http://i.imgur.com/QqImf09.png

New interview up with WARHURYEAH, courtesy of our interview man extraordinaire Rayiner!

Pretty boring remix of a song I'm not too fond of to begin with. Pass. Sorry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ItKS8bUUTA

Good point, my mistake. I've been away from my PC for too long! We'll work on partnership once we've got some games down on the board, but you're right in saying that 1080p's still more of a pipe-dream at the moment (but is obviously the goal, as a retina MacBook owner 720p makes me feel deeply sad inside).

And to think I'm supposed to lead this ramshackle shit-show fantastic organisation!

I'm streaming, yo.

Yes we do need other people, but seeing as we're going slowly this upcoming season I can singularly handle the camera duties for now.

If you think you can handle me breathing constantly down your neck, eyes ablaze and spinning in their sockets as I whisper '3500 bitrate, no dropped frames, 1080p, simultaneous recording from source for next-day VOD upload' over and over again into your ear socket, hit me up.

Give me a shout when you hear Jimmy Anderson shout 'HE'S SO FUCKING BAD' at the Aussies next summer eh?

At least sledging normally has an element of wit about it.

The fact is that harbleu's a knobend and Coleman was being practically brain dead. Neither should be excusable in all honesty, they were both pretty sickening things to see in a 'professional' eSport, no matter how small it is.

I'm honoured.

Sadly I'm undertaking the classic LAN-dodge, mostly because I spent all my money on this bastard website thing. If the stars align I'll appear next year with shirts + Latvian supermodels in tow.

You don't want to see my disgusting, greasy, teenage plate-face though. Nobody deserves to see that.

No they don't.

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

Considering that I'll be screen-printing these myself, I don't think that's going to be possible. Personally I like it as line art and I'm pleased with how it looks, but I'll keep that in mind if we do another series.

Like this...?

http://maincall.tf/images/2colour.png

(obviously this represents two different coloured shirts, I'm not quite that insane)

...or like this?

http://maincall.tf/images/2colour2.png

I haven't ordered the shirts yet because I'm actually on holiday (that dedication, take note boys), but I'll get on it when I'm settled back home. If people'd rather these colours then obviously I'm happy to get them - I like the slightly duller colours but that's because I'm a bit weird, probably.

Despite there being some initial confusion, we do in fact have a solid plan for that cup what we’re doing. We’re not mavericks. Promise.

All times listed are CEST.

Map voting: Today – 23rd August
Signups: Today – 26th August
Seeding + Provisional Bracket: 27th August

If we get 8 teams, we’ll run a double elimination.

30th August:
Round 1: 19:00 – 19:30
Losers Round 1 + Winners Round 2: 19:45 – 20:15
Losers Round 2: 20:30 – 21:00

1st September:
Winners Semifinals (casted) + Losers Round 3: 19:00 – 19:30
Losers Semifinals (casted): 19:45 – 20:15
Grand Finals (casted, bo3): 20:30 – 22:30

If we get 16 teams, we’ll run a group stage with a single elimination.

28th August:
Groups: 1st Game: 19:00 – 19:30
Groups: 2nd Game: 19:45 – 20:15
Groups: 3rd Game: 20:30 – 21:00

29th August:
Break for tiebreakers.

30th August:
Round of 16: 19:00 – 19:30
Quarter-finals: 19:45 – 20:15

1st September:
Semi-final 1 (casted): 19:00 – 19:30
Semi-final 2 (casted): 19:45 – 20:15
Grand Finals (casted, bo3): 20:30 – 22:30

UPDATED VERSION BELOW, #30

Cheers for everything that's been said, both here, ETF2L and on assorted streams - it's fantastic to be finally be here after two and a half months of work!

For the time being, yeah. If things go well and we start mastering the arcane art of casting, then we'd love to explore things. Great games are going uncasted!

Really pleased someone asked this, because that's precisely what we're going for. We have no plans to tread on anyone's toes, that's just going to needlessly fragment the community. In all honesty I think we'll be happy leaving Prem entirely to TFTV, at least for this season, they're the 'official' outlet and they do a fantastic, fantastic job.

Our primary goal's to make this game bigger and better, and we're definitely not going to do that by splitting audiences + making things a pain for spectators. We're smaller, newer and less experienced. And that's fine, but we also know our place!

The current plan is to take things slowly, covering d1/2 games on a weekly basis and then expanding each season. Most importantly, if there's anything you'd really like casted, send us an email or tweet @ us over at @maincall and we'll have a look into it.

Part of our job is to make sure there's always some TF2 to watch wherever you are, and with new casters, an absolutely beautiful stream (honestly, these OBS scenes are breaking my heart right now) and really solid production values (60fps, Twitch chat voting, VODs uploaded from source not from Twitch are all planned/implemented features).

