Another year with no april fool's event.

[Stardust Guardian]

Last year, there was no april fools event due to it being so close to easter, I personally disagreed with this as april fools is an important event on chicken smoothie, just as, if not more, as halloween or christmas. It is part of the site's identity, so seeing it gone for a year was sad, but "there's always next year", i thought to myself, as i'm sure others did too.

"We have no pranks to worry about that would impact forum accessibility this year"

This is a flimsy excuse this time. There have been countless april fools pranks in prior years that caused minimal to no confusion, why is it an issue now? There are infinite ways to pull off pranks on the website, they can be unintrusive, silly little things, countless ways to have a bit of fun without sacrificing "fourm accessibility".

I feel sorry for newer players of chicken smoothie, because there has been a consistent decline in quality when it comes to certain aspects, and there's always an excuse for why, rather than a creative work-around.

Is this feeling my own alone, or do you feel the same? I would love to have a discussion on this, as i remember sharing my disappointment last year, and users seemed to share the sentiment with me. Feel free to vote in the poll and voice your own opinions here, whether you agree or disagree!

[fluffysweetfloss]

As someone with vision issues and visual processing issues, I'm personally glad when sites don't shake things up for April Fools. It's fun in theory, but can be a nightmare to navigate. The humor of something being inverted or twisted tends to lose its fun when it gives you a headache or a disassociative episode.

Also as an artist, the idea of putting a lot of work into a prank that will only last for 24 hours, between several much more substantial site events, does not spark joy.

The hat alone, and the work that went into drawing so many across all of the pet varieties, is a prank I can get behind and love. 💜

I think it's less that and more accessibility. I recall the year I joined had a forum prank that change Trade to Dance unless you typed it like Tr*ade...which caused a lot of issues for those who used translators.

Also, in regards to pets changing- I think there were also issues with newer (and some older) players getting scammed because they didn't know it wasn't a true pet [I recall issues with the PPS Lion from a past April Fool's event with some having the googly eyes and some not which lead to players trading like crazy to get the 'googly eye' variant that just turned normal at the end]

Personally, I much prefer sites that just do minor tweaks (plus, I think this means we'll later on actually get the hats as items so woo!)

i think it's because it affected accessibility !! a lot of people on cs use it as a safe space, meaning many may have disabilities making it harder to read or understand things. adding pranks that actively change the forums make things less accessible for these people.
i understand that it's sad, but it's a big positive for a lot of us on the site !!

(from the discussion thread - last one is mine)

it might not be a big deal to you, but for a lot of people it's a huge help. it isn't about confusion, it's about the fact that cs is a safe space for a lot of people that may have disabilities or mental health issues.

i completely understand your point of view and see why it might be sad, but i also think your point could've been put nicer and more respectfully.

[Stardust Guardian]

As someone with vision issues and visual processing issues, I'm personally glad when sites don't shake things up for April Fools. It's fun in theory, but can be a nightmare to navigate. The humor of something being inverted or twisted tends to lose its fun when it gives you a headache or a disassociative episode.

Also as an artist, the idea of putting a lot of work into a prank that will only last for 24 hours, between several much more substantial site events, does not spark joy.

The hat alone, and the work that went into drawing so many across all of the pet varieties, is a prank I can get behind and love. 💜

I think it's less that and more accessibility. I recall the year I joined had a forum prank that change Trade to Dance unless you typed it like Tr*ade...which caused a lot of issues for those who used translators.

Also, in regards to pets changing- I think there were also issues with newer (and some older) players getting scammed because they didn't know it wasn't a true pet [I recall issues with the PPS Lion from a past April Fool's event with some having the googly eyes and some not which lead to players trading like crazy to get the 'googly eye' variant that just turned normal at the end]

Personally, I much prefer sites that just do minor tweaks (plus, I think this means we'll later on actually get the hats as items so woo!)

i think it's because it affected accessibility !! a lot of people on cs use it as a safe space, meaning many may have disabilities making it harder to read or understand things. adding pranks that actively change the forums make things less accessible for these people.
i understand that it's sad, but it's a big positive for a lot of us on the site !!

(from the discussion thread - last one is mine)

it might not be a big deal to you, but for a lot of people it's a huge help. it isn't about confusion, it's about the fact that cs is a safe space for a lot of people that may have disabilities or mental health issues.

i completely understand your point of view and see why it might be sad, but i also think your point could've been put nicer and more respectfully.

If a harmless, minor prank is something that ruins a safe space for you, i am sorry. But there are ways around simply not doing *anything* for an event that's been a long standing tradition, even something as simple as just being able to opt out of the pranks up to a few days leading to april fools would be more than enough to for these to be moot points.

It is nice that the devs are actively aware of more sensitive users of the site, and keeping the site that safe space for them, but they can easily do it in ways that are not reductive, hence why it feels like laziness to a lot of people, and leaves a lot of the community quite disheartened.

[wolfblood.]

