this is not true. last season we had 70 teams in Open, this season we barely had 50 teams. this isn't really that relevant to the rest of your argument but it bugged me enough to want to point out.

while this is true, the fact that he was allowed to be petty and shitty to people (the banning of several long standing members of this community in particular) and there has been nothing said from torbull or shooter to refute his actions bothers me. from a customer service standpoint, this is a terrible move. i would not want to play in a league where an admins actions, no matter how unfair or unjustified, can not be answered by anyone. to use the same logic in a customer service setting outside of esea, if i went to a restaurant or something and a server was rude or ejected me from the restaurant simply because I stated an opinion, its up to me to say "hey, i'm not going to give that place my business anymore."

just as much as its my choice to not want to support a business that i don't think agrees with my principles, you have that same choice. its not right or wrong, its just a choice we make for ourselves as consumers.

in regards to what you're saying about pinebeetle and nahanni, i think there has been an attempt at transparency by pine beetle to reveal some things going on behind the scenes, and nahanni has been releasing regular updates to show what kind of things are in discussion. your question of the length of time of commitment is legitimate, and a valid concern. with that said, nahanni at least has a history of being reliable even in the face of adversity. when she says she is committed to CEVO, i believe her.

regardless of how long this central leadership role nahanni is in lasts, at some point I would hope that she would not be needed to fulfill that role. the CEVO commissioners and admins should and will step in to run their league without the help of members of our community. the question in my mind is not "will this happen?" but more so "when will this happen?" hopefully when the league has gotten on its feet, surely.

thank you for sharing your thoughts, squid.

i think ESEA has a way better service than CEVO, and even if they lied and did stupid shit, they still will provide a better service over CEVO.

squid, if you want to continue supporting a league that willfully installed malware onto its users computers go right ahead

I will not follow you

I would like to point out that Summer seasons are always the largest, and Winter seasons always the smallest. Trends can't be determined from season to season, have to look at it on an annual basis.

yeah, thats why i don't think bringing that up was all that relevant. just that the statement that last season was smaller than this one was wrong. is the size of open really the indicator we have that shows growth in this game?

teams transitioning to open show that they're serious enough about the game to pay for league entrance, so i'd say it is a decent indicator.

I think she will distance herself from you very quickly.

Since the malware uncovering, there are going to be people that are such security freaks that they just wont play ESEA in fear of damaging their precious computer, in which they payed more for than they will probably ever win in TF2 unless your top invite.

I've stated my position before of why I can't go back to ESEA and nowhere in that wall of text did you address it squid. Malware.

They installed software with the potential to access your computer whenever they want, can you really say there is no evidence that they didn't do anything malicious after they mined thousands of dollars out of bitcoins with your computer? Why are you separating both features of the client, like: "bitcoins was one malicious thing, backdoor was another malicious thing, there is only evidence of the bitcoins activity, which didin't affect us, so it's fine".
If they did touch our computers to mine bitcoins that gives me all the reason to believe they could use the backdoor whenever they want.

What's the point if they're just banning the people that's bringing it up, see Fzero and StPatrick.

I think he means you should more directly contact reasonable human beings like Torbull, instead of posting on Ipkane's "Go fuck yourself" thread.

I don't think much more needs to be said after that.

Well look we're choosing between potential large TF2 growth (CEVO) and the continued, slower growth of ESEA. CEVO isn't guaranteed to be around, and ESEA is. I am simply saying that I wouldn't want to risk the TF2 community dying on this risky chance of large upside on CEVO.

***

The reason I say potential upside is because CEVO is basically willing to work with the TF2 community for less money. The downside is they have a lot of ground to catch up on, the TF2 community will take a big hit for switching (skill drops, CEVO is farther behind than ESEA in terms of their offering). However, you're betting on the long run with CEVO.

That's why it looks like the top players in this game aren't willing to bet on the long run and are willing to bet on the short run with ESEA. Players not at the top of the game are more willing to bet on the long term because the short term offers them less.

I gotta say, all this talk of the prize pool doesn't make sense to me. Unless you are a top team, over 80 percent of every player that plays loses money on esea. Only the winners get paid. With that logic only the very best in their division should play because they get a piece of the prize pool at all. I just want competition. Since UGC has none, that's why I have bypassed that league all together. It's great that you are part of Mix^ Squid. You are a good player on a good team that will always get 1 or 2nd at LAN, but using that as part of your argument is alienating so many of us that pay for premium each month and a league fee which we don't see a return on at the end of the season. Again I don't mind paying it, because ESEA gave me what I wanted, and that's competition. But I realize that I may never get anything for playing this game. Add in the server and mumble I pay for each month and I'm further in the whole.

