DMS has been alive since the start, it's be a shame for them to die now. As for all these supposed "deaths" of plat teams, are you saying all these players are just gonna give up playing tf2/highlander? Because I'll bet that a lot of these teams will "die" only to reform with slightly different rosters and new team names.

That's a fair point, it's true that the goal for a lot of players is to make LAN. However, I know that there are a lot of players that just enjoy playing this game because it's fun. There are also players that play this game to be the best... not to win LAN necessarily, but to win a grand finals and be the best. So sure, there will be players that quit the game or stick with ESEA because they have the determination to make it to LAN, but that's not going to be everyone (and I'd argue it would be a somewhat small population relative to the whole comp community).

As for the euros kicking it into gear after getting destroyed at i46, you are absolutely right that they raised their game because they lost to NA at a huge LAN. I'd argue that the same result would've happened regardless if they had lost that badly to NA at ANY grand finals (online or LAN) except for the fact there would be no fair way to have NA play EU online. But if you're telling me that those top EU teams (epsilon, TCM, etc) wouldn't have had the same determination to get better if they had had their asses handed to them by some new up-and-coming team at a huge ONLINE grand final, I'd disagree with you. The only reason that the LAN aspect really mattered was because it was the only way for the EU vs. NA showdown to truly happen. But had it been some unknown EU team that had kicked epsilon's ass in an online grand finals, it would've probably had a similar result.

I don't want you to read my posts as "LANs are pointless and unnecessary and we shouldn't bother with them in comp TF2" because that's not really how I feel. I think a LAN atmosphere is the ideal way to host grand finals. However I don't think it should be a priority. I'd rather get established in a new, well-run league using only online grand finals, with the goal of transitioning into LAN grand finals after the solid foundation has been built. I'd much rather do that then play in a shitty league like ESEA purely because of LAN.

I don't think anyone should be ashamed of who they are. If you don't like something about yourself, try to change it. If it's not in your power to change it, then learn to live and enjoy life with it regardless. And if other people hate you for it, fuck' em and just keep on being happy with yourself.

With that being said, I'm sick of vegans bragging about how much better they are than me cause they're eating shitty gluten-free-organic-nonGMO-tasteless-textureless food. Let me eat my damn burger, you don't hear me telling you how good the grease tastes.

That's the thing though. While you make incredibly good points, they only apply to ~24 players a season. I can completely understand why the high level players that regularly make LAN want to stay with ESEA (I'd feel the same if I were one of them). However a very large portion of the community does not get to play on LAN, and they don't want to deal with ESEA anymore, hence the big move to CEVO. It would really be disappointing if all the LAN players quit the game if ESEA drops tf2 and CEVO doesn't have a LAN yet, but the game will still be there for the rest of us to play, and there will be new players that come along and become the best players in the game.

The only way that most of us would be affected by not having LAN finals is that the grand finals we all love to watch won't be on an even playing field for the players. They'll still be good games and we'll all watch them, but for those involved it might not be as great as if they were at LAN. I, for one, am willing to put up with that, especially cause I believe there's a good chance that in a few seasons down the road, we'll be able to hold CEVO LAN finals at an already established local LAN.

You're right. I was going off of this quote from PYYYOUR:

I guess I just assumed it would be the Watch This roster from that. My main point though, was that there are still very high level players that will be moving to CEVO (i.e. pure).

I can understand that reasoning, and it makes total sense if I think about it from Platinum's POV. However, I don't think that any of the other points that he or any other invite/LANteam/player has brought up are really that valid. The way I hear their arguments is:

-We only enjoy this game because of LAN (which I find understandable)
-The game will die if we split (which I think is dumb af)

I feel like at this point people have made it pretty clear that most of us don't give a shit about there being a LAN (especially if there's possibility for LAN down the line). If we lose some of the best players in the game because of that, it doesn't really matter cause I'll still get to play tf2 in a comp league.

Also, that argument that losing the top players will kill the game or something is dumb because first of all, Watch This will be in CEVO next season. Second, when ESEA dies, there will be a good number of invite players that love TF2 far too much to quit, and they'll join us in CEVO.

Basically this.

I think it's really fun to watch LAN all day on a saturday, but I'd enjoy an online finals as well (and I think a hyped up TF2 grand finals will get the same number of viewers regardless of if it were played on LAN or online). And it sounds like there's hope for hosting a finals at an already established LAN sometime down the road, which means CEVO won't have to "build infrastructure" to make that happen, they just need to be successful enough to reserve 12 computers at a LAN.

The way I see it happening is CEVO will have a pretty solid number of teams sign up and play next season, with Watch This taking home the gold (Brad already said he's gonna have an ass-kicking team in CEVO next season). Within the next few seasons, CEVO will get even bigger, ESEA TF2 is gonna die, and those that (for some bizarre) reason decided to stay in ESEA will either quit, or reluctantly join CEVO in order to find the best competition and join up with most of the community again.

What happened in that thread... I mean disney movie, I missed it.

I took a bunch of AP classes and still hardly had to try because of how easy they graded assignments. High school definitely felt like a waste of time as far as learning goes, and it didn't really prepare me at all for college.

I'm aiming to get a masters in education in the next year or so, so hopefully I can infiltrate the school system and change it from within. That's the plan at least.

"I never let my schooling interfere with my education"
-Mark Twain

One tip for the eXtv casts is to add the overlay that TF.TV uses that shows the total rounds that each team has won.

43.5

Happiest thing I've heard all week.

Wait are these kill streak things specific to MvM or to all tf2?

That means nothing. This season, CEVO had fewer teams than any of the divisions in UGC. Of course it hasn't been as enjoyable because no other teams took part in it. I don't know if you're blind or ignorant, but two things lead me to believe you are both:

1) You appear to want to remain with E$EA (lol)
2) You seem to think that CEVO this season (with 7 teams) will be the exact same next season (when it's pretty clear that a LOT of teams, and well established ones, no less, will be moving to CEVO)

I think iT and Watch This were signed up for this current season. It might not be relevant to next season, but at least they've showed SOME interest.