Friday, April 2nd 2010
Gotcha!
April's Fool!
Guess we really got you guys this time. I will not be leaving the site, nor will there by any of the announced changes. It was all an elaborate April's Fools Joke that we played on you.
Read on for the details...
As most of you remember, NVIDIA's Fermi launch was at midnight my local time, so I posted the review after countless hours of work, watched how our traffic spiked quickly and went to bed smiling and reliefed that everything went well. After I woke up I grabbed my notebook to check if the site might be crashed or something - no everything was fine, I started reading the comments and was shocked to see all the drama about Catalyst 9.12 being used. While I was aware that 9.12 weren't the latest drivers, I was pretty sure that the performance gains were not significant enough to retest all ATI cards and instead not have something like the Metro & Heaven tests (time is limited). After sifting through hundreds of posts all stating the same I did feel quite some anger towards the userbase in general: I was pissed. But as countless people stated in the comments for the "I am going away thread" the comments are just a tiny subset of what people think; happy people don't post comments.
Still with some anger I made my first posts in the comment thread: I think I'm done, I'm quitting and a couple more ... after a while I went away from the PC and started thinking a bit about it. "Let's just prove those idiots wrong". So I started benchmarking the 5870 on 10.3 and posted the results several hours later. As expected the difference was only 2%.
As we moved closer to April 1st I thought "hey, why not use those posts to create an epic April's Fools Joke", talked to my good buddy btarunr about it and he also thought it might be worthwile doing. Bta was the only person to know, not even the TPU staff knew. So the post was made and the story unfolded...
While I had originally planned to come clean some time next week, I realized it would be cruel to let you guys suffer that long.
Thank you all for your amazing comments. I had no idea how appreciated my work is. I am also sorry if you were hurt by it - I didn't mean it. Thanks again guys! and again, don't worry, nothing big will change here. Feel free to express your anger toward me in the comments, the mods are instructed to give you even more leeway as usually.
Guess we really got you guys this time. I will not be leaving the site, nor will there by any of the announced changes. It was all an elaborate April's Fools Joke that we played on you.
Read on for the details...
As most of you remember, NVIDIA's Fermi launch was at midnight my local time, so I posted the review after countless hours of work, watched how our traffic spiked quickly and went to bed smiling and reliefed that everything went well. After I woke up I grabbed my notebook to check if the site might be crashed or something - no everything was fine, I started reading the comments and was shocked to see all the drama about Catalyst 9.12 being used. While I was aware that 9.12 weren't the latest drivers, I was pretty sure that the performance gains were not significant enough to retest all ATI cards and instead not have something like the Metro & Heaven tests (time is limited). After sifting through hundreds of posts all stating the same I did feel quite some anger towards the userbase in general: I was pissed. But as countless people stated in the comments for the "I am going away thread" the comments are just a tiny subset of what people think; happy people don't post comments.
Still with some anger I made my first posts in the comment thread: I think I'm done, I'm quitting and a couple more ... after a while I went away from the PC and started thinking a bit about it. "Let's just prove those idiots wrong". So I started benchmarking the 5870 on 10.3 and posted the results several hours later. As expected the difference was only 2%.
As we moved closer to April 1st I thought "hey, why not use those posts to create an epic April's Fools Joke", talked to my good buddy btarunr about it and he also thought it might be worthwile doing. Bta was the only person to know, not even the TPU staff knew. So the post was made and the story unfolded...
While I had originally planned to come clean some time next week, I realized it would be cruel to let you guys suffer that long.
Thank you all for your amazing comments. I had no idea how appreciated my work is. I am also sorry if you were hurt by it - I didn't mean it. Thanks again guys! and again, don't worry, nothing big will change here. Feel free to express your anger toward me in the comments, the mods are instructed to give you even more leeway as usually.
407 Comments on Gotcha!
But you did kinda partly fool me. Not hard to do though.
Holding his latest hat for the collection.
He has gone mad....
He needs a vacation here.
;)
but really, that wasnt funny. not a bit.
It wasnt even an Aprils Fool, so i dont get, where the point is. :rolleyes:
i have seen more mature April Fools, Wiz, really.;)
Especially regarding this is a massive global Community, and not some underground 10 member flash-based Forum!:p
I didnt find it amusing, not for the fact it turned out to be a joke but that you would pull that joke in the first place.
I thought that it was a joke but then i also thought can one person really be that egocentric and really have that many people grovelling and crying over them? I thought you where too nice to pull a stunt like this! Sadly i am mistaken! I really thought give it time see what happens, if he stays or goes see if it is a joke or not.
I wouldn't have blamed you if you did leave a few other actually thought that too.
Meh, i think I'll get over it in a few days. At least the site isn't being bought and changed by a company, that would have sucked.
EDIT: BTW he never left in the first place, i dont get why people are saying its great your back.
But seriously, fuck a you w1zzzzzzzzzzzzz!!!
:p
Nice job W1z, very very nice.
At least your reaction was less violent compared to Kants:laugh:
:toast:
Especially when somebody posted about being up for sale........ They looked it up. Where???? I had my suspicions.... I'm a detective at heart. I swear I didn't buy it for a minute yet somehow I read every single post. :D
May you shart the next time you fart.......
:laugh:
But it was said that the new people knew what they were doing and nothing would change in the near future.
I wished W1zz well, and just waited to see what the change would be like.
I must admit I was quite apprehesive about what might change, but things change.
I just figured that if the new owners ruined TPU, I would move on. It would be disheartening and a loss for the tech world, but not a life changing event.
Life is more than a website community, even though I am quite fond of this one.
If this prank devistated you, or caused you to be so pissed off you can't see the humor in it, you may want to take a long hard look on what matters in your life.
Anyways, it was a great opportunity for TPUers to come out and tell you that your reviews, website and software are high quality and professional. I love the detailed reviews, and they greatly help as far as decision making goes, without the marketing and fanboi garbage.
I'll be staying at TPU for a long time because of how great it and its members/mods are. Thanks for creating TPU, W1zzard! :cool::toast:
But, don't ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever..............ever do that shit again:o:o:o
w1zpeople going to CES :pAnd i'm GLAD AS HELL YOUR STAYING :D
well done
(i liked the CUDA emulator more)