Unusuals – a Thought, Part 3…

I’ve discussed this before. Not once, but twice actually, which is why this is part 3. Last time round, I was discussing how I quite liked unusuals but felt they weren’t worth the effort and my main point was that unusuals were a small step on the wealth ladder. Have my opinions changed? Um, I’m not sure.

Let’s get this out of the way, I still haven’t unboxed an unusual. I probably never will. I do one or two crates whenever there’s a TF2 event thingy going on and that’s about it. I struck lucky this Halloween, buying one crate from selling trading cards and getting 2 keys from it, which I used on crates and got nothing. I didn’t lose or gain anything, so that’s good to me. Sibling No. 1 on the other hand sold an unusual on the market and bought tons of keys, didn’t unbox anything but he DID get a professional Scattergun killstreak thingy. Sibling No. 2, we’ll get to her later.

Since we last spoke of my siblings and unusuals, my brother has acquired and traded off tons of stuff. His last trades were for an unusual Mask of the Shaman (“the bubbling poptart”) and a cauldron bubbles Galvanized Gibus (“Toxic Gibus”) painted white. How he got these I am not sure. But he’s an unusual trader now and there ain’t nothing stopping him. Every week, apart from his Heavy and Medic sets, he appears to have something new. Or I’ve just forgotten. Or he bought some paint or something. I dunno.

In the same time, Sibling No. 2 has done all sorts of weird stuff. She sold both her hats, which were gifted to her by her TF2-rich boyfriend (who, I’ll be honest, I very much dislike), on the marketplace, waiting for a Steam Sale to come along so she could buy games. She ended up with about €70 in her Steam Wallet. Did she buy any games? A couple. Then one day, when she was pissed off, she blew the whole lot on crates and keys. Got nothing out of it. Blew her money.

As for me, what have I done? Nothing. My backpack is at the same value it’s been at for ages. The changes have been small. I got myself a nice Specialized Killstreak thingy for my Strange Quick-Fix and my Kritzkrieg got leveled up a bit. I gave away some crap and got given some stuff. And my unusuals? They sit in my inventory, unworn and gathering dust. I just don’t wear them.

Why’s that, none of you ask? Well, there’s a couple of reasons. Firstly, it’s amusing to dominate unusual traders on unusual trading servers. The less hats, the better. Secondly, when you think about it, the hats I have, my bubbling Otolaryngologist’s Mirror and my purple confetti Defiant Spartan, make no sense and are a bit, well, random. They don’t really go with the stuff I normally wear. Thirdly, um, well, I can’t see them. I don’t use the cl_first_person_uses_world_model command very often. I don’t taunt much. All I see of these fancy hats is a picture in the corner, which many people disable.

Finally, in my eyes, unusuals are utterly and truly pointless.

Meanwhile, what are my siblings doing? Sibling No. 1 is still trading. He still asks me about trades he is considering. I half-heartedly make suggestions, but I’m not really fussed either way. Sibling No. 2 bitches how she doesn’t have any items or anything. I suggested to her the other day to use the Pain Train, she said she didn’t have one. I asked her if she had a Kritzkrieg, she didn’t have one. She does have tons of crappy hats and a bunch of taunts though, but I don’t care much about her playing Gunslinger Engineer and Rancho-Relaxing next to a dispenser and her sentry in some weird place. She’s also got a thing for playing Huntsman Sniper. Wouldn’t recommend her ever for Demoman.

You know what though? Killstreaks are cool. I actually like them. They’re worth getting, because at least you can actually see them.

Unless you’re wearing Killstreak Mantreads of course.

And then I traded a load of crap for a bubbling Team Captain. Oh well.