EverQuest II Announcement ARG

Below is part of an Alternate Reality Game I played with the EverQuest community to tease out the announcement of EverQuest II. It was wildly successful, and got both the press and the community very fired up and at attention for each phase. Even this description of the puzzle so far has a hidden message that led to another domain name with another “leaked” screenshot of EverQuest II. I worked with Exec, Marketing and PR to get this just right.

 

Welcome to Hammerfel’s Last Rites. Like my good friend Fippy, with his Facts, and my fellow “small person,” Mennix, I will be making the occasional appearance here on EverQuestLive.com. For the most part, my news will cover EverQuest on the web, but I will also share my experiences and tips from my days as a Cleric, healing the wounds of those in need and bringing the fallen back to life.

-High Priest Hammerfel

 

In the April edition of the Harpy’s Head Herald, EQ’s official email newsletter that goes out to more than 200,000 subscribers, we placed one puzzle and a hidden clue within the content as a special Easter Egg. This lead to further clues hinting at something we currently have in the works, to be announced in the near future.

The newsletter subscriber base was broken down into nine groups, and each of these groups received a different piece of the puzzle. This called for a community effort to solve it. (Originally, there were 8 pieces, but one gave too many letters away, so we split it in two) Congrats to The SafeHouse community for being the first group to solve the puzzle.

Nine to Unfold
Unity to bind

A word of discovery
An answer to find

Nine to unfold
Shattered and lost
A power untold

A domain of destination
Outside the normal world
The boundary of imagination

Veiled in darkest night
Combined, the magic is revealed (sample)
By a hand righteous of might

A new world will beckon
No longer concealed

-poem written by the talented Steve Fuller
Once all the pieces were combined, the word NEKTULOS appeared, and by following the clues in the above riddle, the answer lay waiting at www.nektulos.com.

Once at www.nektulos.com, visitors were greeted with a mysterious announcement and a black screen. If the mouse cursor was run over this black screen, a special image was revealed—a glimpse of what is to come.

That tablet puzzle was not the only Easter Egg in this newsletter. If anyone happened to view source on the newsletter, they would have seen the comment line that read, <!– “Now, don’t get lost in the Sevac Gniliaw…”, said the High Priest Hammerfel –>. Sevac Gniliaw is Wailing Caves spelled backwards. Those who figured out the tablet puzzle first, then came across this hidden comment of mine quickly figured out that www.wailingcaves.com had a surprise as well.

Keep watching for more Easter Eggs and puzzles in the coming weeks. The community pulled together very fast to solve this one. But who will be the first to unravel the big announcement just cresting the horizon?

-High Priest Hammerfel
Nathan Pearce
Director of Web Presence