Meta’s Verse: April Fools Recap
By Meticulous Meta, OnRPG Paragon Reporter
Every year on April Fools Day the internet explodes with false declarations of pregnancy and the promise of silly technology. Even game studios get in on the jokes, Paragon studios is no exception. They’ve been taking part in April Fools Day since 2005 when they started with a description of a Vomit temp power that you couldn’t actually get in game. People went mad looking for the power only to find out it was all a joke. Since then we’ve seen classics like visual sounds. Which brought us the widely loved FREEM! And last year’s announcement that City of Heroes was running out of XP. This year a variety of light hearted and much desired items have been announced to release on the Paragon Market, Just in time for April Fools Day!
Liger Pet
Bred for their skills in magic, the liger pet is the perfect thing to show off your favorite animal (pretty much). This half-tiger, half-lion vanity pet is an unwavering companion for your tater-tot eating hero. Why buy a time-machine online when you can buy a liger for a fraction of the cost?
Price: 400 Paragon Points
Vanity Pet
This four legged companion pet will act as a true reflection of your character. Its fine wood exterior can withstand even the toughest super powered attacks. Assembly required, allen wrench included, but other tools will be needed.
Price: 400 Paragon Points
Custom Power Set
Purchasing this item will get you a phone call from the designers at Paragon Studios who will walk you through the process of creating your very own customized power set of unimaginable power. You decide the Archetypes it works with, what attacks and buffs it has, and what the animations and effects are supposed to look like. Please allow up to 8 months for the power set to appear in the game.
Price: 750,000 Paragon Points
There is Always One Identifier
This will give you 5 charges of the “Who Hasn’t Clicked The Button?” power. Executing this power while you are one person away from entering an event or Incarnate Trial will highlight name of the character you are still waiting on. In addition, a giant arrow indicator will appear over their head, the game will send them a tell, email them, send an SMS to their phone, call their home telephone and dispatch a local security firm to their house to get them to click the “Enter” button.
Price: 160 Paragon Points for 5 charges. Less when bought in bulk.
Babysitter
Want to get in that Shadow Shard Task Force without worry? Need someone to watch Junior while you blaze through the newest content update? Purchasing this will allow you to schedule a four or eight hour babysitting session where one of several Paragon Studios employees will come to your home and watch your little one(s) while you play City of Heroes. (Maximum four children and eight hours at a time).
Price: 250,000 Paragon Points for 4 hours, 450,000 PP for 8 hours
Clown Summoning Power Set
With the Clown Summoning Power Set for Masterminds, you will be able to command and control your own circus of clowns. The minion pets are three traditional happy clowns, with squirting flower ranged attacks and balloon-sword melee attacks. The lieutenant pets are of the sad clown variety, and finally the boss clown is a vicious mime with a very powerful self-containment attack that puts himself inside of an invisible, shrinking box. Clowns arrive on the battlefield via a single tiny car that they all pile out of.
Price: 800 Paragon Points
Rularuu Costume Change
Changes your character’s model to that of Rularuu, the 50 foot tall insane god-like, dimension eating, being that is trapped in the Shadow Shard. Please use outdoors only, as your character may not fit on many indoor maps.
Price: 400 Paragon Points
Bee Bark Upgrade
City of Heroes has dogs. City of Heroes has bees. Now City of Heroes has dogs with bees in their mouths and when they bark they shoot bees at you. This upgrade power will work on the wolf companion pet, the black wolf companion pet, the umbra beast, and the minion and boss summoned wolves from the Beast Mastery power set. It will give those creatures the ability to shoot bees out of their mouths as a ranged attack. “Simpsons did it.”
Price: 400 Paragon Points
A lot of these seem awesome and like things people would actually buy. It has been asked if the studio would really do custom powersets for that price and the answer was simply no. That was a huge underestimate and it would cost much, much more for it to happen. Positron also chimed in saying that clown summoning would never happen until you could customize mastermind pets which is not something they’re looking into at the moment. The tool to identify who is that one person who hasn’t pushed the button yet seems to be very popular just because it always happens, there is always one. And finally, my personal favorite and something I even asked for during the i22 beta was the barking bees power. I haven’t bought the beast mastery pack yet but I can guarantee that if they added this ability I would be the first person to roll up a Robotic Richard Simmons beast mastermind who goes around singing “Shake, Shake, Shake.” (Please make this possible Paragon, It kinda sounds awesome!)
As it turned out not all of what was labelled as an April Fools joke was. Just a few short days after the joke was posted the liger pet was released. Though it looks nothing like what a real liger looks like it is true to Napoleon Dynamite’s definition of a liger. Scorpion tail included. Does this mean there may be a future for the rest of them? I hope so!