Where in the World is stabguy? (2024)
This year we're playing by Double McStab with Cheese rules:
- I'm going on a multi-country two week vacation.
- The game will only last eight days: July 13 - 20 (more or less, depending on your time zone).
- It will be divided into four rounds of two days each.
- I will try to post a clue each day about a location I am in or near during that round - two clues per round.
- I will have limited internet access on the trip to post clues. The schedule may need to be adjusted.
- If you get it right on the first day (before I post the second clue), you get 5 points. If you get it right on the second day (before the next round starts), you get 3 points. If you get it right any time after the round ends, you get 2 points. I won't post the answers until July 27 so you'll have a whole week for late guesses.
- You can change answers to any previous round and get the 2 points.
- If you had the correct answer and changed to an incorrect answer, you get 0 points. In other words, only your last answer will be accepted and it will be scored based on whether it was correct and, if so, when it was sent: 0, 2, 3 or 5 points.
- Final score tiebreaker will be the person with the most first correct guesses. No bonus points for being first but it is the tiebreaker.
- Send all answers to me in a private message: https://www.thehiddenblade.com/messages/new/1
- Answers published in this forum will not be scored and will only benefit other players.
- The winner will get a cheap souvenir from one (or more) of the clue locations.
neat.
I'm down. Setting my daily reminders now. Haha
“Force has no place where there is need of skill." Herodotus
In Round 1 I'm looking for the name of a city.
First clue: stabguy planned ahead to avoid the wildfires in California only to find there's a Firestorm at his first destination!
Second clues:
A local art lecturer received a prominent credit in Assassin's Creed: Mirage.
To reach this firct city, stabguy flew approximately 6,900 miles (update: as an eagle flies) from his home in Honolulu.
I updated the second clue to clarify 6,900 miles as an eagle flies, not my actual airline route.
Okay. But like what counts as a "prominent credit" ? Lol. There's like a billion people in special thanks.
“Force has no place where there is need of skill." Herodotus
what counts as a "prominent credit" ?
Early enough in the crawl that I was still paying attention. 
I like to think that all my musings in direct messages are responsible for the clarifying edits in the clues.
“Force has no place where there is need of skill." Herodotus
I like to think that all my musings in direct messages are responsible for the clarifying edits in the clues.
“Force has no place where there is need of skill." Herodotus
Round 2. This time I'm looking for the name of a geographic feature or area (for example, "The Grand Canyon") but will give full credit for the name of any city within that area (e.g. "North Rim").
First clue:
At the end of Assassin's Creed, Altaïr saw a globe hologram with a flashing dot representing stabguy's current location.
If it is where I think it is, count me as jealous. 
“Force has no place where there is need of skill." Herodotus
Round 2 second clues:
There was an Isu temple here until a Hidden One intentionally flooded it.
stabguy will find that the sun sets 14 minutes later here than in round 1, and the length of daytime is 17 minutes longer.
Round 3. Again, I'm looking for the name of a geographic feature or area but will give full credit for the name of any city within that area.
First clue:
One Assassin's Creed DLC allegedly contains an easter egg that places the most famous tourist attraction from round 2 here instead.
I apologize for the delay. "Technical difficulties". Picking up where we left off...
Round 3 second clues:
Kassandra came here looking for Pieces of Eden. Soon the residents began hallucinating.
stabguy has driven approximately 66 miles (actual highway distance) from round 2 to reach this destination.
I can't believe how wrong I was with Round 1 and Round 2. Lol.... you gotta give me props for finding local news stories with mass Fires on the day of your arrival for that first Firestorm guess though, stabguy. Right?
“Force has no place where there is need of skill." Herodotus
Round 4, looking for a city this time.
First clue:
stabguy is on his way to see DIMHAMLETRETITLE
Round 4 second clues:
The protagonist of Assassin's Creed Rogue once sent medicine to this city which effectively prevented the spread of plague.
You'll need luck finding stabguy among an estimated 660,000 people!
End of Round 4.
You still have until July 27 to make or change your guesses for any of the rounds.
Awe, that's it? 
“Force has no place where there is need of skill." Herodotus
The game is officially over. The correct answers were as follows.
Round 1: Edinburgh, Scotland
Round 2: Loch Ness, Scotland
Round 3: Isle of Skye, Scotland
Round 4: Copenhagen, Denmark
The winner, with a score of 11, is Double McStab with Cheese. He ended up with all four correct answers. Good effort, Cheese. Well played. Note that a perfect score would have been 20, so there's still room for improvement.
Explanations for some of the clues...
stabguy planned ahead to avoid the wildfires in California only to find there's a Firestorm at his first destination!
Before thehiddenblade there was assassinscreed-maps, THB's blogfather. The admin of assassinscreed-maps was Firestorm, who lives in Edinburgh. I contacted him about possibly getting together but he was going to be out of town that week. This clue presented a clear advantage to old timers. I'm looking at you, ROB_88. 
