Popular PC developer Blizzard took April Fools’ ’09 by storm – unleashing not one, not two, but five pranks this year including uber-massive StarCraft mecha, a new Diablo class, and PvP Dance Battles.
Yes, yes, we have a general April Fools’ Roundup post. But this level of commitment to messing with people deserves special recognition on its own.
First, there was the WoW Europe “Pimp My Mount” page, which teased players with the chance to turn their standard horse, giant cat, or hawkstrider into a truly epic mount. Amusing, sure, but not quite up to the standards of a company that has repeatedly demonstrated a love for elaborate April Fools’ pranks.
Naturally, they were just getting started. The Diablo III site was updated with a look at the game’s new character class: The Archivist. Oh, sure, he might look like a frail old librarian, and he might, uh… play like a frail old librarian, but don’t underestimate his Lorenado and Shush spells! The Archivist appears to be the RPers’ class of choice, what with his massive Radial Dialogue Tree – personal favorites include, “In my day, there were no colors,” and “Tyrael and I go way back.”
StarCraft II was the next game to be tricked out, with the brand-new Terran Terra-Tron unit – a more-than-meets-the-eye (*cough*) robot comprised of an entire Terran base – capturing the heart of mecha fans (and StarCraft fans) worldwide. “Dr. Ron Volt,” eh? Yeah, I see what you did there.
Well, that covered all three of their franchises. Funny stuff – let’s call it a day, right? Wrong. Not to be outdone by their EU counterparts, the North American WoW page gave Azerothians a sneak peek at the new Dance Battle PvP System, replacing the tired old swords and sorcery of modern WoW PvP with something brand new – and significantly more stylish. This new leg armor gives me +50 to funk, baby.
As for the fifth joke … well, unless you’re a regular on the WoW forums, you might well have missed it. Every single post on the forums has now been “RP’d” – making even a simple complaint thread seem like an epic adventure. Or, well, making it seem much more amusing, anyway.
There’s a certain poetry to posts like these, now:
“lol”, she stated, as she liberally applied her custom fragrance, which was made with bits of real nightsaber.
Oh, and the actual RP forums have been given a change of their own: Punctuation has been removed, and every sentence now ends in a random variation on “lol.” I lol’d IRL, guys. Good show, good show indeed.
Well, that about does it – Blizzard wins this year’s April Fools’. Whatever else you might want to say about the team in Irvine, you can’t say that they don’t have a sense of humor.
