I don't think there's much of an "unbiased standpoint".
And pre-i49 discussions/predictions were pretty much exactly like pre-i46 discussions/predictions.

Can't just call EU to win everytime and then proclaim that "Yeah, I knew it. See? Told you!" when they win, while completely avoiding/ignoring that other time when you said the exact same thing but were wrong.

I think his point might be that if the prize pool is high, superteams might be formed & interrested to go in to get that prize.
If you donate to teams just to have a few continents represented, quality isn't as important, you just want to send someone, anyone.

If Sheep's today performance was his standard ( and not a one-in-a-lifetime thing ) , then Sheep by a mile. Never seen anything like that.

I don't play comp and I don't follow the euro comp scene, just watch a lot of invite games mostly...
But I remember just before i46, euros were saying the exact same thing before BOTH american teams 5-0'ed everyone...

I once joined a pub server that allowed everyone to use all weapons, regardless of the players owning them.

That would work, and would remove the hassle of actually crafting/trading for the items if new weapons are released.

Yeah you'd probably need something like Cocaine for that, to give you better reaction time.

I don't play competitive ( just watch a lot of it ) but I always wondered why you do it this way... 13+ people.

I mean, come on, that's just BEGGING for drama/butthurting to happen.
Why not just stop at 12?
Hell, even getting picked 12th is an ego-wound, but not being picked at all must suck.
/$0.02

If he ever makes it to the top, you'll have him stealing trophies and shit.

99.989% of the nuclear heads in the world were never used to kill people. (18998 out of 19000 ), what's your point?

Also, what is that 'intended use'? Hunting? Shooting in target practise?
That's all useless stuff.
'Blah blah, freedom, what if I like hunting or shooting at targets for fun?'
Well, do you think it's a fair trade, all those lives lost to firearms, so other people could keep having fun?
Even 1 life is worth more than those guy's "fun", they can find another hobby.

Just like probably 30 millions americans.
It's not like those shooters look any different than any other of the millions depressed/disturbed/withdrawn people, before the shooting.
How do you deal with millions of those, when you know only 0.001% of these will actually shoot someone?
The joker killer, whatever his name was, had a psy to help him for years... And it still didn't stop him. He had a professionnal attention, and still did it.

So even if we could pinpoint the high-risk case, there's not much we can do beside locking them up preemptively. And w can't even do that, there's thousands of people like these and most won't ever kill anyone.

That argument ( about mental health and stuff ) reminds me of an argument we often see in discussions about rapists. Someone would advice girls to be careful, then someone (never miss) replies "Rather than telling the victims not to be raped, why don't you tell the rapists not to rape?"
Well, rapists are criminals, they probably won't listen, even if I ask very politely.

The same deals with shooters. Unless we go with something radical ( killing/locking up everyone that looks disturbed ), we can't stop shootings from happening. Hell, even if we DID kill all those guys, some 'normal' people would shoot anyway at some point.

One of our best move is to try to make it harder for these to actually kill people. Guns help people kill each others so much it's ridiculous. YOu always havesomeone saying 'If you want to kill, you'll kill, gun or no gun!'... If you want to kill 1 guy, yeah, probably. Anyone can break into someone's house in the night and knife him down. But how many people would anders breivik kill without guns? Do you picture him killing 70 with a knife or his bare hands?

People kill people, but they use devices/tools to help them, and there's a reason we prohibit the most lethals of these.
Saying they'd kill anyway is stupid.
If some disturbed psychotic is crazy enough to kill 10 with a knife, how many do you think he'd kill with a gun? With a rifle? With missiles?

If every citizen in the US had access to the 'red button' to launch all US missiles, the world would end in the hour.
There's enough civilian's guns to kill everyone in the world too. But it's not gonna happen.

There's no valid reason any civilian should own an automatic rifle, and very few reasons he should own an handgun, beside MUH FREEDUMMMMM!

Well, let's consider ourself lucky he didn't steal a nuclear warhead!

Wait.
He couldn't, because common people aren't allowed to have nuclear warheads and he was just 1 guy, not enough to storm a military base.

Do we really have to spell this out in every single thread about gun control? The same arguments every single time.
"But, but, why make guns illegal, criminals aren't following the laws anyway!"
Durrrrr.
Guns not being legal = harder to get guns, even for criminals.
Don't you find it weird there's never any rocket launcher kill in the US?
Do you think it's because no one would like too? It's because they can't get their hand on it, even if they'd steal it from a legal owner; there's no legal owner beside the forces.
If no one but cops and military could own guns, criminals would have a much harder time getting their hands on guns, especially unorganised criminals like that shooter.

Allow people to own rocket launchers, and I guarantee you some GTA kid or crazy old guy goes on a spree within a month.

This saying would also works to allow people to own every single weapon that ever existed.
Ballistic missiles don't kill people! People kill people! Yet you wouldn't like for your neighbors to have ballistic missiles, so why guns?
Where to draw the line?
Knifes? Guns? Rifles? Sniper rifles? RPG? Tanks? Fighter jets? Missiles? Nuclear warheads?
The saying works will all of that.
But the difference is, the only thing that's usefull for non-violent purpose in that list is the knife ( to cut food and stuff ).

