(I am cross-posting this in identical form on both b.net and rpgforums.net, so if you read both threads, don't bother to read through this twice.)
Well, as of tomorrow it will have been three weeks since the ladder reset and the beginning of our runeword hunt. We have yet to find a single word, and both testing and posting have dropped of sharply since the first week or so, during which most of the low-level 1.07 words were rejected. Kenny-Z's hints, aside from being both highly suspect and difficult to interpret, have generally required high runes and been problematic to test. Other initiatives, including Shaft.ed's 2soc armor grid (more on this below), have not yet yielded anything, either.
While I will continue to monitor Kenny-Z's posts and test both those hints and 1.07 words when possible, I would like to propose a new direction for testing. Shaft's 2soc armor grid is an excellent idea in that it is highly reasonable to assume that at least one of the 23 new words will require 2soc armor. The difficulty lies in the fact that to cover the entire grid, we would require 64 of each of the 33 runes (assuming no doubles--ElEl, EldEld, et cetera). Testing all possibilities Ort and below would be fairly simple. Testing all possibilites Io (eye-oh) and below might even be relatively simple. Testing even a handful of the possibilities Lum and above, however, will be very difficult.
I would like to suggest an alternative. I think it is reasonable to assume that at least one (or more) of the new runewords will be a 2soc word with both runes lying somewhere between El and Io (eye-oh), inclusive. I am going to build grids today for each item type, mark as negative any word already tested or already existing, then start testing 2soc combinations in that range for all types, starting with the more likely (armor, shield, helm, sword, axe) and working my way down to the less likely (wand, scepter, knife claw).
The idea here is to hit just one word, which will in turn give us a great deal of insight into cracking the rest of the words. With just one word, we should be able to accept or reject most of our theories (i.e., toss the entire 1.07 list, realize that Kenny's clues are anagrams instead of acronyms, realize that Kenny's questions are the clues instead of the answers, et cetera).
Notice that this initiative departs from the 1.07 list entirely, as all 2soc combinations below Lum have already been tested. I am somewhat loathe to do this, but the fact is that I (we) just don't have (or aren't willing to use) the higher runes to test the remaining words on that list. If it works, we can quit testing the 1.07 list. If it doesn't...well, I'm guessing Bliz will release the words long before these grids would be exhausted.
Shaft, I'd be interested to hear what you think of this theory. At the very least, I would appreciate it if you would post (or e-mail) your latest armor grid and your latest overall test list.
I will post a link to my spreadsheet (which includes 1.07 and Kenny testing grids as well) as soon as I finish it. Feel free to download and use yourself (although I would appreciate if you didn't repost without permission). I will also post each item I test so that others can keep track of what has and hasn't been tested.
Obviously, it would be tremendously helpful if others would test items in this range and post results as well. I will keep track of everybody's attempts on this front in the spreadsheet and make compilatons available to all.
Happy hunting.
Well, as of tomorrow it will have been three weeks since the ladder reset and the beginning of our runeword hunt. We have yet to find a single word, and both testing and posting have dropped of sharply since the first week or so, during which most of the low-level 1.07 words were rejected. Kenny-Z's hints, aside from being both highly suspect and difficult to interpret, have generally required high runes and been problematic to test. Other initiatives, including Shaft.ed's 2soc armor grid (more on this below), have not yet yielded anything, either.
While I will continue to monitor Kenny-Z's posts and test both those hints and 1.07 words when possible, I would like to propose a new direction for testing. Shaft's 2soc armor grid is an excellent idea in that it is highly reasonable to assume that at least one of the 23 new words will require 2soc armor. The difficulty lies in the fact that to cover the entire grid, we would require 64 of each of the 33 runes (assuming no doubles--ElEl, EldEld, et cetera). Testing all possibilities Ort and below would be fairly simple. Testing all possibilites Io (eye-oh) and below might even be relatively simple. Testing even a handful of the possibilities Lum and above, however, will be very difficult.
I would like to suggest an alternative. I think it is reasonable to assume that at least one (or more) of the new runewords will be a 2soc word with both runes lying somewhere between El and Io (eye-oh), inclusive. I am going to build grids today for each item type, mark as negative any word already tested or already existing, then start testing 2soc combinations in that range for all types, starting with the more likely (armor, shield, helm, sword, axe) and working my way down to the less likely (wand, scepter, knife claw).
The idea here is to hit just one word, which will in turn give us a great deal of insight into cracking the rest of the words. With just one word, we should be able to accept or reject most of our theories (i.e., toss the entire 1.07 list, realize that Kenny's clues are anagrams instead of acronyms, realize that Kenny's questions are the clues instead of the answers, et cetera).
Notice that this initiative departs from the 1.07 list entirely, as all 2soc combinations below Lum have already been tested. I am somewhat loathe to do this, but the fact is that I (we) just don't have (or aren't willing to use) the higher runes to test the remaining words on that list. If it works, we can quit testing the 1.07 list. If it doesn't...well, I'm guessing Bliz will release the words long before these grids would be exhausted.
Shaft, I'd be interested to hear what you think of this theory. At the very least, I would appreciate it if you would post (or e-mail) your latest armor grid and your latest overall test list.
I will post a link to my spreadsheet (which includes 1.07 and Kenny testing grids as well) as soon as I finish it. Feel free to download and use yourself (although I would appreciate if you didn't repost without permission). I will also post each item I test so that others can keep track of what has and hasn't been tested.
Obviously, it would be tremendously helpful if others would test items in this range and post results as well. I will keep track of everybody's attempts on this front in the spreadsheet and make compilatons available to all.
Happy hunting.
). Among them (I think) were the facts that armors can have no more than 4socs anyway, armors are a large catch-all category, there were very few armor words in the 1.07 list, and so on.
v 1.10 ( Weap ) Weapons ( 5 ) Dol - Ort - Eld - Shael - Thul ( Dol