meowdy folks! it's been a bit since the last post, exactly... 47 DAYS!? sorry I've left you all hanging for so long! I've just been caught up with a lot of other stuff. but on the bright side, a funny story happened that I can tell you all. so sit down (or don't it's up to you!) and grab some sort of snack as I talk you through the tale of 'the hatwomann's lament!"
section 1: where our wacky story began
it all began a couple days before all hallows eve (so this is also a scray story! forgot to tell you to turn off your lights) when I was glancing at what to play in my steam library. from the corner of my favourites section a familar friend sticked out with a new update ready to be installed.
team fortress 2 has been a game I revisit from time to time as I used to play it heavily when I was younger. most of the time I come back whenever a new update is released such as smissmas, summer updates or in this case, scream fortress.
in case you're not too aware of tf2, let me catch you up: team fortress 2 is an fps game released on october 10, 2007. the general basic gist of the gameplay is that it's a pretty fun team based fps game with 9 selectable classes all with their own weapons, quirks and personalities. one of them is even named after jerma985! but what is most important for this story is that this game has some nifty cosmetics. with each new update, new community made cosmetics and new community made maps are added. this also brings me to contracts!
[image from the TF2Wiki]
to put it short: contracts are short little missions you can do for rewards. and what's important about the contracts is that there are an exclusive set of halloween missions that net you halloween packages upon completion which can be opened for a free random halloween cosmetic. it's a pretty groovy deal! you get to play all the halloween maps, do some little missions and get some free cosmetics almost without any catches. the only catch being that the cosmetics are 'holiday restricted'. this means that you can only wear them during halloween or during full moons (as in if there is a full moon in real life, halloween cosmetics will be temporary activated again. fun!). but I can't complain since I'm still getting some fun freebies!
but you're probably wondering why these funny cosmetics are so dang important. well let me introduce you to....
section 2: the mannconomy (and the masterplan)
tf2 has it's own economy! first introduced during the mannconomy update in 2010, the feature of obtaining crates that you could open with real money for a random cosmetic (and a slim chance for a rare unusal one) was introduced as well as the features to trade items with other players and craft items. and this sparked a long standing economy! folks will trade crate keys (used to open crates), metal (crafting material), cosmetics and many other items with eachother to try and get items they want or to make a profit. this economy has sustained the game for a very long time and the game is still updated with new community made cosmetics being added with each seasonal update.
as i mentioned before, halloween packages give you a free random cosmetic, which this can also include duplicates and possibly unwanted cosmetics. but since you can trade hats you might not need or any dupes you have, it had me come up with a master plan!
as you can see above, my plan was to trade off any unwanted cosmetics for some metal which i could then trade off for some non-halloween cosmetics i could wear year-round! it seemed like a win-win. folks would get some halloween cosmetics they want off of me for metal and i would use that to get some cosmetics i want from others. but this is where the hatwomann's lament begins...
this started with my friend mel, the woman of many cabers. she is called that since she has a lot of cabers
while i was playing all the new halloween content myself, i manage to get a caber from a random drop that occur while your playing the game. i sent mel a trade request to add it to her collection and it was going well. that was until i bumped into a problem
ah i see!! i haven't set up mobile 2fa for steam so my trades will be held from being sent through for a day. thats fine! I can just get it all set up! but what i misunderstood about this prompt is that the text below 'this trade will be held for 1 day' mentioned it was because i hadn't had the mobile 2fa on my account for more than 7 days. i thought this meant 'you haven't used the mobile 2fa in the last 7 days' so when i went to go set it up and chanegd my phone number linked to my steam in the process, i got locked out of my trading and the market for 15 days which i assumed was due to activating steam guard as an extra measure in case anyone got into your account and changed that info. so i thought that meant everything was set-up and i would just have to wait a couple of days
so while i waited i decided to knock out some contracts and get some more hats which was really dang fun! getting to reconnect with a game i loved when i was younger was a great time espically with trying to get better at my favourite classes. I've had a blast playing the pyro!
[really cool female pyro playermodel mod by Alaxe]
but after all of that contracting and shooting, the wait time for getting my trading access back was over. but then i discovered that i didn't actually get my steam guard set up properly. i was fine with waiting a bit again. although it was a bit of trouble, good things come to those who wait as they say. and i mostly just wanted to get the caber to mel since i felt bad for having to make her wait for so long. but what about the master plan? well i noted some subtext at the bottom of the descriptions for the halloween cosmetics i had gotten
well shucks! turns out these aren't tradable! although i wasn't too bothered by this since these cosmetics were too nifty for me to want to give them away. and to be honest, i had a second plan that appeared beforehand!
section 3: my friend the gargoyle
another cool halloween related mechanic i forgot to mention is the soul gargoyle. it's a free item that players recieve during scream fortress that tracks kills/points and levels up with the more you get (leveling it up doesn't do anything besides change it's name and it's inventory icon but i like having a tracker of progress.)
no matter what level it is, you can use it for 'transmutations' where you take three items you don't want and they get turned into an untradable halloween hat from past with a special property! so that's i did with the duplicate cosmetics which i was pretty happy with.
although i stil have to wait a couple more days for my trade hold to go away, i can still trade, just with a small delay. and even better yet, i managed getting another duplicate hat from crafting which mel will give me the metal i used to craft it back as well as getting my caber. it seems my masterplan did somewhat happen! my friend is getting an halloween hat she wants and i'm getting some metal to get other hats out of it. the 'hatwomman's lament' wasn't too much of a lament and more a set of silly mishaps with steam 2fa but i'm not too bothered by it all since i think it lead to a better outcome (sorry if i came off as very dramatic in this post, it was just my way to retell a funny story.)
conclusion
so everything worked out right in the end! i suppose the lesson of this blog post is to revisit games you used to play every once in while and to stay patient as good things happen to those who are! and happy late halloween! thank you for reading, stay silly, stay safe and stay strong! bye bye until next time!!
finished writing 15/11/24 11:15PM (geez i should get to sleep!) || go back