The biggest argument comes down to: it's a lot of money for teams that cannot compete at the same level.

I don't pay enough attention to really know if the skill factor is true, and it's not easy to prove, but the point is there. In an ideal world things wouldn't be so expensive (i.e. flying around the world is pretty significant).

MONSTER folded and now their players are scattered between multiple rosters in our league.

eizO- and powah went to Troll's Swarm.
Wings went to First Team. (1st.)
Ole went to the ALLHITZ. (Also known as Koala 6)
Not sure what happened to Tyger and Majesty. I think they retired along with the rest of the MONSTER back-ups.

C U @

Would donate to a fundraiser for players coming from basically anywhere outside of Europe unless they're significantly worse than the european teams to a degree that they can't even compete. This community is generous, if there are people who are willing to go if they're funded I don't see the point in not having a fundraiser. The worst that can happen is it doesn't meet the goal and they don't get to go anyway.

r

LFT!

Yeah, I'd donate again to see some yanks compete at i55.

I think now that matchmaking is confirmed we should work towards making i55 as big as ever. Generating hype and putting out a great lan will not only motivate valve to work on matchmaking but keep the hype and interest so the competitive community can snowball as much as possible from ingame matchmaking.

We're now more alive than ever, let's make this opportunity count!

A new dawn on the horizons of TF

If i55 gets to a few thousand 15,000 viewers I would be so fucking happy

6-10k earlier years, quite a bit more than a few :D

I'd throw money at yanks to get rolled in semis, let's do this?

if valve implements the stream list then i55 will get a shit ton of views

where my epsilon boys at

do it up plz

you're such a whore but I love you. Please get the boys back together.

Cross-post from ozfortress, in a thread talking about us attending i55 being referenced on euro fully charged. This may be an unpopular opinion...

Yea i55 definitely isn't happening. It's just totally impractical [for us].

I honestly think that the scene shouldn't push for i55 to be a big international event. There seems to be some sentiment that they have to continue and that if there isn't an NA team at i55 then the game is rip. Right now I think the international competitive scene is at an all time low, there are far fewer notable teams in NA and Europe and all of the scenes are stagnating to similar extents as our own. If there is a big push for i55 its not going to suddenly inject a bunch of energy into the scene, not when its already May and it would happen in August. It's asking too much of the community, the organisers and players to prepare for an event on that scale with the expected hype of i46/49/52. Everyone wants to get it going again because of mm and the stream list etc, feeling like it will breathe some life into the comp scene... but is it really going to be ready and effective by May?

If we're talking about banking on mm and valve cooperation to bolster support for TF2, then I honestly believe its in the best interest to forego i55 entirely and instead focus on a bigger and better event next year. Get in early and get the scenes preparing for a huge event to coincide with everything that Valve is or isn't planning. Start building hype for an event that will actually display the best that tf2 has to offer, rather than just stringing together something that will be "good enough" and lacking the presence of major teams that are well prepared and playing their best. I think that taking that approach will only do the scene more harm, as a lackluster event will deter players/spectators/donators/organisers from committing to a bigger event in the future should everything come together the way they hope.

This is all obviously hypothetical. But if there were a big event on the horizon, with some legitimate support, good competition, and a bunch of hype... I think we'd want an Australian team there, and I'd want it to be the best it possibly could be.

I agree with most of what Aporia said but for different reasons.
i55 is unfortunately timed with a low point in the scene as a whole with European rosters being new as well as ESEA dropping LAN causing a few teams to not play this season. If we can get a big international LAN going then great but there's no chance it will be as competitive as i52 barring the i52 finals. After i46 Epsilon needed the full year to practice for i49, after i49 the new Epsilon and Froyotech needed a year to be ready for i52. i55 is now a season away for each scene and Froyotech is still going strong with 2 years together but Europe will basically have a mix team with a only a season's practice under its belt. I don't see this being the LAN everyone thinks it can be because there just isn't enough time to prepare.
Things will start to look up with a stream list and matchmaking on the horizon so if we start now, i58 could be the LAN of everyone's dreams.

