LOL, actually had me going for a moment and then I looked at my calendar and said, "****!"

april fool! Muhahaha!

Yes! It's true !!!

I know someone inside DA and he told me will be able to buy cap ships and planets, build bases, fit them with giant cannons, import your Sims characters, and CONQUER THE ENTIRE SYSTEM !!! HA HA HA HA !!!! My hour has arrived !!!!


...then again, maybe i forgot to take those damn pills....

If it's a joke, I ll killllll yooouuuuuuuuuuuu.......

But its so sweet to beleive it's true...

I admit, I fell for it. But seriously, guys, I don't think this is funny...

T448 ... out.

/rant mode over a personal pet peeve.

I'm sorry for being critical, but this is a pet peeve of mine that comes up EVERY YEAR. I'm not sure how to say this without getting people defensive or angry at me, but I don't think this is really a good "traditional" April Fools joke. As I said, this is a pet peeve.

Traditionally, April Fools jokes have been about tricking people into believing things that are questionable, or even outrageous. It's about FOOLing them. Telling people a believable LIE is not fooling them. Telling them an OUTRAGEOUS lie and having them believe it is. It's about making them FEEL like a FOOL for BELIEVING it in the first place. It's about being creative enough to come up with something that people will believe, when there is no logical reason that they SHOULD believe it. Coming up with something that is both believable and outrageous at the same time, and seeing if you can weave a web in which you can ensare them.

More and more though, people do April Fools jokes where they say something totally realisitic, deadpan serious, and extremely believable. There is no hook or humor, or outrageous aspect. It's just a straight up, believable story , and then they say April Fools!

It's like they think the key is just to lie and have people believe you, rather than to make a FOOL out of the other person. It's just not about making people believe the believable. That's easy, and not creative. I think this is the key distinction, and the one thing that gets under my skin the most about these kinds of jokes.

It's kinda hard to take credit for "fooling" people with a totally believable story. I'm sorry but this isn't a whole lot different than saying "I just went to the store to buy groceries..... APRIL FOOLS!", or "Intel is going to release a new processor tommorow... APRIL FOOLS!".

I mean, it's something people can easily believe. It's not humorous or outrageous. It's gotta be a mix of believable and unbelievable elements. Something that "can't possibly be true.... CAN IT?" The kind of thing where people read it and say "What the F%!@?" because *they can't tell if it's real or not*.

I'm sorry for being critical, but as I've said this is a pet peeve of mine. I see it every year, where people just make up extravagant and believable lies, and then say April Fools after.

Who's gonna feel foolish for thinking there is an expansion pack in the works for Freelancer? No one, and in fact it's just gonna get some people angry because you got their hopes up for something that isn't true. And it sounded like a damn good expansion from what you wrote.

Now if you had made it pretty much the same, with all the believable points, but just slipped in a couple of oddities that were hard to believe...I dunno...I can't think of how else to say it, but I don't think this was all that creative.

The guy who said you would be able to import your SIMS characters. Now THAT IS A GOOD ONE. That's the kind of oddities this joke needed. Something that a logical person would say "Woah now, that's ridiculous". But a gullible person would say "Wow, really?".

Again I am sorry for being critical, hopefully you can take it as constructive criticism. I feel that the "tradition" of April Fools is moving away from what it has always been, and I don't like that.

Edited by - Whiplash on 01-04-2003 11:30:57

Coming from another April Fools news report on Slashdot, I should have been more prepared for this... the date aside, the thing that made me think twice about the validity of this bit of 'news' was the release date of Christmas 2003... a bit too optimistic considering the near legendary release dates for Freelancer itself

Another thing, when I saw the 'mature' rating I suddenly thought they might be putting in more realistic 'pleasure planets' into the game, but then again I've been reminiscing about Privateer recently (especially with all these Privateer mod ideas floating around).

Merry April Fools, I've definitely been caught out today!

whiplash, I just figured I'd say that if you did in fact find that so intensely believeable, you are quite gullible.

did you READ the key features list? as soon as I saw "cloaking devices"...

and incidentally, I do agree with you somewhat. the distinction lies in that I think /all/ april fool's jokes (and the jokers thereof -- you hear that, EB? ) are asinine. chalk it up to grade school.

just push the buttons, register biscuit

just to clarify, the features seemed to cater to a very large amount of pipe dreams made public on these very forums. call me cynical.

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just push the buttons, register biscuit

Edited by - bluespoonman on 01-04-2003 12:28:39

Actualy, a reliable source just funneled me new info. In the new expantion pack you play as a mamber of the ancient race I can never remember the name of that created the Nomads and fly around delivering cardamine seeds from planet to planet I think it's subtitle is something like: Enimadrac Noocyt.


Now if you could get someone to beleive that, I'd be rolling on the floor.

Keep hoping people.

Why didn't I register the day after?

The cloaking device clued you in huh? You haven't bothered to look through any of the INIs have you? Cloaks are in there and they're just waiting for someone to figure out how to properly set them up and add them into the game.

As far as April Fools Day stuff goes this was one of the lamest I've seen yet. It might have been interesting if someone had of made an article about M$ releasing the source code for Windows or something equally unlikely.

An "expansion" is very likely since M$/DA are selling what amounts to half a game, it's a great 'half a game' but it's still only half. They cut out tons of stuff that would have made the game even better than it is and left a lot of tweaking undone. M$ has a habit of selling half-done programs for full retail price and then selling the rest of the game as an "expansion"

As for time frame of the release, with a proper suite of tools (which DA has of course) I'd be surprised if they couldn't do it in three months or less. The game hasn't even been out for a month yet and the mod community has done quite a lot.

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whiplash, I just figured I'd say that if you did in fact find that so intensely believeable, you are quite gullible.

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uncool spooner.

I agree with whiplash and i'm amazed that EB would go so far on this one. Quoting developers? False advertisement? I'll be the marketing managers at DA would shake their heads

I guess i'll get over it by tomorrow U've got ur work cut out for you now EB. Go and make a lovely big, feature-unpacked version of what u did today...

meh... ur a nutta

kumari "Why can't we all just... get along?"

Guys, plz give FULL credit to z0pharx and Tasiin , not me.

LOL

I knew it wasn't real due to lack of a press release from DA. Good job though.