uhh. Thanks for speaking on our behalf, I guess? Though you are wrong. We actually "try" more than you think. The only reason we don't 24/7 "tryhard" is merely because most of us (namely sheep, aporia, bonobo and myself) have been playing together and practically constantly for nearly 4 years now. When that amount of time has passed, you start to get burnt out. We've been playing a lot less recently because there are a less "higher level" teams to play than before, and it seems WoW is the cool thing to play again (for other teams and half of mine).

Would appreciate if you didn't speak for us, though. Leave that to me or aporia >_>

EDIT: On the note of ESEA vs CEVO - I'm surprised people really need an incentive to be competitive. I think in total over the course of 4 years that I've been with -A-/iM, since winning pretty much every major comp in Australia, our total prizes consist of ~$1500, a server for 3 months, a bunch of icons, random unusuals, etc. When it comes down to it, we may slack off a bit during the regular season since people have other commitments or are feeling burnt out since we've played for so long, but when crunch time arrives, people play the extra 120% "when it matters". I mean, I know money helps and all, but if TF2 is really something that's a passion of yours, you shouldn't need a LAN or prize pool for that matter.

I'm pretty ambivalent on the whole thing. On one hand, you have LAN where you're able to truly test other people's skill, teamwork & dedication on an even setting & prize money. On the other hand, you have a community/league provider that's willing to actually listen to the players, and are trying their best to make it one of the best experiences possible. Who knows, CEVO might get a TF2 LAN one day. I guess it just depends what you really want more.

"Me Saying Things" by Squid
a novel now published on tf.tv

ESEA AC:
-Secretly installs itself as a hidden driver.
-Driver doesn't remove itself when you uninstall the client.
-Possibly always running as long as your PC is on (we don't know, but since it's installed as a driver, very well could be)
-Can possibly do anything it wants to with your file system.

VAC AC:
-Specific parts of it are downloaded to your PC as you connect to a VAC secured server and then runs client challenges, you never have the entire AC on your PC, only specific parts that your account is challenged on.
-VAC removes itself the instant you aren't connected to a VAC secured server.
-Only running as long as you're on a VAC secured server.
-Only uploads suspicious code VAC heuristics detects, it can't upload anything except something in memory/process list.

Not even in the same spectrum.

I didn't exactly bring that one up publicly squid. I don't think I made any reference to those particular instances any time in the past week. clockwork and I were just discussing the incompetence of the ESEA tf2 admins. I'm sorry I hurt your feelings again.

OBJECTIVELY: I've seen similar shit and worse happen to other invite teams far too often. (and lower divisions for that matter.) I no longer think killing/Kalkin have the best interests of the community in mind when making their judgement calls. And this leaves us with precisely zero people working at ESEA who give a fuck about our community.

I'm not the only "figurehead" that's unhappy with ESEA. I'm not sure why you decided to to pretend that I based my entire "move to CEVO" argument around my own personal experiences with ESEA. That log wasn't even posted publicly until you did it. so... good job creating your own argument I guess?

ESEA needs to go man. Regardless of any personal reasons I may or may not have, there are far too many objective ones to ignore at this point.

well when you compare u making shit up to u making more shit up i think ur really on to something

http://i.imgur.com/bJaFsn8.png

To say that I'm bitter would be an understatement for sure, but that's not really going anyway to refute what I'm actually saying.

ETF2L having neither the drive nor resources to improve themselves in any significant way has been a running theme pretty much as long as 6v6 has been a thing, as you will find that anyone who's expended any real amount of time and effort to improving our scene over the last few years will attest to.

ETF2L has played host to some really great guys throughout its existence, guys I'm sure you'll see in paid positions in the big bad world of esports in the future. However the simple fact is that it's never managed to achieve anything beyond minor and incremental improvements.

I wish you all the best in the clearly inevitable switch to CEVO, but ask yourself this: How are they going to pay for this supposed to prize pool, vast growth and possible LAN finals? I can promise you that shit is not cheap, and speaking as someone who was actually involved with trying to bring TF2 to Dreamhack, I can assure you the money isn't coming from sponsors.

yeah it 's true ETF2L was dangerously close to dying if it wasn't for losing i46 invigorating their community and inspiring their teams to keep on playing. but it seems now that they're on the downhill trend again. Kaidus was saying his team is in the same funk that ma3la said that his team is having on LiT. forgive me if i misquote but on his stream he was saying that his team is good enough to beat the other teams but not good enough to beat epsilon, and the amount of time his needed to put into the game to beat epsilon was not worth the reward for doing so. apparently a lot of the epsilon players are getting bored too.

it's not an argument for ESEA but it could be the future of NATF2 regardless of the league that we choose.

then again, we've had dominant dynasties in the past and it hasn't been a problem. it has historically been just a cycle of good teams moving up and then eventually dying repeatedly.

