drshdwpuppetI did read your post thank you, but I wasn't responding to your personal opinions on A:R, I responding do your defense of the idea of A:R. We could just as easily put in 4v4 or 5v5 fast attack or ultiduo. The reason we are talking about A:R is that A. its the topic of this thread, B. it is the focus of a well meaning but ultimately horrifically misguided attempt at saving a game that isn't dead and C. it is the only gametype that people continue to prattle on about as if it is the only thing that get valve to pay attention to us.
So you might want to consider re-reading the entire post you replied to, because your personal opinion on Arena:Respawn wasn't even addressed in my rebuttal due to its ultimate irrelevance. Instead, as you seem to acknowledge is important, I was addressing eXtine's probable motivations and why they are demonstrably misguided.
Apologies for my ultimate irrelevance. I'm not defending it, I'm explaining why it exists to someone who seemed to not know. Why would I defend something I don't agree with or care about? I'm not sure why you'd answer my post though, rather than the OP for example. If you're looking for a proxy to attack in lieu of Extine who doesn't seem to be interested in this thread then can I humbly request you pick someone else?
Extine has his motivations and everyone else has theirs, whether he's misguided or not time will tell. If he's successful I'm not going to begrudge him that.
drshdwpuppetThat face to face meeting was years ago, during eXtv's big push to bring legitimacy to TF2. This was when we were gearing up to send the first teams to Europe, eXtv was poising itself to be the final word in TF2 shoutcasting and broadcasting, online and offline.
There were actually several meetings if I recall, though most of them phone/skype, with eXtine, Salamancer and perhaps a few other key names in the organization. What was really learned in those meetings was not that 6s is a broken, nonviable competitive format that valve would be insane to support, we kind of proved that was wrong with the next 3 years of absolutely amazing competition culminating in a year that had 5 separate tournaments worth American teams flying out to play in. Instead, as was clear then and as has become painfully more clear now, is that valve is completely and utterly uninterested in competitive tf2 at all. Their objections to our format, how we pick and choose which weapons we allow and how we basically only play 5cp maps is hopelessly backwards. They feel that we just outright reject all these things, when really, there is a community wide effort to assess the viability and how interesting a weapon is to the game. We don't just ban overpowered weapons, we also ban those weapons that actively contribute to a game that is just not fun to play.
I kind of got off on a tangent there, but we have this recurring theme in the story of eXtine and eXtv, and indeed in the competitive community in general, of trying to appease valve and when one approach doesn't work, we just entirely switch gears to another project. But my point remains. Despite what valve has said in those entirely unofficial meetings, there is still absolutely no reason to believe that we even can appease them. Their profit model for TF2 DOES NOT INCLUDE COMPETITIVE and there is no reason for them to change that.
Extine is allowed to be disappointed in his lack of real income from TF2. He has put a TON of hours into this game. But this isn't the game that is going to have an International or be on the main stage at IEM Katowice. And extine is allowed to waste his time on this project, far from me or anyone else to stop him. But as a community we have to be vigilant against things that might spell doom for this, still very small and frail, scene. A:R has that potential.
It just sounds like you've reached different conclusions. If Extine thinks there's still potential then I'm not sure why that upsets you so much.
Valve wanted objective data on weapons rather than discussion and opinion, I can see lots of reasons for that as frustrating to the established community as it must be.
drshdwpuppetYour comment about changing the mind of the old guard seemed a dig on those who have been here for a while, have played this game and love this game for what it is. Even if it weren't meant that way, we are coming to my Really Big issue with A:R. Another format for a new player to get trapped in that is unlikely to hold their interest for long and has serious, endemic problems with its implementation, execution and core idea, may dissuade that new player from moving on to 6s. The 6s community in North America relies upon new teams and new players trickling their way up into ESEA. We already have a trap for 6s players in UGC (it can be very challenging to convince players to move from UGC to ESEA). If a new player sees this A:R thing, gets excited about it, plays for a while, but ultimately drops the format because it won't have widespread acceptance or a large playerbase is a potential 6s player completely lost to us. We need those 6s newbies.
Things change over time. If people judge Extine's idea to be more fun or better to play then it's just something that will happen. Explaining to people how wrong they are to have fun (assuming they are) isn't going to make any difference. If he does a better job publicising it to new players then the 6v6 community won't really have anyone to blame but themselves for failing to get off their collective ass and push 6s more effectively.