Actual picture of my keyboard:

http://i.imgur.com/OavDzpA.jpg

so umm, not far off actually

I looked at his stats, saw rockets and assumed pocket, was he roaming?

its meant to be going behind the tree, but it didnt turn out as well as I thought it would.

Hey, with Mikey its understandable since we payed for all his shit last season anyway. Maybe he really did think it was free.

I don't work in a lab or anything, but I really enjoy keeping up on medical literature and consider myself fairly knowledgeable. Science is fun :D

This is going to make writing articles and tracking teams so much easier, as well as finding match demos easily. You are the best.

something got messed up with the formatting of articles. pls fix

GOD DAMMIT ENIGMA WHY

which is what happens when your team doesn't have their roster information on their team page, I have to make educated guesses off what people tell me and what I see in sizzling stats for scrims.

Fixed, thank you.

A decision I question every day.

I bought mine second hand so I legit have no idea.

I love my ducky shine 3 tkl with browns

anything with browns and custom/stock pbt caps is nice on the fingers

No, but your vlog does seem to shine light onto the way you think of A:R and 6s, and it is that stunning lack of insight that the community is latching on to and reacting negatively to. Again it seems that you and PBL have latched on to this, honestly beta software level experience, plugin that has some really cool ideas and implementation, but ultimately falls short on the overall experience. It seems curious to put your eggs in that basket when there is a proven format (hell, even highlander!) that has held competitive interest for nearly a decade. It just seems out of touch.

Your beef with ESEA is completely valid, what they did to you and eXtelevision over the years is really scummy when all you were trying to do was get fair compensation for work. I fully understand that (hell, for some of those broadcasts, it would have meant some compensation for me personally). However, it is still the only place that really good competition in 6s happens in North America. UGC 6s is a joke unfortunately, although it looks like a change in leadership might change that dynamic.

Ultimately though, what I see is a mixture of misguided optimism and desperation to move on from 6s as a format with none of the ground work laid or arguments made for why that should be done anyway.

Good. Earn that paycheck, do great things for gaming, help turn PBL into something positive for TF2. But I still see this lingering question that you have been unable to answer. Why A:R. This is the entire premise of my contention with your video. So far, I have seen no compelling reason to believe that this new format, or any new format, would be in any way beneficial to competitive tf2 and acceptance of competitive tf2. You literally have none of the foundation laid for your argument.

Valve acceptance of the new format isn't assured, their support of the format competitively dubiously claimed without actual support or word from valve. Their support, if it is anything, is almost assuredly going to be EXTREMELY minimal and unlikely to make it worth the fracturing of the community that a third supported format WILL create.

The format itself has been attacked by all of the third parties that have played it, from the top level players giving it a go, to the other community members, some of whom have close ties and relationships with you and your organization (i.e. Dashner). They claim it is a good distraction, but ultimately lacks competitive value or interesting tactics. The changes feel gimmicky and the plugin is (or was, not sure if it has been fully fixed) buggy and the gameplay decisions central to the plugin sometimes make little to no sense. This is the DIRECT feedback given by several people on this format.

So in addition to not having a compelling reason to change, we have a compelling reason /not/ to change at all.

I want you and PBL to be successful, I want to see bigger and better things for this game, but to discard the importance of 6s is to me, the height of ignorance about how this can best be done. If PBL is still looking at working with 6s, I urge them to do so over A:R, if not to the complete exclusion of A:R as a format.

This is true, however, I really do not think that the format is the reason for this failure to connect. Honestly, there has been a lot of claiming that 6s is somehow inherently flawed, but aside from "valve doesn't like it" (which I will get to in a moment), I have never really seen a compelling argument for why that is true.

So what we are left with is the fact that 6s only reaches a small percentage of TF2 players. Is the problem really a format that is hard to understand and get into? Competitive 6s is NOT hard to understand. Compared to the sheer complexity of other games and game types, we actually have a relatively simple set of rules that evolves into the complex and varied scene we see. Our problem has always been and will always be a marketing one.

You say that expanding those numbers has always been a struggle, but for the past few years, a lot of extv efforts have gone into HL and other formats, most recently A:R. Is spreading out the ability to reach a wider audience by fracturing the community even further really going to expand the number of people watching this game? Why not put the work and money that would go into supporting A:R into expanding 6s and reaching a wider audience that way?

