Waiting for someone to post an April fools joke kind of defeats the purpose of the joke in the first place. None the less that is what I’m doing right now. Blizzard have become somewhat famous for their often bizzare April Fools jokes through the years. In recent years the most talked about have been those concerning World of Warcraft with announcements such as a two headed ogre as a playable race which required two players to control or the pandaren race. Usually Blizzard makes one joke for every game they have in production.
Beyond doubt the best joke in my opinion is from 1999, the first screenshot featuring cows of the later infamous real “Secret Cow Level“. Some background information is needed to explain the cleverness of this joke. In the first Diablo there was a joke going around that said that a secret cow level could be reached by repeatadly clicking the cows outside the town. This was of course not true, such a silly place did not exist… yet. Diablo II then started it’s development and when April Fools hit in 1999 Blizzard posted a screenshot showing cows walking around with polearms. Very funny indeed, Blizzard made everyone laugh at this joke, however the joke was far from over. When the final game shipped there where indeed a place featuring these “hell bovine” (as they are called in game) which you could reach by using Wirt’s leg and a tome of town portal with the Horadric Cube. In the end the joke turned out to be no joke at all which in my opinion made this such a perfect joke!
Now, the wait continues for the April Fools of 2009!
Edit: Now the first joke have been published, “P1mp my Mount” in World of Warcraft (European site).
Edit: 18:09 CET and still only one joke published on the European site. The time difference really spoils the fun in this joke! Either that or Blizzard have stopped putting effort into these.
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I’m still hoping that those tauren from last year will make it into Starcraft II somehow. Then blizzard would have cows in all of its games.