Blizzard pranks of April Fool’s past [WoW]

This morning, World of Warcraft players awoke to a couple bits of interesting news– a new Hero class in the upcoming expansion and a console spinoff of WoW… and then you just had to look at the calendar to realize that Blizzard was pulling your dick.

Blizzard has made it a tradition to drop some great April Fool’s jokes and this year is no exception.  On this April 1st, we look back to the last several years of pranks played on the suspecting and unsuspecting video gamer.

2004

Blizzard announces a new playable race — the Two-Headed Ogre.  The Two-Headed Ogre is played by two players at once, fostering a new type of gameplay and communication.

By selecting the Two-headed Ogre race, you are selflessly choosing to share your existence in World of Warcraft with another player. That is, you are staking claim to one half of the Ogre whole. As a Two-headed Ogre, you will have control of one head and one arm at all times. Your other half will be controlled by a second player automatically and permanently paired with you upon character creation. Each player residing in the Ogre body will be free to choose his or her own character class at creation, so for example, it is possible to have a Two-headed Ogre who is half Mage and half Warrior. It is also possible to have two halves of the same character class, depending on the random pairing.

Read more about Two-Headed Ogres here.

Believability: C-
Humor: C
If this were true it would be: Awful

2005

Sony had just recently announced a deal with Pizza Hut where players would be able to order pizza through Everquest, so on April 1st, Blizzard announced it had partnered with a Chinese restaurant named Pandaren Express so that WoW players could order Chinese food by typing in /panda.  This story was picked up by Slashdot as real, so Blizz must have smelled the blood in the water and started upping the ante.

Simply type “/panda” in the game, and a GM will take your food order through the use of our innovative in-game Pandaren Xpress® menu. Within minutes, a Pandaren Xpress® delivery person will arrive at your door with a veritable feast!

With each /panda order, you will also receive an in-game Pandaren Fortune Cookie! The Pandaren Fortune Cookie not only tells you a fortune, but it also gives your player a random 30-minute buff (or debuff)!

Read more about Pandaren Express here.

Believability: B
Humor: A
If this were true it would be: Awesome beyond belief

2006

The Wisps

2006 was the year that not only Blizzard had more than one joke up their sleeves, but others got in on the fun as well.  After they had previously announced that Blood Elves would be the new playable race in the upcoming Burning Crusade expansion, they gave themselves the perfect opportunity to fuck with WoW players who had every day been anticipating the announcement of the new Alliance race… and so Blizz gave it to them: The Wisps.  The Wisp thing was sort of fairly believable and the WoW site bragged that there were literally millions of color and facial hair configurations, bringing in new levels of character customization.  The big giveaway was the fact that when a Wisp died, it was permanent.  That didn’t stop the WoW boards blowing up in anger that the Alliance had been wronged.

Read all about the Wisps here.

Believability: B
Humor: A
If this were true it would be: Good to be Horde

BurgerCraft

The second one in 2006 was the announcement that Blizzard was opening up its own chain of burger restaurants called BurgerCraft.  BurgerCraft started as a meme on the message boards in 2005, so when April 1st 2006 rolled around, Blizz was all ready with their official press release.

“Blizzard has experienced tremendous growth in the past 15 years, but none of that growth would have been possible on an empty stomach,” said Mike Morhaime, president and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “BurgerCraft will allow us to share many of Blizzard’s delicious secret recipes and celebrate the rich cuisine of the Warcraft, Diablo, and StarCraft universes with our players.”

Believability: D
Humor: A
If this were true it would be: Yummy

Fake 1.11 patch notes

As if to scoop up all other ideas they had missed out on, Blizzard released a set of brilliant fake patch notes for the upcoming 1.11 patch.  Some of the highlights were:

-Jumping while mounted will cause you dismount
-Emotes such as /thank, /dance and /smile have been disabled for the Mac
-Night elves will lose a small amount of experience after jumping
-Gnomes can now select Druids as a playable class, with 2 new forms: Cubby and Kitty
-Pets have a small chance to attack the Hunter when hungry.
-Edwin Vancleef will occasionally shout “Hey you guys!” as players fight their way through Deadmines.
-Due to the awkward look and feel of Tauren in the Undercity, guards will no longer permit their entry and have been flagged to kill on sight. Tauren, you’ve been warned.

