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This topic has moved here: Subject: Glyphs and treasure hunting; the truth about the Sword in ODST
  • Subject: Glyphs and treasure hunting; the truth about the Sword in ODST
Subject: Glyphs and treasure hunting; the truth about the Sword in ODST

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  • 10.01.2009 9:22 AM PDT
Subject: The truth about the Sword in ODST

Here's a great find by Gamesagers

Posted by: Gamesagers
I just checked and the sword picture is also in the images for the weapons in odst just click view image on one of the weapons and replace the name with sword. http://www.bungie.net/images/halo3stats/odst/weapons/gif_med/ sword.gif I think you're right. okay i also checked and it is a new image heres the halo 3 image url here notice how the image is different too.


I just found the Skyjacker medal. Haven't been able to Skyjack a Banshee though.

[Edited on 10.01.2009 9:40 PM PDT]

  • 10.01.2009 9:23 AM PDT
Subject: Glyphs and treasure hunting; the truth about the Sword in ODST

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Original Post:
Ninja Edit: I hope you don't mind if I add this to your post at the request of community members while the original thread creator is banned.

If you are just joining us, the main discussion of this thread has shifted to unlocking the secret associated with the stonehenge rooms and glyphs around New Mombassa at night. The following info about the sword led to the idea of an unlockable easter egg in ODST, and is still worty of a read. If you wish to join the treasure hunt (why not!) skip to the last pages of this thread and catch up!
Thanks for your contribution, and have fun!


Sorry, forgot to include this at first: This is all work done by I adJACENt I, and Pope Rex. Pope started the idea by looking at the Medal Chest, and then we both worked on it from there.

As most of you are aware, there is no Energy Sword in ODST. Except for this guy, but he doesn't count. ;) Energy Swords are the signature weapon of the Sangheili (Elites), and since all of the Elites featured in ODST are already dead, it's no surprise that you cannot find a Sword anywhere. There is, however, and empty Sword hilt near a bunch of dead Elites and Brutes in the Tayari Plaza level, when Buck asks Dare "What's with all the dead Elites?"

Well, as some of you may know, there are two medal GIFs in the ODST GIF database pertaining to Swords. The Sword Spree, and the Slice and Dice. In Halo 3, the Sword Spree was obtained by killing 5 enemies in a row with the Sword without dying, and the Slice and Dice bumped that number up to 10.

Those images were obtained by viewing the Page source of a person's ODST medal chest. These pics are not to be confused with the Sword Spree and Slice and Dice from Halo 3. Completely different URLs and sizes. If you attempt to go further up on that url, and try to view all medals, you get a "Sorry, but you are not authorized to view this page" message, which is understandable. Whether there's a secret or not, I doubt Bungie wants us viewing every single little GIF they have for the stats.

So the question is: Why were there Sword Spree medals made up for ODST, if they did not include a Sword in the game? There are three viable options here...

1. The medals were made due to someone initially thinking there was a Sword in the game. Maybe Elites were in the first stages of the game, maybe we could have stumbled on that fight between the Brutes and Elites, and picked up a Sword off a dead Elite. Maybe they were there just in case someone decided to put a Sword in later. Definitely plausible.

2. Two words, three letters: DLC. Maybe a Sword will be included in some DLC further down the road. DLC has not been confirmed at this point, and there are currently no plans to release any. So...

3. There is a Sword somewhere in the game, that is meant to be either unlocked or found, and this is what I will focus on for the rest of the thread.

Our first clue to there being something unlockable was the ODST Medal Chest. If you look at this picture, you will see two areas I wish to draw your attention to. First is the Weapon Spree medals. Notice how there are black boxes to the right of the sprees of 10. Now, on the bottom, after Hero, the medal box ends, and the last two slots are just grayed out. Why would there be black boxes in the Weapon Spree block, but not at the bottom of the chest?

Also, I forgot to add the following in, Pope reminded me of it...
In the source code of the ODST medal page, the black medal boxes appear as an object type "hidden medal" as part of a "medalblock" class.

Here: <div id="ctl00_mainContent_psPlayer_rptMedalRow_ctl01_rptPlay erMedals_ctl02_ctl00_pnlMedalHidden" class="medalBlock">


Well, we figured there must be some other medal, that no one else has found and unlocked yet. Since these blocks were next to the Weapon Sprees of 10, we first assumed that there would be a spree of much more than 10. Pope tested this theory out, and found that 100 straight splatters will still not give you any extra medal (we tried that here). We next thought that maybe there was something outrageous you had to do, like playing an entire Round/Set on Legendary while only getting Splatters.

So along this line of thinking, we started trying out various URL's to find a GIF of a medal not on the medal chest. At one point, I started trying some of the Halo 3 MM medals, just for the hell of it. Sure enough, I found the Sword Spree and Slice and Dice. As pointed out earlier, these were part of the ODST GIFs, not the Halo 3 GIFs. Two completely separate URLs.

