This thread feels like a never ending book to me.

Not to derail this thread too much, but I have no idea what you're talking about Gyg. The admins gave you the forfeit win when you messaged them on steam directly after we all left the server asking for it. You do realize Boink was streaming a 2fort pub and everyone could hear you saying you wanted to forfeit us, right? You guys couldn't play any other day, that's why it came down to a coin flip, why would we dodge you and allow it to go to a coin flip when we were a much better team? lol.

The Fully Charged when he got called out for allowing the quick-fix, then banning it immediately after the season was done.

shh... invite illuminati

I'm looking forward to a great season of invite, I guess i'll be bored until we play Mixup this season. Competition sucks for the top now that watch this is gone, at least the lower 6 remaining teams are closer together I guess.

Honestly when I started, I idolized the invite players at the time. Imagine how you felt starting off in Open and seeing Inviters play. Couple that with the fact that back in the gotfrag days there was limited interaction with the inviters, I didn't really want to say no to them. Eventually, I grew some balls and decided to enforce the rules that were set in the book. I think the structure is important.

I would call quickfix-gate more of a beginner's mistake. There was never a rule or precedent set forth for weapons that were updated. In fact, when crossbow was released, I instantly allowed it. At this point, I think I chose wrong for quickfix and understand what I needed to do better.

this thread was juicy but it just kind of made me sad instead of giddy.

well after reading this thread i realised how great wildcards are in etf2l

and mercs

Unfortunately due to a necessary delay when the "story" broke, followed by prior commitments and real-world obligations, I have yet to begin my article on this where I had hoped to consolidate all of the available information, outline the situation, and look at potential courses of action/why courses of action were taken.

I made a commitment to write it and I still want to, but my question to you all is whether or not that is something you want to read. It will likely kill a day+ trying to organize and produce something that does justice to the whole scenario

Not to derail this thread but did you even read what I wrote?

Why would we message the admins for a ffw, when we could have just ffw'd you in the server 15 minutes prior?

Incase you forgot, the admins flipped the coin immediately after the match, giving you the win. NOT AT THE DEADLINE TO PLAY THE MATCH. This was stupid on their part because since you had the win why would you want to play us? aka that's why you dodged us.

http://play.esea.net/index.php?s=stats&d=match&id=2918743
http://play.esea.net/index.php?s=stats&d=match&id=2931788
http://play.esea.net/index.php?s=stats&d=match&id=3085087

?

the glory days of TF2 are longggg goneeeee

While you can spend all day hunting down specific examples to make us look like hypocrites, you can probably find much better. Please do not use matches that were delayed by two invite teams going to Europe for i46 as your big "gotcha."

I don't see how you can be mad at the admins if you fail to get your payments in weeks after registration is closed. And refusing to communicate and being difficult with the admins is defenitly going to make the situation better q_q. I dont really know all the ins and outs of this but from what ive read it seems the Admins might have been more lenient if u cooperated with them.

I can see how people can be mad at a league that started basically a month after the promised date, and then afterwards failed to repair their client, the use of which they mandate.

http://play.esea.net/index.php?s=stats&d=match&id=2908491
http://play.esea.net/index.php?s=stats&d=match&id=2978591
http://play.esea.net/index.php?s=stats&d=match&id=2922586 (played the week before it was even suppose to be played)

I think it's important to understand both sides of something before appropriating blame, and I think the last page of posts has accomplished that task.

I don't think anyone (Kalkin included) would disagree with the assessment that ESEA has had some major problems in the past and that we are little more than a small business venture for them. They are not in the business of political correctness and they're not in the business of going above and beyond what their business model projects--they may even go under that model if you consider the fact that their own client issues and various other things result in end-users paying for extra months of premium at times.

ESEA is not the best league we could possibly have. You know it, I know it, and ESEA knows it. They are the most established league available and that creates a sort of monopoly for NA TF2. ESEA is not particularly pressured to give us a better product because there is nobody else offering us a better product with whom ESEA should compete.

Many people say, "Boycott ESEA!"

Maybe that would help us in the long run, but it would likely kill high-level TF2 for quite some time in the process. Most of the upper invite players keep playing because they enjoy hanging out with the others at LAN. If ESEA drops TF2 or if TF2 drops ESEA, there would need to be a seasonal LAN offered by whichever league takes ESEA's place. If there were no LAN, many of the upper level players would quit playing.

ESEA is flawed. We know this. We know that ESEA does not jump through hoops to please us or to rectify issues. It is far from a perfect system, but it is a [usually] functional system.

I have seen both sides of the story. I understand what happened.

ESEA receives hundreds of tickets regarding E-checks. Perhaps they should have an automated reply to these types of tickets stating that they must wait x number of days before anything can be done with their e-check. Maybe if there are hundreds of tickets per season regarding e-checks, ESEA should work with PayPal to automatically decline e-checks. Maybe someone other than Craig should handle cancellations or maybe there should be a cancellation form on the website that, when filled out, triggers an automated cancellation.

