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There's not really much debate among those who weren't involved that the April 1 pranks around here absolutely, completely, suck. This hurts me, for three reasons. First, I'm an atheist, and it's an entire day devoted to not believing everything you read. Second, I've been a member of FFXIO for a long time, and putting such massive suck into it is an embarrassment. Third, I love comedy, and given that nobody is actually going to take an April 1 joke seriously if they've been on the internet on the day before, these are just very lame.
Let me give three elements of what makes a good April fools prank:
1- It must be plausible. The idea is to fool someone, not just post BS.
1a- If not plausible, it must at least be completely zany.
2- It must be funny. Just making up lies is nothing but annoying.
3- It should not be mean. There is no reason to turn a joke into something negative, no matter who brings it up first.
3a- It can, however, be annoying.
Both of the previous two events have violated this. They were annoyingly untrue (not to mention, predictable. I mean, woo, a new FF MMO. That's never been done before) and implausible to the point where you'd have to be in a coma to actually be fooled for more than the amount of time it takes you to look at them. They were not funny in any way that most people ceased to find entertaining when they turned 9. They both messed with members of the forum who had not been asked for consent ahead of time, and were considerably rude at times.
Also, subnote, April fools is fun. You are not dealing with thousands of posters. We're a very small handful of players in a fairly tight knit community. We do not need to or want to feel like we're playing through some official SE event. We do not want a letter translated from formal Japanese explaining it to us. We just want something to laugh at and maybe make a few memories; lacking that, we'd prefer nothing at all.
Now, because you have failed for two years in a row, I'm not sure if you just have no idea what you're doing, or if you haven't really tried. But because I'm tired of seeing this happen, I'm going to give you some ideas for next year. Feel free to steal them, or ask me next time around, I'd be happy to help. Anything to avoid another painfully bad excuse for a joke.
Ban someone.
Ban someone. Someone who could feasibly be banned, but who would also surprise people. Myself or BBQ, for instance. Have them come back on a sockpuppet and bitch. Have them try to spam the site. Have fun with it.
Change FFXIO's model
Have PiNG make a post deciding that this site is draining too much money, and we're gonna have to pay up if we want him to keep running it. Have a mod quit because he thinks the mod staff should get a portion of the money. etc, again, have fun with it. Alternatively, say that PiNG has decided to change the site to some other MMO (WoW, for instance) because it's his new found habit, but he wants to keep all the the money he's making from ad revenue off ffxionline (remember, it's supposed to be funny), and reskin the site to be WoW-ish.
New Moderator
Make a backup of the site at midnight. Give someone who could easily be seen as getting moderator powers and then abusing them (BBQ, myself are again the first choices, but I personally prefer Mhurron for the hilarity factor) mod powers, and make an announcement. After a while, let them just do whatever the hell they want. Deceptive? Not very. Mean? Not very. Annoying? Yes. 24 hours of hilarity? you bet your ass it is. At the end of the day, restore the site from the backup, life goes back to normal.
Mess up the site
Back up the site. "accidentally" mix up people's info. Give random people random other signatures, avatars, custom titles, etc. Hell, set it up so that every time those variables are loaded, they're taken randomly. Make it hard for those of us who don't always tell posts from the actual username to tell what the hell is going on. Hilarity ensues. At the end of the day, restore the site to normal.
Would these actually make people think horrible things have happened? Probably not. They're not really supposed to. They're supposed to be entertaining. Give us something to laugh at together. Most of us have been playing for years; we can pick apart flaws in nearly any hoax we see regarding the game. We're one of the few forums that isn't completely filled with idiots. I mean, I have my doubts that even Akashimo could fall for these, and he's thick enough to be used as protective body armor.
Next time, consider who you're pulling a prank on. It's not the FFXI community. It's the FFXIO community. We might be a subset of it, but I think most of us will agree that the atmosphere here, if not the people, are pretty different from the rest. That's probably why most of us come here, even if we're not the largest, or quickest; even if we don't have the most comprehensive item database or the best guides. Playing FFXI is a common thing we all share, but given the relatively high amount of people here that no longer play and people who have returned to playing but posted on the forums while they were away (most of the mod staff comes to mind) and the like, I think it's safe to say it's not the only tie connecting us. There is no reason why our jokes have to be condemned to what could be seen in any corner of the FFXI universe, from the smallest LS forum to the biggest of databases. We are unique.
