After i58 was so fucking amazing, now appears to be the most motivated people have been in ages. I normally discuss ideas like these extensively with key community members before acting on them in any way but by then I’ll probably get bored or busy, and others won’t feel the same fire to help out. So I’m throwing out this half-baked idea in the hopes that we can all discuss how we could achieve it and use the motivation from the iseries to create another event before i61.
What I wanna stress with all of this is that it seems very possible based on my experiences organising stuff so far - the only thing I have going for me is initiative and a desire to learn how to do things and I’ve been able to get a few cool cups going with new sponsors and the dreamhack shit etc. As far as I’m aware I have been the only person actively looking for new sponsors for tf2 and even that in a half-arsed manner. If we got a proper pitch together I think we’d be able to get everything we need. We’re small, sure, but we’re not so small that we can only gather one LAN per year, that’s dumb to accept imo.
The global iseries is always in August and has a huge impact on the community - it’s above and beyond anything else, only comparable to a DHS on crack. There’s been nothing else at all that got r/tf2, twitter, and tftv buzzing like the global iseries. If you checked out reddit at all during the event it resembled the CSGO subreddit - with mm released it seems people became way more open to the idea of comp and then when they checked it out they loved it. Online cups do not permeate the public psyche at all, they get viewership comparable to league games and appear to be a waste of money.
The summer iseries happening annually means that teams don’t care about the rest of the year and teams fold straight afterwards - case in point FT/Jasmine being “dead” and players quitting froyo/crowns. It would be great to have two of these per year to keep players in, teams motivated, and see more of the only good tf2 all year. November or February are the best times for these, at the opposite end of the calendar from August, and USA would be the best place for it from an idealistic perspective as there’s no event there. One must remember though that EU teams are generally poorer and don’t have esea winnings to use.
In order to run a LAN like iseries you need (might have missed stuff too):
- Venue that can hold 100 people and has an area that can be used for viewing, preferably with somewhere to socialise afterwards as well and one that doesn’t kick you out if you go late is best. Needs accommodation nearby and has to be accessible.
- Sponsorship for prizemoney and production. i58 had a £8,500 prize and $5,000 for talent/equipment. i52/i49/i46 had £5,000 prize and I think the prize only needs to be that big as long as you have…
- Travel costs paid for intercontinental teams. At i58 teams raised roughly $10,000 to attend, all without organisations.
- Rental PCs or PCs provided for at least the intercontinental teams, so 15 minimum. The more rentals the better, or if PCs are provided for the whole event like
Venues:
Currently the only venues we’d have for an event like this are DreamHack Winter (Sweden) and the winter/spring iseries (UK). We do have somebody with links to Esports Arena (Cali), we had FLAN which is now moving to Chicago, we had an event at Assembly (Finland) in the past, and there have to be other smaller LANs all across North America that we can persuade to host us. It requires a lot of work to get in touch with these places but the first step is just to throw out names and contact details so that we can show them what i58 was like and if they’d want one in their venue. If you know a venue with an existing lan then that’s how you can help. This is a huge point and there’s a reason I’ve put it first on the list.
We'd be aiming to get a minimum 8 teams there (inc. two intercontinental teams) or at least 4 invited teams with lotsa specs. 60-100 people with space nearby to house them and space inside to watch/produce.
Money:
As I said above, you really need about £17,000 of sponsorship per event, which is $22,000 and includes the travel costs for teams. It breaks down roughly to £5k prize, £4k production, and then £8k travel. There is a risk that teams won’t be able to afford the bit out of pocket if it’s twice per year which would add another few thousand, but if they were able to find organisations (which again no teams are hardcore searching for) then that cost could be mitigated.
So we’re looking at raising £34,000 per year for those two events. Is that worth it? I think so. We tried running standalone online events but people don’t engage in them since leagues and scrims are the norm, and pumping money like this into online cups/leagues would not generate anywhere near the same level of engagement. It’s not the money games that gets people hyped like in other games, it’s the personalities and players being there in person and competing between regions.
At the moment the teams rely on fundraising for travel support, with the rest covered by the range of sponsors you saw on display at i58. Relying on fundraising isn’t great long-term, and I think we’ll see it in a huge decline if we had two events per year. It’s speculation but none of the fundraisers met their goal this year; they raised about $10k, normally the amount is more like $15k, though this year they were announced fairly late and without much hype.
