You know how the GXL LANs used to be in the past with TF2 tournaments? There were about six teams at most. Six. Sure, there were a handful of competitive players but it was never really anything serious. Even players that got fucking rolled constantly still came up to me after the LAN and told me how much of a great time they had, sitting next to their friends and laughing. They had a good fucking time.
And you know what? I wanted to make it better. Earlier this year, I said "You know what? Fuck it. I'm gonna make this the biggest and best NA TF2 LAN yet. I want to make this awesome." I messaged Dashner and eXtine, and they instantly became interested with me. I cannot fucking express the countless hours I would spend every single day talking to Dashner and eXtine over Steam, going over the smallest details and planning out every single possible thing. I spent many hours talking to a ton of different people: from Europeans to try to bring their best to the LAN, to even players with very little competitive experience. Yeah, teams like Epsilon were incredibly interested in attending, which would have been a treat to everyone. I'm guessing that probably fell through at this point, because I haven't heard much from them lately, but we do have a full European team coming in. I wanted everyone to come and compete. I fucking cared about making this the best. For anyone who truly believes I just threw up a few posts and ignored everything about this LAN until two weeks before the LAN, you are sorely mistaken.
I wanted everyone to be attracted to this event. I donated $500 out of my own pocket into the prize pool, and eXtv donated a ton of money into the prize pot themselves. Along with the buy-in money, I wanted the donated money to attract some of the best competitors, regardless if they were top NA/EU players. Perhaps even some of the lower level players would step their game up to possibly achieve a top 4 placing, or maybe even to show what they are made of on LAN, who knows. The money is definitely there to show that this LAN is serious. Don't agree with me? Well, I really apologize that our combined donation of $2000 is pointless because a few people are upset that there is a possibility that some CEVO-P teams might play on Saturday and now they feel like they stand no chance. How dare I even bother?
CEVO-P teams are in no way obligated to play together. They can do whatever they want. But I'm not going to tell them outright that they are not allowed to play together, as much as me not telling them that they can't just go ahead and make an equally-skilled invite pug. How am I actually supposed to dictate that scenario? Seriously, am I supposed to be like "No, your pug team is too good." Last GXL and last FITES LAN top 3 were compromised of plenty Invite players (some teams totally being 100% Invite players). Think about that. But hey, I guess I should make this an "Invite players are not allowed to play in this tournament," right?
Yet, you know what I did to compensate for the rest of the people who didn't place in they money? I'm rounding up Unusuals, keys, weapons, mice/keyboards, random cool shit. And by "rounding up," the idea behind that is I'd get things from sponsors and random people who felt like donating stuff to the event. And why did I do that? Because I wanted this tournament to appeal to players who weren't necessarily capable of winning. If the best 6 teams in the world were going to play, then that won't be appealing to anyone who isn't good. I wanted to have some kind of incentive to play with people you have a good time with, play as best as you can, get as far as you can, and still walk away with an Unusual or something really awesome. I even posted my email for people to email me if they were interested. Anything that wasn't covered by the time the event started were to be things I would just buy out of my own pocket, again. Guess how many items I have that were given to me from sponsors / random donations?
Zero.
So, guess what that means? Come October, I'm probably gonna have to dish out at least another $1000-$1500 out of my own pocket to cover the random prizes for all of the people who didn't place in the money. And you know what? I'm fine with that. I put my word up to the community, and I'm going to stand by it. As long as this happened to be the best possible community LAN possible, I don't give a shit how much I'd spend.
I remember a few certain individuals who decided to not go to FITES LAN because I was on a team with clockwork, even after their ticket was paid and all. I'm sorry that you no longer have a chance of winning an 8-man tournament with literally no prize but a plastic trophy. But hey, what I can tell you is that every single TF2 player had a fantastic fucking time at that LAN, and it's a real shame that you missed out. But go ahead, keep telling me that winning means nothing to you, because clearly it does.
On top of everything, people will play a ton of pickup games, scrim against each other, MGE mindlessly, and have an incredibly great time meeting tons of new people, all playing the game we love. And that's all I gave a shit about. So, if you're not cool with losing to people who are better than you, then I'm incredibly fucking sorry that I had this idea to begin with. I'll just pretend I didn't dump seven months down the drain due to the fact that someone refuses to play in a tournament because they are going to lose a few 1v1s to clockwork.
flameYou have 16 teams of 6 ~96 players + cevo ~ 24 players = 120 player maximum
You have 156 paid up already whith another 2 months until registration so lets assume another 40 people pay up and show up bringing your total attendance to 200 roughly, maybe more.
That leaves ~80 players unable to participate in the tournament which is only happening on the Saturday?
We can adjust the 20 team maximum as we'd like. I posted this previously, but I apologize that I cannot say words that is not seen by 156 people in the same 30 minutes of their day. I don't think we'll achieve more than 20 teams, but if start to, then we can certainly entertain the idea of expanding it.
flamePeople are literally going to show up Friday, stand around, get knocked out Saturday early since they have to play against the winners of CEVO P in a k/o tournament they can't possibly win, and then just chill around and watch.
Do I really need to make this a tournament where literally everyone is capable of winning? Because even if CEVO-P teams weren't in the picture, everyone knew a ton of Invite pugs were going to be made and place top 4. If you deny that, then you know that you're lying.
With all frustration on my part aside, all I can do is apologize for those that misconstrued anything I've posted. I've felt like most people knew that the community portion of the LAN was open to literally anyone, and maybe that was conveyed better in the older GXL thread than this one, but I know for a fact I posted something to that effect before.
I'm not really certain if I could explore the tournament format any differently (considering the tournament format is technically tentative). What I can tell you is that I'm not going to just tell all 24 Invite players that they aren't allowed to do anything on Saturday. If that's your expectation, then I'm sorry.
What I do remember is that everyone expressed massive interest many months before the CEVO portion of the LAN was even announced. Even when teams such as Epsilon and mix^ were expressing interest (not to mention that were Street Hoops 100% confirmed to go very early on), I didn't hear a single word of protest from anyone. Not a single word. Yet, it's an issue now?
I've played this game since its release 7 years ago, and I give a shit about every single one of you. Sorry.