wow Behind the Scenes of the Hivemind Secret

[Starym 3,779]

 

The Hivemind mount was one of the bigger secrets for quite a while, but was discovered quickly enough once it was actually added into the game. The series of puzzles and secrets was dispatched readily by the secrets discord and today we're getting a look behind the curtain of just how exactly it was all put together.

We get to see both how the various stages were designed and how the community actually went at them and eventually solved them - from the Talisman of Treasure Seeking to the monocles and the mount itself at the end.

The Hivemind (source)

Introduced in Tides of Vengeance was yet another series of puzzles from the Mind-Seekers, again drawing players from around the world to work together to find the elusive Hivemind mount to add to their collections—and earn some bragging rights for unraveling the machinations of the minds behind the madness.

Let’s pull back the curtain once more to reveal the design of each puzzle, and explore how the community solved them.

Warning: Spoilers ahead! If you wish to solve this riddle for yourself, DON’T READ ON! You have been warned

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The Talisman of True Treasure Tracking

When trying to create puzzles that are challenging but also able to be beaten by large groups of people working together, we have to dig deep and come up with some really obscure and subtle clues. We mean really subtle. The start of this quest is a great example of this.

The intended clue was that the "true" in the mount's flavor text—“A true meeting of the minds.”—would connect you to the Talisman of True Treasure Tracking, a necklace sold by Griftah the shady salesman in the Lower City of Shattrath. He’s been in the game since he was added in The Burning Crusade selling questionable goods such as Polished Pendant of Edible Energy. In the end, we’re not sure if anyone connected “true” to the talisman or just noticed Griftah's wares at random, perhaps noticing that some new objects existed on the table behind him.

Equipping the talisman causes four items on the table behind him to glow and is required for most of the remaining steps of the quest. The four glowing items are clues that each lead in separate directions, and the puzzle splits up into 4 parallel steps here. If you want to truly master this quest line, you can do all four branches. However, with some group coordination later in the process, you can get by with only doing one, or even none of these steps personally. One major goal with this design was to provide a variety of puzzles of different types, for different types of puzzle solvers. Word and lore lovers could work on the blue branch, while math lovers could work on the green branch, and so on—and together, they’d ultimately arrive at the complete solution.

• The Blue Crystal Monacle
• The Green Crystal Monacle
• The Yellow Crystal Monacle
• The Red Crystal Monacle

With the Talisman equipped, the letter on the table behind Griftah glows blue, and you can interact with it. Reading the letter will give you the first of many clues in this branch of the puzzle.

Each clue is a nonsense phrase, with some of the words being capitalized. The capitalized words make up an anagram that provides a hint on where to find the next clue. You must reach each letter in order.

• First Letter: The key Factor in successful Wasp Ignition is a solid Ad campaign.
  Solution: The Wasp Ad Ignition Factor --> ANTICIPATORS OF DEATHWING
  In northeastern Highmountain is a tribe of tauren known as the Prepfoots. They are preparing for Deathwing’s return (apparently unaware that the Cataclysm already occurred). On a table in one of their huts, you’ll find the next clue.
• Second Letter: Of all of Gai's cures for Nature, the most liberating is Death.
  Solution: Gai's Nature Of Death --> SEAT OF THE GUARDIAN

The next letter can be found on the chair in Medivh's quarters in old Karazhan.