As the beginnings of a solution, I’d like to push the teams toward organisations that can afford to help with at least accommodation to reduce costs marginally as well as aiming to get more sponsorship than is required for the prize/production and using that for travel of top teams. This should reduce but not replace fundraising, which I think is still a powerful tool in TF2. I’d prefer to see the fundraising be event-specific rather than for each team, with an event compendium. More on that idea below as it’s a little tangential.
Show Content
My idea for a compendium is to replace the “perks” for fundraising with a digital item that you buy once for the event and that money is assigned where needed. It gives people more of a motivation to buy it other than being truly generous and the name is easily identifiable due to its use in dota. Charge £10 or so for the item which contains: team profiles, artwork, interviews, etc. It would also make you eligible for giveaways during the tournament, allow you to play fantasytf2 for the event, vote for players for an MVP award, vote for the teams in an all-star match, vote in a fragmovie competition before the event like i46, and let you take part in a predictions competition for points/prizes. We could make the perks fairly easily and as it is event-specific rather than team specific you have access to many more people with skills. I think it’d work very well and it’s probably less work than actually fulfilling hundreds of weapon signing requests.
After i58 was so fucking amazing, now appears to be the most motivated people have been in ages. I normally discuss ideas like these extensively with key community members before acting on them in any way but by then I’ll probably get bored or busy, and others won’t feel the same fire to help out. So I’m throwing out this half-baked idea in the hopes that we can all discuss how we could achieve it and use the motivation from the iseries to create another event before i61.
What I wanna stress with all of this is that it seems very possible based on my experiences organising stuff so far - the only thing I have going for me is initiative and a desire to learn how to do things and I’ve been able to get a few cool cups going with new sponsors and the dreamhack shit etc. As far as I’m aware I have been the only person actively looking for new sponsors for tf2 and even that in a half-arsed manner. If we got a proper pitch together I think we’d be able to get everything we need. We’re small, sure, but we’re not so small that we can only gather one LAN per year, that’s dumb to accept imo.
The global iseries is always in August and has a huge impact on the community - it’s above and beyond anything else, only comparable to a DHS on crack. There’s been nothing else at all that got r/tf2, twitter, and tftv buzzing like the global iseries. If you checked out reddit at all during the event it resembled the CSGO subreddit - with mm released it seems people became way more open to the idea of comp and then when they checked it out they loved it. Online cups do not permeate the public psyche at all, they get viewership comparable to league games and appear to be a waste of money.
The summer iseries happening annually means that teams don’t care about the rest of the year and teams fold straight afterwards - case in point FT/Jasmine being “dead” and players quitting froyo/crowns. It would be great to have two of these per year to keep players in, teams motivated, and see more of the only good tf2 all year. November or February are the best times for these, at the opposite end of the calendar from August, and USA would be the best place for it from an idealistic perspective as there’s no event there. One must remember though that EU teams are generally poorer and don’t have esea winnings to use.
In order to run a LAN like iseries you need (might have missed stuff too):
[list]
[*] Venue that can hold 100 people and has an area that can be used for viewing, preferably with somewhere to socialise afterwards as well and one that doesn’t kick you out if you go late is best. Needs accommodation nearby and has to be accessible.
[*] Sponsorship for prizemoney and production. i58 had a £8,500 prize and $5,000 for talent/equipment. i52/i49/i46 had £5,000 prize and I think the prize only needs to be that big as long as you have…
[*] Travel costs paid for intercontinental teams. At i58 teams raised roughly $10,000 to attend, all without organisations.
[*] Rental PCs or PCs provided for at least the intercontinental teams, so 15 minimum. The more rentals the better, or if PCs are provided for the whole event like
[/list]
[b]Venues:[/b]
Currently the only venues we’d have for an event like this are DreamHack Winter (Sweden) and the winter/spring iseries (UK). We do have somebody with links to Esports Arena (Cali), we had FLAN which is now moving to Chicago, we had an event at Assembly (Finland) in the past, and there have to be other smaller LANs all across North America that we can persuade to host us. It requires a lot of work to get in touch with these places but the first step is just to throw out names and contact details so that we can show them what i58 was like and if they’d want one in their venue. If you know a venue with an existing lan then that’s how you can help. This is a huge point and there’s a reason I’ve put it first on the list.
