Well folks it is that time again. April Fools Day is upon us or as it is also colloquially known among my friends “Liars Day” I believe in part to this Penny Arcade comic. I know this is a thing yet this year I managed to allow myself to get caught up in it. Yesterday a news story began circulating that the Tulsa metro was finally getting an IKEA, only to be retracted several hours later and confirmed that it was an early April Fool’s joke. This cycle of excitement and crushing defeat is why April Fool’s day is actually pretty awful when you think about it. I get that it is basically one day each year when you should not trust anything you read… but also REAL things happen at the same time. Is the Final Fantasy XIV 6.1 patch just a giant April Fools Joke or will I actually be able to download it shortly? It creates this pitfall where for plus or minus a few days of the actual event… you have to approach every revelation with a healthy degree of side-eye.
A younger version of me legitimately looked forward to this day, because it meant a bounty of whacky tech news stories. I think the problem there is that the line between reality and fiction has sufficiently blurred to the point where it is extremely hard to tell the difference. I mean for years I thought “Flat Earthers” were an internet joke, but it turns out that no there are people who legitimately are committed to that nonsense. In this climate, the last thing we really need is a full day where anything goes and you are left to try and sweep up the pieces of reality left on the table. Even though Pandarens were a really fun April Fools Joke back in the day that eventually became reality, I think we are probably just better off without the practice. Besides it also seems deeply cruel to keep trying to dunk on your supposed friends.
What isn’t a lie however is that in Guild Wars 2 they have started the Dogs Day festival in Lion’s Arch where you just get to pet a lot of peppers and talk to one that is sage beyond their years. There are a few achievements associated with doing a handful of things including petting a lot of dogs, and taking a nap among them. There are also “dog” and dog vendors that sell a few items, including some that trade items you get from karma hearts for “doggy bags” that can include all sorts of random stuff. I opened up 9 of these in total to get the achievement and I got stuff from the Halloween event, Christmas event, loot boxes from world bosses, and a handful of random materials. Nothing terribly exciting but there does appear to be a pattern to it of a sort. You get a Fool’s Dog Treat, some sort of a loot box, some sort of currency from a past event, or a luck item.
Other than that I chipped away at the first part of the Twilight Legendary achievement. I get that the wisdom is to just save the money and buy the damned precursor, but I want to at least craft one of these through the full process. I am working on the Greatsword in part because more than any other weapon in the game it seems to be the one I more or less universally enjoy across many classes. Once I craft a single Legendary weapon, all of my characters will be able to use it so that seems like a good thing. I’ve reached the point where I can no longer progress on my own and have knocked out pretty much everything that I could reasonably solo. What is left is four specific fractals, which I am hoping I can wrangle folks this weekend to go and do. The ones I need are as follows:
- Thaumanova Reactor Fractal – Number 15/34/55/64
- Captain Mai Trin Fractal – Number 18/42/72/95
- Molten Boss Fractal – Number 10/40/70/90
From there I will be able to start on the way more egregious second achievement. Again I know that I should probably just BUY Dusk, but I want to go through this process at least once on my own by crafting the precursor. There is a pretty hefty list of materials required for that second part, but I think honestly I have most of it already on hand save for some of the mithril… even though I have 1000 ingots in my material storage and close to 1000 raw ore as well. I mean these are the long-tailed grinds in this game, and honestly, I am here for it. Unlike a Relic weapon, I end up getting something that can be used as eternal end game gear for every single one of my characters. If in the process of all of this nonsense Dusk happens to drop… well then we will rethink this whole plan heh.
Honestly I mostly think crafting precursors can be interesting, especially for the ones that have unique collections and/or stories (mostly this means the ones that you have to craft this way, which are Tigris, The Raven Staff, The Mechanism, and Prototype). Whether or not it’s worth crafting Dusk tends to fluctuate (raw materials are currently up and precursors have not risen with them), unlike a few which seem to always be net negative (looking at you, Colossus).
Mrs Bhagpuss had Dusk drop the other day – only the fourth Precursor that’s ever dropped for either of us in a decade. Since neither of us was remotely interested in using the Legendary I costed out what it would cost to make it and how much we’d make from selling it and it turned out to be not really enough more than just selling the raw mats and Dusk to make it worth the trouble. So Dusk just went on the TP.
Honestly, I think if I wanted one of the tradeable Legendaries I’d rather sell the mats and farm the differnce and then just buy it. It would be a lot easier and almost certainly a lot more fun. The later ones, of course, you don’t get the option.
The legendary precursor quests for the ones that have them are super-satisfying, especially Chuka and Champawat’s. I’d say go for it.
Not everything has to be an optimized shortcut. Taken to an extreme, one could just whip out a credit card and buy the legendary off the TP – but where would the personal satisfaction be in that? (Beyond demonstrating that one has a lot of wealth irl and instant gratification.)
Point of building a legendary for more ordinary people is that it’s a process, it’s something long term to work toward and it provides suggestions for directed focused gameplay activity out of the many hundreds of things one could be doing at the same time.
I despise April Fool’s Day.
Pre-Internet it wasn’t so bad because it was quick, right? You’d say “Oh honey I was having my coffee and I spilled it all over your keyboard, I’m so sorry!” and then your significant other’s eyes would go wide and they’d get up to go see the damage and you’d shout April Fool’s and probably get smacked but then it was over. Whether that was fun or not I leave to the reader, but it was quick and it ended with the clear notification that it was a joke.
On the Internet, that second step never happens so you’re left to wonder if it is real or not. Plus as you say ‘real life’ has gotten so bizarre that much of it already seems like a cruel joke. And a lot of them are cruel these days. Like they become more and more plausible and often involve something people would like to see happen (like your Ikea story). We’ve gone way past the mostly harmless fun of a tauntaun sleeping bag.
OK that’s a lot of words to really say “YES, I agree with you!!”
Yeah and I think what makes it worse is when something is on the internet, it is on the internet forever… and things that make sense as an april fools joke in context get dredged back up as a real thing months later.