Please let leader log-in be remembered so I don't have to dig up the account info every time.

im just confused, how would ugc transform into a paying league within the next 3 months? like a legit league that has healthy competition? everyones shitting on esea and yeah, cool, we've read this for thr 5th or 6th time now of someone re-doing a league, creating one, etc. But like enigma said, who the hell would stop their life to work on a league that would have a slim chance of working? sure maybe some open, im, main, maybe even invite might hop over, but it still doesnt solve anything. personally lan to me is meeting people you play against and making friends while having a competitive enviroment, if there wasnt a lan, im positive a good amount of the top of invite would quit or just switch classes and play with their friends in open, im, etc.
sorry for the long post, its just kinda naive how people can say they want all these changes, but want others to do it for them.

im ok with this

LET THEM QUIT. THE COMMUNITY SHOULD STOP SUBSIDIZING (through donations, league fees, and premium) 12-24 PLAYERS GETTING A TRIP TO GO HANG OUT WITH THEIR FRIENDS.

if a new league is set up somehow without lan, it has to at least be pay to play to stay competitive and taken seriously, and some form of stats integration. everyone loves their stats.

I'm sorry, but I cannot believe that people are putting 10-20 hours a week playing a game with almost zero money all for going to a free vacation to Dallas of all places. And if that didn't exist, people wouldn't play the game anymore. Yes, there could be a couple but I don't think it's a "good amount of people"

Even if this is the case, I'm sorry that I have to say this, but then it may be for the better. Those people do not have the communities best interest at heart, they are only playing to get a free vacation. Sooner or later, the community will not have the money, or be unwilling to donate to get people to Dallas 3x a year. And under that logic, those people would quit.

Damn, wasted so much time thinking of a nice way to put it, I got beat to the punch

yea being stuck playing 10 hours of tf2 in a room full of CS players yelling at each other is me having "fun" with my friends

A lot of the things that made esea a better league in the past have better community made versions now. Lan is a big deal. When esea was going to drop tf2 the first time the invite players had their panties in a knot. Doesn't need to be 3 or 4 a year could be just one.

Regardless of anything else, I know that this is my last season of esea 100%. Hopefully UGC steps up in a big way. Their 6s admins are good people and I trust them with a paid league a hell of a lot more than esea.

The issues I see and a possible solution for them:

Cheaters: Toughest issue IMO. The client never catches jack shit anyway so basically anything is an upgrade. Perhaps a UGC AC team including community members who are fairly trusted and knowledgeable. Obviously I don't know who is willing, but people like Marxist, Enigma, b4nny, etc. Of these I would guess that only Marxist (if even he) would be interested. The point is that the AC team would be composed of respected and high level community members.

Payments: Covered this a bit in my topic paragraph, but I have always been a fan of the flat payment structure. This would mean all divs cost the same. If you consider that we already pay between $25 and $40 for fuck all besides an organizational system to play matches (esea pugs rare, garbage AC, LAN only for invite, almost everyone has their own servers which they prefer).

Divs: I really like Marxist's idea of porting over the current divs as well as the methods for progressing. As far as league organization goes, UGC already manages hundreds of teams across 8(?) divs.

Website: I think this is a kind of meet in the middle scenario. UGC probably wants a strong commitment of players before they commit to a real professional website remaking. I for one can deal with it for a season if they hire (i.e. pay money to them) someone to do a real project (enigma?).

EDIT: On the sub-issue of leader login. Why not integrate it into the normal login for ugc? This would entail managing the team(s) you lead directly from your profile screen in the same way players can leave or join teams from their profile page.

Just some thoughts, I welcome responses and critiques. :)

It blows my mind how you can say free vacations as I'm 100% sure none of the lan teams are going to ask for donations. Hell, mixup have gone to lan how many times without asking? But then again donations are called donations for a reason, you don't donate to the red cross because they force you too. And you say communities best interest, if people didn't care about tf2, they wouldn't stream scrims, people wouldn't cast matches, you're basically saying lan is a free vacation for enigma, who puts in a ton of work for this site?? How about plat who streams pretty consistently his scrims? Harbleu too, they all pay for their own lan trips yet you assume they get free trips to lan because of donations they never even have done before? Okay dude I'm not saying they would quit for sure if there was no lan because I'm not them, but wow, the people who complain about this stuff are the people who probably have never donated to anything related and want to just jump on the band wagon. My last reply to this stupid shit, cya @ lan Andrei baby

Well the main thing that it would take to convince any of the top tier players is that they would receive equivalent or additional prestige and attention as they do in ESEA, because any start up would, in the near term, be unable to compensate them monetarily the way ESEA currently does.

even without getting donations, esea lan is still subsidized via the premium and league fees of everyone in open, im, and main.

I don't think people in this thread understand the purpose of an anti-cheat client. It's not to catch cheaters, it's to deter them. If players are aware that there is no safeguard set in place to prevent cheating there will be many more of them.

