In Defence of the Trolling Stone
As most Twizards know, Wizard101 had a countdown timer on their launcher and website all week, counting down towards today. Well, today came, and we learned that we got a fun awesome brand new pet! the same Pet Rock we got for last April Fools, but with cute disguise glasses on.
When I saw him, I thought he was very cute, as well as a clever April Fools gag, especially with the name. It wasn’t some earth-shattering new game feature or uuber-pet, but for what it was – a silly April Fools gag – I thought it was fun, and I know we all had fun with the build up and anticipation.
And I think that’s where it went a little wrong – all that anticipation, all the exciting things going on in The Spiral, and today’s reveal may have seemed a little anti-climactic. When people started seeing what it was, there were some notes of open disappointment and even near hostility in one case that I saw. I think some people had built it up in their heads so much that the reveal of a minor (though adorable) tweak to last year’s gag pet was a serious letdown.
The Noble and Bespectacled Trolling Stone
Well I just wanted to defend the noble and bespectacled Trolling Stone. I have over 350 videos and over 400 blog posts, so I feel that I can say, with some authority, that creating any kind of content for public consumption is hard to do. Now, creating a new pet for Wizard 101? New artwork, new animations, new spells…. Way harder than making a blog post, that’s for sure! So how much effort do you want KingsIsle to put in for what amounts to an April Fools gag? Really, I think they made it easy for everyone – the price and stats are exactly the same as the Pet Rock last year, so if you already have one of those, unless you have a thing for little animated glasses, you don’t need this one. If you missed out on the Pet Rock last year, you’re in luck – you got the ‘Deluxe Model’, complete with funny glasses.
In short – this is a fun, cute April Fools gag, nothing more – I don’t think we have any reason to be disappointed in something we didn’t even know EXISTED 24 hours ago…. I know it’s easy to feel disappointed by something like this when KingsIsle cranks out so much awesome content, but let’s be honest – KingsIsle never said ‘Super Awesome New Pet coming March 30th’, and even their announcement page is completely tongue in cheek (and really funny).
So enjoy your rocks in all their various forms, or don’t – but remember, it’s April Fools and it’s all for fun – taking an Aprils Fools joke too seriously is almost as silly as taking advice from a bunch of felt and stuffing….
Ditto Monster's Bloggy Thingy 
Very good post Ditto!
Us here at Wizard101 UK have gotten the pet rock this year and I will definitely purchase it!
March 30, 2012 at 7:53 pm
Here here! I totally agree Ditto. It is cute and goofy. A great way to capture the spirit of April Fools. It may have been a bit misleading to have a sign saying that there is going to be a surprise coming in 24 hours, what with the whole puzzle thing going on. But if you cast your mind back, KI did something similar last year. They announced Wintertusk then they added the pet rock, then just a couple weeks later WT was on the test realm. Our big surprise is coming. And it’ll be all the better for the waiting. 🙂
March 30, 2012 at 8:11 pm
well, its not like this was a surprise that we got a silly pet. They did the exact same thing last year. I hope they do this every year, sort of a reliable thing ya know? And people can have fun getting all the pets rocks from every year 🙂
March 30, 2012 at 9:31 pm
I bought the pet rock last year and love it (it makes me laugh) and so I waited for one year for the next April Fool’s Day pet. I saved crowns to buy it. I even saved 10,000 crown just in case it was a really nice pet. So, yes, I was disappointed that all KingsIsle did was add glasses and change the eyes to blue. All they did was code in the glasses and color. They already had the code for the pet rock. They had one whole year to make a new design, although, I’m sure they have a plethora of pets that haven’t hit the market for one reason or another. So … wallowing in my disappointment, I closed the game and didn’t buy the pet. Then, about an hour later, It crossed my mind that perhaps KingsIsle is doing a “theme” for the April Fool’s Day pets … every AFD pet will be based on the first pet rock, so I went back in the game and bought it. Bottomline, though, it bothers me that it wasn’t special … Last year, I used the pet rock even in battles that I needed a stronger pet for. It was fun to see what it did. This year, I had the new pet rock near me for about 2 minutes … long enough to see the eyes open and then I put it back in the backpack. I guess that speaks volumes.
April 2, 2012 at 6:44 am