April 1st – April 8th
April Fools! Originally, I was going to write the article on patch notes for League of Legends, following the theme, but there doesn’t appear to be an online archive of every League update since 2009. Even their official blog only goes back 2 years, and posts tagged with actual dates beyond “posted 2 years ago…”
But anyway, it turns out TF2 actually has had things happen this week, and I would be remiss not to skip some of these landmarks, the largest being April 1st 2009. See, Valve doesn’t normally do April Fool’s jokes (unlike Blizzard), but when they revealed a sneak peek for the upcoming Sniper vs. Spy update showing that Sniper’s first unlock will be a jar of his own urine, even the most open-minded journalists thought it was a prank. Guess they’ve been shown who is the boss.
The patch notes for April 5th, 2011 read only [ restricted ]. This was in reference to the new promo [ classified ], later renamed the Aperture Labs Hard Hat. It was one of two TF2 bonuses for pre-ordering Portal 2, the other being the Companion Cube Pin, the first TF2 item that I ever actively coveted but could not afford. By the time I could afford it, I must have forgotten because I’ve never owned one. Two days later was the Third Community Contribution Update, containing some much-loved TF2 cosmetics like the Sight for Sore Eyes and Teddy Roosebelt. Unlike the last two Community Contribution updates, no new weapons were released.
April 3, 2013 saw some patch notes, here they are, however the only two things people remember were both undocumented. The infamous glitch with the Red-Tape Recorder wiping a Dispenser’s metal upon being placed was fixed, to literally everyone’s acclaim. Seriously, even STAR_, vocal engineer hater, mentioned that he thought the glitch was overpowered. The other glitch was more humorous; the Saxxy would not cloak in first-person when used by the Spy. This glitch was immortalized in Valve’s Second Annual Saxxy Awards trailer:
April Fool’s Day 2014 didn’t bring any new pranks, unless you count a set of patch notes so large it could have been a major update. Though to be fair, very few of them had to do with in-game stuff. Crates were retired, new chemistry sets were introduced (do those still drop?), strange quality items were flagged as marketable, the Gunboats became Medieval Mode-compatible for some unknown reason (making the Mantreads suddenly not the absolute worst choice for every game mode), Thief promos lost all their “recent promo” restrictions, and the Little Bear was added to the game. I’ve literally never seen this cosmetic in game.
And April 4th 2014’s addition of the strange Cute Suit (and literally nothing else) wraps up this week. See you next time!