This whole thing reminds me of the baseball strike back in the 90's. I loved baseball, watched games, played, collected the cards (hats), was huge into stats, all that. Then they striked for more money when most of them were millionaires and it honestly broke my heart. While you guys in invite can't live off that money, I felt as though you guys and the baseball players could be content playing for the love of the game, like all of us little people do.
My 2 cents.

@#48 We could make an entire thread about this but the "top 10%" of skilled players in this game that people are talking about don't want the skill level of this game to take a hit, and switching to CEVO will cause top level TF2 to take a hit. The "bottom 90%" of players don't care about that, so they don't mind switching because in their mind, in the long term, the skill level will rebound.

The reason that the top players don't want the skill level to take a hit is because it's hard enough to find other teams to play/scrim against and taking that skill hit will reduce competition for them even further. The LAN/money itself isn't really an incentive for the players who just want to compete but it IS an incentive for some of the players that are currently playing at that top level.

In other words one portion of Invite just wants to play video games against good people and another segment just wants to go to a LAN or have some other reason to play.

The thing that we all need to keep in mind is that the top players in this game used to not be the top players in this game. It used to be complexity and Check 6 and all of those guys who were at the top but eventually quit the game. Those teams were just as dominant as iT or Classic Mixup or Epsilon or Team Immunity. The skill level will always rebound and there will always be players at the top, no matter what ma3la says about people not wanting to watch WLA vs Monet.

Skill level of the top doesn't matter to me though. I just don't want to risk TF2 dying because I love this game too much and CEVO has died in the past. I realize they're doing well with the other games that they support right now, but it's just not a risk that I think is worth taking.

A lot of people on the pro-esea side are saying that the community will take a short-term hit by switching to CEVO.

Will we not also take a short-term hit by staying with esea, considering the number of people who will refuse to support their business? We have a significant portion of players who WILL NOT support esea in the future. This isn't the "potential growth" that we look at with bringing new players in we're talking about. This is current players, people we already have, who will be alienated if the community at large decides to keep esea as the primary league.

All other arguments aside, this is something that can't be overlooked.

Well Benk the people that want to switch to CEVO will only do so if other people go with them so no, if we stay with ESEA we won't take that short term hit. Sure some people "say" that they will switch, but in the end those people are the same people who just want to play video games. Switching to CEVO by yourself would be boring as you'd have nobody to play against, so you'd end up staying with ESEA anyways.

What's your connection to venture capitalism, squid?

Right now, it appears as if the lower, less established players who don't compete for the big money favor CEVO, and the bigger, more competative players favor ESEA.

Squid, I understand why you are wary to switch because CEVO may not come to the level of ESEA. But, it comes down to this question: how much longer are we willing to wait around with ESEA while there are potentially better options out there?

Other community members understand ESEA is more established, but they are willing to risk it for their own rights to choose which league they want. It's sort of like a boycott. Do we like ESEA in principle? I would say yes, but is it worth staying with ESEA after the bitcoin incident, constant belittlement by lpkane, and the whole ESEA client issue? That is where I, and many members of the community draw the line.

So, if this "boycott" of ours works, we improve the product of ESEA and CEVO. If it doesn't, CEVO will improve and become a competitor to ESEA, and possibly making ESEA a better product. I don't really see how changing leagues could ruin competitive tf2 as we know it. This community is too well knit to be broken apart.

And, in the end, we have to choose. It's between ESEA, with an established league, LAN, and more money, which appeals to the top players, or CEVO, with promise, opportunity, and the rights we deserve as a community.

But, in the end, you have your own opinion, and I respect that.

I'd agree with you that the vast majority of people saying they'll never support esea again will cave when/if they realize they don't have an alternative, but for some I don't think this will be the case. Sometimes people's morals are stronger than their desires.

