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.
Add your own comment

407 Comments on Gotcha!

#126
MarcusTaz
Dono what was worse this or the physx joke... Bla I knew it was all a hoax... Please leaving over drama, pffff :roll:
Posted on Reply
#128
Black Panther
Whaaaaaaaaaa??????????

You made me cry twice! first out of sadness and then out of happiness! I believed it was an april fools but as time went by and 2nd april came I lost hope.....

Awww I love you W1zzard!


This was EPIC! Lol I think you might get into the Guinness Book of records for making the one single april fools joke which the largest number of people believed! It's not just the TPU members, doing a google on "W1zzard leaving Techpowerup" brings up all the major tech forums having a thread dedicated to the topic!
Posted on Reply
#130
chaotic_uk
how can it be april fools when it was posted in march ?
Posted on Reply
#131
alwayssts
Well, were you fooled through April 1st?

Alright then. :)
Posted on Reply
#132
chaotic_uk
alwaysstsWell, were you fooled through April 1st?

Alright then. :)
nope as i did not believe it for one second so the joke was on wiz as it was posted early , i cannot believe you lot fell for it tbh
Posted on Reply
#133
(FIH) The Don
if i see you one day i WILL :nutkick: you! :wtf: you are one sick sob:eek:
Posted on Reply
#134
Wrigleyvillain
PTFO or GTFO
Solaris17o its far more than 4
Yeah I wasn't surprised to see it show up on XS (the two sites have a good relationship; W1z posts there regularly) but all the others in that Google shot--that's awesome. Though not as surprising if you really think about it given his software and reviews.
Posted on Reply
#135
SK-1

Trolled everyone he did!
Posted on Reply
#136
(FIH) The Don
maybe all this will make you realize that you DO NOT leave us:D
Posted on Reply
#137
TVman
The thing that terrifies me the most is that someone might hate me as much as I loathe you
Posted on Reply
#138
LittleLizard
YOU BLITHERING SON OF A "#$%. Now, being serious, FIU, glad you dont leave.

EDIT: thats probably the best april fools you could have ever done, every single member believed it.
Posted on Reply
#139
morphy
I rarely post much but TPU is one of maybe only 3 sites I can depend on regularly for news and quality reviews and a big part of that is w1zzard's work here.
Even tho he didn't really leave let me just say "Welcome Back!!" :toast:
Posted on Reply
#140
Darksaber
Senior Editor & Case Reviewer
LOL I just LOLed when I read the news bit that W1z is leaving ^^.

I was itching to write something in that thread, something along the lines "Great! Finally I get to take over TPU", but I thought that would have been too much ^^.

I loved the petition btw, but come on guys? a limit of 500 which was not even reached?... ehehe

Happy April Foolz!
Posted on Reply
#141
kitfit1
First post here.

Very glad it was an April fools joke W1zzard.

I have got to ask the question though, because it's been bugging me for ages, are you the same Wizzard that used to post at "DFI Street" when it was around ?
Posted on Reply
#142
dr emulator (madmax)
well it was the best mind f yet
and has got you more publicity than ever :respect::D
Posted on Reply
#143
Black Panther
I suspected this was a joke at first, I posted the reasons why on GN...
Black PantherWhat gets me really is not the fact that he's selling it, but that he said he was leaving.

Selling alone doesn't mean leaving. It's not as if any new owners of TPU would be banning him...
Black PantherW1zzard does joke. A couple of weeks ago he created a thread in the Nvidia section of TPU entitled something like "omg look what I'm installing" and after 5 pages of tension building up he made us laugh at it being a joke. And it wasn't April 1st yet.

I think if he was serious about it he'd just have made the announcement and locked the thread.

Anyway, I'm still hoping... that W1zz is pulling it and the rest of the mods are in cahoots with him(wh)
Black PantherI won't give up hope - Thread title doesn't convince me... too short, smells fishy, with the ! at the end and all.

Also W1zz gave concrete answers to various allegations, like this, this and this one.

But never once did he answer a post where it was asked whether it was an April Fools joke, by declaring that it was not.
But then as more time passed I started believing it.

Heck I even started a thread in the maltese tech forum...

Which reminds me.... I got some updating to do.... :o
Posted on Reply
#144
Sasqui
DarksaberLOL I just LOLed when I read the news bit that W1z is leaving ^^.

I was itching to write something in that thread, something along the lines "Great! Finally I get to take over TPU", but I thought that would have been too much ^^.

I loved the petition btw, but come on guys? a limit of 500 which was not even reached?... ehehe

Happy April Foolz!
I was going to sign the petition but thought that would be futile, so I just posted my pleas.
Posted on Reply
#146
facepunch
:wtf: this is epic :roll::roll: good one :respect:
Posted on Reply
#147
W1zzard
kitfit1First post here.

Very glad it was an April fools joke W1zzard.

I have got to ask the question though, because it's been bugging me for ages, are you the same Wizzard that used to post at "DFI Street" when it was around ?
i might have one or two posts there, but not more. so it was probably not me
Posted on Reply
#148
cauby
ban me if you will but...

FUCK YOU W1ZZARD!

Almost thought this site was over...at least now we know you're not affected by drama!
Posted on Reply
#149
lism
I take everything back that i said mentioning sucking your #### :D

I knew it had something todo with april! Welcome back Wizzard, now make me some reviews!
Posted on Reply
#150
crazy pyro
Glad to know you're staying W1zzard, you're going to have to think of something to top it next year though!
Posted on Reply
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