Kotaku
No one does April Fool's Day quite like Blizzard, and this year is no exception. Today they've unleashed not one, but three separate April Fool's Day jokes on the completely suspecting (for the most part, see below) masses.
By far the best is the announcement of the new Hero Class for the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, the Bard. Utilizing their magical axes, which they hold upside down, the Bard class unleashes their powers in the form of a Guitar Hero riff, with the amount of riffs hit determining how badly they rock their opponent's world. We're pretty much in total agreement here at Kotaku Tower - we'd play the hell out of this class if it were real. Hit the jump for more Blizzard tomfoolery!
Over at the Starcraft II website they've just announced a new Terran unit for the game, the Tauren Marine.
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.Mmmm, beefy! Hit up the site for videos of the new units in action!While most tauren were satisfied with their agrarian culture and primitive existence, the Confederacy was able to lure away large numbers of young bulls for a life of adventure and violence along the galactic rim. Other tauren referred to these adventurers as 'mad cows,' and they were ostracized from the rest of their kine.
Finally we have the announcement you've all been waiting for, World of Warcraft finally makes it to consoles - 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! Completely ridiculous, really. Who the hell would be fooled by this?
From: BenThanks Ben! In the future you might want to try reading the article before sending in the tip, instead of having to follow up your original email with "Shit I didn't even read the article. It's an April Fool's joke." By then it's far too late. Visit the site for more screens, as well as the stunning debut trailer of World of Warcraft: The Molten Core!
To: Tips@Kotaku.comSubject: WOW COMES TO CONSOLES
Credit me as Ben, please.
World of Warcraft: The Molten Core [Blizzard -Thanks Ben and Everyone Else!]
Comments
Great stuff as always by Blizzard!
Hopefully we'll see more Warcraft cameos in SC2, ala WarCraft III. :)
The Bard one made me crack though.
Hahaha, epic.
Watch the tauren marine video. They massacre everything!
Blizzard's april fools fake classes always seem to have been written by 10 year olds. boo, hiss.
lol @ Ben, what a loser.
you guys forgot the diablo 2 pinata, www.blizzard.com, it may be old but its still funny as hell
It looks like a Rock Band fretboard but with Guitar Hero notes on it. This is obviously photoshopped, guys.
would have been funnier to reset everyone to level 1, although there may have been suicides.
Hey, don't forget the Diablo Loot pinata!
[blizzard.com]
Yawn. April Fool's day is always the most painful day on the internet.
@The Wreckard: you need a funnybone transplant
@nolifedopestar (PSN: noliferuin): This is WOW not EQ/DAoC. 70 levels only takes a month for your none elite addict. Try removing all items as well as a level reset then you'd see suicides.
It's funny how many of their April fools jokes make their way into the game itself (cow level, Pandarian brew master).
There's also a Diablo Loot Pinata, and their forums have been tweaked so that all players have bear avatars, Blizzard posters have bucket avatars, and a script inserts semi-random "lol"s, "imo"s, "lolwut?"s, "rofl"s, etc. into posts.
Blizzard has a great little 'easter egg' in the bard. They show the Bard's talent tree and in one of the bars, they name talents like "Shred" (which they icon wrong!) "Most Pit" and finally "Rock N' Roll Racing"
A small reference to an old 16 bit game they developed back in the day. [en.wikipedia.org]'_Roll_Racing
They rock just for that alone :)
@nolifedopestar (PSN: noliferuin): OMG yeah that would be one hell of an April fools day joke,and yes i do agree that there would most defiantly be suicides.
None of this changes the fact that bards suck.
Now I need to buy WoW, I am the bard!
Why don't they just make this game? They already have the entire map drawn out. I'd download it, and it would probably take half a day to create anyway.
@dowingba: I really hope you're being droll. But as usual, my internet sarcasm detector is on the fritz.
I want a Tauren pet. :(
I would so start playing WoW if they had a rockin' Bard class. *Dreams*
Funny, wish I still played. Ah well. Maybe if they release the bard hero class, i'll think about it.
