I stayed in HK while studying abroad this past summer, and played TF2 when I had some free time, including in AFL.

- AFL seasons are a bit weird, there are two main "cups" throughout the year that teams sign up for, the equivalent of seasons in EU and NA. Don't remember how long they are exactly.
- Probably somewhere around mid Div 2.
- There are two main pug groups: AFL pugs, and Shana pugs. They're much stricter than pug groups here, and you need to sign up for them through steam groups stuff. They run all the damn time (I had to leave the AFL pug group because I'd get steam announcements for them like 16 hours a day.
- Probably not. Even Japanese servers are kinda icky. You'll probably land anywhere between 150-300 ping depending on where you are. The majority of competitive league servers are in Singapore and HK.
- MGE is really popular in SE asia, not so sure about DM. The main MGE server used in HK was called Nietono Shana or something - don't quite recall.

If you're desperate, UGC has Asian divisions, but I don't know how active they are.

This one time I was in Korea, I checked out what servers were around, and I saw one that was named something like "indust MGE". I got indust in it and it was funny how much the players freaked out, asking if it's really him.

DAVE THE INTERNATIONAL ALL STAR

EDIT: What was super funny was that they asked if he was THE "HRG indust". This was like almost 2 years after that team, haha.

Our major competitions are AsiaFortress Cup (round robin) and Mercenaries Cup (Double Elimination). The former normally starts sign ups around June, while the latter starts sign ups in January.

Division 3 is our entry level, but mid open players could probably get into div 2 easily.

AFL PUGS were considered higher quality in the past, but more and more shana players have been using the servers, so its mostly a stigma at this point. There are some smaller pug groups like Skanktros, but much less active. Pugs are whimsical but normally at least 3 are played a day as far as I know. AFL has like 5 servers based in Singapore and another 5 in Hong Kong. Shana has 3 all based in Singapore.

We get like 300 ping to Europe from Singapore. Not sure about anywhere else.

Distinct lack of DM servers here, but MGE is beyond active. Currently have 3 active MGE servers: AsiaFortress, Nientono no Shana and OneAsiaGamer. There is no ELO in the AF servers.

Edit: we have an active UGC league. But how much brain function are you willing to lose?

ugc asia division is basically a joke

asianriceguy and I are both going to be in Asia for the AFC. Should be a good time.

all u guys should hop on the mox train and form a team over the summer tbh

Please consider if you're playing in shana pugs, might get some brain damage over time.

Relative to the NA divisions, I would expect the other regions to be even more a joke. I said what I said jokingly.

I was in Japan last semester and tried some different pugs for kicks. Shana pugs were the worst pugs in terms of skill level and attitude I've ever had the misfortune to play. The Japanese specific pugs I found after I finally recovered from that experience were well run and had a wide range of skill levels. If you speak an Asian language, it's probably worth checking to see if they have their own communities.

Not sure where you're going, but the ping to NA was usually 150 ish and Med / Scout was playable.

Japanese community pub servers were also exceptionally tryhard if you felt like pretending getting healed 24/7 in a pub was close enough ahaha

moving to asia? congratulations, you played yourself.
probably the only dm server around: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/mangoll . yes it's mine

why don't you play OZF?

Good question. Could I ping good from say Shanghai to Australia?

I've been living in asia for a bit now
the dm here is a joke

Even from HK I was getting 150+ ping to some Aussie servers, and HK has like the second fastest internet speeds in the world. I wouldn't really recommend it.

I saw a few of the Cute Beast players (all Chinese, tip top of Div 1) play in Singapore/HK servers, that's still probably your best bet.

Terry pretty much hit the nail on the head.

Shana pugs are more for seeing how much pain you can sift through to play a game considering the small community at times of day. Asiafortress pugs will net you better games on and off for the reason that Vetia has pointed out.

Best quality games are either in scrims with more dedicated players or mixes

To some extent I unfortunately do not completely disagree with terminal especially since he played a lot of Shana games. The overall player base is not amazing and this carries the feel into ugc as well (asiafortress seasons tend to be the bigger and more dedicated seasons of comp over here). Though I prefer if he played against others up the tree before forming that opinion.

In ugc for both 6s and hl there are generally only 1 or 2 "super teams" you look out for each season if you plan to win with the rest not really at the same level.

Also for the most of SEA we are plagued with routing issues regardless which part you are in, so much so that most dedicated players invest in a vpn.

Koreans have a dedicated HL scene, there is a small Taiwan 6s scene that I do not have too much experience with and the japs and Chinese have their own groups as well.

Playing to Australia is difficult (120 ms range maybe some packet loss with Von from Malaysia as an example) playin to eu may be impossible consistently.

Hope this helps and feel free to approach me, vetia or others for info

Your personality is a joke

Ping from Mainland China to anywhere that isn't mainland, including HK is not good. It's a routing issue. I live in Zhuzhou, which is closer to HK than my city in America .is to Chicago. In America, I can play on Chicago servers with about 60 ping. From Zhuzhou to HK, my ping is typically 100 to 250.

With that in mind, there are a few decently populated mainland Chinese pub servers with okay players, but it tends to rotate between Harvest and Dustbowl exclusively. These servers also don't usually get populated until around 7 to 8pm.

...or maybe you're not even going to China.

teejay has been beasting it in ozfortress prem tho

if you think you can do that, then by all means

Tee "40% heals" jay plays well in any conditions as long as he gets 40%+ heals

He once got 600dpm and top fragged by like 30 kills as scout in a Chicago lobby and still complained because I didn't give more than 40% heals to him

Classic teejay.

My flight is in an hour, hypehype. I think I'll try to find all the NA-based gamers in Asia for an NA-only team to assert our dominance over there. #NATF2

http://i.imgur.com/EUl4BYy.png

WTF STEVIE WHY ARE YOU LEAVING ME DONT DO THIS TO ME PLEASE

why did you bump this