We'd be aiming to get a minimum 8 teams there (inc. two intercontinental teams) or at least 4 invited teams with lotsa specs. 60-100 people with space nearby to house them and space inside to watch/produce.
[b]Money:[/b]
As I said above, you really need about £17,000 of sponsorship per event, which is $22,000 and includes the travel costs for teams. It breaks down roughly to £5k prize, £4k production, and then £8k travel. There is a risk that teams won’t be able to afford the bit out of pocket if it’s twice per year which would add another few thousand, but if they were able to find organisations (which again no teams are hardcore searching for) then that cost could be mitigated.
So we’re looking at raising £34,000 per year for those two events. Is that worth it? I think so. We tried running standalone online events but people don’t engage in them since leagues and scrims are the norm, and pumping money like this into online cups/leagues would not generate anywhere near the same level of engagement. It’s not the money games that gets people hyped like in other games, it’s the personalities and players being there in person and competing between regions.
At the moment the teams rely on fundraising for travel support, with the rest covered by the range of sponsors you saw on display at i58. Relying on fundraising isn’t great long-term, and I think we’ll see it in a huge decline if we had two events per year. It’s speculation but none of the fundraisers met their goal this year; they raised about $10k, normally the amount is more like $15k, though this year they were announced fairly late and without much hype.
As the beginnings of a solution, I’d like to push the teams toward organisations that can afford to help with at least accommodation to reduce costs marginally as well as aiming to get more sponsorship than is required for the prize/production and using that for travel of top teams. This should reduce but not replace fundraising, which I think is still a powerful tool in TF2. I’d prefer to see the fundraising be event-specific rather than for each team, with an event compendium. More on that idea below as it’s a little tangential.
[spoiler]My idea for a compendium is to replace the “perks” for fundraising with a digital item that you buy once for the event and that money is assigned where needed. It gives people more of a motivation to buy it other than being truly generous and the name is easily identifiable due to its use in dota. Charge £10 or so for the item which contains: team profiles, artwork, interviews, etc. It would also make you eligible for giveaways during the tournament, allow you to play fantasytf2 for the event, vote for players for an MVP award, vote for the teams in an all-star match, vote in a fragmovie competition before the event like i46, and let you take part in a predictions competition for points/prizes. We could make the perks fairly easily and as it is event-specific rather than team specific you have access to many more people with skills. I think it’d work very well and it’s probably less work than actually fulfilling hundreds of weapon signing requests.[/spoiler]
The £17,000 extra it would cost for a second global LAN cannot reasonably rely on fundraising as there’s no way of knowing if you could raise $10k just half a year after an iseries, and without approaching them one can’t rely on the same sponsors. There are plenty of potential sponsors who would be interested in an event like this though despite it not getting over 10k viewers, and the best way to build up the money is through gathering a range of sponsors. Companies like Plantronics and OCZ have thrown a couple of thousand at us in recent tournaments, and people such as Twitch, Tt, Razer, ZOWIE, etc. have all been involved before. Naturally some of them won’t sponsor mutually but often they do. I think it’s eminently do-able with a proper pitch, the effort I’ve put in to build sponsor relations so far has not been exhaustive.
In addition, by moving sponsorship away from existing cups in TF2 and into this second event you could repurpose about £7,000 per year (using rough prizepool spreadsheet calculations from that other thread). This would kill all the random cups that we were running throughout the year but let’s be real nobody played in them or gave a shit anyway. Would also kill the DreamHacks but they are a pain for multiple reasons and I think the tradeoff would be worth it if needed.
In summary, would you be interested? Do you think it’s worth the effort for the sheer fun of it? Do you know of any potential venues? Do you have experience approaching companies in your job / building sales pitches? Do you have any insight into the best places in NA from a travel perspective? Do you have any ideas of how to monetize the competitive scene without help from Valve putting items etc. into the game? Do you have organisations that you’d recommend for TF2 teams to approach, big enough to offer money but not too big to dismiss TF2 outright? Basically help me brainstorm, find flaws in the plan, and come up with something more concrete. I must stress that I’ve only thought about this for a couple of days since dashner couldn’t get to i58 and I got talking to b4nny and samiface at LAN. It’s a vague outline of what I’m thinking and nothing more.
