Huh.

Incredibly ambitious, is there already framework for your goals we can see?
Managed to miss the steam group link

Skimmed it while playing...in what way does a new league help the issue of a smaller player base? CEVO for example hurt the community more by splitting the player base even wider.

this is what i first thought. judging by the plans detailed in the post, he plans on concentrating a lot of effort into making the league more attractive to newer players. seemingly by holding one-off tournaments that appeal to that sort of demographic. not that the playerbase split isn't going to affect the league, he'd have to put forth some serious efforts in order to compensate for that. the big problem here is that i doubt he has a concrete plan, let alone projections, on how that will all pan out.

Worth giving some time and intrest to imo

hoping division admins aren't a flop, would make it a damn sight nicer than UGC

A big part in making my own league, is having full control over how I promote and market it. These smaller "for fun" competitions are more of a way to attract newer players into Team Fortress 2, and to also separate TFCL from the other leagues out there. The idea is to promote these smaller tournaments, such as Heavy Boxing, in various forms of media. By live casting these tournaments, I'm hoping to create an esport broadcast that players from other competitive games (or non-competitive) can come in and understand, without having to read up any additional rules, or even understand how TF2 itself is played. Heavy Boxing is simple, and straightforward. It's easy to understand, and if broadcasted properly, could be very fun to watch. The goal is to bring new players into TF2, and spark an interest in the competitive world.

Once they're hooked into the wacky world of Team Fortress, they may decide to compete themselves. TFCL will make it very easy for these players to sign up and experience the competitive side of TF2. They'll eventually move their way up to the traditional 6v6 format. So really, I'm just trying to ease the transition, while also promoting TF2 as both an esport game, and as a fun game that anyone can play and enjoy.

So yeah, I can assure you, I definitely do have a plan. Whether or not it works out as intended, is really up to the current TF2 community. Without active players, we can't grow. Growing is the key to our success, but also the key to our plan of bringing TF2 into the light. This would also benefit other leagues, like UGC and ESEA. ESEA especially, since it's already branded as the highest level of competitive TF2. Once a player or team becomes familiar with TF2 competitive, they could move on to ESEA, which provides a premium experience that TFCL doesn't offer.

No plans on having anything to do with EU?
Sure we already have etf2l but even aside from 6s it would be nice to have the odd ultiduo cup or something.

Unfortunately not, no. Launching into Europe isn't something I'm prepared to tackle right now. I'd rather stick with North America, and then expand beyond that only when I know we're in the position to properly manage that. And I just don't see us (or me) being in that position for the foreseeable future.

To be fair we so have tournaments every couple of months or so. My boy stereo has one going right now. Also there is other ultiduo related EU stuff going on right now but I'm not at liberty to go into details at this time. The scene is not dead though either way.

if its free people will try it good luck

What's your maplist going to have? Will it have sunshine, metalworks, reckoner, or even bagel? NA or EU rule set?

#GL HF DONT H8

canadian tf2 league??

What problem are you solving that isn't solved by esea or ugc? This is not a big market and player base dilution is a real concern, especially when we need to keep esea numbers high.

What does your technology stack look like? How are you allocating or controlling servers? Automatic statistics and demos? Stv relays? How are you paying for this stack?

Being a league admin is hard work. Running an entire league is a full time job and even smart people make bad decisions if they aren't experienced (we've had a few tournaments ran like that in the community). The math for league matchups and tie breaking is not hard, but doing it wrong is really prevalent. What admin experience do you have? What does your admin team look like? How much experience do they have? How will you rank teams and decide tie breakers? (You should see my ELO spreadsheets from 4 years of TWL admin)

These are some intro level basic questions that if you can't answer now, you need to before anyone can take your project seriously. I'm not against a new league by default but merely having an idea and throwing some WordPress plugins and rented tragicservers instances into a blender isn't enough.

gl mm

Replacing UGC with this if it's even half decent would be amazing. UGC gets players because it's free but aside from that it's terrible.

• One match a week with terrible scheduling system (if you can't play every wednesday at 9:30 you're basically fucked, also 9:30 is a pretty shitty start time)
  
• Terrible maplist with new maps thrown in for no good reason (koth_forge was played this season)
  
• Awful servers (provided by gameservers.com with prime locations like Miami, Florida. Servers also only support sizzling stats)
  
• One of the worst head admins basically ever.
  
• Big problems with sandbagging/ teams just playing whatever div they want (i,e brand new teams in the highest division)

A service that fixes these issues and caters to new players would be a godsend. Also, the idea being pushed that brand new players should be playing their first season in Open isn't reasonable, very few people can handle going 0-16 and barely coming close to winning rounds all season and losing money to do so.

North America. So, Canada's a part of that, yes.

Competitive Team Fortress 2 isn't a big market, which to me is a problem. I'm hoping that this league, thanks to the heavy focus on marketing and promotion, will help to drive new players over to TF2, and see TF2 as a viable competitive game in the esport market.

Currently, there is no game server network, or automated server distribution. The eventual goal is to have a network of servers hosted by sponsors of the league, or to pay for this network using funds brought in through advertising. We're looking into possibly developing our own server plugin, which I discussed briefly over on the reddit thread. That's not going to be here for a while though, but when it's made, it will have most of the same functionality as the current ESEA plugin. This includes stat tracking, which we'd incorporate into the main site. When the servers are not in use, someone on reddit suggested they become jump, mge, or dm servers. Which I personally think is a wonderful idea. Though for now, we're going to rely on community plugins, like sizzling stats, and logs.tf. Even when we have a basic network of servers for people to use, it will still be powered by ss and logs.tf. They're both amazing plugins.