This rift that we're seeing in TF2 has happened before back when people wanted CB to make the
"My Gaming Edge League" and again when people wanted Enigma to make the "Team Fortress TV" league. A certain portion of people who play TF2 just don't like ESEA and I don't blame them but they're missing out on the fact that it takes a lot of work to put together a league. To put together a LAN. To make a website about teaching people how to play TF2. To make a new Gotfrag. There's only a few people in this community who actually do the work. The rest of the people just talk about doing work.

The reason MGE league and TFTV league never happened is because both CB and Enigma didn't want to do the work. It's not worth the money, and both CB and Enigma are people who just want to play video games like everyone else.

People miss the fact that the people at the top of this game are just like you. They don't care much about the incentives and they just want to play video games like everyone else. They just stuck around long enough and the top level players eventually end up quitting because there is nobody else to play against (see Reptile, CoL, x6, Epsilon, Team Immmunity). The difference with NA TF2 and those communities is that we have choices in the league that we play in and they don't.

But we all know that it's in our BEST interest to all play in the same league. To all compete in the same league. A league that won't die. A league with a guaranteed commitment to TF2. And that's why we should stay with ESEA. To keep the community together, despite the problems with certain league management. ETF2L league management hasn't always been perfect either, but sticking together is better in the long run for our game.

I said this before, but iT and watch this are ready to play in CEVO. The skill level won't take a hit if big teams migrate, and two of the best teams already have. Switching to CEVO won't magically make all of invite and the top of main disappear.

TL;DR nobody wants to do the work they just want someone else to do it and ESEA has always been around for us. Even the people talking about CEVO aren't doing the work they want someone else to do it. ESEA hasn't died in 15 seasons unlike CEVO and we all know that the UGC admins are a joke. Stick with ESEA, don't kill this game.

funny how the people who want to stick with esea are: squid, platinum, dummy etc. what a fucking joke. everyone is getting baited so hard. dont want their free vacay goin away.

Like I said i'm in favor of not killing TF2 so whichever option keeps it alive is fine with me but I'm doubtful that everyone would migrate over.

Another thing, not everyone has the resources to do the work, that's why they just talk about it. People wanted Enigma to make a TFTV league because TFTV is already a source of all things comptf2, and enigma already has the website. Any random guy in the community could have talked to CEVO about expanding the league, but why would anyone here listen to them? We need big names like Nahanni, and people with resources like pine_beetle, to help us with the effort.

Tons of teams have shown that they're willing to migrate though. Read any of the threads supporting CEVO. Main, IM, and open teams are all willing to migrate. The skill level of comp tf2 will be preserved, as the same people are going to be playing, just in a different league.

ITT people refute every argument with the word malware.

I'm getting so sick of people saying "that it's going to kill the game", there has been countless arguments against this, yet very few arguments to prove that without ESEA the game will die. I am not even going to bother going over them again since some people are just completely ignoring those arguments and instead I want those people to prove to me that it will be the death of TF2.

The main argument seems to be that we would lose top level people if there is no LAN, thus no one would care about top level TF2 since TF2 would be losing the greats. I've heard this argument often after a few top level players decide that they're no longer playing TF2 and it yet to happen.
People will always take the place of others, yes, this season is a little different. Consider the reason why, when you add a new division that is bound to happen for a while.

And what's wrong thinking about the long term? In the long term, switching to CEVO probably is a better option, because as you said, the skill level will rebound, but as long as CEVO holds true to it's promises, CEVO WILL be better in the long run if people actually support it

Sometimes sacrifices have to be made to get a better experience. The only way the skill level will suffer is if the invite community is split. If all the invite players go to CEVO, suddenly they still have people to play against if CEVO supports that by making more divisions. That's what we really need CEVO to deliver on. If they deliver on that and the Invite community supports them, we will have no issues.

TF2 is not going to die because of a switch to CEVO, because if that was the case, it would have died when the switch from CEVO to ESEA occured. You act like this game only has one league and only has one group of players. You have to consider that ETF2L and UGC have a decent playerbase and they are doing just fine, not to mention have said that they are willing to accommodate ESEA players by adjusting their current leagues if we wanted to make a switch to them instead. This is a small community, but ESEA isn't the only community of players.

To summarize, I think taking a risk on this for at least a season or two to see how well it does, is worth in the long run. If invite teams are so concerned about competition, they have that if everyone actually commits to this. If they just want a LAN and the money that comes with it, I think they need to evaluate why they play this game, because there are definitely more financially secure E-sports out there.