April Fools' Day

“

*CLASSIFIED INFORMATION*

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— Login screen announcements

April Fools' Day is a special event that occurs annually from April 1, 07:01, to April 2, 07:01 UTC (source), in which ArenaNet sometimes creates an elaborate practical joke. Since April Fools' Day 2013, the two Annihilator quests are available every year.

KT29-Moahawk

Corporal Bane

Corporal Bane

Quests available

• Embark Beach
  • "Lvl 20 Corporal Bane"
    • Annihilator
  • "W20 Corporal Bane"
    • Annihilator 2: Searing Day

Pranks and features

File:Stickyfest.jpg

Players characters were changed into stick figures on April Fools' Day 2008.

Between 2005-2013, every year Arenanet would change something elaborate about the game to play a joke on players. This usually involved changing the player character's apperance in some way, or adding novelty features to the game. These stopped for some time in 2013, until 2026 when "Nostalgia mode" was added as a part of Guild Wars Reforged.

Year	Celebrated in...	Prank
2007	Lion's Arch, Shing Jea Monastery, and Kamadan	Gender reversal of player characters
2008	Everywhere	Level 20 player characters changed into stick figures; prank developer update notes published.
2009	Non-PvP outposts	Level 2 and above player characters changed to Gwen-chan; prank developer update notes published.
2010	Outposts	Player characters changed to miniature size; miniatures changed to player size; prank developer update notes published.
2011	Embark Beach	Annihilator, a prank quest; prank developer update notes published.
2012	Embark Beach	Annihilator and Annihilator 2: Searing Day quests; prank developer update notes published.
2013 onward	Embark Beach	Annihilator and Annihilator 2: Searing Day quests; on the login screen announcements there is a "*CLASSIFIED INFORMATION*" message.
2026 onward	Everywhere	A new graphics setting called “Nostalgia Mode” that emulates an oldschool CRT monitor at 800x600 resolution. Using Nostalgia Mode on April Fool’s changes the login screen logo to 'Guild Wars Deforged'.

Notes

• There are two Corporal Banes in Embark Beach that can be distinguished by selecting one of them and viewing your target display. One is identified by "Lvl 20" and the other "W20".
• The login screen announcement is Base64 encoded text and can be decoded to "Listen, and understand. That Annihilator golem is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until Sarah and Gwen are dead." This is based on Kyle Reese dialogue in The Terminator.

Trivia

• On April Fool's day of 2004, during alpha testing game, Hakewood was allegedly overrun by 'Gnomes' saying phrases like "There’s no place like Gnome.", as mentioned by an alpha tester in the Photics e-zine Issue #10 of November 2004.