It's a frequently observed socioeconomic phenomenon you could find in a textbook. You'll have to understand if I take it at higher value than a bunch of nerds raging at anyone attempting to be even slightly objective about all of this.

Just my 2 cents on this part, regardless of what exactly happens in the future concerning staying with esea/new league/ugc/etf2l/whatever, just keep the same ruleset (ESEA's). At the risk of sounding like an old man afraid of change, my thought process behind this is a vote can result in a few huge changes that will affect gameplay, or a lot of little ones. I remember playing both ESEA and CEVO a long time ago and they had 2 slightly different rulesets. I got so sick of having 2 differing formats that it made me focus on ESEA more and shrug cevo off as "don't worry guys, its just cevo". If your plan is to make a new league, use the first season to smooth over administrative bumps and league issues, and then if you feel a need to vote on format, do that after the league is stable. I remember playing both ESEA and CEVO a long time ago and they had 2 slightly different rulesets.

Imagine a sparkly, brand new league that people start throwing a fit about because freight got thrown back in the mix and halftime is back at 4 instead of 3. You don't want more on your plate than you can handle.

tl:dr focus on the league first, keep the tried and true method for gameplay for stability, and figure out what you want to change after that.

I'm not defending ESEA, I'm defending the idea of a league's competitiveness. There are reasons why ESEA is still played. I don't agree with ESEA being the receiver of the TF2 community's money and time, but there are features they have that lend to a higher level of play.

You probably didn't get what I was saying, because I absolutely do not want ESEA to remain the most played league. Unfortunately it isn't as easy as saying "Anything is possible." It will take a lot of work and it will probably not show the same level of competitiveness for the first year or so, unless the league has LANs from the get-go.

If there are dedicated people who are confident enough to create their own league or possibly endorse CEVO to the point where the game could have LANs, I would love to see that. However there hasn't been a plan in progress and we're speaking hypothetically.

Oh it's this thread we have every season

I would be glad to do anything I can to help, but obviously some can do more than others. I'd gladly sell my unusual and donate it to making some sort of tftv league lan, but sadly that's the extent of what someone in my position can do.

The latter would absolutely ensure the former, but I doubt the former can even happen on its own. Unless entire teams are shutting down their rosters and quitting the league, there will be dozens of eager players raring to fill the vacancies. Of course, this won't be a problem for teams who quit ESEA because they want to follow their friends to other leagues, but the question of how many teams will actually follow through with it still remains.

Alright ya your post just came off as defending certain aspects of ESEA while I know you were playing devil's advocate in a way, I still think with good players there will be good competition.

Of course it's all hypothetical but everything starts with good ideas.

I am really glad some invite players like yourself and others took a stance on ESEA this season now especially after recent revelations and maybe others will join you as well.

seasons almost over.. If a new league isn't made and thought out now there will be no league and fragmentation of community = death of community

idk its hard for me to see the magic in all of this considering I've heard it all before

rip

we need a fully charged about this

Question to any league willing to take on this challenge:

What anti-cheat precautions are implemented? Is there a client? Is there going to be a client? Short term plan? Long term plan?

The biggest attraction for high level players is competition. If let's say, all 9 invite teams decided to join (cevo/ugc/etf2l), the league would explode in popularity.

Here's how I think the esea to ugc division equivalencies should work if they let you transfer rosters.

Iron
Steel
Silver (open)
Gold (IM)
Plat (main)
Diamond (invite)

Silver-diamond require a fee but iron and steel are still free.
Winners of iron and steel get discounts on joining silver.
Any team can join iron, steel, or silver.

Hey I don't play TF2 any more but I just wanted to jump in and say this is the perfect opportunity to be more flexible.

Competitive TF2 has been trying for years to get the attention and support of Valve, and the most recent response I remember was that they didn't think the 6v6 format was flexible enough. Rather than creating another league with the same flaws, why not try something new?

