April Fools Day 2008

Our thanks to everyone who logged on Monday to take part in our annual April Fools' Day celebration. It was noisy, spammy and chaotic, but in a good way. We hope everyone had as much fun as we did!

Many of you have already submitted your lists of 'What's Wrong With NarniaMUCK' entries. As far as I know, they've been counted, tabulated and a winner has been chosen! The comprehensive list (with reference explanations) is as follows:

1. Sted Cair was named Stroller Town, after a Jonathan Coulton Song. The desc reflected the song's two toddlers in their stroller drag race.
2. Cair Paravel became Skullcrusher Mountain, after another JoCo song.
3. Grumich's Pawnshop became Charon's Home for Discarded Things, which is yet another reference to a JoCo song, this one entitled 'I'm Your Moon', in which Charon comforts Pluto after its demotion from Plant-status.
4. The Satyr's Hoof Tavern became Soterios Johnson's Nightclub, complete with Soterios Johnson standing in for Datillo. This, too, is a reference to a JoCo song entitled 'Dance, Soterios Johnson, Dance', in which the sedate NPR newscaster leads a second life as a club dancer.
5. The Apothecary became the I Feel Fantastic Lab, referencing -- you guessed it -- JoCo's 'I Feel Fantastic' song.
6. The Tailor became The Mr.Fancy Pants Store, also referencing a JoCo song (Catching onto a theme here?)
7. The Inn became CM Industries, which stands for 'Code Monkey'. If you went in you got to see the infamous code monkey trying to chat up the uninterested receptionist.
8. The Fruit Market became the Beige Bear Boutique. (Wix really loves that song.)
9. The Explorer's Shop became 'The Mall', The one being attacked by Zombies in JoCo's 'Re:Your Brains".
10. West Road became the airlock outside of the Chiron Beta Prime mines. Tooth and Nail and the Iron Dwarf went missing there, too.
11. Sky above Sted Cair became Skymall. (If you couldn't fly, you could still see it by looking up.) Another JoCo reference.
12. Zombies were roaming around Sted Cair. (And they were wretched, too!)
13. Fainting Spell took you into Outer Space, in particular to the orbit of Pluto and Charon, still lamenting Pluto's demotion.
14. The OOC Lounge became a Leather Satchel. Why? I don't know... it's what occurred to me at the time.
15. The poses/says in the OOC Lounge mixed up names.
16. GoBACK took you to a different place each time you used it.
17. The PUBLIC channel was back on. This has become more of a tradition than a 'difference', but just to explain: when NarniaMUCK was young, Public was available all the time. It became a serious issue for the staff, though, because it was spammy and virtually begged players to 'cheat'. Taking it down was a tough decision, but every year that we bring it back, we're reminded quickly of why we don't miss it. The Guild chats are much much better.
18. Peltable Silver Apples. Back when we introduced Silver Apples, we spent a month or so dropping 'teasers' about this new and exciting development we were going to be putting into place. Then on April 1st we 'revealed' that the Silver Apples were just these silly throw-toys. On April 2nd we released the actual Silver Apples system.
19. Andale Crossroads was Kinzville. All of the around-the-muck easter eggs were video-game related. Players got extra points if they could identify the reference. The Andale Crossroads was a reference to Webkinz.
20. Lancelyn Green was Menethil Dur. A reference not to World of Warcraft, but to Warcraft II.
21. Carmichael was Hyrule. This was obviously a reference to the Legend of Zelda, specifically Twilight Princess. We even added in attacking chickens, as per tradition, and I gather Ast dressed the part. However, this was really the only reference to Zelda in the entire AFD list. Several people seemed to think that about half of the MUCK was a reference to Zelda. Strange.
22. Torspring became Route 1, a reference to Pokemon Diamond/Pearl. Why the heck doesn't that Professor guy go find his own darned pokemon? Why is he sending little kids out to do it all the time?
23. The Gathering Circle became Aperture Science Testing Facility, complete with a Weighted Companion Cube, a reference to the video game, "Portal"
24. The Dancing Lawn became Madison Square Garden, and you were presumably having a hard time reaching that orange button on the Guitar Hero guitar.
25. Madderholt was the Mushroom Kingdom,ala Super Mario Bros.
26. Barfield, the only town not modified as per a video game, was redescribed as the ghost town it effectively is.
27. The Stone Table Hill became Calvary. Appropriately enough.
28. Pouches/Satchels/Packs got cranky. If you tried to put something in them, they spit it back out. If you tried to pull something out, they growled at you.
29. No-Nods were back, resulting in a bunch of people trying to wag their heads up and down in creative ways to avoid hailing a cab to Margaritaville.
30. Borders were Disabled. This was largely for practical reasons, but it WAS a difference so we'll count it.
31. The Staff disappeared. Skullcrusher's grand plan to take over the universe apparently began with the NM staff. The staff command didn't work, and all of the staff disappeared, leaving Skullcrusher, his assistant Scarface, his henchmen and You.
32. All of the Fish in the game became lunchmeats. A celebration of Fishing Spam.

There were a number of incongruities that people noticed that were NOT planned differences, but rather consquences of other differences. For example:

• Some people noticed that their alignments were "Treacherous". This was not something we did, but rather the result of all of the rampant THEFT going on in the game. Stealing is bad, and lowers your alignment, even on AFD.
• Some people found themselves in a strange saltwater marsh when they used 'goback'. This was also not something we added, but rather a leftover chunk of building from back when Archenland was first developed. Some ambitious developers built a huge salt marsh smack in the middle of Archenland (where Chesterton was planned), and it was later decided that that chunk didn't really belong. Rather than delete it, we just deleted the exit leading TO it. Ergo, it's unreachable from the actual rooms of Archenland, but the random GoBack sometimes put people there by mistake. You could still get out though, which would put you along the south path in Archenland.

There were spoofed Save Messages as well, though the frequent crashes of yesterday made them difficult to see. One showed that leopard save backwards, another showed a cluster of ISO postings. A third showed you paging a nonexistant character, Randall, who paged you back wondering who you were. (Randall is another recurring figure). The last showed a string of error messages that culminated with the player attempting to eat Wix.

All in all, it was quite a day. But our winner is clear.

Are you ready?

The winner is..........

CAMO!

Congratulations, Camo! And thanks to all of you who came out!