September 30, 2010 - a date which will live in infamy - the Team Fortress Community was suddenly and deliberately attacked by greed and corruption from the Valve cooperation.
The community was at peace with that company and, at the solicitation of Valve, was still in conversation with the company and its CEO looking toward the maintenance of free updates in the world.
Indeed, one hour after corporate agents had commenced bombing on our banks, the corporate fan boys of the community and their moderators delivered to the community a formal reply to the recent flame messages. While the reply stated that it seemed useless to continue to rage at the MANN-conomy update, it contained no method or hint of getting weapons and hats without purchasing them (in an acceptable amount of time).
Before we can begin explain how the Wiki Cap is a corrupting force within the community, we must first begin on the same page. Valve is turning into a greedy cooperation with no respect for its fan base. This is blatantly obvious if you spend even five seconds looking at the polycount sets or the "Australian Christmas" update.
The polycount sets are one of Valves greediest decisions they've ever made. You know them, and unless you bought them, you hate them. They brought with them huge advantages to those who are willing to dish out money to Valve. A scout with the milkman weapons but without a hat will have a major disadvantage against a milkman scout with the hat on. Both scouts share identical weapons, but the scout with the Milkman has 25 more health points, just because he is wearing a hat. Valve turned what should have been a fair scout duel into a situation where whoever pays is given a significant advantage in the game. While it IS true you could randomly find a hat, you have less than a 1/100 chance of finding the specific hat you want (in this case the Milkman) and to top that off the drop rate for hats is already extremely low.
Don't listen to brainwashed zealots that like to point out the hats are easily crafted. While this is correct in theory, it isn't easy and takes about two months to get the required four refined metal. Where did I get the two month timeframe? It is quite easy for anyone that knows basic math. It is pretty common belief that people are dropped between eight and twelve weapons a week, so I decided to go right down the middle and figure that people get ten weapons a week. Ten weapons a week is five scrap metal a week (assuming you get compatible weapons every week, which is unlikely). It takes three scrap metal to make a reclaimed, and three reclaimed to make a refined. The polycount hats take four refined to craft. That is 36 scrap metal needed to make a basic hat. Based off our previous assumption of five scrap metal week, it will take longer than seven weeks to get your four refined, and then you still need a new polycount weapon for the class you are trying to make the hat for. For the moment, we will assume that people are getting lucky and are getting more than ten items a week and that they only focus on getting polycount set hats with the metal they craft. This will let them get a polycount set hat every six weeks (if they are very lucky with the item drop system). But wait, that month and a half of playing the game yielded only one polycount set hat, you won't be able to get all five of them until seven and a half months later (once again, assuming the drop system favors you and drops you more than ten items a week). That gave players who paid for the bonuses over seven MONTHS to have an unfair advantage over you. This is all assuming that people only use their spare metal on the polycount hats when many game updates (including new weapons and hats) will be released before your seven and a half months are up, forcing people farther and farther behind.
Less than three months after the MANN-conomy update Valve decided to release another update that would force the "pay-to-win" situations into Team Fortress. I am of course referring to the horrid "Australian Christmas" update. With this update Valve decided to rob the banks of community members in a much stealthier way, showing they know the mistakes they have made, and yet do nothing to rectify them. Instead they try to use smoke and mirrors in an attempt to distract us from the fact that they are robbing us. This update didn't require hats to complete sets, which was a step in the right direction, but had other weapons lined up to provide a pay-to-win scenario. In the original update the Firsts of Steel, Back Scratcher, Candy Cane, and Jag where available only to those who opened festive crates (which cost $2.49 per opening). You read that right, those weapons were only available if you paid two and a half dollars to Valve. It wasn't as simple as people needing the items mentioned above though, Valve also released three more sets, and all the set items cost two reclaimed + a weapon which is equal to six and a half scrap, a little over a week's worth of items on average. People who weren't paying large sums of money for new weapons and hats were already set back from the polycount update, and now they would have more of Valves corporate agenda forced upon them.
