Hidden Fun Facts gw1

[Brisingr Reamz.8037]

Game developers across the ages have hid different things within their games that take days, months, or even years before people find it. For example the arena net symbol in the gw2 pvp lobby or the turkey room in ascalonian catacombs. Do you guys have any hidden rooms or fun facts about gw1 that you don't think people have found yet? What are your favorite hidden things in gw1 that have been discovered?

[Gaile Gray.6029]

Oh my gosh -- what a fun question! I'll see if anyone can give some "inside info" on this from a developer perspective. :)

[Redfeather.6401]

That's a really interesting question, Brisingr Reamz. I'd love to know too! I think a lot of people would surprised if there was.

[Kilrik.6320]

I'm a huge fan of gw1 and played for many years, but since it was a world without jumping and a true z plane, I actually doubt things were not happened upon at some point. I was a wall-hugger myself for my exploration title "Tyrian Grandmaster Cartographer" and the other corresponding titles for Cantha and Elona, and I feel like I've seen every square inch of each map working on that .1 % of map completion. I will say there were parts that had great details that would have gone missed if not charting for the achievement, but most of the unusual discoveries were where you broke the map and saw to the great infinity and beyond. I specifically remember this in the Shiverpeaks area hugging the highest inclined elevations of mountains. Finding all the nooks also included using /stuck quite a bit as well. That said I have to give credit for what they are doing now in gw2 and the fact that they made map completion so much less tedious. =)

[Gaile Gray.6029]

If you did not see Stephan Clarke-Willson's post containing a fun video that he made years ago, you should look. [Here's the link](https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/531063/#Comment_531063 "Here's the link").

[Stephen ClarkeWillson.1802]

I've been asked a few times over the last six months about the "DirectSong tokens" and what they mean. These are seven letter tokens that tell DirectSong what is going on in the game, so it can find a playlist. I couldn't find any documentation on it except this text file from 2006. I did mild editing on it. I'm probably the person that wrote this summary in 2006, and as I look at it, I'm befuddled by what it means. If you have DirectSong installed, the information below might help you decode what it is trying to do (you can edit the GuildWars.ds file in a text editor, if you are brave). I wish I could be more help, but it was a long time ago, and back from the days when we compressed all knowledge into the smallest possible space for efficiency. (After all - no monthly fee but still internet and server costs to pay! Hence - very tight budgets for transferring data. In this case, the tokens fit into a single 32-bit integer, which meant some of the letters mapped to the same number!)

 

Good luck. I feel i'm posting more of a puzzle than actual answers. Also, this looks like it only had tokens through the Factions release.

 

-------------------------------

DirectSong Tokens

4/27/2006

5/24/2018 (edits)

Copyright 2006, 2018 ArenaNet, LLC.

 

Overview

 

Each music call takes three tokens as arguments in addition to the name of the audio file.

 

These tokens are used by DirectSong to lookup alternative music to play. These are necessary because all filenames are stripped from gw.dat.

 

The general idea is that each token provides increasing 'specificity'. The first token is frequently 'ambient', followed by the realm name, and then a token that represents the specific piece of music.

 

Tokens

------

 

The following token is the ultimate default token. If nothing else triggers, then 'ambient' will trigger.

'ambient'

 

The following tokens are used in Grenth's Footprint and Sorrow's Furnace to support the free Mini-Pak, which has been downloaded 95,000 times!

'bossbat'

'dungbsa'

'dungbsb'

'dungbsc'

'dungbsd'

'dungbse'

'dungbsi'

'snowdaa'

'snowdab'

'snowdac'

'snowoaa'

'snowoab'

'snowoai'

'snowsaa'

'snowsab'

'snowsac'

 

The following tokens are 'region' tokens, and usually go into slot 2.

Note: all tokens need to be seven characters long.

Note: 'aaa' and ' ' convert to the same thing, numerically, but for readability we always fill out a small token with a's.

In general, avoid small tokens.

 

'edenaaa' -- Pre-searing Ascalon

'coastal' -- Coastal levels

'crystal' -- Crystal desert levels

'guildaa' -- Guild halls

'holiday' -- Placeholder for holiday music to ensure it is not overriden by DirectSong. Save for one-off holiday usage.

'loginaa' -- Goes in slot two for all login script music.

'outpost' -- Not used after the next live update - replaced with lots of 'outxxxx' tokens so the Outpost music can be better configured.

