Only "7" I managed to find was flipping the entire text around and highlighting "L". That led me nowhere as well. Damn, is it possible to fail a mailsack challenge?

I have no freaking idea.

All right Lorraine McLees...I have no idea who you are, but everyone knows there can only be moar yub yub However...I also learned the hard way that travelling should be done sooner than later, so touché [Edited on 09.08.2012 7:07 AM PDT]

[quote]He smells like a fresh pine forest filled with fairies and meat.[/quote] I want to know this smell. EDIT: David Candland is now my best friend. DAYUM DAYUMMM DAYYYY[i]UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU[/i]MMMM [Edited on 09.08.2012 6:49 AM PDT]

I didn't even know where to start

[quote]Maybe I'm running off on a tangent, but I like it.[/quote] Tangent confirmed, septenary results in nothing interesting. Just a mess of jumbled characters.

Could the zero's be the letter O?

Good morning errybody. So has anyone tried playing around with the ascii code version of the text, a little and thought maybe we were supposed to convert that to septenary, but didn't get much out of it. Going to retry all the steps from the start to make sure I had the right numbers though. It makes sense to me because any spaces would ruin the result, as well as lowercase numbers, and we're reading them in the passage because their ascii values are used. Maybe I'm running off on a tangent, but I like it. (also thanks for the idea Beorn)

This challenge is insane, I'm glad I gave up on it.

'Mornin! Oh my dear sweet... haha. Nobody yet? I hope you guys have this when I get back from school. As Dazzy said "base 7 might fit in somewhere" (to paraphrase) and someone shot it down asking why base 7. Well 7 is Bungie's favorite number and I figure that's all we need to give 'er a go. See you all after school! [i]Even with the TheMisssingLink's new hints my brain is still on fire.[/i] [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] TheMisssingLink Well, I am feeling [i]slightly[/i] guilty about making you guys suffer, but Deej gave me full permission to imbue a little torture on you guys, so when all else fails, I blame Stosh. As far as hints, I haven't given much in the way of hints in the last few hours because I've been out and about enjoying dinner elsewhere. But if hints are desired, I can spread a little bit of joy to help you through this rough spot. This is admittedly the difficult part of the clue because it's not entirely clear how to proceed, but when you read the long passage, you might realize (or might not, but hopefully it's clear) that it's a little awkwardly worded. That should fire off klaxons and sirens to you. It means that I'm avoiding using words that would normally appear in casual speech. Other things to consider: * There are no spaces is the source text. This is significant. * The letters are also capitalized. This too is significant. * You're looking for sevens and zeroes. But there aren't any to be found. Yet the passage suggests that you're actually reading them in the passage. Some food for thought. [/quote] [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] TheMisssingLink [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] beorn And this is probably completely off the mark, but does anybody else feel like the letter "P" appears more often than normal in the decoded paragraph? I get the sense that sentences were structured to maximize the occurrence of "P".[/quote] This is actually a very interesting observation.[/quote]

[Delete me] (posted again by mistake...) [Edited on 09.08.2012 4:02 AM PDT]

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] LC o MagiikZ My head hurts just by reading the posts on this thread.[/quote] Me too my friend...

Found it "Drink your ovaltine" ;) working hard it's not over [Edited on 09.08.2012 4:40 AM PDT]

Dammit Deej, the link crashed my browser.

My head hurts just by reading the posts on this thread.

DeeJ or TheMisssingLink! If 51 isn't the answer is ASCII art the answer? Considering the challenge was issued after Avatar Korra politely asked for a challenge about art, ASCII art could be the answer. [Edited on 09.08.2012 4:07 AM PDT]

Read the whole thread, brain hurts, Bungie assumed we could have done this in an hour, we didn't. The answer must have been fairly basic, so basic that a wild guess had a chance of being right. Being nearly every twist and turn of this puzzle seems to be solved by 7, I say the answer is 777. [Edited on 09.08.2012 2:28 AM PDT]

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] dazarobbo Just reading what people have been posting makes it sound like base-7 might fit in somewhere.[/quote]Earlier I thought base-8 might have a part to play because that goes up to 7. I have no idea what you would do with that or base-7 though, so I'm sticking with my answer of 51.

this entire thing has given me a headache, i don't even like math or puzzles :(

Or the answer is 6! Bungie engineers do not like ones, so subtract them from 11. It wouldn't be 11, eleven is like two ones, or even 11 ones!

The answer is 11. There are 11 numbers in the final paragraph!

