The advantages of using in-game voice are that everyone is automatically entered into the same voice channel and that random outsiders can't interfere with the comms. The quality and latency seem fine, no real issues there. But certainly, the lack of comms from some players can be a problem, though I'm still not convinced it's any problem with the system itself. I find it quite strange that the same people who would speak a lot in a mumble speak very little or don't speak at all in the in-game voice. My theory is that many people have voice_enable 0 set to get rid of all the voice noise from MGE/DM/Pub servers and haven't changed that. There is also apparently a glitch where all Mac OS users can't be understood, but that should be fixed when the codec comes out of beta.

The ruleset was created as a compromise between the timelimit playstyle of EU and the winlimit playstyle of NA. We play first to 5 in ESEA in NA, so that's what the winlimit was set to. Having a winlimit incentives closing out matches rather than turtling. I find it much more exciting to be fighting for map point than winning as many rounds as possible then just waiting for time to expire and winning that way. It also allows for rolls to be ended promptly rather than being extended forever due to mercy rules.

Take a look at these stats from both the most recent ETF2L grand finals and ESEA grand finals:
http://logs.tf/1579407
http://logs.tf/1579421
http://logs.tf/1579447
https://play.esea.net/index.php?s=stats&d=match&id=8441285
https://play.esea.net/index.php?s=stats&d=match&id=8441286
Interestingly, if you look at the ETF2L matches, two of them ended with 5 wins. In the one game that ended at 4 wins, the losing team was actually coming back, but was unfortunately cut short due to time pressure. If you look at both of the ESEA matches, they both ended with 5 wins, and also interestingly were both almost exactly 45 minutes long (but you weren't asking about timelimit, I could elaborate about that if desired). The ESEA finals were great matches that were allowed to fully develop and those wouldn't have been possible without both a longer game time and a winlimit of 5.

We just had a productive meeting between representatives from Esports Arena and invite LAN captains to tie up a couple loose ends. Here's what came from it:
-Global Whitelist will be used, in whatever form it takes come January 21st.
-Invite prize breakdown: 1st - 45%, 2nd - 25%, 3rd - 17.5%, 4th - 12.5%
-Ruleset: 45 minute timelimit, 5 round winlimit 5cp/4 round winlimit koth, two 120 second tactical pauses allowed per team per map

As you can see we are taking this opportunity to experiment with a new ruleset. I see this ruleset as a compromise between all of those played around the world. Let's hope it leads to great games for all!

Check out this quick guide to donating to the Rewind prize pool through YouStake: https://youtu.be/S9dR2RwCqYo
Reminder that if we get 5,000 people to contribute just $1 we can get $10,000 added to the prize pool benefiting both the open and invite prize pools! I've already donated, now it's your turn :)

For this cup we did bo3's for both the semi finals and the grand finals, but I think that only the grand final should be a bo3 in a cup like this which is meant to be resolved quickly. What do you guys think?

Also, I am likely going to try to frame the next cup as a "solo queue cup" where we try to encourage everyone to solo queue rather than create pug teams and see how that goes. I think it might help to improve the experience of a lot of newer and lower level players.

Hey guys, this cup is happening today in just over 3 hours from now. Grab some friends and party up or just solo queue, I'd really appreciate it. Keep in mind the first round is only a bo1 and its single elim so if you think about it, you could just play one game and then be off the hook, but you'd have helped out a lot!

The sad truth is that time invested doesn't equate to utility to the community. Stop confusing that statement of fact with a personal attack. You can cry and pout all you want and tell as many people to go fuck themselves as you want, but do you really want people using your site out of pity or because you are offering the service that best serves the community? I have a lot of hours in TF2, does that make me immune to criticism as a player?

I've already acknowledged the flaws with FACEIT above, please read it. You can play with your friends, there is a party system. It has been explicitly stated by FACEIT admins that the party size was limited to two because of the lack of players queueing, so this is yet another aspect that is hindered by fracturing of the community. However, you can still queue with full parties of friends in the cups. Conversations with FACEIT staff have also led me to believe that captain systems are not out of the realm of possibility (seeing as they have them for CSGO, this is quite reasonable), but again the development of it would be a higher priority if their platform was more populated (and out of Beta...).

FACEIT's current business model seems to be working so I don't really see them making any changes that would prevent you from playing whatsoever. But if PugChamp will supposedly be around forever, then why not take this opportunity to take a chance that could potentially benefit the community more than any community run project ever could? If it were all to fail you can happily go back to PugChamp and live in your pug utopia. Operating with all of these hypotheticals just slows things down, I want us to take action now, not sit around pondering "What if?"

Does anything forbid you from queueing up into both of those sites? Actually, yes. The more sites that are considered viable options, the fewer people queuing into each one. With a community as small as ours that is a huge problem, and the place from which this entire thing stemmed (Again are any of you actually reading this thread? lol).