• Third Letter: I sat Dumbfounded, watching As the most Subtle Rat reached for the cheese a third time in under an hour.
  Solution: I Dumbfounded As Subtle Rat --> MULTITUDES OF UNDEAD BARBS
  This one refers to Razorfen Downs, a dungeon that mixes quillboar and the undead. On a table next to the last boss is your next letter.
• Fourth Letter: Ms. Sin will accompany you down The longest Streets Of the underworld.
  Solution: The Streets Of Ms. Sin --> NEST OF THE MISTRESS
  Aviana, the mistress of the skies, has a shrine in northern Hyjal. Your next letter is on a table in one of the highest rooms in that tree.
• Fifth Letter: The Elite champions will rule the World with the mightiest F.C.
  Solution: The World Elite F.C.--> THE DERELICT FLOW
  There is a dam that separates Crystalsong Forest from Icecrown. In the center of that dam, overlooking the Decrepit Flow, is your next letter.
• Sixth Letter: Re: Codex of mastering Sine waves.
  Solution: Re: Sine Codex --> OX RESIDENCE
  The residence of the Niuzao, the Black Ox, is his shrine in western Townlong Steppes. There you’ll find your next letter.
• Seventh Letter: Mice look so sad when they have a Cleft lip. Hoping you succeed, ~Ana
  Solution: Mice Cleft Hoping Ana --> THE PINNACLE OF MAGIC
  The Nexus in Coldaara is the center of arcane magic, and home of the Blue Dragonflight. At the very top of that, you’ll find the last clue.
  There you’ll find a box, instead of a letter, containing the Blue Crystal Monocle, the final goal of this branch of the quest line—and your reward from Ms. Ana Graham.

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Wild Withered

The four crystal monocles all have flavor text on them, providing a clue on where to go next:

• "Inscribed around the edge of the monocle in remarkably tiny lettering: <string of 10 letters>". The letters on each monocle are:
  • Green: N R V Q Z J S M G Y
  • Red: P O T Y A B U V F X
  • Yellow: S K M C U F L N J O
  • Blue: Q P C X K B Z H A G
• Taken all together, the four strings of letters form two complete sets of the English alphabet, minus the following letters: DDEEHIILRTWW.

That's an anagram for WILD WITHERED, which is your clue to head to Suramar and find withered in the wilds.

Interestingly, the withered were the first thing that the community found, and days were spent experimenting on them to no avail before the actual start of the puzzle was found. This also provided further confusion down the line, because they had the withered already, and thought the monocle inscriptions were something else that they needed to solve.

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Group Up!

The remainder of the quest line to earn the Hivemind mount must be completed as a group. You’ll need one person with each color monocle equipped. The fifth person doesn’t need a monocle equipped.

Send the four players wearing monacles to the withered that matches the color of their monacle, located in Suramar in the Broken Isles:

• Rikei (Red) is located to the east of Suramar City.
• Blom'an (Blue) is located north of Suramar City near Tel’anor.
• Giluzui (Green) is located near Falanaar.
• Yorilan (Yellow) is located south of the western most harbor in Suramar City.

With the correct color monocle equipped, the withered are attackable. However, when reduced to 1 health, they don’t die; they instead go temporarily immune, draw power from somewhere in the city for 6 seconds, then heal to full and resume attacking you.

That’s where the fifth person in your group comes in. In a house in upper Suramar, at roughly the center point between the four withered, is a small room that is blocked off by four beams of those same colors. While each withered is drawing power, the coordinating color beam deactivates. When all four beams are simultaneously deactivated, the fifth person can pass through the door.

Within that room, you’ll find a small cat toy on the ground, just begging to be picked up. However, when you try to pick it up, it’ll zap you, dealing some damage and teleporting you outside. The description of the spell you’re hit with indicates that you triggered the defense of this magical cat toy.

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Mana Kittens

This portion of the hunt for the mount stumped the secret hunters in the community for quite a while. Players spent a lot of time working on trying to find ways to successfully pick up the cat toy, testing theory after theory for how to either not trigger the defenses, or to make themselves immune to the effect. In fact, the answer was much sneakier: you were intended to get zapped by the cat toy, and the amount of damage it did to you was quite significant: a consistent 5-digit code, specifically for your group of 5 people.

Separately from all of this, a new Nightborne was added to the Court of Stars dungeon in Battle for Azeroth—Lady Chaton—along with her five pet mana kittens. You can pet the kittens, giving them a stack of Purring. If you stop petting for them for too long, however, or reach 10 stacks of Purring, they’ll become angry, scratch you, and run off. (Typical cats.) Speaking to Lady Chaton, she’d share with you a long-winded story about her kittens and how much she wants to pet every cat. She really likes cats. The key thing to take away from her story is the order she got the cats in.

