feel like nobodys talking about the demographics here,

if you're a really young guy, in high school or between college or in 1st or 2nd year college you're gonna have a lot of time to burn playing tf2. but once you start working or start going for big degrees you have a lot less time to try to get better so the drive to keep playing disappears. takes a lot of fuckin time to get better at tf2, i guess some people do it but idk how you can stay good and only play matches or scrim once a week

I'm quite sad that Classic Mixup is dead. Those six players were some of the best to every touch this game. When I started playing tf2, I already knew what I wanted - to go to lan and play against them.

I'm quite sad that CEVO is dead. They tried so hard and cared so much about TF2 and we didn't care enough about them.

I'm also fairly pissed at the End of the Line update. I loved the SFM. But I miss my map and my unlocks and my matchmaking.

But honestly none of that is going to kill tf2.

Good players left, but that doesn't make me love the game any less. How many seasons did Epsilon shit on the rest of prem without dropping a map? They're still here, doing around as well as we are, yeah? It was still exciting to see new teams like Broder and Crack Clan rise up to challenge them, and it was still a good story, still exciting to root for the underdogs and hope against hope and cheer for them. And Elevate actually took maps of Froyo, which means we don't have it as bad as ETF2L did. New talent will come from the depths of open or im or whatever and challenge the titans. Because we don't play 6v6 to fight Mixup at lan, we play 6v6 because it's fun and challenging and people want to be the best. And that's still gonna be there.

Besides, #1 and #2 seeds were always locked down. Maybe ESEA lan will be more exciting with 3 teams on the same level.

I loved CEVO's mission and their fervor and love for the game, but splitting the community between two leagues meant that each league had less players, which means that new teams saw each individual league as less attractive. If CEVO is dead, then the vast majority of those teams will flock back to ESEA, and open will look more attractive - more teams in a league means more competition, and people play ESEA for the competition.

And what was the last time an update actually did something for us? The Loose Cannon + Conch + Winger buffs + Heavy/Pyro/Sniper nerfs in July 2013? Don't forget they fucked up our ESEA lan and America's chances at i49 with the Quick-Fix. And before that? Crossbow buff/un-nerf in November 2013? The Loose Cannon and Vaccinator (like one person uses this thing) introductions in December 2012? Crossbow buff/un-nerf in November 2013? This update is par for the course - Valve has never given a shit about competitive, this is nothing but the old status quo. Chances are every unlock would have been banned or worthless anyway, and we can play snowplow in competitive even if it isn't official. Matchmaking is ducks but we never had matchmaking and it didn't kill us before.

tldr; We play tf2 because it's fun, not to get money. TF2 is still fun even if mixup and cevo are gone. 6v6 is fun even without new unlocks and all we need to do is help new players learn that. We didn't get anything from the update, but we didn't lose anything either, so whatever.

They could have nerfed stickies.

Good players left, but don't worry slin is still here.

All I got from that video is that Lange really needs a hug.

You're completely right, but that only applies to post-CoD4. The series didn't becoming the gaming empire it is today during that games prime, but some time after. Whether or not that's obvious, I don't know. CoD4, on PC, had nowhere near as many total players as TF2 has or ever did have. I'm not sure if this matters, but they both released only months apart as well. So, despite having less total players, they still managed to have a bigger competitive scene, even with their North American scene, which was amazingly smaller than their EU scene from what I remember.

Why? My guess is because they played the game nearly identical to how the core game was played to begin with. They didn't have any class gimmicks or whatever. Sure, some weapons were banned and some weren't but were never used because others were a clear choice. Sure, some maps weren't ever in rotation. Either way, they managed to have a bigger overall competitive scene than us, despite having a smaller player count in general; there was absolutely zero support for the competitive scene from Infinity Ward.

My point is, developer support helps, but isn't the answer to everything. They make the games, but it's the community that determines whether or not the game stays alive and grows or dies. Well, at least in most cases. So, we're clearly not getting any 6v6 support from Valve other than a reminder on their website of upcoming LANs that aren't even on the front page. At this point, which is no different than any other point in our scene's history, it's up to us. We can either realize the game will never peak higher than it has in the past and let it ride out until its inevitable end, or we can continue doing our best to make the scene as good as it can get.

What was our record in terms of total Open teams? 60-64? Let's find some way to make it that again, or even make it higher, instead of discussing the end of something that isn't even over, and really doesn't have any right to be yet.

