The truth of Stop 'N' Swop.

[RareJohnathan]

My name is Johnathan Pryce.
I have been a valued Rareware employee for many, many years.
My occupation is a concept designer, which means I create the fun little whatchamacallits that you meet along your playable journeys, and even help design the levels which cause you to throw a controller at the screen.
Some may be skeptical, as I know an employee was underestimated here as well many years ago.
I am fine with this.
If you chose to be skeptical, than leave, what I am about to say will upset you. greatly.

If you want this ending to be revealed in Banjo-Threeie, than please stop reading now, for I about to tell you and save you the trouble.

"But why Mr.Pryce?"
You may be asking yourself.

It is because I think you have toiled in mysteries long enough, guessed far too long at countless theories, and whilst Rareware continues to tell you to wait.
I say different.
I think you are ready for the truth, now.
That said, again if you do not want the ending spoiled for you, or you would like to hear the answer in Banjo-Threeie, stop reading.

[Spoilers Start]

To fully understand and appreciate the wonders that started the whole legend, we should start at the beginning.
DREAM. As it was called, and Rareware even made a little article about it recently.
But, the information presented didn't even scratch the surface on the truth.
Here is the reality of Dream:

As long as I've been working for Rare, since the mid 90's, I have been a concept artist, as such, I was included within the development of Dream.
The story, which I will now share with you, is about a boy named Edison.

The game follows the adventures of Edison, a small boy growing up in a Bay.
As the game progresses, players find out that Edison's hometown is filled to the brim with scary pirates, who soon attack!
Playing as the brave adventurer, you must ward off the attacks using cannons, swords and even small pistols that fire explosive artillery.
Eventually, Edison is captured and taken aboard a massive ship with pirates who plunder and battle the innocent coves around the world map.
Playing as Edison, you must escape the clutches of the pirates by battling through 9 floors of the ship and escape using a small escape boat and sail back home.
Of course, you meet pirates along the way who give you directions on where to sail to, you battle bosses, conquer the seven seas with your little ship and gain experience and get treasure along your seaworthy quest.
At the end, you battle the ferocious Captain (You guessed it) Blackeye at your home and win, the game finishes with Edison being a hero of the seas.
Sounds fun right?
We thought so.
But during the process, multiple errors popped up, which I am not going to divulge into.
Long story short, the Adventures of little Edison were all but forgotten and the game was canceled.
Next, we developed another game where you jump hip hopping from forest to forest as a adorable little rabbit.
I hated this game to say the least, it was too cutesy for my sweet tooth.
Continuing the adventures of Hoppity, you would save the forest from different disasters and help out all of your little forest friends.
Eventually, this idea was thrown away too... (I was happy at least)
Finally, we created the great game you all see before you.
Banjo-Kazooie!
In my humble opinion, the article is only good for beta Banjo-Kazooie, so read up on on that.