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] sacktapped [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Verachi[/quote][/quote] Here's my explanation for how to approach from the beginning. At the bottom right of the [url=http://www.bungie.net/images/News/Inline12/mailsack/09072012/PAX.png]PAX[/url] image is a row of 43 coloured squares. [url=http://img821.imageshack.us/img821/9097/keyp.jpg]Here they are (credit to SkilPhil for the image)[/url]. Using the colour picker tool in an image editor (Paint will do) you can get the hex value of each colour. From left to right that gives the hexes: [quote]466972 737420 636f6e 766572 742074 686520 686578 616465 63696d 616c20 746f20 62696e 617279 2e2054 68656e 2c2072 656772 6f7570 207468 652062 697473 20696e 746f20 636875 6e6b73 206571 75616c 20746f 206f75 722066 61766f 726974 65206e 756d62 65722e 204669 6e616c 6c792c 207265 616420 617320 415343 49492e[/quote] When you [url=http://home.paulschou.net/tools/xlate/]convert hex to text[/url] you get the instructions telling you what to do with the wall of hex provided in the Mail Sack: [quote]First convert the hexadecimal to binary. Then, regroup the bits into chunks equal to our favorite number. Finally, read as ASCII.[/quote] So, convert the wall of hex to binary, remove all of the spaces, split the resulting wall of binary into groups of 7 bits each, add a 0 to the front of each group and then convert all of that binary into text. That gives you the brain teaser (spaces have been added manually): [quote]MOST ENGINEERS WHO PRACTICE COMPUTER SCIENCE PRAGMATICALLY REPEATEDLY GO WITH THE COMMON PRACTICE AND LEVERAGE ONES AND ZEROES TO PEN THEIR PROGRAMS. GENERATING CODE LIKE THIS GENERALLY IS A PRETTY WELL-FOUNDED PATTERN TO EMPLOY. ON THE FLIPSIDE, BUNGIE IS NOT YOUR TYPICAL ENGINEERING GROUP. WE WRITE PROGRAMS WITHOUT ONES. OUR PEOPLE DO NOT LIKE THE NUMBER. WHY? WELL, THERE ARE GREATER, GRANDER NUMBERS TO APPLY FOR OUR WILY CRAFT. MAYHAP YOU DISAGREE, PERCHANCE YOU AGREE. WHAT MATTERS IS THAT SEVEN IS MORE AWESOME THAN ONE WILL EVER IMAGINE ITSELF TO BE. AND SO, WE CODE WITH AMPLE SEVENS, NOT ONES. FACT: PROGRAMS PACKED WITH SEVENS ARE MORE AWESOME THAN PITHY PROGRAMS THAT APPLY ONES. ZEROES? WELL, WE STILL THINK THEY'RE GOOD. PRETTY PALATABLE. WE GRAPPLE WITH ZEROES ALL THE TIME. EVEN NOW. YES. HERE. CAN YOU PEOPLE SEE THEM? RIGHT HERE IN THIS LONG TEXT? PAUSE TO TAKE A LONG LOOK. PERCHANCE THIS HAS BEEN A WILY GAMBIT ALL THIS TIME? WELL, POLISH THOSE THINKING CAPS. YOU HAVE AMPLE NUMBERS TO FIND. HAVE SOME FUN! STAY HAPPY.[/quote] I think the answer is 51.

Fun sack! I have no chance with this challenege, unless it's actually super simple and no ones notices it. It looks pretty though!

RGB data is stored in bytes so you can imagine it like hex. Each color channel has 2 bytes. The description there cuts off most of the hex, but basically they took the pixels in the bottom corner and took those hex values to get an ASCII message.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Verachi [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] sacktapped [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Verachi I just read through this thread again and all I can think of is.. [url=http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=10229352&postRepeater1-p=1#10229385][quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Frankie Shut up nerds![/quote][/url] I really want to help but I can't. I've tried messing with the numbers and everything but I don't go anywhere. I feel like this whole hex/binary/acsII are different languages that I've never heard of before. Can anybody link me up to articles so I can familiarize myself with it? Did most of you learn this stuff in High School or College? I'm guessing you learned this in College.[/quote] I've been learning Binary and Hex in my computer and engineering classes in college. I've used [url=http://home.paulschou.net/tools/xlate/]this[/url] in the past to kinda teach myself a little binary and whatnot. Regular words go in the box to the left, hit decode and it'll turn what you want into hex or binary or base 64.[/quote] Thanks, Beon also gave a link to that website and I've been using it but none of that stuff makes any sense to me. I still have no idea how you guys decoded this..... [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] DesertStormer27 Alright, got it! After getting the RGB data from the colors on the bottom right, it adds up to be 466972 737420 636f6e 766572 742074 686520 And those are ASCII, a converstion of those brings us to this, "First convert the hexadecimal to binary. Then, regroup the bits into chunks equal to our favorite number. Finally, read as ASCII". That leads to this Most engineers who practive computer science pragmatically repeatedly go with the common practive and leverage ones and zeroes to pen their programs. Generating code like this generally is a pretty well-founded pattern to employ. On the flip side, Bungie is not your typical engineering group. We write programs without ones. Our people do not like the number. Why? Well, there are greater, grander numbers to apply for our wily craft. Mayhapy you disagre, perchance you agree. What matters is that seven is more awesome than one will ever imagine itself to be. And so, we code with ample sevens, not ones. Fact: programs.[/quote] ....how in the hell did he get that? I know he explained it on his post but I still have no idea. If you want to explain it then I'll appreciate it but if not then meh it's not a big deal. I'm going to bed I'll check this thread tomorrow. [/quote] I'm not going to lie....I have no idea. I don't know anything about RGB data and how they got all that. I've only been checking this thread out periodically throughout the day. I'll try to read up on it and see what I come up with. Someone solve this already! I have a wedding to attend tomorrow and need my man-beauty rest!