So, I guess that normalcool is no more. I had two good seasons with them, and grew a lot as a player, and wish we could have gone for more, but sometimes these things cannot be!

Anyway

I'm honestly hoping to stay in IM as medic, but if an open team looking to spend a season together in open and then go IM comes along, that's pretty awesome too.

ESEA open s11 -- Spacebots (7-6)
ESEA open s12 -- normalcool (9-6 + playoffs)
ESEA IM s13 -- normalcool (8-8)

I'm available to scrim whenever (I am located east coast), and am looking for a dedicated team.

I can main call... if needed. I try to stay positive and improve when I can, but I do have my faults and am only human. I hope I can find a team where we can all have a good time and improve together!

If you don't donate to the charity through the stream, you won't have a chance to win some of our cool prizes (ahem plug plug, like one of the white or black max hats I am making, or one of the blu or red tf2 class symbol patches I am making)!!

In all seriousness though, I wish people would remember that while Sean is the figurehead of the charity, a lot of other people have already invested time, commitment, money (fabric and the like don't magically appear when I will it) and lots of heart and soul in to making this charity event fun, exciting, and hopefully a success.

Wreath, Whiskerbiscuit, Lamefx, Renhet, and countless others have put numerous hours in to this charity.

As Mesr says "4 th kidz"

People underestimate how big a part this plays in the *accessibility* of competitive tf2. The game, as a whole, was designed to be played in servers without class limits, and only a very small objective list. (ie push the cart, capture the flag, hold the point, get all 5 capture points) But beyond those objectives, basically anything went.

There is a vocabulary and mindset that needs to be discovered before you can even play 6's or Highlander, and that's what loses people.

Yes, a *vocabulary* that even in streams gets glossed over.

You can jump in to any dota 2, LoL, or starcraft game, and the vocabulary is concurrent. There is no need to have a lengthy introduction to what is going on. There is no need to re figure team dynamics or what each player is doing. It is the same whether in public servers or in show matches or leagues.

_________________

The other thing to note in commonality is that they are all *top down* games. As a spectator, you can watch from exactly the same angle and get a really decent bit of the action. If you want to be fancy, you can zoom in on it, but for the most part the way they are show is much easier to cast. You also have to note

all those games have mini maps

Yeah. As a spectator, that's something I constantly look at. It not only helps me get in to the head of whoever I am watching ("Oh man, that guy knows he's about to get cornered by 4 people in his lane. What's he gonna do") but it helps me get a larger sense of the game.

While in game, that kind of thing would give a grossly unfair advantage, a spectator plug in to show the same kind of mini map would be amazing to hint at possible back caps, a soldier hiding for a force, a spy about to backstab. Think of how much more information could be given to the viewer.

Logistically though, there are tons of maps, and the idea would be much more difficult to follow through with, but if there were such a thing, I think the implementation of it would greatly enhance the watchability and overall draw of tf2 as a spectator sport.

I have had my snowball mic for about 3 years, and I've... accidentally knocked it over more than I'd like to recount -ahem- and it has stood up pretty well.

http://tech.woot.com/plus/usb-usb-were-1

Woot actually has the snowball mic's on sale pretty often, but lucky for you they have them on sale today!

I think that aside from helping little newblets out by offering golden nuggets of information ascertained during the course of a scrim, having 300-400 people consistently watching streams grows the community as a whole by putting tf2 up on the twitchtv front page.

I know that abstracts like "helping people" or "raising awareness of competitive tf2" aren't always the types of things that motivate people on tough days where they know they are going to rage at their team. But now that Lange and Seanbud are no longer streaming scrims, there aren't many other teams left.

We can hold on hope that cool people like RaysFire will garner 100+ viewers through consistency and interaction, but even then, he's IM and not invite.

I'd never be able to be someone who could stream myself for a plethora of reasons, so I can't begin to fully comprehend how much pressure there is... but at the same time, it's kind of one of those things where it feels like something is missing.

The community was all abuzz about the steps that have been taken to put tf2 more in the spotlight. Having no invite scrims being streamed feels like a step backwards. Maybe we need someone to just sit in spec for a could of scrims so that way they can interact more/no mumble coms are being throw out there. But finding someone willing to do that seems even less likely than an invite player deciding to stream again. If there was something else filling the gap--say more original content or games cast nightly, maybe that would be an option as well. Maybe such a thing would be a better option.

I just hope some middle ground gets found.

edit:
Maybe instead of focusing on the invite scrim stream "issue", we should be thinking as a community, how to get the 400+ viewers back a night. Recently when I check to see what streams are on, it seems like collectively it's about 100. Getting those viewers back, and putting out good content might be worth more effort than all of us making a few people feel bad because they want to give their team an edge.

I've watched almost every fully charged there is, and every week I enjoy tuning in to them for both the personalities of the regular casters, and the people they bring in as guest each week.

There have been some good points brought up in this thread, especially Taggs post, suggesting that a thread be made each week with suggestions for questions people have.

Ahem, AnimeNewsNetwork has a weekly podcast that's been going on for years, and their format has remained relatively the same due to how effective it is.

*outline talking points and give a rough estimate of the amount of time for each subject (maybe adjust with the cams a little, and you can have it over to one side? that way people can tune in for a certain area they want both live/vod)

*post topics on twitter/facebook/reddit to open up for user questions. I know Mocha does a lot for tf.tv on reddit, and I think that utilizing those types of sites is big.

*start with just the regular casters talking about weekly happenings etc, and then bring in the guest

*end the show with the questions you get from the social networking sites.