Let me give three elements of what makes a good April fools prank:
1- It must be plausible. The idea is to fool someone, not just post BS.
1a- If not plausible, it must at least be completely zany.
2- It must be funny. Just making up lies is nothing but annoying.
3- It should not be mean. There is no reason to turn a joke into something negative, no matter who brings it up first.
3a- It can, however, be annoying.
Both of the previous two events have violated this. They were annoyingly untrue (not to mention, predictable. I mean, woo, a new FF MMO. That's never been done before) and implausible to the point where you'd have to be in a coma to actually be fooled for more than the amount of time it takes you to look at them. They were not funny in any way that most people ceased to find entertaining when they turned 9. They both messed with members of the forum who had not been asked for consent ahead of time, and were considerably rude at times.
Also, subnote, April fools is fun. You are not dealing with thousands of posters. We're a very small handful of players in a fairly tight knit community. We do not need to or want to feel like we're playing through some official SE event. We do not want a letter translated from formal Japanese explaining it to us. We just want something to laugh at and maybe make a few memories; lacking that, we'd prefer nothing at all.
Now, because you have failed for two years in a row, I'm not sure if you just have no idea what you're doing, or if you haven't really tried. But because I'm tired of seeing this happen, I'm going to give you some ideas for next year. Feel free to steal them, or ask me next time around, I'd be happy to help. Anything to avoid another painfully bad excuse for a joke.
Ban someone.
Ban someone. Someone who could feasibly be banned, but who would also surprise people. Myself or BBQ, for instance. Have them come back on a sockpuppet and bitch. Have them try to spam the site. Have fun with it.
Change FFXIO's model
Have PiNG make a post deciding that this site is draining too much money, and we're gonna have to pay up if we want him to keep running it. Have a mod quit because he thinks the mod staff should get a portion of the money. etc, again, have fun with it. Alternatively, say that PiNG has decided to change the site to some other MMO (WoW, for instance) because it's his new found habit, but he wants to keep all the the money he's making from ad revenue off ffxionline (remember, it's supposed to be funny), and reskin the site to be WoW-ish.
New Moderator
Make a backup of the site at midnight. Give someone who could easily be seen as getting moderator powers and then abusing them (BBQ, myself are again the first choices, but I personally prefer Mhurron for the hilarity factor) mod powers, and make an announcement. After a while, let them just do whatever the hell they want. Deceptive? Not very. Mean? Not very. Annoying? Yes. 24 hours of hilarity? you bet your ass it is. At the end of the day, restore the site from the backup, life goes back to normal.
Mess up the site
Back up the site. "accidentally" mix up people's info. Give random people random other signatures, avatars, custom titles, etc. Hell, set it up so that every time those variables are loaded, they're taken randomly. Make it hard for those of us who don't always tell posts from the actual username to tell what the hell is going on. Hilarity ensues. At the end of the day, restore the site to normal.
Would these actually make people think horrible things have happened? Probably not. They're not really supposed to. They're supposed to be entertaining. Give us something to laugh at together. Most of us have been playing for years; we can pick apart flaws in nearly any hoax we see regarding the game. We're one of the few forums that isn't completely filled with idiots. I mean, I have my doubts that even Akashimo could fall for these, and he's thick enough to be used as protective body armor.
Next time, consider who you're pulling a prank on. It's not the FFXI community. It's the FFXIO community. We might be a subset of it, but I think most of us will agree that the atmosphere here, if not the people, are pretty different from the rest. That's probably why most of us come here, even if we're not the largest, or quickest; even if we don't have the most comprehensive item database or the best guides. Playing FFXI is a common thing we all share, but given the relatively high amount of people here that no longer play and people who have returned to playing but posted on the forums while they were away (most of the mod staff comes to mind) and the like, I think it's safe to say it's not the only tie connecting us. There is no reason why our jokes have to be condemned to what could be seen in any corner of the FFXI universe, from the smallest LS forum to the biggest of databases. We are unique.
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