My dear community. Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Please listen to what is happening here. Please stop the attacks on each other and calm down. This is not helpful for anyone.

I want to make something very clear. If people still want to play in ESEA then go for it. This is not a “one or the other” situation here. I have never said that I don’t want people to play for ESEA. I simply stated that as a sponsor and AG as an organization I will not support ESEA. Do I agree with what ESEA did 100% no! I could not sleep at night knowing I was giving money to an organization that did such a dirty move. The simple fact is that no league can compete with the dollars that ESEA has. It is a monopoly and one that is pretty much unreachable. Does that mean that we just have to settle for JUST ESEA? Hell no! For the invite division ESEA is the best option. I think we can all agree to that. HOWEVER, it is not the best option for OPEN and IM teams. People seem to forget that invite and the prize pot is supported by open and IM but yet those divisions do not get what they deserve. They are the majority of this community. These are facts. ESEA teams are listed below.
Open Teams 50
IM Teams 16
Main Teams 10
Invite 9

We have a plan that can 100% be supported by the community and not “sponsored” by one single dollar. So even if Pine Beetle and myself “kick the bucket” (as Squid suggested) CEVO will absolutely live on and so will TF2. What about highlander division? We should be supporting that division it has grown very well. I frowned at Pine Beetle’s choice of words and I hope people recognize that those are Pine Beetle’s words/views and not CEVO’s or mine.

We should be encouraging other leagues and play other leagues. If ESEA was so bold they would let teams play only once a week instead of two so teams can play in other leagues? Having different leagues doesn’t split the community. People having a tunnel vision and an “I know it all attitude” does. Everyone has their opinions and rights to those opinions and everyone here should be respected. We all play the game we love and we all as a community have been through a lot together. We sound like bickering children and this needs to stop. It doesn’t help any of us come up with solutions.

Our community needs a league that is 100% for us. ESEA tells what we need to and how to do it all the time. We have to play on the client, we have to put down a $600 deposits for invite teams and the list goes on and on. The fees keep going up and ESEA has threatened to leave us almost every season.

Well CEVO hasn’t left us. It won’t be perfect especially in the beginning. But if this community wants a league to call their own and to listen to what we want…well CEVO is here with open arms and ears. We will hold a community/CEVO meeting on Tuesday November 26th at 6PST/9EST. I have made a private mumble for this meeting to happen. I will be posting soon about the rules and agenda around this meeting to keep it productive. The mumble information will be posted the day of the meeting in the steam group.

TF2 growth after the first 3-5 years, or any older game, comes directly from the community that supports it. It never comes from any league in an older game. Things like the mentor program, newbies mixes, pug groups, even forums, are the things that bring new people. Leagues bring in very few people since those that know of the game, or comp games in generally, are already in the know.

What I mean by that is having a LAN doesn't seem to being in people into the game as much as, for example, newbie mixes. How many recruitment threads have people seen in here and UGC explaining that it's their first time in comp TF2 coming directly from Newbie mixes.

for all those people going on about the ESEA client being so important, I don't see the big deal. I've played in ETF2L for over a year now and I've only encountered someone cheating once, it was in a shitty mix that was over in 10 minutes. Never have I seen or heard about someone cheating from my circle of friends in an official.

I honestly think the ESEA client is a null argument that people are still trying to use as a basis to stay in ESEA.

I honestly haven't seen that argument once
The only argument I see for staying in ESEA is either the LAN or prize pots. Both of which only apply to top of invite really. Coincidentally, they make up the majority of people wanting to stay with ESEA. When in reality these top players are the 1%, a minority. Just because our prestigious invite players (no offense to anyone) are unwilling to finally make a bold move, doesn't mean 99% of the community can't.

Sorry I meant a client in general, not specific to ESEA. Some people have been saying an alternate league needs to have a reliable client

Oh, alright. Well CEVO so far seems to have a very easy and reliable client. I've used it a few times and it's always been pain-free for me.

To be fair, i49 is the "hardest" we've tried, but many beefs were had. Regardless, his statement is somewhat irrelevant. He doesn't play in our team, doesn't know our players well, doesn't know the inner workings/chemistry/dynamics of our team. But it's ok, le sarcasm on le internet!!

You trying hard really showed, you were getting wrecked by in the boot camp and everyone thought you were gonna get shat on. I don't think anyone was not surprised by your performance

I did a little googling and arrived at a thread that I remember seeing earlier today, and it was a place that Papasmurf had linked to.

http://teamfortress.tv/forum/thread/14006-meatshot-8-vol-5/11#post-229503

seeing as how you sound more knowledgeable in the area than me... what's the difference between how ESEA and VAC work, besides VAC being seemingly more tame when it comes to searching for files, but how could we ever know for sure!?(hurbotnet:p) In my post I didn't mention anything about memory because it wasn't relevant to the point I was trying to make.

edit: i didn't mean for all of this to sound a tad sarcastic, the first part below the link was fully serious, as it was in my original post. i'm more than happy for somebody to explain to me why I was wrong so I don't look dumb in the future.