I've been playing TF2 since early 2009. That's not the beginning, but it's a good chunk of time ago.

2,200 hours in this game (that's not much compared to some of you) and yet today during a pug I was still losing it giggling uncontrollably about some stupid play I made. This game is fun. It doesn't have to be the biggest thing in the world if you've got your friends and some good times.

Whatever happens I'll stick to trying to create content for the community whether or not they want it.

ESEA isn't gone so comp TF2 isn't dead. Some people are burnt out myself included... But the opportunity to go to lan and play against the best is still there for those who are willing to put in the time and effort. Until ESEA drops the game entirely... Shoot feet get kills.

It's because tf2 was never designed to appeal to serious competitive people, compared to CoD which was always meant to be at least a somewhat serious game, since tone wise its much more serious. I feel that's what leads to people taking the game as a comp shooter more serious. It isn't that it is more similar to its vanilla game or anything. Pre 2009, the game was basically the same between pubs and comp, with the only difference being player count. The rules now adays are the same between 6s and pubs, just with weapon bans.

TF2 won't die until we all leave. Just keep playing.

I actually forgot about the bitcoin thing completely.

Anytime people start to talk about the decline of tf2 this video always comes to mind, might not be the exact same but when and if it dies we will all be in the same place :(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGnn6eLcFmc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XmDYJBZZdc

It's not that most of everything here is not done by you anymore, it's that you're probably the biggest face in the TF2 community. You leaving is like if b4nny decided to quit. Huge uproar at first, but over time people would realize that other people will fill his place.

-------------------------------------------

Personally, I think we may need to look at a major restructuring of our game to keep it alive. But first we need to give up on Valve support, it's never happening. We should also reconsider whether we actually need ESEA or if we should drop them and go to/form another league. I'm not sure if GXL will happen again (we'll need sponsors), so ESEA may be needed to keep exposure up. If we do decide to drop ESEA, we could finally switch to the EU ruleset. I was thinking maybe we could either reform UGC 6s or start an NA ETF2L division. And 5v5 A:R might be worth considering.

That said, if you don't want TF2 to die and you have the time/money/motivation, then sign up for ESEA. We need to keep ESEA at least for the time being, as we have no other plans.

Exactly. The scene has been alive for years, what makes people think that just because Valve is now able to support CS:GO and Dota 2 that it needs to reciprocate for TF2? CS:S was a competitive community for a long time without having money injected into it by Valve, and even TF2 will never get as huge as something like LoL doesn't mean it has to.

TF2 is not dead, players at the top leave all the time, they get replaced. Supporters of the scene that leave will get replaced. The scene will only truly die when that stops being the case.

I'm betting TF2 will shrink a bit more and stabilize. I think for a lot of people there's been a lot of disappointments and not that much hype. As much as we love the game, when's the last time you thought "this is why I play tf2"? Never pug with the people I used to anymore, have a job and much less time for games, felt pretty meh over the LAN finals. Even if the size of the comp community stayed the same, I think a lot of people want to see growth, not stagnation. Without a lifeline from Valve I don't think there's any chance of keeping as many players. Even pub TF2 was disappointing with the last few updates. I think the competitive community has already done a lot for TF2 (look at all the insomnia fundraisers and what not), but it hasn't felt rewarding as before.

If you still have a core of TF2 people you still stick around with you might stick longer, but I think for a lot of people it's more fun to jump to another game where there's a much better system and support already in place and still very enjoyable.

I do wish http://steamcharts.com/app/440 has more years recorded. I'd love to see how much the numbers for TF2 has changed, considering it had more average players in August 2012 (MvM update) than it does today.

i still have a lot of fun playing tf2, but i don't think it's going to have a future, and i'm sure a lot of the people who have been playing as long as i have would agree with that sentiment (as lange has also stated in his video)

i'm planning on switching competitive games to either smash 4 or overwatch just because i'd rather play a game that has developer support, but i think i'd still play around in tf2 pubs for hours on end as long as there are active servers to play in

it's kind of sad, but it's not like our community hasn't tried to reach out to valve for support, which resulted in years of us just being ignored

maybe valve will start to care when it starts to lose players when overwatch comes out, but they have already waited too long to do anything support-wise for it's competitive community, both in terms of highlander and 6v6 and it doesn't look like they care about anything besides csgo and dota 2 at this point

tf2 is just their cash cow to raise money for tournaments like the international, and it's not like they even implement anything into the game that wasn't already made by someone else from steam workshop at this point

see u in overwatch

Can't say I blame him. Hope he comes back and shows us whatever he's working on.