The £17,000 extra it would cost for a second global LAN cannot reasonably rely on fundraising as there’s no way of knowing if you could raise $10k just half a year after an iseries, and without approaching them one can’t rely on the same sponsors. There are plenty of potential sponsors who would be interested in an event like this though despite it not getting over 10k viewers, and the best way to build up the money is through gathering a range of sponsors. Companies like Plantronics and OCZ have thrown a couple of thousand at us in recent tournaments, and people such as Twitch, Tt, Razer, ZOWIE, etc. have all been involved before. Naturally some of them won’t sponsor mutually but often they do. I think it’s eminently do-able with a proper pitch, the effort I’ve put in to build sponsor relations so far has not been exhaustive.
In addition, by moving sponsorship away from existing cups in TF2 and into this second event you could repurpose about £7,000 per year (using rough prizepool spreadsheet calculations from that other thread). This would kill all the random cups that we were running throughout the year but let’s be real nobody played in them or gave a shit anyway. Would also kill the DreamHacks but they are a pain for multiple reasons and I think the tradeoff would be worth it if needed.
In summary, would you be interested? Do you think it’s worth the effort for the sheer fun of it? Do you know of any potential venues? Do you have experience approaching companies in your job / building sales pitches? Do you have any insight into the best places in NA from a travel perspective? Do you have any ideas of how to monetize the competitive scene without help from Valve putting items etc. into the game? Do you have organisations that you’d recommend for TF2 teams to approach, big enough to offer money but not too big to dismiss TF2 outright? Basically help me brainstorm, find flaws in the plan, and come up with something more concrete. I must stress that I’ve only thought about this for a couple of days since dashner couldn’t get to i58 and I got talking to b4nny and samiface at LAN. It’s a vague outline of what I’m thinking and nothing more.
http://ih1.redbubble.net/image.139973808.1307/flat,800x800,075,f.u3.jpg
rocketslaysend this to valve
fr cant valve atleast donate at least some kind of money
[quote=rocketslay]send this to valve[/quote]
fr cant valve atleast donate at least some kind of money
if valve had a purchasable badge / hat in the store , were all the funds will go to the event , i will definetly buy it just to support the community .
Or even stickers of the team i support , to put onto my character.
if valve had a purchasable badge / hat in the store , were all the funds will go to the event , i will definetly buy it just to support the community .
Or even stickers of the team i support , to put onto my character.
Raising that much money from sponsors seems... pretty difficult, I'll be honest.
Raising that much money from sponsors seems... pretty difficult, I'll be honest.
csgo has team stickers (and "holos" which are kind of like unusuals") and you can put them on your gun - imagine a crowns sticker on soldier's helmet or a froyo sticker on scout's jacket. there's just as much room for customization, if not more
csgo has team stickers (and "holos" which are kind of like unusuals") and you can put them on your gun - imagine a crowns sticker on soldier's helmet or a froyo sticker on scout's jacket. there's just as much room for customization, if not more
I Think if valve put in the effort into advertising the events on the tf2 website or on the client it self , it would be much more successful .
I Think if valve put in the effort into advertising the events on the tf2 website or on the client it self , it would be much more successful .
Re4lityI Think if valve put in the effort into advertising the events on the tf2 website or on the client it self , it would be much more successful .
they did that already with i58!
client
blog post
EDIT: ah I see what you mean, yeah they really could do it better
[quote=Re4lity]I Think if valve put in the effort into advertising the events on the tf2 website or on the client it self , it would be much more successful .[/quote]
they did that already with i58!
