Where has this been released? I haven't seen any prize pool breakdowns yet.

I would like for their to being a community fund organized to help teams get to LAN, both ESEA and the i series (Euro teams would be included.) If it was run by someone who made sure teams needed the money (enigma maybe) then could be a lot better.

Also if a team wants money then they should try to provide a service to the community. 1 on 1 demo reviews, team coaching, weapon signings, crafting weapons etc... That's why I wasn't really upset about HRG wanting money last season. Yeah they ended up not needing it but they listed things that you would getting in return.

The problem with the incentives to help fund a lan adventure is that, those people who organize the paypal and say they are going to give out things for helping the payer don't always fallow through with what they said they would give out. I know a couple of people who haven't got anything after sending some money a teams way for their lan funds. I don't know if they didn't fallow up with the team or whatever but they never received any of the stuff they where told they would get.

Yeah, teams not following up is a big concern.

Agree with smaka. If you're playing invite your goal should be lan. Donations are lame, plan ahead figure it out it's not that difficult.

Umm the main idea of smaka's post was to note how difficult it is to plan ahead. Especially as an invite team fighting two other teams for a 4th place LAN spot. Teams like Mixup and iT should be booking their tickets now but ESEA and high level TF2 is so unstable that it would be dumb to plan ahead. Roster changes, ESEA , and sponsers are all up in the air and just a big question mark.

Booking tickets to a LAN that has no venue or date yet?

ur on one of the best invite teams you can see the future duh

seriously though I wouldn't cough up hundreds until my team clinches the spot and everybody else confirms they can afford it too

The idea of booking tickets right now makes no sense, but fundraising for it right now makes a lot of sense. Even if your team doesn't make it to the LAN, you can still give the fundraising to the teams that need it. I know some people will say that it's unfair that you're fundraising for a potential different team, but I think that needs to be done. I really feel that donations will really start taking a hit soon and this way all teams would be prepared for it.

The main point I'm making is pay for your own damn flight.

still waiting for them broder perks

still waiting for my i49/ESEA LAN perks from HRG

I only have b4nny's demopack from the i49 fundraiser. I could of lansky's but I've given him too much money care
Would like the other ones though

Same. Props to yuki though, he was super keen to get things done.

what's up?

I don't think I'll be donating again if it's just going to be months of waiting

I got mine really early

Edit: Signed wep, idk what perk you had

you're right...if you were taking me literally. if mixup wasn't at lan this season i wouldn't know what tf2 is...or life...

still waiting for my chess club signed weapons from 2 lans ago heh as well as my signed weapons from ToTH... I'm not complaining though, I'm happy to donate ^_^

I donated to tri hards for a weapon signing and a demo review, I got it, and a few more than that. :)

ILU blaze.

time 2 return

I tried my best to tell people to add me if you didn't receive your weapons from Tip of the Hats, which you're still welcome to do :<.

And, if anyone's curious, there were 31 stranges that weren't handed out (out of 168 different people all individually added :D), about half of which didn't respond to the email. I'm thinking that the mini-trade update (proposing trades = people don't need to be online to accept a trade) will make this much much easier next time if we plan to do it again, but yar.

I still have you added lol. I messages you a few times bit you always said you were waiting on Justin to sign something.

The crazy thing is that most of the teams who goto LAN are of working age, however they don't work. Not all but a lot. Instead of working they play tf2 all day and have the community pay the way for them. Then instead of repaying the community with their earnings they pocket the tournament prizes.

I work full time and would be able to pay myself to LAN however i'm not sure if my employer would like me leaving for a 3 day vacation to go compete in a video game tournament in Texas just to earn back what I shelled back to fly there and dorm. It's a tough call for people like me who would want to compete in invite but then if we made LAN i'd be jeopardizing my job by going. Which isn't really worth it if you think rationally.

In my mind it really only works if you know you can take off any 3 day period on the weekend 3 times a year, or if you're unemployed and getting funded by someone. I wonder if Salamancer ever got repaid for his contributions to i46? It's complicated. I think we should do maybe 1 big LAN a year (Like i46) instead of 3 every year in Dallas on top of Insomnia. Instead of funding for ESEA we should fund for our top 2-3 teams to goto europe to compete in the much bigger tournament with more bragging rights and prize pools. Doing this should also lower the amount of $ ESEA charges us to setup their LANS as frequently as they do.

what kind of terrible boss/job doesnt let you take 3 weekends off a year unless its some kind of 24 hour weekend shift?

i mean if its just a matter of you not wanting to have a conversation with your boss about your hobbies and explaining what you enjoy doing in your offtime, either lie or grow some fucking balls

a lot of what you say totally ignores the fact that these "working-age" people are in late high school, or college, or have part-time jobs

yea wtf blink, what kind of job are you working at?

wtf whenever i want a three day weekend I just work 9-10 hours monday-thursday

Must be hanging on by a thread if a 3 day break could jeopardize your career.

I'm a GM at a LA Fitness in NYC. If I was a part time pizza delivery guy or something that's a different story. You could just quit and get another pizza delivery job it wouldn't really matter. In the corporate world your boss doesn't care about your hobbies he cares about the numbers at the end of the day. If i'm not there the numbers won't be good and that's pretty much it. Also it hurts my own paycheck from commissions/bonus standpoints. I can't really complain because I make a good amount of money but that's how it is for me which sucks in regards to my love for video games. Hard having a real career and playing competitive TF2. Also after thinking about it i'd rather spend vacation hours having a real vacation in Cabo or something. Not everyone is in the same boat as me obviously but i'm sure there's some.

Smaka is really the only person in tf2 i've met that has a real career that can take off when he needs too. He has a good job. His damn beeper blows up 24/7 though lol

Now, where do the 4 of you work at?

I worked in a factory for like the whole time I was in college (excluding in-class semesters, but I went every saturday, and then full time whenever I had a break) and then the year following my graduation.

As a lowly 0 seniority manual laborer, I got 6 sick/personal days, and 1 week of vacation - I could distribute that 1 week of vacation (5 days) however I felt it necessary so long as nobody with more seniority bumped me off - and even then as long as I wasn't a dumpster I could just burn a sick day. So even in that shitty horrible job LAN would have been perfectly viable, especially if I balanced my shifts properly (trade hours to get 4 less hours on the Friday before and so forth).

Would've been perfectly reasonable to do. They didn't pay us enough to go to Cabo :( lol.

LANS are 3x a year? What if you had a good job which earned you over 100k a year that was less lenient on taking days off? Would you still go? Or save what you do earn in vacation days for your girl or real sick days when you're sick. If I was at a job where I didn't care about my growth in the company i'd do whatever because then it wouldn't matter. Maybe i'm just getting too old lol