Wasn't just nixed, by me, but the entire head UGC staff. The proposal had nothing to offer UGC. Your version of "bridging the gap" is UGC being subservient to ESEA and funneling our top teams away from UGC to a "free" season of ESEA. Don't forget to mention that after the first season all the players would need to pay league and premium fees. I'm sure that would make the invite circlejerk happy but had little to offer our league. Have you ever administrated a league mustard? You sure act like you are god's gift to the TF2 adminning world but I see very little experience to back that up.

Are you serious? Were you around back in the day when CEVO-P died and everyone moved to ESEA because that's all that was left? People in ESEA have been playing the game for years, no wonder many of their players are highly skilled. One could argue that the prize money and LAN force teams to "cutt to the top" the merits of which have been debated in several places over the years and has shown to have a negative effect on the community. I think how much ESEA cares about TF2 has become evident in the last couple months, despite the courageous effort by a few admins and dedicated members of the community.

I am surprised you all keep trying to defend ESEA and use it as a catalyst to grow the stagnant 6s TF2 format, especially with all the drama going on lately. I would focus more on figuring out why all your 6s sponsors go bankrupt and pull out of TF2. Wasn't i46 supposed to show the world how awesome 6s is and bring in all these sponsors? Why don't people on teamfortress.tv organize their own 6s competition and LAN? The 6s community does most of the work anyways for ESEA, advertisement, casting, and of course funding a large portion of the players expenses.

Let's see how many - frags I can get this time.

And happy thanksgiving everyone!

@ Platinum:

I remember when you were [GD]PlatinumShadow, making your name known just starting out in STA 8v8 league. It's pretty lame you feel so lofty now as to label all highlander players as being terrible compared to yourself. Yea, I am sure you and TLR could destroy UGC HL if you "tried". That's not the point I was trying to make. You've been playing TF2 constantly for the past 4 years at least. Tons of scrims per week, lans, etc. It's like a 12th grader comparing their mathematics skills to an 8th grader just taking algebra I. Highlander is a new and up and coming format which has approximately 1 year under it's belt. It has tons of new players which of course do not compare to someone who has been playing the game constantly for 4 years. You would be much more productive trying to encourage these players than to belittle them. If you were smart, you would embrace highlander because it is only going to help 6v6 grow out of is stagnation.

More personally, I remember asking you to help out a team I played on in UGC as demoman. Instead of trying, you decided to jump around trying to caber everyone making a fool of yourself and us. Your arrogance kept up with your reputation while we didn't make playoffs. You laughed about it while we lost. Good for you.

The reason I call out the arrogance of certain invite players is because most of the people on this forum are too afraid of being minus fragged by the elite circlejerk than to call out the consistent arrogance towards anything other than 6v6.

Let's all focus on what's important: making TF2 an approachable game for all players regardless of the number of years they have played or how they feel the game should be played (6v6 vs 9v9). Let the - frags begin.

Removing the invite limit has certainly increased the skill of UGC's Platinum division and its great to see.

@ unf: You sure took Highlander seriously when you were on GG Seasons 5 + 6. Funny to see you pretend you don't now w/ your elitist invite circlejerk.

@ TLR: I enjoyed watching bonus! give your team a lesson on how to play highlander on Lakeside the other week. Maybe you should take it a bit more seriously next time so you guys can score at least one round.

People don't join UGC just because the wrangler is allowed; but because they can play a class they actually like instead of being forced to play scout or soldier. I used the wrangler as an example of one of the many weapons currently banned in 6s that limit the viability of all the other classes aside from the cookie cutter norm.

It's also not just the work that keeps teams away from ESEA. There are lots of HL teams who play 3,4, sometimes 6 or 7 scrims every couple of days. Ask many of our HL teams, they take things just as seriously as anyone.

armchair admins tickle my jollies :)

Every single time we have asked teams to play on Sunday or Tuesday a handful of players on one of the teams can't make either day, only monday. It would be nice if the mts vs bonus game could break this pattern and play on one of these different days so there could be more viewers. Any word from either team as to if this is possible?

