Talk about Luck – Unusual Thoughts yet again

It’s been a while since we last chatted about unusuals. Every time I do so, I end up complaining that my siblings have stupid amounts of luck while I end up earning my way up the TF2 property ladder. I did this the most in the first one, I think, but I did it the same in parts 2 and 3 as well.Well today’s going to be exactly the damn same! Not really.

Alright, on Monday, my brother Terroxy says “I’m going to buy some keys!” so he goes and buys 5 keys. He’s a bit of a trader, so he knows his way around. But lately, there’s little point buying keys on the Steam Market, since Valve regularly changes the prices of keys to match the US Dollar prices. At the most, you’ll save only a couple of cents. Ain’t worth the hassle, plus you can sell Mann Co. keys quicker. Sister Nommy decides to do the same thing, buying three keys. They both invite me to watch (and possibly laugh at them).

Both of them have a variety of Gargoyle Cases, Weapons Cases and Invasion crates. Nommy, as predicted, unboxes nothing. She gets not one but two crappy Spy items and the robot Engineer leg, which she’s going to trade with me later so I can give it to a friend. Typical sort of low level loot that 90% of us get.

Terroxy unboxes 5 crates. The first two are random blue-tier crap that’s an insult to vintage items. Poor vintage items. I still treasure my Vintage Crusader’s Crossbow, which I crafted so many weapons to make. Same with the Amputator. Then they lowered the price to scrap metal instead of refined. Few other weapons are as cheap to directly craft as the original Australian Christmas weapons. Anyway, I’m getting off the point again. You know what my brother unboxes?

The first item is the new Scout jacket cosmetic, from the Gargoyle case. The Thrilling Tracksuit. It’s alright.

Then he gets a cape for Sniper. Starduster. Awesome. Looks cool. It’s pink. Not bad at all.

Then he gets the all-class Captain Space Mann. Great!

Then he unboxes a FACTORY NEW LIGHTNING BOLT SNIPER RIFLE WORTH $40.

We all cheer that he’s actually gotten some cool stuff. Then Terroxy threatens to do one more. I jokingly say “You’ll get the banana.” What does he do? He fucking unboxes a Potassium Bonnet. Talk about good luck.

Thing is though, Terroxy got very lucky. He’s always been lucky, he’s managed to unbox 3 unusuals. But I have no idea how much he’s spent on TF2. A lot of it does come from trading, but still. I’ve probably spent like €150 easily on TF2, based on many tiny, weeny transactions over the years, plus my purchase of 5 keys to buy a Strange Kritzkrieg (since I had 2 keys at the time). Most of this comes from tiny one-off bits of gambling on keys.

That’s how Valve makes their money. They prey on our desire to be rich and famous and good-looking, at least inside a video game. And they’ve done a great job of it.

Going back to those hats though. None of them were unusual. Yet three of those items are expensive and rare. It’s amazing how we’ve kinda pretty much forgotten about unusual effects, despite the last three updates all adding new effects. Of course, unusual versions of these hats would have been mind-blowing, but that’s the scary thing. We don’t care about unusuals any more. Think about it. The one thing we all strove for is fading away. It’s still there, but it’s not there. Even the addition of unusual weapons seems to be insignificant.

This is a strange TF2 world we live in.

As for me? Well, I didn’t buy any keys. I instead spent AU$2.00 on a pair of T-Rex earrings.