I both agree and disagree with you, aporia. Yes, it would be a good idea to save up, persay, for a larger tournament that can showcase everything about TF2; but in reality if we let i55 slide and it becomes a sub-par tournament, then anyone looking to i55 for a sample of TF2 might lose interest before we could show them what it really could be. Say someone sees a bad tournament at i55. They lose interest in TF2 and when news of a big tournament comes through, they will pass it by, saying "oh, I saw TF2 at i55 and it didn't look super fun, I don't think I'll watch this one." I think that we should use i55 as an appetizer and show people some quality TF2, but not advertise it as the big tournament it would have been. Save the hype for a tournament next year at which we can put all of our resources into a great international tourney.

But why should the fact that it's not as incredibly competitive as the previous years (and that's completely debatable - kaidus and zebbosai were totally sure that with enough work they could compete with the top of the NA scene) mean that it hurts the scene? It doesn't make sense - if people are willing to put in the effort, and they are, and the money isn't a problem, which (for once) it actually isn't due to ESEA, then WHY NOT?! It's gonna be a fantastic event, with the possibility of a few NA teams competing against some new EU teams - of which all of the top three are interested in going to i55!

It's going to be a mashup of some brilliant talent, whether or not the Australians attend. BESIDES all of this, it cannot hurt the scene. It's not like multiplay look at how good the teams are anyway, they only look at signups and people watching. Why wouldn't people turn up and watch to see more people than ever at the top of their respective scenes duke it out in an intercontinental event?!

It's only a positive thing, and it's going to be great - even if it isn't as competitive and nail-biting as i52. Dropping the ball now can only hurt the scene, it's not like there's money now that could be saved up for another event in 16 months time or whatever, or people will get burnt out during i55 and won't put in effort for a HUGE event once MM comes out.

i feel with i55 coming out before matchmaking, it'd be much better to have a bigger i58/equivalent event. Once people have an idea of matchmaking then they can see the best of the best from the streams on the main menu! The exposure post matchmaking update will be so much bigger, so if there's a decision to be made between putting effort into i55 or i58 then imo i58 should be our top priority. Obviously if a team feels they can go to both i55 and i58 then go right ahead, but if you can only do one/have to fundraise, maybe waiting for the next one would be best

But at no point have people had to decide between i55 and another event after mm comes out. There's no issue of splitting money or effort or players. It wouldn't even make sense because in all likelihood none of the teams will be the same!

(except maybe froyo you long-lived bastards)

Also, yeah, froyotech might be the best team in the world by quite a margin at the moment, but other top NA teams I believe would have close games and compete well against the top 3 Euro teams right now. I mean there's no way a team with showstopper is better than every team in Europe right?

Showstopper is good tho

I mean sideshow mentioned in fully charged that there were 3 American teams that expressed interest in going to i55, and one of them (not froyo) was willing to pay their own way over

we already allow euros win 2 i-series lans every year, let's not make it another

I don't believe that you have to choose. I'm not even specifically talking about i58 or an iseries event as being this hypothetical "big thing". It's kind of pointless to even consider what something like that would look like, there are just too many questions which can't be answered effectively by speculation.

I'm not trying to suggest that you shouldn't try and make i55 a successful event, or that players from EU or NA shouldn't attend. What I am saying though is that I think its unrealistic to expect i55 to be an enormous hype train for competitive tf2. I think that if that is the end game here, and that if there is legitimate drive to support and bolster competitive tf2 then we need to start looking forward now, rather than rely on i55 to effectively achieve any of those goals. At i49 and i52 the next event was always a "maybe". Nobody knew if the scene would survive another year, or if there would be enough support for another intercontinental LAN. Both of those events involved massive initiatives to get off the ground, whether that be fundraising or just personal sacrifices and commitments, and there was a lot more drive in the scene (not just from the players!) to prove itself and display itself as best as it possibly could.

