When I first met snowblindfrog and Infinite, UGC had 8500 players registered for their 12th Highlander Season. A few days later, that number increased to OVER 9000! The league is having its biggest and most important season ever and with that in mind, I had the pleasure to sit down with two of the Head Admins. They shared with me their success stories, their day-to-day struggles and their thoughts behind some of the more recent decisions. But foremost, they shared with me the passion and drive, them and other community members, have into supporting the best FPS game in the world!

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Thanks for doing this interview snow and infinite. For the newer players out there, what is UGC and what are your roles in the league?

SNOW: United Gaming Clans (UGC) is a not-for-profit competitive eSports league created in 2002 to provide TFC and Counter-strike clans with a good and clean gaming experience, free of cheating and unacceptable behavior. We are completely volunteer-run and support just over 9,000 players in the following TF2 formats: Highlander 9vs9, 6vs6 and 4vs4.

I am a Head Admin and Highlander General Manager among other things. This means that I have oversight on all things Highlander (maps, weapon bans, team placements, etc.). I also work with the League Owner (Fornaught) in the development of the website and our admin tools.

INFINITE: I am a Head Admin, TF2 advisor, and organizer of community fundraising. I originally moved over from STA league when the website failed and was recruited by Forn to help revitalize UGC. I’d say I am semi-active right now, as most of my activity was through season 1 and 8. Got a girlfriend, new job, and bought a house so RL has been pretty busy for the last 2 years.

You are the biggest TF2 league and your growth has been constant. How was the journey?

SNOW: We have had phenomenal growth over the past 5-6 seasons. Much if not all of the growth of Highlander is credited to Fornaught, Redrum & Infinite who were the architects of that league. The amount of work and thought hours contributed from these guys to create, grow and nurture this league are immeasurable.

The growth is really just the icing on the cake. We run this league because we love the game and we like providing a home for players at all levels. We will keep at it even if there are only 10 teams left to keep the lights on for! I’d like to say thanks to everyone who has supported us over the years. I’d also like to thank all of our current and past admins for the work they do. Being an admin is a thankless job and everything we say and do is critically scrutinized. I know for several of us, running this league comes at the expense of not having the time to play on a team or do other hobbies. We deeply appreciate all the time you volunteer to help keep this league running smoothly!

INFINITE: Seeing the success we’ve had over the years has kept me going, but it’s been a difficult road. Highlander has always been the underdog competitive TF2 format compared to 6s and early on it received quite a bit of abuse. All in all we’ve made great strides and the hard work has paid off. I think UGC has done so much to grow the competitive TF2 community. We’ve brought thousands of players from public servers into the competitive environment and provided a fun free to play place for them to enjoy TF2.

Besides medal integration and blog announcements, have you had the chance to discuss to Valve about topics related to the state of competitive TF2?

INFINITE: I typically do not share conversations with Valve as I want them to be comfortable speaking frankly with me. In this instance I will share an excerpt from an email Robin Walker sent me when I posed a similar question to him back in March of 2013.

Some community members have brought up that there’s a disconnect between public and competitive play. They feel like the way Valve supports competitive TF2 is unfair, compared to their other games. Working with Valve, is that the impression you have?

INFINITE: You are correct, it’s not easy to get into competitive and that’s a core problem I think we all agree on. Valve has nothing to lose with a popular competitive option and in fact, have much more to gain so I have to feel they would want it to succeed. I can’t really speak for them obviously… all I can do is provide my opinion, so please do not misconstrue the following.

I think it’s no secret Valve is disappointed with the way competitive TF2 turned out, specifically in regards to limits the 6v6 game mode has on players. The closest we’ve ever come to knowing is from this meeting Salamancer and eXtine had with them a while back. Their feelings outlined in the post pretty much sums up how I’ve felt (and been demonized for) for a long time. From their perspective, I can see how dealing with the competitive TF2 community could be quite frustrating. There is very little variation to gameplay. To an outsider who hasn’t played competitive TF2, the games can be quite tedious, repetitive and boring.

I think Valve envisions a game very close to what public players experience which also has an evolving metagame full of choices and decisions. Look at Dota 2, LoL and their success as prime examples. New content keeps things fresh and exciting so long as you keep an open mind.

Do you think they could do more to help out competitive TF2?

INFINITE: In their own way, they have done a lot for competitive TF2. The major way they help competitive TF2 is increase the player base. A constant influx of new players is vital for any competitive environment. They’ve added in configuration options that allow leagues to pretty much make up whatever rule set they want. They support map authors by incorporating their maps and they do listen to feedback. They’ve helped leagues like UGC and ETF2L get medals into the game which was and still is a lot of work on their part.

