Mmh... You were so close

every time ESEA does something stupid: community wants to boycott them which actually translates to lots of angry threads with endless rambling and points that ultimately lead to no where

new season of TF2 starts: oh look ESEA still hasn't dropped TF2. then everyone takes #cevo out of their names on steam and everyone forgets about the whole damn thing

http://cdn.arwrath.com/1/115281.gif

LAN experience.

Do both if you can. ESEA isn't ideal so we shouldn't give up on trying to make something better (CEVO), but CEVO might not make it (won't happen unless teams sign up), in which case we shouldn't ruin what we already have (ESEA).

with CEVO and ESEA both being 2 matches a week (and ESEA [understandably] not giving CEVO their map list so they could mirror it), it's an unfortunate reality that, for the sake of being competitive, teams will have to pick one league. it's not very feasible that teams will be able to have the typical 5 day (sunday-thursday) scrim schedule and be at peak performance to play a total of 4 matches a week on 2 different maps. this would mean double headers on some nights, no scrims before a match, etc. -- again, not impossible, but just not very realistic. of course all of this is null and void if teams treat CEVO as an after-thought. that's just a bit more unlikely considering it is now pay to play.

albeit won by a very small vote margin, I think CEVO should have heeded the community's voice when it voted for 1 match a week. their justification of 2 matches a week due to the $15 league fee is understandable, though. however, there are 12 teams paid and readied in CEVO for preseason matches that begin tonight, and only 1 new roster (excluding "skalar" based on milehigh's post) in open for an ESEA season that begins in roughly two weeks.

I feel like a lot of teams are discussing their thinking behind closed doors and not really making a public move yet. a lot of people I've asked about their team's future plans are still unsure, or apply the oft-heard logic of "we'll play where the best competition is". this is all well and good, but the time to make a decision is here.

just a note:

CEVO has 12 teams readied up, with registration closing on Monday, Feb 17
ESEA registration is scheduled to close on on Monday, Feb 24 (number of teams unknown, TF2 not yet shown on standings page for S16)

I dont believe scheduling will be all that much of an issue due to the fact you can use your own servers in cevo. Schedule esea games and then schedule cevo around those and you're guaranteed 4 play times a week instead of having to wait for a while to find scrims

the election was rigged. hooli should've won, not tri.

Congrats to Tri on becoming an ESEA admin for TF2.

Please same map list

CEVO's map list, still including coalplant, not sunshine (subject to change by poll)
Preseason 1: cp_warmerfront_rc1
Preseason 2: koth_airfield_b7
Week 1: cp_gullywash_final1
Week 2: cp_granary
Week 3: cp_badlands
Week 4: koth_pro_viaduct_rc4
Week 5: cp_process_final
Week 6: cp_metalworks_rc5
Week 7: koth_coalplant_b7
Week 8: cp_snakewater_final1

EDIT- CEVO regular season starts next week. ESEA isn't even scheduled to start until March 4, so having the same map list wouldn't really work.

Now ESEA can copy that and add the new map for coalplant week and now everyone is happy and both leagues can flourish!

Edit: okay well match the 2nd half of CEVO with the start of ESEA

while this may not seem like an issue for most experienced teams and players, this doesn't negate the huge cutback on scrim times for new teams who need the experience of scrims, demo reviews, etc.

again, ideally, the map list would be mirrored and teams could do both leagues.

i edited my post above, but each league has different start dates. mirroring a map list wouldn't really do anything unless ESEA staggered theirs to be the same as CEVO's once they start. eg esea's week 1 will be CEVO's week 3 or 4 or whatever so it shouldn't be an exact copy. CEVO will also be in playoffs already by the time ESEA is in the later second half of regular season.

Assuming ESEA doesn't extend registration and postpone the season again...

yup pretty much hahaha i'm trying to be careful to always say "scheduled to start" when considering ESEA

if theres anybody who is trying to play both leagues and is having trouble finding a more experienced player to go over demos with feel free to add me and ill be more than happy to put aside time to help anybody out

play cevo

last thing we need is a split in the community. street hoops is going to play both!

For higher levels the competition is still there in ESEA, however, it seems a lot of open level teams (including mine) want to help cevo grow and make it a viable option for everyone. Also just because only 12 teams are ready doesn't mean much, people will wait as long as they can not to pay league fees XD.
EDIT: Everyone should play both if possible.

Gonna play both for at least this season, then I'll see how CEVO was and maybe I'll make the full switch to CEVO or stick with ESEA.

if I may point out what I think is going on here, there's no incentive for open teams to play in esea other than a weekend watching high level tf2. by the looks of it not many people is willing to pay two leagues just to get that

play both, then if/when cevo takes off and is the clear better option then side with that. That isn't the case right now. A split community is just going to kill this game competitively.

has cevo confirmed anything about this? i cannot find anything about there being 2 matches a week and the poll is still up. at the moment, 1 match a week has more votes than 2 matches a week.

http://cevo.com/event/tf2-6v6/news/166/season-4-registration-opens-with-6-pc-events-over-13-750-in-cash-prizes/

this page still says "1 or 2 matches per week (community poll)"

"We reached out to ESEA to attempt to coordinate our map lists, but they were uncooperative. As a result, we will be sticking with our current map list barring any unforeseen events.

On the issue of number of matches per week, the poll was inconclusive. The end numbers were extremely close, so we've made a judgement call. We believe that one match a week is not a good value for the $15 entry fee we are asking. As such, we have decided that this season will have two matches per week. I realize that this is not what everyone wanted, but with a poll split nearly 50/50 we had to make a call, and I think that this will encourage more serious competitive play in CEVO in the long run."

-- Lange via http://teamfortress.tv/forum/thread/15727-cevo-community-meeting-2/3#post-63
(same text found here as well: http://teamfortress.tv/forum/thread/15463-cevo-s4-registration-open/6#post-172)

Did any of the admins even bother to look at airfield before putting it in as a preseason map, honest question.

if you dont play esea because you dont want to play better teams you are not a competitive tf2 player and you should not identify yourself as such

I think both ESEA and CEVO didn't bother looking at it.

I don't think you read my post well because I didn't mention lack of competition as the reason why teams want to play cevo.

In any case I was pointing out the reason I think open teams are not registering for esea, in case anyone wants to do something about it.

Does the winner of this go to i52?