And to that guy who posted the link about someone who wounded 22 in China with a knife...
Well, first of all, that's not common. We always hear about gun-wielding shooters who fail to kill more than like 5... Whether by lack of skill, or losing the will to do so, changed their mind or wtv.

But for someone who is crazy motivated enough to actually hit 22 with aknife... A gun in that guy's hand would have been dramatic. He would have done much worse.

Quick marketing/survey tip, all possible answers must always be in the survey.
Never let whoever answers the survey wondering 'My answer isn't there, which one is the closest?'

If we have 30 games, which one do we pick, 30 is in two category.
If we have 15? It's not there at all!

This one is super obvious ( and should be fixed with categories like 0-10, 11-30, 31-50, more than 50 - actually I'd even make a category for just '0' because 0 and '1-10' is way different ). But it'll happen for less obvious questions too. Gotta pay attention to this.

/$0.02

It took everything to raise 15k$ to send 2 amazing teams overseas..

If the info in this thread is right, mix^and LG are no more after this season... THe top 2 teams gone? And most of the lower teams are apparently giving up/dead too.

I'm not sure everyone will be that enthusiastic about throwing money to whatever ragtag teams are launched into invite just to fill spots.

(see beginning previous page)
Now, I've played pub games for years. I've won and lost thousand of games, and lot of these losses were still really fun to play. But that match wasn't fun at all. It wasn't an experience I would recommend to anyone I know.
We got rolled, I got rolled, I never felt like I was usefull at all, or part of something, more like the burden that's making the team fall apart.

And, as said ^ I've been playing pub for years. I'm a 'try-hard' in pub, generally considered a 'pubstar' ( that Lobby was a good reality check, now I know i'm terrible :) ). So I'm thinking.. what if it was a new player. Someone who played the game for like 2 months.

I (sadly) probably played the game for more hours than lot of competitive players. Yet I couldn't do any good.
I have no doubt that a new'ish player trying his hand at lobbies will get destroyed and lose any will to participate in that scene.
I've looked up the stats of some players I know ( Players I've been with in pub games, players who are also rolling everyone in pub too ) and they're all doing terrible in lobbies too.

I know something needs to be the 'first step', and that it'll always be an high step, due to the absence of absolutely mediocre players like you see in pubs. But the step seemed so high to me, that I just gave up and instantly went back to pub games.
Playing with complete idiots who you consider 'burdens' to your team isn't fun.
But being that burden yourself, on a team that actually cares about winning ( and not just pub deathmatchers ), it's even worse.

It's seems that you could play 1000's hour of pub TF2 and still be terrible in a lobby, unless you were gifted to begin with, or something.
However long you play in pub servers, you're gonna be terrible in lobbies.
And there's no middle ground. You can't really practice, because pub servers aren't really challenging anymore at this point, but you're still not good enough for lobbies.

Those players I looked up on the lobby stats... Most of them just played a few games, just like me. And I still see them all the time in pubs. It seems like they did exactly like me. They thought they were good enough, they tried, they failed and did terrible, they gave up. I feel like the competitive scene must lose tons of players like this.
Obviously, some players don't give up, either because they're naturally better at the game so they don't feel like shit after their first lobbies... Or they're just highly motivated to keep on going after getting destroyed. I don't know.

I still watch competitive games, still love it. But I don't think I'll ever take part in a lobby again. If anything, I COULD deal with the fact that I'm doing bad. But I don't want to screw over my team everytime I play, it's just pointless.

I've heard about lobbies sometime being labelled 'newb lobbies', which I assume are lobbies for 'pubstars' like me who sucks against average lobby players. But I haven't seen one in the few days I tried that stuff.

my two cents, I guess.

(Huge wall of text, gonna have to split the post in 2)

If you want some insight from the other side of the border...

I'm a pub player, but I watch tons of competitive games. (Even busted my monthly download limit watching I46).

In my opinion there's 2 problems about pub players trying to get into the competitive scene.

1) They want the best of both world, without really doing much effort. Pubs are easy, you do whatever you want and nobody can stop you. Once they want to go higher, what they're really looking to is to stop having idiots for teammates, face greater challenges, mostly. What they're NOT looking for is... Buying a mic ( if they don't already have one ), and talk to other players.
Be online at specific hours and not just when they feel like it. Keep on 'doing what they want', just in a better environnment.

That might not be this for 'all' pub players looking to jump in, but I feel like tons of players are like this.

2) The steps. Or, should I say, the lack of steps.
I assume most people reading and posting on these forums are competitive players, even some invite players. The cream of the crop. You guys probably think the average players in TF2 lobby is mediocre.

But from a pub player point of view, they're insanely good.

I tried my hand an highlander TF2 lobby some time ago, and (no big surprise) I was the worst player on my team. I wanted to play the least important class, so I don't screw over my team too much, I played pyro (not sure if it was the best choice, but well).

I have a feeling the teams might have been somewhat stacked ( on purpose, or just bad luck ) because our team got rolled pretty bad, but still, I felt like I wasn't at my place, at all.
After the 2nd round, I was just waiting for the game to end ( still trying my best, but I knew I was not really helping my team much - which was confirmed by many people on the mic who kept calling me out ).

Yup.
The finale will be mixup against either LG, epsilon, or TCM.