282: All That's Shiny is Gold

insanelich

Reportable Offender
Sep 3, 2008
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WiNGSPANTT said:
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.
Now would you STOP TROLLING CONSTANTLY.

TopTierTrolls.

(Though, to be fair, I haven't seen you ingame in months. Maybe once over Halloween Event. And you don't exactly have to advertise your site anymore.)
 

Grand_Marquis

New member
Feb 9, 2009
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He should be proud. 14/100 volunteered to get involved with his charity benefit - that's exactly 4% higher than the average expected level of participation from a public audience.
 

The Cheezy One

Christian. Take that from me.
Dec 13, 2008
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Man, that guy is amazing.
We should have badge destroying charity events on the Escapist! I would give quite a bit to see someone destroy a Neo badge!
 

EmzOLV

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Oct 20, 2010
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WaysideMaze said:
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.
This - exactly.
That's a really good figure to raise and although the article raises how prized some of these things are, I'm just impressed with the amount of money raised for a good cause. Kudos to WingspanTT :)
 

WiNGSPANTT

New member
Nov 30, 2010
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Hey guys thanks for all the kind words.

And yeah, to anyone who was following the story before the TF2 official blog post, wow did that make a difference. Basically when the blog post happened, we had about $6,000 in donations, and it was winding down. I was thinking we would hit about 7.5k

24 hours after the blog post we had $19,000 raised!!! Pretty hard to believe. In my own mind I had always secretly hoped we could raise 31,000, since it was Wrench #31 to be deleted on the 31st. I don't know if it was luck or if people were specifically trying to push it to 31k that got it there, but awesome nonetheless.
 

The Youth Counselor

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Sep 20, 2008
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It's great story but I was surprised and although the point of story was to show how gamers can give up something so precious for themselves to help something greater selfless, I was surprised that being about "The Golden Wrench" there was no mention of Drunken F00l-gate. [http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1346549&page=4] Drunken F00l was a celebrated modder who made many contributions to the TF2 community. Among his contributions he made the SourceOP Plugin [http://www.sourceop.com/] (Adds many features and crosses assets between Source games), the TF2 Backpack Examiner [http://www.tf2items.com/id/df] (A website where players can examine another's backpack and trade), and many tutorials. He was so revered that he started having a personal relationship with VALVe, who flew him up plenty of times.

Then he got on VALVe's badside when he created a program that would bypass TF2 and make it appear that players were playing TF2 when they were idle. (Then items were given for time you spent in game.)

Drunken F00l also later found out either through his own calculations or from a VALVe source that consistently crafting didn't help your chances at getting the wrench but instead they were drops that were pre-determined in time and location. He also either figured out or were told the times and locations.

So he got himself the wrench and spread the word on when and where to pick them up [http://www.youtube.com/user/dftfc#p/a/u/0/qGL8kCgnLEo]. All those who got the wrench due to his advice including himself had their items stripped and were banned. The community is still divided over this to this day, and there is a movement to free Drunkenf00l and his disciples.
 

cefm

New member
Mar 26, 2010
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If we were talking about an item that gave a competitive advantage then I could understand it. But something utterly useless? Damn, these people need to get lives.
 

Echo136

New member
Feb 22, 2010
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TF2 is full of whiny little brats that arent happy unless they get their Unusual Hats (but it cant be flies, heaven forbid). The game is becoming pretty stupid in my opinion.
 

bitcrasher

New member
Dec 7, 2009
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That is an inspired idea. Kudos to WingspanTT for his generosity and for showing the world that these items are just pixels. In the end, they mean nothing. $31,000 for sick kids to have the chance to do some TF2 damage on their very own systems, now THAT is something to be proud of right there. Cheers to all who donated. "You done good." Heh.
 

Binerexis

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Dec 11, 2009
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WiNGSPANTT said:
And so began the great hat purge.
Purging hats may lead to death threats/shit in your mailbox. Destroy wrenches is one thing but hats? I see many people dying...
 

dududf

New member
Aug 31, 2009
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It's kinda sad that I heard about this article from the TopTactics website prior to the Escapist, considering I'm rarely on there and I'm always on here.
 

Hooded.Gamer

New member
Nov 28, 2010
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That's a great story! I don't know why people would complain about such an act of charity, even though such complaint made much of the act a success.
 

Jfswift

Hmm.. what's this button do?
Nov 2, 2009
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Haha, nice. I think that's pretty funny. Some people lost their grip on reality and go crazy over online items. I don't care if all the wrenches get destroyed. :p
 

AsianMafiaSin

New member
Mar 19, 2010
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I'm surprised that most TF2 people hadn't known about this. I mean, they did post about this on the teamfortress.com blog and did give them so kudos for it.