). You go back to the website and type in your aswer. If it is right, you get another clue and repeat. The challenge spans all servers, classes, genders, and races.

What if I'm not first to solve all 10 clues?
There are other prizes for clever folks who get to the end but not first. This includes a never-before-seen animated short featuring Clankenbeard and Lessah. There's a complete list and photographs of the various prizes on the website. Go check it out at www.DDoHunt.com or www.Clankenbeard.com for more info.

I'm new to DDo. How can I possibly know any of the answers?
Well, you are at a disadvantage for sure, but you are not out of the running. All answers to clues come from areas accessible by all characters. You may have to buy your way into the market, but that's it. You don't need to get into any danger to find the answers. You just have to be clever.

Who are Lessah and Clankenbeard?
Us. A couple of DDo players. Oh and Lessah was the Role Playing representative on the DDo Podcast. We are doing this for fun and offering up our own loot for prizes. Lessah came up with the idea to do something special to commemorate our 1-year anniversary of making DDo-based videos. Then she promptly nagged me until I did it. We have no ties to DDo at all. Oh and the WanderingMonster trinkets for consolation prizes are from our much neglected website about wandering monsters.

How do I get my prize if I win?
We'll mail it to you. We'll cover that when/if you win.

How do you know I won?
When you answer the last question, you'll be given instructions on what to do. You'll have to email your information to a mystery e-mail address with some specific information in it. Completion times for prizes will be judged based on e-mail delivery times.

This sounds phishy. Is it safe?
It is safe. There's no database. There's no entry of personal information or even a login name. You just type in your answers to the questions and click a couple buttons here and there.

How long will it last?
That we don't know. We are competing with Mod6 for your attention, so it may take a bit. We plan to drop one hint on February 10th. That will be a clue on how to actually get from the Home portion of the website to the actual Answer Page. (Yes, you have to be clever just to get to the Answer Page to get your first clue.) Then, we'll start on clue 1 and drop a "clue that helps a little" in the morning and a "clue that helps a lot" in the evening. Even the slowest barbarian should be able to get everything in ten days at this rate. Any longer than that and I imagine people would simply lose interest and go straight on to killing things.

Post your comments and feedback here. Brag about how clever you are. But, please Please, PLEASE:

===> NO HINTS, SPOILERS, OR ANSWERS IN THIS THREAD EXCEPT BY LESSAH AND CLANKENBEARD! <===

Give everybody a chance to figure it out for themselves. We plan to leave it up for a long while. It will not go out of date and might still be fun for folks all the way into Mod 13 or 14.

Thanks! Good luck!

<<====================UPDATE 06 FEB 2008======================>>

We have decided to place all hints right here in the first post on this thread. This will hopefully keep it at the top of the General Discussion forum for the 10 days (or less) that the hunt takes. How are we gonna do that? We are going to post the clues right here in this first post this but they'll be the same color as the page. So, if you want to read them, you'll have to highlight the text with your cursor. Each will have a date and time on it as well. Click and drag below on the area just right of "Example:" to see what we mean. They've been moved to near the top of this post so everybody can see them!

<<====================UPDATE 09 FEB 2008 5:59pm CST======================>>

The treasure hunt is live!!! Good luck everyone. The first hint drops tomorrow at a random time. Subscribe to the thread if you need immediate notification.

[Mockduck]

Sweet. Check the site out, it's real cool.

[Hendrik]

Awesome!


Sounds like a BLAST!

[Mhykke]

Good stuff....can't wait...

[Rhenry851]

Looking forward to it! And may the best Stormbringer, err, I mean player, win.

Therick, Ricardia, Merricka, etcetera

[Mad_Bombardier]

Awesome! I can't wait.

[Yaga_Nub]

I'm there!

EDIT: I need you guys to do some graphics for my contests. I love the picture you have up here.

[Clankenbeard]

EDIT: I need you guys to do some graphics for my contests. I love the picture you have up here.

Yaga, thanks for the kind words. Clanky (that's me) does all of the graphics stuff. I am no professional by any stretch and stick to cartoons. If you are looking for some cheeseball cartoons (like the ones up there) to advertise for any one of your many splendiforus contests, I can hook you up. Drawing something takes me about 3 minutes. Scanning/coloring that bit takes me a bit longer. I am red/green colorblind, so I have to have Lessah standing there saying,"No, no, no, no! What are you, colorblind?!?" Breaking the traced bits into articulating graphics and animating (as you will see in the Treasure Hunt), takes loads longer.

Drop me a private message and we'll get the ball rolling. Now do the Clankydance!

[Ardanroth]

Looks awesome i cant wait for it to come live


Thanks for your time and effort !!!!

[SerTorm]

Is it a typo that the timing page it shows 02/09/2007 as the start date? and if so, do you usually apply tense to your typos? I would expect it to read: "This contest will begin on..." as opposed to "This contest Began...'

I don't mean to nag, I'll be participating for sure. But it looks funny to me, and I got nobody esle to point it out to...

[Clankenbeard]

Is it a typo that the timing page it shows 02/09/2007 as the start date? and if so, do you usually apply tense to your typos? I would expect it to read: "This contest will begin on..." as opposed to "This contest Began...'
I don't mean to nag, I'll be participating for sure. But it looks funny to me, and I got nobody esle to point it out to...

I always apply tense to my typos! Hmmmm. But if you look closely at the page......right.....about......now.......um....... now....I mean...NOW! You'll see that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the Timing section of the webpage. It falls in line exactly with what you said, SerTorn. So, I'm not even sure what you may or may not have been talking about.

[Lessah]

I always apply tense to my typos! Hmmmm. But if you look closely at the page......right.....about......now.......um....... now....I mean...NOW! You'll see that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the Timing section of the webpage. It falls in line exactly with what you said, SerTorn. So, I'm not even sure what you may or may not have been talking about.

I have to give all props to Clankenbeard! He has been working so hard on this thing. I hope the Real Life loot we have compiled is juicy enough to grab your attention. 60-day & 30-day game cards respectively, and THREE decks of many things and dice to go with it. Oh yeah, a DDO T-shirt is in there too. In a weird way, I hope Kashka Koolwater wins so she can have her shirt back... in another weird way I hope the person who wins offers the shirt as a prize in another contest. ((it will become the stuff of legends))

Don't dissapoint me DDO community! DO THE MATH!!!

[Mockduck]

Seriously, this is really cool. Been checking things out, gonna discuss on this weekend's podcast. Having fun with mod 6. Got ask the devs coming for this weekend! I tell ya - can I be having a better time?!?! No! Seriously, this is my week and I'm diggin' it....

[Yaga_Nub]

I promise that if I win the T-Shirt it will become the prize for another contest just to keep the tradition alive.

[Dozen_Black_Roses]

kewl idea, and really great that it's available to all, no matter what server they play on

[Dariuss]

neat

i'm in!

[Black_Flamingo]

This sounds great, I'm really looking forward to it.

[pwrslyd]

I'm definitely in on this, and congrats on the Thread of the Week!

[cdbd3rd]

...are we there yet?








......are we there YET!?








....*sigh* patience never was one of my virtues...

[Gum]

Awesome! Looking forward to this.