"i don't understand social situations and i can't interpret sentences well, so i'm going to be obnoxious instead of try and improve myself as a person."

it's also an incentive for lower level players as well because it's an incentive for the top FOUR teams rather than the top 1-2. so if you have really dominant teams (which is common in TF2 in general) taking that 1-2 spot, you still want to make invite because making LAN is pretty cool.

and the reason you should believe me on this is because i have 3 seasons of open played and 4 of IM and i still just want to make LAN. that'd be pretty cool ye.

I'm pretty sure that Papa has said nothing other than that link. I don't think he will respond.

I've been talking to Europeans a lot in the past day or so and they all say how lucky we are to have ESEA and to have a LAN to look forward to. It draws a big crowd on streams, it is an incentive for players at all levels to improve and make it to that top 4, and it's fun for the top players and keeps them from dropping out of the game. To quote Skyride: "if the top tier stop caring, its like a loose thread that quickly ripples down."

However there is one good thing I see in CEVO.

I'm not sure what CEVO's business model will be (it seems like they are still hashing that out for TF2), but it just occurred to me that if people from ESEA do swap to CEVO then CEVO could potentially be larger than ESEA could ever be. UGC 6v6 players would likely join CEVO as they both have no league fee and all of the best competition would be housed there.

UGC would remain as a primarily highlander league and CEVO would have an increased number of 6s teams. Not sure what the CEVO guys are thinking but having at least a F2P open division would be a good way to grow the number of teams that they currently have. The main reason why people aren't swapping from UGC to CEVO now is because there is not much reason to do so at this moment.

This would join two groups of players (UGC and CEVO) even if some teams stayed with ESEA. And if people didn't stay with ESEA then I guess it would join three groups of players. Interesting.

you expressed sarcasm through a text-only medium on the internet, and assume yuki completely missed your point (as if it had been a clearly made point at all)? What if he had a suspicion you were being sarcastic, but wanted to make some legitimate points on the off chance that you weren't? Wouldn't it be more intelligent to err on the safer side of things? And then you decide to post some snarky comment to him as if yuki has never encountered sarcasm in his life, and blame him for "being obnoxious", as if you even "understand social situations" yourself.

Don't forget that we can get our LAN back if we do ultimately abandon ESEA.

hooky it just bothers me that CEVO doesn't guarantee us a LAN, and that's why i'm saying it's not worth the risk. TF2 doesn't die right away, but it does die the slow painful death of top teams leaving the game sooner than if there was a LAN to keep them there.

Shouldn't we wait until Tuesday at the soonest before we declare that CEVO won't have a LAN? The piggybacking angle is still of interest to me, and I'm assuming others would agree.

This whole "potential exodus" thing is a few days old, any current ideas are only a few days old as well.

Your comment makes it seem like you and all other non-invite players play Comp TF2 because we want the invite teams/players to stay and have a LAN so our community keeps going.

Pardon me if I say that is completely retarded on every level.

Again, stop making that argument without proof. Why would the game die if 10-12 people leave without a LAN. With 90% of people still playing

Worst case scenario: We move to CEVO, they don't give us a LAN.
How to deal with the worst case scenario: Run a LAN anyway, if we really need it.

I mean, it's really hard to run a LAN, yeah. But it's not like we're fucked to not have a LAN if we go with CEVO and they for some bizarre reason don't do a LAN. We can convince some event somewhere to at the very least do a single series for TF2, and organize it based on the results of the CEVO tourney. If you can't manage that then there's just more levels of compromise lesser than that which we can deal with. The bare minimum I can imagine happening is a seasonal TF2 LAN party in some dining room somewhere. This is all awfully silly but my point is that even if we go to CEVO we're not tied down to our scene exclusively using what they provide. Support local LANs, and other events! That's what our scene really needs.

"I don't understand the inner-workings of a team I'm not a part of, yet I'm going to go ahead and talk on their behalf (sarcasm or not)".

Thank you for your contribution to shitting up the thread, and displaying your prime maturity. Woo, I can do sarcasm too.

it doesn't die instantly!! it just dies in the same way that european or australian tf2 dies. the competition just dwindles and teams lose interest in the game and drop out. it won't be next season or maybe not even the one after that but teams lose that drive to play. like i said, i46 when europe was dying and lost that LAN is what invigorated that community to work hard and improve themselves for i49, another LAN. it's what keeps communities going, no matter how big or small.

also hooky yeah it's true but that's why i'm saying it's not guaranteed. it's possible but who knows. i guess we'll have to wait until tuesday.