I don’t think it’s fair to say they haven’t done much to support competitive. If what you have in mind is cash prizes, LAN support or new competitive game modes… we need to think creatively because stuff like this takes a lot of energy and right now, there isn’t a lot of incentive for them. Let’s say Valve offers a $20,000 dollar cash prize pot for 6v6 TF2. The event goes on, Classic Mixup or iT wins, then what? Where does Valve get that money back? I think that boat has sailed long ago and they are working on bigger and better things.

infinite, your public image sometimes projects a strong personality. Could you talk to us about that?

I care deeply for competitive TF2 and whether you agree with me or not; I’ve spent countless hours working to further TF2’s competitive growth any way I can and have been very successful. There’s a lot of misconceptions and incorrect information about me out there. The major issue I have with the TF2 community is they’ve been extremely unappreciative of UGC’s work. If UGC never existed, there would be far fewer people in Highlander and 6s than there is today and that’s a fact nobody can deny. I’d say 99% focus on the negative 1%, since it’s fun to criticize people who are actually putting forth ideas and projects. The other fact is there are people out there whose entire career revolves around criticizing literally every decision we make even though they depend and thrive upon the league and community we create.

One of the reasons I am the way I am is that I have been one of few defenders of Highlander as a competitive format and it has made me both defensive and offensive. There are a lot of double standards in TF2. It’s ok to look down on Highlander but the second someone criticizes 6s, they become this demonized monster out to ruin everyone's fun. Most of the players today weren’t around in the old days when UGC was under constant attack and threat of closure. I and a few others were, and it’s shaped the way we view the game and the community.

It's a difficult problem, it hurts us and it affects our motivation and the amount of time we are willing to donate away from other things we care about. Admittedly, my patience has diminished over the years; we’ve been recipient of a lot of abuse both towards UGC in general, Highlander and our admin staff. About a year or so ago, I went on a Fully Charged episode and apologized for sometimes wording things poorly, but I stand by the substance in everything I’ve said. I am also a much better speaker than writer, so if anyone wants to discuss this stuff in more detail I am up for it.

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Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither was UGC. The league makes day-to-day decisions that affect thousands of their players. They can provoke admiration, indifference, or dissent. In the latter case, those can lead to heated, controversial, yet, passionate debates. The pessimists will say they have a tough crowd, the optimists will call it tough love and the realists... well, they know there’s no such thing as black and white. Nonetheless, UGC has to do their best to respond in the best interest of the league as a whole. For this upcoming season, their biggest change is a first, an “experiment”, as they like to call it; the introduction of a 5000$ community-funded prize pool to support and strengthen the TF2 Highlander competitive scene.

How do you think this "experiment" is going so far and how will it change the landscape of NA Platinum?

SNOW: For some time now, we have been discussing ways to entice more top talent to Platinum. The donation drive is our first step at trying to draw a finer line between Plat and Gold. At the time of submitting this interview, we are at 47% of our $5,000 target. I would like to thank Hildreth for organizing the Highlander Invitational in February. They were able to raise almost $300 for the prize pot!

As for how the experiment is going, I was hoping for a larger turnout of super teams. I was hoping to be in a position to be turning away teams. Next season, I am hoping that we can succeed in getting more top talent to play and stay in Plat.

If we can’t grow the Plat team count higher into the double digits then I would like to see Plat being very tightly controlled with just 10 solid teams. I would like to round-robin schedule that division as well in that scenario. This would require treating the pre-season match as scorable of course, since there would be 10 teams. When I polled the Plat leaders before this season started, the majority were not interested in pre-season being counted so I nixed the idea. Also, the 10-team structure wouldn’t hold up if one team drops during the season which will inevitably happen. Here we are at Week 6 and Street Hoops and Stag Party have both died. Ideally, a top Gold team would be ready and willing to step up in their place, but I shouldn’t kid myself.

The majority of Platinum players have voiced their interest on being the ones making decisions regarding topics such as map selection and weapon bans. What are your thoughts on that?

INFINITE: I believe everyone who is taking the time to play in UGC should have a say in how the league functions. The elitist mentality does not have a good end game. You end up with the best players trying to preserve a game state they are good at and resist major changes to that formula. Everyone’s opinion is valued here and always will be.

Right now, the Platinum division technically does have more say than the rest of the league. They are our smallest division but still hold an equal say in major league votes as their larger division counterparts. I think this is a good compromise.

SNOW: I understand and respect that Plat players have invested a lot more time into the development of the metagame of Highlander than in lower divisions. At the present time, we are considering the creation of a Platinum Leader Advisory Panel. In light of the current state of our forums, I think the time is right to create an organized and constructive symposium to discuss league issues such as weapon bans and map lists. I think the challenge will be managing expectations going into it. I don’t want Plat leaders coming to the table thinking we will roll over on their every whim and likewise, I don’t want the admins coming to the table thinking we won't budge on anything. Let’s be honest, we know there are some pretty brazen personalities on both sides of the fence. We will be making more detailed announcements on this in the near future.