Read all the fake patch notes here.

Believability: D
Humor: A+
If this were true it would be: Confusing

World of Starcraft (not Blizzard)

One last one that hit on April 1 2006 was not actually from Blizzard, but from Gamespot.  Rumors had been swirling, still are swirling, will always be swirling about the possibility of a Starcraft MMO.  I don’t doubt Blizzard for not actually following up on this one themselves, lest they cause riots in South Korea that could possibly threaten the stability of the entire East Asia region.  Gamestop however, wasn’t skeered.  They posted a pic, that they claimed was a leaked screenshot of World of Starcraft that still makes the rounds on the Internet to this very day as being real.

Believability: A
Humor: A
If this were true it would be: So awesome I would pee my pants like an excited puppy.

2007

World of Warcraft: Heroes of Azaroth

In 2007, Blizzard announced it was going to spin off WoW into an RTS, the same way that WoW was a spinoff of Warcraft.  Essentially, the screenshots they provided were Warcraft, slightly redone to include elements of WoW.  The big giveaway that this was a joke?  The acronym for WoW: Heroes of Azaroth is WHOA.

Believability: B+
Humor: B
If this were true it would be: Pretty cool

Blue for a Day

On the forums, Blizzard turned everyone’s avatars and posts (except for the actual moderators and admins) blue, so that when the average player posted, it appeared to be an official Blizzard post.  This also gave the mods the opportunity to equally poke fun of players, which pissed some people the hell off.  Which just proves that people on the WoW forums take shit way too seriously.

New engineering item: Tinfoil Hat

The big joke for the day in 2007 was the announcement that due to people losing their fucking minds over the opening of the Armory, arguing that somehow this was an invasion of their privacy, Blizzard rolled out specs for a new engineering item that would make it so that no one can see your stats, armor or skills in the Armory.  It also reduced intellect by 10 and prevented mind control (maybe).  Read more about the epic Tinfoil Hat here.

Believability: D
Humor: C
If this were true it would be: Stupid

Attunement chart

One last bit of fun Blizzard had at their own expense, was the release of a hopelessly complicated attunement chart to make fun of some of WoW’s own dungeon attunements that some players had complained were too hard.  Whaaa.

2008

New Wrath of the Lich King Hero Class revealed: The Bard

Quite a few WoW players have complained that it looks like there will only be one new Hero class in the upcoming expansion.  Blizzard has explained that they plan on adding more Hero classes in upcoming expansions, but this just isn’t good enough for some people.  (Okay, myself included) So Blizzard announced a new Hero class to WotLK expansion– the Bard.  The Bard will use his rocking repertoire to destroy monsters, using a Guitar Hero-like interface to pull off his gnarly abilities.

The deeds of every great hero inspire countless songs of triumph, virtue, and epic adventure. But although a hero’s glory endures in song, the creators of those songs are seldom remembered. After ages spent singing of the heroic exploits of others, the bards of Azeroth are finally stepping into the spotlight on their own terms, proving once and for all that while just about anyone can pick up a sword or cast a spell, only a true hero can vanquish evil with the power of ROCK!

Believability: C-
Humor: A
If this were true it would be: FUCKING WICKED

New Starcraft II unit: Tauren Marine

Feeding off the anticipation of Starcraft II, Blizzard announced a new Terran unit for the upcoming RTS: The Tauren Marine. Cows and humans working hand in hand to fend off the Zerg invasion… it’s a beautiful thing.

The obscure planet of Azeroth was found to harbor a dizzying selection of humans, mutants, and aliens in a state of perpetual superstition and conflict. The most physically imposing of these warrior races were the so-called ‘tauren,’ an anthropomorphic bovine genotype with super-human stamina, overpowered racial combat abilities, and bizarrely well-developed horticultural skills.

Believability: C
Humor: A
If this were true it would be: A little weird.

World of Warcraft: The Molten Core

Blizzard unveiled a return to the console with World of Warcraft: The Molten Core for the Atari 2600. World of Warcraft: The Molten Core features all of the excitement of a full MC raid on your Atari 2600. Boasting 10 bosses with 6 unique boss models and the ability to move in any of 8 directions, perhaps the greatest achievement of the game is the fact that it has sound!

Believability: F
Humor: A+
If this were true it would be: Time to dust off the ol’ 2600