:B1:

Isn't Valve awesome?
http://www.teamfortress.com/post.php?id=27676

Sorry to rain on the parade a bit, but. did anyone from TFTV actually agree to do casting? This is the first that a bunch of us are hearing about it. We're trying to confirm with everyone on staff but no one currently online knew about casting.

EDIT: Okay, coverage has been clarified. An agreement actually did get made. Sorry for the false alarm.

lol

Well, that was almost very awkward...

Also, just wanted to clarify that the agreement we have with TFTV is only going to cover playoff casting, not casting of the regular season. We'll be doing regular season stuff on our own (much smaller) channel.

Just a quick update. As suggested by nursey, ultiduo_baloo_v2 is now being used instead of ultiduo_baloo.

What maps do you guys want to see in our second 6v6 season?
Currently have koth_bagel confirmed to be included. Anything else?

If Cardinal gets an update in the next few days it should probably be included. There's a bit of bullshit in it right now but I think the layout is nice; an update will probably fix most of the problems.

kalinka is actually a pretty fun map to play on

Registration for Ultiduo Season 2 closes in two hours, at 8:00 PM ET. If you're not on a team already, be sure to join or create one within the next two hours, and ready it up before the deadline.

We currently have 90 teams ready to go.

The free to play model has been a long failed fantasy of the tf2 community. The people that watching tf2 are also the people that play tf2, there's not much attention frog people who play other games. So everyone has to chip in order to make a league that actually works. Free isn't actually free somebody else is taking a big hit with either time or their own money or both. Salamancer, Lange, the fragile... come to mind. If you do this and you go the free to play model you are the one who is going to do a lot of work for basically nothing. If you're okay with that go ahead.

I would encourage you to consider doing pay to play. I did the math years ago and I think the minimum entry fee for a sustainable league was $20 per player and $25 would be best for growth as you can buff up the prize pot to attract more players.

If he goes pay-to-play, he's just competing with ESEA at that point.

If he stays free-to-play, he's just going to turn into another UGC or another Lange/Salamancer.

I've always wanted to ask this, but what is TFCL's role supposed to be? UGC was shown to be an incompetent laughing stock of the competitive community and severely hurt the player output of ESEA and it looks like TFCL is just going down the same road as UGC. Especially with the fact that Sidular is promising prizes with no buy-in; coming out of pocket and/or out of donations, there seems to be no thought on what the long-term plan is or how this is supposed to help the competitive community.

I hate to rag on you Sidular, but especially when you admit that you expected TFCL to die instantly, what's your long term goal of TFCL? You state that you want it to help players get into competitive, but then you're just turning into Highlander and UGC, which were both monumental failures in expanding competitive TF2. And without a roadmap of how you want to develop it, I find it hard to support this project. You have interesting ideas and clearly a lot of motivation behind it, but this project feels like a pipe dream we've dreamt before.

It's true he'd be competing with esea but managed correctly it could do really well. Honestly I don't think competing with esea would be very hard if you had the right group of people. Especially if you get highlander the entry fee for that league can go down quite a bit around $10 per player for growth off of the first season.

I don't think there is a sustainable free to play model that will actually work.

ETF2L has been around since before ESEA and has been alive since, it has outlasted several attempts to make a pay to play league in Europe. It also has more 6s teams than ESEA.

As for there being a sustainable free to play model i kind of agree, in that there is no sustainable model for a TF2 league atm, comp TF2 is declining in numbers every league is slowly declining. Maybe a platau of a small number of teams will be reached, maybe the scene just declines till it dies. But until valve/the 6s community makes a significant change comp tf2 has a limited shelf life.

I really doubt anyone's ability to compete with esea. CEVO had people who were super knowledgeable about the scene and they still crashed, burned, and fucked over the tf2 scene as a whole.

ok so tf2 is small so i think we shhould keep small things together, i think this league is not a smart idea at all, i think ugc 6s should die and have ugc for people that want to play hl or 4s lol. I think we should go with the newbie mix idea and try to get as many new players as we can into open, don't bash new players(instead teach them) on pug champ, the future of comp tf2 rides on how many new players we get. No new players game will die slowly and painfully.

^^^you guys need to read the thread, he stated before that he doesn't really want to compete with the other leagues FOR NOW and that he plans on using pilot seasons to attract sponsors in order to increase the prize pool and to make the league more popular

Fwiw, TFCL isn't attempting to compete with the other leagues (yet, at least), it has little to no advertising whatsoever.
From what I gathered, its supposed to be the NATF2L for when esea inevitably drops tf2.
(however i would like to point out that it's much better than ugc purely b/c team leaders and admins don't force default match times and sidular has eyes/ears unlike the vast majority of ugc admins)

Will grand finals be casted on tftv?

