Easter Egg

Overview

"Easter Egg" is the slang term used to describe a hidden message or feature in an object such as a movie, CD, DVD, computer program, video game, or other computer related product. The "City of" franchise has many easter eggs hidden within it.

Visual References

• A photo of the beta city of heroes design team can be found behind the nurse's counter in most hospitals.

• In Sharkhead Isle, a Monkey Fight Club can be found, where cage-matches between teams of Rikti monkeys can be watched every five minutes or so. The enterance is a warehouse door about 40 yards East of the Natural Store. Look for a faded grafiti of a monkey on one of the nearby building walls, pointing to the fight club door.

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• In the Hellforge neighborhood of Sharkhead Isle, Hellforge is a three-dimensional representation of the Cryptic Studios logo.

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• In Grandville, deep in the tunnels under the zone, can be found a Developer's Dungeon, with cubes for most of the design team.

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Names

• Perez Park, and it's various neighborhoods and badges, are named after various famous comic book creators.
  • Perez is named after George Pérez, a comic book illustrator and writer
  • Gaiman Woods is named after Neil Gaiman, best known in comics for his unique update of The Sandman.
  • Everett Lake is named after Bill Everett, a comic book artist and writer most famous for creating the superhero,The Sub-Mariner.
  • The exploration badge, Around the Bendis Badge, is likely named after Brian Michael Bendis, a comic book writer best known for the cop/superhero series,Powers and work on various Marvel titles.
  • The exploration badge, Doc Whedon Badge, is likely a reference to Joss Whedon, a writer best known for the Buffy, the Vampire Slayer televison series. Whedon has also been a comic book writer, working most recently on Astonishing X-Men for Marvel comics. The "Doc" portion is reference to Doc, a another character in Whedon's Buffy series.

• Skyway City
  • The Gruff neighborhood is most likely named after Three Billy Goats Gruff. This is a fairy tale where a Troll tries to prevent three goats from crossing a bridge. This area is a hangout for Trolls.
  • The Land of the Lost neighborhood shares a name with a television series, (Land of the Lost). The Lost enemies can be found in this area.

• Dark Astoria neighborhoods (at least some of them) seem to be named after directors of horror films:
  • Raimi Arcade is named after Sam Raimi
  • Romero Heights is named after George A. Romero

• Founders' Falls neighborhoods seem to be related to Rhode Island:
  • Blackstone Hills could refer to the Blackstone River Valley
  • The Gaspee seems to be related to the HMS Gaspée.
  • Hutchinson Park could be named after Ann Hutchinson
  • Williams Square seems to be named after Roger Williams.

• Peregrine Island
• Some of the neighborhoods seem to be related to the DC hero Aquaman:
  • Curry Cove seems to be named after Arthur Curry, the civilian identity of the hero.
  • Mera Heights seems to be named after Aquaman's ex-wife, Mera.

• Rikti Crash Site neighborhoods are named after battles where the American Army has been present:
  • Bloody Lane comes from Antietam during the American Civil War.
  • The Bulge (battle of), also called the Ardennes Offensive was the last offensive from the Nazi army during WWII.
  • The DMZ comes from the DeMilitarized Zone, from the Vietnam War.
  • Little Round Top was the place of one of the actions during the battle of Gettysburg, in the American Civil War.
  • Point Du Hoc action was part of the Normandy Landing during WWII.
  • Pork Chop Hillis related to the battle of the same name which took place during the Korean War.
  • Sunken Road seems to be referred to the Antietam Battle as well.

• Technician Naylor (aka Portal Technician Grant Naylor), Grant Naylor is the "name" of the author of the BBC's Red Dwarf series. In actuallity, its the last names of the two writers combined as if it was one person. - Wikipeidia's entry on Red Dwarf

Powers

Sometime before April 2005, a couple of powers were added to the pigg files. Based upon Positron's post regarding the 2006 Jester badge image, they were probably just added as an April Fool's joke on the people who went looking into the pigg data files.

Toy Bat Minor Smash damage (Special)
This bat is covered with a soft foam-like material cushioning its impact. The toy bat does Trivial damage to villains, but can also be used against allies for no damage. And lets face it, some of your 'friends' deserve it. Damage (Villains Only): Trivial, Recharge: Very Fast.

Badges

The Jester badge image was added to the pigg data files around the beginning of March, 2006. The image led to much talk about the possiblility of an April Fool's event. After April had come and gone, Positron revealed the joke by saying:

April's Fool never being gettable IS the joke. It was put into the files as a joke badge that was never going to be given out. There is no honest way to get this badge, and there was never anything planned, either. The only way to get the badge is to be a dev and use a special command, and even then, it doesn't last upon zoning.

NPCs

Caliban - The name of Julius Caesar's sword, also a character in William Shakespeare's "The Tempest". Wikipedia's page on Caliban

External Links

Wikipedia on Easter Eggs