april fools day
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One Shots: Can you believe they put that in an MMO?
This is a screenshot of one of the most amazing things ever seen in any MMO. When I first saw it, I couldn't believe that it was actually happening. Is it a glitch? An easter egg? Has some disgruntled developer thrown this in to get back at his boss just before leaving the industry for good? Unfortunately, my character stepped in the way at the last second, but that shouldn't matter, right? Oh well. It was amazing, I swear! Do you have a picture of the one that got away? The very first thing you should do is not send it in to us at oneshots@massively.com, along with your name, the game, and a description of the scene, and we won't publish it. Bring back One Shots!
April Fools' Day roundup: the big toys, the small toys and the cats
Depending on where you are right now, you're either pretty much done with April Fools' Day (hence our bloated inbox thanks to all you lovely tipsters!) or it's just about to start on your side of the world. In fact, some of this year's submissions already got a head start, including the excellent 8-bit quest mode in Google Maps. Oh, don't worry, there's plenty more from Mountain View and the usual participants this year -- we've rounded up the best of the lot right after the break for your amusement. Keep an eye on this as we will be adding new goodies to the list throughout the day. [Thanks to everyone who sent these in]
One Shots: Botanical bliss
This is a picture of a plant in Fisherman's Haven in Guild Wars, one of my favorite zones for accessing my storage vault when I'm /invisible and hiding out from my friends, who are probably trying to drag me along to vanquish zones or do Zaishen dailies or something. I mean, seriously guys, I think you forgot that MMOs aren't supposed to be about fun. They're supposed to be about spending $60 and then complaining on the forums and quitting in a huff. Behind me is a beautiful vista with gentle waves swirling on a beach nestled in an exotic cove, but you can't see any of those things because I chose to focus on this plant, darnit. It's my very favorite plant. I stand next to this plant while accessing the storage vault referenced earlier. I don't have to comport with your oppressive "beautiful screenshot" paradigm. This plant has deep meaning. Deep. Meaning. Something about standing alone in a wasteland of sand. It's about the very essence of MMOs, see? Do you have a picture of a favorite MMO plant? The very first thing you should do is not send it in to us at oneshots@massively.com, along with your name, the game, and a description of the scene, and we won't publish it. Bring back One Shots!
The Daily Grind: What are your favorite jokes of the day?
All right, we admit it, you probably haven't seen any April Fool's jokes just yet. It's early. But every year, MMO developers -- and the rest of the Internet -- delight in the absurd, the strange, and the blatantly false. Yes, the first of April is when everyone gets to troll the world just a little bit. And while some people are stalwartly opposed to a day during which you can trust no news and be sure of no announcements, the rest of us just accept nothing useful is getting done today and enjoy it. So go ahead and see what the various jokes are around the internet. Seriously, we'll wait. Then, let us know your favorites. Maybe it's something everyone loves, maybe it's something no one has seen yet, maybe you're just going to link something on YouTube. The point is, we want to know -- what's your favorite April Fool's joke this year? Every morning, the Massively bloggers meet to discuss the dark ritual required to summon back the most missed of all features: One Shots. So we're bringing it back today. If you can't trust the footer text today, then who can you trust? In other news, this is today's Daily Grind!
Notch's new space game is called ... Mars Effect?! [April Fools!]
It looks like the Elite-inspired space trading game Mojang's Notch has been working on finally has a name: Mars Effect. The game's official site just went live with a smattering of gameplay details, as well as insight into the philosophy behind Mars Effect's name."After several weeks of trying to come up with a good name for the game, we finally decided not to learn from previous experiences and pick a name that's already kind of in use by a huge existing franchise," says Notch. "After playing around with names like 'Elight,' 'Wind Commander,' and 'Steve Online,' we finally settled on the very catchy name 'Mars Effect'."The game's bulleted list of features includes things like "waist high walls" and "a game ending that makes sense," among other things. Notch also outlines the game's "fixed wattage" system: All ships produce a finite amount of energy, and your ship's features require specific amounts of power. Activating a cloaking device, for example, requires so much power that other ancillary systems like computers and lights must be shut down in order to free up wattage. Each ship is also equipped with a fully emulated 16-bit computer, which "can be used to control your entire ship, or just to play games on while waiting for a large mining operation to finish."Update: Rather than play along with these gags as they happen, we've decided instead to tag each April Fools' Day prank as such in the headline, in order to avoid as many dashed hopes as possible. While we never believed for a second that Notch would actually call his next game Mars Effect, we wouldn't be surprised if some of these gameplay mechanics ended up in his actual space game.[Thanks, Jason!]
Google Maps comes to ... the NES?! [April Fools!]