I was involved with cevo early on. I was going to double or triple the prizepot depending on how registration went. They would not bring the registration fee above $15 (not enough for growth off the first season unless very high registration so I needed them to come up to $20), then after that they said they did not want to compete with esea. This was unacceptable to me so I wished them luck and opted out.

Whoa, okay. Lots of stuff to reply to here. I'll see if I can cover everything.

I disagree wholeheartedly. Charging fees might make TFCL more profitable early on, but it'll also limit our reach and player growth. People that are new to competitive, won't want to commit $20 or more just to play in a league that they may or may not enjoy. They'll be put off by the up-front fees, and likely just go to UGC, or another free league with their format of choice. I mean, that doesn't really help anything, does it?
Plus, do you honestly think TFCL can get thousands of paying members?

I want to be able to grow TF2 as a legitimate eSport, by creating a league that is free, easy to get into, and fun to play in. Right now, I'm looking at the smaller formats that no other league is really offering. Things like Ultiduo, or bball. I want to use these smaller formats to hopefully bring in the more casual players that are totally new to competitive TF2. People that have never played a 6's match in their life, but love bball and ultiduo. Hell, even dodgeball is a potentially competitive gamemode to the right people.
You know, to sort of bridge the gap between casual and competitive play. Eventually, some of these newer players might join a 6's team, and become a more integral part of this community.

I also have a long term marketing plan in place for TFCL and TF2 as a whole. Currently, I am building up a network of gaming websites and services, and will use this network to advertise and promote competitive TF2. I actually just acquired a large PlayStation themed news website for $15K, which I plan to use to promote "sister websites" that are more TF2-focused. It's a long term plan, and nothing's going to happen overnight. But still, it's something I'm working on all the same.

Yes. I'll have a Steam announcement with times out later tonight. Though, if saam wants to post the times before that, he's welcome to.

Anyway, hopefully this clears up some stuff. If you guys want me to get into some specifics, let me know. I'll answer what I can.

holy shit dude that's dedication

I just want this scene to grow, and will do whatever I can to see that it does. If that means spending tens of thousands of dollars to secure future marketing for TF2 and TFCL, I'll gladly do just that.
All in all, it's about getting TF2 out there to as many people as possible. I'm trying to put myself into a somewhat unique position that no one else in this community has. So far, things are looking promising.

With pay to play it's go big or go home. If you can put up big prizes and possibly a lan you will attract a lot of attention. A lot more than any amount of free to play crap. $20 again would be a minimum number still not very good.. $25 is where you want to be if you're serious. They might not like it and blah blah blah but if you are working towards hosting a lan and you're putting up large prizes... tough luck boys if you want nice things you have to pay for it. Play harder and win your money back.

Otherwise I see this going exactly the same route as XPL, TGL, TWL, Cevo... and all the other leagues that pop up every couple of years.

I want you to be successful. I also think you can pull it off. If you want a detailed plan PM me your e-mail and I'll provide you with one. If not, good luck with your project :)

You're welcome to add me on Steam. I do have a plan however, and I'd like to discuss that with you in private. Will also listen to your advice too. See how it can all fit together.

Shit sidular where did all this money come from? Don't tell me its from your own pocket

I've got an awesome investor that believes in me and TF2 in general. He's helping out with the early funding. I'm trying to build this up so it's as enticing as possible for sponsors or advertisers, so in the future, everything will be funded by them.

Also, by building up a network of websites, it basically means I can advertise TFCL and TF2 more or less for free. It also opens up more revenue streams, which means a constant source of funding for TFCL.

I want this to be self sustainable, and building it to that level is going to take some time. I mean, even though TFCL is active right now, it really is just the foundation of something much bigger. I really am trying to turn TF2 into a legitimate eSport, and starting a league isn't enough to make that happen. It's just the core to all of this.

what i said earlier stands true, but im hoping maybe you can make something out of all this, it sounds promising.

I think that hosting tournaments/LANs will be really important for the success of the league. The only large LAN that TF2 really has at this point is the i series (correct me if im wrong.) A lot of TF2 players are adults who need money to sustain themselves, and playing on an invite team is a huge time commitment. If the players can make more money playing TF2, they won't have to switch over to other games that present better opportunities (overwatch.) And honestly, I feel like a lack of high tier players is part of the reason why TF2 is failing. No one wants to watch froyotech win every single year. Also, LANs will attract things like twitch viewers and attendees, which in turn will bring in sponsors and ad revenue.