https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHHQg7GBcKM&feature=gp-n-y&google_comment_id=z121ebzqsqqrjroct23dwxzqfx31y52pf04

I don't think people are wondering who's in control of the point when blu's time was ticking down and there is a red arrow showing that red are capping.

The second of my weekly pieces for The Spire, taking a look at how the leagues look following the 2016 VAC bans.

More coming every Friday.

http://www.thespire.tv/2016-vac-wave-and-the-aftershock/

This team is getting really solid imo. Thaigrr is an excellent pick-up. If they improve their team-fights and understanding of how everyone on their teams plays they should do well this season.

That's all well and good in theory but as soon as you announce that there will be no global competition any more for TF2 and instead the money will be used for domestic online cups, you'll see a fraction of the money donated because people care far less about regular cups than they do about a huge TI-type event. And then when that falls through all the top talent will leave, as there's literally nothing to play for. The only thing the top teams play for right now are cups and lans, the iseries being the most prestigious and the one they care the most about.

It would also be a step backwards in terms of PR for competitive tf2, as the iseries lans always get 5x or more viewers than online cups and introduce loads of new people to the scene due to the amount it gets talked about.

i-series always uses the EU rulesets and map pool. There is currently nobody interested in uniting the map pools or rulesets globally, so this is the end result.

Do you really think pugchamp is the best place to test this map? Why isn't the best place ETF2L, where the games are taken very seriously, teams are forced to scrim the map repeatedly, and strats are formed? It's not like we're playing for thousands of pounds here, this is a community league where the primary objective is to enjoy the game in a competitive environment.

You've missed the point though, and are not "right" (in as much as you could be in this ridiculous argument).

Nobody is going to these lengths for recognition, otherwise they'd be blasting their achievements around and asking for people to suck dicks at lans. They do it because they want the game to succeed, and want to benefit the community who enjoy the content. They're now annoyed because an opportunity has presented itself but there are barriers outside their control which stop/slow down success. And sometimes reverse it.

As a side note, there are definitely people who don't know or appreciate how difficult it is to produce an event with reasonable production quality, and the article had merit for that reason alone. For example when we put on the event at DreamHack Winter our sponsored PC broke, giving us ~25 fps instead of 60+. The whining and whinging from the community was appalling, and the people at production genuinely considered turning the stream off and removing the toys from the squealing toddlers who were acting as if they're entitled to that entertainment.

You can't both expect to be entertained in this method and mock the idea of supporting those giving content. While obviously you knew from the beginning about the costs entailed, the majority do not. Purely as an insight into how much it costs to run a LAN event, it was worthy of being written.

You play in a league and derive entertainment from that. You play scrims every week and derive entertainment from that. You watch games, chat on the forums, and play pugs. You and many other people use systems to get entertainment which are financially unsupportable without charitable work. That's not news, but the extent we may have to scale things back IS news. And there are quite a few people who value their time spent being entertained by this barely-alive game, even if the number is not high enough to financially support the artificially high products available.

As I've said before, a map being in beta means nothing beyond a name.

Gullywash, Snakewater, Granary_Pro, Process, and Via/Product were all included in the leagues' map pools before they got to their "final version". How do you expect beta maps to get proper testing and feedback if not including them in the season?

Also it's odd that they only seem to have 1 person involved in feedback. One would expect Valve to require a range of opinions, but tbh who knows what relationship banny and valve even have. It's a mystery. As usual.

That article's argument draws the conclusion that nobody should have access to OW hacks, not just Taimou. Or only one or two clever people with the exact right tools. I've heard about cheaters in pub games though, is this just everybody being salty?

The discord channels for various OW communities are where the discussion and community centralised. over.gg may be a hub in the future if the discussion floods over from discord into something more permanent.

Just to note: I will be playing until Mike's exam work finishes in early June, so expect to see me dribbling on pocket early this season.

Multiplay has always previously sponsored the BYOC TF2 tournament for £5k. At i55, due to an increase in support and a desire to make things bigger and better, backpack.tf and Bobsplosion sponsored the tournament for an additional £2.5k each.

I don't personally think Reckoner is more ready than Sunshine, but it is a fresh change to the map pool which has been the same for over a year and it allows us to properly test a new, promising map. If it's bad we'll go back to sunshine, or switch some other map in. Doesn't have to be permanent at all - it doesn't even have to be the map pool that we abide by for other tournaments necessarily (though it probably should be for practice reasons).