[url=http://i.imgur.com/AVU3f8O.jpg?1]client[/url]
[url=http://www.teamfortress.com/post.php?id=23671]blog post[/url]
EDIT: ah I see what you mean, yeah they really could do it better
great idea, we need teams to stop the go-to fundraisers, I think it would also stop tf2 having the same problem as dota: Teams that win the international (iseries) get remembered, even if they weren't good in the seasons, even if around Christmas there are teams of godlike proportions who then fold or slip in skill because of other issues, lose the international and never get remembered. It will mark a more regimented timeline of tf2's great teams and generate team goals, professionalism, sponsors and hype. Also the compendium idea is fucking gold, even if it's a community made one and having a collective pool for the lans to distribute accordingly would be highly successful if done right.
great idea, we need teams to stop the go-to fundraisers, I think it would also stop tf2 having the same problem as dota: Teams that win the international (iseries) get remembered, even if they weren't good in the seasons, even if around Christmas there are teams of godlike proportions who then fold or slip in skill because of other issues, lose the international and never get remembered. It will mark a more regimented timeline of tf2's great teams and generate team goals, professionalism, sponsors and hype. Also the compendium idea is fucking gold, even if it's a community made one and having a collective pool for the lans to distribute accordingly would be highly successful if done right.
zeSIMON they did that already with i58
But that's just on their website its not actually on the client like it is on dota 2 or csgo were all the big tournament is within the game itself
Edit : By client i mean something bigger than just a notification where i can find what the event is about on the client .
[quote=zeSIMON] they did that already with i58[/quote]
But that's just on their website its not actually on the client like it is on dota 2 or csgo were all the big tournament is within the game itself
Edit : By client i mean something bigger than just a notification where i can find what the event is about on the client .
zeSIMONRe4lityeffort
they did that already with i58
:)
[quote=zeSIMON][quote=Re4lity]effort[/quote]
they did that already with i58[/quote]
:)
Re4lityif valve had a purchasable badge / hat in the store , were all the funds will go to the event , i will definetly buy it just to support the community .
Or even stickers of the team i support , to put onto my character.
Yup, an eSports crate / some sort of crowd funding in-game cosmetic item(s) would make this a lot easier and viable. Do valve read tftv?! Maybe slapping this on tf2's sub reddit would be a good idea.
I'm about halfway through the i58 vods, absolutely amazed at how great the games have been so far.. if they can't be fucked stimulating growth in a game that's still churning out events this good with next to no support over 9 years then they're even bigger piss flaps than I've believed them to be for the last 13. Fucking mind boggling.
[quote=Re4lity]if valve had a purchasable badge / hat in the store , were all the funds will go to the event , i will definetly buy it just to support the community .
Or even stickers of the team i support , to put onto my character.[/quote]
Yup, an eSports crate / some sort of crowd funding in-game cosmetic item(s) would make this a lot easier and viable. Do valve read tftv?! Maybe slapping this on tf2's sub reddit would be a good idea.
I'm about halfway through the i58 vods, absolutely amazed at how great the games have been so far.. if they can't be fucked stimulating growth in a game that's still churning out events this good with next to no support over 9 years then they're even bigger piss flaps than I've believed them to be for the last 13. Fucking mind boggling.
Let me know if you guys are down to collab in Chicago.
(#FLanHype?)
Let me know if you guys are down to collab in Chicago.
(#FLanHype?)
zeSIMONRe4lityI Think if valve put in the effort into advertising the events on the tf2 website or on the client it self , it would be much more successful .
they did that already with i58
I think it would be better if it was kind of like the heavy v pyro thing on the main menu, where it would just show on the main menu background something like "*insert event here* coming soon, help raise money to send your favorite teams by buying *insert cool in-game item here*" The in-game notice "oh uhhh no prior notice in-game but there's a stream starting for the biggest event tf2 has but you are in-game atm anyways so why bother" is kind of useless for that reason. Idk, I might be wrong though, but I doubt the in-game thing helped get viewers, it just helped for future recognition.
edit: also, you know the news tab in-game, even that is better then a pop-up announcement, cause it stays there. And having it open on start up along with twitch streams would be pretty cool.
[quote=zeSIMON][quote=Re4lity]I Think if valve put in the effort into advertising the events on the tf2 website or on the client it self , it would be much more successful .[/quote]
they did that already with i58[/quote]
I think it would be better if it was kind of like the heavy v pyro thing on the main menu, where it would just show on the main menu background something like "*insert event here* coming soon, help raise money to send your favorite teams by buying *insert cool in-game item here*" The in-game notice "oh uhhh no prior notice in-game but there's a stream starting for the biggest event tf2 has but you are in-game atm anyways so why bother" is kind of useless for that reason. Idk, I might be wrong though, but I doubt the in-game thing helped get viewers, it just helped for future recognition.
edit: also, you know the news tab in-game, even that is better then a pop-up announcement, cause it stays there. And having it open on start up along with twitch streams would be pretty cool.