Valve even had the audacity to use more "smoke and mirrors" to get more funds into their thieving wallets. I am of course talking about the "Stocking Stuffer Key". It seems innocent enough to begin with; Valve is giving you a FREE crate opening, GREAT. Nothing wrong with Valve making crates free to open, I support that idea all the way. HOWEVER, Valve didn't make ALL crates free (as they should have). They just allowed everyone to open no more than one crate without dishing out the dough. Why give people a free key instead of making people pay for them? It is actually quite simple; the free key being for charity/Christmas spirit was all just a ruse. Giving people a free key was like giving them a free sample of food, it let them get a little taste of what they can pay for. Some people having gambling problems and the same problems exist in Team Fortress when it comes to crates. People think that the next crate will have their hat or their unusual hat. They don't stop to think about the damage that their gambling is causing or the actual odds of them winning anything they actually want. They can justify buying another key to open a crate after a long series of weapon drops from crates as they believe that they are due a win. They aren't due a win though, far from it. They have the same chance of opening an unusual hat as they did twenty crates ago. People who DID get lucky enough to open a hat or an unusual fell into the trap just the same. They figure that since they got a hat/an unusual once they are bound to get it again. Do you see the truth in these "free" Stocking Stuffer Keys? They were free, but have just brought destruction to people's savings, all to support a game company that already makes more money than they can ever put to use. Only people that are mentally unstable can argue that Valve isn't turning Team Fortress into a "pay-to-win" game.
Some people think that if they convince enough people not to buy anything from the store, they will manage to get Valve to shut down the store and will put an end to all this nonsense. I am not so naive. Valve tried this new store idea out during the release of the polycount/MANN-conomy update, and it was a fantastic success for Valve. They made/are still making an insane amount of money. In the first two weeks the polycount creators made between $39,000 and $47,000. They get 25% of the proceeds, meaning Valve made between $156,000 and $188,000 on EACH pack in the FIRST two WEEKS. They also get income on every other item in the store that Valve created. No company in their right mind would abandon such a lucrative project. No my friends, we can't stop the store outright. We can only hope to spread the word around and limit Valves profits as much as we can in hopes that they won't keep pushing more and more pay-to-win situations on us.
Valve is also hell bent on corrupting another aspect of TF2. They are consolidating the flow of all information regarding TF2. How so? On June 30, 2010, Valve strong armed tf2wiki.net out of the business of providing the best TF2 information on the web by making an official wiki (wiki.tf2.com). The TF2 wiki was and still is the number one source of TF2 related news and information, and it is now in control of the greedy aristocrats at Valve. That isn't all they control though. They also control the SPUF forums, the largest forums for anything TF2. On the SPUF forums the moderators have been known to mass ban people who don't follow the ways of Valve. This is easily proven; go to the SPUF forums right now. I can guarantee most of the threads there are people that are angry at the Valve cooperation. Check back on those threads in a few months and count the amount of people that are banned vs. the amount of people that aren't banned. The amount of bans given will startle you. They don't ban right away as they want to give the illusion that they are fair and just and don't discriminate against people who aren't happy with them, but don't be fooled. It is just a ploy to get the uneducated on their side.
Now, you may be asking questions such as "What does Valve turning into a greedy company have to do with Wiki Caps or any corruption from within our own community?" EVERYTHING. I don't blame you for having to ask for help on such a complicated system as this, it wasn't an easy task building this case from the ground up. Lucky for you, you have self-proclaimed masters such as myself that work day and night at monitoring the fraudulent activities of Valve cooperation.
Valve is turning their wiki cap recipients into a private army, similar to what Hitler did with the SS, and what the Soviet Union with the KGB. This "private army" has many benefits over your traditional "army" (moderators and the Valve staff). They can go around without attracting nearly as much attention as they lack the Valve titles in their names and don't have the Valve weapons. If a wiki cap recipient was playing on your TF2 server and took off his wiki cap, chances are you wouldn't know he was a Valve spy infiltrating your server. The same can't be said if Robin Walker were to join your game.
It is obvious that people who are easily influenced by the greed of Valve are the ones receiving the wiki cap. How is it obvious? Just look at the requirements needed in order to get the wiki cap. These are the guidelines posted on the wiki (This may be out of date, for a current version click HERE).
What types of people are receiving the wiki cap? Try reading that bullet list using your new found insight on Valve.
Do these brainwashed cult members seem innocent anymore? They are obviously just a platform for the Valve agenda. The only positive thing about the Wiki Cap giveaway is that it makes it easier for true patriots to know who is on what side. Without the caps it would be harder to detect who might be spying for the evil Valve Cooperation.
"So, now that we know the truth what should we do? Should we try to sign an online petition or try to boycott Valve in a steam group?" My answer is no to both. Both those "solutions" have failed numerous times and this isn't going to change that track record. Keep your eyes open for a movement in the Team Fortress Community; a plan is in the works that will get Valve to change their plans forever. I can't supply more information at the current time.