282: All That's Shiny is Gold

Murray Chu

New member
Feb 9, 2009
20
0
0
All That's Shiny is Gold

Jonathan "WingspanTT" Tran earned the envy of many Team Fortress 2 players when he lucked into one of the game's rare Golden Wrenches, but he realized the best thing he could possibly do was destroy it.

Read Full Article
 

Aptspire

New member
Mar 13, 2008
2,064
0
0
only on TF2. On a MMO, once in a lifetime drop are usually bought and sold quite dearly :p
(i.e.: special event ships in Eve)
 

coldfrog

Can you feel around inside?
Dec 22, 2008
1,320
0
0
Ah, if only they knew the fun of the World of Warcraft Black Qiraji Battle Tank. One per server please! I must admit, though, that it would have never occurred to me to raise money for it. Then again, it would have never occurred to me to destroy it to begin with. However, I'd've gladly thrown my wrench into the pot if I A: had been playing the game at the time (I actually have owned the game almost since the beginning, but I play on and off) and B: actually had one.
 

WaysideMaze

The Butcher On Your Back
Apr 25, 2010
845
0
0
What a great story. Shame that more awareness couldn't have been raised , but $31,000 is a great result. Congrats to WingspanTT for all the effort he put in.
 

Celtic_Kerr

New member
May 21, 2010
2,166
0
0
INteresting story. I do admit that "The next person to craft an item after THIS time gets one" since they should have just made the server give out one randomly every 2 hours.

The way valve did it, you can spend your whole time crafting everything possible only to have some dude craft a millisecond later and get the wrench...

I digress

It's interesting to see that people were willing to donate $31,000 to see 14 wrenches destroyed
 

findler

New member
Jun 19, 2009
154
0
0
Great story, I don't play TF2 so I never would have heard of this unless it was reported. Imagine the kind of money you could raise if you brought a similar fundraiser to WoW...
 

annoyinglizardvoice

New member
Apr 29, 2009
1,024
0
0
Nice work on earning the cash for charity.
I do however think it's a bit naff that there's such a fuss (such as the outrage of players who didn't manage to get them) over these items when they're purely cosmetic.
 

Deminobody

New member
Nov 18, 2009
38
0
0
Stuff like this helps refuel my faith in the gamer community. I think this is one of the best things that could have been done in this circumstance!
 

Grufflenark

New member
Nov 17, 2010
248
0
0
Ah yes I remember this, great that you gathered money for charity. Golden Wrenches is more of a plague than lucky item anyways, since they make you a great target for hackers. Also like 10 of the Golden Wrench owners got VAC banned.
I really wonder why everyone cares so much about COSMETIC items, but if it wasn't for that care you would never have raised 31k$$ for charity ;P
 

Valagetti

Good Coffee, cheaper than prozac
Aug 20, 2010
1,112
0
0
Wow I thought TF2 was quite casual, compared to other FPS online shooters. The first time I played it was yesterdaay didn't think much of it. But Valve n' all their glory should realise that this shit would happen. I mean,I'm betting that all of the complants are from 9 year old teabaggers that shouldn't be even playing the game.
 

WiNGSPANTT

New member
Nov 30, 2010
3
0
0
Hey everyone, I made an account to thank Murray for writing this article and to extend my thanks to the TF2 community for their support, especially everyone who donated money and/or Golden Wrenches.

I would also like to clarify that I don't hate virtual items; I just hate ridiculous unfair distribution of those items and I hate people throwing hissy fits over cosmetic skins.

This is normally the part where I thank Artemis for her bounty and/or plug my web site, but instead I'll just say....

Cheers, and don't be surprised if I can get a few more wrenches into the fire next August.
 

Calderon0311

New member
May 9, 2009
84
0
0
Cheers to WiNG and the rest of the Wrench Donors! I've remember following the charity drive during the early part when it was just Wing and 3 others. It was an amazing show of support at first, but started to dwindle early sadly until what seemed as a grass-roots effort finally got tons more steam added back to it.

And that was BEFORE the official TF2 blog updated with what I consider one of the most heartfelt posts ever. ( http://www.teamfortress.com/post.php?id=4151&p=2 ) If the event succeeded in something at least, it was in getting the TF2 Team to acknowledge, promote, and show a level of humility to all their players.

It honestly felt like the first Desert Bus, just a wave of donations and support starting coming in right after that post! From 7 to 13 Wrenches gone, up for donation with all kinds of support. I've always loved the TF2 Community in general, but this explained why the most. :)
 

aldowyn

New member
Mar 1, 2010
151
0
0
Huh, look, a celebrity! At least on this particular thread on this particular site at this particular time.


Anyway... yeah, that's pretty amazing. Collectibles are collectibles, after all, and people do go nuts over them. In my opinion, the story isn't about deleting the wrench. That is just a side issue that happened to be the catalyst for something greater, the charity event.

Personally, that system doesn't seem THAT bad - it's at least better than the first xxxx people to do this, but it could have been improved easily by simply making it a percent chance after a certain time. There, now they won't be found all at once and the people making stuff all the time will still have better chances to get it.
 

The Random One

New member
May 29, 2008
3,310
0
0
Wow, where did that last paragraph come from? Did it get lost from another article?

Seriously though, it's great that he did it. I had heard about but didn't know the details, and had assumed he was like 'I'll destroy the rare item because I CAN! LAUGH, MINIONS!' but he was like 'lame item, shrug. I wanted a hat. I'll destroy it k?' which is much more agreeable.

How people flip their shit over these things, and go on and on about how it's 'unfair', amuses me in a morbid way. Hey buddy, people are starving to death. That's way more unfair ain't it? Go help them instead.
 

NewYork_Comedian

New member
Nov 28, 2009
1,046
0
0
Its kind of sad that people would go batshit over this. Id expect this from a crowd of angry chimpanzee when theres only one female chimp to fuck left. Or rather, the Halo and Call of Duty communities.

In all seriousness, this is just sad. Who are these raving fanboys why do they care more about a shiny stick to beat people with than raising thousands of dollars to sick children? Honestly... but as for WING, he stuck with his goal to help charity and children despite the amount of retarded backlash telling him not to. Kudos to him, im not sure if i want to cheer him for accomplishing this or faceplam myself for the amount of crap thats in the video game community we live [or rather, play] in. I guess for my own personal gain ill go with the former.