EPTsins 2004 Blizzard has been making amusing 1st of April jokes such as....
2004
Blizzard announced that two-headed Ogres would become a playable race...
2005
Sony had just recently announced a (real!) deal with Everquest and Pizza Hut, so the announcement by Blizzard that they'd made the same deal with a Chinese food chain sounded legit to many news outlets (including Slashdot), and got quite a bit of coverage for a joke. Blizzard must have smelled blood in the water, because after this, April Fool's Day was never the same for them.
2006
The official joke was about Wisps as a playable race in the new world of warcraft expansion pack (burning crusade)
there were also rather amusing world of warcraft patch notes
+ Show Spoiler +
1.11.0 Patch Notes
Live Patch Notes Disclaimer: While we make every effort to include all upcoming changes in our patch notes, please be aware that occasionally some changes are unintentionally omitted.
World of Warcraft Client Patch 1.11.0 (2006-04-01)
New Dungeon Visitation Limitation System
Contents
[hide]
* 1 1.11.0 Patch Notes
o 1.1 World of Warcraft Client Patch 1.11.0 (2006-04-01)
+ 1.1.1 New Dungeon Visitation Limitation System
+ 1.1.2 Flightpath Scenery Improvements!
+ 1.1.3 General
+ 1.1.4 Mac
+ 1.1.5 Battlegrounds
+ 1.1.6 Druid
+ 1.1.7 Hunters
+ 1.1.8 Mages
+ 1.1.9 Paladin
+ 1.1.10 Priests
+ 1.1.11 Rogue
+ 1.1.12 Shaman
+ 1.1.13 Warlocks
+ 1.1.14 Warriors
+ 1.1.15 Items
+ 1.1.16 Professions
+ 1.1.17 Quest & Reputation
+ 1.1.18 Raid & Dungeons
+ 1.1.19 User Interface
+ 1.1.20 World Environment
With the many improvements to end-game dungeons implemented last patch, we decided that it was necessary to limit the number of times a player can enter a dungeon per day. This was done to prevent the economy from being flooded with overly valuable items, and to ensure that players weren't acquiring too much gold during what we'd consider a reasonable amount of play-time. We realize that many players enjoy repeated trips to their favorite dungeons, so we've made this new limitation as least restrictive as possible. Each character on a player's account may enter the same dungeon up to three times per day, and may visit a total of five dungeons over the course of a twenty-four hour period. Keep in mind, each character on your account is flagged separately so with eight characters, that's a total of 40 dungeon-runs per day!
Flightpath Scenery Improvements!
Tired of seeing the same old flightpaths? We've completely reworked each flightpath in the game so that the angle and view are shifted just enough to give all of Azeroth's traveling inhabitants the feeling that they are headed to an all new destination. That's not all, each flightpath has been fleshed out to ensure that the player sees every single detail of the passing terrain, which means that for the same reasonable traveling cost, you'll purchase a ride that's twice the length, and in some cases three and even four times as long!
General
* Number keys can no longer activate character abilities. In many cases, this gave certain players a slight advantage over those that used their mouse to activate their abilities.
* Black Tabby now called Little Cat.
* Jumping while mounted will now automatically dismount you.
* Night Elves will now lose a small percentage of experience after jumping.
* The non-combat pet 'Murky' will now be required from every player wishing to enter Onyxia's Lair as we wanted this raid encounter to feel very special.
Mac
* Various emotes have been disabled for Mac users, including /dance, /smile and /thank.
Battlegrounds
* Each player will only be allowed to pick up one flag per game in Warsong Gulch. While this decision is slightly restrictive, we do feel the value of teamwork it will teach by allowing each player more opportunity to shine outweighs any negative side-effect.
* 'Friend of Deserter Debuff' will now apply to those chatting with players under the effect of the Deserter Debuff. This has the same effect as the standard Deserter Debuff, except other players do not risk penalty when engaging in a conversation with you.
