Pretty sure the majority of these Plat teams are not coming back next season, unfortunately.

Much appreciated.

As for the revolution, well, you know we all want to change the world.

Her voice, actually. And I was never an admin, I fear.

Enjoyable read though!

Because those of us who don't toss around insults to the admins every time we don't get our own way find that UGC suits our purposes pretty well. Heck, I fought them tooth and nail on the round robin and, guess what, we all still get along. It's crazy how disagreeing like grown-ups changes things.

Thanks, but that was actually R.E.M misunderstanding Marty's joke. Marty is not actually a clown, otherwise I would totally hire him the next time I throw a party. He didn't change the title himself.

Ask and you shall receive.

I know what you’re thinking. We’ve seen enough TF2Center drama this week already, right?

I’m going to ask you to bear with me, though, because not only are there things the community at large remains unaware of, but because I am so very angry.

Actually, I’m not just angry. I’m beyond furious at how the egos of one or two individuals have ruined something that was so good for the community and that had so much potential—something that they themselves created.

The last time I was this full of rage was when I realized that the Flares That Care charity stream was probably (and ultimately was) a scam. But do you remember what happened when that revelation came to light? The TF2 community pulled together and replaced it with something five times better.

And now I’d like to see us do it again.

But, first, here’s the backstory as to what pushed me to this point. I’m sure most of you are aware of the recent drama surrounding TF2Center. If you aren’t, it’s easy enough to look up; I’m not going to rehash it here. Suffice to say that the head of TF2Center messed up in a big way and the reputation of TF2Center took a huge hit.

Late Monday night TF2C admin Terry Crews asked if I would look over the statement the head of TF2C wanted to put out, in addition to versions written by himself and admin ninjaMooCow. He asked me, I assume, because we’ve developed a mutual trust, as well as a respect for each other’s dedication to the comp TF2 community. I’m not and have never been a TF2C admin, but my pen is usually greater than my DM, and he thought I could help.

Terry and I discussed the situation in length while I figured out what I wanted to do. On the one hand, I’d been increasingly concerned by the uneven adminship practices I’ve seen the head admins of TF2Center undertake; amongst other things, one of my teammates is part of the TC crowd and many of us know the issues they had with TF2C’s head admins. On the other hand, though, I loved the potential that TF2Center offered the community, and it’s really been obvious that most of its (current and former) admins are passionate about comp TF2.

Ultimately, I chose to read over the statements. I found that Terry Crews and ninjaMooCow had written unpolished and incomplete but sincerely apologetic statements, while the head of TF2C had written an “our side of the story” passive aggressive act of war. It was clear to me that none of those statements would be the PR saving grace TF2Center needed it to be.

I decided that everyone deserves a second chance, and so I agreed to write a new statement. I worked for 8 hours overnight in hopes of meeting TF2Center’s planned (European scheduled) deadline, with Terry doing research and answering questions for me throughout it. I finished at 7am ET on Tuesday and Terry read through it, agreed with all but four words, and posted it to the TF2C admin boards. We both agreed that it would be far easier if everyone assumed they were his words, and, in fact, a good portion of the statement’s sentiment came from his and moocow’s writings.

Unfortunately, the statement was met with significant resistance by the head of TF2C, while the remainder of the staff fought to post it. Flash forward to the end of the day and the TF2C staff remained unable to agree on it. Terry and I discussed the matter and I listed for him the points I felt absolutely had to be included for the statement to carry any weight, and he used that information to work with TF2C’s "PR" admin Marty. Together they cut out the areas the head admins had the most difficulty with, and, without the head admin’s approval, Marty posted the statement.*

It took about 2 hours for the head of TF2C to delete the thread, write a scathing post to all the moderators, and to relieve Marty of his adminship...and change Marty's label on the TF2Center forums to “clown.”

So that’s why I’m so angry. And, to me, TF2Center’s second chance has been used up and it’s time to move on.

How do we move on though? That’s where you guys come in.

TF2Pickup.net has potential, but it doesn’t quite fill the niche that TF2Center does. With proper community feedback and involvement maybe that could change, though. What changes do we think it would need in order to serve the same playerbase as TF2Center?

tf2pug.me also has potential, and does anyone recall tf2.gg? There are good resources available to us if we set about to properly utilize them

There is obviously passion for lobbies to exist in comp TF2. I hope we as a community can band together and create a service that surpasses TF2Center. We need to learn from the mistakes TF2Center made, most of which stemmed from the abuse of admin power, especially in the face of criticism (I suspect I’ll have a TF2C ban shortly to add weight to that statement). Having said that, however, I hope we also remember that most of TF2Center’s admins were fair and dedicated to the community, and that it’s very likely many of them are now free and available to offer their time and experience in whichever direction the community decides to take this.