-snip-

i completely understand your point of view and see why it might be sad, but i also think your point could've been put nicer and more respectfully.

Hiya! I was one of the people who also pushed for getting rid of/retiring inaccessible versions of CS April Fools. As far as I know, I don’t really have any processing disabilities, just certain visual issues like astigmatism and because of my autism, tend to get overstimulated/overloaded very easily by certain things. The year where they turned everything upside down, 2021 I believe, was even agitating and extremely difficult for me to navigate. I think I just picked up those year’s pets and didn’t visit the site until the next day. I wholeheartedly agreed with never venturing into something like that again, and I’m glad they have generally decided to move on from those aspects—I don’t know why they even did some of them in the first place, but I digress—however I do agree with the basis of what OP is saying here.

You are right, the phrasing and verbiage used were a tad bit insensitive by them, the quotation marks and such, but the point still stands and I believe most of that animosity is placed towards CS, not the accessibility users. I remember the year(s)? where they would just alter certain pets, some with silly faces, some by reverting back to PPS, some with putting silly hats or mustaches on them. These were super fun for me to hunt through in my pet inventory and see which ones got a little bit of extra love and recognition this year, even if just for a day. And, better yet, has no effect on anyone’s ability to browse the forums.

Although, to be fair against either point, this is a free-to-use aging website that (from the last I visited and looked around, and now that I’ve been on it for 11 years and have seen it in nearly almost all of its phases) is declining in user engagement and has been steadily since its peak years. I don’t know what sort of effect that has on operations, so anything being “scrapped” simply makes sense to me because the staff and artists are already giving so much of themselves in other aspects. As much as I do miss the less intrusive April Fool celebrations, these things are to be expected and we should be grateful for what we still have. ❤️

[Dawulf]

Respectfully, your message comes across as "grab your pitchforks".

I am personally unbothered by the lack of a large scale prank. They seemed to bring more chaos than good, and while the mixed up pets was fun, I'd rather the artists use their (very valuable) time to focus on the Easter and other events who's art will actually remain permanent. I don't imagine creating a goofed up version of a sunback that will be visible for a day brings much joy to what they do.

I do definitely appreciate the "Suspicious Hat" that changes by the species. That is a fun, harmless "prank" vs completely messing with the forums, etc.

[Shooting Stars]

I couldn't care less about April Fools. Honestly some years, I forget it's even a thing. I certainly wouldn't call it more important than Halloween or Christmas. I don't even consider April Fools a holiday.

I never liked most of the pranks CS did. The flipped pets year was the worst - I have migraines, along with other health issues, and that prank was not fun. Especially since it ran during the Easter Event, so I couldn't just stay offline for the day.
Changed words in the forums was also incredibly confusing and frustrating.

The suspicious hat this year is a perfect joke in my opinion! It's fun, cute, and doesn't cause migraines. And I think it will be a permanent item too ^^

I'd much rather have the effort that would go into April Fools be put into something else, something more permanent like Easter, CS Birthday, or the summer event anyway, like the above user said! <3

[Wookieinmashoo]

Respectfully, your message comes across as "grab your pitchforks".

I am personally unbothered by the lack of a large scale prank. They seemed to bring more chaos than good, and while the mixed up pets was fun, I'd rather the artists use their (very valuable) time to focus on the Easter and other events who's art will actually remain permanent. I don't imagine creating a goofed up version of a sunback that will be visible for a day brings much joy to what they do.

I do definitely appreciate the "Suspicious Hat" that changes by the species. That is a fun, harmless "prank" vs completely messing with the forums, etc.

This is pretty much how I feel. I don't mind the "pranks" but they're up for one day and I usually just get pet swaps on that day and that's it. I'd much rather focus goes into Easter and CS's birthday which is a milestone event. The new hat is neat and would like to see more of this concept return each year for April 1st

[Juliamon]

If a harmless, minor prank is something that ruins a safe space for you, i am sorry. But there are ways around simply not doing *anything* for an event that's been a long standing tradition, even something as simple as just being able to opt out of the pranks up to a few days leading to april fools would be more than enough to for these to be moot points.

It is nice that the devs are actively aware of more sensitive users of the site, and keeping the site that safe space for them, but they can easily do it in ways that are not reductive, hence why it feels like laziness to a lot of people, and leaves a lot of the community quite disheartened.

Sorry, but I fail to see how "a headache or a disassociative episode" as Susiron mentioned is "harmless" or "minor." And it's incredibly rude to call the effort the artists put into the pets and items "not doing anything" and "lazy."

I'm personally really glad that pranks are falling out of fashion. I already get lied to on a daily basis, I am tired of lies and I don't appreciate thinking I've been given something cool only for it to be taken away from me tomorrow. If you like pranks there's no shortage of other sites still doing them.

[Katsumi-Luna]

You know we're not allowed to have fun anymore!

[Freak996]

With all my other pet games doing silly and funny stuff, it was disappointing to get onto CS today