Nahanni's working too damn hard.

what's a costumer? Is that like a cosplayer?

John, I don't think you'll find someone who won't admit that we as a community are giving something up by ditching ESEA. Sure. But there's a reason why this discussion happens every single season and this is probably the single time that it's not been totally swept under the rug days after the fact yet. Torbull might be a good guy with good intentions, but if the world ran on those, we wouldn't be having this discussion—I frankly could not give less of a damn about how much he likes us and I don't see why anyone else should either.

I, as a long-time competitive player that has given hundreds to ESEA over the years to play this game competitively with my friends, do not and have not in a long time felt that what ESEA provides is worth keeping over other alternatives, lacking in resources in comparison as they might be. Sorry, it's just not an option anymore.

#367 - all I'm saying is that if there is nothing to compete for, an incentive (money, fame, recognition, in-game unique items, WHATEVER) then what is the motivation to try and tackle the task of becoming the best? The first season might go off fine because of the sheer spite everyone has for esea right now, but I'm telling you without an adequate replacement for what we already have, it will stifle the growth and competition of this game and the game will devolve to what valve wants it to be. It's fine if you disagree but that's what I see happening. I'm curious to see the logistics of nahanni business plan for ascending cevo above esea, but I'd tend to think she's only in it for a season. Shes a wonderful lovely person but she spreads her wealth and efforts way too thin instead of focusing in one area.

Although I'm under the impression that a large amount of the current ESEA-playing community will still be in ESEA come s16, if CEVO can manage a proper start date, it may prove to be a wonderful test-pilot of the league. I say that because sign ups for ESEA s16 probably wont be until some time in mid-late January (not 100% on when LAN is). So, that gives plenty of time for CEVO to get its self in gear and have some matches get played - since currently all it is, is a league with very few actual matches played, 6 servers, and history with the community, some of which I'm personally still a bit salty about lol.

I'm no champion defender of ESEA, but I imagine once all is said and done, the community will ultimately benefit from having more leagues for mid and higher players with ESEA still being populated. I honestly don't get that much of a feeling, from most of the folks I've talked to that're playing in Main and Invite, that they intend to leave ESEA any time soon. I'd also be willing to bet that if ESEA's numbers are significantly down come s16 they may offer incentives to return.

As far as in game items Plat, valve seems to be completely unwilling to provide medals or in-game items to any for-profit league. So that leaves UGC if you just want in-game swag lol. There are 6s medals now and might I say they look pretty cool imho.

Ok, this is something I can answer. I played W:ET for 4-5 years, thousands of hours literally, I played it competitively as well, It was never a big competitive game because it was never intended to be so and it didn't have dev support either, in many ways it situation was very similar to tf2, but the difference is it didn't have a huge platform like steam promoting it. It had a huge following for the first few years and then the commmunity slowly started desintegrating, yes its one of the best FPS ever, and its class based, it probably required even more teamwork than tf2, it was an outstanding game, but it never made it past that, because of the lack of support.
Yet, we still had clanbase, ELS (in europe), local leagues. Albeit they weren't the major leagues the competitive scene was there, and still is (over at http://www.crossfire.nu/)

CAN YDSC GET POST-HOC MEDALS

Also, everyone still supporting ESEA, I think it's fine if you call that decision but you shouldn't try to persuade other people to still play it, if the ship is sinking then go along with it dont get more people on board.

You guys have to accept that sometimes to take 2 steps forward you have to take one step backwards, I know thats a hard concept to grasp, but just accept it's over, some of you have gone to the ridiculous of defending ESEA monitoring activity and banning people just because you need lan.