So now we have these two medals, and no way of achieving them. If we are correct in our assumptions, there is a Sword somewhere in this game, most likely Campaign. We scoured the streets of New Mombosa, looking for any sign of this Sword. We found the empty hilt in Tayari Plaza, and we also came across an odd saying from the Superintendent on this same mission. When we first meet a local guy, he sends us into some buildings to flank a few Brutes. While transitioning from one buliding to another, we hear Buck say something like "What the hell happened here?" And the SI responds "Slow down. Final notice: Bill past due." Could this be a clue? Does anyone know why the Si would say that?

Another possible clue is the little "Stonehenge" room with the two dead Elites. It has 6 pillars, with the 'Y' markings on them, two dead Elites, two Engineers floating around, and a Carbine on the floor next to one of the Elites. What are those markings for? Do they show directions to anything, similar to all of the SI symbols around the city that point to Audion Logs and Beacons? Why do they look different, without anything between the prongs?

These same symbols are located in the Tayari Plaza section at night, while playing as the Rookie, where all the dead Elites and Brutes are. Why are these special symbols only where Elites are at?

There are a couple of other similar rooms around, too, all accessible through a Security Door. Some of them have Engineers, some with Audio Logs, some with other enemies. On the VISR map, these rooms show the pillars inside of them, but when you get into the room, all you can see are shadows where the pillars once stood (Mickey's pod crash site is one example). What's the deal with that?

So, we're left with many questions. Why are there spaces for medals next to the Weapon Sprees of 10? Why are there Sword medals when there is no Sword (that we know of) in the game? What are these symbols that only show up near the dead Elites?


Wow, nice thread. Then again, I cant add anything as you are pretty much THE only one so far to make the sound of "Swords in ODST" plausible, in some distant parallel universe.

Lets see how this goes.
*Saved*

[Edited on 03.30.2010 10:33 AM PDT by TOM T 117]

  • 10.01.2009 9:29 AM PDT
Subject: The truth about the Sword in ODST

I think the Sword Spree Medal you are thinking of has been replaced with the "Sticky Spree" which is 5 sticks in a row,and its 10 kill counterpart.That confused me for a while too.

  • 10.01.2009 9:29 AM PDT

Maybe there is a sword in odst. its probably hidden by some ridiculus puzze like the jumping through the halo rings in halo 3 to get the IWHBYD skull

  • 10.01.2009 9:33 AM PDT

You could try to spin this as proof of the existance of a non-existant weapon or DLC project, but what's probably a more rational conclusion is that at some point in developement the sword was nixed from ODST and all pertaining materials on it (Ex. medals) were removed in the easiest way possible.

Namely, simply hiding the associated medals rather than reworking the stat system to remove the sword from all mention.

  • 10.01.2009 9:36 AM PDT

Get over yourself - drink vodka!

Posted by: Inferno82695
Maybe there is a sword in odst. its probably hidden by some ridiculus puzze like the jumping through the halo rings in halo 3 to get the IWHBYD skull
I think there might be a mini-puzzle associated with the 3 "stonehenge" clearings in the game.

Does anyone know for certain if pan-cam is in ODST?

[Edited on 10.01.2009 9:41 AM PDT]

  • 10.01.2009 9:37 AM PDT

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To be honest it sounds like much of your latter theory goes far from the path of a possible energy sword. Well I look forward to seeing what you guys find.

  • 10.01.2009 9:37 AM PDT

Posted by: SeasonedVeterans
Posted by: Havok417
I think the Sword Spree Medal you are thinking of has been replaced with the "Sticky Spree" which is 5 sticks in a row,and its 10 kill counterpart.That confused me for a while too.


Stick Spree says Stick Spree, Sticky Fingers says "corrected" in the URL. Not saying you're right, but not saying you're wrong either. It could have been that a Sword Spree was planned, but they swapped it out at the last minute for a Stick Spree when they finally decided they were'nt using Swords.


You did that without flaming me.I'm impressed,and because you did it politely,I agree with you that that is entirely possible.I find the idea of a sword being in the game a bit far though.

  • 10.01.2009 9:39 AM PDT

Agreed. if theres a puzzle its probably assoosiated with the "stonehenge" areas

  • 10.01.2009 9:39 AM PDT

Get over yourself - drink vodka!

Posted by: Matu Flp Krawfe
You could try to spin this as proof of the existance of a non-existant weapon or DLC project, but what's probably a more rational conclusion is that at some point in developement the sword was nixed from ODST and all pertaining materials on it (Ex. medals) were removed in the easiest way possible.

