Introducing the Tinfoil Hat

This is an April Fools article.
This article is a Blizzard April Fools joke. Its content is not part of official Warcraft lore, but represents one of Blizzard's jokes.

This article is about Blizzard introducing the Tinfoil Hat. The  [Tinfoil Hat] is a fictional item in World of Warcraft that was announced on April 1, 2007. The announcement was a satiric response to player concerns raised by the launch of World of Warcraft Armory, a part of the Blizzard website displaying all characters' equipment and talent choices. While the most obvious part of the story parodies X-Files themes; names of characters in the screenshots – Sparta, Xerxes, Gorgo, Leonidas, Delios, Sunblot, Shadowfight, and Helldiner – are related to the movie 300, a possible response to a rise in Sparta-related quotes on the forums shortly after the movie's theatrical premiere. This theory is further supported by the caption Dining in Hellfire Peninsula. The tin foil hat-wearing draenei Dogen may be a reference to Dogen Boole, a character from the game Psychonauts who also wore a tin foil hat. The tin foil hat itself is obviously a reference to tin-foil hat in real life.

Every engineer knows that in order to achieve true greatness, it is imperative to alway keep a clear, unclouded mind and to protect one's secrets from those who would seek to steal or plagiarize the radical new designs of a hard-working genius. The [Tinfoil Hat] is the logical result of this profound insight, combining tinfoil's powerful mental shielding properties with the excellent counter-hexing effect of troll tears and the outstanding mind-focus powers of one of Azeroth's most precious gems. Crafting the Tinfoil Hat However, besides keeping the wearer safe from mind spies and the thought police, it also removes the wearer's character profile from the World of Warcraft Armory to further guarantee that no one will be able to divine all of the wearer's tightly held secrets. Furthermore, wearers of the Tinfoil Hat will not show up in /who listings, and they will also be immune to inspection from other players. Protecting your secrets has never been so stylish! The schematic for the Tinfoil Hat can be obtained by high-level characters from two faction-specific vendor NPCs in or around Area 52 that sell the schematic to anyone. There is, however, a catch. The creative masterminds who invented the Tinfoil Hat, special engineers Sculder and Mully, are extremely suspicious of any and all visitors. They use Gnomish Cloaking Devices and their own Tinfoil Hats to stay out of sight, and they will only reveal themselves to connoisseurs of their favorite foods – Dried Mushroom Rations for Sculder, and Dried Fruit Rations for Mully (these items can be bought in Thrallmar and Honor Hold). The only drawback is that the increased focus provided by the Tinfoil Hat may sometimes lead the wearer to achieve a superlative level of mental clarity, through which he can see the manifold subtle connections between seemingly unrelated facts and events, revealing to the wearer a much sharper image of the truth. Resisting the urge to share this truth with other, less illuminated players can be difficult, indeed...	Schematic: Tinfoil Hat Binds when picked up Use: Teaches you how to make a Tinfoil Hat Tinfoil Hat Binds when equipped Cloth Head 10 Armor −10 Intellect +10 Spirit Equip: Hides the wearer's profile from the Armory. Equip: Allows the wearer to see "the truth." May lead to an incontrollable urge to share "the truth" with others. Use: Grants the wearer immunity to all forms of mind control for the next 10 sec...or does it? Durability 5 / 5 Requires Level 10 "On behalf of the International Gnomish Conspiracy, I've got to inform you that we're almost out of tinfoil." Tin Bar (99), Fused Wiring (4), Troll Tears (8), Heavy Leather (4), Star Ruby Requires Engineering (375) Tinfoil Hat Binds when equipped Cloth Head 10 Armor −10 Intellect +10 Spirit Equip: Hides the wearer's profile from the Armory. Equip: Allows the wearer to see "the truth." May lead to an incontrollable urge to share "the truth" with others. Use: Grants the wearer immunity to all forms of mind control for the next 10 sec...or does it? Durability 5 / 5 Requires Level 10 "On behalf of the International Gnomish Conspiracy, I've got to inform you that we're almost out of tinfoil."   Dining in Hellfire Peninsula   The truth is out there...
Source: Introducing the Tinfoil Hat © Blizzard Entertainment 2007