Nahanni is the catalyst, plat. Gotta have something to get everyone pushed in the right direction. I think the community knows it going to be a tough road, but when the community in the end will have more input in the structure and the league itself, I think in the end it will create a better product. Right now we have absolutely no say in what happens at ESEA. Seeing as CEVO wants to already host a town-hall style meeting to help figure out what WE want rather than just have us adopt whatever they choose is already a good sign. Do have issues that you think CEVO won't be able to help with? Why not wait until the meeting and ask your questions. Sure, some things are unknown and we can't possibly know the answer too, but as far as questioning the motivations of why people want to go and dooming it just because people are jumping ship? That doesn't make sense.

I switched from a shitty ISP to a relatively local one last year due to poor customer service and performance, and just because that was in spite of them, it doesn't mean I'm doomed to fail. There's room for success, and room for growth. As far as I'm concerned, getting away from ESEA has been a long time coming. Because it's taken so long, we've all developed a bit too much of a blind-spot for ESEA and this transition will be much harder than it could have been.

id like a big black dildo melee weapon for winning something in CEVO, make it happen

Lack of prizes won't stifle competition for all. Just the higher divisions (maybe). I think that smaka really explained it well in the post game interview that he gave about how when you are at the lower levels you really want to make it to the next division but once you make it to invite you can't play for that really so prizes help. That being said CEVO HAS money prizes. For this season there were only 7 teams and there is still a $600 prize pot. The CS:GO division has 117 teams from what I can see but the prizes are:

MAIN DIVISION - $1,750
1st - $1000
2nd - $500
3rd - $250 + 5x Zowiegear PTF Mousepads

INTERMEDIATE DIVISION - $750
1st - $500
2nd - $250
3rd - 5x Zowiegear Hammer Headsets

OPEN DIVISION - $500
1st - $250
2nd - $150
3rd - $100
4th - 5x Zowiegear GRF Mousepads

I'm not saying these are what the prize pot will be but let's say it came down to the finals where you were fighting b4nnys team for either $167 each or $83 each (And you wouldn't have to pay for a LAN). Is that enough to make it competitive for you?

I agree with this actually, maybe I misunderstood some of your other posts. What I think you're wrong about however is the fact that removing the LAN/prize pool will kill all of the incentive to be the best. You also mentioned fame, recognition, which are only two of many things which can still be earned and can still act as a drive for the competitive scene. I think the Quake 3 Defrag scene is a good example to use here. That scene has been around for many years and is still very competitive (albeit small). If you don't believe me then go look up some of the recent records on youtube, the skill of some of the players in that game mode blows most others out of the water imo. But why is it still succeeding even after years of existence and virtually no money or prizes involved?

1. The players are still passionate towards the game (which I believe also applies to tf2, although it's hard to see sometimes behind all the pointless drama and bullshit that goes on).
2. Other, non-sentient incentives still exist such as the pride of being the best as well as respect from other players. Just look at the respect and viewership w3sp earned during his peak simply by being really good. He put in thousands of hours, just as many tf2 players do, to become really good, even though the incentive of money/ a LAN didn't exist in the scene for him.

If there's no lan or money to win, there's really no reason to play this game at the highest competitive level. Why devote a large chunk of your life to a competitive game you won't make a return on?

Fun? I know I wouldn't play video games for any reason other then fun. If I make money that's cool but its a hobby not a job

You think invite level players actually made money worthy of the time they sank into this?

After all the time spent playing, travel expenses, meager LAN winnings, etc...?

whoa whoa whoa im confused, we have two pharaoh's in this community? there can be only one tomb <|8O)

Did you even read my post? The whole point was the say there are reasons beyond a lan or money that might keep competition at the highest level.

No one except first place makes money from LAN. They usually just break even with the help of community funding.