Namely, simply hiding the associated medals rather than reworking the stat system to remove the sword from all mention.
A simple delete is not complicated.
Also, the medals have a re-sized resolution, signifying that they were tailored specifically for the ODST medal chest and its script pop-out window.
Whether they are intended for appearance in the game is still unknown (we aren't going to hex). The fact is Bungie left the GIF open to outside sources to retrieve - so it seems equally logical that it is meant to be accessed at some point besides conspiracy theorists ;-)

[Edited on 10.01.2009 9:44 AM PDT]

  • 10.01.2009 9:39 AM PDT

RIP Logan ~B.B.

Well, the gifs and medal chest would mostly be made up by the web crew and artists not as involved in designing the gameplay and probably prepared it not knowing if there would be a sword or not. Or it hit the cutting room floor later.

Or it's even possible that the code and files are based upon the Halo 3 service record page and weren't entirely cleaned out. Having done a fair bit of web development myself, I think that's a fairly likely scenario.

  • 10.01.2009 9:45 AM PDT

Posted by: Obi Wan Stevobi
Well, the gifs and medal chest would mostly be made up by the web crew and artists not as involved in designing the gameplay and probably prepared it not knowing if there would be a sword or not. Or it hit the cutting room floor later.

Or it's even possible that the code and files are based upon the Halo 3 service record page and weren't entirely cleaned out. Having done a fair bit of web development myself, I think that's a fairly likely scenario.


Exactly.Why make a new page when you already have a template in use.Just copy that one and cut it down to fit your needs.

  • 10.01.2009 9:49 AM PDT

*Sips tea*

Posted by: Inferno82695
Agreed. if theres a puzzle its probably assoosiated with the "stonehenge" areas


Gotta be. The strange Y symbols that have the Super associated with them tend to only pop up around mysterious objects or dead elites.

There has to be something to them. I don't know what, but there has to be something. While exploring the city for audio logs, the symbols also appeared around campaign missions, but they were of a different variety. The ones that included the Super surrounded dead elites or other mysterious occurrences, while the ones that contained strange symbols permeated around campaign missions.

I'm usually no good at viral puzzles, but I want to see where this one goes. Saved thread.

  • 10.01.2009 9:50 AM PDT

Get over yourself - drink vodka!

That doesn't explain why the perfection medal and several H3 unique medals are NOT visible in the ODST GIF database yet the sword medals are.

I've also done some web design and coding - it's not difficult to copy a set of objects, remove ones you don't want, and add new ones in.

In the source code of the ODST medal page, the black medal boxes appear as an object type "hidden medal" as part of a "medalblock" class.

Here: <div id="ctl00_mainContent_psPlayer_rptMedalRow_ctl01_rptPlay erMedals_ctl02_ctl00_pnlMedalHidden" class="medalBlock">


PLUS, in the H3 medal chest, there are no black boxes in gaps between medal categories. They have grayed out space just like under the style section.

[Edited on 10.01.2009 9:57 AM PDT]

  • 10.01.2009 9:54 AM PDT

You don't kick a man when they're down, so don't teabag me when I'm dead!

Maybe it was there just in case they decided to include elites in the game?

If it were hidden, I'd search areas like the scarab and the final mission.

  • 10.01.2009 9:59 AM PDT

There is a Sword Spree medal specifically for ODST anyways. It's pretty simple to find: drag the killing spree medal to the URL bar then replace the word "killing" in the URL with "sword". It is slightly different to if you drag Halo 3's Sword Spree to the URL bar.

I am thinking there is either a hidden one somewhere or it is just there by accident. I highly doubt the DLC.

  • 10.01.2009 10:04 AM PDT
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Good post!
Here`s what I think:
I think that reason that the "empty blocks" in weapon spree section are there not grayed out,because it would not look normal.
At the bottom it`s normal because thats where stuff usually ends..at the bottom.

and please dont bring up Halo 3 medal chest here,it is much older and to be honest,it does look much messy and uncategorized(sp?)

IMHO you are just overthinking things,now shall we stop finding this sword,or should we try find it like people did with Golden Warthog?

  • 10.01.2009 10:05 AM PDT
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I think the "Y" shaped symbols have been drawn by the engineers as a way of mourning the Elites. I think they liked the elites as they were probably treated much better and the brutes do bad things to them =(

Posted by: SeasonedVeterans

...Another possible clue is the little "Stonehenge" room with the two dead Elites. It has 6 pillars, with the 'Y' markings on them, two dead Elites, two Engineers floating around, and a Carbine on the floor next to one of the Elites. What are those markings for? Do they show directions to anything, similar to all of the SI symbols around the city that point to Audion Logs and Beacons? Why do they look different, without anything between the prongs?

These same symbols are located in the Tayari Plaza section at night, while playing as the Rookie, where all the dead Elites and Brutes are. Why are these special symbols only where Elites are at?

...

So, we're left with many questions. Why are there spaces for medals next to the Weapon Sprees of 10? Why are there Sword medals when there is no Sword (that we know of) in the game? What are these symbols that only show up near the dead Elites?

...

  • 10.01.2009 10:13 AM PDT