A local art lecturer received a prominent credit in Assassin's Creed: Mirage.
I was referring to Glaire Anderson: https://www.eca.ed.ac.uk/profile/dr-glaire-anderson
University of Edinburgh got a nice credit for their contributions on Baghdad history and Islamic art.
One Assassin's Creed DLC allegedly contains an easter egg that places the most famous tourist attraction from round 2 here instead.
Several people have reported seeing the Loch Ness Monster off the Isle of Skye in Valhalla's "A Fated Encounter" DLC. Others say it's the remains of a sperm whale:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ACValhalla/comments/t0j8ik/nessy_pretty_sure_i_...
https://www.reddit.com/r/ACValhalla/comments/t0uejd/potential_loch_ness_...
stabguy is on his way to see DIMHAMLETRETITLE
I recycled this clue from the 2012 edition of Where in the World is stabguy: https://www.thehiddenblade.com/where-world-stabguy-round-3
DIMHAMLETRETITLE is an anagram of THE LITTLE MERMAID, written by Dane Hans Christian Andersen and celebrated with a statue in Copenhagen. Cheese must not have recognized the clue despite having won the game in 2012. That was the year I didn't actually make it to Copenhagen due to a passport issue. I made up for it this year.
I gotta tell ya... I didn't even have my anagram hat on this year.
Also.... you can't tell me Phuket and Lake Toba didn't fit a few of those early clues, lol
“Force has no place where there is need of skill." Herodotus
This clue presented a clear advantage to old timers. I'm looking at you, ROB_88.
yeah, no chance i'm gonna remember where anyone lives, after years of no contact
i was barely able to remember you're in hawaii
for that clue, i was googling the word "Firestorm" hoping for a festival or something
Round 1 was clearly the hardest. Clues like "the sun sets 14 minutes later here than in round 1" were intended to work both ways. If you figured out Loch Ness for round 2 then you could use this clue to work backward and find Edinburgh. I think that's exactly what Cheese did.
I decided to only post the winning score but ROB_88 made a strong showing and came in second place. At first I didn't even realize Rob was playing because he sent his answers to my email (https://www.thehiddenblade.com/user/1/contact) rather than by private message (https://www.thehiddenblade.com/messages/new/1) like everyone else did.
Round 1 was clearly the hardest. Clues like "the sun sets 14 minutes later here than in round 1" were intended to work both ways. If you figured out Loch Ness for round 2 then you could use this clue to work backward and find Edinburgh. I think that's exactly what Cheese did.
Basically, yeah. I was in Southeast Asia for a while at the start, with guesses like Hong Kong, Phuket and Lake Toba. It was the "assassin flooded a first civ temple here" clue that lead me to Loch Ness (had to look it up since I never played Valhalla). Then I looked for close cities and did sunset times to choose between Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Also, the Loch Ness monster Easter egg clue threw me for a bit, since there is sort of an Easter egg for this sea creature off the coast of Boston (or New York, I forget which) in AC3... the investigation mission where it turns out this crazy sea creature is just rudimentary SCUBA gear. But the dialog in that mission that you need to eavesdrop on makes it sound like a bigger monster like the Loch Ness monster
“Force has no place where there is need of skill." Herodotus
At first I didn't even realize Rob was playing because he sent his answers to my email rather than by private message like everyone else did.
oh, i forgot that Send a Message and Contact are not the same thing
Somehow I forgot each round is a different city. Shows how attentive I've been.
“Force has no place where there is need of skill." Herodotus
stabguy has driven approximately 66 miles (actual highway distance) from round 2 to reach this destination.
Our hotel on Loch Ness was in Fort Augustus at the southwest tip (the opposite end of the Loch from Inverness). The planned drive was 66 miles along the southern route from Loch Ness to our first stop on the Isle of Skye. That easy 90 minute drive soon turned into a nightmarish 181 miles that took over 4 hours.
We were making good time and over halfway to Skye along the southern route when traffic came to a standstill. About 30 minutes later some police cars arrived. Word soon spread among the motorists that there had been a fatal motorcycle accident and the highway would be closed in both directions for another 3 or 4 hours.
So we turned around and backtracked to Loch Ness. I knew there was a northern route to Skye but our car's navigation system wasn't offering any alternate routes: "make a U turn when possible". We stopped at the Loch Ness Information Centre in Drumnadrochit for a bathroom break and directions to the northern route. This worked out well for Cheese because I picked up the stabby prize in the gift shop. 
I said to the information lady, "We're going to the Isle of Skye but highway 887 is closed so we need an alternate route. I'm thinking about going to Inverness and hanging a left." In a classic case of selective listening, she pointed to the map and said, "Inverness!? To get to Skye you go the other direction and take highway 887." 
When we reached Inverness the nav system finally kicked in the northern route as an alternate so we took it. At the point where the southern and northern routes converge, there was no traffic emerging from the southern route. We took this as a sign that the highway remained closed and we had made the right choice.