I think the practical reason for the difference between NA and EU is that it's The Way Things Are Done for both regions, and the exact events that led to things being that way were years before I joined this forum. Also NA has UGC for all the poors so making direct comparisons of ETF2L to RGL isn't right.

How would you implement a prizepool in EU? I think fewer people would quit than you say even if paid divs were the only options. There may or may not be room for a concurrent free league, but despite the amount of shit that gets talked about it, NA has sustained a free league in UGC this whole time, so I doubt that would be an issue. ETF2L itself could get in on running both types or not, but at the end of the day, all an EU prizepool means is that the EU community needs someone(s) it trusts enough to handle money to step up and distribute winnings.

If running two leagues really isn't viable for whatever reason, we could try to get crazy. What if you ran an entry fee bracket parallel to the normal free one? During the season you can simply run everything normally with all teams, and then I see a couple of routes for playoffs. I think the best is again to just run playoffs as normal, but only teams that paid in are eligible for payouts. So for example, if at the end of grand finals you had:
#1 Team 1 (free)
#2 Team 2 (paid)
#3 Team 3 (paid)
Team 1 would still be able to say they're the best team in EU, but since they didn't pay league fees Team 2 gets the grand prize, Team 3 would get the 2nd place payout, and so on. You could argue that only teams with a chance of winning would pay in, but that's kinda how things already work anyway, except right now there's absolutely no one paying because it isn't an option. You could argue that it makes grand finals less exciting if the prizepool might not actually be on the line, but again, compare to now, where no one gets paid.

As full alternatives, if you want to lock playoffs behind a paywall, or run separate free vs paid playoffs, you could have a secondary point total for paid teams during the regular season that only updates when they play against other teams in the paid bracket. Then you can rank paid teams separately in the postseason. But these have huge drawbacks, like the best teams potentially not technically winning the season because they didn't pay.

I dunno, at this point I'm just throwing ideas at the wall to see what sticks, but the point I'm trying to make is that there are plenty of options to try to implement if anyone really feels passionately about prizepools. My feeling is that there isn't one because the people in charge feel they don't need one, or maybe even that TF2 shouldn't have one, and I wouldn't fault them for either.

Hey, got a question about upgrading my rig as it relates to mining crypto. Something is compelling me to post about it on a tf2 forum, idk how you'll feel about that lol

I have a lot of ancient equipment. Two gtx680s, a 9500gt, an array of cpus a decade or more ancient than the i5-4690k I just replaced with an i7. Miscellaneous Other Things. Unused tablet and smartphone. A lot of this stuff has contributed to me playing TF2, i mean im pretty sure that 9500gt let me play the orange box for the first time ever back in 2010. But now that I've got an upgraded rig and an additional pile of mostly-functional equipment, I'd like to try to put it to use. Mining.

Everything I've come across online says "don't do this, your equipment is basically fossilized, dont be an idiot." Is there any other wisdom to be had?

My current specs are:
MSI Z97 Gaming 7 Motherboard
Intel Core i7-4790K
Samsung 870 Evo 2 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive
XFX Radeon RX 6700 XT 12 GB Speedster QICK 319
1x GTX 680

I've been able to get some mining done with the 6700, but the 680 refuses to cooperate no matter which coin or miner I try to use. Vertcoin OCM got it loading something at least, but I couldn't figure out where it was mining to lmao. I thought if I got a second rig going with just my NVIDIA cards, less scammy miners might work better.

I can list out all my spare parts in more detail (like I could maybe try to find specs on the pre-2000s Compaq pc cases I'm planning on using) but I figure the most relevant are the i5-4690k, the two 680s, the 9500gt, and a budget of $500-$1000 to hopefully pack all that together into a complete mining rig. Would I need to buy a new CPU+mobo to run all 3 cards in SLI, or can the 9500 even run on the same machine as the 680s at all? Something like this or instead like this?

what an absolutely touching and thematically appropriate tribute to their grandfather

give me all your money

daniel, dinner is ready, please stop screaming bad spanish at the computer and come eat with your family

shitting on tf2 nerds on a tf2 nerd forum? bold move

the best part about saying "soon" is that it could happen in a day or a year and youd still be right

ah yes i too love shitting on unpaid volunteers in completely unrelated threads

ive never seen anyone rage so hard in response to such innocuous jokes

finds competitive tf2 forum
takes 10 sentences to completely revolutionize medic meta
leaves immediately
sigma af

oh shit and now this forum is toxic for not being a pub centric space, what a incredible specimen

turn your kb a full 90 degrees so that the spacebar is above ctrl and it makes a tiny tiny bit more sense

that pic is giving me thumb cramps just looking at it

https://imgur.com/CynyD2n
and i made a kickass blueberry cobbler too but i forgot to take a picture of it

My E Peen Is Biggr Than Yours

tf2 in 2038 will be

If someone is going to insist on ignoring 3 pages of reasoned discussion to repeat "imo ur just wrong we just have philosophical differences haha" like we're talking about the existence of god, they're fucking idiots and it's gotten to a point where it's just catharsis to call them out. Oh also you can eat shit for putting nazi words in my mouth, and choke on it if you did it because I use a hebrew name.

lmao I don't think you or Bill have any idea why Lou left, you're just randomly bringing up a former TFTV staff member and assigning your own imaginary motivations to him to try to win an argument. You're disgusting.

hilariously, verifiably false

actually sounds like a healthy number of producers to have all at once, I'm pretty sure we didn't have that many regularly on hand when I was doing it.

There are some reasonable arguments that the rule itself might be too draconian, and there's a case to be made for revising them and retroactively reducing the punishments for everyone affected by it. But it's insane that there are multiple people actually arguing exceptions should be made for The Admin's Favorites. I hope these people never get any kind of administrative power.