Literally SPUF.

Back when the regulars were actually fun people and users had community spirit, that is.

I've probably been one of the more optimistic people when it comes to the state of the game. There hasn't been that much time for me to be jaded when I only really learned about the competitive scene last year during Tip of the Hats. I've only really started contributing since May, which is when I started writing StatusSpec. Personally, it feels really amazing that I've been able to make an impact - however small - on bringing this game to new heights.

The last day or two has been brutal for me.

I knew that Classic Mixup would die eventually, but I had hope that they had it in them for one last season. I knew that CEVO was not going to be able to outcompete ESEA as the situation currently stands, but I thought it had at least one more season in it. Suddenly, both of those things happen at the same time, and much sooner than I had expected. It's a wakeup call to the fact that this game is slowly heading towards its demise, and ESEA is what keeps high-level afloat for now.

Nothing hurt more than that End of the Line update, though. Valve's now pulling maps for being too hard to understand. They're putting in an event in the game that is completely pay-to-play. They're not communicating at all, even to let us know that an update won't be what we expect it to be. It's gotten to the point where the TF2 community put on their best Dota impression, albeit briefly.

Suddenly I am very much scared for what competitive matchmaking is. It definitely isn't ducks, but part of me wonders whether it's just going to be another blatant cash grab. Part of me wonders whether they'll actually consider how to make the community better and not just how to make their bottom line better. Part of me wonders whether they'll ever deign to speak to us, to hear our impassioned pleas.

I'll continue helping out TeamFortress.TV until the bitter end. But I wonder if that bitter end is sooner than later.

The only truly positive news now can come from one certain corporation in Seattle. I wouldn't hold my breath.

They usually never announce anything TF2-specific in their season announcements - here's S17's announcement for reference. The prize money for TF2 is included in that $100k figure.

They'll announce specific prize pots later, usually mid-season.

Yes, they stated that the Professional divisions for CS:GO and TF2 would have playoffs on LAN.

CEVO Season 6 has already begun for their other games. I don't think they'd be able to start TF2 late because everything would be out of sync, especially when it comes to the CEVO-P LAN.

Add me on Steam and I'll send the patched version I made for temporary use. Killstreaks is broken in it, but if you don't ever enable that module you'll be fine.

Well it's fixable, but I don't understand why Valve decided it would be a good idea to rename variables in their code.

I'll probably be performing a major update to StatusSpec in the future that will prevent one module that's broken from sidelining the whole plugin like this. Thankfully this happened after LAN and there's a few weeks of quiet offseason to get it done.

StatusSpec appears to be broken as a result of this update. I am investigating. It is likely that the killstreaks module may be permanently broken (and if so will be removed).

Valve is pretty consistent with only shipping community-created things in specified community updates. It makes sense for matchmaking to be in another update later.

Leaderboards =/= matchmaking.

We'll be releasing a thread later with more info. Currently, we're waiting on responses from froyotech and eLevate (so if you want you can go bug a certain world champion about that to get it done faster, but you didn't hear that from me). I'm also working on overhauling the fwdcp site so that we'll can post a massive FAQ there, but my lack of graphic design skills means that it's not going well.

The last time the #1 ESEA seed lost a game during the regular season was May 31, 2012.

It's been two and a half years.

StatusSpec 0.22.3 is now available. It contains a fix for custom models/player models when used in tandem.

StatusSpec 0.22.2 is now available. It contains an update to also replace player ragdolls for the player models module.

StatusSpec 0.22.1 is now available. It contains a feature to fix broken timers during pauses. It's not completely tested, but the basic functionality is working. Let me know if you have any issues with it.