Cutest little button

, really great aim and movement, chill and nice, but he will stream your every team moment, even when he literally sets his room on fire (then keeps playing).

http://i.imgur.com/9pWg6Vk.jpg

I kind of think it would've been nice to know the first map a little earlier or schedule the start a little later, so teams have more than 5 days (2 of them the weekend) to prepare, but it's good to know what's coming up now.

I plan on writing about the playoffs for Open; I hope everyone has fun and there are some great games. :]

Really great article on Viaduct, thanks for writing it! I don't feel wholly comfortable on koth maps usually, but this is really helpful and this is amazing.

I don't know if it's the kind of thing you want to add, but there are a lot of trading resources, too:

backpack.tf - community-voted pricing (so it's more fair) for all TF2 items; prices listed here are generally considered the "standard" value
backpack.tf: unusual version - same, but for your shiny unusuals
tf2outpost - post to buy/sell your pixels (recommend checking backpack.tf first, so you know what a fair price is! Also, be very careful with anyone adding you if you post a sale—there are a fair amount of scammers with phishing links.)
scrap.tf - automated bots buy your keys/metal/hats/weapons in return for metal/keys (more for low-ticket items like regular ol' hats, or converting any 2 weapons into scrap when they're not for the same class)

I'd personally include the league pages, too! Maybe someone came here because they saw TFTV featured on Twitch or something. It can't hurt, right?

UGC - free to play competitive leagues for Highlander, 6v6, and 4v4; many skill divisions so a good place to start your comp career!
CEVO - paid 6v6 league with two skill divisions, growing
ESEA - paid 6v6 league, high skill ceiling

There are also the irc channels for pugging, which not everyone seems to know about. You can connect with an irc program, or use ATF2 in your browser. They're generally higher skill than the lobby sites and require mumble (which they provide) during games.

#tf2mix - friendly to newer 6v6 players (but most people have played a fair amount still) because it alternates Captain/automatic picking; if you aren't picked the first game, you're automatically put into the second

#tf2.pug.na - high skill 6v6 pugs, all games are Captain picks so it may take some time to get in, often starts late at night

#tf2.mix.nahl/#tf2.pug.nahl - Highlander versions

Tip: meds are usually the hold-up. If you're pretty comfortable with the medicine man, queue up to get some games started. As people get to know you for being decent/nice, you'll get picked for other classes, too.

#tf2scrim - find scrims for your team, usually ESEA/CEVO teams looking for that week's map. State your skill level, what map you're looking for (or that you'll play any), and y/our server (if you have one, need to play on theirs, or don't care either way)

Finally, after doing all those lobbies, mixes, configs, and jumping, you want to play on a team but aren't sure how to find one? Make a post with your experience, the classes you play, and when you're available to scrim/play games.

UGC recruitment - for UGC Highlander, 6v6, and 4v4 across all divisions. If you're just starting out, try here first!

TFTV recruitment - if you've played a few seasons and are looking for a CEVO or ESEA team, you'll have more luck here.

That's it off the top of my head, this is a great idea and I hope it helps people. :]

I put your stream in Alosec, if anyone else wants theirs added, just let me know!

Sorry! I've kind of been writing like everyone who reads these has the whole time, but I'm going to reset a little when playoffs start so anyone that's interested can follow along. :]

I missed last week's, so I rolled it into this one. This is almost it for the regular season!

read here

edit: Finding someone ended up being no pawblem.

Thank you for the nice replies & to anyone who contacted gls!

http://i.imgur.com/3jgoSyC.png

How can you compete with Broadband Internet? Your move, GXL.

Can't wait to watch this one. The ETF2L casts have been amazing all season, and made me a bona fide Euro fan. Excellent article too, Gentleman Jon!

I've never been to a LAN & am not an old-school player at all, but everyone at Sacramento LANfest looked like they had so much fun, I'm tempted! Is anyone heading in from the nyc area? And is there a group rate for any hotels around there? The site is a little bit bare bones on info. :o

The art style is really cute (bunny girls maybe TOO cute) and the setting seems really well done with a lot of lore and charm, but the Paths stuff isn't as cool as I'd hoped it would be (it doesn't seem to add a ton of content and what it does add isn't that dynamic--basically, you click some more stuff), and the combat feels a bit weird (there's no auto attack!), but also same-y somehow (space combo points). I didn't wander around that long and I think it's worth checking out cos people have different opinions on things, but I was kind of excited about it before I played, and a little less excited after I played.

p.s. If you're having trouble patching its weird system, run as administrator!

Thanks for the quick update, Sylver! I've tried a lot of different huds, but this one is my favorite for being super useful, clean, and beautiful. :]

Hi, thanks for the question! It's important to me to not write something that's incorrect (which doesn't mean I always succeed), so for all the teams I write about, I do a ton of research. I look at their game stats on CEVO's site and if they didn't play on an official server, I try to find it on sizzling stats. I look at their overall record and the records of the teams they've played. I also look them up on UGC and ESEA to see their history/stats in other leagues. Finally, if I'm unsure about anything or if I just want extra context, I'll add the team's Captain and ask, hey what happened in this game? Are these stats correct or do they have the "double everything" bug? In a close game, what do you think gave your team the edge, and what went down in the winning round?

I don't think it's necessarily a case of not having all the info, but of how I like to present it. For the most part, I don't insert my own opinions—I've never made a prediction for what I pick as the "match of the week". I like to present the facts, in a hopefully entertaining way, and let people make their own judgments. With that said, part of the facts is giving context, and for the team you mentioned, the Doughboys, I feel like I painted a fair picture of them: right now, they have a perfect record and that's worth being proud of, but I also said last week that they "perhaps haven’t been tested as much as they could be." I talked this week about how they lost 0-5 to your team in ESEA. Do I think they're the best team in the division right now? I think that's the ultimate question, the one that's being hammered out from week to week.

Basically, these aren't power rankings, ie my opinion on how teams measure up against each other. It's more the news on what happened in the past week, and while I probably do put a pretty positive slant on things, they're still based in fact. I love London's style of writing, and Admirable's and Hildreth's, where they straight-up say stuff like, "This team is pawbably going to lose," but I think everyone writes in their own voice. I like to be supportive, because at the end of the day I think everyone is trying their best and putting in their time and $15 to be here, so while they may lose and they may not be the strongest or even in the top ten or twenty or thirty strongest teams in the division, I can say that in a way that's accurate, but tactful, and highlights the positives more than the shortcomings. This is super long, but I hope it kind of answers your question, Geknaiir.

This will make slightly more sense if you close your eyes and pretend it was posted this past weekend. If it helps, try to remember who you were back in March 2014, a simpler time when process was the latest map and dinosaurs still roamed the earth.

read here