Nobody in invite is a pro-gamer, nobody in invite is getting rich off tf2, nobody in invite is e-famous outside of our little community, nobody really cares about you. If you really think you play for any of the above then you're delusional. Games were meant to be played for fun and the fun in competition. Sure some games are creating a lot of cash for some people but not this game. Nor will it ever be this game. So you've already invested 1-15 seasons of playing this game almost every single day for what? Pretty much nothing. You've maintained interest for the joy of the game and in the competition of trying to be the best. It's a video game meant to be played in your free time for fun. TF2 was never even close to counterstrike and that scene is long gone. Even SC2 is dwindling. It's all about LoL and DOTA now. So whatever dumb reasons people are delusional about on why they still play this game you need to re-evaluate your reasoning because it doesn't make any sense. Even if you won invite LAN every season you'd make about 3k a year if that, not including the expenses. Doesn't sound like you're getting your moneys worth. Definitely not getting fame besides a few hundred people who play this game. Many many games from the beginning of esports were played solely on the fun of the game and the competition. No LANS, no money, just good old competition.

Instead of having seasons we should just have one ongoing league setup similar to UFC. One champ and the people below fight eachother for title shots and see who can reign the longest. This way you get action over and over again and every game does mean something. Lets face it every time the community pays for LAN they're basically wasting their money on the 3rd and 4th place finishes since it's always the same 2 teams in the end. This community will be saved once you realize what it is and not what you THINK it is.

Truth hurts but it doesn't make it any less true.

I like how you're this in-depth about the comp game and yet you have no idea how to mod your own game BlinK

Invite players are by far the most experienced people in this game as far as how it's played, and handled. It seems like half of them realize what reality is and half of them don't however. It's not good but I can understand why. You spend 6 years of your life playing a game every day and don't realize that one day it's going to be all for nothing but the pure fun of it at the time. There's no money being made, there's no fame, there's nothing but competition. That has to take time to soak in and its going to hurt. Some will quit some will stay but it will go on with or without them. The end.

There's always room in the tomb

Actually csgo is getting lots of valve support and growing pretty steadily.

http://puu.sh/5r7eH.jpg

bli "pages of unironic anti-semitism" nky alt confirmed?

It would make sense considering the complete lack of logic your posts have been containing.

Settlement without admission of guilt is very much the standard. The SEC changed their rules a touch after the 2008 crash, but admission of guilt is not required much less even expected outside of that realm. There's no need for technical legal shit at all, and the general public gets basically no information on actual facts. The standard response which the SEC no longer accepted once the economy went to shit was this:

Settlement, no admission of guilt or wrongdoing, press release underlining that, and suggesting regulators are overzealous/incompetent.

lpkane right on track.

Well see there are two types of players in this game. There are the players like banny and his team who play the game nonstop all day long because they love it and have no other responsibilities. Then there are players like me and my team that love the game but cannot invest nearly as much time as we would perhaps like to into playing tf2. Now currently there exists one reason for players like me to invest as much time as I can spare to try and challenge players like banny, and that is the competition that exists at esea lan. The money is secondary benefit but it's really about the competition. Taking time out of your life to go compete in Dallas and winning is much more rewarding than winning an online game. I literally don't care about regular season matches anymore because they don't mean anything. If the prize was 60 per person online, I wouldn't care if players like banny won it or whatever. I would continue to play the game for fun as I always have, but there's no end trophy, prize, whatever worth trying to compete for. I believe this sentiment to be shared by a lot of the players at the highest level, hence my argument for an adequate replacement for esea being necessary to fuel the desire for u up and coming competitors that have the same mindset as me.

why would blink have a 4 digit alt and a 7 digit main

edit: maybe he is as dumb as he posts

While I agree with most of what you said, you come off so incredibly bitter.

iT already has a team in CEVO
watch this has a team in CEVO

There's your competition right there. If you want your matches to matter, the two top teams are right there for you to take on. Surely a three-team struggle for the top online (at least until CEVO gets a LAN) is better than a two-team tug-of-war at LAN.

Your statements are just all over the place. You say that your team doesn't have the time to invest into TF2, unless of course it means dropping everything that would require your time so that you can go to LAN? You say that teams need an incentive, but shot down that the prizes for CEVO are the incentive you need. You say that actual competition is a good incentive, and watch this is ready to take you on in CEVO.