I can't speak for TF2, but from the perspective of someone who played tetris competitively for a span of years, I doubt it. The tetris community is dwarfed by the tf2 community, is supported even less by TTC than 6s tf2 is by Valve (so much so that the the best competitive games come from community made clients that TTC has rather relentlessly tried to have taken down). Yet, in the few years since I stopped playing the community has stuck it out, new players have come in and absolutely massacred my best speed record.

The game will go on as long as there are people who enjoy playing it, though it will benefit massively from the continued support of its community (all you fantastic people who make the insomnia tournaments, ToTh, etc etc work). I may be off my rocker here, but I've always thought the community mattered more than official support. I've stuck around and kept an interest because of the people who invest so much time to put out consistent and wonderful coverage. You guys are some pretty neat folks, and I'm pretty sure Lange is the human equivalent of a teddy bear.

As for i52, there were enough wild gesticulations coming from me to satisfy the needs of three Italian weddings. It was hands down the most mindblowing TF2 I've ever watched.

Time to make everyone broke, all those fundraisers

I was going to stick this on ETF2L, but seeing as you are here.

I went for the day thinking that I'd be able to watch some TF2 on a mini stage at the venue, or at least get some TF2-ness from the whole thing, it being the only international relevant event there. In actual fact outside of the TF2 basement (which you can't get in without a black weekend pass thing) there is nothing TF2,.. it is like it isn't even there (my TF2 experience was talking to War briefly, and Kkaltuu until it started raining*).

So ... I'm thinking that a mini-stage in the actual Expo area would be a good shout. Day visitors can see TF2 being played, with the likes of Admirable and Lange broadcasting it is exciting to watch and maybe we'll pull in some new fans. The Shawshank Redemption shitty pipe dream is that crowds = fans, fans = eyeballs, eyeballs = sponsors; you put the atmosphere that is on the current mini-stage in the expo hall next to all those potential sponsors, maybe we sway some of them...

Now I'm sure the LoL and Dota stages in the expo arena cost actual money, I'd be interested to know what floor space costs, and to figure out the logistics of getting the rest together, give that the community already puts together its own mini-stage. (for extra clarification I'm talking about putting my own money in here)

*I had also gone to check the venue out for running my own events there so it wasn't a wasted day, but the icing on the cake of being able to enjoy some TF2 was stolen from me.

I'm real interested in seeing how the Asian players rank up against the rest of the world. I have no clue how good any of them are.

Asia does not have an iM equivalent that can hang with the top euro or American teams. I'm pretty sure South America doesn't either. Getting them to the next lan world be cool, but from a competitive perspective they'll get rolled.

If epsi actually went and got drunk before grand finals, that's a pretty dick move. People donated to get you to the fucking lan.

I'm actually quite curious to hear what they did after the last match on Saturday, maybe War, Kiler or Knoxx (the only ones I've seen posting on tftv during the LAN) could shed some light on it?

Not looking for excuses why my favorite team lost, would just like to hear where the rumours/excuses about hangovers, too little sleep, etc. came from.

war said noone in epsilon had any alcohol

Can confirm. Apparently not having food before games makes people think you are drunk :3

Even if this is true, it would still be nice to see these teams play on LAN. Publicir and AYO were simply filler teams for the Invite bracket. I wouldn't see any problem with giving those 2 spots to the Asian and South American teams instead.

Even if you did not go that direction, the Asian/South American teams should be good enough to finish top 2 in the Non-Invite brackets and advance to play in the final tournament.

it's just so much money for teams that ultimately don't have a chance

so far every intercontinental team has taken home at least some (although insignificant) prize money and had a chance to win

edit: this is under the assumption that the teams wouldnt be very competitive as hypothesized above. If there are asian/south american teams that would actually be able to play at the same level of 4G/epsi/mix^/iM...that would be cool.

bad troll is bad

Obviously I understand that. I wasn't talking about money in any way and never mentioned it. I was talking about competition from different parts of the world and how in an ideal setting, it would be nice to see them all playing together.

This is disappointing to hear, this could be related to the new setup used this year with a separate director.

