Geniunely surprised this isn't a Sheepy thread.

If people have the right attitude it's not a big deal, my team have all been in every session with 1 or 2 extra subs, teams we scrim end up with 1-2 mercs. They listen to every word, they crush scrims. I think coaches being part of the roster just adds to the problem that if they have scrims they have to find a sub medic or have a totally seperate schedule in the ETF2L off-season.

Lay out ground rules about turning up, explaining why you're late - give the most dedicated / available (all of my team been dedicated but not all been available) the opportunity to play.

And coaching styles, I won't judge but I feel like some of the coaches speak about the wrong things in their sessions, mine are focused one what new players need the most. It's evident from the results of my scrims.

Every downvote is building your character my friend. In fact I think it is my duty as a human being to downvote every post you ever made. You'll thank me for it when you're CEO of Apple or whatever you kids are into these days.

My friend if you get bothered by bunch of forum dwellers downvoting your posts, I fear for you in life, shit literally doesn't matter.

Have to say with a few very minor exceptions, b4nny is the only one to have continously played this game since basically near it's release. Nice that the "endboss" still plays the game but if you do the same shit for 10 years you'll eventually get bored of it. I wouldn't return to play even if they offered real prizes, rather work a Job. Couldn't pay me to sit in another 10 minute stalemate waiting for a Sniper to get a kill.

For those who still want to play the game, good luck, if you want to see the game be more than it is you need to do radical changes, maybe not what b4nny wants but some drastic overhaul. I think the game been okay the time it's existed, a community game with a lot of passion - sure be nice to have a bit more to play for but overall been worth it.

Biased articles are kind of bread and butter of journalism, fact driven matters yes but if we as a community are supposed to be responding to opinion articles, part of the point is to use your own intelligence to decide if the "facts" presented (if any) are correct, or if the opinion has merit. Lot of opinion is based off of personal experience, that said me having 11k hours of TF2 presenting an opinion about state of TF2 has a bit more merit than someone with 1k hours, isn;t to say the 1k hour guy can produce a better argument and use better facts to present their argument, nor they are wrong and I am right, in fact it can be completely the opposite but experience = merit and as a reader you need to understand if the merit outweighs what is presented. As humans for example we psychologically respond to politicians who say things to get elected but in reality we have no meaningful insight, I think a good example if people who voted for Brexit hating NHS waiting times liking what they hear about the 35 million a week or whatever sent to the EU, but economist know it isn't that simple from an equilibrium stand point, but if you like what you hear your mind is made up without questioning merit.

Disagreeing is fine, but having independent thought is main lesson you can gain from reading someone elses thought because if you don't you turn into a forum of sheep, which is one of the issues with TF.TV when it starts witch hunting people.

I don't really have same passion for TF2 anymore but back in the day these were some of my favourite things, starting back in like 2009-2011 or whenever with Power Rankings, pieces with contributions from lot of regular Prem players/commentators - Admirable was best at opinion pieces as he was unbiased and articulated well. VanillaTF2 was great to just put up an article about any topic, whether it was Prem 6s, Mid 6s, Highlander, etc etc.

They can also make a bigger difference then you think, one of the great compliments I had is I did a piece about "state of European HL and dominance of SNSD" where I criticised how EU HL had been managed compared to NA TF2 (though I was part of the management team so some of it was self-criticism) but also production and I remember being told by BlackOut Jon that it helped inspire BlackOutTV - Many other players tell me some articles I wrote inspire them to contribute to the community too. Though my content used to range from serious, to controversial to damn right silly or just trolling (UGC days in particular), some of it very immature but reflects my age really. It's embarassing to read now but at the time, people enjoyed it and I think making the point to directly criticise UGC Admins who were way out line at the time was important.

It does make me go back to 2009 and seeing likes of eXtine do eXtv and commentate and you think "I can do this" or "wouldn't it be great if we had more content like this regular, live streams and so forth?" Of course nowadays streaming is normal part of TF2, but back in the day every article / contribution was an influx of activity that allowed the community to be alive. I always think the day TF2 dies is the day there is an unlock discussion and everyone agrees or stops caring. I may be of the opinion adapting to unlocks is better than complaining about their effect on the game but it doesn't change the pure fact that disagreements = passion to the game. Everyone I ever argued with online was passionate about TF2, and that is the main thing. It's also why outside the competition, you can be friends with vast majority of people or at least share a drink and a conversation.

But the best articles were DJC when he wrote for MyGamingEdge, amazing mix of satire, comedy, opinion and it was mostly focused on performance of individuals. And speaking to DJC you'd learn he actually had a lot of respect for good players but man he did love to call it how he saw it. Admirable too. Even Kaidus back in the day. Good times for writing. Many more I forgotten but so many good articles, just remember to proof-read kids.

Good luck all but mainly good luck Papi.

He might have been a fake nick of a guy I used to play Lazytown with named "DaShiv" - Lazytown is a community map (first ever custom one in TF2) and essentially it's like Trench warfare in TF2, with near instant respawn and choke points. Anyhow he used to play Demo, farm kills by standing far back and spamming consistently for 8 hour sessions at a time till he racked up 10-12 dominations - He was statistically the best player on Lazytown as far as their hlstatsx rankings went, I tried so hard to beat him - More frags? Don't matter, More wins? Who cares - I was reduced to farming Kritz from 3 different medics (least 1 female cos that is how I roll virgins) and then, at that point I finally made it to Number 1 ranked Lazytown player - For 1 day until I went back to normal and he was ahead of me again.

In my mind, this guy is the best of all time.

MGE / DM is good for combat movement, when to dodge projectiles, etc etc.

All other suggestions are super useful.

But a different idea - In general though movement is helped a lot by Map knowledge, knowing every edge, ledge and jump, when to jump to land in a particular spot and so forth. When I was a younger man I used to make an empty server go into Badlands / Granary / Gullywash or whatever and just jump around as Scout/Soldier/Medic/Demo and run around and practice strafing. I might have spent so much time on Badlands scout practising doing all the ledge jumps from Window, or middle jumps you can do from the Rock to the Point to the Window and strafing, aiming to strafe as widest angle I can whilst doing same jump - Shit like that.

Or after a pcw just spending 20-30 minutes mindlessly jumping around, moving around the map.

I don't see where I fit in - I play the most straight forward, basic TF2 you'll see my friend.

Papi smash :>

Doubt people registering for a league like UGC or RGL want to pay to play ESEA, I also doubt the chances the potential 10 extra teams that would play ESEA if they had nowhere else to play would have saved the league - I genuinely believe community leagues are a gateway for people to play TF2 and then enter a league like ESEA, they probably did a lot more to help the league than damage them - Ask all the HL guys who went on to ESEA.

I got no proof of this, I just don't think there is any blame to be laid on free community leagues - Communities make the game the best game it can be, TF2 has been visibly losing numbers since well - Valve fucked over communities in TF2 in a variety of ways we all know about. That's harmed the game more than anything - ESEA supported TF2 for longer than it really should have, it's been a crazy ride and a lot of good times watching TF2 came from it.

I still want my £200 I invested trying to help ESEA EU grow way back btw....maybe not.

End of an era for TF2, I wonder where all the NA guys go now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqgkZDbe4Xk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRSvb2AdoAM

That face when Yak is still the best British Demo 8->