In a move that is as surprising as it is whimsically delightful, Google has decided to bring its globally renowned and often essential Google Maps service to one of the best-selling home computing solutions of all time: The Nintendo Entertainment System.As demonstrated in the video above, using Google Maps on your NES/Famicom is just as easy as using it on your desktop, smartphone or tablet. Simply insert the cartridge into the system, remove it, blow into it, reinsert it back into the system, attach a phone line and you're ready to go. Google's cloud of servers compensate for the NES's lack of processing prowess, allowing for a quick, seamless experience.While Google Maps for NES has yet to begin shipping, a demo version is available at the web-based Google Maps portal -- just click on the Quest button on the top right to begin your adventure.Update: Rather than play along with these gags as they happen, we've decided instead to tag each April Fools' Day prank as such in the headline, in order to avoid as many dashed hopes as possible. For what its worth, we want this to be real as much as you do.
World of Warplanes is adding dragons for that extra kick of historical accuracy
In a press release from early this morning, Wargaming.net has announced that it's adding dragons to its upcoming World of Warplanes. I'll just let that line sink in a bit before I continue. Yes, the studio is adding dragons; there's a video and everything (included past the cut). According to the release, the "initial tech tree will include 12 dragons and will eventually expand to more than 60 creatures. Each mystical animal will have its own peculiarities and strategic employment. Players can upgrade several key characteristics including fire intensity level, color, number of claws, horns, wingspan and skin thickness." Now, I should remind you what this Sunday is, so you can put two and two together, but it's an interesting thought nonetheless. Will we see more early April Fool's jokes today? Stay tuned!%Gallery-151846%
Global Chat: Best of April first edition
Friday was April Fool's day, and while we at Massively didn't want to stop bringing you all the latest real news, we wanted to get in on the fun as well. In the end, we compromised by making a few little additions to our schedule in the first half of the day. While we had regular news at the top of the hour as always, on the :30s we handed the virtual printing press over to you, our readers. Several of our writers created Mad Libs-style news stories, leaving out the important parts and allowing you, the readers, to create whatever news your hearts desired. Today we're looking at the ones that kept us laughing, so follow along after the jump for the best of April first!
April Fools: Paradox expands Vietnam theme to King Arthur series
Magicka's Vietnam-themed DLC has apparently been a huge hit with the folks at Paradox Interactive. Such a hit, in fact, that the company is now theming the upcoming King Arthur sequel in the same way -- nothing quite says "Knights of the Round Table" like napalm! Furthermore, the sequel to Sword of the Stars will receive similar treatment. "A wise journeyman once told me, 'Don't stop believing,' and that's exactly what we're doing here," company head Fredrik Wester noted in the announcement. Okay, okay, the folks at Paradox are just having a laugh on this day of days to have a laugh, but you'll excuse us if we stand fully in support of the idea. Heck, it sounds like a much better idea than the publisher's East India Company game themed around the Opium Wars of the 19th century. Who greenlights this stuff?!
Apple-themed April Fools' day pranks through the years
If it wasn't apparent already, today is April Fools' day and Apple's 35th birthday. To celebrate this occasion, Network World has compiled a list of popular Apple-themed April Fools' jokes from the past. Some are from Apple employees and some from the news media, but almost all of them are entertaining. The most famous joke involves Clarus the Dogcow. Created by Susan Kare, designer of the happy-faced Mac computer icon, the black and white dog-slash-bovine became an integral part of the Page Setup dialog box in early versions of Mac OS. Discussion of the cow-like dog icon continued internally within Apple's Developer and Technical Support (DTS) group until one member, Mark "The Red" Harlan, let loose the dogcow and named it Clarus in an Apple Technical document released on April 1, 1989. This off-the-cuff joke has taken on a life of its own and is now a part of Apple's pop culture history. Other notable April Fools' jokes include Macworld's 2004 "wicked fast," triple-CPU system called the PowerMac G5 Cubed or iFixit's genuinely clever 2010 teardown analysis of the Apple tablet, otherwise known as the Newton MessagePad 2000. Oh yeah, we can't forget the April 1, 2006 date when we announced that TUAW was closing up shop.
April Fools' Day roundup: Google overload edition
Ah, April 1st. It's that time of the year again when the internet is rife with odd news and pranks. As before, news sites like us end up with a healthy stream of tips throughout April Fools' Day (thanks, by the way), so let us round up some of the best findings for your comedic appetite. Contenders include the usual suspects like Google and ThinkGeek, the former of which dominating the gigglesphere this year with some new "features." We also have some interesting submissions from Hulu, a font company, and probably plenty more to come as the day progresses, so keep watching this space as we add new entries to this post. Right, let the fun commence after the break.
