Morris is an amazing, kind, encouraging teammate who can make adjustments on the fly, can maincall or co-call the shit out of things, and has good DM and confidence. His calling made me realize granary could be fun (a year ago now), which is a pretty big accomplishment, and I'm sure he's gotten even better since then. Please give him a good, serious home!

Anybody has any experience with garbage ping to ESEA Chicago servers? I've played since S23 and have had decent (read: 70 from BC) ping for years. This season, suddenly, 150. It's still 70 to all non-ESEA Chicago servers.

Posting this on behalf of a very dedicated newbie mix team that got hit with a lot of unfortunate circumstances. They are a slightly older group (18-20) and are dedicated to having fun and improving.

They need soldiers to finish the season with, as well as a sub or two if you're interested. The only requirement is be willing to show up, lose, and improve/learn a lot in the process.

Please add Professor Renderer: https://steamcommunity.com/id/renderervongadgetmeister/
Or myself (Mallory): https://steamcommunity.com/id/thebunnysaur/

Bashy is on one of the newbie mixes teams this season, originally as their sub (which is when I'm assuming he made this thread, but has since moved to main for them after a few roster shuffles).

He's a very mature and pleasant individual who was very accommodating to his team's requests to play various classes as their sub despite not having a ton of experience on them. Along with his reliability, he has real potential for leadership and would be a great backbone for any team that picks him up in the future.

On the one hand I totally get that people not showing up on time because they need to finish a jump map/beat this nerd in MGE/poop is a pandemic in this community and it’s absolutely infuriating because it’s seriously not that hard to be on time.

On the other hand you’re all paying to play a game that has a net negative financial outcome for the vast majority of players, which means literally the only thing you’re paying for is playtime, so... it makes zero fucking sense to not play what you’re paying for. In addition it’s a well-known fact that the client for ESEA is hot shit that can smite anyone at any time so this is just a case of treat others how you want them to treat you when you’re stressed out and have no control over a glitchy software that’s making you late. At the very least attempt to communicate and set boundaries AHEAD of time, i.e. hit up your opponent a few days in advance and tell them, yo, please try to ensure everyone is in at 10:30 prompt because we really need to start on time, so that there’s zero surprises when you show up and aren’t terribly accomodating to delays (which I’ve done. And we got in the server at 10:20 and started at 10:33). Or vice versa, tell your opponent at the 20-minute mark that hey, we think this is going to be a long-term delay, would you like to take the FFW now, or reschedule to another day? Like this can literally all be avoided by just talking and trying to empathize with the other team.

I work at the library and usually have like 20 books at home at once.

I read an amazing children's novel called The Stars Beneath our Feet from the perspective of a little boy growing up in Harlem, and it was really touching and sweet. I also read a YA novel called The Female of the Species in like a single night and decided after reading the whole book that I didn't like it. But apparently a lot of teens do because it's nominated for a reader's choice award.

I'm also trying to slog through like "Best/Winnerrest Science Fiction Novel of all time" lists and reading Hyperion by Dan Simmons and I just can't get into it.

Also I read the Silmarillion like a billion times when I was younger and loved it, but it is kind of uneven because it's actually a compilation/trim-and-paste of like several different full-length books he never published.

The thread for late sign-ups is now here:

https://steamcommunity.com/groups/na6v6newbiemix/discussions/0/1742220359689366501/

Please direct any new players who did not join the drive in time to be put on a team here. There is no guarantee that they will play this season, however, this thread is where our newbie teams will be looking through to find subs, ringers, and replacement starters should the need arise!

He's a fantastic and reliable player - played on his team for Rewind and he was very good at getting things done on time, which means he'll be one of those teammates that doesn't make your team leader life a living hell. Very consistent too, which is rare for someone without a ton of experience, and he takes feedback and improvement very seriously.

Alright, a belated update! We put together 5 newbie teams, plus one whole team that assembled under our banner but built their team by themselves. So that's 6 new teams, with about 40 new players plus a few returning players in the season!

Thank you very much to Daffodil, Jaaay, Phantom, Laxson, Grape Juice III and Qualia, who will be coaching the teams this season, and thank you everyone who offered to help out! Stay tuned for future announcements because we've got a few other events in the planning stages right now.

This season we will be trying something new - we will be creating newbie sign-ups even into the season, so that late-commers will have the opportunity to sign up to sub or main on the newbie teams, should they require another player.

Bump for Grumpy, please give him a nice home!

Super huge props to everyone who worked hard to get this announced within such a large time frame. Hopefully cu@

Also we could discuss options for catering/delivery for at least some of the meals if the venue doesn't provide their own food.

It takes years of careful training and desensitization to be able to raise a gun and calmly shoot a person who's trying to shoot you. It takes many, MANY days of practice involving highly-competent and trained individuals to pull off an engagement involving panicked people and guns without killing [too many] innocent people. In a specific setting. Life isn't a fucking action movie, and all of you people who seem to believe you're all just secret Rambo waiting to be set free, would be the first to shoot into a crowd of random people "in self-defense" while shitting, pissing and ugly-crying all over yourself.

ETA: That's not to say I would oppose this level of training for people to get their hands on guns, but that would be some extremely stringent gun control. :)

The drive is officially done, but if you squeak your sign up by tomorrow early afternoon, you might still make it on a team!

Last week of sign-ups! We have some good sign-ups and good coaches, but we can definitely accommodate more of both! If you're not sure about your availability, you can always sign up as a sub on a newbie mixes team, and likely get some playtime in the season.

@Vanxi, we will try to put the most fitting teams together, and will try to provide stability and replacements when possible.

Alright folks, we're a week in and we have a couple of teams and a number of players signed up, but we can definitely push for more! Some simple ways you can help:

- Just promoting newbie mixes helps new players find our pugs on Fridays and get hooked! If they can learn with us, they then can gain the confidence to take steps into the community on their own. If you pub and see a new player asking about competitive in your pub, take a moment to suggest they look us up. If you stream and have new players watch you, shout our drive out as an opportunity for them to get involved. :D

- Volunteer to coach! If the idea of coaching daunts you, we're totally cool with you bringing a friend so you can co-coach and spread the responsibility to have more fun. Just so long as you're both there to help/entertain the new players, we don't mind coaching buddies.

- If you have an experience in newbie mixes when you first started out, please consider sharing your experience here or on reddit to encourage new people to try it out.