There are actually quite a few TF2 players in PA that post here (I don't know about Bucks county, specifically). I'm not really sure what any of those guys could guess on where he could have gone, though. The thing is that he could be anywhere, even outside of PA. My guess is that he's staying with a friend or someone new that he met, because I dunno what he would do with little money otherwise.

But as previously suggested, I would keep an eye on the bank account to look at transactions. Really sucks to hear about your situation, and hopefully he comes back.

Fuck, you beat me to it. Pharaoh introduced this to me and it's so good. Their older stuff is also very good.

Buy-in changed from $20 per player (or $120 per team) to $10 (or $60 per team).

This change should be good to go on the CEVO website, but if you run into any issues with it, post here or PM me.

I would also like to say that I won't really be online whatsoever for the next few days. I'm in the middle of moving, then I have to go to a GXL test LAN to make sure the servers will be good to for the LAN. If you have any problems or questions, PM me on here and I'll get to them when I'm back online. Trying to message me on Steam mobile will not be reliable.

NOTE: As of 8:20 PM EST on 8/6, the buy-in has officially changed from $20 per player (or $120 per team) to $10 (or $60 per team).

This change should be good to go on the CEVO website, but if you run into any issues with it, post here or PM me.

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I'm going to propose a suggestion and I'd like as much feedback as possible to make a decision by the end of today (or maybe by the end of the week, if necessary).

Currently, the buy-in is $20 (or $120 per team). I'm thinking about reducing the buy-in to $10 (or $60 per team).

Why the suggestion?

Regardless if you're expecting to lose or not, it's half as expensive to participate and not feel like you're putting out as much. The $2000 pot is already pretty good by itself, so changing the buy-in to $10 will still make the final prize pool very good. Don't forget that if you participate in the tournament, you'll still get a prize, regardless of the place that you finish.

What about the people who have already paid on the CEVO website?

Currently, only one person has actually paid. This individual (and whoever else pays before the potential change is made) would get a refund.

Are the CEVO-P teams eligible to participate?

Yes, this is a community tournament, so literally anyone can play. However, it doesn't mean that they will use their actual CEVO-P roster. Again, the CEVO-P teams are not obligated to play with their roster on Saturday. I know some players from those teams have expressed interest in playing with different players for the community tournament on Saturday, but ultimately, they can do whatever they want. I'm not going to disallow them from playing on Saturday, because these same teams were already interested in going prior to the CEVO announcement. You have to expect the biggest NA TF2 LAN to have teams of all kinds of skill levels, regardless if it's a full roster or a pug team.

Why not make the tournament without a buy-in, since the $2000 pot is already there?

The $2000 alone is good enough for players to compete for, but I'm afraid that we'll get an asinine amount of teams if we have free entry, which poses some problems. If we had a tournament full of 40-50 teams, there is pretty much no way that we will get done in a single day. There would be issues with many different kinds of resources, and it would be a giant struggle to get everything done in an orderly fashion. The buy-in assures that the players are actually interested in playing in the tournament. Additionally, this is a Pro-series tournament. All Pro-series tournaments require some kind of buy-in, otherwise it would just be considered a regular tournament and wouldn't follow a competitive format (pretty much all regular tournaments are single elimination with a very laid-back ruleset).

Is the tournament really limited to 20 teams?

Currently, yes. This number can change if necessary, but we needed to put a cap on teams just for the sake of making a floor-plan for tables and power, just to start somewhere. If it becomes apparent that we need to raise the cap on teams, that can be done. There are quite a few people coming to spectate, so don't take the attendee list at face value.

Are you adamant about this buy-in change?

I like the idea, but I'm not absolutely adamant about it. With some of the posts in this thread over the past few days, I've thought a few things over and felt like this might be a good change. If there wasn't a $2000 pot already, then I would still absolutely suggest a $20 buy-in. Instead of making the change without any kind of input, I came here for input from everyone.

So, yeah, give input. :3

(While driving by a cemetery)

"Hey, try to guess how many people are dead in that cemetery?"

I got like 300 street passes at EVO, but holy shit, it's so annoying to only get 10 street passes at a time.

You said you were done with this thread two pages ago, yet an incredible majority of the posts are arguing against your negative attitude.

And don't tell people what to do with their money. You wouldn't be complaining about the $20 buy-in if the $2000 wasn't there already. So what, I'm supposed to just make everyone exempt from the buy-in because of the $2000 that came out of eXtv's/my pocket? Because let me tell you, not too many people would give a shit if this tournament had no buy-in and no prize pool. Yeah, it would still draw a crowd, but I promise you that a lot more people wouldn't give a shit if they got the same thing regardless if they finish second or dead last: nothing at all (first place has always been like a mouse or keyboard, etc). Sure, this isn't all about the prizes or money, but if you give me an unusual for finishing 7th place, I start to care a little more, and if I get a few keys and other cool things for finishing dead last, then I don't feel like my money is completely wasted.

And speaking of last place, I have something cool for people who finish in last place. But hey, my whole plan behind this is just making people donate $20 to the "haha look at the CEVO-P repeat on Saturday" tournament, right?

The pug draft tournament happens pretty much every LAN during Friday, so that can certainly still happen if everyone is interested.

Because I've said this is a team format since day 1. I've literally never implied that this would be a draft at any point since my original post in February. Before, we had silly draft tournament on Friday nights that meant absolutely nothing.

If I told all CEVO-P teams that they cannot play on their own team, they will unquestionably make a team comprised of Invite players with an extremely comparable skill level, only to achieve top 4 all over again. There is no way I can possibly say "No! Your pug consisting of Cyzer, Xalox, Platinum, and enigma is too good!" because that's subjective in likely comparison to other Invite pugs.

I don't know what you expect me to do here, dude. I'm not gonna make the teams.

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.

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.

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.

yes

CEVO-P LAN playoffs are on Friday, and the community tournament is Saturday.

*IMPORTANT UPDATE*

Team registration is now possible through the CEVO website. You should register online instead of trying to do it at the door, considering your team's spot may not be guaranteed otherwise.

When does team registration end?

It's live until October 11th.

How many teams will be in the community tournament on Saturday?

16, plus the 4 CEVO finalists, equaling out to 20 teams in total.

What if any of the 4 CEVO finalists don't play with their starting roster on Saturday?

Their spot wouldn't be guaranteed, and they would have to sign up like any other team would.

How do I register my team for the tournament?

You may create a new team or join an existing team here.

There will be a $120.00 entry fee per team (or $20 per player) and 100% of this fee will go towards increasing the $2,000.00 base prize pool (less PayPal transaction fees). You can pay for yourself, pay for teammates, or pay for your team as a whole.

This is basically the same process as if you were signing up for the CEVO online league. The only thing you need to take note of is that you must sign up under the same email address as you did on TheGXL's website. If you have a different email address already registered with your pre-existing CEVO account, you can change your email address on your CEVO account instead of creating a new account.

What is the tournament format?

Group stage followed by double elimination.

Ideally, we want to have 16 teams heading into the double elimination bracket. This means that if more than 16 teams sign up, there will be some kind of elimination to get to 16 teams. If less than 16 teams sign up, we might use the Swiss-system to determine seeds quicker, but this isn't for certain. We'll have a better idea of what we will do closer to the LAN.

Every single match at any point will be best out of 1 map, except for grand finals.

in the middle of the pauses against 20b at last ESEA LAN, grape came over and gave me a full bag of chex mix. :D

WHAT A GUY.

Pretty sure we would still be ranked second even if we won our CEVO match. Not that it really matters, because it's just one week and there's a lot of TF2 to be played. I'm just glad content like this is being put out.