Sony offers sneak peek of new LA store - no fooling (video)
You might see a bunch of fake news on the internet tomorrow, but considering what we've seen of Sony's new LA storefront, we're fairly certain this isn't a prank. That's right, Sony's launching a newly branded retail store in the City of Angels Friday, and from the look of things, it spared no expense. The 4,200-square foot space is the first to ditch the Sony Style moniker for the simpler Sony Store, and while the aesthetics are decidedly minimal, the experience is anything but. As you might expect, the shop offers demos of a slew of devices; it's packed full of everything from VAIOs to ray modelers to 3D Handycams, and it's also rocking a fully loaded home theater setup called "The Cube." Considering the outfit's been looking to up its retail cred, we'd say the new spot has the stuff to do the job, even if that bright white modular look does seem strangely familiar. If you're in the LA area, you can check out the new digs starting tomorrow -- if not, hit up the guided video tour above.
WoW Insider Show Episode 134: On that genocidal note...
Every week, we present you with the WoW Insider Show podcast -- an hour's worth of WoW community discussion, covering everything from the week's top stories here on WoW.com to emails from our readers to what's been going on with our particular characters in Azeroth. Along with your hosts, WoW.com editor Michael Sacco and contributing editor Matthew Rossi, we also feature rotating guest hosts, whether regular WoW.com contributors or personalities from other sites. Want to have your question answered on the air? Email theshow@wow.com! Today's show features: Guest host: WoW.com AddOn/UI columnist Mat McCurley April Fool's Day roundup Rage normalization for warriors and druids Know Your Lore mini-extravaganza Reader emails And more! Get the podcast: [iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes. [RSS] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator. [MP3] Download the MP3 directly. Listen here on the page:
April Fools EPEEN meter now a reality
We all saw this coming. When April Fools jokes and pranks have any basis in the real world, someone, somewhere is going to make it a reality. This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone -- E.P.E.E.N. meters are becoming a reality. Addon developer suicidalkatt has created a theme for TidyPlates that mirrors Blizzard's own April Fools creation, the Equipment Potency EquivalencE Number addon. You can pick it up here at WoWInterface. The addon requires Gearscore to run, as it uses the player's value from Gearscore to scale your bar. Just make sure to select the EPEEN theme on TidyPlates after you download and install the theme. stolenlegacy over at WowAce has also begun work on his very own E.P.E.E.N. meter. The addon is in its very early stages of inception, but I can't imagine it will be anything less than amazing. Personally, I am very excited. My number will most likely be gigantic (and not compensating for anything, whatsoever). With a true E.P.E.E.N. system in place, maybe we can finally kill GearScore once and for all. Rather than be judged by a number cobbled together from disparate item values, we can be judged by the size of a bar cobbled together from disparate item values. All kidding aside, I am happy that World of Warcraft's user interface allows for fun stuff like this to become realized and that Blizzard has a good sense of humor when it comes to the addons the community could potentially come up with. While we're on the subject of bringing April Fools jokes to life, can we get another petition going for two-headed ogres?
WoW.com's April Fools Round-up
April Fools! Or at least it was yesterday. Some love the pranks, some find the pranks boring, some wish to see the pranks fall down a dark, dark hole, never to return, possibly to be eaten by a grue. Regardless of your personal feelings on the matter, we've gathered a short list of Blizzard and WoW-related pranks across the web: Blizzard Pranks World of Warcraft EPEEN: New from Blizzard, the Equipment Potency EquivalencE Number system! WoW Armory Tuskarr Invasion: Folks checking out the armory may have noticed their characters transformed to tuskarr, their achievements reported as 'cheesed,' and a whole lot of gear ninjaed and summarily vendored Battle.net Matchmaking Service: Battle.net decides to play eHarmony and place lonely gamers with suitable partners Battle.net Neural Interface: New from the Blizzard Store, the Neural Interface promises a lifelike gaming experience Blizzard Mobile Games: Up for 2010 from Blizzard Mobile Games are Blackthorne 2: Thorne Harder, and Queen's Quest! Diablo Gamer Blanket and Body Pillow: Wave goodbye to the cold as best as you can while swaddled in this Diablo 'gamer blanket!' Diablo Deckard Cain GPS System: Now you can listen to Deckard drone while you drive! Other WoW-related sites El's Extreme Anglin': El reports on the latest Cataclysm feature: Aquariums! MMO-Champion/Paragon/Premonition: MMO-Champion breaks the news that Paragon will be moving to US servers come Cataclysm and merging with the US Guild Premonition. Sponsored by AXE! Nihilum: Nihilum breaks some rules and brings us screens and video from the Cataclysm alpha Wowhead: Wowhead, er, TACOhead brings news of a new in-game item, the Hellfire Kickin' Taco Supreme! Tankspot: Tankspot announces their change to Farmspot Warcraft Pets: Breanni fills us in on some new non-combat pet... er... features coming out in Cataclysm World of Raids: World of Raids reports on the new Observation Deck and Spectate features coming in Cataclysm The Guild: The Guild proudly announces its new foray into the world of animation! Curse.com: Curse.com fills us in on Cataclysm -- exclusively available for the IPad WoW.com: And of course, there's us. Our day was filled with takeover after takeover, from Twilight to Muscle March to Saturn Six -- we've decided to return to WoW news. For now... Love them or hate them, at least they're done for the year, right? Now we can all breathe a sigh of relief and start believing what we see again. Did you laugh? Did you see a clever prank we missed? Or did you hide indoors all day and fervently wait for it to all be over? Let us know -- and check out the gallery below for screenshots from the various sites listed above! %Gallery-89602%
Beware, it's April Fools' Day!
