clckwrkSetsulThere's also a major difference between making a living off of playing competitive video games and not.
Weekdays are different than the weekend. Just because they are willing to dedicate some of their social life to TF2 doesn't mean they are willing to dedicate all of it. "Do they even like the game if they won't dedicate all their free time for a whole week to one match" is frankly insulting. Sure, you're going to do that if that's your job, but it's pointless to compare the two. "If other people do this while being paid then you should do at least this fraction of it for free" is never a good argument.
And no, the comparison with weekend tournaments doesn't work either. For those you invest just that weekend, for a whole league season you spend weeks of mostly weekdays. Then tacking on a weekend as well that some people can't play on is something completely different.
It worked with LAN because LAN was the social event, it didn't take away time from anything.
Are we talking about the same thing? I'm talking about a playoffs match being played on the weekend. And in the best case, all playoffs matches being played during this weekend. If for one weekend out of the season, they play the scrims they'd normally play during the week, then spend their weekend playing their playoffs games to determine who wins the season, how is that a huge time commitment? This post is so exaggerated it's making me question if I have 0 reading comprehension. ALL of their social lives (for one weekend playing a game they love to play)? That's insulting? It's insulting to think that for the good of the game I would heartlessly suggest that invite players spend one weekend or... a few weekend days... playing the game they've played for a decade... I'm completely fine with the idea of working on a weekend preventing this from happening as I've already said, but social lives? It's one week and TF2 IS A SOCIAL GAME. You're playing with your team, who you have spent the season or many season playing with, to try to cement yourself as the best team that season.
I think for those who don't suffer from debilitating extroversion, this would probably be okay. A lot of people spent an entire year not going to LANs, seeing friends, going to bars, whatever. And those things are still up in the air for the foreseeable future. I think one weekend 3 months from now where they have to *gasp* scrim the entire week like they normally would but then play some playoffs matches that weekend instead of the offclass pugs they'd play would be completely fine, work-permitting. Maybe I've completely missed the mark here though and I heavily underestimate their dedicated commitment to their social lives.
EDIT: I'd really like to apologize for insulting these players by assuming they had the option of curbing their busy social lives for this meaningless event. If it were LAN? Now that's a different story. But I now realize that I was overvaluing TF2 and undervaluing their social lives for these 1-2 weekends. I've now come to the conclusion that absolutely any social event (or any other video game) takes precedence over the invite TF2 playoffs. Please disregard anything suggested in this post. I realize that all those weekends I'd voluntarily play TF2 when I was in invite just exposes me as being a loser and for players with a friend, every other weekend is absolutely booked by [any social event] for these players to pay TF2 any attention.
Yeah, I'm not sure we are talking about the same thing.
The initial suggestion was to have the entire playoffs on a single weekend. I assume that's what everyone else was talking about.
You mentioned weekend-long qualifier tournaments, so I assumed you were talking about that, not scheduling a single playoff match on a Saturday or Sunday, and, if time allows and the teams are cool with it, possibly scheduling another match on the next day. Maybe even two if everyone is on board.
At least this wall of text let you get all that off your chest instead of simply asking to clarify before going on a rant.
EDIT: And yes, suggesting that, if scheduling TF2 matches doesn't take precedent over absolutely everything else no matter what, you don't like the game the game enough is insulting to those who kept playing this game for years.