Blizzard Entertainment is well-known for their elaborate April Fools’ Day pranks, and once again, they’ve come through: With EPEEN (“Equipment Potency EquivalencE Number”), a 17-floppy disk epic called Queen’s Quest, and a snuggie for hardcore gamers.Â
EPEEN: A rating system to let you know exactly where you stand in comparison to other WoW players. From the “How your number is determined” section:
Here’s how it will work: With every new piece of gear you obtain, your number will grow; if you attain a high enough number, you’ll graduate to the next tier (more on that below) and gain access to exclusive rewards. If you’re looking to boost your number even more, activities such as earning raid and Arena achievements or realm-first titles will help you get it up, and you’ll also begin receiving in-game mail with exciting offers for additional ways to enhance it.
What could go wrong?
Queen’s Quest; Blackthorne 2: Black Harder: New mobile games riffing on Blackthorne and King’s Quest … or not. Still, we like the idea of somehow trying to finagle 17 floppy disks onto a mobile phone.
From the Queen’s Quest writeup:
To bring this story of betrayal, love, action, drama, comedy, destiny, freedom, war, peace, hope, and epic adventure to life, you will have the power of the written language at your fingertips. Our game designers spent years in order to harness the force of the written word with a simple yet powerful interface to immerse you in the StarCraft universe like you’ve never been before. The result of this momentous effort is the Adventuring Game Ingine. Using a revolutionary technology known as the TEXT PARSER, you will guide the Queen of Blades on a quest to save the Swarm from ultimate destruction. This cutting-edge of natural human interface development will allow you to save the galaxy… with your words.
Deckard Cain GPS Voice Pack: O, what a shibbolethically geeky Diablo in-joke. GPS provided by everyone’s favorite Horadric mage Deckard Cain. “He’s not just the last of the Horadrim… he’s the first of a new line of officially licensed Blizzard Entertainment GPS Voice Packs, coming soon to the online Blizzard Store!” Complete with demo mp3s, of course.
X-Treme Gamer Blanket: Also a part of the rampant Deckard Cain marketing blitz, this snuggie for gamers comes in “Magi Blue” and “Blunderbore Brown.” The point of warmth, of course, not really being comfort so much as improved reaction time and combatting “ice lock.”
Also: Diablo III Body Pillows, which are scarily similar to some products already on the market.
Honorable mention: though not officially affiliated with Blizzard (it’s owned by AOL), WoW.com has had a great turn … first, they “relaunched” as Mass Effect Insider, since World of Warcraft wasn’t niche enough; then, when it turned out that niche wasn’t a hit with the teen girls, they re-relaunched as Twilight Insider, which is actually scarily plausible.
