LOLO WORLD OF TANKSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

You're playing a dangerous game my friend

If you think it will take 6 months to kill TF2 after we've been here for half a decade then you haven't been paying attention.

Competitive TF2 has been around for a bit more than 5 years. How many times has Valve REALLY advertised anything competitive TF2? Besides those hidden announcements on the teamfortress.com site, there's been nothing. A couple medals and a couple shoutouts. None of us ever wanted an international, just a bit of recognition. A FRONT PAGE POST, a news item in TF2 main screen on the right side or a nice embedded link.

From what I've been told, the biggest changes currently stand as so:
- A restriction of max 2 of any class, maybe no restrictions at all.
-No weapon bans.
-2 of each map type.
To me, that's not TF2. That's not the game I spent a half a decade playing, practicing, watching, loving and failing at. "Jeez, just a couple changes to our game and we'll have valve support, imagine the numbers we could reach, the eyes we could gain. Next thing you know, we'll be at MLG." TFTV is going to make an experimental league I'd assume. "Hmm, playing some payload for valve's support, it's such a big step. Double demos everywhere, well if it means 6v6 lobbies, it'll be worth it."

Once again, I'm a fatalist. This is what I forsee:

6v6 lobby gets picked up. We've finally made it. Valve accepts us. The next big thing is the leagues. What's the point of having this lobbying with this rule set if no leagues use it. No lobby players will transition to league play. Either ESEA picks it up or more likely ESEA passes and enigma decides to make the TFTV league. All of a sudden, a huge rift has been formed in competitive TF2. Some players hate the new format, it's killed the game. Some players love it, some of those people might actually like the new gameplay and some just rally around the idea of Valve's support. ESEA experiences a huge drop in numbers, players begin to quit because the money and excitement isn't what it used to be. The open player base is much smaller now. TFTV also experiences a drop of top players. They loved the idea of Valve's support but just don't have the same passion for TF2. Past that, I have no idea what would happen.

This is the strongest gaming community in the world. No numbers will prove it, no forums posts will show it but if I'm sure of anything it's that. Valve will never give us an international, shit I'd still be surprised to ever see a competitive front page post even if 6v6 lobby was introduced. I'm a fatalist. I overexagerate, over dramatize and make everything sound a lot worse than what it is but before you dive head first into a Valve supported future, think about two things. What Valve's support means and How far we've come.

I wanna start with off by saying I'm a fatalist. I overexagerate, over dramatize and make everything sound a lot worse than what it is. I decided to write this big ass thing because I know I'll never be asked on podcasts or streams. If there was ever a time for a gotfrag essay, now is the time.

To begin, we gotta go all the way back to 2007, back when eSports was still booming. At the time, Counter Strike was the biggest game by far in the west. Dota and SC for the most part were only popular out in the east, FPS dominated the western scene. People think that just recently eSports has begun to explode, they're wrong. eSports was huge back then, maybe not as big, but still very sizeable. CPL, the biggest of the circuits, was set to close down in 2007. After all the corruption and "misplaced" prizes, it had actually grown the scene a fair amount. CGS, Championship Gaming Series, had begun to form around 2006 but it's first "real" season was in 2007. For those that don't know what the CGS is, it was a very short lived league that was televised on DirectTV. Since then, the only eSports on TV in North America has been Halo on ESPN by MLG (2008/9?). Counter Strike was getting big and there was plenty of excitement of finally getting on TV, being recognized.

CGS was big. Franchise were bought and owned by CGS, players were salaried, prize pots were big and CS was on TV. For CGS though, the current state of Counter Strike was too stale. The casual audience just didn't like it as much as the competitive one. One of the CGS's biggest downfalls was its management. It wasn't run by gamers or fans, it was run by businessmen. CS, in its competitive format, is run 32 rounds. For the casual audience, games lasted too long. There were far too many rounds to keep them interested in matches. They decided to change the rules, from now on CS was to be played in 18 rounds. Hey man, whatever, a few less rounds, who cares, we're on TV. Unfortunately, they still didn't feel that was enough to appeal to newer viewers. For those that don't know, CS players start off with 800$ to buy their guns. Due to your low amount of money, you're forced to buy pistols for the first round. This is known as the "Pistol Round". This dictates a large portion of the game since winning pistol round give you a huge economic advantage. Well jeez, we have fewer rounds now and audiences wanna see the big guns. We wanna hear the boom of the AWP and the big plays with AK, why are we waiting 8 rounds to get there? CS players no longer started with 800$ but started with the full 16k. This way, the big guns came out right away. Hmm, well I mean, we're still playing CS, it's just a bit different, just remember guys WE'RE ON TV. CPL is dead and CGS is the future, LOOK AT THE MONEY, we'll stick with it.

But they didn't, in 2008 CGS ceased all operations. CGS was sold to a new company who had decided to no longer continue. No reason was given, you can only speculate. One can only imagine that it was due to viewership. The competitive community wasn't too pleased at that point. The game they loved had turned into something else during the time of CGS. The casual gamers moved on, they liked it but they are always chasing the newest trend, no need to stay. Gamers quit, franchises went bankrupt and eSports in the west entered the "dark ages". Viewership was big back then and I believe that FPS will never recover.

Again, I'm a fatalist. I'll make it sound scarier than it is but doesn't this sound a bit familiar. History repeats itself. How many concessions are we willing to make just for support from Valve? What does support from Valve even mean? What are they supporting?

http://www.speedtest.net/result/2761015213.png

Got language police but decent internet

We get emails before they come out but normally they come out at 6:30 if not earlier. Tonight one came out at 8:30 and then 10:30. It makes it pretty tough

So we missed it?

http://i.imgur.com/yASCpIK.jpg

I can confirm S15 will be pick/ban

What a terrible idea.

They plan on giving us a 6v6 in game lobby system just so they can figure out if their weapons need to be rebalanced? Why give us a system at all if they are just gonna shit all over the format that provides for the best competitive play.

Secondly, from the beginning of time this entire game has been about the pubs and never about the competitive play. Why are they looking to us for balance on the weapons? The balance of weapons is 100% different between pubs and comp. All they needed to do was take a look at my ban list for the past few seasons and grab a handful of inviters and ask them what needs changed. Shit if anything my ban list is exactly what they are looking for since it's a poll from top players.

I don't know, I'm really excited for this but at the same time it all seems very misguided.

I'm extremely excited for an in game comp lobby system but this weapon pick/ban thing is going about it the wrong way. I can't remember anyone saying CS is boring as shit because they don't go for the auto sniper or that quake had two few weapons. The strategic differences in MOBA and FPS are more than you can possibly count so going about the games in the same way is kinda ridiculous. If anything, this will eventually devolve from who has better aim into who has better items. That literally kills what I find so beautiful about this game, the majority of TF2 is pure execution. Aim, movement, awareness.. not gimmicky weapons.

If robin finds players striving for perfect execution boring and that we need to have heavys punching people to laughter then tis a sad sad day.

I thought they wanted to pretend they were in AA

Wut.

I just imagine someone reading this and saying "Fuck it", running outside and just proceeds to roll in the grass for hours.