Firaxis is "Calling all Spies!"

[Robert]

A message was delivered, mysterious and unclear:

"A coded message has been posted on our site. Is it a contest with fabulous prizes? Decode the message and find out!

http://www.firaxis.com/community/bts_crypto.php"

[Krill]

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[Krill]

****ing owned in 2 minutes.

[Krill]

And now to see what it says.

[Krill]

First line:

Congratulations on decyphering this message! What is this mysterious puzzle? It's a contest.

I'm getting bored, anyone else want to do it for me? Or tell me the autometd way to do it?

[slnz]

http://www.secretcodebreaker.com/caesar.html for the lazy ones I actually coded a program myself

[Krill]

Firaxis are losing thier touch. Thanks for that.

[Robert]

I actually decoded it without knowing about the key on before, I finished it about 5 minutes ago.

[slnz]

The picture of JC was a bit too much of a giveaway. Should have just hinted in the direction of Rome or something. Though that cipher is so elementary that it's the first thing anyone thinks of anyway.

[Krill]

The point is Firaxis **** about alot nowadays. Perhaps I'm just pissed that it's almost 4 years since civ 4 got released and we haven't heard hide nor hair of civ 5 yet, but I'd have expected something substantial by now, not pieces of crap like this (woo, we can win copies of of civ 4 complete, autographed!)

It's just pathetic. It really is.

[slnz]

Erm... How exactly is it pathetic? Or is everything pathetic except announcing Civ5? Not like they have some obscure "obligation to the fanbase" about anything. Stuff like this is an acknowledgement and a nod to the fanbase more than anything IMO.

[Krill]

IIRC, civ 1 > 2 took 5 years, same to civ 3, then 4 years to civ 4. That's from conception to shelf. Most games nowadays are coming out faster and faster to take advantage of shorter attention spans of gamers (and selling more games helps the bottom line, something 2K really need to do, because they've made a lose every quarter save when GTA4 got released, since start of 2006, IIRC).

It's pathetic business strategy. How many people would pay good money to have civ 5 now? I'd say that's alot. And 2K need the money. So where the hell is it?

[Alex]

And yet no one posted the entire thing...

Here's the full text:

CONGRATULATIONS ON DECODING THIS MESSAGE! WHAT IS THIS MYSTERIOUS PUZZLE? IT'S A CONTEST!

PLEASE SEND AN EMAIL TO SPY AT FIRAXIS DOT COM WITH THE SUBJECT "DECODER PUZZLE" FOR A CHANCE TO WIN YOUR CHOICE OF AN AUTOGRAPHED COPY OF CIVILIZATION IV: COMPLETE, CIVILIZATION REVOLUTION (XBOX 360, PS3 OR DS VERSION), OR A CIVILIZATION REVOLUTION IPOD TOUCH COVER.

STAY CIVILIZED!

THIS SHIFT CIPHER IS ALSO KNOWN AS THE CAESAR CIPHER, SINCE CAESAR USED THIS METHOD TO COMMUNICATE WITH HIS GENERALS.

No news of Civ5, but at least we know they are still there...

[Theben]

Wow, that's a total non-issue...

[ZEE]

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