I don't think that you have to get rid of rumors/gossip, just allot a certain amount of time for it, and don't go over it. In your breakdown for the show, put that as a topic so people can skip it in the vod, or come back after getting a snack if they are watching live.

You guys are doing great, keep up the good work.

I watched the video, and posted a response in the reddit thread from 3 or so months ago. I see a few problems, and some neat ideas.

Positives:
+ I think that the idea Sal pitched with the tickets is pretty good. Best that's come up so far. The idea of hats, misc and all that seems to never really get past the start up gate.

+It could potentially expose more people to Highlander, but I really can't see it working for 6v6.

+I could see portions of the community getting behind this.

Cons:

-I can't see it working for 6v6. Not because of the weapons, but more because of the play style. If this is used to show "pubbers" a different style of play, but there is not a lot of feedback, you're going to get people who don't know what their doing matched up with people who do, and it'll end up worse than lobbies where you have a scout try to run full time spy.
I think if anything, it could work for Highlander though, and honestly, I think that if UGC was fluffed up more to be stepping stone from pub to comp, this kind of system could work really well. But that would mean that UGC would need to change a bit.

-It would breed a different kind of... overly competitive jerk? I don't know how to describe it. The idea Sal had about using a ticket to get stats is something I could envision breeding an influx of players who get to the top, think they are amazing and shit talk (creating an environment no one wants to be in, making the match making system annoying) and then they transition to UGC or ESEA, and no one wants to be around them. That new "species" of player would be awkward to handle.

-In MvM the level of communication you need isn't the same as you would need in HL or 6v6. While I've already said it couldn't work in 6v6, even in HL (despite how chaotic it can be) there's some level of communication that's needed. While you can still argue that "oh MvM takes teamwork" yes. But it's not the same level of teamwork, or even vocabulary needed for playing competitively.

-I imagine that the matchmaking on rank or skill level would be disastrous. Even at that, I imagine that it would end up like one of those systems where too many factors would need to be put in. location for ping, "skill level", class, game type, map preference maybe even something like, "off classing or not". I just see the whole match making system needing too many factors to make games that people who actually would transition to competitive, would come back to.

Pretty awesome that people are starting to talk about this though. It'll be interesting to see what comes of it.

(also, the idea in the reddit thread is radically different than the idea salamancer posted. I actually loathe the idea proposed in the reddit thread)

The only way to really grow the community would be to solve this disjointedness first.

I feel really awkward replying here, because I don't really like to be noticed. Despite that I thought "maybe I notice some things other people don't." So why not?

Anyway, I think lots of people have great and valid ideas to bring to the table. It's just like any sort of bureaucratic system, when someone wants to help and inject new ideas, they are at a loss for words. I know it happened to me. I actually wrote a 16 page document to eXtine that Mesr forwarded to him. (oh youth! How silly you appear upon reflection.) I never got word back about it, and I think that must happen a lot, because there just aren’t enough people to handle all the input, and there isn’t enough organization. Everyone on eXtv and VanillaTV are doing their best, and I recognize that along with the rest of the community. I’m just suggesting that there might need to be a more accessible place for people to go when they want to put their ideas into action.

Someone previously mentioned paying attention to Highlander because of how much it's growing, and I wholeheartedly agree. I think the animosity between HL and 6's players kind of depends on this next UGC season. Now that there are going to be heavily *ahem* stacked invite players on UGC HL rosters, it provides a good litmus to how the whole community might react. Honestly, I think it'll be entertaining and I really hope to watch some of the matches. I hope we can get some good casters to really stick to a schedule and give people something to look forward to.

I will mention something I don't think is going to sit well. I see how a lot of streamers talk down about StabbyStabby's stream. "Why the hell does he get so many viewers when all he does is stream playing spy in pub." I can sort of empathize with their air of disdain at that fact, but it is a fact. Other than Lange's stream, and the occasional eXtv or VanillaTV match, during the daytime hours StabbyStabby usually (not always) gets the most viewers. I think it's multi layered really. He's very relateable, he interacts with his viewers, and he doesn't really put them outside their comfort zone. There's no glossary of terms that people watching have to learn. There's no need for questions about "why do you only have these players?" or "why can't you use the weapons." Anyone that's played pub tf2 can watch his stream and know what's going on. Someone who has barely gotten into competitive tf2 won't find any comfort in watching Pyyyour or Platinum or Lange's stream. It's too inaccessible to them.(No fault on their part, because I know they interact and try to answer questions when they can. Sometimes even other viewers in the chats will answer questions)

The MGE videos are some of them outdated, too long, and "foggy" in their intent. (ahem, looking at you Mesr) The kind of documents that were mentioned by Klanana really don't answer everything an emerging player has, and the list of mentors is far and few between. There's not much out there for HL and I think that's partly because it hasn't been "explored" enough, but also the only ones out there are about maps, not classes or team strategies. There isn't a streamer who is like Day9 and sits down with you and tells you what it is you want to know. I realize that after a point, there wouldn't be much to do because this game isn't necessarily built the same as Starcraft, so teaching and streaming it would be different.
I mean, obviously sitting on the low level competitive play, I’ve had my fair share of time to wax philosophic about all of this. A lot of the ideas in this thread are great, but I think that the real issue is that there’s not enough content to encourage new players, and there’s not really a… Hub if you will. There’s nowhere someone can go, and know for sure that is where they can get their questions answered. It’s all too spread out—the information, the various pub groups, the forums, the different leagues, where to go with suggestions. The only