That Tauren Soldier better show up somewhere in the final reatial product of SC2! I mean, come on, ITS CRAZY NOT TO!
haha! I love the guitar-keyboard peripheral! :D
The Tauren marine so better be kept in the game as a model for the editor.
That has got to be the best damned thing Ive seen in a while!
@Krokenheim: Totally man, it would probably be the one thing that would get me to play that game.
I like the concept art of the the Tauren using the cow bell. That's some damn good cowbelling.
Forget the Thor, the Tauren marine is the new powerhouse of the Terrans!
I've always felt Blizzard should be the only site/company in the world to do april fools. Although this year Kotakus and Turbine(?) the LotrO developers were good.
Blizzard always make a great balance of it being just ridiculous enough to be an april fools but also sometimes to the point where you think it would be cool if they actually did it.
Other sites often fail horribly. Gamespot saying World of starcraft was coming out sticks in my mind. I mean that's not funny, many people actually want that and were seriously dissappointed. I remember one about sonic in smash bros melee. Again just sucked because it was simply dissappointing. Or they are so badly done it is far too obvious it's an april fools yet is trying so hard.
Oh actually youtubes was kinda good this year. Every single featured video linked to Rick Roll.
Lame!!!!
@kingmanic: man i'd love to have the free time you have.
@kingmanic:
A month to get to level 70 for non-hardcore? Maybe if you know EXACTLY what you're doing and are super efficient at getting experience but if you're able to do either of those things that would classify you as hardcore.
These are three reasons I would actually touch a Blizzard product again! Too bad they're jokes...
I love this all so much, that I hate this fool's day for it! Why can't this amazing stuff be real?!
They've taken April Fool's Day to a whole new level. They KNOW people understand it's a joke by now. But they go so above and beyond with this trickery that it hurts our gamer souls.
they should add the tauren as an egg. Not should.. MUST! they would become an hero to the internet community!
Holy Bisquick that bard class looks ridiculously amazing. I'd actually play wow if that were a real class.
Even after thankfully quitting WOW some time ago, I might have to re-enlist to play that bard.
I remember the first time I saw one of Blizzard's 4/1 jokes. It was back in the WoW beta which I was following but not participating in. They had an update for a new horde race, the two headed troll. At first I said "naw, that has to be a joke," but then they left the article up and had the troll icon in the race list for about two months after and I became convinced until they finally removed it.
I love 4/1...
The best thing is the picture with the Tauren with the Murlock. The crotch plates says "Not Milk"
I'm actually seriously disappointed that the bard is a joke. After being a huge nerd and loving my bard in D&D and generally just rocking people's minds, I would 100% reroll bard. It wouldn't even need the silly guitar hero stuff, but the class could fit in just the same.
If the Bard class were real, i would get back into WoW to play it. And those Tauren Marines are friggin sweet!
LoL .. after going to the website you see that the weapon the Tauren Marines carry is an 88mm Impala Gauss Rifle!
I want 4. I can only pray that "there is a cow level" will unlock these bad boys in the full game
@kingmanic
Though you can hit 50 in two days in DaoC, though there are other games out there that take a lot longer than WoW so your point is still valid.
On topic: I've never found any of the Blizzard April Fool's to be funny. Mostly because of how in-the-face they are. I really think they should opt for something more sublime next time.
I still remember Ultima Online's April Fools day events, unlimited respawns and kills with no guards in towns and the next day, server reverts back to normal.
I swear, devs like Blizz and Valve must have entire creative teams for things like April 1st and Halloween. They do this shit professionally.
Haha... if you could play GH in WoW to fight, I probably would have stayed...
@dowingba: no wai, for reels?
lol, nice job Blizzard. Now where's Diablo 3?
Lulz, i just scored a perfect on a razormaw!
lmao I loved how they put "There is a cow level" in the starcraft 2 page ;)
I really really hope they leave the Tauren Marine in and accessible via cheat.
I sometimes wonder what it'd be like if the April Fools Joke was that their April Fools Jokes were real.
Pretty much the best thing about 4/1 is Blizzard's website. Does not even matter if I am playing any of their games at the moment; still usually love whatever they put out there.