April Fools 09: SOE gets silly

The fun thing about checking out the different pranks and events in SOE's various titles is just trying to chase all of them down. Sure, some of them are patently obvious like the class name changes in EverQuest, but others were a bit more subtle and took some looking to notice.

Curious as to the various things we noticed? Have something you'd like to add to the mix of all the SOE April Fools' hilarity? Join us after the break for a quick run-down of what we found.

EverQuest:

As mentioned, many of the classes got a rename. The EverQuest team said this was "to correct some inconsistencies with many player's perception of class roles compared to their intended roles." They then continued that "[they] hope that the new names will help alleviate any confusion there might have been about their intended roles and class vision. We've also modified the various class titles as they change over levels in order to more accurately portray their progression through the game."

Here's are the various names we caught:

• Warrior = Meatshield

• Cleric = Rezbot

• Enchanter = Smartypants

• Magicians = Whereismypet

• Necromancer = n3cr0

• Shadowknight = Emoknight

• Wizard = Burninator

• Bard = Jazzhands

• Druid = Treehugger

• Paladin = Boy Scout

• Ranger = Corpse

• Rogue = Tricksy

• Monk = Chuck

• Beastlord = PETA

• Shaman = Dog Whisperer

• Berserkers = AAAHHH!!!
  

Star Wars Galaxies

The team over at the Star Wars Galaxies site decided to get into the fray of April Fool in their own way. The first thing we noticed when we popped by their site was the introduction of a new column, Ask a Dog, in which players get to ask a cute pooch all their pressing Star Wars Galaxies questions. In-game, it seems that there's a mad toymaker who has cut loose with a bunch of insane toys, triggering a world event. The forums seemed to be the site of a third prank, as we were tipped off that certain words seemed to be... not quite right. From what we can tell, certain words like "the" was replaced with "cupcakes" and "SWG" was replaced with "awesome". Here's a handy key for your forum-reading pleasure:

• the = cupcakes

• SWG = awesome

• what = ****

• is = rainbows

• spy = iseeyou

• Jedi = JarJar

• give = smile

• fix = everything is perfect [this one is funny as a temporary switch]
  

• NGE = baseball

EverQuest II

Finally, our journeys took us to the lands of EverQuest II, where we found Bristlebanes Day in full swing, with this NPC once again giving out quests to hunt down tin helmets, and a new collection quest involving some very strange and hard-to-find items. On the forums, we saw all manner of silliness, including a report that some of the EQ2 team were threatening a picket, and much wailing as GU 51 took a bit longer than expected with the servers. (The good news is that they're extending the festivities an extra day due to the shenanigans so you can still get your holiday quests on.)

Overall, there are probably some other things we missed in trying to track down the different SOE April Fools' events. As such, feel free to let us know if we skipped something you thought really was quite awesome on April Fools!