You say that A:R is an attempt to make a more appealing format, which is a noble goal I guess. The reality is however, that literally everyone that has tried it has told you that A:R is not good for competition, is gimmicky, fun as a distraction but little else. If you believe that 6s is not the way forward, that is fine. But you have all your work ahead of you to find a format that is going to take this nearly decade old game to the big leagues.

I would make a great argument that the presence of these classes is anything but minimized. On most professional level casts, when a player switches out to spy or sniper, there is a lot of excitement and fervor. Is enigma going to get that backcap? Is clockwork going to get the clutch med pick and save the round? When Mackey was playing, that was basically his entire shtick, though he was a competent player in his own right.

You played 6s, you are knowledgeable on 6s so you know that they aren't viable, but that isn't really your argument.

Years ago I remember there being many community meetings about highlander. What role should it play? To what extent should we, as a competitive community united by our love of the game, support this format? I remember Free, a well spoken intelligent young man arguing vehemently in favor of this new format. I also remember that one of the biggest arguments in favor of Highlander was that it could be a proving ground, an intermediary twilight zone between the circles of hell that are pubs and the enlightened arena of 6s. It has since grown into far greater popularity than anyone had ever anticipated.

But my experience with highlander players has not been that they hate that 6s doesn't have pyros and spies 24/7. Some people want to play those classes and nothing but those classes /and they are having a fine time in highlander/. Those that are interested in trying 6s will fit into a role they like and work at that.

I think the popularity of highlander is testimony to the power of marketing and low barriers of entry. Highlander does a great job of attracting new talent from the casual pub crowd, demanding very little of their time, and getting them playing immediately. While I think it is easier to market, I do not think there is anything special about the highlander approach and it can be applied to 6s as well. The newbie mix program, more access to mentors, better outreach (especially to Highlander and UGC 6s players) and more aggressive stream advertising with better, more accessible casting options will grow this community. These are all things that you, PBL, and the community at large can work together on. These are all things that DO NOT REQUIRE A:R.

You argued against your entire premise right here. You want to appeal to Valve. But you admit that 6s can (and I would argue is) great without Valve support. You acknowledge that we have done AMAZING things in this community, and indeed you have been there for many of those great accomplishments, from the first iseries with american players to GXL, the most successful non-professional TF2 lan ever. So what more do you want?

You have been talking about items to support the players, possibly new skins for classes, hats or misc items in support of froyotech etc. However, this was always centered around the idea of getting players to LAN, maybe paying for the work that goes into the background of the tournaments. I think this is a poor source of money into the game. We have been getting our players to and from LAN events for years now, all on our own. Two or three times a year, the community takes out their wallets and puts money on the table to see their favorite players compete at the highest level. We don't always cover all the money, and the invite teams have paid large sums of money out of pocket over the years as well, but we do a pretty damn good job.

Our biggest tournament's prize pot doesn't come from items. ESEA gets their prize pot from us as well, through league fees.

As for paying the behind the scenes, that is always going to be a bit harder, and to a certain extent, a labor of love. True, the community helps get Airon and other key members of the eXtv crew around, but even for the bigger games, a lot of these casters and producers barely make a living, if at all. Only in the biggest games, with the best support at the top level do people really start making living wages. I want to see you make the money you deserve Jeff. I want to see you successful because you have put inordinate amounts of time, energy, effort and money into this game and your organization. But if you think TF2 is going to make you an international superstar caster/producer and if you think that you can get TF2 to the level of DOTA or CS:GO, then I hate to say it man, but you have the wrong ass game.

Valve support, if we get it, is going to be minimal at best. They just don't have any real interest or reason to care. Even if we fit there meta perfectly, do everything they ask, it won't help. You are clinging to the hope provided by a couple meetings with a developer that doesn't even work on TF2 anymore from years ago. All we are ever going to have is our brothers and sisters who play the game right along side us.

This past year, we had three ESEA LANs, an iSeries with teams from THREE CONTINENTS, GXL and CEVO@GXL. That is 6 major tournaments, more than any other year. '15 may not be /as/ big, but it will certainly still be a growth year. I don't know how anyone can look at the viewer numbers, attendance, prize pools, league signups and active playerbase and say, with sincerity, that this game is dead or dying. Hell, it was looking dire for a few days with ESEA, but we rallied and have nearly 60 open teams, ready and waiting to play this game.

(continued next post)