Difference between revisions of "April Fools' Day"
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The Neopets Team announced that the [[Pant Devil]] had [http://www.neopets.com/newfeatures.phtml?arr=2002-04-01 stolen] all the items in the [[inventory]] and [[safety deposit box]] of a "select few" users. In reality, this affected everyone for the duration of the prank. The items were returned at midday [[NST]]. | The Neopets Team announced that the [[Pant Devil]] had [http://www.neopets.com/newfeatures.phtml?arr=2002-04-01 stolen] all the items in the [[inventory]] and [[safety deposit box]] of a "select few" users. In reality, this affected everyone for the duration of the prank. The items were returned at midday [[NST]]. | ||
===2003=== | |||
[[Image:April fools 2003.gif|frame|left|Nick Neopia, the guide to the Neopetz world.]] | |||
The website's front page was [http://www.neopets.com/index_fake.phtml rebranded "Neopetz"], an "eXtreme" and "radical" redesign. It included announcing [[Neopoints]] would be abolished and all [[item]]s would be free, and introduced Nick Neopia, a new guide to the Neopets world. | |||
===2004=== | ===2004=== | ||
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The website was updated with previews of some of the cards, Quiguki-themed buddy icons, a how-to-draw page, and a [[Neopedia]] entry. However, unlike in previous years, this content was removed when the prank was over. | The website was updated with previews of some of the cards, Quiguki-themed buddy icons, a how-to-draw page, and a [[Neopedia]] entry. However, unlike in previous years, this content was removed when the prank was over. | ||
===2005=== | |||
[http://www.neopets.com/possiblepets.phtml Fifty new pets] were drawn, and the Neopets staff claimed they were releasing all of them. They removed the designs later that day, but then replaced them to allow them to be seen on 18 April. Following favourable response to several of the designs, TNT started [http://www.neopets.com/comps/choose.phtml a poll] on 26 April to determine which April Fools Neopet to release as a real Neopet. The winner was the Llamameeah, which would be released under the name [[Gnorbu]]. | |||
Nine other designs were released as [[Petpet]]s: | |||
{| | |||
| | |||
*[[Calabat]] | |||
*[[Carmariller]] | |||
*[[Duocorn]] | |||
*[[Gwalla]] | |||
| | |||
*[[Petoot]] | |||
*[[Slymook]] | |||
*[[Soreen]] | |||
*[[Urchull]] | |||
|} | |||
===2006=== | |||
{|align=right | |||
|http://images.neopets.com/neocharge/aishacollector.gif | |||
|} | |||
In 2006, The Neopets Team implemented a system called "[http://www.neopets.com/neocharge/ NeoCharge]", a taxation system meant to combat increasing server load and Neopoint inflation. For every page a player visited, they were charged between three and 75 NP, recorded in a floating NeoCharge bill window: the idea being, this would ensure players only loaded the pages they had to. The accompanying help pages to this feature explained that this sum was required to be paid off once a week, or when it reached 50,000 NP, whichever came first. Failure to meet these debts would lead to a member of support staff covering the value of the debt by seizing items, removing or unpainting Neopets, restricting site access or increasing the number of adverts the player sees. | |||
===2007=== | ===2007=== | ||
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By the following day, the hospital was back to normal and the Neopets were no longer reporting symptoms - although the pock marks continued to appear on certain images of the Neopets until the user had gone into the Neopet customisation screen and saved it again. | By the following day, the hospital was back to normal and the Neopets were no longer reporting symptoms - although the pock marks continued to appear on certain images of the Neopets until the user had gone into the Neopet customisation screen and saved it again. | ||
===2012=== | |||
[[Image:3ceb2e2.png|left|frame|The Shop Wizard.]] | |||
The [[Shop Wizard]] was feeling very dizzy - when sweeping around the marketplace looking for results for the player's search, he would retrieve listings for lots of different items instead, or retrieve the correct listings but a^2+b^2=c^2]]", [[wikipedia:Unicode|Unicode]] characters like "(ﾉ °益°)ﾉ 彡 ┻━┻" or "⇔", or the NeoBoard [[Slorg]] emoticon. When he could not find an item, instead of asking the user to try again and he would look elsewhere, he claimed he had found it but that the seller had not priced the item. | |||
The listings with lots of different items were in fact the item searched for, but with the name replaced on the results page: visiting the shop in question showed the real item. | |||
The Super Shop Wizard was unaffected. | |||
Later, the news was updated explaining that: | |||