TF2Center was fun while it lasted, and, all issues aside, I am grateful to its developers for creating it. However, it’s obvious that the time has come for something greater. I look forward to seeing what you guys put together. The comp TF2 community have accomplished amazing things, and we’ve kept this “dead” game going for a lot longer than our critics thought we could.

Here’s to our future.

*As a side note, I found the released statement to be about 70% of what I wrote, with about 5% inserted in (including an odd, passive aggressive slight to kkaltuu). I still remain a bit confused as to where the 500 euro bribe was coming from, but I was not a fan of the other changes. That being said, I think it was an okay response. If you’d like to read what it could have been, here’s what I originally wrote.

Most teams will pick up on if the other team has stolen their dropped charge percentage and report it. It's a lot more obvious than health packs. It's also very easy to see in the STV. It's not 100% foolproof, especially in the lowest divisions, but having the rule and being willing to punish teams who are shown to have broken it should go a long way. The UGC admins have also okayed servers to run "sm_cvar tf_dropped_weapon_lifetime 0", which should help.

Are you suggesting UGC shouldn't do something simply because a different organization is in a different situation?

UGC keeping things the status quo until the end of the season hurts no one. Right now, they've listened to the posts on their forums, including their Plat Council forum, and are playing the safe game. If Valve changes their mind about the Medigun changes or something else unexpected happens with it, then no matches will have been ruined.

Can you really fault an organization for listening to what the majority of its playerbase wants? What's more, no one in UGC is saying this game mechanic needs to be banned forever; everyone just wants the season finished before addressing it further.

I think UGC expects small changes throughout a season, but what they're trying to do is mitigate the impact of the unanticipated larger changes. With their one added rule about the Mediguns and their three weapon bans, they'll have done what they could to keep the end of the season from not being too different than the start of it.

You're absolutely right in that they would do well to build in some contingency plans for future big updates, given that matchmaking is on the horizon. It's understandable that they were caught a bit off guard by it since TF2 has rarely seen updates like this in recent history, but now that they know what to expect they should work on being better prepared.

It's midseason for UGC, so it makes perfect sense. Why take the chance of ruining the rest of the season with an untested mechanic?

Next UGC season is just a few months away, so there will be time for patches, testing, discussion, and debate before then. UGC polls their community between seasons now to determine what the players want; odds are this change and the questionable weapons will end up there and UGC will adjust for next season according to what people want to see.

Edit: I see fireindaarcade and I agree. He had me beat by 6 seconds!

By about 3 hours. I think you need better ninja training.

Full points for trying to be helpful though!

There's something slightly different in the coloring for me, but I haven't figured out what it is yet. The game looks a little crisper in its graphics. I haven't changed my settings and it's on more than just gorgeous Suijin, so I don't think it's just in my head.

However, Borneo trees have once again disappeared for me, as well as certain props on Snowplow, so it could all just be a quirk of my computer and/or graphic card.

I'm looking forward to seeing how things look/play after today's patch.

Great Scott! I have the feeling that whoever wrote this write-up fell for the fake Back to the Future posts popping up this week. I'm afraid Marty doesn't go back in June, but in October of 2015. Fun post though :)

They had the match STV and his demo POV, I believe. I'm 99% sure they review stuff in-house before making a decision.

How far back was that though? This year they've been working with TF2 Center and others to tackle cheating.

Also how can they be uncooperative, not exist, and not know what they're doing all at once? That doesn't really make sense. I think you're blending various experiences and anecdotes and it doesn't reflect the current situation.

What I'm getting at is never has there been a better time than this for UGC and ETF2L to work together on hackers. I think both sides have had bad experiences and impressions of each other, but if they could try again I think it would do a lot of good. Talk to ETF2L's webmaster emb and you'll find out that only a few months ago the UGC admins reached out and vastly helped improve how ETF2L spots VAC bans. Both sides can learn from each other, and comparing notes on players could crackdown on a lot of hackers.

Many staff members from both sites have changed over the last few years and there is little reason for this bad blood to continue. If the two sites (and perhaps TF2 Center) had good working relationships, the competitive experiences for all players would be improved.