More than anything with Valve it's the lack of communication that gets me. I understand arguments against some of the things we've lobbied for but for Valve to completely shut us out is pretty upsetting. I always kinda figured Valve's m.o. was community collaboration but that just doesn't seem to apply here.

I wont say that competitive TF2 is dead/dying. Even if Valve didn't do anything for the game this year, it was still a blast for our community. We did Tip of the Hats (which bought over a whooping 65,000 viewers), i52 and the GXL LAN (which by far was the best lan I had ever seen) all by ourselves. After all, TF2 is the third most played game on Steam, and even if a small fraction of this playerbase which only knows of pubs, can head over to the competitive community, there is no question of comp tf2 dying.

I refuse to play overwatch because there is a class that can deploy 6 minisentris

They are in a more difficult position than most people appreciate. Anyone who contacts them, or even any group, are self selecting as speaking for the comp scene which even in a diminished state is thousands of players and puts Valve in the position of being king maker of an outside community, which is something that they don't officially want to do.

We've had years of Valve basically leaving us to ourselves while the bulk of the game went in another direction and, largely because of a few influential figures either arguing against them or admins simply making decisions, new unlocks are heavily banned when items and unlocks are what the game has been all about to Valve.

So what we have now are several years worth of competitive infrastructure built up outside of Valve's compass, and during that time Valve building up internal game structure, culture, product development and a customer base with no focus on competitive. There's not a lot of scope for collaboration there without reversing their entire business model.

Even then things have moved on from the items now with slower release cycles and infrequent updates, at the moment they do ticketed events with pay-to-get-items benefits and increasingly complex combinations of item properties. Fuck knows what is going on with the rubber ducks.

Initially it might seem that comp potentially fits into this, but you have to remember the opportunity cost - every time they could do something in a competitive format they could also do something that appeals to more players. Valve only have so much development time to spend on the game, so they have to make choices. Even so they probably have a lot of reusable assets and experience they can bring across from their other games, so it's not black and white.

Ultimately the problem is that the vast majority of the player base just doesn't care, and that doesn't get solved without a massive evangelical effort. A lot of that activity has died off too unfortunately.

Even if TF2 comp is dying, who gives a shit? Look at how much people have achieved with this game based off just the communities efforts to make it happen!

Anyway, for me the game is suffering from a few things:

1. No matchmaking, this may be a small thing for some but for me it's a big deal. There's a massive change in player habits in terms of games over the last 10 years, it used to all be about joining your favourite server and meeting the same group of people etc. Now it's based mainly on matchmaking and playing a competitive format, community aspects of games are somewhat slipping away and no longer being a focus (CSGO, Dota2, LoL, COD). This means that people are used to hitting play and actually playing the god damn game straight away in a competitive environment.

This creates a feel that TF2 is more casual as there isn't really a progress report unlike the other games out there.

2. Unlocks ARE shitty, people you can argue all you want about how us not using them is hurting the popularity but we literally have no choice. No other FPS title has such a diverse set of weapons and classes, balance is an integral part of FPS games, OP guns get used and toned down, underused weapons will at most part be left underused. In TF2 it's not like this so much, OP weapons are INCREDIBLY OP and will get used but not nerfed. Valve can't expect 6v6 players to start using wrangler mini sentries on badlands spire in the hopes they will see how OP it is and nerf it, we already know it's a fucking joke but they just leave it.

3. Competitive resources are also a big thing for me, before TF2 was F2P we used to have MGE which was a great source of pro player guides etc. Now with TF2 F2P we don't have anything like that to help people come in to the game, yeah we have streams, but MGE was actually pretty decent as the content was pretty good quality.

4. Hype, I can't really comment on the NA scene that much but for the EU scene there is a large lack of hype these days, the grand finals for S19 happened and there wasn't really much hype being built around it, it might be because of the shit teams but who knows.

Regardless of what happens to TF2 you can still be fucking proud of what we've done, look at logs.tf , spectator plugins, NodeCG, i52, i49, i46 and many more, this was all done with the communities efforts who love the game and nothing else.

Are we doing this again?

It's the same everytime.

People yelling "TF2 is dead".
People complaining that "TF2 will never become big" because Valve doesn't care.
Some people (just a few) in NA whining that if not everyone pays for a league TF2 will die.

