Finally got past the itstoohard puzzle, that Q2 took me forever. No idea what to do with what I decoded from this .txt file though.

Stuck on Q7 and I'm not even at the real puzzle yet :o

Good job at least on the first part, I have an idea what I am supposed to do, but it isn't working for me (which may also mean I am way off)

Seems that we have at least 1 person who found out what's going on in TXT stage :> He's doing manual labor now - so soon we'll have our first solver, but what's more important IT IS SOLVABLE! ;p

AAAANNNNDDDD We got 1st solver!

Have some ideas left for the .txt part and will try them out tomorow :)

bump

where is the link to the puzzle?

Just discovered this thread.

Got into the RAR file. I have to admit I bruteforced it, but just because I'm lazy :P By the way I should have thought about it (you clever boy :) )

Working on the content of the file.

BIG HINT:

TXT STAGE

Big hint (showing you what's the main idea ;p): zelghadis 1750.00

ok thats one damn long list of names what now ? :(

I bruteforced the pw on the rar got the .txt and now have no idea on what to do with that list. Much less that hint.

I got the hint but then I can't figure it out when it comes to the text o.O

dont waste your time with this puzzle is really bad designed, and will waste your time 4+ hours to solve

bump for solved, thanks for the hints :)

BUMP for solved

tell me why im in your blacklist

Can you tell me what is ratio of fake to good records in txt file?

Solved, cool puzzle zel!

Solved, with 20 minutes to spare!

Puzzle Ended, Time for Solution xD

First Thing First - hinted game was Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, you could easily guess it by checking my steam inventory :>

Now for puzzle stages:

Next to LINK? part of forum topic was a hidden LINK Leading to shared Dropbox Folder. You could find it by viewing source of the page :>

In dropbox Folder you would find 2 files. Instructions.txt and PUZZLE1.rar; RAR file was password protected.

The instruction stated that password was 3 characters long. Password was NGE

There were 3 ways of getting the password:

1) it was stated that password has something to do with me myself and my previous puzzles. In many of my previous puzzles there was a part about meaning of mine avatar, and what it's inspired by actual anime. This Anime is Neon Genesis Evangelion, so pass was NGE.

2) you could easily bruteforced password - there are many programs on google for bruteforcing RAR files. Bruteforcing it using GPU would take seconds (one person bruteforced password within 4.5sec xD)

3) You could also solve ItsTooHard Quiz and get a Password as a reward as well as title of the game I was giving away.

ITSTOOHARD ANSWERS:

Q1. Skyrim - famous SG meme

Q2. nice,nice - famous quote of Raseto, creator of given topic

Q3. Toaster - and his challenge finished

Q4. bundle games (also accepted answers: bundle, bundles, bundled, bundled games, bundle list, read FAQ, bundle game, bundled game) - the most common reason ppl are making QQ topics about their CV.

Q5. Mew2 - he and his puzzle group. MewTwo is a name of a pokemon and you could find many puzzle topics by him on forums.

Q6. The Humble Weekly Sale (also accepted answers: Humble Bundle Weekly, The Humble Bundle Weekly, Humble Bundle Weekly Sale, The Humble Bundle Weekly Sale, Humble Weekly Sale) - On 1st two weekly sales it was not bundled, then got bundled why previously stated it would not and it resulted in massive QQ :>

Q7. regret - beware, jade is watching

Q8. Dota2 (also accepted Dota 2) - most common "30$" game people cry they cannot give away

Q9. Kaitlyn - forum topic for this addon

Q10. Notable Odds (also accepted The No) - LINK to last tournament.

When you opened RAR file you would get txt file encoded in binary. You could use xlate or any other decoder to decode it.

When decoded you were getting long list of users and numbers. Most of the lines was just a distraction while in fact only 5 lines were important :>

1st column was a username, 2nd column was CV requirement for Giveaway. For most lines user haven't created a GA with given CV and it was just a distraction.

The given hint zelghadis 1750.00 should point you to this GiveAway created by me, which is my only Public GA with such a CV requirement. in this GA you would see a lot of posts - and it's how all other good answers looked like.

THE CORRECT users - giveaways with links:

Like I mentioned, most of lines in txt file were a distraction. 5 important ones were (each of this users had one and only one Public GA with given CV requirement):

1) cg 3533.01 GA LINK

2) xarabas 89.82 GA LINK

3) NastyHero 0.23 GA LINK

4) MoneyHypeMike 1337.00 GA LINK

5) Rinc3winD 511.00 GA LINK

Many people missed cg and/or MoneyHypeMike - they forgot that format for high CV on SG contains a coma, so why searching for 3533.01 you should actually search for 3,533.01 ^^

You could either search a list manually (which is possible, as some of solvers did it this way, but more time-consuming), or write a script to check all users and dump correct one (what at least 1 person did and solved whole thing in 10 minutes xD)

Each of this 5 GAs contained a number of comments by me, each with hidden link. In each GiveAway 1 comment was not link for a real site but just www.X.com where X is a character. When found and placed in right order the 5 characters would combine into LQzAY which was z code for a GiveAway.

Thanks to all participants and congrats to solvers!