The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

I also love how they introduced an assassin who has a ship (He's the one who got them to Brazil in AC3) as a tease for pirates, since that character is basically a modern pirate.

hmm... I logged in yesterday, and noticed my c.tag score has been reset. Did this happen for anyone else? Was it part of the update? Do I have to go through all the old c.tag stuff to get to the new stuff?

My score isn't reset. I think this is the first non-alpha/beta buil of initiates, so I would have expected resets across the board.

Lame. Mine is clearly reset. I was caught up all the way to the "Pirates of the Caribbean" section too...

:/ If you want to keep playing just for fun, it looks like you can start from the first entry of any section.

Note: this is not my information, but I am organizing it here for THBers....

As we know, bird imagery is HUGE in the AC universe...

STEP 1 - Print out that document

STEP 2 - Note that the words are an old Japanese Haiku

STEP 3 - Cut along line on top to make perfect square

STEP 4 - Fold the paper into the Origami bird shown in the bottom right, with the Origami bird ending in the head. Read the numbers right side to left side of the bird (as you would in old Japanese) right side left side
This gives you GPS coordinates [34.635024, 135.400969]

STEP 5 - Plugging this into Google Maps yields a very specific spot in Osaka, Japan

This is a BIRD Sanctuary.

Not only that... It's not an Assassin Symbol (Grand Temple) like in AC3, but it lines up PERFECTLY with one of the "dots" on the AC2 Codex Map...

image: http://i.imgur.com/mE74C8R.png
easier to see on gray background: http://i.imgur.com/jpcwCTJ.png

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There we go... with all the clues in other games so far, we now have direct clues to the French Revolution and now Osaka, Japan.

We also know that there was an Assassin Cell in Osaka... maybe this has something to do with them...

Hmm. So I wonder, will we see hints of what's going on at this location during AC4, or will we actually go there at the end of the game? The Kenway family is on William's side, and in the intro to AC3 he mentions he's used the animus before. So he may have already learned about what Edward did, and this location may be connected to Edward somehow.

It's entirely possible that it has nothing to do with the Kenways and is just William's way of informing the Assassins of his current location, as he seems to have run off.

Something about the way his letter was worded made me think otherwise. He said he was passing on his wisdom through the book (I got chills when I read that, actually, it's like a modern version of Altair's Codex) so why would he simply give the location where he's going to be? He's leaving the order. He doesn't want the templars or his former comrades to find him.

I think it would make more sense for the book to be about things like the temples, secrets of the order or intel gained on Abstergo. That's what William's life's work was.

And it's also important to remember the context in which this is being released: this is basically companion content for AC4. So I would expect some of what's happening in AC4's modern plot to tie in with these plot threads.

I trust Gavin more than myself on this one.

I took that as, Gavin knows William's personality more than I do, and Gavin thinks W will come back when he's ready.

He may come back, but I don't think he wants to be the head of the order any more. Initiates revealed that during AC3, the 90 year old assassin Mentor was killed. William must have been filling in for the past 6 months, and after what happened in AC3, it can't have been great.

I agree that he doesn't want to be head of the Order... but we've seen the end of Ezio's life... you can run and settle down somewhere else, but you can't retire from being and Assassin.

I don't know if that was really the message. Altair's lesson to Ezio was to not waste his whole life being an assassin. And sure, his past came back to haunt him in the end, but he died leaving behind a family who knew him as a kind and loving old man, and he had plenty of years of the quiet life. If he'd stayed the mentor, his family wouldn't have seen him as much, and he'd have likely died far sooner.

I'd say William deserves his rest, though I wonder if he's alone. It's possible he and Desmond's mother split up after what happened. That's probably part what he meant about his life being a mess.

They're not just going to waste William like that. The Assassin Order is his life's purpose. He needs time to heal from his son dying for the world, but it will be business as usual for him. If an Assassin can't handle a personal loss, then they shouldn't be one.

The order isn't made up of superhumans, they're just people. And it's not just a small personal loss, he's spent every day of the last decade or so searching for Desmond. That's been as much the purpose of his life as the Order was, and then when he'd finally found him, he couldn't keep him safe. Parents who lose their children have done far worse things to themselves than taking a vacation.

He's spent more time as an Assassin than Ezio did, so it's not like he's not been commited. He knows his limits. And when someone tries to push past their limits, more often than not they just become a liability.

He wants someone who's got new ideas and a stable mental state to be the one who helps the Assassins adapt to the modern templar threat. Because they've been getting trounced for more than 20 years, and they need to come back in a new way.

I entirely understand his decision, and I still respect him for keeping what remains of the Order intact all these years, against all odds.