Reminder: If you define "dead" as "not big anymore" or "has no chance at becoming big anymore" then TF2 died a long time ago.
TF2 was never "big" and it will never be "big".
TF2 will die when you stop playing it, ESEA or not. There is no pay to play league in Europe and we're still playing an awful lot of TF2 for it being dead.

If you're not having fun then quit. There is no other reason to play this game.
98% or whatever of the players will never make any kind of profit with this game, making a living with it is impossible. It's not Dota2, it's not Starcraft, we're not professional eSports and we never will be.

I never thought I'd see you passing up the opportunity for free damage padding on a static target.

Not going to lie I am kind happy the tf2 isnt a "true e-sport" or what ever, I am not sure how many of you actually keep up with dota 2 or CS but the fans of the comp side of them are fucking horrible. Alot of the grass-roots feeling that made quake early CS and TF2 amazing to play is almost totally gone on those games. Any time you get a bad game or a team has a bad showing the pitchforks are raised like no other by the fans because "The players didnt play the exact way I wanted them to and because I supported this tourny through what ever means (in game tickets or cases etc...) all of the players are now playing for me". I see alot of this sense of entitlement on various forums and it makes me really mad, like what ever happened to that days where people played these games because they liked to or watched games not because they paid some amount now they expect the players to be their slaves but because they wanted to support the players? And because of this it makes me happy to see TF2 at its roots still, a group of people that play and support the game not because they expect something out of it but because it is fun for them, I would much rather have that in a small game then have a huge game with lots of eyes on it, but with the rule that the players dont play for themselves anymore, its a video game for fucks sakes. And yeah we may never get big but atleast we still have a community that plays for the right reasons.

sorry if this doesnt make any sense its 3AM lol

spacing tino SPACING

where have u gone twitch john?

oh well <3

Chill, NA dudes. ESEA is not the only league in the world, even with CEVO dead. Even if ESEA was completely dead now (it isn't) all that would be is a setback for American tf2. The ETF2L season just finished, with a really great couple of matches to finish it (at a really amazing standard, too, ignore WAR he's too modest), Ozfortress are having their finals now and because the more established streamers are busy irl like a lot of you guys now (demographics...) other people are stepping up to the plate to cast the matches, hell even div 4/5 semi-finals are being casted. Ugc stuff is presumably going on, and there's plenty of highlander for all those who like that sort of thing.

People will move on all the time, most of you guys are what, 20-27? You probably have more important stuff than tf2 to worry about now, or you certainly will soon... but hopefully those of you who have time and still enjoy it will keep playing leagues and the gaps can and will be filled by younger blood.

Pretty much everyone here knows why most weapons are banned, namely because they suck. They either suck in tf2 as a whole, like the bfb, sc, whatever, or they suck for cp/koth (gunslinger), the suck for smaller player counts (wrangler, dr, beggar's bazooka) or because they suck when people are actually good (pretty much every other weapon that isn't used). You guys can't change that, and why would you want to? Don't second guess these decisions, they were right to make and they will continue to be right. If valve employees don't bother to educate themselves enough about their own game then their opinions are unimportant and certainly provide no valid reasoning behind suggestions of changing the game in any way.

Just play the game and keep growing those lans, the i-series in particular because by now that's recognised as 'the' tf2 tournament of the year, around the world. Just keep making those great (and Lange, you were a massive part of that this time around) and tf2 won't die quickly. I don't know about anyone else but I'm already excited for next year. Hopefully the stream/vod viewer counts are getting high enough to attract more sponsors, because with money coming into the game valve's intransigence will be basically irrelevant.

I feel as if cevo started there season a month later they would of gotten more teams. I didn't even know cevo was going to start a week early and my team didn't either. We assumed it was going to start after esea lan since cevo seasons start around the time esea does. Plus esea won't die as long as we get 50 teams as Ma3la stated, and we already have 40 pending and its been a week since the sign up has lived on.

Also thoughts on HL I think the only reason why its huge is because its free and so much like a pub. The thing is the competitive experience in HL is so liquidated to what it is in 6s. Plus in general I think ugc is really sloppy and doesn't have the best admins/organization. So I think you'd have to hesitate to say HL is a competitive game mode.

ESEA will live, theres 20 days till sign ups close and I'm pretty sure if people are commiting there time into this game for like at least 20 hours a week scrimming and practicing then they should have the 10 dollars to spare.