Ask Valve what sort of ideas they have for comp TF2 - what does a flexible game mode look like to them, what type of community would they like to support, etc. Even if all but one of Valve's TF2 devs have moved on to bigger and better things (Dota cosmetics), that last dev still has three things this community has always lacked: Valve's ideas, Valve's money, and Valve's support.

TF2 has floundered for a long time because the community insists on clinging to independent leagues. None has ever done much good, and the big one is apparently going to court. It's hard to make a compromise when you think you've settled on the best format, but the opportunity to have Valve behind you is too important to pass on - just look at Dota.

This is a necessity imo. People will actually try their hearts out if they put money on the line.
The stats/ pov demos/ and stv downloadables have also always been very nice from ESEA. Until some other league integrates these things I see no reason to leave ESEA.

Not by choice, TF2 has been the red-headed stepchild for a while now.

Honestly, it's worth a try at least. We'd probably have to put together a 2-year budget, maybe pull in a couple of our own sponsors to get Valve to look at it.

I don't see why a giant reorganization needs to be done. Just maintain their current division setup and literally add Open, IM, Main, and Invite as their own separate things.

That's because Robin Walker is part of the "interactive movie" generation and would rather see a big explosion on his screen with the words "GOOD JOB" in gigantic neon green comic sans plastered across his screen for holding your mouse button down idly rather than actually PLAY a game.

Honestly I'd rather just not play than have to suffer under a developer who believes that giving people reward without risk or effort is the definition of skill-based gameplay for a team based arena shooter.

That's what I wanted to do but I thought ugc might wanna stick to their material naming theme.

I hope going to UGC/ETF2L means we can actually have placement matches.

I don't understand, why don't we just join an established league like ETF2L instead of building a new one from the ground up

I was going to make a lengthy post but clockwork pretty much hit the nail on the head. The goal of any competition is to be the best and win the best possible prize. The NFL has the superbowl, everyone watches even if they don't like football because it's the best the game has to offer, comes along with recognition of being elite. If ESEA dies and we switch to another league, what is there to play for? Healthy competition? Anyone can get that by playing a pug, MGE, bball match, whatever. Without a top prize/pinnacle to reach, playing just to play would wither the skill of the game and it would devolve into nothingness. If someone held a league with triple the prize pot of ESEA with no LAN, well maybe the competition would switch because there would be the BEST prize you could win. If there is the opportunity to win the BEST prize, people will try to win it. I could care less if I lost to banny in a league that gives me a mousepad if I win, I do care if I lose and then he gets double my prize money, regardless of how much I may or may not NEED the money.

So much for no lengthy post.

not really a useful comment but rofl this guy got a 10 year ban for telling the truth http://play.esea.net/users/237779

would you care about winning a league where banny wasn't in it? let's say iT plays CEVO exclusively, watch this either does the same or takes a season off, and you guys play ESEA exclusively.

how many seasons before that gets incredibly boring? One?

Sorry Plat but that applies to like 10 people out of the hundreds of people that play this game. Everyone gets where you're coming from and I for one love watching LAN all day Saturday, but holding back 100s of people so 2 teams, mixup and HRG can have one super competitive series is stupid.

idk i'd be pretty interested if I was playing against myself

Edit: fixed

I don't get this post because Robin Walker is most definitely not a part of the interactive movie generation and most definitely led development on Quake World Team Fortress and Team Fortress Classic, games that reward people for skill and are way higher skill based than TF2?????

Robin doesn't even really work on TF2 anymore and hasn't for a long time, plus blaming the state of TF2 on just one guy doesn't make sense.

Holy fuck. I didn't think anyone actually thought like this. I don't care what skill level you are, that's completely retarded and ass-backwards. I need to make this post regardless of whether or not people agree with me or the content in it.

Knowing the Superbowl and football teams are a thing != watching the Superbowl and following football. People even in other video game communities know we're a thing, but most people end up laughing at the fact that TF2 is still alive, let alone played competitively. This is also retarded because you're comparing one of the largest sporting events in America to this super-niche group of the people who still play TF2. That's not fair to anyone.