'riftaaa' -- PvP arenas

'riftgld' -- PvP arenas and guild outposts

'overgwn' -- Overgrown region

'scorchd' -- Scorched region

'snowaaa' -- Snow region - again, the 'aaa' is really the same as ' '

'villaga' -- A couple of villages got special treatment.

'volcanc' -- Volanic region

 

The following tokens represent specific adventuring music. For instance, 'coasada' means Coastal Adventure music, 'a' version. 'coasadb' is the same, but the 'b' version of the music. The 'genexxx' versions are 'generic', but generally used in Overgrown. They are popular pieces.

 

'coasada'

'crysada'

'edenada'

'edenadb'

'geneada'

'geneadb'

'geneadc'

'geneadd'

'scorada'

'scoradb'

'snowada'

'volcada'

'volcadb'

 

The following tokens are only used in EdenEnvironment.ascr. Not sure why this is special.

 

'edencva'

'edencvb'

 

The following tokens represent each piece of login music.

 

'loginza'

'loginzb'

'loginzc'

'loginzd'

'loginze'

 

The following tokens support lots of variation in Outpost music. The all start with 'out', then three letters for the region, such

as 'cos' for coastal, 'cry' for crystal, etc. Then a letter that maps to a piece of music that can be overridden with a playlist by DirectSong.

 

'outcosc'

'outcosd'

'outcryc'

'outcryd'

'outednc'

'outednd'

'outglda'

'outgldb'

'outovrc'

'outovrd'

'outposc'

'outposd'

'outpose'

'outposf'

'outposr'

'outpost'

'outposx'

'outrfta'

'outrftb'

'outscrc'

'outscrd'

'outsnwc'

'outsnwd'

'outvolc'

'outvold'

 

The following tokens are for Factions:

 

Adventuring Token1:

Ambienf

 

Outpost Token1:

canthaa

outposp

outprur

outposs

outposu

 

Adventuring/Outpost Token2:

petrify

ruralaa

seabeda

urbanaa

 

Adventuring Token3:

Petrada

petradb

petradc

 

ruraada

ruraadb

ruraadc

 

seabada

seabadb

seabadc

 

urbaada

urbaadb

urbaadc

 

Guild Hall Token3:

canadaa

canadab

canadac

canadad

canadae

canadaf

 

Outpost Token3:

outpeta

outpetb

outpetc

 

outrura

outrurb

outrurc

 

outseaa

outseab

outseac

 

outurba

outurbb

outurbc

 

[Boro.7359]

I loved how a shiverpeak exploration track was playing at the fountain. It always made me nostalgic to the innocent days of first setting foot to the shiverpeaks.

[MatthewMedina.5419]

Haha, well gosh - I've hidden a lot of tiny little things in my art over the years. The only ones I think no one ever found were the more than a few buried references to Homestar Runner, Strong Bad (and especially Trogdor) in some of the textures I created for Ascalon because I was watching that web series a LOT during Prophecies development.

 

My biggest "hidden" secrets in the original game were the alphabets I began creating while working on Prophecies. Those later got fleshed out into an actual system in Guild Wars 2, but for the bulk of Guild Wars 1 it was more of a hobby that I got to indulge in (save for Canthan, which was the first "official" alphabet we actually shipped with Factions).

[Brisingr Reamz.8037]

@"Stephen ClarkeWillson.1802" answering with a puzzle just gives us more diving to do to figure out what 2006 you was thinking hehe.

@"MatthewMedina.5419" Do you have pictures of the textures that have the buried references to homestar runner , strongbad, and trogdor? Perhaps a gw2 styled trogdor dragon picture haha.

[Motoko.2875]

This game has had many more years of activity, popularity, and longevity than I imagine any of you dev's thought it would have.

 

With all of the weird things players have learned, discovered, and kept track of...

 

Is there anythings that you are aware of that have not been discovered by anyone?

 

Example: Items, quests, events

[Isaiah Cartwright.8569]

Mursaat is the words Murder and Satan mushed together.

Ice dragon swords where me griefing a player named Kuntz who hacked the game to make a local item called icy dragon sword he then tried to trick players into going and farming ice imps and get nothing. But once he posted it I quickly worked with an effects artist to make the item and then rushed it into a build to foil his grief. Worked super well and next thing he was up there farming the rare drop.