I can confirm that at neither i46 or i49 did we (me and Arx) have any warnings about when we we're going live, luckily I know Byte of course :) Though, we could hear audio instructions through the headset, e.g. Bring the mic closer.

I slightly disagree with you on the roster run down, yes its a nice to have but I wouldn't say it's a massive sticking point.

Having not watched the final yet, I can't comment on this too much. As above, I guess it's disappointing to hear there were some sound issues, could the tent have caused this? I did prefer Telford large room compared to the tent.

So yes we would have all loved this a few years ago, even at i46. Unfortunately, this just won't happen.

I don't want to disregard your idea but here are my opinions,

TF2 isn't big enough and unless we are willing to rent the space (as you said correctly). This would require significant investment in both money for renting space and hardware. As far as I'm aware, all exhibitors bring their own stages, tvs, PC's etc

It takes a considerable amount of man hours working with what we have now. Remember, there was 4 guys at least from Production who arrived Wednesday and others who arrived Thursday day. If we wanted to change this, we would need staff being paid in some shape of form.

Forgetting the points above, we also then run into the issues of actually scheduling casting of games. We have learnt from lessons in the past its highly beneficial to be in the same room with the ability to walk over and get games - server info, starting things off, interviews and so on. I think having this moved away from that area would be a step backwards in the ability to keep things flowing.

I look forward to catching up with some vods over the next few days but from what I did see. Things looked very well presented and the hard work which was put in would have been enjoyed by thousands! So really good job to all of you.

We have had expo stands in the past (beat the pro style thing) with nvc/byte/whoever at the time. The expo hall really is quite full again now though, and actually it's quite loud in there so i'm not sure a casting situation would be favoured by the community (difficult to hear commentary, and probably the in-game sounds). Plus, everything mentioned by Beta about equipment..

Thing about the stage is there's also not a lot of time to ween out issues. It's pretty much turn up and play. We had setup time beforehand this time, although you don't necessarily notice things. I saw someone telling the Multiplay guys about the hud and that the large parts need removing during play, but it's not something you'd think to say as someone used to it, I suppose. The tech guys aren't familiar with our running at all.

MONSTER (South America's strongest team) proved they could hang out with the top teams in the Showmatch against XTS earlier this year. But for them to be ready to really compete at the highest levels, they'd have to spend some time to scrim against the best NA and EU teams (like iM did before i49) because there is no true competition for them in here (like in Australia).

if that match with mix vs. im was the grand final, i'd have been fucking stoked. that match was insane.

In that case my alternative suggestion was to make something like Bar 87 the home of TF2 or something and allow people in and broadcast from there ... some way to engage people that aren't in the community already. Otherwise it is just an exercise in navel gazing, external engagement is what will create the next generation of players.

Either way I'm sure we'll all be here discussing it again this time next year...

Now I'm starting to think that Mix^ vs. 4G would have been better.....

Okay I still love you then.

Hello!

So I wanted to say that final was so shit. Guess what, after the second map started it got immediately finished after I have blinked with my eyes. Even Byte's monologue was longer... But what is more dreadful, ha, you will never guess! Mirelin got so offended, because after the first map he went to buy Pizza(In order to enjoy amazing second and third map) and when he got back; game over, stage is empty. He had to eat his pizza in a lonely empty arena hall.

I've beat Mike in MGE and I think all situation with AwS got sabotaged. I saw KnoXxX pouring something inside of their energy drinks. But I think it should really have been us and AwS in the finals!!!
No offense froyotech <3.

Cheers boys and shout out to the best medic in the world; my friend Mirelin!

Cheers!
Australia!

l8r

they were struggling to beat XTS on a brazil server with pings stacked in their favour

I will pay good money to ensure this scene or a reenactment of this takes place in the i52 fragumentary.

How the hell did you manage that mirelin? My pc was off and it had a different password. Lolol

I forget logging into another pc. I probably did, though

yes it would have

LOL mirelin you're the best

can you please force "kiler4fun" to change his name it is the worst gamer alias I have seen in the past 15 years simply appalling

kileR4fuNN' :P

*

Risky point considering you're one dyslexic away from kum.