At what point do you say enough is enough then? ESEA literally damaged people's computers by including malware with their client. Maybe CEVO is not at the same standard as ESEA is right in terms of what they can provide for TF2, but at least they're showing that they're willing to listen to the community and work on getting it right.
And yes at the end of the day, there will be people like lpkane everywhere, but that doesn't mean that indulging him is necessarily the right idea.

If I may though:

Wasn't the original move from CEVO to ESEA because ESEA had a bigger prize pot?
(and by all means, correct me if I'm wrong on this)

What I've picked up through the threads about new CEVO is that it will have lower league-fees (as there won't be a dumb premium service that no one uses), and that more of the money from these fees can go to the prize pot rather than hosting servers.

I don't think anyone cares about prize pots, LAN, and growing as an "e-Sports" except a minor, very entitled few.

We just want to play TF2 in a league that doesn't treat us like the human batteries in the Matrix.

http://youtu.be/l1dnqKGuezo

Well CEVO had other issues besides just the prize pot - mainly wide allegations of admin corruption as well.

I would also be quite tentative about a switch to CEVO given how poorly everything they did prior to the reboot was handled.

I will never forget having a playoff match scheduled for December 26th and not being able to change the date. I will likewise never forget the Vanilla tournament that suddenly morphed itself into a season after several extensions beyond the start date.

It's also time to give up on touting the "malware" nature of the client, beyond the bitcoin miner, because frankly there's no evidence that anything of the sort (beyond the bitcoin miner and standard AC practices) existed. If you want to take a stand against ESEA take a stand against the incompetence that allowed the bitcoin miner to go into the client - because there isn't real evidence that any other activity has ever gone on.

Switching to any league will be a *long* road. CEVO and UGC can promise all sorts of things for example, but it would take a long time to get to where we would want to go as a community.

I also don't understand why people who are upset with ESEA aren't more actively voicing their opinions to the people at ESEA who aren't idiots. Lange's letter to Torbull is probably the best thing that's been done so far. Hell, if I were more concerned I'd bother Killing about it at the very least.

Squid has some very good points, but ultimately the majority of this game is community based and no matter what you say Squid, Snowy's point will always, always mean more.

huh coulda sworn people cared about lan considering how much more viewership it gets than regular season. back when i was a young scrublet, making lan was the entire point of making it to invite since you could meet your teammates as well as the "legends" of the game.

A few days ago I would have never believed specific invite players could influence Killing because they are "buds," but after how these forums were treated I wouldn't be surprised at all.

So, what exactly did ESEA do to grow tf2? You are later saying this

but is it really different from what ESEA does? If anything, wouldn't it be very important for CEVO to grow tf2 and make everything possible to do so (read : actually care about league)?

the entire point of the "no exceptions" policy was that the esea admins wanted to enforce the same rules for invite players as they would for open players.

Nahanni is going to get mad at me but I'm going to say this anyways because I'm very confident if we do this correctly we can match or even exceed the services that esea currently provides. For me my goal is not out of the love of the game or any kind of good will of any sort it's purely a little project I can work on every now and then to see if I can generate revenue (not that I'll take any but if I do expect tf2 to get really big...) I have a lot of long term goals with this that I think are certainly possible because right now this community wastes a lot of money. We pay the league fee we pay premium we put donations in to get teams to lan ect ect... There's definitely a lot of ways we be more efficient on how as a whole community. The main thing is people have to pay for it and a need a reason to pay. If we have anything at all that is free to play we simply will not be able to compete with esea it is of the utmost importance the community supports us with their wallets. There is a sweetspot for price where having more teams pay less will give us diminishing returns that is currently being determined.

I feel like pay to play highlander is a giant cash cow just begging to be milked. This is an area we can unify the competitive scenes. The lan you love from 6s could be in a big way funded by the highlander community.

If we get the communities support and have a good season of cevo and I achieve my selfish greedy monetary goals I don't see any reason why we couldn't host a lan.

Perhaps not the best idea to call your potential new clients "cash cows".

