Hmm, if someone was close lets get all internet detective on this. So the original message was:
Major announcement coming in the next couple of days.
I'll give you guys a small hint in advance as a sign of appreciation. It's probably a crappy hint, but whatever!
Start backing up.
You say the words are hints but not the sentence so Start, Backing, and Up are important being all italics and what not. Lets get the false guess out of the way first though.
The first silly one was this
Hidden in the code is a diginuclear bomb that will blow up the internet and destroy all computers connected to it. They are telling us to start backing up what we want to keep after the netocalypse.
and because the coders only seem to have it out for our characters lives and not any real evil it can't be right. The next is
Someone wants to fund you lot as a proper dev team for the game? So we can see some actually paid work put into it?
which while it would be nice I don't see it as a valid option at this point in time. The next is
Zombies start spreading the disease ?
and it won't be it because canon says everyone has it because the stuff that causes the zombies is in the water supply. Another is
Someone has restructured the entire code to give it a sensible formatting?
which is unlikely though I would praise the person who managed to do this. Then we have
I bet it's actually something compartively minor and Glyph's just realized he may have overdramatized it.
which I disqualify since someone else has chimed in saying yes its good. Then we have
oh noes, I'm getting all impatient now 
back up *from your screen* because we got nice a full-screen HD tileset ?
which like the code reform while I would praise the one who did it this is just too unlikely. Another one is
Back up cause you can only see traps and shit once you get right close to them as opposed to the old, if you can see em you can see em?
which just is not exciting enough and doesn't use all of the hints.
Okay with the unlikely ones out of the way lets go through the ones that could be it though really the come in groups so first is facing. The first such suggestion was somewhat interesting though stated weirdly
You're announcing the ability to walk backwards?
This is the most exciting thing ever! We finally get to moonwalk!!! 
(somebody put this in)
and while not directly stating facing the fact of the matter is that being able to walk backwards denotes there is a forwards. The next this is more of a follow up to the first one here
Can it be added as a martial art style? The zombies will be so startled at our mad moonwalking skills that we can get a free strike at them
and I am adding it for completeness though we can always use more martials. Next is only the first part
We get facing like UnrealWorld or you're all giving up and erasing everything from the net.
and it is the first actual mention of facing. Next up is
A directional system in which bears can only see you when you walk forwards? That has to be it.
which while similar to facing is different which I will go over in the wrap up for facing. This next one is
Line of sight?
and I include it in facing because we already have line of sight though with facing an update to it would be wise. Anyway these are the facing catagory and now I will break it down some.
First lets look at the hint words and try to match them up with facing. Backing is obvious as with facing there is suddenly a back to be backing towards. Up would be simple to just paste onto backing but that would be cheating so I will have to go with facing upwards restricting your view and it might be required to target things that can fly now. Finally there is Start which could mean that the bear sneaking up on you can finally give you quite a start where as before the only surprise you could get is if you turned a corner or opened a door onto it. Now with that out of the way facing is nice but its hard to denote with ASCII while directional on the other hand is easier. In this case directional is different from facing because facing is a literal term taken to mean where you are faced towards. Directional on the other hand is a more abstract way of looking at it and could be applied in a more soft form then facing would allow without making the term useless but honestly this is all just button holing words and whichever it is it will probably be called facing.
Another suggestion type is the new boss monster or some sort of thing like that. the first such suggestion was a part of a number of ones
That is indeed a crappy hint, sir. This could mean any number of things like the following:
- A large in-game enemy that can instakill you at melee range (back up means back away)
- An update which allows save files to be transferred over from older versions (back up means back up the saves)
- Simply a gigantic update with so much stuff that we'll be blown away by the awesome of it all (back up means back away IRL)
And it's rather likely that all three of those are wrong.
and as you see is more of a joke with the instakill thing. Also I discount the other two as this seems to be from the talk they have done more of a singular thing that will highly improve things. Anyway the other suggestion like this was so
There's a new boss called annoucement and it's really strong? Oh shit man, I can barely even kill hulks~
which technically a joke suggestion is possible. My thought would be that we have enough portals going every which way so a new boss in a different dimension is possible. These could be considered close because it might just be a new class of harder monsters or they just didn't say the exact type of boss.
The final type of possible suggestions was z levels though only one person suggested it. I would have made this suggestion myself but I wanted to make a joke suggestion. Anyway
Z-levels. My bet's on Z-levels.
I have no idea why "start backing up" is a good hint for that, though.
and yes as a sentence "start backing up" would mean little for this so instead we must once again look at it as word by word basis. Start means that since they did something this big they will start the versioning number at 1 or something of the like. Backing has a number of possible meanings but I can't pin one down I won't try. Finally Up is simple enough as thats the directions buildings would now be able to go.
Of course it has been admitted that the hint was bad so I have something else to go on. I think it is the z-level idea because only one person suggested it and I quote
one person's guess was really close. ^_^
So the likeliness of any of the ones suggested multiple times is really low. Z-levels have been a goal for a while now and a proper working version of them would be classed as a big thing no matter what. Also there was talk of asking Toady for help on it and while I don't know if this was done with something like coding all it could take to set someone off would be a good enough hint or suggestion so maybe someone did message Toady and he said something that helped or maybe even provided some form of code though this isn't a likely one.
Glyph,
is the update a type of Z-level that will work for the game?
Edit: oh and DWC's suggestion is a new one so unlikely as its takes the hint as a sentence and wasn't suggested yet so not following in the latest in Glyphs posts.
Author
Topic: Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead - A roaming horde appears on the horizon! (Read 1864816 times)