I don't have the perfect solution for this problem, but after this many seasons, ESEA should. Who knows, maybe a perfect solution isn't possible with PayPal.

I want to blame ESEA. I really would prefer to pass the blame off to the company who took 4+ days to respond to a ticket that should have had some type of automated response.

The problem is, I don't think this is ESEA's fault at all. I like everyone on 'watch this'. They're fun to PUG with, and all of those I've met have been great in person. Unfortunately, at some point, you just have to sit back, admit you screwed up, and take the blame for your own mistakes. If your mistake means that you have to pay a second time and hope to get a refund or risk not being paid up in time, that is ultimately your responsibility. If you withhold your utilities payment for too long, then send a check at the last second, is the water company in the wrong for shutting you off while they are waiting to receive your past-due payment?

It ultimately boils down to this:

1. ESEA has always had a system in place where your team's spot is reserved when you have enough players paid by the end of registration. I'm not sure why teams have been slipping through this crack--maybe it's just to keep more teams in the league--but this is reason #1 why players should have been paid on time.

2. Registration opened on Aug. 13th and the first week of matches was scheduled to begin on Sep. 22nd initially. Registration was eventually extended until Sep. 30th, meaning there were 62 days between when registration opened and the first match week.

3. There is a warning on ESEA's payment page about e-checks. There is a warning in ESEA's FAQ about e-checks. ESEA's FAQ explicitly details how you can be sure you are not paying via e-check. To anyone who is concerned about their payment going through in time, this means you should be extremely careful and ensure that you are not paying by e-check.

The payments that did not go through were not submitted until at least 10 days past the end of registration. The people submitting those payments did not ensure that they were submitting instant payments rather than e-checks. An e-check is known to take upwards of 5 business days to clear, but the e-checks in question were submitted less than 5 days prior to the first match.

The TF2 community has been revered again and again for its generosity. If the reason for the delay was a lack of available funds that couldn't be resolved in the 50+ days that passed after registration opened, I have no doubt that someone would have loaned or given the money necessary to cover the unpaid players.

I'll say it again. I really want to blame ESEA, but this is not their fault in any way.

can i infer by knowing the person who got hired

This one was the week before i46, good effort though

Our voice is clear: we will continue being held hostage to the league by the lan dreams of 24.

Its season 15 and people are still paying late, showing up late, forfeiting because a backup want prepared... This kind of stuff should happen in the early stages of structure... Not 3 years later. Shitty situation all around and I hope the rest of watch this continues, but other wise let's cheer on some of the new guys as the lan race got a lot more interesting

It's nice to at least have some info around the situation and get the feelings out there. Doesn't it feel good to talk about your feelings?

The only thing I will say is this: Situations like this(forced forfeits/judgement calls) keep happening season after season. In lower divisions, I get it. Matches need to be played by Sunday so schedules can be released. In invite, you know from day 1 your entire schedule for the season, and dates/teams are not changed. So why the forced time limits? I think it is in literally everyone's best interest if we just allow exceptions for invite matches. Invite is the league with a LAN race and marquee match ups that fans/spectators want to see played. You see stand-in's all the time in Dota 2 and other eSports. Client automation and whatnot prevents that, I get it. It's a paid league and you're supposed to have other backups paid up, I get that too. But I think if we're going to play in a league that has final decisions regarding Invite matches with LAN implications to be guided by judgement calls, then PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make the decisions that allow the matches to get played.

"But people will take advantage of it."
Maybe, but I really doubt it. In the end maybe it makes more work for the admins and schedulers, but at least we're not paying $70 to get forfeited out of a LAN race because it's the 4th of July and squid wants to play video games.

it was the 3rd of july actually

Please answer this Killing or Kalkin. It makes perfect sense and it's kinda head-scratching that it's not like this in the first place.

here are some ideas http://teamfortress.tv/forum/thread/13263-huh-check-that-out/7#post-190

And if it "won't happen," I believe we were also told that a 9-team Invite "won't happen." Looking at all the Invite divisions... seems like it did.

In my experience teams are simply unwilling to reschedule even for other days within the same week, let alone pushing matches back to weeks later when they have moved on to other maps. I cant say how many times Sunday has been the only day that my team could play matches for one reason or another only to have the other team refuse and opt to forfeit us rather than try to work something out. Lots of people are just douchebags and forfeits have nothing to do with ESEA, only the players involved. Certain cases would certainly warrant some leniency on the 1 week limit though.

Also, if there aren't supposed to be exceptions, why is registration always extended? Why are teams that aren't paid up fully not removed automatically? This isn't even a problem with just TF2; it's a problem with all of ESEA. We all know the extension is coming every single season even when you say it's not. Maybe we'd be able to get seasons started in a timely manner. Then again, ESEA might lose a lot of money from this... Still, something to think about.

cut your freedomless horseshit