Again, I'm not trying to say that i55 can't involve many of these things. But an event that was confirmed only 3 weeks ago, and is occurring in a little over 3 months? No matter how much preparation or time players/production staff etc are willing to commit to it, I don't know whether it could possibly compare. Maybe I'm totally wrong and its the best international event so far, or maybe like you say, it simply doesn't matter. What does matter is where we want to go moving forward as a scene.

I think that the uncertainty of whether theres going to be another big event every year is causing more damage to the scene's future than just about anything else. There's less interest for players to commit to teams and commit to practice when its a coin toss whether all the work will result in anything. I believe that many of us continue/d to play for the love of the game, but without the prospect of international competition and those few rare games of "real" tf2 its increasingly more difficult to commit time to teams and to the game. When an event is announced and scenes scramble to fill teams and practice frantically in the few months of certainty* (for those lucky enough not to have to fundraise or coordinate huge amounts of travel [not saying this effects practice, just that its more certain]) leading up to the event, the level of competition obviously suffers compared to what we could see if that certainty could be extended for longer periods of time. Obviously there are external factors which influence whether or not an event goes ahead, but there are none which inhibit players or the community as a whole from committing to striving towards another event. I think that if we are to believe that a stream list and MM is going to make a difference, and that valve is willing to cooperate and potentially work towards better things for tf2, then that kind of commitment is going to be needed a lot sooner than 3 months before another event. It demonstrates a faith in the game and the scene that I don't feel has been present for i55, and I believe that its the only way that we're going to see another event on the scale of i52 or bigger - where we get top teams that are well prepared from all over the world together to compete.

I didn't talk about much of this in my original post because it wasn't really relevant to where I posted it on ozfortress. I think that these factors are the biggest detractors from players returning to or continuing to play tf2 going forward, and that if we want to keep people interested in tf2 then we need to display some of that interest ourselves.

edit: I'm probably rambling a bit but its late so please forgive :~)

I don't think any of this needs the best teams in the world. It just needs good, solid, close games for an event. We're a community about our spirit. The start of long-running prize TF2 events at insomnia started from a hyped up i37 final of shit div 3/4 teams. We're the only people that really know how good the players are or aren't, but seriously, just grab a beer and enjoy an event for an event.

I need to have this discussion with Multiplay after i55, but seriously don't start putting i58 on a pedestal as it's waaaay to early. The growing uncertainty is due to the lack of commercial viability which isn't really improving. i55 needs to be strong to have that chance, and if it isn't then it only proves what's probably on their minds. They love our community, but there's a point where upper management will rule based entirely on numbers - it's not just what it costs them for our tournament, it's also what else they could have put in its place. Making our own event is a hell of a drain on time, money, and resource. Feels like a lot more effort if teams turn around and can't commit.

People who don't follow our scene have probably heard of the lengendary iEvents - and then suddenly we're lacklustre at our flagship event? Ah, old game, must be on the way out finally. If I were looking in from the outside: you've lost ESEA, and if the general community can't support the expected event (i55) then you're not in a bargaining position to really get in anywhere else. That's what concerns me. i55 is happening whether we're in full force or not at this point, so it's probably best not to smear a downwards trend on it. We're only speculating what MM and stream lists may or may not bring, so we still need to keep up our own self motivation to achieve. As long as the will is present then we should grab it with both hands, as Valve's help is help, not an instant fix.

I understand the sentiment from iM due to the impracticalities, and I wasn't expecting your return. Keen yanks though? I'll take 'em.

I don't get what all this bickering about froyo is anymore, the matches that they played at lan with 20b and elevate were both pretty close(despite 20b losing grape). Its only likely for those matches to get closer playing Europe teams, and we can't say that froyo will completely demolish euro teams because we don't know how they will match up to these teams. On top of this lets face it currently Europe teams scrim and practice a lot more than NA and look how far practice got elevate in the last lan. Last i52 wasn't even that big of a steam roll for them, there matches against most euro teams were pretty close except that upsetting grand final.

Give froyo a run for there money no matter how stacked or good they may be.