The Big Spectre Hunt
Article by Tyler 'Brent' Shadow
Summarized by our very own CL7 Soka
As you may have noticed if you have been around the Outpost in the last month or so, there is a new team around. Speaking for Spectre, we had a tiny problem recently. We were hacked in a Spectre Hunt!
As the title implies, chatters hunted us down.
Why?? Some rogue agent called Foxtrot hacked into our database and stole data. He claimed we were bad guys. Just because we are just a tad secretive about our plans - who would want future events to be known ahead of time? It's supposed to be a surprise after all!
While he did not manage to get those files, he did get our heavily encrypted biographies. I did mention we're a tad secretive, didn't I?
Anyway, even after decrypting them, 3 or 4 a day, all he got were clues for our hiding places - which he of course needed help with. That's where our chatters came into play, because they were the ones who tracked them down. But even then we weren't uncovered yet - our introductions to each other also weren't in the clear. So there our poor victims were ... Foxtrot managed to crack the first layer. The chatters managed to crack the second - only to discover there was a third layer. Imagine their frustration. (Unless you were one of them, in that case you don't have to imagine it. Or maybe you enjoyed the challenge?)
There was a form attached to each introduction file, which was supposed to be used to submit your suspected person by pushing the Blame button.
Foxtrot claimed that every submission would help him with the decrypting process of the final file, which would confirm our identities and uncover us to the public. Right. As if unproven suspicions, or even wild guesses, could help.
He even managed to start at the wrong end of the pile of files, cracking the ones that led to the harder clues first, and ending with the easiest ones. More practice for our chatters - which they would soon need.
At the secret meeting he called, and, luckily for us, publicly announced days in advance, we were then able to finally stop him for good - by level-2 stabbing him.
Soft-hearted as we are, we then promised those hard-riddled chatters that we'd give them rewards, since we managed to recover the scrap of paper Foxtrot had written everyone's guesses on.
Of course, they first had to earn this by solving just one clue for us ...
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*cough* at least that's the story we kept telling people.
Even if it shocks you, there was no Rogue, there was no being hacked, and there was no ... wait, there was secrecy.
The reality is, we used this complicated scheme to introduce ourselves to the OTF-public in a (hopefully) entertaining way. Foxtrot was actually controlled by us Spectres - he was a puppet, the poor guy!
The original idea for this Hunt was Navi/Jessica's - and she was the main organizer too. This included coming up with all of those clues that were used (you can read them up in the Spectre Hunt Thread). Her idea was slightly modified and polished, then the real work started - deciding on hiding locations, creation of fitting clues, designing the pages, and all that stuff.
During the planning-phase, our amount of email-traffic quickly became legendary - and it was. We sent (and read!) at least 350 emails in the 3 weeks between founding of the team and the launch of the event.
Even before everything was settled, we posted that first Teaser - with plenty of space below our logo, for some odd reason? There were even still things up in the air by the time Foxtrot posted his Recruitment post ... and even when he posted his first clue in the chat! And then, we announced the closing-event before finishing the Rewards.
The moment we received the first Warning about having been hacked, all of us instantly stopped referring to Spectre or emails, and took all references out of our taglines - in addition to the Team Roster being completely cleared. We were joined by Nobbe/Thom halfway through the planning, and Sarek resigned to concentrate on RL. Whatever that is. We were however careful not to comment on these roster-changes - correctly identfying Nobbe was worth more than the other "known" Spectres.
And then there were those last-minute changes we were forced to do - like when it turned out we couldn't use the (Blue Report) Classifieds like we had intended to. Or the Calendar, which resulted in re-activation of the Classfieds one, for the closing-event.
You can read up some chatsaves of this event in our Spectre HQ!
I believe all of us Spectres had lots of fun with this event, and hopefully lots of other chatters too!
What next?
Well, we have ideas and plans. Several of them, but none (so far) quite as extensive as this Hunt. Expect to hear from us again soon-ish. And expect variety.
