Battlefield 1: how to unlock the hidden dog tag A Beginning
The very first Battlefield 1 Easter egg has been unearthed, and solving it nets you a unique dog tag.
A Beginning is the name of a Battlefield 1 Easter egg the community recently uncovered. This hunt is not dissimilar to the ones we've seen before in Battlefield 4 like the Phantom Program, though this one is a lot more complicated.
In the video, Westie outlines the process of figuring out the first part of the Easter egg, and how to get the free dog tag. This is the same headphone Easter egg the community identified around the game's launch, it's only now that the first part - A Beginning - has been solved.
First, you'll need to a find a pair of headphones on one of the maps. Only one pair of headphones will spawn at any one time, so you'll need to join empty servers until you locate a pair and pick it up. All possible locations can be found here, to make the hunt a little easier.
Then you'll need to find a hidden MCOM station on the map, and approach it. The MCOM will play Morse Code, so you'll need to record what you're hearing. Capturing footage will do, too, so long as you can hear the audio.
Once the video has been captured, you'll need to extract the audio track from it using editing software such as Adobe Premiere or Vegas. This should give you a sound file, free of all the noise, which you're going to need. Now, take this sound file and export it into an audio editor like Audacity.
The reason for this is that through Audacity's visualiser, you're going to isolate just the Morse Code parts to be able to understand the message. To do this, you'll need to change the Waveform view to Spectrogram, apply a Split Stereo to Mono effect, and finally Normalise the audio through the Effect menu.
This will make it easier to see a few orange blips in the visualiser, which is what we're looking for. Now, it'll be easy to type out the dots, dashes, and spaces into a notepad, as this will help you decode the message later. Decrypting the Morse Code requires a translator, and you can use this one to do it. Simply copy what you typed into the notepad and pay attention to the translation.
The message will be different for each person, and you could be directed to any one of these locations to continue the hunt. Once you arrive at the place, you'll see an arrow pointing right and left, and looking it at it will play some music, letting you know you're in the right place.
From there, you'll need to go to pick up a new set of headphones and return to the MCOM station to receive the next message, record it, and decipher. If you did everything right on the previous trip, the lights on the MCOM station will change colour.
If the second code is jumbled, you can reverse the order of the letters on the message to receive the next set of instructions. The sign you see at the correct location will help you decipher the next clue.
In Westie's case, the symbol was a triangle. This means his next code would need an Atbash Cipher to be cracked. Repeat the same process until a you reach another location, with another symbol.
An arrow pointing to the right means you'll need a Caesar cipher to decrypt it. A fence icon means you need a Fence cipher. A set of dots and dashes will require the use of a Baconian cipher to crack, after you've switched the letters over to As and Bs.
In cases where you're required to use the Baconian cipher, the resulting code will need to be decoded again using the Atbash Cipher. When getting the word Edward as a clue, you'll need to use the Vingenere cipher using Edward as a passphrase. George is another clue you can come across, which requires the use of an Autokey cipher to decrypt.
Use George as a passphrase with Z as a key. If you get London as a clue, you'll get the same MCOM Morse Code message as everyone else. To solve this final riddle, you'll need to reverse the converted Morse Code message, then use Autokey cipher with Z as a key and London as a passphrase.
Finally, after reversing the resulting message, you'll need to load up the Giant's Shadow map and spawn as a German soldier. Now, all that's left to do is climb the top of the windmill behind the German spawn, keep looking up at the pigeons in the sky until one of them flies over your head. When that happens, you'll hear the same success music you've heard before, which brings this part to an end.
You should now have the A Beginning dog tag in your collection. You're also now ready for the next part, which has yet to be uncovered.