Watch the Footage archive

EDIT: posted the full letter.

Well, I feel like an ass, but we've done it.

Here's the letter that Batman found.

If you wish for the clue, contact me. I'll PM you relevant info. I'm throwing things together as fast as I bloody well can to deal with this. PLEASE DO NOT TELL THE CLUE TO THE CABAL. I will give it to any metaguard who asks, but PLEASE do not act on your own yet! Don't betray the tram's trust in you, folks!

For clarification to the people who say I'm overreacting:

I suspected it was overdoing it. However, I was merely going along with what seemed to be the consensus on the discussion thread for this issue; that we post the letter without the hint. We are now, since the latest e-mail has confirmed our suspicions that the Cabal will be relying on us to get the fragments for whatever reason, we are probably going to de-classify this info anyway.

Due to recent info, all those previously aware of the situation and those who were around at the time the latest Cabal mail was revealed have come to the conclusion that it is no longer necessary to classify this information. Therefore, as of now, I am making it public.

The hint that we removed from the original letter was this link:

http://lerouxproductions.twwf.info/

That leads to a site created by A's agent to mock the Phantom, as well as, presumably, give the location of the wall fragment. However, it is well hidden. This is what we know:

The theatre in San Fransisco mentioned multiple times does not exist. It IS, however, the name of a character from a game. The actor of that character played in a 1970's American detective tv show titled "The Streets Of San Fransisco". Specifically, she appeared in two episodes, the second of which, "Deadline" included a young playwright.

The e-mail ticket function has a counter that lowers every time an e-mail is entered, even if the address is fake. It began at fifty, and GU17 was the first to put an e-mail in. We believe further info will be revealed once it reaches 0. Also, it keeps track of IP addresses, so even though it accepts nonsense e-mails, you will have to proxy if you wish to enter more than one. We should leave that plan alone for now, just in case legitimate messages will be sent. Otherwise we might be cheating metaguards out of an opportunity to participate.

The picture used in the section titled "The Show" is originally from here, and appears elsewhere on the internet. It is unlikely to be a clue, though a pixel hunt has not been started on it. In the "About" section, the site mentions that this fake company has been going for more than a decade, which is obviously another hint to its false nature, but also possibly a clue. They also say they did a play called "Hamsters" but as of yet I have NO clue how significant that is.

That is everything we have covered so far. However, there is more that I have revealed to no one yet, save the original people who saw the letter. There is one final line after the website, that seems to be telling us what the echo looks like.

Agent wrote:Once in its new home, I'll put it in an old VHS box. No one is going to be checking VHS's.

After a long debate between us, we elected to reveal this information a short time after the rest. Due to the concerns of certain parties amongst us that some pro-cabal lurker might reveal the information to the Cabal directly and then allow them to get the fragment, I elected to hold back that line until the information had been passed out to everyone, just to make sure that no one would leak it. Once everyone involved was sure no one had leaked the information and we decided it was time to get the fragment, I would release the final line so people knew what to look for. This plan met the concerns and did not leave fellow metaguards at a disadvantage in deciphering the clue, and so was accepted as the best solution we could come up with int he limited time available.

With all of this put together, we think at the moment that the fragment may be hidden in a VHS copy of "The Streets Of San Fransisco", but we as of yet have no leads on where it is hidden.

That is all the information I have on this at the moment. Further discussion can go here, so we can access it easily.

Violation Of Common Sense has officially reached Egregious levels.
Why can't I just play this game like a normal, non-meta person?

This is all very good info. Congrats and limes go to Batman for finding it.

The level of precaution taken with hiding the clues from Cabal's eyes was in my opinion unnecessary and disruptive. After all, it's not like we were ever intended to find the pieces ourselves. I think it's been clear that the intent was to reveal the location of the pieces so that the Cabal can go out and find it for themselves. Keeping these clues for ourselves only serves to stall the game. But what's done is done.

The ticket reservations seem interesting. I highly suggest we don't spam it with false e-mails, please. It's probably designed to give us information that could help us. There does seem to be plenty to go around, so we should all at least take one, if you're interested in following this trail, that is. Once we know that everyone who's interested has reserved a seat, then maybe we can discuss taking that thing down to zero.

Edit: I went and reserved my seat. Hoping it'll be a great show!

WackyMeetsPractical wrote:Once we know that everyone who's interested has reserved a seat, then maybe we can discuss taking that thing down to zero.