* New Level 1 only Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin bracket available!
* If a match-up begins and drops everyone due to lack a lack of players, Horde automatically wins.
Druid
* Run speed reduced by approximately 20% when in Bear Form and Dire Bear Form. It should now feel more "bear-like" for players when changing into these forms.
* Innervate now only works on caster.
* Gnomes can now select Druids as an available class! New Cub and Kitty forms available!
* Shapeshifting will now only be possible outside of dungeons.
Hunters
* A simple check mechanic has been implemented which will prevent Hunters from rolling on items that are more optimal for another class in the party, when using the group loot system.
* Hunters can now be affected by their own traps. This should add a sense of danger, and increase the Hunter's need to strategize his decisions.
* Pets have a small chance to attack the Hunter when hungry. The chance increases with each passing moment that the pet isn't fed.
Mages
* Mage Armor - Now has another new, unique icon.
Paladin
* Paladins will now receive a 2% increase to DPS for every cloth item worn. In addition, chance to crit will increase by 5% if a dress is worn. This is to encourage a wider variety of itemization for the Paladin.
* Paladin can no longer target self with Lay on Hands as the spell was intended to help others.
* New Form: Bear Form and Dire Bear Form! This new ability should help the Paladin tank in five, ten and twenty player-capped dungeons.
Priests
* A diminishing return has been placed upon Fade, which will prevent it from reducing threat if used a second time in a single encounter. This was to prevent certain unscrupulous players from simply standing way in the back of a raid healing a significant amount of life with very little risk of threat penalty.
* Shadowform now lasts five minutes with a ten minute cooldown. Mana cost reduced slightly.
* Fear Ward is now only available to Dwarf Females.
* Inner Fire will now cause its caster to take a small amount of fire damage while active.
Rogue
* Moving while stealthed has a very small chance to break stealth. This was to reduce the frequency at which players were being ambushed or backstabbed in player vs. player environments.
* Discovering a stealthed rogue will now produce a large alert symbol above the rogue's head similar to the Hunter's Mark. The alert can only be dispelled by using the Vanish ability.
* Vanish has been increased to a 30 minute cooldown.
* Fixed bug which allowed Rogues to wield two weapons at the same time. This was never intended to happen.
Shaman
* Physical damage will no longer destroy totems.
* While in Ghostwolf form, the Shaman is now considered to be only partly connected with the real world, as a result dodge and armor have been improved by 35%. To ensure that the Shaman would want to take advantage of these improvements, all spells and abilities will be usable while in this form.
* Troll Shaman will gain the full benefits of Berserk despite their percentage of health.
* Reincarnation will now only have a cooldown of 30 minutes, untalented. Reagent cost doubled.
* Shock spells no longer share the same cooldown.
Warlocks
* Standard bags will no longer hold soul shards. This should make obtaining larger size soul shard bags feel more rewarding. To compensate for the change at lower levels, we've added new soul shard bags to various vendors throughout Azeroth. These bags are designed to hold between 4 and 12 soul shards, depending upon the size.
* Using friendly emotes will now significantly increase the Infernal and Doomguard's chance to remain loyal to the Warlock.
* Friendly emotes are no longer available to the Warlock.
Warriors
* There will now be a 15 second cooldown when changing stances to prevent players from breaking Fear effects too often.
* Dwarf Females now generate rage at a rate three times greater than normal.
* Intimidating Shout now has a chance to intimidate its user.
Items
* The drop rate for class specific equipment will now be reduced by a small percentage for every member of a given class beyond one that is present in a party or raid. This should encourage players to seek a more varied group of classes.
* Several new items can be found at various vendors which do double and triple damage to players of a specific class or race. We'll add more each patch, but right now Gnome Stomper, Ancient Warlock Destroyer and the Roguebane are immediately available.
* Herod's Shoulder will now result in a decrease to main hand damage by 45% to compensate for the unbalanced weight.