Yes. Exactly that. Surprise! People compete for not only profit, but for FUN. Name one athlete who plays the sport of his or her choice JUST because it's a well-paying gig. I remember when the mathackers were just getting into 6s, everyone played because they were enjoying themselves and later had dreams of making it big in this small subset of the TF2 community (STA CHAMPIONS). Look at Harbl now: a grand goddamn world champion of TF2 (and wearing a dog collar don't really approve of that too much but that's his decision I hope).

Man them's some rose-tinted glasses. #tf2mix and #pug.na in their current forms are bloody awful. The former is filled with new players looking to hone their balls to someday jump from Open to Invite by a magic pickup who end up getting stomped by puglords and the latter is a shell of what it used to be. I don't even have to bring up how idiotic MGE is with not one but BOTH alt retardation incidents where people use it more for a glory generator than a DM device. Inhouses are almost always for fun and on a whim unless you have "that guy" in your circlejerk who treats every last instance of TF2 to be a life or death scenario. Bball is the closest thing to competition in MGE, Ultiduo outside of MGE.

There isn't any fuckin' money in TF2. I'm honestly astonished that you of all people either don't know this or don't acknowledge it. We have no sponsors. That prize money also comes from user payments to ESEA too, if you remember. Besides, for the money that we all waste in ESEA with the constant hiccups there could be even just monthly private tournaments like Quake has, winning team takes all. The pressure of a monetary prize is still there, and you don't "need" ESEA.

"The day I don't go to LAN is the day I quit TF2" or something to that extent. That's the shit that makes people believe in the misconception of LAN just being a user-funded vacation for the top Invite teams, regardless of whether or not the line was meant in jest.

Jesus.

Learn to read. Never did I say that if there was NO lan would I quit TF2. I said the day I do not MAKE lan would be the day I quit. That quote was meant as like, IF I CAME IN 5th PLACE. If there was something worth playing for and someone worth playing against, I myself wouldn't be opposed to doing it. What I'm saying is that the competition won't go somewhere else just for the hell of it. Go ahead and make a league and prove me wrong. You won't.

Finally he responded on how to uninstall the client

#249
Has Lpkane even explained why when you unintall the client, it doesn't fully uninstall itself? I don't believe I have seen any kind of statement on why this the case. Even if 100% of everything that he said was true, which I don't even think it close to being true, why does the uninstaller not work as it should?

That alone should be suspect. Why should anyone believe that you did nothing wrong as a company, when this still hasn't been fixed? I personally, do not think you're being honest from your statements, and I think you're trying to escape questions that you do not want to answer. You may quote them, but it's usually just pointing to an official statement as if that answers specifics questions that people have.

Referenced post #265 by Fzero169
Still no response to 249 question
#265 you should cancel your subscription, uninstall the client, and then format your pc if you are not comfortable with our service

ETF2L might actually be the best bet for an alternative considering that they are a well-established league that seems to work well for all skill tiers. A lot of that will come down to who gets chosen to be admin.

The argument that without money the skill would wither is really bad. I can think of a dozen counter-examples of games where money dwindled or never existed at all and skill went up considerably every year as players gained more experience.

Instead, I believe that the 12 players who play TF2 for the money right now would stop playing. Not a big deal.

Competition, bragging rights, and DRAMA always exist in vidya games without the need for a cash prize.

just popping in to remind people that CEVO is a classic "grass is greener" scenario. back in my cs days there were corrupt admins that banned people for cheating when they weren't or some shit like that. i think it was cevo|pipher involved in the whole thing, not sure though.

not defending esea, they take advantage of every community they're involved with, just warning folks that are ready to jump ship that other leagues are just as bad/worse, so finding a good league BEFORE the move will be crucial. talking to top admins/ceo of the company will be important to make sure we work out a good deal for our players.