Continuing on the project, Nintendo presented us with a great idea, the Nintendo 64 DD.
In case nobody informed you of this, the Nintendo 64 Disk Drive was a CD-ROM add-on for your gaming system.
This enhancement not only provided us developers for extra memory, features and other add on specials.
But Nintendo was quick to tell us to create some unlockable options, whether it was a multiplayer mode, a new story line or plot twist or just another thing to keep the fans happy, Nintendo wanted it.
The plan for the N64DD was to increase Replay value and give fans the opportunity to dust off old cartridges in order to play extras they've never seen before, all by buying the expensive but expansive, Nintendo 64 DD.
Well, we were happy to have the privilege to use this new equipment to create new possibilities.
Well, we developed a think tank to analyze our countless possibilities.
It turns out our unlockables would be found by opening up locations that players had in front of them the whole time.
Well, we made these objects colorful to attract the kiddies, and used question marks to enhance the mystery.
We made the objects eggs because we did not want to make the prize obvious.
Finally, we created a cutscene to excite the gamers in purchasing Banjo-Tooie to find the answers.
Banjo-Tooie was not meant to be a cartridge by any means, it was meant to be a Nintendo 64 Disk.
Using this disk, players would play Banjo Tooie whilst Banjo-Kazooie could be inserted or removed at any time during play.
The players would get the prizes in Banjo-Kazooie by using Banjo-Tooie to show tiny cutscenes.
(Ex. Mumbo would stand on a pad in Banjo Tooie and make Sharkfood Island raise using a spell in Banjo-Kazooie.)
Everything was fine and dandy, and we decided to slip more prizes in to enhance the replay value for OTHER Rareware games.
Since I was working for the Banjo team at the time, I only got called into the DK team at rare occurrences.
This was one of those times.
We wanted to link up Banjo Kazooie and Donkey Kong using the powers that be inside the DD.
Using the Banjo-Tooie Game Disk, players could take the Ice Key in Banjo Kazooie and lend it to DK for use, who would lend it back to Banjo Tooie.
Complicated? Yes
Impossible? No
Soon after we had our plan finalized and ready for action.
The name Stop 'N' Swop was given to mean "Stop" playing Banjo Kazooie, "N" (and) insert Banjo Tooie into the Disk Drive, and "Swop" the data.
The utter nonsense of taking old cartridges out and putting new cartridges in was only put in because that was the theory you have created using the words.
The final step was to create a patent verifying that we could use the DD for memory transfer.
In midterm development between Banjo Kazooie and Banjo Tooie The Nintendo 64 DD failed.
It was hardly advertised and only released in Japan.
At that point everyones hopes were destroyed, there was to be no Swopping or Stopping.
Using what we had, we created a fake method using bouncy happy-go-lucky cartridges that would reveal the previous eggs after being pounced upon.
I would like to take this opportunity to apologize for the sheer ****tyness that these bogus carts produced.
We finally decided that in Banjo-Threeie (Which was to be released in 2004) on the Dolphin (Otherwise known as the Gamecube.)
We would reveal the truth to what happened as well as give out the debug codes to get the prizes in Banjo-Threeie to make some unbelievable replay value as fans blew the dust off of their Nintendo 64's and played our old games. (We know, we're money grublins...)
However, if you don't recall, we were bought out by Microsoft in 2002 (They're not that bad, they even let us take off our chains during lunch break!) and Banjo-Threeie was delayed.
Meanwhile, you smart kids found the debug codes and released it to the world! Yay you!
In all seriousness, Thank-You! Without you, Banjo Kazooie wouldn't have been as huge as we planned!
Shortly after, in 2003, Nintendo decided that since we weren't using Dream anymore, they could release a game with the same concept!
Well, you sail around in a ship, which you direct around the world map, as well you sail with a gang of pirates!
This of course, is the Legend of Zelda: The Windwaker. Or, as I refer to it as "The Legend of Zelda: The Dream that could have been"

Well, Banjo-Threeie is in development, and what I've heard from higher up is that Stop 'N' Swop is going to be revealed using hints such as Captain Blackeye in Banjo Tooie.
I say this is ********! Utter ********!
After all your work and this is how you find out? Clues?
I was always against Captain Blackeye, he was supposed to say old sayings about Dream and *******, which I am fine with.
But someone decided to throw some Stop 'N' Swop pictures on the walls (Which I knew would confuse the living daylights out of some people)
I suggested we put some Dream pictures up, but I was declined.
I guess you can find out in Banjo-Threeie what I'm speaking about.
And if you are skeptical reading this, than what the hell? I told you to go away.
In turn if I edit this post it means:

a.) I was found out
b.) We decided to make a half-decent attempt at an explanation.

[Spoilers End]

Yours,

Johnathan Pryce

[Mandolin]

I don't know, man. All those spelling errors would not come from a real Rare commando...

[Mundane Hunter]

OH!
I FOUND THE ERROR!
Rare did not work on The Windwaker.
20 points for me.

But you had me until then.
Good job.

[hyperthefox]

WTF all i can say and i cant trust this

[Kab]

If you ARE a Rareware employee: Neat-o!

If you AREN'T a Rareware employee: *hits with WTF Log* You just got WTF'D!

[Mr.Patch]

Meh that all sounded pretty phony to me, BK3 was to be released in 2004, under dolphin? Well the gamecube started out in 2001 even before that it was called the Gamecube not the dolphin and 4 years to make BK3 sounds like alot to me.

[Hylian1]

I have a list of every Rare employee that works at Rare and there is no Johnathan Pryce.

[Jinjonator]

Originally Posted by Mundane Hunter

OH!
I FOUND THE ERROR!
Rare did not work on The Windwaker.
20 points for me.

But you had me until then.
Good job.

No, they didn't. Nintendo did. He said that.

[Andre]

I think that the fact that you spelled your own name incorrectly, and that this is the name of a Bond villain pretty much destroys your credibility. Also, the story itself was pretty ridiculous. Locked.