I work at a LAN center in California that has 55 PCs downstairs and a huge upstairs - hotels are down the block, and its in the heart of the downtown. Want me to inquire to my bosses about hosting an event?
I work at a LAN center in California that has 55 PCs downstairs and a huge upstairs - hotels are down the block, and its in the heart of the downtown. Want me to inquire to my bosses about hosting an event?
Sideshow will never leave us! Amazing idea.
Sideshow will never leave us! Amazing idea.
i did business courses at college and also worked as an accountant for five years and part of my job there was putting together plans for people to take to banks and potential backers to raise funds to get their businesses off the ground i even had face to face meetings with potential backers on the odd occasion, i don't know if this experience would be any help at all, but i'd love to help if i can
i did business courses at college and also worked as an accountant for five years and part of my job there was putting together plans for people to take to banks and potential backers to raise funds to get their businesses off the ground i even had face to face meetings with potential backers on the odd occasion, i don't know if this experience would be any help at all, but i'd love to help if i can
emkayI work at a LAN center in California that has 55 PCs downstairs and a huge upstairs - hotels are down the block, and its in the heart of the downtown. Want me to inquire to my bosses about hosting an event?
A California LAN would be awesome!
[quote=emkay]I work at a LAN center in California that has 55 PCs downstairs and a huge upstairs - hotels are down the block, and its in the heart of the downtown. Want me to inquire to my bosses about hosting an event?[/quote]
A California LAN would be awesome!
if valve added in game purchases that contributed to funding tournaments (exactly like dota 2) i feel like it could really rejuvenate the scene. if prize pools are larger, it can give pros an incentive to put time into the game.
if valve added in game purchases that contributed to funding tournaments (exactly like dota 2) i feel like it could really rejuvenate the scene. if prize pools are larger, it can give pros an incentive to put time into the game.
netwrkjrkif valve added in game purchases that contributed to funding tournaments (exactly like dota 2) i feel like it could really rejuvenate the scene. if prize pools are larger, it can give pros an incentive to put time into the game.
Considering not even CS:GO gets this, mostly likely we won't get it either.
(if we did get it before CS:GO though, /r/globaloffensive would be in a ruckus)
[quote=netwrkjrk]if valve added in game purchases that contributed to funding tournaments (exactly like dota 2) i feel like it could really rejuvenate the scene. if prize pools are larger, it can give pros an incentive to put time into the game.[/quote]
Considering not even CS:GO gets this, mostly likely we won't get it either.
(if we did get it before CS:GO though, /r/globaloffensive would be in a ruckus)
netwrkjrkif valve added in game purchases that contributed to funding tournaments (exactly like dota 2) i feel like it could really rejuvenate the scene. if prize pools are larger, it can give pros an incentive to put time into the game.
Maybe we can.
I can ask Eric about having a community made medal put in the mannco store and with the proceeds going to the LAN fund.
Doesn't hurt to ask, the worst he can say is "No"
[quote=netwrkjrk]if valve added in game purchases that contributed to funding tournaments (exactly like dota 2) i feel like it could really rejuvenate the scene. if prize pools are larger, it can give pros an incentive to put time into the game.[/quote]
Maybe we can.
I can ask Eric about having a community made medal put in the mannco store and with the proceeds going to the LAN fund.
Doesn't hurt to ask, the worst he can say is "No"
Chicago is by far the best location to host something like this. Accessible from both WC and EC and no long connecting flights to WC for European teams. AFAIK the only good LAN center in Chicago is Ignite though and that's not that big of a venue (you could probably talk to Lange more about the specifics) but considering they host TOTH now and hosted WCRV in the past the TF2 community definitely would have a line in on them (also from looking at it the layout is kind of weird: https://puu.sh/qUADm/c0cebb9ec4.jpg)
also talking to shdwpuppet would be better cause hes def done more research than i have on Chicago/Indianapolis/etc
I personally know of (and have been to) a venue called Gamers HQ in Third Lake (a Chicago suburb) that hosts a bunch of smash/fgc stuff. I've been there, it's pretty nice, but it's honestly pretty small too... http://www.gamershq.net/ Vro is the organizer there and he's a super awesome guy (and great at melee to boot), he would at least be receptive to the idea and point you somewhere
I've honestly been theorycrafting on this since WCRV ended because I didn't get to go and I was really really realLY sad about it.