Watching the community solve this puzzle was particularly interesting. We'd occasionally see someone say something like "Hey, I consistently get hit for 12345 damage by the cat toy. Maybe that's a code we need to use?", and later someone else say something like "Hey, we know an order for the cats, I wonder if we need to give them a 5-digit code through Purring stacks?". After a long afternoon of everyone wracking their brains over these two seemingly separate problems, some ingenious players connected the dots.

As crazy as it sounds, that’s the next step. Once you’ve found the 5-digit code for your group (add zeroes to the front if you need to; for example, “1234” means “01234”), go visit the mana kittens in the Court of Stars. Cooperatively enter those five digits on the cats, in the order that Lady Chaton got the cats: Mrs. Fluffymuffins > Shadow > Mew > Ash > Bella.

Once you correctly enter the code for your group, the mana kittens will leap to their pool, do a dance, and summon a portal that will take you to the next puzzle.

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Phaseshifting Platforms

The next puzzle is a maze of sorts, taking place on floating platforms over a chasm.

It starts with one platform active. Each platform can be ridden by one player and activates 0–3 other platforms. Players can hop from platform to platform. A platform won’t deactivate while there’s someone on it, but as soon as you hop off it, if nothing is activating it, it’ll disappear. Therefore, you must work as a group to progress throughout this maze, taking turns moving from platform to platform.

There are multiple possible solutions to this maze, but here is one:

PlayersNamed A,B,C,D,E	E94	E61	D36	C31
A95	C83	E62	A38	B11
B94	C82	B54	E34	A18
A85	B73	B53	B23	C21
B84	E100	E61	B22	C22
C95	E97	E51	E24	C12
C94	A88	B43	D26	A0
B83	A78	D47	C56	B0
A86	D76	B33	A39	C0
A87	E87	D37	A29	D0
D95	D66	C100	B21	E0
D85	D56	C97	E14
D75	D55	C87	D27
B82	B63	C77	A28
B72	D45	C67	D17
E95	A68	C57	C100
E85	D46	A59	C91
C84	B64	A58	C81
E95	E100	E41	C71
	E91	A48	C61
	E81	E42	C51
	A69	E43	E15
	E71	E44	C41

 

Once all five members of your group reach the door on the other side, it will open, letting you proceed.

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Lightlocked Platform

For the final puzzle, your group must get across a field of magical energy, using a platform that travels back and forth across it. If you step in the field, you’ll be teleported back to your side of the field.

While riding the platform, it will stop in the middle of the field, analyze the current group of riders, and let them pass if it approves. If not, it will dump them in the field, and you’ll have to try again.

This is a variant of the classic river crossing puzzle. There are three roles which the five people are randomly (and secretly) assigned to—one driver, two adults, and two children. The platform must always have a driver, and is big enough to hold one additional adult, or two additional children, but not two adults. It also can’t go across with only a driver.

Therefore, valid combinations that are allowed to cross are driver + adult, driver + child, and driver + child + child. Experiment until you can find who your driver is, then start using them to ferry people back and forth.

Once you’ve found out your roles, here’s one possible solution:

Starting position	[DAACC     ]
DCC to exit side	[AA     DCC]
DC to start side	[AADC     C]
DA to exit side	[AC     DAC]
DC to start side	[ACDC     A]
DCC to exit side	[A     DACC]
DC to start side	[DAC     AC]
DA to exit side	[C     DAAC]
DC to start side	[DCC     AA]
DCC to exit side	[     DAACC]

Once all five members of your group reach the door on the other side, it will open, letting you proceed.

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The Hivemind

This brings you to the end of your journey. In the next room, you’ll find the Hivemind, along with five spots to stand and channel on it, to form your Hivemind group. It was intentional that the group section be consistently and easily repeatable once the puzzles were solved, so that people could reattune as necessary without a frustrating amount of work (it takes about 15 minutes if you know what you're doing and have the monocles already).

This was an awesome secret hunt, and congratulations to those who worked to solve our little puzzles. We hope you enjoyed this little peek behind the development curtain!

[PatrickHenry 293]

The level of depravity they come up with to stump us is mind boggling.

Congrats on another solid secret blizzard, I know i had fun with my son doing it all.