Also good job on destroying every bit of trust Nahanni's support got you. Must take skill to shoot yourself in the foot so hard.

for posterity

the juice has to keep flowing

you can't turn back now pine

Nevermind misread.

I'm not getting payed for this to be clear. We're going to have big cash prizes. Not medals not hats.

I need to shut up :) Have a nice days guys!

Please try to have medals. This is not a bad thing.

if you guys really stay with ESEA I'ma be real disappointed

http://youtu.be/DcJFdCmN98s

now we can all enjoy our juicy burger

Talk is cheap. Let's see some backup.

Imo without a league fee people won't care about the league as much as they would have if they had invested some money into it, ie. ugc vs esea. Prize pots would also be lower and a future lan would probably be out of the question.
[/quote]

ESEA doesn't mind putting a virus on my computer, and PineBeetle just called a significant part of our community a cash cow. I don't particularly care what you guys do, but I'm gonna go ahead and stick with UGC until all of this is sorted out. I will get shiny metals and probably have just as much fun as I would in ESEA or UGC.

Here is something that is proven true: If you uninstall the ESEA Client its driver is still on your computer.

While I understand that some of the things in the lawsuit are necessary features to be an effective anti-cheat this "feature" is unnecessary, invasive, and certainly fits my definition of malware.

it seems all you care about is money
and the way you call other tf2 players "cash cows just begging to be milked" is just awful

I highly disagree. In my opinion it is of the utmost importance we as a community band together and make a unified decision on the future of this game.
I'm sorry but I don't feel comfortable with you being a part of this new step in comp tf2.

Tagging along with what Squid said -- I think that switching to CEVO would be a move made purely on principle. Sure ESEA abused our trust but the actual harm that they caused was minimal at best. All of this talk about malware and bitcoin mining is all valid, but it ultimately won't harm you and is simply a necessary precaution to take when having an anti-cheat for your league. If you really don't like ESEA's anti-cheat policies and are using that for your reason to switch to CEVO, then it's purely a move made on principle and not because you're fearful of any harm that ESEA will inflict to you.

***

The best move for the future of our game is to stay the course and keep playing ESEA. CEVO has already failed in the past, and if we leave ESEA for CEVO it could result in a mistake that we can't undo.

As far as LANs go, a lot of the people speaking up don't have a desire to make LAN. But I think many of you are missing out on the opinions of the people who actually DO want to compete and are looking for an incentive to do so. Sure LAN isn't the greatest of incentives (especially considering how much you have to fork out of your own pocket to get there) but it's better than a cash prize in a game where nobody cares about the money. There is no guarantee that CEVO can make a LAN happen, and the only reason ESEA is able to host a LAN for TF2 is by leveraging the assets of the CSGO community.

If we give up a LAN for TF2, our biggest TF2 league then revolves around playing in a league to have fun and NOT around having fun + competing to see who is the best. A significant portion of the community will leave the game without that incentive, and we will lose what many of us have worked so hard to create.

Like it or not the community has been growing every season that we've been with ESEA.
Leaving that behind could be a big mistake.

Why isn't squid's 3rd post deleted? It has a taboo pastebin.

I ment that in more playful joking way and I apologize if it didn't come across well. I am in no way a part of cevo or the decision making process. However I am really good with money and I know what it takes to get something started. My goal is 100% to grow tf2 in way that is sustainable and less expensive way than it is now.

I've stayed out of this for the most part, but let's address a few things:

Green= Subject
Blue= Predicate
The community is not the subject, you are not the subject. The idea of an untapped market is the subject. Sure, the verbiage is terrible, and good lord I hope he's been day drinking, but it's not YOU personally being called a cash cow.

Splitting the community
yeah, that's not already a thing Do we complain about the fact that UGC takes POTENTIAL teams away from esea? nope. Has it split the community? not really. So that argument is fairly moot. In fact, most of the talking points are entirely moot points. We need a viable alternative league that pays out decently, or we need a colonic on ESEA's bullshit.

The only question(s) that NEEDS answered, can't be answered by the community. It can be answered by ESEA, CEVO and any other league that MIGHT want to pick us up.