Have you seen a golden wrench in the wilds of Team Fortress 2? I haven't, but I don't play that often and only 100 of them were handed out to totally random people.
Not everyone was very happy about that, and cries about the game not being as much fun with the golden wrenches around went out. One of these golden wrenches went to WiNGSPANTT and he surprisingly agrees with all the complaints despite the fact that the golden wrench does nothing but aid him. So he's going to destroy it, but he's doing it in the name of good.
Between now and Aug. 23 WiNGSPANTT is collecting donations for Child's Play. Then on Aug. 31 he and six other golden wrench owners who have joined him will destroy their wrenches for good. The event has already raised more than $4,700 by promising to destroy one of the rarest items in gaming, and they're hoping to bring in more. If you wish to applaud the sacrifice these seven gamers are making you can head over to Top Tier Tactics and donate.
Matthew Razak is Destructoid's Associate editor and co-founder of film site
Flixist. He began as community member "cowzilla" and was since sequestered to write brainy features material. He lives in Los Angeles with his beautiful wife.
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Contest:
7:00 PM on 07.31.2010
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What a load of bullshit. It doesn't effect anyone unless they actually face a golden wrench and even then it's a rare event that has little effect other then your corpse being turned to gold when you get whacked in the head by it.
From what I've seen the cries were more about the "unfairness" or the distribution and then about the ensuing drama not about the gameplay itself. So the community sort of became less fun to play in. Stupid in that sense as well, I agree, but complainers are going to complain.
Ah I see, it's a great shame that people are reduced to pathetic whining when Valve do a special event to promote the upcoming update and they don't get what was meant to be a special item randomly given out. (For the most part).
it's nothing to do with deserving it's just like the lottery, Jesus Christ.
Are you fucking serious? It had nothing to do whether someone deserved it or not, it was completely random.
I can't believe people are still complaining about this.
Nuff' said.
@GoodGuyA: Yeah, how dare they not get rid of something that they want to keep even though there's absolutely nothing wrong with keeping it. O wait. No. Stop acting whiny and think before you say something.
@Indiana Jones: Butthurt.
Yeah, this. Also, the fact that Valve was banning several accounts in retaliation, even though there was no hacking or cheating of any kind. I don't think players can be faulted for taking advantage of a faulty system, especially when Valve lied about the method for obtaining Golden Wrenches. They even banned the guy who worked on SourceOP and TF2items.com.
This is like Valve's overreaction to their crappy item drop system. (Seriously, if WoW granted gold solely based on how much time was spent in-game, could you fault players if they idled most of their playtime?) I think the whole Golden Wrench fiasco is stupid, both on Valve's part and the players'. I'm sick of the emphasis on vanity items and the lack of balance in the game. (Although the Engineer items were pretty cool, if a little unpolished at best...)
That said, alongside Blizzard, I still think Valve is one of the best developers out there, certainly in the PC realm.
OH NO SCANDAL.
But hey, you know, whatever. If, as the poster above said, most of the complaints are over the leaked distribution methods, I can see some reasonable anger there. But come on, who really cares that much?
@Indiana Jones
You know it's because of people like you constantly whining on the Steam forums that Valve usually doesn't listen to most complaints any more. Face it if it were more random you would say you didn't have a set way to get one and if it were more fixed you would still complain that other people (that probably cared more and went to a great deal more effort than you did) got one and you didn't.
You're just mad other people have a nicer imaginary wrench than you do.
@The Average Guy
You missed Good guy's point. He was saying that if you care more about your imaginary wrench than you do about giving away to charity then you should feel ashamed. To be fair I'm not sure I would want to get rid of mine if I had one but that really says something about us gamers doesn't it?
The fact that we even have to think about either keeping non-existent goods that make no difference to the real world or inside the game world or giving some money to help possibly save another human being's life is actually kind of terrifying.
While it's a great cause, if you had one, would you have decided to do the same thing?
That could be spun as "You're not giving up your imaginary item for charity? You're a bad, bad person with a doody head and we're going to kill three puppies in your name." Charity's good and all, but being guilt-tripped into it is absolutely a bastard move.
If i had one i would keep it but just use a normal wrench, how can any1 know that i havent destroyed it this is a funny reason, and it also seems stupid that we need a reason to give to charity other then we want to.
People always seem to assume that the reason behind giving money has to make sense, there raising money for charity and doing it in a way that can only eb called "unique" to the gaming community. (Apparently especially whiny players of TF2).
I assume evidence will be provided via video or sumthing.
@crackattackspider
While I will be making a video, there are two other ways everyone will know. First, whenever a Golden Wrench is destroyed, the game sends a global message to everyone in the world playing TF2 to notify them "Play X has destroyed Golden Wrench #Y." Secondly, anyone can verify if you still have it by using http://www.tf2items.com, which shows every item a player has.
@everyonewhoislikewhocaresaboutthesewrenches
I agree. The GW is stupid. Part of why I did this was to show the population that all the drama around the GW was overblown, and I wanted a way to turn the fiasco into something positive.
That said, if anyone here had donated already, thanks so much!
Of course I'm one of the people who doesn't freak out instantly when someone dominates me in game. When a sniper shows super human sniping skill my first reaction isn't to shout on the server "ZOMG he must be using an aimbot". When an engineer puts a turret in a tricky location I don't cry I figure out how to blow it the hell up. So why would a wrench that doesn't change anything game play wise cause such a freaking issue?
As for the whiners, they will always exist, and will always bitch about the dumbest things. If they want to complain about the Wrench, let them. They are the ones wasting their time, not us guys.