Would you want to pay for a new league (with all the problems that come with startup) when you have a wildly successful free league with a lan attached?

That and all the EU players know is what they see on tftv, which is hating and spewing bullshit

terrible timing and poor promotion

ESEA EU TF2's inaugural season came just a month or so after the whole bitcoin fiasco that led to jaguar (the client coder) getting fired. the long hiatus between his firing and his replacement meant the client wasn't updated for TF2 for many days after the actual start of the season.

as many of us are all too aware, an un-updated client means it's impossible for anyone to actually play league matches, which i'm sure didn't leave all too great of an impression on fresh EU faces.

it's a shame really; a succesful EU ESEA division of TF2 would be huge for this game. if the EU equivalent were to be just on par with the NA side, regular international majors would be a very real possibility.

a reasonable combined invite prize purse of 28,000 USD means a tri-annual international LAN with:

• legitimacy of ESEA as a major in the esports scene
  
• fully provided top-of-the-line PC/monitor setup
  
• guaranteed 540 USD/player travel compensation in advance (upon qualifying for LAN)

Thank you all for the explanation

The season happened during ETF2L, for most teams one of those tournaments had to be given second priority, I feel it could have maybe been better if it wasn't running at the same time as many teams really couldn't be arsed at all.

I would...
Other wouldn't I guess

With 2 ESEA matches a week and then 1 ETF2L official a week that's 3 game nights already taken for official games. When do you get your scrims in if most teams can only spare 3 or 4 nights a week? At the time it was one or the other, not to mention scheduling conflicts between ETF2L and ESEA games. If the seasons were to fall so that ESEA came between the ETF2L season or vice versa it might work out better, although then you have no downtime for team reshuffling etc.

How do people that do HL and 6s do it? Doing 3 matches a week isn't impossible.

I think if it wasn't for all the bad publicity people would have been more inclined to commit to ESEA than ETF2L since ESEA can offer a lot more than ETF2L. It's a shame the fuck E$EA bitcoin scandal coincided with the launch of ESEA EU TF2, since ESEA EU could've been huge for TF2 in general as enigma already pointed out.

It failed because we had a free alternative that was better than the paid one, ETF2L.

HL matches typically take place at the same time every week so it's easier to plan around that. Also similar to EASEA, UGC matches only take place on a single map. ETF2L matches take place on two maps, so it'd be like an EASEA team playing a double header every week, also unlike UGC, ETF2L matches aren't always at the same time on the same day, thus making them more difficult to schedule around compared to UGC HL, and the situation is more similar to how NA players had trouble scheduling both ESEA and CEVO matches in the same week.

In other words, they're not really comparable if you actually think about it for more than two seconds.

We're all in agreement that what ESEA offers in terms of prize pool and LAN are necessary for the health of the game in the future but I for one really wish it was anyone but ESEA.

side note: would be pretty cool if etf2l came over to NA

Like cevo? :^)

You guys have UGC, free community league and you had CEVO, just the big difference was a 4 or 5 years ago when ESL was still going for TF2, The Euros decided to support the free community league whilst the Americans decided to support the Pay to Play ESEA League.

Which is best for the scene? I'll leave that for you to decide, but I kind of agree with Enigma's assessment, ESEA EU could be on par with the North American one, I even pumped £100 of my own money to get it going but the whole bitcoin fiasco left a sour taste in my mouth. You can say what you like about ETF2L but they're not money grabbing criminals.

UGC is garbage

who practices HL lol

most people who choose to play on a highlander team do

http://teamfortress.tv/thread/14024/etf2l-north-american-division

A free community league is better for long-term sustainability.

We managed to do Cevo and ESEA at the same time and have 4 games a week. It's not impossible.

I would argue that you could also say "A paid league is better for long-term sustainability" without any other points or opinions. I don't exactly have a strong feeling one way or another on the subject, but your post doesn't really mean anything.

I guess i was a little lazy with my post. Allow me to clarify.

A free league encourages more integration with the lower div players as they don't have to play in a separate league. A lot of people don't want to pay to join a league that they have no chance of even doing reasonably in. Separate leagues fragment the community.

I mean to say there were too many matches a week between ETF2L and ESEA is one of the largest cop outs I've ever heard. CS players play so many more games than that a week and almost all the games are competitive. Many ETF2L matches, along with ESEA matches are very one-sided and therefore not very mentally draining. Or at the very least, they shouldn't be. Scheduling conflicts between a mere 2 leagues is like elementary school planning. We played CEVO and ESEA when they were both primary NA leagues and there really wasn't a big problem.

I also think the way TF2 people scrim 1 or 2 maps until they break a sweat and then play officials on the same two maps is such a bad way to improve, but also a bad way to gauge skill. Honestly, every week's matches against X and Y team should happen on a veto system for maps in the same way CS does. If your goal is to compete in finals or at LAN, that's the format used. It's best to practice something that's useful, like adapting on the fly and being ready for any map, instead of grinding the same map for 3 days straight until you have a shortlived mastery of it, and promptly it's forgotten until the next time it's played.

I think it's more down to poor organisation, lack of experience in ESEA + the no mercs rule.

In NA you've had several seasons to know the system, here you got something totally new, with different rules, needing to pay actual cash money (shock horror to many Euros) to play and then you try hard to arrange an official, which is fucking hard when you're scheduling ETF2L in the same week and you find Opponent A can only play Tuesday with their main lineup cos their Scout has booked an escort every night of the week except Monday and Tuesday, but their Roamer can't do Monday because he has a cookery class that focuses on Aubergine soup that week and he can't miss that but your teammates can only play Wednesday or Thursday or Sunday because your Medic's dog has a cancer support group on Tuesday, so then they either get the default date or you do, but they can't find a 6th as they have no mercs, so they just default.

Basically teams that entered were madly underprepared and cos of the no merc rules, lots of games got defaulted or ended up 5v6. I know my team lost interest when we lost to some div 4 team as we had only 5 people available one evening for one reason or another (I hope those Aubergines were good). General culture in EU is wrong for ESEA, not without at least starting the season during ETF2L off-season could it work I think, that way teams focus on it solely and prepare better.

How the fuck could that guy afford a hooker 5 nights a week.

Stay in school kids