The skill gap between the top Platinum teams and low Platinum ones is an undeniable reality. Could you talk to us about that problem?

SNOW: Yes, I agree that there is a large skill gap in Plat. We have teams that we force to play up and teams who want to play up when they shouldn’t. We have teams in Plat that can be easily beaten by teams in Gold. I am worried that over time, Plat will dwindle to less than 8 teams and that they will eventually get bored playing with one another all the time. I don't think merging Plat and Gold together is the answer. For me, that is the very last resort.

I think Plat is suffering for 2 reasons: 1.) Our lack of making the division more prestigious and 2.) The resistance of Gold teams who don’t want to put the effort into playing in Plat. We feel that people should keep pushing themselves to be the best!

As mentioned before, we’re taking steps to help cultivate the Plat division. As for the second issue, I am not going to allow Gold teams that perform at the top of their division during Season 12 to remain in Gold for Season 13... even if they try to break up and reform slowly over the season.

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Since its start in 2002, UGC has faced multiple challenges and has overcome just as many. They’ve facilitated and helped organize more than 30 000 matches for over 50 000 unique players. With years of experience and one of the most passionate communities surrounding them, their road to success already seems panned out. But yet, they know that everyone still has a lot of work on their hands, if they want competitive TF2 to keep striving, growing and succeeding.

What do you see for the future of competitive TF2?

FORNAUGHT (League owner): We will have to see how the lobby system develops, I think it’s a fine idea. It probably won’t change our league format, but it could be great for the TF2 community longevity of the game.

Another thing that is a real eye opener for us is Dota 2, with its player/team relationships, and its API possibilities. If Valve is able to successfully integrate even some of that new thinking into a future Team Fortress rendition, it could be very exciting!

INFINITE: I’ve always wanted to help organize a large online based TF2 competition. Basically, get ESEA, CEVO, UGC on board to organize something big. We could pool our resources and offer fantastic prizes. LAN is not the answer. So much money is wasted in the setup and transportation that it isn’t cost effective. If we could get a sponsor and/or piggyback off another LAN somewhere, then it could work. It would have to be not-for-profit of course, to get Valve’s support, but it’s possible. Maybe we could work with Valve to get an in-game item available to purchase where a % goes to Valve and a % goes to a prize pot?

After ESEA was sentenced to pay a 1 million-dollar fine for their BitCoin and malware fiasco, many communities have extended their support to the 6s scene. What was UGC’s position on the subject?

SNOW: I know it’s been said before that UGC is a feeder league or farm league for ESEA but I do not see it that way. I don’t see ESEA, CEVO, ETF2L, Wireplay nor OzFortress as competitors but rather alternative distribution channels if you will. We all exist to promote the growth and longevity of TF2. In the wake of ESEA’s ordeal, had their 6s community decided that UGC was a viable option for the future growth of the format in NA, we would have gladly worked with them. We were open to discussions about how we could accommodate the new player base but no one actually approached us.

I saw one proposal that we create 2 different 6s leagues entirely. On that front at least, I can say we are not interested. We have no plans to segregate teams that way. It’s a bit of a slap in the face to our 3,000 6s players to tell them they are second rate to 500 ESEA players and we must keep them walled off to ensure prestige is maintained.

INFINITE: The 6s community bypassed UGC completely and chose to move forward with CEVO. I wish them the best of luck. I think if they approached Forn, we could have worked something out, but probably not to the level of what CEVO has done.

I think the competition between CEVO and ESEA has been positive for the community. Instead of abandoning TF2 at the first sign of trouble, ESEA should work to provide a better product than CEVO. Then CEVO will try and do the same and so on. I think the real question everyone should be asking is why are these two prominent leagues ignoring the most popular TF2 competitive format?

Any final words for the readers out there?

SNOW: GOOD LUCK TO ALL TEAMS! Thanks for the interview.

INFINITE: Good luck to all the players and thanks for doing this!

Really well written, good read.
Nice job! Hopefully your article will get approved soon!

Probably because it's more casual. I doubt many players want to pay to play. Also, getting 6 players on a team and paid up is already a chore; with HL, it would be almost impossible unless people in this community suddenly become punctual. CEVO and ESEA want their leagues to have reasonable prize pots. It's also going to be next to impossible to get a LAN going; as far as I know (correct me if I'm wrong), no competitive game has ever had a serious format with more than 7 players per team; most games hover around 5. ESEA probably will not want to support a game that they have no chance of taking to LAN.

I do agree that it is a more popular competitive format, but more people play pubs than HL too.

lets just play 16v16 while we're at it

good read but valve still doesn't get it, we don't like weapons that take away from traditional shooter skills
tf2 is a shooter, not a moba

or entire classes.

Great interview.

nice interview, thanks for posting