Some people stumbled into the prank without ever reading that post. Those are the people I feel for.
There were a few Europeans and one New Zealander who were confused and asked in the channel or the forums. Since it was midnight in their local timezone before the post went up, which was not unexpected (the target was to post right as the US was going to bed and the EU was about to wake up), I messaged them one on one and let them know what was going on. They were pretty cool about it and were gracious enough to keep the surprise to themselves until the announcement.
After that went up, all anyone had to do was ask in the global channel. There were people on all day reposting the command to shut it off, and I was monitoring on and off.
But is was probably a poor choice to make given that it happened almost simultaneously with the release of PC 1.0.
Meh. I wasn't going to wait a whole year for it, and half the point was to show off some new rendering features that the 1.0 client tech makes possible. The shader is a very real thing and is not entirely a joke - there are a number of more sloppy ways it could have been done that would result in incorrectly rendered graphics.
Maybe turning it on by default for a day confused a few people, but as far as pranks go, a visual effect that in no way impairs functionality is very mild. If people are really butthurt by that, well, some people just aren't happy unless they're unhappy I guess. Many more have commented that they enjoyed the friendly crack at Champions.
A couple people even asked me if it was possible to turn it back on after the event (it is, the same command works). There are actually knobs to customize the effect that are not hooked up to the options menu yet, but will be.
At least one person reported thinking that something had gone wrong with the PC installation and were galvanized into inappropriate and unnecessary actions.
Kneejerk reactions are never a good idea, no matter what the circumstances. We have plenty of people on the forums and in the channel who are willing to help if they see it. Since it's a volunteer effort, you might have to wait more than 4 minutes and 21 seconds for a response, though (one came 1 minute later, but the person had logged off by then).
Is this true- Non CoH chat folk outnumber us long time players 10:1? 
*taps forums on the side* Where's the rolleyes smiley on this thing again?