Good suggestion Rich. We have thought about adding another division mainly because we had to split our Steel division (div 3) into 2 separate but equal division (red/blue) because there were over 140 teams in that division alone. The amount of teams in between platinum and silver is much smaller. If we were to add another division it probably should go in between silver and steel to break things up a bit. But your point is well taken and I will bring it up at our next admin meeting.

Crossfire: Short answer is no. The second teams submit their scores they are msging us asking when they will be approved because they want to see how the score affects their rank. It's also important for us to approve matches asap so we can begin sorting through the huge mess of unreported matches, forfeits, disputes, etc that happens every week.

We tried to get the bonus! vs gR game to play on Tuesday but as is customary, a couple players on one of the teams couldn't make it so they defaulted to Monday.

I agree. This website loads incredibly fast. Nice work.

UGC is trying to coordinate 2 top plat teams to play on this Tuesday 9PM EST. We will see what happens. This will be a good example to see if our top plat teams are flexible enough to play on any other day besides monday 9pm est.

UGC is trying to coordinate 2 top plat teams to play on this Tuesday 9PM EST. We will see what happens. This will be a good example to see if our top plat teams are flexible enough to play on any other day besides monday 9pm est.

Despite what some may feel on here, myself and the entire UGC admin staff want nothing more than to see competitive TF2 grow. We are all volunteers and choose to dedicate our time to help TF2 expand with no profit in mind. We all love the game just as much as anyone on here. The real issue we have, and ill be completely honest here, is the constant bias towards 6v6 play and failure to recognize highlander as a viable competitive option. I sincerely do want to work with those interested on here to bridge the gap between 6v6 and highlander so long as its a two-way street where both formats can benefit.

I will state here that I am completely open towards working with the competitive 6v6 community to help grow competitive TF2 in any way possible. As I have said before, I personally do not agree with the way 6v6 has evolved but at this junction my personal feelings are besides the point. I am willing to put that aside and help in any way I can; so long as it is mutually beneficial to both 6v6 and HL.

What are some ideas people have where this can happen? How can 6v6 and HL work together in a way that is mutually beneficial to both formats?

WE all have the same goal. Let's work together to see how far comp TF2 can go.

As of yesterday we had 420 teams w/ 9 or more players readied up for matches. I think this calls for a celebratory bong rip.

We don't run our league as a "training camp" for other leagues. UGC is it's own league that has been around for many years. There are things we do better than other leagues and then there are things other leagues do better than us. Its up for teams to choose which league works better for them. A prize pot consisting of a "free pass" to leave UGC and move on to another league does not work for us. We are always open to other ideas though but last I checked you do not represent ESEA so why am I even defending our decisions to you? =D

Marxist has done a great job with 6v6 and we are happy to have him. All major decisions about HL and 6v6 are made by the admin team, including accepting ESEA ruleset. He brought forth the proposal and we all agreed upon it as a team. Your damn right I can trumpet that as an "olive branch" so to speak showing that we would like to cooperate with ESEA.

ESEA is a great league, I have no problems with it. My only issues are with the 6v6 format itself and the rules + decisions made by the "elite" players over the years on weapon bans and items and the impact this has had on competitive TF2. Don't try to blow things out of proportion and make this UGC vs ESEA cause it's not.

Thanks for the personal insult, now I will again start ignoring you because no matter what I say you will write paragraphs of opinions and call it "logic" and then personally insult me.

Using the same rule set and map pool is certainly a strong step forward towards cooperation made by UGC. I don't see you giving any credit for that, only focusing on negatives as usual.

None of the ESEA admins ever spoke to Forn or I about this plan specifically. Someone talked to our 6s admin but I never heard any concrete plans from ESEA admins.
Secondly, how does that benefit UGC? Seems to me it only funnels teams away from UGC to ESEA. I am fine cooperating, but cooperation is a two way street. If any of the ESEA admins would like to discuss this idea in more detail they are free to add me or forn.