* Linen Cloth will now only stack in groups of 5.
* Moonwells are now located exclusively inside Blackwing Lair, near the Alchemy Lab.
Professions
* Players may now choose only one secondary profession. Too often we saw players choosing Fishing, Cooking and First-Aid when originally our intent was for players to simply pick one or two.
* Explosive nodes may now spawn in the place of select herbs and mines. Damage will be percentage based upon level.
* Skinning now requires that you have the equivalent skill in daggers, i.e. in order to skin a 225 beast, you must work your dagger skill up to 225 as well.
Quest & Reputation
* Many quests which con green to a player will no longer yield experience, but rather grant a monetary gain at a small percentage of the new exp to gold conversion system. While this will make leveling up more challenging, players will have an easier time obtaining their mounts.
* Improving faction with Timbermaw Hold will now decrease your faction with Argent Dawn, and visa versa, as we want to encourage players to make more important choices at higher levels.
* New level 35 quest series added which teaches players to detect stealth. We feel that by this time, players have lived in fear of Rogues long enough.
Raid & Dungeons
* Majordomo Executus will no longer be killed by Ragnaros, as such was very depressing. Instead he will now assist in the battle, making for a much more challenging encounter.
* Placeholder art for the four world dragons will be used while we fix an animation bug associated with their actual design. The placeholder art will be the standard farm chicken, however, each will have a unique color to ensure that one is distinguishable from another.
* Scholomance is now spelled "Sko-lo-mance" to alleviate confusion about its pronunciation. In addition, a sound file has been added outside the instance portal which will phonetically sound out the name upon zoning.
* Edwin Vancleef will occasionally shout "Hey you guys!" as players fight their way through Deadmines.
* New wing added to Scarlet Monastery called the Graveyard! Check it out!
* New RageFire Chasm quests added for Alliance players as currently only Horde had quests there.
User Interface
* The global cooldown timer has been added to all spells and abilities.
* The Raid UI now allows a maximum of 3 rogues or hunters per raid.
* Target and player health updates will be limited to once every 5 seconds to save on packet traffic.
* To minimize potential abuse, you can no longer see opposing faction player names.
* The use of 'if', 'for' and other flow control statements has been deemed exploitable, and have been removed from the Lua script implementation.
World Environment
* 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.
* Entering the Barrens will now flag your character for PvP, regardless of your faction or realm type. This is being done to make the zone feel more alive.
* Above the corpse of Mankrik's wife, a large red arrow will now appear and be viewable for up to 500 yards. To ensure that the associated quest offers some challenge, typing the word 'Mankrik' 'wife' or 'anyone seen' in Barrens chat will now result in experience loss.
* In order to assist with various upkeep costs, at a designated time NPC vendors will now give players an amount of gold based upon their level. This is currently slated to occur every Tuesday from 6:00 AM to 11:00 AM PST.
* Many new Sons' of Arugal have been added to Silverpine Forrest. Occasionally Arugal himself wanders the zone. During this time, players may not enter his keep.
* Due to the changes associated with the new flightpath scenery improvements, players will need to relearn all flightpaths.
* A total of 26 new flightpaths have been added to various points throughout the Barrens.
* Additional grass areas have been added to the enemy faction's zones. This grass is exceptionally green.
Live Patch Notes Disclaimer: While we make every effort to include all upcoming changes in our patch notes, please be aware that occasionally some changes are unintentionally omitted.
World of Warcraft Client Patch 1.11.0 (2006-04-01)
New Dungeon Visitation Limitation System
Contents
[hide]
* 1 1.11.0 Patch Notes
o 1.1 World of Warcraft Client Patch 1.11.0 (2006-04-01)
+ 1.1.1 New Dungeon Visitation Limitation System
+ 1.1.2 Flightpath Scenery Improvements!