I think we're in a really good position to start doing that.

Honestly, we think TFTV are doing an incredible, incredible job. We just want to add on to that.

More loud voices!

I'll be ordering the screens shortly for some of that hand-screen-printing action!

That's a good point and one that really I should have been clearer about.

We're not testing old maps per se, but they're a selection of our favourite maps from 50+ doublemixes that we've done over the last couple months. These were the ones that got the best reception among d3-d6 people, and were just the most fun to play.

Also the sheer volume of 'Obscure Obscure Obscure' comments after the Turbine announcement was definitely part of its inclusion, I personally don't enjoy it very much but the 'new generation' of comp TF2 players haven't had a chance to witness its imperfections ;)

I completely agree with you when it comes to new maps – the only real contender that I've seen has been Logjam though, and that's obviously in there. If there were alternatives which we thought actually had a shot then we'd definitely have put them in, but the current state of current custom maps is, as far as I can tell, a little dire:

Metalworks: voted out by 50% of Prem, the map everyone loves to hate.
Sunshine: vicious response from EU after the One Night Cup
Glassworks: far too large from our playtests, definitely a contender for HL though.
Sandstone: not reached pro yet, will definitely have a look when Fantasmos releases that version.
Intermodal: didn't fare well in any of our doublemixes, as well as HL hate.
Grizzly: didn't fare well in any of our doublemixes.
Convolve: textureless, appears to have been abandoned, was actually a lot of fun.

etc.

If there's any I've missed then do tell me and we'll definitely have a look at it. I'm really enthusiastic about custom maps so I'd love to give them the platform they need, whether that's reliable doublemixes or tournaments we're happy to provide.

Cheers!

Hello. This is exciting.

We’re Maincall, a rag-tag collective of casters, writers, artists and people so enthusiastic about competitive TF2 our eyeballs have all been replaced up to four times apiece due to sheer screen burn, and we want to make TF2 the best and most incredible spectacle it’s ever been.

Here’s how we’re going to do it.

CASTING

Over the next ETF2L season, once the muggy, Sambuca-laced haze of i52 has passed, we’re going to be casting some of the best Division 1 and Premiership games - not unnecessarily cluttering or fragmenting the scene, but making sure our game is always covered at its highest levels.

This is the core of Maincall, it’s what we were set up to do, and we’ve got outrageously, nearly untenably high production standards to match. We’ve also got a commentary team who are hugely talented, wonderful, knowledgable and well-spoken people. Even if some of them are div 5.

I like them, at least. Take a look at our directory for the full list, and be sure to tune in next season.

TOURNAMENTS

My just saying that probably doesn’t prove it, which is why we’re going to put on a bit of a pre-season show; an introductory competition, open to all, with prizes of serveme.tf donator access, video games and £120 / 150€ in cold, hard cash.

It’s called The People’s Cup, a slightly worrying yet hopefully successful, or if not that, at least fun exercise in democracy, where we’ve selected some of our favourite custom maps to be played, so long as you, that fickle community that we all hate so dearly, choose them.

We’ll be making videos outlining calls and rollouts, so you spend more time actually playing than spinning around as you fluff your rollout down the same corridor six times running, and they’ll be released when the maps have been selected, or on Monday 25th.

If you don’t want to pay up, fair enough! The finals and semi-finals will be casted by us, over at www.twitch.tv/maincall. It's almost the same experience.

Signups and voting begins today and ends on Monday 25th, and the games begin on the 28th. Check out www.maincall.tf/tpc for more information.

MONEY

This is the part of Maincall which I think is the most important. Maincall is designed to run in the red, year on year. It is, like so many other parts of this game, a labour of love.

But here’s the deal: everything, every penny, every single unit of anything resembling currency that passes through our grimy, sweat-streaked palms, goes back into ETF2L’s prize pool for next season.

We’re not going to pretend that it’s going to make Prem players millionaires, or even make this game a real eSport - it just isn’t, it’s still a closed loop and it relies on you guys, but we hope it’ll make the highest echelons of TF2 feel just a little bit less like a hobby.

We’re going to do it in three ways: by selling beautiful merch, running paid competitions (see above), and, most importantly, making sure that everything we can do to make this game better and bigger and more truly spectacular will be done.

That’s really vague, I know, but, we’re going to start slowly. We’ve got tonnes of plans and whether they require man-hours, money, effort, or all three, we’re more than happy to give any resource we can. We don’t want to make any mistakes, and we definitely don’t want to tread on anyone’s toes, but we want to be ambitious and make awesome things.

With that all said and done, let’s make our dead game the biggest and the best show it’s ever been.

Stick around. We can’t wait to show you what we’ve got to come.

- MAINCALL, 2014

http://i.imgur.com/67pOKDj.png

doing god's work as always