From DocScorpio@prodigy.net Sun Apr 27 10:59:41 2003 Path: news1.central.cox.net!central.cox.net!cox.net!pd2nf1so.cg.shawcable.net!residential.shaw.ca!prodigy.com!newsmst01.news.prodigy.com!prodigy.com!postmaster.news.prodigy.com!newssvr19.news.prodigy.com.POSTED!ed272fa0!not-for-mail From: "DocScorpio" Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg Subject: Most Complex Easter Egg: Divine Divinity's got my vote Lines: 50 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1106 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1106 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: 63.212.135.14 X-Complaints-To: abuse@prodigy.net X-Trace: newssvr19.news.prodigy.com 1051385718 ST000 63.212.135.14 (Sat, 26 Apr 2003 15:35:18 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2003 15:35:18 EDT Organization: Prodigy Internet http://www.prodigy.com X-UserInfo1: Q[R_PJONQZUUR_DYAROD^RHAUKXBABXMKHUTNBPLAH[\RYIBK^RAQFW[ML\THRCKV^GGZKJMGV^^_JSCFFUA_QXFGVSCYRPILH]TRVKC^LSN@DX_HCAFX__@J\DAJBVMY\ZWZCZLPA^MVH_P@\\EOMW\YSXHG__IJQY_@M[A[[AXQ_XDSTAR]\PG]NVAQUVM Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2003 19:35:18 GMT Xref: cox.net comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg:3028519 X-Received-Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2003 15:36:06 EDT (news1.central.cox.net) What follows may be very old news. If so, I apologize. "Easter eggs" can range from simple allusions to other games/movies/books (i.e., "Mad Max" in FO2, the mysterious Talon fighter in P2, the dead marine in Q2) to actual new secret game levels (i.e., cow level in D2 and the NWC Hqs. in MM6/7, ). In some games a player can just happen across an egg, while in others it's an involved process to get the egg. Divine Divinity's "easter egg" level is about the most complex I've ever seen. You aren't going to get into this baby unless you follow specific directions and have specific items in your inventory.....but once you do, you find yourself in a truly amusing place: SPOILER / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / After a tribute to 9/11, you can take a portal to a dungeon area where the Larian programmers are imprisoned (along with their pc's). They implore you to free them (they seem to have been locked up by the publishers so they'll finish the game on time)...and if you descend to an even lower dungeon and fight an army of game bugs (with names like "initialization failure" and "out of range"), the project leader and lead programmer, Sven Vincke, will upgrade a silver breastplate (one of the items needed to enter the egg) into special high-stat "Larian Silver Plate." The dialog of the various staff members is hilarious (we have a modeler complaining about how as the game was pared down to get it out the door, half the models weren't used or were misused, etc). This has got to be the most elaborate easter egg, I recall ever having seen....and it's pretty damn funny (especially, all the bottles of dwarven beer and various foodstuffs around the team-members work stations).