+ 1.1.3 General
+ 1.1.4 Mac
+ 1.1.5 Battlegrounds
+ 1.1.6 Druid
+ 1.1.7 Hunters
+ 1.1.8 Mages
+ 1.1.9 Paladin
+ 1.1.10 Priests
+ 1.1.11 Rogue
+ 1.1.12 Shaman
+ 1.1.13 Warlocks
+ 1.1.14 Warriors
+ 1.1.15 Items
+ 1.1.16 Professions
+ 1.1.17 Quest & Reputation
+ 1.1.18 Raid & Dungeons
+ 1.1.19 User Interface
+ 1.1.20 World Environment
With the many improvements to end-game dungeons implemented last patch, we decided that it was necessary to limit the number of times a player can enter a dungeon per day. This was done to prevent the economy from being flooded with overly valuable items, and to ensure that players weren't acquiring too much gold during what we'd consider a reasonable amount of play-time. We realize that many players enjoy repeated trips to their favorite dungeons, so we've made this new limitation as least restrictive as possible. Each character on a player's account may enter the same dungeon up to three times per day, and may visit a total of five dungeons over the course of a twenty-four hour period. Keep in mind, each character on your account is flagged separately so with eight characters, that's a total of 40 dungeon-runs per day!
Flightpath Scenery Improvements!
Tired of seeing the same old flightpaths? We've completely reworked each flightpath in the game so that the angle and view are shifted just enough to give all of Azeroth's traveling inhabitants the feeling that they are headed to an all new destination. That's not all, each flightpath has been fleshed out to ensure that the player sees every single detail of the passing terrain, which means that for the same reasonable traveling cost, you'll purchase a ride that's twice the length, and in some cases three and even four times as long!
General
* Number keys can no longer activate character abilities. In many cases, this gave certain players a slight advantage over those that used their mouse to activate their abilities.
* Black Tabby now called Little Cat.
* Jumping while mounted will now automatically dismount you.
* Night Elves will now lose a small percentage of experience after jumping.
* The non-combat pet 'Murky' will now be required from every player wishing to enter Onyxia's Lair as we wanted this raid encounter to feel very special.
Mac
* Various emotes have been disabled for Mac users, including /dance, /smile and /thank.
Battlegrounds
* Each player will only be allowed to pick up one flag per game in Warsong Gulch. While this decision is slightly restrictive, we do feel the value of teamwork it will teach by allowing each player more opportunity to shine outweighs any negative side-effect.
* 'Friend of Deserter Debuff' will now apply to those chatting with players under the effect of the Deserter Debuff. This has the same effect as the standard Deserter Debuff, except other players do not risk penalty when engaging in a conversation with you.
* New Level 1 only Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin bracket available!
* If a match-up begins and drops everyone due to lack a lack of players, Horde automatically wins.
Druid
* Run speed reduced by approximately 20% when in Bear Form and Dire Bear Form. It should now feel more "bear-like" for players when changing into these forms.
* Innervate now only works on caster.
* Gnomes can now select Druids as an available class! New Cub and Kitty forms available!
* Shapeshifting will now only be possible outside of dungeons.
Hunters
* A simple check mechanic has been implemented which will prevent Hunters from rolling on items that are more optimal for another class in the party, when using the group loot system.
* Hunters can now be affected by their own traps. This should add a sense of danger, and increase the Hunter's need to strategize his decisions.
* Pets have a small chance to attack the Hunter when hungry. The chance increases with each passing moment that the pet isn't fed.
Mages
* Mage Armor - Now has another new, unique icon.
Paladin
* Paladins will now receive a 2% increase to DPS for every cloth item worn. In addition, chance to crit will increase by 5% if a dress is worn. This is to encourage a wider variety of itemization for the Paladin.
* Paladin can no longer target self with Lay on Hands as the spell was intended to help others.
* New Form: Bear Form and Dire Bear Form! This new ability should help the Paladin tank in five, ten and twenty player-capped dungeons.
