april-fools-day-2014
Latest
Funcom yanks mankini costume from The Secret World
Players who logged in this week to The Secret World might have noticed that there was a new male costume option in the game store: a neon green mankini that covered very, very little. However, those who purchased said mankini discovered the costume gone today, as Funcom pulled the April Fools' Day outfits from characters' dressing rooms, refunded the points spent on them, and gave each previous owner a free mystery box. While there was no explanation as to why the outfit was removed, Funcom apologized for the handling of the joke on the forums: "You may or may not be aware, but the mankini was removed. Anyone that purchased the item has been refunded points and has received a mystery box for the inconvenience. However, if you had purchased points in order to buy the mankini, you can contact customer service for a refund of those points. We're terribly sorry for the trouble, folks. Our CS staff will be happy to help."
The Daily Grind: What was your favorite April Fools' Day prank?
You might not have noticed, but yesterday was April Fools' Day, and in the MMO industry that means a lot of studios blowing off steam by being abnormally silly and trying to trick players with weird promises. Some people like the goofs, some don't, but I'm willing to bet that there was at least one that got your nod of approval. So what was your favorite April Fools this year? Did you get genuinely tricked by anything or find yourself laughing in delight at the cleverness of developers? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
April Fools' Day around the virtual world
I was in Guild Wars 2 last night at 10 p.m. PDT when my Asura's head... grew. And wobbled. And bobbled. As did the heads of the not-so-scary-anymore Nightmare Court villains I had been murdering in pursuit of my dailies. Ah, I remembered. It's April Fools' somewhere! Here are some of the MMOs that tried to prank us today: Blizzard showed off a hideous new model for World of Warcraft's Draenei women and announced a new fighting game full of rejected characters. Neverwinter introduces a brand-new playable race -- the Dragon! EverQuest Next wants you to choose the next class: Duct Tapomancer, Rubberbandian, Origami Assassin, or Martinizer. Star Wars: The Old Republic introduced asteroid starships. Final Fantasy XIV teased the worst NPC companions ever. TERA has been overrun by beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees! Lord of the Rings Online announced plans for a major sports league. DC Universe Online brought to life the Unicorn Trinket. EverQuest II celebrated Bristlebane Day. Path of Exile gave up and went pay-to-win. Destiny unveiled the "Get Your Ass To Mars" collectors edition. World of Warplanes promised playable UFOs. The Repopulation posted patch notes including The Adventures of Ding Veisel. World of Tanks introduced World of Tanks: The Crayfish. League of Legends turned its meta upside down with a goofy Ultra Rapid Fire mode. Finally, rather than add to the pranks, we sent you on an April Fools' Day quest. The first person to complete it was reader Nathan6! The words in order were waffle, platypus, macguyver, shazbot, and doge, and here is the "prize" page. Thanks for playing, everyone! ;)
The Massively April Fools' Day Quest [We have a winner!]
As a citizen of the internet, you know what to expect on April Fools' Day: lots of sites trying to trick you into believing outrageous lies or attempting to make you laugh. As Massively is a paragon of both truth and humorlessness in journalism, we promise to do neither today. Instead, we challenge you to a quest: a Massively April Fools' Day Quest. We have created a super-secret page here on the site that can be discovered only by finding five special words. So your task is to play scavenger hunt with our posts today -- specifically, to look at the tags at the bottom of each post that goes out during the day and find five separate tags (total) that clearly do not belong with the rest. All posts published today are eligible! Once you find these five words, you'll use them to assemble the url, starting with "massively.joystiq.com/" and then adding the five words separated by hyphens. For example, if the five words were apple, banana, pear, mango, kiwi, you could try "massively.joystiq.com/apple-banana-pear-mango-kiwi" to see if that worked. Yes, part of the challenge of the quest is to experiment with the order of the words because there is only one path to the solution. If you complete the quest, please be a good sport and keep the answer to yourself. The first person to figure out the solution and leave us a tip with the correct answer in it will have his or her name added to this post and will forevermore be internet famous. Good luck! [Update: We have a winner! Reader Nathan was the very first person to submit the correct URL, followed by Greaterdivinity just a few minutes later. Congrats to both of you! Here's the "prize page" with the words in order -- don't look if you're still working on the puzzle.]
Final Fantasy XIV teases human-NPC relationship system
Well it's April 1st already, at least in Japan, and Final Fantasy XIV has something to contribute to this off-beat day: a Favour system for the game. Allegedly, this system will help players curry favor with NPCs and develop relationships with them because that's not creepy at all. To build an NPC's affection, players will have to perform certain tasks, hand out gifts, and even sport a particular look because that's not demeaning at all. As a player rises in affection, he or she will move to later "phases" and have access to new features (such as minigames) and interactions with the NPC. So if you've ever wanted to start a relationship with a cute NPC that will result in an over-possessive, jealous lover who will deny you the ability to group with members of the opposite sex, here you go. Because that's not bizarre at all.
Neverwinter spoofs game-within-a-game
Neverwinter has jumped the gun on April Fools' Day with its "preview" of Respen's Marvelous Game. The idea is that Neverwinter will add a game-within-a-game, allowing characters in the MMO to sit down and engage in some good ol' fashion tabletop D&D: "Respen's Marvelous Game takes place atop a table, with your character being transformed into a miniature statuette. This new event will challenge you on a whole new level. Now you will know what it is like to be on the other side of a tabletop game!" Of course, this is just a joke. Or is it? Cryptic teased the possibility of earning a green slime companion and said that it will be revealing more details tomorrow.
