Seagull could probably do it 1v5

also what is 5 man tf2?

probably that arena game mode

:D ??

We are playing 5v5 Area:Respawn and GameCluks has the perfect number of computer available to us.

You could have made it a little clearer that this was a lan.

or included any actual details whatsoever

Where in seattle/what time is this happening?

It's like your entire existence is avoiding 6v6

"They want to take on the best TF2 players that Seattle has to offer."
wtf lol

http://66.147.244.101/~gamecluc/?page_id=522

Here it says gameclucks has 20 computers.

Aren't the burnsiders like extine + pubbers he found in his neighborhood?

I live like 5 minutes away, but after my experience with pbl it might not even be worth showing up.
pasta hype thoough

Support this stuff you goons, why not? Room for growth. I don't care if it's not 6v6, it has the potential to really help ze game/get some exposure.

Good luck dudes.

Dammit boys, I get back home to Seattle for winter break on the 15th.

I'm sad. I'd love to school eXtine some more. :)

Yeah, it might end up being more outsider-friendly than 6s. Even if it's not and it fails, at least we're trying to innovate.

Yyyaaooo!

I'm not sure on details either and we'll share the specifics when we can.

Hahah. Well, some are good buddys, some are eXperienced players, some are random pubbers, and some are poopy friends.

The Burnsiders are up in Seattle because we will be fielding 5 players in the Red Bull Dota 2 LAN on Saturday the 13th, Oh snap. Tom from PBL snagged 5 tickets for us and I quickly distributed them to Carver (my buddy @ modmic), Retro (OG Burnsider), LevelE (Our Dota2 Captain), and Pithium (Linux guru eXtraordinaire). Dummy got screwed.

We thought we were playing Dota on Sunday at first, but I guess A:R is on the docket :P Maybe we shoulda brought Dummy. Paals will be coming up with a friend so he might tag in on a machine.

Why don't you watch this video of the 5v5 Arena:Respawn Pug with invite players we hosted. It was casted by myself and some guy named flame. I'm pretty sure it was flame, but maybe it was really dflame.

Well said Buick. PBL is doing a lot just for the sake of doing a lot. They picked up our tickets for the Red Bull LAN and will be renting the Burnsiders the computers @ Gameclucks on Sunday just for the sake of making this happen.

I don't know what Moose is feeling hurt about, but the PBL crew do have their heart in the right place and are trying to do some huge things for the community. People are eXpecting Hilton service while we just opened our first campground.

So is PBL for everyone or like a personal sponsorship for extine

PBL is for everyone, but they've certainly been helping me with events for the Portland Burnsiders.

Didnt you cast the Arena:Respawn match with eXtine?

generally tftv isnt a hub for highlander or 5v5 players, and the initial post to which i responded was beyond vague.

so thank you vibhav for reminding me that i casted a 5v5 gamemode, i forgot, especially after extine had already replied to that quote.

Generally TFtv is a hub for TeamFortress players right? I certainly hope that's the goal here.

First post was a bit vague, but hey, we're moving forward.

The Burnsiers are either staying in Lynwood across from the Gameclucks or at my parents in Olympia. We'll be at Gameclucks for most of the day, from when they open at Noon till maybe 8pm? We have to drive back to Portland and it's a long weekend of gaming and driving. It looks like Gameclucks has 20 pcs, we'll be on 5 of em. Not sure what their BYOC space/policy is, I'll check in on that.

We're down to scrim people in Arena:Respawn or in Dota. It'll be 5v5 A:R with a class ban for each team. The Arena:Respawn plugin can now convert Koth maps natively, so our map pool has eXtended quite a bit.

A:R is a lot of fun. We've kind of stumbled with our organizing of events to showcase it recently due to our focus on the LAN Vegas Nerd Years Eve, but we want to get more events put together for the format.

PBL isn't locked to A:R, but I think the mode does address some of the problems that 6s faces. All classes are viable and problematic classes can be dealt with. The open whitelist leads to way more creativity with items and if we find that there are just a few items that really throw things off, we can add a few item bans.

People have admitted that 6s has some serious problems. It pushes away pub players who want to main spyro and it necessitates having many items banned which is discouraging for Valve to include our input into their balancing. Robin Walker has clearly stated that he'd like to see some sort of pick/ban dynamic in Competitive TF2. When every other Valve employee in the room shuts up to attentively listen to what Robin has to say, maybe we should too.