In that case, this is the editable list of those who submitted their emails. Feel free to add yourself.
I think we should wait until December 5th or so, and then start proxy-spamming.

WackyMeetsPractical wrote:The level of precaution taken with hiding the clues from Cabal's eyes was in my opinion unnecessary and disruptive. After all, it's not like we were ever intended to find the pieces ourselves. I think it's been clear that the intent was to reveal the location of the pieces so that the Cabal can go out and find it for themselves. Keeping these clues for ourselves only serves to stall the game. But what's done is done.

Actually, Wacky, that is incorrect. Morgan implied a while back in one of her e-mails that WE would be collecting the fragments, not them. With her latest message, she has directly confirmed it.

Morgan wrote:Dearest Tohrinha,
That is, indeed, a start – This is most wonderful! I doubt Erik will be happy that this agent of the Tyrant refers to his work so dismissively.
I see that some involved are concerned about posting the actual clue, which is understandable I suppose. Assure them for me that we do not have the capabilities to get the other pieces on our own. I was hoping that more would see our side of things by this point, but at least action is being taken.
Sincerely,
Morgan

See? Furthermore, I took said level of precaution because people on the discussion thread about collecting fragments stated that they wished to view the clues in secret and figure out where the piece was without revealing it to the Cabal at once. People requested those who got a letter to edit out the hints and reveal them in secret. This course of action seemed to be pretty much agreed upon beforehand, so when we got notice of the discovery we did exactly what we said we would.

So there's currently five people on the Google doc but 35 seats out of 50 remain... Is that because people just haven't posted that they've added themselves?

Also extremely pissed that I missed everything that happened last night, goddamnit timezones.

I just put in my email and edited the doc to include me.

So 34 tickets left now. YAY.

Entered my email, added myself to the Doc, counter says 32 seats left.

S_o_S wrote:So there's currently five people on the Google doc but 35 seats out of 50 remain... Is that because people just haven't posted that they've added themselves?

Also extremely pissed that I missed everything that happened last night, goddamnit timezones.

There's a google doc? O.o I'll go look for it...

Edit: Found it.

Reserved. I have a couple of friends' addresses I can probably get, too, if we need them.

Reserved and added. The IP address thing's limiting.

Just sort of back. I'm completely lost and all that...
But added my email to the site and my name to the .gdoc

Trying very fruitlessly to catch up using my phone as a modem...

I'm on IMDB doing some sleuthing about Psychonauts. The whole deadline thing doesn't offer much of a clue.

I forgot to mention I asked a friend of mine, to add his e-mail. Should I add that to the doc too?

Yeah, go ahead. You can add him as "Blurred_9L's friend 1".

H22 wrote:I'm on IMDB doing some sleuthing about Psychonauts. The whole deadline thing doesn't offer much of a clue.

I agree that it doesn't. I was just reporting all the theories we had at the time. That's a good idea.

I can't do that at present, could someone else check IMDb? The Deadline thing sounds more like they're telling us 'you're on the right track, keep going' than a clue as such. I'm on hand for any more book codes.

I just had a slightly amusing and evil idea. Why don't we beg, borrow or steal devices with other IP and enter the emails of those who spam the forums, the blogs and the emails to get the counter to zero?

That's pointless, evil, and pretty stupid. If we want to get the counter to zero, we can use proxies, as previously established (unless the GMs have covered this hole by now ).

I know we can use proxies. That's the point. This would just be an amusingly evil way of doing so.

It's evident that we're not supposed to actually attend to a play.
So, suppose the next clue will be sent by email, as it would make sense given the format...

Proxy spam with nonsense emails and we get very few copies/pieces of the next puzzle. I know at least 1 nonsense email was used to test, and that's fine, but if we go proxy spam, we should make sure we can get to all the emails we enter, just in case.
(P.S. No using 10minutemail, for instance. =P )
Being Captain Obvious here, I believe. But I didn't see it mentioned and that bugs me. xD

I agree with Pixie. I'm not entirely sure if we're required to bring that thing down to zero or not. I figured that any sensible theatre company wouldn't wait until all seats were filled before sending out e-mails to individuals who already signed up, but since this is a fictional theatre company anyway, perhaps even in-universe, I could be wrong. Either way, I would hate to spam the thing and then deprive any meta-guard the chance to participate if they really wanted to.