Not saying I agree or disagree with anything else in this thread, but not having an anti cheat is a significant downside when considering a league as a serious competitive scene.

I don't know where everyone is getting the idea that the worst part of losing LAN will be any significant part of invite quitting.

If you're playing invite to play with your friends, the loss of LAN isn't stopping you.
If you're playing invite to be the best team in invite, the loss of LAN isn't stopping you.
If you're playing invite to go to LAN, you're probably after some combination of the two motivating factors above. Which aren't stopped by the loss of LAN.

The only thing a team like that loses without LAN is an opportunity to hang out with other TF2 players at a big event. Which you're going to lose anyway if you quit playing TF2.

Of course I can't speak for anyone in invite, but these seem like the biggest and most obvious reasons anyone already there continues to play it. Maybe there's the fame and e-sports glory of making LAN (as much glory as TF2 has to offer anyway), but how many people who choose this game honestly have that as their main source of motivation?

[United States] [ESEA Black Account] lpkane
Referenced post #223 by Magus^
I don't understand though, someone who's played ESEA for 10+ seasons including in invite gets banned because he criticizes an admin, but the "anti-cheat" client lets players with VAC bans on account continue playing?

I'm just extremely confused.
#223 this is not new

I'm confused as to which part isn't new: The anti-cheat client not working, or the admin abuse.

honestly, I wanted to go into esea the past 2 seasons but didn't have time because stuff popped up, but now im feeling lucky because I DONT EVEN WATCH LAN. ITS BORING AS FUCK. thank god i didnt waste my money.

mixup has historically been the only team to not ask for donations because they're the only team that isn't a bunch of college students or kids living in their mom's basement

It's because we went through this once before, esea was going to drop tf2 and invite players had a fit about lans.

Not to mention money.

Lots of it.

LPKane has great movement, eXcellent dodges.

There are cheaters, but they're all french so you NA players dont get to see them.l

That's to be expected. Obviously no one wants to lose LAN, and if complaining will convince everyone to do what's necessary to keep it intact, there's going to be complaining. The threat of invite teams quitting holds a lot of sway in the community's opinion given how convinced everyone is that it's a likely outcome.

In my post, I tried to emulate the thought process behind quitting TF2 because there was no LAN, and how counterproductive it would be given (what are presumably) the reasons you started playing invite in the first place. How many invite players who complained about the absence of LAN back then would have a strong enough reason to actually follow through on their decision to quit? Unless there's something big here that i'm not seeing, i'd wager very few.

Just change your password. It's in your account settings and takes like 20 seconds.

I agree with breloom and conductor.

I have donated somewhere around $300 to lan funds.

Its not the donations that I have a problem with (obviously), its the fact that there is a conflict of interest between the top half of invite and everyone else in esea.

A poorly run/evil/overpriced league with LAN is better (in some players minds) than a well run league with no lan and less prizes. This opinion divide here seems to be PREDOMINANTLY (not exactly, not even close) the same divide between invite and the other divs.

So, has anyone who has played in the new CEVO got any input on their league. I havn't played since the client wished you 'good bye!' on closing.

2:24 PM - St.Patrick NO MORE ESEA!: ok gotta go <3 u bye lead a crusade against esea while i'm gone!
2:24 PM - John Henry Eden: <3 will do

He has spoken

Is it really bad if a few invite players leave the game? I mean, why does it matter if they quit? It's not like they are the only thing making TF2 fun to watch, and it's not as if there skill level is impossible to get to. Is having an ill conceived LAN, and playing for a corrupt organization worth keeping some top players in the game?

its great

paladin is their new anti-cheat, doesn't do anything from what I see. Scheduling is smooth, and everyone has to "check-in" before match time. The system is actually pretty good because the teams can have a bit of back and forth before the match (to discuss server location, or if either team needs a back up.)
Self-reported scores though.

Once again, this kind of thread has already come full circle. Someone speaks up about some aspect of the community being borked, people agree, lots of big posts are made and at the end of the day nothing is done. Let's talk about the reality.

We're not exactly gonna make a dedicated yearly TF2 LAN happen if a majority do decide to drop from ESEA because I swear half of you people hate and shittalk each other for the most inane and old-as-dirt fucking reasons, circlejerks notwithstanding. I can talk and talk about how balls-retarded it is to actually hold a legitimate grudge against someone in this tiny-ass community unless the person in question is a 100% irredeemable vitrolic sleazeball or a mouthbreathing retard with an ego larger than three Junes, but the point I'm trying to make is that unless a large-enough group with time, money, cohesion, and motivation comes along, a new LAN without ESEA would probably not happen. If it did, it would take time.

If the majority do decide to leave ESEA, the most realistic thing I can imagine concerning that majority would be a disapora in which we'll all populate the smaller leagues that remain + ETF2L if their NA division becomes a tangible reality. There's no money in TF2 - it's all us. For the money we put into ESEA, we could do our own thing and probably have a lot more fun doing it, but I guess that's more a pipe dream than anything else.

Life goes on.