Funny Announcements
These are annoucements made in the live game, game messaging, or on the message boards that I found humorous.
There were a lot of lag issues after the conversion to GS4.
12/2/03
Announcement: It has come to our attention that many Clerics (and other players) dislike the term "Rezz." In order to be as understanding as possible to the wishes of our players, we will officially refrain from using this term from this moment forward. However, we are officially stating that starting now to kick off Hot Winter Nights 2003, "lag" is likewise an unacceptable term. In the future, please refer to this unfortunate phenomena as a "Fun-Pause" or a "Temporary Entertainment Delay." Thank you, The Management
4/1/06
Announcement: GemStone IV will be shutting down shortly for a much needed upgrade in Hamsters and Mice. Version 2.75 of Hamsters and Mice can run longer, jump further, and likely, bench press more than some of you. Oh, April Fools.
Announcement: Please welcome your new Product Manager, GameMaster Ophion.
Announcement: GM Ophion has been sacked. We apologize for anything GM Ophion said "No" to during his short stay.
(This wasn't an annoucement, it was done like normal game event messaging:)
Due to a banking error, all bank accounts will need to be reset. We apologize profusely in advance for any inconvience. If you have any questions, please direct them to the nearest teller at the local bank in your realm.
(A moment later)
New balance: 0.
Announcement: Celtar's latest player is in danger of hitting legend, therefore GemStone IV will be shutting down. We apolgize at this time, but besides Jim being an egocentic, crazy, and likes to remind people how long he's played, and more importantly, the bottling year of the Port he's drinking (we do love him after all), we simply cannot let this happen. Goodbye.
4/1/07
Announcement: Greetings! In a few minutes we're going to be turn on the beta test of breakage mechanics. Please don't be alarmed, the test should only take about 15 minutes, and hopefully go live later today. As the large, friendly letters on the front of the book read, 'Don't Panic.'
Announcement: The GameMaster program in GSIV is slowly being phased out. Please report to your local constabulary sometime today to have several official warnings added to your record, as a precautionary action.
Announcement: So what if Alchemy was finished and out of QC months ago? I say let 'em wait!
Announcement: Gemstone IV's servers are overflowing because -some- characters have too much junk. Any character with over 20 items will be deleted. You have 10 minutes to unload.
Announcement: In an effort to improve the bounty system, any dangerous creatures you are assigned to kill will now be armed with 10x claidhmores in an effort to cull players. Unfortunately, we need to reset everyone's bounty points to zero for this upgrade. We appreciate your patience in this affair.
This one was in DragonRealms:
System Announcement: As of now, the "Real Gems" program has been discontinued, to be replaced by the "Real Hens" program. Players finding a chicken in the game will be sent an actual pullet via the U.S. Postal System. Please be sure your mailing address is up to date to prevent misrouted poultry. No P.O. boxes, please.
From the Announcement folder on the Forums
IMPORTANT DOWNTIME NOTICE · on 4/27/2007 3:10:32 PM
At some point between 1:00 am and 6:00 am Eastern time, our lovely Internet Service Provider will shut off our Internet access for approximately 1 hour, while they do something "maintenancy-like" to their equipment. We believe this has something to do with their need to replace their Internet Tubes.
The most exciting part about this whole ordeal is that they will not narrow this time frame down or give us any more detailed information than this. We hope you agree with us that this is truly wonderful and join us in anticipation of the fun that could happen at any time, without warning, in the middle of the night. Oh joy.
It is extremely important for you to understand that while you WILL lose your connection to the game when this happens, the GAMES THEMSELVES WILL KEEP RUNNING and, in addition to being unable to log in during this particular time which we have no additional detailed information about, if you are logged in when we lose our connection, you will likely ghost. If you are in a combat-type situation, you will probably die in a horrible manner which you will not be able to fully enjoy (because you'll be staring at a non-moving screen and panicking). Obviously, if at all possible, we will TRY to shut the games down as soon as we know our connection has been dropped, however, 5 hours is clearly a pretty big window and we may not be able to do this as expeditiously as some of you would hope we could (or should).
Therefore, we suggest multiple things to remember for tonight:
1) Don't start a script and go to bed, particularly not a combat script. That's bad enough as it is and if you already do this (you should be ashamed of yourself) but tonight is a particularly bad night to do that. If you don't do this, then please accept our warmest regards and bask in the glow of our e-kisses and e-praise. Bully for you, <3, and all that sort of stuff. If you do choose to defy our wishes and ignore our sage advice for tonight, then we secretly hope you get beaten to a pulp, auto-depart, and lose all your things. Wait...I guess if we tell you that, its not a secret anymore. Oh well, too late. Don't say we didn't warn you.
2) Don't choose tonight to decide to hunt that new critter you've been hearing so much about from all your bigger, tougher friends who secretly just keep you around for plucky, comic relief because you're not that good at killing things. It'll likely be just you luck that as soon as you realize you're about to get your arms ripped off and beaten to death with them and realize that you never should have decided to stop killing those fluffy, easily-smooshable things you were hunting this afternoon, we'll lose our connection and you will become a dark stain on the ground and not be able to do anything about it until we get our connection back. At least your big, tough friends will have another great story to tell about why you're so fun to hang out with because you do all those wacky crazy things. Don't say we didn't warn you.
3) Don't choose tonight to drop all your items on the ground and re-organize your inventory or your locker/vault/storage containers. Dropping things on the ground in the first place shows ridiculously poor decision making skills, but Murphy's Law dictates that as soon as you remove and drop your last item and say, "Ok...where to start?!", everything will go black, the Janitor will get lots of awesome loot, and you'll start to cry. We would hate to laugh at you if this happens. Really. We would hate it. Don't say we didn't warn you.
We do sincerely apologize for this obvious inconvenience and as usual, we'll do our best to inform you of these things as far in advance as possible.
Happy Arbor Day.
Solomon
Dateline 11/19/99: TEMPORAL PORTALS SIGHTED THROUGHOUT THE REALMS
There have been literally hundred of reports of massive temporal portals tearing open all over the realms. These strange vortexes seem to be large anomalies in time and space itself. Travelers have reported being sucked into these 'rifts' in space, only to emerge in entirely different locations. One voyager was quoted as saying, "Aaaiiieeee!"