Hello, and welcome to another entry in “Online Games 4 Dummies”. This week we had some great news about all kinds of MMOs, too much to cover here, and some grade A pranks thrown at the MMO playing world for April Fools (My birthday by the way). So let’s get started!

Warhammer 40K MMO Finally Get’s A Date…or Year

Warhammer 40K, the award winning RTS (Real Time Strategy) game; based on the table top hit, is finally getting the MMO everyone has been waiting for. Originally a table top imaginary game, not unlike that of Dungeons & Dragons, is a set in a futuristic world; pitting players against each other by the use of alien and human races alike. YHQ finally announced last week that Warhammer 40K will have an MMO release in the 2011 fiscal year, which starts ironically enough on April 1st, 2011. This announcement was made in addition to other titles to be released over the next four years.

WoW Removes Yet Another Feature from Upcoming Patch

The gaming gods over at Blizzard have, not surprisingly, pissed off their fans again by removing another feature from the much anticipated 3.1 patch. The Equipment manager, which was to be included in the patch, much to the relief of druids, warriors, and paladins everywhere, has been removed. Blizzard released a statement stating “Certain issues were encountered with the upcoming Equipment Manager that could not be resolved in time for release with the next content update…”. This comes after the promise of the elimination of ammo stacks was also taken out of the patch, also for similar reasons. 

MMOs Aren’t Even Safe From the Jokes

This past Wednesday was April Fools Day, and the gaming world of course was hit by the usually pranks. 

Here are some that really stuck a cord with me (Courtesy of MMOsite.com):

Guild Wars Gets a Facelift

In a very creative prank, Guild Wars changed to a “chubi” style of characters, claiming they wanted to make the game for

 ”anime styled” and enjoyable for players of all ages. Some users really thought the change was coming, and some cancel subscriptions, only to find it was a prank later in the day. All in all, it was quite hilarious.

City of Heroes MUD

City of Heroes possibly topped Guild Wars by convincing players a new expansion would “take them back to the 80s, in a world of fantasy and imagination.” In other words, the  new “expansion” would be a MUD based MMO, complete with typeface green font on a black background. The specs for the “game” were even posted: 

Recommended

DOS 3.1 or later 
386 Processor or higher 
640k of RAM 
1200 baud Hayes-compatible modem

WoW Meets DDR

One I actually fell for, and I’m usually immune to Apirl Fool’s Jokes, was the announcement for the WoW “Dancing” minigame. Essentially it would be the World of Warcraft equivalent of Dance Dance Revolution. Blizzard was smart though in advertising the upcoming minigame on their site, causing thousands of players to get excited. Many pointed out that it may all be a joke, but (at least on my server), the general consensus was that it was legit. Guess we thought wrong.

Well, that wraps up another entry of Online Games 4 Dummies, be sure to click on us every Monday for your latest, and coolest, online gaming info!

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