With the iPad launch just two days away and new iPad news flooding the net almost every hour, we want to remind all our readers that today is April Fools' Day -- so take what you hear with a grain of salt. The web is already bursting with April Fools' pranks. Some of my favorites are: Google Translate for Animals -- an Android app that translates animal sounds into human speech using Google's "animal linguistic database." The Dharma Initiative Alarm Clock -- there's only two settings: one-minute warning and electromagnetic cataclysm mode. Google Street View in 3D -- go to Street View on and Google Map and you'll see a 3D icon. Glasses not included. Google Mobile Search "Where am I?" -- you'll be surprised to find where you are. The iCade, iPad Arcade Cabinet -- Donkey Kong never looked so good. Starbucks introduces the plenta and the micra - new coffee sizes for the modern appetite Besides a day for pranks, April 1, 2010 is Apple's 34th anniversary. Apple was founded this on this day in 1976. Happy anniversary Apple!
April Fools' Day roundup: 'let me Topeka that for you' edition
Alright, good netizens of Engadget, it's time for us to bring you the sort of hard-hitting news content you can expect only on the first day of April. First on our slate we have the earthshaking news that Google is to officially rename itself Topeka, with the company's official blog urging all future communications to be addressed to Topeka Inc. This is to honor the Kansas town that renamed itself Google in an effort to curry favor with Goog... excuse us, Topeka's 1Gbit broadband program. We also have exclusive and absolutely official confirmation of the forthcoming Android 2.5 update, an inflatable laptop from Toshiba, YouTube's textual deviance, and the hands-down best iPad dock you will ever see. You'll have to come after the break for all those -- they're too hot to handle out in the open. We'll be updating this post as the day goes along, so keep it locked.
Google steps up its April Fools game, writes Android app for the occasion
Google's known for taking April Fools' Day pranks just a little more seriously than most, but it's managed to outdo itself this year by creating a very real Android app to accompany this year's ruse that you can download right now. The concept -- Animal Translator -- is almost believable, until you realize that your average hamster doesn't have a library card to pick up Hitchhiker's Guide. Follow the break for Google's video intro.
Patch 3.2.2 PTR: Pandaren and Lil' K.T. pets revealed in latest build
Like Diablo's Cow Level, the Pandaren have almost mythic status within World of Warcraft since that memorable and almost plausible April Fool's Day prank. Blizzard has paid homage to that by tucking a pet Pandaren Monk into the latest build (10371) of patch 3.2.2 which has just gone live on the PTR.Boubouille over at MMO Champion has once again been rooting around the patch files and he came across the first model of the aforementioned pet. Isn't he cute? Heavy on the Chinese aethetics, we have no idea how you'll be able to get this little guy. While datamining, Boubouille also discovered another hitherto unmentioned pet, Lil' K.T.. Yes, you too can have your own pocket-sized Kel'Thuzad, a tiny trophy-sized lich to call your very own! Again, we're not sure how you get one. Here's hoping he drops off his full-sized self in Naxx but who knows? For now we just have a spell note in the files And as a note, please remember that Pandarens are not a playable race, nor is this an indication they will ever be added to WoW. 2n - 1 go left, 2n go right. I don't see enough DoTs! More DoTs now! Are you ready for the return of Onyxia? With the Brood Mother being revitalized as a 10 and 25 person raid, you'll need to be sure you know everything that's coming at you. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.2.2 will make sure your set for the next patch!
Verizon rebranding: an April Fools' prank that should be real
When we came across this post at Brand New, it was pretty clear from the outset that it was fake (the "April Fools" in the headline didn't hurt). Still, it got all the editors at Engadget thinking, and talking, about how badly Verizon does need some kind of makeover. Across the board, it seems that the reaction to the big V's logo and branding is like-minded: it stinks. That cheap looking italicized Helvetica, the gaudy gradient on the check... the check itself. The whole thing looks like it was done by a first-year art student with a cracked copy of CorelDRAW. Meanwhile, in a few hours, the cats at BN managed to mock something up that not only looks clever and inviting, but almost totally washes away the bad taste the current logo leaves in our mouths.Look, we're not saying you should go the cloud direction here -- it might not be the right fit -- but maybe it's time to reconsider your drab, staid design, and start to paint yourself in a different light. There's one more pic after the break -- a device with the "new" logo... just imagine it.
