A Truly Random Topic of Conversation

I couldn’t decide what to write about, so I hit “Random Page” on the wiki, and I’m gonna write about whatever pops up.

Huh. Okay then.

Grockets have by and large exited the public conscience ever since Valve removed them from the maps in which they crashed, but for a time they were the closest thing TF2 had to extraterrestrial contact. Birthed from a collaboration with Weta Workshop and Valve, the first Grockets crashed into 2fort, Badwater and Barnblitz on July 18, 2011. Two days later they were revealed to be teasers for the new Grordbort Victory Pack, which came with the universally-adored Cowmangler 500 and Righteous Bison. This was the second time Valve had embedded easter eggs into maps to tease something upcoming; doves started appearing everywhere just a month earlier to stir up hype for Meet the Medic, and future marketing campaigns would use MvM Carrier Tanks and UFOs in a similar fashion.

Possibly the other reason people like to forget about the Grockets are that their contents pissed a LOT of people off at the time. Space guns were seen by many as crippling TF2’s artstyle, since at the time Valve had done a halfway decent job of trying to keep things in check with its roots. Even if you didn’t mind the guns due to Weta’s commendable attention to detail and new animations, grockets did open the floodgates for the no-holds-barred anything-goes smorgasbord TF2 we play now.

If there is a reason for people to still talk about the Grockets, it would be due to their relationship with providing new Grordbort weapons, after Australian Christmas 2011 brought a new grocket to Engineer and Pyro’s house. Out of this grocket came the universally-adored Pomson 6000, Eureka Effect, Phlogistinator, Manmelter and Third Degree. More importantly than that, however, is the fact that there are two Weta-designed weapon sets still sitting on the Steam Workshop, and people have been waiting literally years for them to come out. Are they going to? Most have lost hope. Only time will tell.

Last but not least, I have to wonder if the word “Grocket”s similarity to ‘crocket’ was a coincidence or if it tied in with the initial batch delivering Soldier goods. On that note, the fifth grade in me noticed a particular fact stand out from all that Polish in the randomly-selected wiki page: the Grocket that delivered the soldier weaponry was called The Sperm Cudgel IV.  But only three rockets crashed. Mysterious.