<blockquote>NOTICE - Due to increasing numbers of Neopets causing core dumps on our database servers, we had to make some changes to how the site performs. Unfortunately, this means we will have to purge some Neopets from the system. Starting on Monday, each account will only be allowed three Neopets rather than four. In the next few hours, we will be sending Neopets into the Pound and purging the Pound itself by the end of today (Sunday).</blockquote> | |||
<blockquote>If you would like to help us out, please visit the Pound and send a Neopet of your choice to it! If one is not chosen by the time we start running the Automated Pound Transfer script, a random Neopet will be chosen for you and taken to the Pound to be purged. Please stay tuned for further updates! We apologize for the inconvenience.</blockquote> | |||
Meanwhile, all of the areas of the [[Pound]] redirect to the abandon page, and the page itself was locked out (preventing users from abandoning their Neopets). A message read: | |||
<blockquote> | |||
Due to the recent overload of abandoned Neopets, the Pound has been closed until capacity issues can be addressed. A modest proposal is currently being considered. We hope to have the Pound up and running again by the end of the countdown. Stay tuned!</blockquote> | |||
with two countdown clocks, one running to the end of the day, and the other, shorter countdown to when the 'Automated Pound Transfer' script would activate. This was to imply that not only would one of a player's four Neopets be removed, but that the player would be unable to chose which before this happened. | |||
[[Image:1d97d7.png|right|frame|Hoka took over the Trading Post.]] | |||
Later still, almost all the [[Auction House]] listings were replaced with dung-related items, and the [[Auction Genie]] would return search results for "dung" for any query. Any attempt to bid on them brought the player to a message from [[Nigel]] the [[Chia]], saying he had outbid them on it. Meanwhile, at the [[Trading Post]], the [[Island Faerie]] had been replaced by a "helpful" [[Tyrannian]] [[Kacheek]] called [[Hoka]]. When attempting to offer on a trade, an error would appear, | |||
<blockquote>Please offer only dung, as other items will confuse Hoka. Also, he cannot count very high, so offer no more than 1,000 NP.</blockquote> | |||
Offering a dung item and less than 1,000 NP will cause Hoka to offer all the Neopoints you have on hand, all your Neopets, and all the items in your Safety Deposit Box in trade - and not necessarily on the correct lot. Clicking to cancel the trade would cause Hoka to ask the player to confirm it: "Trade wa ugga snarga good! You no want?". Both possible replies, a la [[Tyranu Evavu]], were in Tyrannian, "arvu" and "nablu". No matter which one was chosen, the user would be brought to a page informing them that the offer was accepted - "Hoka is happy." | |||
In actual fact, the offer was not 'real' and could not be seen by the other player. The player's Neopoint counter goes down to 0 on the success page, but everything is returned on the next page load. | |||
The [[Lab Ray]] began to change user's Neopets to colours including Maraquan, Faerie, and Darigan, but not necessarily the Neopet the player zapped. This change could only be seen by the Neopet's owner - to all other players, the pet appeared unchanged. | |||
====Bugs==== | |||
The Lab Ray prank, when it affected an [[unconverted]] Neopet, caused other users to see it as converted. When the pranks were reverted at the end of the day, unconverted pets did not revert back to their unconverted form. The Neopets Team acknowledged on the NeoBoards that this was unintentional and that they were working to resolve it. | |||
The notice saying to disown a Neopet remained on the New Features even after the Pound was re-enabled and the countdown clocks removed at the end of the day. The message was finally removed when work began the following day. | |||
===2013=== | |||
Neopets announced a worldwide launch of new merchandise, including real-life versions of Neopets [[food]] like ''Minced Beef Pretzel'', and board game versions of the site and the Battledome. | |||
===2015=== | |||
[[Image:Fools2015Main.gif|200px|thumb|left|JumpStart characters took over the main page.]] | |||
[[Image:Fools2015Map.gif|200px|thumb|The JumpStart themed explore map.]] | |||
For 2015, the Neopets website was "taken over" by characters from [[Wikipedia:JumpStart|JumpStart's]] other licensed properties, including ''School of Dragons'', ''Math Blasters'', and ''NFL Rush GameDay Heroes''. During the entire day, the [[site theme]] was changed to be JumpStart themed, and the banner announcements on the main page displayed JumpStart games. The explore map was changed to show various locations from JumpStart's other games, and some [[NC Mall]] shopkeepers were replaced with JumpStart characters. | |||
{{br}} | |||
==External links== | ==External links== | ||