Personally, I've never actually done anything of this scale before, though I do have experience running (or moderating) various large communities and websites. I also run a small website hosting network, and have customer support experience. That doesn't really qualify me to take on such a large scale project, and I doubt any of my past experiences will even come close to preparing me for this. Honestly, I'm rather fearful that I'm going to mess something up in some very big way, as if I fail with this, I feel like I'm personally failing myself. This game is something that I really love. I've got a deep passion for this community, and for this game as a whole. So if I somehow do something wrong, or if I end up hurting the community, I honestly don't know what I would do. So obviously I want to get everything right, and make a league that everyone ends up liking, and using. I want to make something that new players can come to and have fun with, while also providing something that's able to be considered the best competition around. Something for everyone, if that makes sense at all.

As for my team, there's really just two people actively working on TFCL at this time, with me being the only actual administrator. Right now, TFCL is in alpha, so I haven't prioritized finding quality administrators to help manage the league. Main thing right now is just making sure everything is working as it should, and then going from there.

If you have any further questions, or if I didn't answer a question properly,let me know. I'll answer them to the best of my ability. Though remember, TFCL is only in alpha right now, and not everything is set in stone. So things like specific maps or rulesets, or whitelists, or whatever else relating to individual tournament brackets, is most definitely not finalized yet. Though even then, if you have question about them, I'll answer if I can.

Also, aside from it being run on WordPress, and the occasional third party plugin (like bbpress for forums), pretty much everything is entirely custom developed. So we're not just throwing plugins around and making a league out of it. We're making something from scratch. Which is honestly kind of scary. But hopefully worth it in the end.

Basically that. Sandbagging in UGC is why I called it a meme league in my original post. Don't get me wrong, UGC is a great starting place, but at the same time, it's kinda the only starting place available in North America. I don't like what they're doing, and it feels sort of like they're more or less just running a league with zero passion behind it. Like they're robots or something.
No disrespect for any of their administrators, of course. But I feel like their entire league is just disconnected, even amongst themselves. Some of their admins don't have a clue on what the other admins are doing. Hell, when the OW league first came out, not even the head admin of UGC knew what the scheduling was. I mean, what? How does that even happen?

I'm not sure if TFCL will have multiple matches per week, as like I said, I'm not trying to replace (or clone) ESEA. But the scheduling will definitely be far more lenient. If you can't make a game on Wednesday, schedule one for Thursday instead. If both team leaders agree to it, it's done. That's when you play. This exact system isn't finished yet, but it will definitely be ready in time for the public spring beta. As for whether or not we'll have a server network by then? Well, not sure yet, but we should have at least a dozen or so servers available for teams to reserve. It's really just about scaling it right. Teams will always have the option of playing on their own server, instead of one of ours. Though eventually, I'm hoping to have enough servers to properly handle every match, from every division and tournament. That's the goal, but it will take a while to reach it.

Saam, if you're interested in talking with me in private, I'd love to go over some of the things you'd like to see in TFCL. I'd also love your feedback on some of the more wacky ideas I'm hoping to include in TFCL, but haven't really greenlit them yet due to... well, obvious reasons that you'll find out if we chat. :p

Alpha Tests - Ultiduo & 6v6

Just posted an announcement over on our Steam group that details the two upcoming tests of 2016. Both of these tests will have some kind of prize. It won't be much, but anything is better than nothing, right? :)

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/eTFCL#announcements/detail/633148188985244405

To sum it up, we'll have an Ultiduo test starting this Friday, with signups closing tomorrow. (Nov 15th)
So if you want in, follow the instructions in the announcement.

The second test is happening in December, and it's a full alpha season for the 6v6 format. Talking two months, 16 matches, with two matches per week. Whether or not we'll use the two games per week thing moving forward is still undecided, though it's definitely a very real possibility.

The specific rules haven't been announced yet for the 6v6 season, though expect some pretty standard stuff. Just common sense stuff, like no cheating, no exploits, etc. Map rotation will also be announced in December.
Also there will only be one large division for these tests, so expect a wide range of skill levels to be competing. Oh, and it'll use the universal whitelist.

These tests are mostly to make sure everything's working as it should.

found a team, thanks bois and things

Yeah, sorry about the current site. It's rather unfinished, with all the work going to the dev site right now.
I'll see if I can open up registration on the main site soon, so people can use the forums at the very least.

Oh, and glad to see an early supporter. :D
There will actually be a public beta this upcoming spring. Probably April. All formats will be open at that time, and I hope to have a proper admin staff to help manage the whole thing in time for the beta.

First off good luck to you man, starting a new league from the ground up is rough stuff and props on you for tackling it. You can at least expect help from the community if you post questions in a thread or something. Seeing someone be so honest and willing to answer people directly is really refreshing.

Dont end up like tf2games and I'm sure you'd get a good chunk of the community here to help out in some way.

Please make this a reality I had to play koth_forged a few weeks ago in UGC 6's and it made me want to blow my own head off.

UGC adding forge was such a weird choice in my eyes. Bagel is such a better map on all levels except for possibly aesthetic (some people like how it looks, but it hurts my eyes the same way reckoner does. I really hope this uses the ESEA maplist + koth_bagel

Probably doing 6s, definetly doing ultiduo, lft med

Yeah the last project we were promised had the guy tell us he had 5000 servers around the world and also had an "anti-cheat program" that was bought for $300 to make sure nobody would ruin the game so there's no possible way you could do worse than that

gl, i'm interested in seeing how this turns out

if im not mistaken the face it tourney is next weekend as well, maybe you should just move it back one weekend, cause lots of people wanna focus on that, and running two tourneys at the same time, wont do as well if they were separate.

And had the development team of John, Mark, and Caroline