A:R might not be the answer, but at least it's some sort of attempt to try a new style of competitive TF2 that offers things other modes don't.

dflame is that you?

I want to preface this by saying that I enjoyed watching the AR pugs, if there was a league I would probably make a team, and I don't have anything against the format as a whole.

That being said, I don't see how AR/trying new formats is supposed to be the answer to pubbers not being able to run "spyro.". A little over a year ago 4s was in the exact same spot as AR seems to be now. People were excited about it because changing the class limits and team sizes was supposed to make a more dynamic playing experience with a constantly shifting meta. It had many less restrictions, and was supposed to appeal to pubbers. A year later, I can say with confidence that 95% of 4s teams think of the format as a joke. People quickly realized that the problem with pyro and spy wasn't that the 6s community was unwelcome towards them, it was that they simply don't work in the fast-paced team-based atmosphere that comp TF2 creates. Despite the early excitement (maybe even obsession) with making a fulltime pyro/spy/engie/whatever viable, teams quickly realized that scout, demo, med, and soldier were still the best options for the vast majority of situations. 4s petered out quickly, if it ever really got off its feet in the first place.

So what makes us think that AR is going to come out any differently? I love watching 6s, and I'm always frustrated that the community (outside TFTV) is constantly trying to find new "gimmicks" to "improve" comp TF2. We look at other games to try to poach mechanics from them without actually thinking about why those mechanics work for their individual games in the first place. A pick/ban system in TF2 is going to mean very different things than it does in games with over 100 pickable classes. When CS:GO was struggling, we didn't see people saying it should introduce a pick/ban weapon system, an economic system in Quake would make 0 sense, and an item build system in SC2 would be horrendous. It just seems to me that the TF2 community is self-conscious about our main format in a way that other communities aren't. We've done amazing work to raise thousands of dollars for charity, had 6s leagues for longer than some TF2 players have been alive, and funded 3 international LANs, all with minimal interest or notice from Valve. To me, those all sound like the actions of a thriving and active competitive community that clearly love the format we've created.

Once again, AR sounds like fun and I love that we have community members invested in creating new ways to play the game we all love. But some of the people excited by these new formats do so due to criticism of 6s that is unfounded and inaccurate, and probably aren't going to stick with 4s/AR/ultitrio/whatever once they realize that they're not structurally sound and likely will not wave a magic wand to make Valve notice us and bring a higher percentage of the playerbase into comp. eXtine, you've done so much more for the community, 6s and otherwise, than I ever will, but I still don't think we should rush to throw ideas at a wall without first recognizing that the 6s community has created some amazing things and stayed alive for longer than it has any right too.

I've made less flowery love poems than this. Thanks for all your work and these criticisms aren't directed towards you. I think I just get a little tired of hearing new players who have never played comp explain why the format is broken. Probably spend too much time on the TF2 subreddits.

The thing about AR is that it is the first attempt at a game mode entirely different from 6 v 6 in recent times. It's attempting to recreate the "best" parts of tf2 (constant midfight-like action) while removing the stalemates. That's the chance it has at succeeding, but the publicity of AR has been poor.

The reception from the comp community has been the typical "lol not 6s, get good," that has been killing off new blood for ages. When people stop trying to feel they're inherently better than others based on game-type alone, maybe other game modes will have a chance, but without the comp community's backing, and a hard backing at that, everything will fail.

I appreciate the attempt and interest PBL has brought out, but it's a small step in a major uphill battle that has little traction. People need to be talking about it, getting excited about it. Some sort of incorporation with tf2center/serveme would be a MAJOR step in increasing the word and being able to get players able to test these things without having to contact "the right people" on the right servers. I understand it's in constant development as well, but this stuff's gotta get momentum.

I think the idea's good in principle, it just needs to be ironed out more and i'm not keen on the pick/ban system. The arena concept is similar to cs in that it would make matchmaking damn easy and casual without the hoops of traditional competitive tf2 that take months to really grasp given the spattering of information and lack of helpful players in typical games.

Thank you for all of the input. We are reading through all of this and want to work with the community to grow the scene.

For now, we need some players in Seattle to put up a fight against a team from Portland. If you are interested in playing reach out to /id/PBLGizmo.