That's probably the most perfect demonstration of exactly what I was talking about lmao

It doesn't matter how hard anyone worked. They should be proud of their websites, but their time has passed. This goes way beyond all the personal grudges and hurt feelings that everyone in the TFTV illuminati insists on bringing into every single possible project that they don't have complete control over. Eventually you guys will have to accept that I'm not the bad guy. Zzz

Long queue times will be eliminated if people embrace the system, this is why the consolidation issue is so important. I've had nights where games go back to back and nights where I wait 20 mins between them, so as things are now, it's really not too bad. Sure I can grab players from my stream or whatever, but I feel like everyone can get other people to queue up. If the system was promoted more heavily through streams, youtube videos, reddit posts, twitter posts, in discord, etc then I could see there being low wait times at almost all hours of the day. It takes time to catch on and for people to get in the habit of queuing up. You are right that there are no player subs or predestined classes, but I just don't think it needs those things to offer a solid pugging system.

In the end, no one platform is perfect. It's about choosing the one with more pros than cons. On TF2Center you have their ads and awful corrupt admins to deal with. On TF2Stadium you have an indefinite beta ghost town of a website. On PugChamp/MixChamp you have barely functioning servers and an inability to end pugs or add players. On FACEIT, you have no subs or fixed classes. Maybe I just weigh getting a reputable large third party company supporting TF2 and offering prizes (which you in no way have to pay in order to earn, you can simply earn more FACEIT points by joining the paid leagues) more heavily than having to play soldier instead of scout a couple times a day.

The point is, for the greater good I think it would benefit the community to move over. Everyone in the community would probably rather see more of things like the FACEIT Opening Cup than things like the TF2Stadium Winter Brawl, which is what I hope evolves out of this relationship between FACEIT and the TF2 community. Anyways, the other platforms dying off is more of an idealistic thing, it's pretty unlikely to happen fully, but I'm going to try my best to make it happen. I get that you might be good friends with your TFTV buddies erynn and tsc who made Pug/MixChamp, but for me this is as far from a personal conquest. While some feelings may be hurt, if I believe something will better the state of the TF2 competitive community I'm going to promote it and there is actually nothing you can do to stop me. Luckily, the one advantage PugChamp still has is the captain system, so it will remain popular at least until FACEIT properly builds a captain system for TF2.

FACEIT has balanced games though (that's what this thread is actually about, so you should probably read it). I said that the highest priority is getting a game quickly. I've played a bunch of games with lower level players on FACEIT, and helped them get the classes they want. For the most part, people are pretty accommodating. I don't tell people to fuck off, do you?

ESEA does have a pug system. You say its perfectly functioning but that statement leads me to believe you've never actually played on it. I actually have, and even won those exact "real world prizes" you claim are so special (they stopped offering those years ago btw). I tried to revive that system, but it had many issues that I could go into but essentially it was a dead end. Take a look at the current prizes they offer for pugs, they are only for CSGO: https://play.esea.net/index.php?s=news&d=comments&id=14923

You also talk about how you don't think it would be good to be "beholden to a single entity" yet I'm sure you don't mind supporting TFTV, which monopolizes many many things in the TF2 competitive scene. I'm looking at the bigger picture much more than you are. You're being blatantly hypocritical and didn't bother to research your claims, yet I'm out of touch? Yikes.

Of course you can compare the two. Both of them suffered because there weren't enough players. For a competitive platform, the same consequences follow whether the user's time investment is 10 hours or 30 minutes: The match quality suffers. The developers see little incentive to continue supporting it. The service is cancelled.

The class selection complaint is a legitimate one. However, I personally believe that for lower level games (sub-invite), the priority for users should be finding games rapidly and seamlessly. As long as each team has a medic most people tend to be flexible with their classes. I've always been able to negotiate to get onto a class I want, it's not that hard.

You just have to look at the CEVO situation to understand why further fracturing the competitive community is a bad idea. In an ideal world it would all be consolidated into one platform, but I'm happy with ESEA being the league, FACEIT being the pug site and TFTV being the community hub. FACEIT having prizes should be enough of an advantage that even if everything else was equal you would use it anyways. I think its much more likely that community services like TF2Center, TF2Stadium and MixChamp would disappear, just as TF2Pickup, TF2PUGNA and TF2PUGME have, since they are mostly run as volunteer projects that are dependent on their proprietors to maintain them. Do you really think FACEIT will be disappearing anytime soon? I find it highly unlikely given that it's a fully functional business platform for multiple games. But maybe it will disappear, we can only hope that by then you will finally be able to fadd on PugChamp LUL

It actually works pretty well, had many more close and balanced matches since they updated it. Play on it. Tell everyone about it. It's time for TF2Center, TF2Stadium, and MixChamp to die and for all competitive TF2 players to consolidate into one platform. Once they add captaining let PugChamp die too.

I've updated the OP to include current information regarding registration, lodging, teams, sponsors, crowdfuding and a couple other things.