Priests
* A diminishing return has been placed upon Fade, which will prevent it from reducing threat if used a second time in a single encounter. This was to prevent certain unscrupulous players from simply standing way in the back of a raid healing a significant amount of life with very little risk of threat penalty.
* Shadowform now lasts five minutes with a ten minute cooldown. Mana cost reduced slightly.
* Fear Ward is now only available to Dwarf Females.
* Inner Fire will now cause its caster to take a small amount of fire damage while active.
Rogue
* Moving while stealthed has a very small chance to break stealth. This was to reduce the frequency at which players were being ambushed or backstabbed in player vs. player environments.
* Discovering a stealthed rogue will now produce a large alert symbol above the rogue's head similar to the Hunter's Mark. The alert can only be dispelled by using the Vanish ability.
* Vanish has been increased to a 30 minute cooldown.
* Fixed bug which allowed Rogues to wield two weapons at the same time. This was never intended to happen.
Shaman
* Physical damage will no longer destroy totems.
* While in Ghostwolf form, the Shaman is now considered to be only partly connected with the real world, as a result dodge and armor have been improved by 35%. To ensure that the Shaman would want to take advantage of these improvements, all spells and abilities will be usable while in this form.
* Troll Shaman will gain the full benefits of Berserk despite their percentage of health.
* Reincarnation will now only have a cooldown of 30 minutes, untalented. Reagent cost doubled.
* Shock spells no longer share the same cooldown.
Warlocks
* Standard bags will no longer hold soul shards. This should make obtaining larger size soul shard bags feel more rewarding. To compensate for the change at lower levels, we've added new soul shard bags to various vendors throughout Azeroth. These bags are designed to hold between 4 and 12 soul shards, depending upon the size.
* Using friendly emotes will now significantly increase the Infernal and Doomguard's chance to remain loyal to the Warlock.
* Friendly emotes are no longer available to the Warlock.
Warriors
* There will now be a 15 second cooldown when changing stances to prevent players from breaking Fear effects too often.
* Dwarf Females now generate rage at a rate three times greater than normal.
* Intimidating Shout now has a chance to intimidate its user.
Items
* The drop rate for class specific equipment will now be reduced by a small percentage for every member of a given class beyond one that is present in a party or raid. This should encourage players to seek a more varied group of classes.
* Several new items can be found at various vendors which do double and triple damage to players of a specific class or race. We'll add more each patch, but right now Gnome Stomper, Ancient Warlock Destroyer and the Roguebane are immediately available.
* Herod's Shoulder will now result in a decrease to main hand damage by 45% to compensate for the unbalanced weight.
* Linen Cloth will now only stack in groups of 5.
* Moonwells are now located exclusively inside Blackwing Lair, near the Alchemy Lab.
Professions
* Players may now choose only one secondary profession. Too often we saw players choosing Fishing, Cooking and First-Aid when originally our intent was for players to simply pick one or two.
* Explosive nodes may now spawn in the place of select herbs and mines. Damage will be percentage based upon level.
* Skinning now requires that you have the equivalent skill in daggers, i.e. in order to skin a 225 beast, you must work your dagger skill up to 225 as well.
Quest & Reputation
* Many quests which con green to a player will no longer yield experience, but rather grant a monetary gain at a small percentage of the new exp to gold conversion system. While this will make leveling up more challenging, players will have an easier time obtaining their mounts.
* Improving faction with Timbermaw Hold will now decrease your faction with Argent Dawn, and visa versa, as we want to encourage players to make more important choices at higher levels.
* New level 35 quest series added which teaches players to detect stealth. We feel that by this time, players have lived in fear of Rogues long enough.
Raid & Dungeons
* Majordomo Executus will no longer be killed by Ragnaros, as such was very depressing. Instead he will now assist in the battle, making for a much more challenging encounter.
* Placeholder art for the four world dragons will be used while we fix an animation bug associated with their actual design. The placeholder art will be the standard farm chicken, however, each will have a unique color to ensure that one is distinguishable from another.
