Clients aren't designed to catch cheaters, they're only designed to deter them. Stop citing this as a reason to hate ESEA. It's stupid. Anyone who seriously wants to cheat will, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. Clients stop the casual cheaters, the ones who will just pick up a basic hack off some website or another. There are plenty of reasons to justify the move without making up stupid ones.

And it's ridiculous to dismiss his point too.

Jumping ship from ESEA is incredibly risky, and the scene will take a hit for it if it happens. The question is whether or not we can recover to be the same or better than before.

I still want to do it though. But I came to my decision by weighing the risk vs the reward, not by pretending there's no risk at all.

CEVO should provide all the match servers. It may be a small thing, but it's the responsibility of the league to create the fairest possible environment for competition. It's like switching sides on a tennis court every two games.

It's not the opposing view. Just because someone doesn't agree with every word coming out of your keyboard does NOT mean they're on the opposite side. There is not a single word in his post that in any way at all insinuates that you're doing it out of some childish rebelliousness. I'm not even agreeing with him. I explained his point because you were too busy shouting him down for something he didn't say instead of considering it.

I like the idea of moving to CEVO. I don't like ESEA. I'm not on the opposite side. I just think that you're all being idiots for rushing into something without considering the consequences, and for screaming at anyone trying to be even a little bit realistic or objective about it.

You vastly underestimate Americans if you think they won't do it and be proud of it.

EDIT:

Jesus fucking christ will you fucking idiots stop misinterpreting every single thing anyone not on your side is saying for one fucking second and LISTEN.

He's saying that no matter how shitty ESEA is, it still IS, and that's valuable in and of itself. Despite being bad ESEA is still the greatest asset NA competitive tf2 has going for it and you shouldn't disregard it.

So no, he's not calling you an edgy rebellious child despite that fact that you're fucking acting like it.

Force field medigun in regular gameplay when

The thing I would like most from CEVO is to see them pick up all the amazing content that the community has produced. We will never need another stat system different from sizzlingstats (or tf2logs), and tf.tv has superb coverage of the scene(s). To see CEVO adopt and support these projects would be incredibly encouraging.

Anytime a case can be settled out of court at reasonable terms it is. This isn't a shady practice, it's standard. It saves a lot of time and money for both parties involved.

It's not mentioned in an official statement because it's a normal part of anti-cheat software. Legalese is intended to remove ambiguity, not improve clarity. Believe it or not those are two different things in legalese, but that's why they call it legalese. My point is that the language used to describe the process sounds much more malicious and independent of the normal anti-cheat software than it is.

I can't speak for the bans at all, I don't know anything about them.

You can call me a devils advocate or whatever.

There is not one post in the ~40 pages of threads about this that says "I like ESEA." Literally 0 people think ESEA is actually good. This is only between people who think that it's our only option for serious competition and people who want to break off and start or join a new league.

Nobody is blindly trusting ESEA, and nobody is declaring love for them.

There are just people accepting that and tolerating them, and people refusing to. Except then those people sign back up for next season too.

So this officially makes the last 2 days about literally nothing then, right?

But most of the invite players don't agree with you, if you haven't noticed in this thread.

Also, how does taking the same population of people and putting them in an environment with less incentive to play increase competition? At the very best it would remain the same.

They're going to pay you in FRIENDSHIP AND LOVE OF THE GAME. Good luck getting a loan approved with that on the proposal.

It's a frequently observed socioeconomic phenomenon you could find in a textbook. You'll have to understand if I take it at higher value than a bunch of nerds raging at anyone attempting to be even slightly objective about all of this.

If you read the post following that one, you'll see that your three reasons are still the result of the money.

I know it's the LAN that matters, but everyone in this thread is busy pretending that LAN doesn't affect them in any way at all so they can yell about new leagues without actually thinking about what it entails, so I'm trying to make it understandable for everyone. Plus when you get down to it, LAN is just money in a different form, and a lot of it.

I think LAN (or the equivalent) is a prerequisite to even starting a new league. You can't build up to one without establishing a playerbase, and you can't establish a playerbase without one while an alternative like ESEA exists.

Every single person is here because of the money. That doesn't mean they're here FOR the money.

It goes like this:

A paid league attracts hardcore players who want the commitment a monetary obligation includes, and the competition a prize pot induces.

The competition causes players to excel at the game, which grants prestige to the league they're playing in. "Look at how good our players are."

Other players become aware of the prestige (usually through the hardcore players), and players who don't value the monetary commitment or prize pot as much start playing.

Now a hierarchy is established, and with it a strong identity for the league independent from the hardcore players who helped forge it.

Now anyone who wants to play competitive tf2 knows to go to ESEA, because that's where everyone else plays.

Money is a catalyst that creates a social gravitational pull, creating an entity starting with the densest (most committed) cliques and groups, and increases in size and strength to absorb more and more distant groups.

Does this make my point more clear?

Most of us aren't here for the money, but we're still here because of it. If you want to create a league to rival ESEA, it's not possible without matching the prize pots and LANs.

But I don't think that.

That would be why I wrote this:

Money is the reason everyone chooses to play ESEA over UGC. Pretending otherwise is stupid.