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...Also known as "The Quest for the Winter Chicken of the Bash, Part 3" (part 2 here).

So, winter has come again. As every year, the staff members try their best to hide some funny Easter eggs, hoping no one would notice them too soon.

And as every year, their attempts are fooled by a single meddling pony.

Looking for its missing friend, the pony set once again on a quest to find the feathered one, the lost chicken that about a year ago a shadowy figure not completely different from balpha stole from Yvette chicken coop.

So, again the pony went into the snow yarn, searching for the missing one without any luck. Until... memories of the past came once again...

So the pony started asking to its animal friends if anyone had saw a chicken running around alone in the woods.

First, the pony meet a cow πŸ„, who suggested to ask to a pig πŸ–.
The pony went to the πŸ–... only to be told to ask to a penguin 🐧.

...the pony already knew where all of this was going to... a tedious fetch quest.

The 🐧 sent the pony to ask to a dog πŸ•.
The πŸ•... to a turtle 🐒.
And the turtle (which actually was a Tortoise, but that is another story) sent the pony to find a cat 🐈.
Asking the cat, the pony was redirected to a crocodile 🐊.
And then the 🐊 talked about a deer 🦌.

So the pony went looking for a deer, only to find one single deer playing near an house just outside the woods. The pony asked for clues about the chicken whereabouts, but no answer was heard this time.

So, the pony quest now continues.. Is the chicken still hiding somewhere in the wood? Does any animal have more clues on how to find her?

The chicken must be lonely now. Please, help this pony. If you find that feathered one, bring her back to the small cottage, just outside the forest.

7
  • 6
    I found this chicken, though I suspect it's an impostor...
    – David K
    Commented Dec 12, 2018 at 13:39
  • 2
    possible related? youtube.com/watch?v=1Wjklta1XU0
    – Dylan
    Commented Dec 13, 2018 at 18:37
  • 1
    So do we know if there was a chicken we just never found, or was there no chicken this year?
    – David K
    Commented Jan 23, 2019 at 17:16
  • Did you know that if you visited winterbash2018.stackexchange.com/chicken you will see the http error code 497 and Not a Chicken as a description of the error code (visible in developer tools in browsers.)
    – randomuser5215
    Commented Mar 12, 2019 at 1:05
  • @Sklivvz this question can't appear in the HNQ, it's way too old. Even so, can't see any reason to edit emoji out. It's not offensive in any way and relevant to the question.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Nov 12, 2019 at 15:31
  • @ShadowThePrincessWizard it's obnoxious
    – Sklivvz
    Commented Nov 12, 2019 at 15:56
  • @Sklivvz it was all over the chat last year and caused a big stir, hence this question. If it would appear in HNQ, I might agree with removing it, but otherwise really see no reason to remove it.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Nov 12, 2019 at 15:59

2 Answers 2

11

Things that did not work

These things have been tried and did not result in anything interesting:

  • /egg - Nope, no chicken-or-egg problem
  • Konami-code
  • /[emoji] - Copying the emojis returned from the urls
  • /teapot
  • /team, /teams
  • /hidden
  • /secret
  • /secret-hat
  • /[videolink] - the link from the youtube video
  • /video and /youtube
  • /2nite
  • /house
  • /car
  • /easteregg and /easter-egg
  • /2017 and /2019 and /2018
  • /reindeer
  • /claus, /santa, or /nick
  • /reveal
  • /hat/chicken
  • /hat/deer
  • /breed
  • /fir
  • /winter
  • /christmas or /xmas
  • Santa's reindeer (individually as a URL endpoint)
  • /playground - from the youtube video
  • /tree or /christmas-tree
  • /sleigh
  • /snowman, /snowwoman, /snow-creature, or /snow-monster
  • /stag, /buck, /fawn or /doe - variants of deer, the video shows a fawn or a doe.
  • /Sintel - Last year user -197 was the Chicken, this year that number is the account of user Sintel, searching chat for posts from the Chicken turns up nothing; and Chicken is not an egg.

Weird things that didn't work either

  • /hat returns plain 404, probably no hint but an implementation detail (it's used for internal AJAX requests, e.g. https://winterbash2018.stackexchange.com/hat?id=632340532 to get Waffles hat details.)
  • Eating while chatting on the Tavern doesn't get you the chicken, I can give you that.
    – M.A.R. ΰ² _ΰ² 

  • /robots.txt doesn't offer any pointers either, and only contains the following:

    User-agent: *
    Disallow: /
    

    It seems they don't want you to use search engines to figure it out.

  • Pressing this key sequence found in a comment on the video on the Winter Bash homepage:

    W D W SPACE CTRL SPACE CTRL SPACE CTRL SPACE SPACE W


Note: If you tried something that didn't work and if you think that your progress/idea is worth sharing, edit it in this list. This is why this post is CW.

2
  • apparently that weird code was posted by an user that doesn't seem to have any connection with SE. The staff could have noticed it and decided to reuse it, but it would seem pretty weird. Also, considering that they made no comment about this "easter egg"... I would say that there is nothing more to find. Commented Dec 17, 2018 at 9:30
  • 2
    It's a little sad, but I am pretty sure that if there was anything left to be found, they would have started posting (wrong) hint by now. Commented Dec 17, 2018 at 9:31
8

Also the URL https://winterbash2018.stackexchange.com/deer is redirecting to the following YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ft954vXPa4

Where as the others are returning the 407 "No Reason Phrase" error. like https://winterbash2018.stackexchange.com/cow, https://winterbash2018.stackexchange.com/pig

2
  • 1
    I know, I wanted people to try and reach the video themselves. But the real question now is if that video is the last step or there is something more to this. I asked balpha on the chat, he didn't reply yet. Will keep this updated. Commented Dec 12, 2018 at 12:40
  • 5
    Well, color me upset that this page didn't return the error I thought it should...
    – Laurel
    Commented Dec 12, 2018 at 12:43

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