* Scholomance is now spelled "Sko-lo-mance" to alleviate confusion about its pronunciation. In addition, a sound file has been added outside the instance portal which will phonetically sound out the name upon zoning.
* Edwin Vancleef will occasionally shout "Hey you guys!" as players fight their way through Deadmines.
* New wing added to Scarlet Monastery called the Graveyard! Check it out!
* New RageFire Chasm quests added for Alliance players as currently only Horde had quests there.
User Interface
* The global cooldown timer has been added to all spells and abilities.
* The Raid UI now allows a maximum of 3 rogues or hunters per raid.
* Target and player health updates will be limited to once every 5 seconds to save on packet traffic.
* To minimize potential abuse, you can no longer see opposing faction player names.
* The use of 'if', 'for' and other flow control statements has been deemed exploitable, and have been removed from the Lua script implementation.
World Environment
* 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.
* Entering the Barrens will now flag your character for PvP, regardless of your faction or realm type. This is being done to make the zone feel more alive.
* Above the corpse of Mankrik's wife, a large red arrow will now appear and be viewable for up to 500 yards. To ensure that the associated quest offers some challenge, typing the word 'Mankrik' 'wife' or 'anyone seen' in Barrens chat will now result in experience loss.
* In order to assist with various upkeep costs, at a designated time NPC vendors will now give players an amount of gold based upon their level. This is currently slated to occur every Tuesday from 6:00 AM to 11:00 AM PST.
* Many new Sons' of Arugal have been added to Silverpine Forrest. Occasionally Arugal himself wanders the zone. During this time, players may not enter his keep.
* Due to the changes associated with the new flightpath scenery improvements, players will need to relearn all flightpaths.
* A total of 26 new flightpaths have been added to various points throughout the Barrens.
* Additional grass areas have been added to the enemy faction's zones. This grass is exceptionally green.
2007
And last year things went even further over the top. Blizzard announced a "new" RTS called Warcraft: Heroes of Azeroth ("WHOA," for short) "based in the WoW Universe," which was really the old Warcraft RTSes made to look like a WoW tie-in. The forums went a little nuts with "Blue for a Day," as every poster but the CMs got to go blue, also resulting in Tseric's classic "lol wut" remark (and making a few people unhappy). Unofficially, WoWWiki got turned into MeowWiki, Wowhead got sold to Blizzard (providing a weird foreshadowing for later that year), and a number of other Warcraft-related jokes flew around. But the big one was, of course, the Tinfoil Hat -- with the release of the Armory earlier in the year, lots of players were concerned that their gear choices were being shown off, so Blizzard released an engineering item that would supposedly keep your character out of the Armory (as well as dropping Intellect by 10 and preventing mind control... or maybe not). And they also poked fun at all of their attunements, with a hopelessly complicated attunement chart.
2008
New world of warcraft Hero class The Bard was introduced
![[image loading]](http://kotaku.com/assets/resources/2008/04/wowbard.jpg)
new Starcraft2 unit introduced for Terran, the tauran marine
![[image loading]](http://kotaku.com/assets/resources/2008/04/sc2tauren.jpg)
and last but not least a World of warcraft 8 bit game for Atari 2600. THE MOLTEN CORE (lvl 60 instance in world of warcraft)
![[image loading]](http://kotaku.com/assets/resources/2008/04/wowmc2600.jpg)
I honestly cant wait to see what this year has in store :D
discuss.
(fixed link to black temple attunement chart)
![[image loading]](http://img.gamespot.com/gamespot/images/2006/089/reviews/932394_20060331_screen001.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.blizzard.com/us/diablo2exp/pinata/ss2.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.blizzard.com/us/diablo2exp/pinata/ss3.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.blizzard.com/us/diablo2exp/pinata/ss4.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.blizzard.com/us/diablo2exp/pinata/ss5.jpg)