Chicago is by far the best location to host something like this. Accessible from both WC and EC and no long connecting flights to WC for European teams. AFAIK the only good LAN center in Chicago is Ignite though and that's not that big of a venue (you could probably talk to Lange more about the specifics) but considering they host TOTH now and hosted WCRV in the past the TF2 community definitely would have a line in on them (also from looking at it the layout is kind of weird: https://puu.sh/qUADm/c0cebb9ec4.jpg)
also talking to shdwpuppet would be better cause hes def done more research than i have on Chicago/Indianapolis/etc
I personally know of (and have been to) a venue called Gamers HQ in Third Lake (a Chicago suburb) that hosts a bunch of smash/fgc stuff. I've been there, it's pretty nice, but it's honestly pretty small too... http://www.gamershq.net/ Vro is the organizer there and he's a super awesome guy (and great at melee to boot), he would at least be receptive to the idea and point you somewhere
I've honestly been theorycrafting on this since WCRV ended because I didn't get to go and I was really really realLY sad about it.
DoctorMiggynetwrkjrkif valve added in game purchases that contributed to funding tournaments (exactly like dota 2) i feel like it could really rejuvenate the scene. if prize pools are larger, it can give pros an incentive to put time into the game.
Maybe we can.
I can ask Eric about having a community made medal put in the mannco store and with the proceeds going to the LAN fund.
Doesn't hurt to ask, the worst he can say is "No"
or not say anything like valve does 99% of the time
but its still a good idea to ask i hope something like that does happen :D
[quote=DoctorMiggy][quote=netwrkjrk]if valve added in game purchases that contributed to funding tournaments (exactly like dota 2) i feel like it could really rejuvenate the scene. if prize pools are larger, it can give pros an incentive to put time into the game.[/quote]
Maybe we can.
I can ask Eric about having a community made medal put in the mannco store and with the proceeds going to the LAN fund.
Doesn't hurt to ask, the worst he can say is "No"[/quote]
or not say anything like valve does 99% of the time
but its still a good idea to ask i hope something like that does happen :D
from what ive heard from whisker and miggy eric is the most responsive of everyone on the tf2 team
from what ive heard from whisker and miggy eric is the most responsive of everyone on the tf2 team
DoctorMiggynetwrkjrkif valve added in game purchases that contributed to funding tournaments (exactly like dota 2) i feel like it could really rejuvenate the scene. if prize pools are larger, it can give pros an incentive to put time into the game.
Maybe we can.
I can ask Eric about having a community made medal put in the mannco store and with the proceeds going to the LAN fund.
Doesn't hurt to ask, the worst he can say is "No"
an item in the mann co store could reach literally everyone in the community. compare that to the standard tf.tv forum post asking for donations. imagine a tf2 LAN with a 20,000-30,000 dollar prize pool. why not? theres more than enough people to fund it, all we need is exposure.
[quote=DoctorMiggy][quote=netwrkjrk]if valve added in game purchases that contributed to funding tournaments (exactly like dota 2) i feel like it could really rejuvenate the scene. if prize pools are larger, it can give pros an incentive to put time into the game.[/quote]
Maybe we can.
I can ask Eric about having a community made medal put in the mannco store and with the proceeds going to the LAN fund.
Doesn't hurt to ask, the worst he can say is "No"[/quote]
an item in the mann co store could reach literally everyone in the community. compare that to the standard tf.tv forum post asking for donations. imagine a tf2 LAN with a 20,000-30,000 dollar prize pool. why not? theres more than enough people to fund it, all we need is exposure.
I'd rather not focus on any idea that relies on Valve. If they do anything it'd be nice but let's gravitate away from in-game stuff that counts on their official backing.
I'd rather not focus on any idea that relies on Valve. If they do anything it'd be nice but let's gravitate away from in-game stuff that counts on their official backing.