looks like an average roster for any white neighborhood highschool

But certainly we can hope.

Make sure when you're using our form, you put in your complete discord tag so we can reach you. I cannot reach you in any way if I don't have your discord tag.

Cheers!

will SS ever be out of alpha

I'd state that there's a shortage of casters. Going into the fall season is going to lose some good casters due to school or whatnot. I agree having more experienced casters is beneficial, but there's no real good way of obtaining them. Many people have a life and don't want to spend hours casting, some may not enjoy talking about tf2 either.

Why? This thread is (hopefully) going to get an answer to what seems to be a hot question. There's some obvious trolls, but there's some good conversation going about.

All of this could have been avoided, but was made into a much bigger issue because of the initial response. Won't put in my opinion in either way.

pretty cool payload updates:

https://staging.payload.tf is the staging server with production-like quality where it will auto-update every time there's a push on this branch.

See live changes there. There's going to be a staging bot too to help test loads on containers, but I will release that via the discord.

The staging bot will have pushcart and combine disabled, to prevent it being used over the main bot, since this is testing (potentially) breaking changes/additions. This is a good place to test because it won't affect many thousands of users using the main bot.

Any suggestions? Post them in the new community-formatted discord!

I'd also like to thank the 500+ discord server owners who have invited Payload to their discord!

oh boy here we go again

If there's any pug group owner from the EU who wants to throw it on the pug.tf directory, either DM me on discord or use our (even better way) google form to submit an application.

fireside offical casting org ??

real ^

imagine not running at scout speed as medic anymore...

Never quit based on backlash. If anything I've done has taught me anything, is that when I quit on something: I fail. Rather than quitting (Or in your case, a "halt"), look another way to achieve your goal. What other routes do you have that you've never taken could lead you closer to your goal?

Something that I overlooked is having a respectable staff is something that will go even further than anything. If players respect and know the people on staff, then there's no reason to drop what you're doing. Having any supporting staff will also push you to do stuff you've never though possible.

Putting that all aside, just by putting in contact information is a strong step forward. When I know where to contact you at helps a lot.

Remember, RGL took years to establish themselves. Anyone has a chance to do anything they want, but without proper criticism and a large amount of critial thinking, you will never achieve the best system. Cheers.

Entry fees through leagues are incredibly difficult to acheive. Let me provide some examples of why this is generally not a good idea without a huge knowledge of some sort of web-development or "middlemen"

1) Ensuring trust between you, the provider/company, and the end-user.
Making sure that the money given to you from the end user is going exactly where you tell them is no easy task. Without directly telling them everything, how does one assume this money is going to their prizepool? Trust comes with past decisions or by trusted community members, but there's plenty more than that.

2) Ensuring payment is secure
Payment isn't easy. Weather that boils down to getting payment, processing it, or whatever; it's not easy. Knowing who's paid up, who's not or whatever- it takes either a lot of manual effort or will take a complex system to build. There's no reason to be taking money yourself, either by paypal or trade offers, this is something that requires a lot of effort on your end to make sure that you're doing this properly.

3) RGL and ESEA are established
These "services" are large platforms that have done this for years. They've perfected this system, and an example include paying for other players. These companies have been trusted by the community to ensure their payment goes towards "something", be it a prizepool or whatever.

4) Some people just don't want to pay
It's a league, or is it? Making it clear weather this is a long-lasting service or a one/two day event makes it just a bit more trustworthy on the end user. Are they paying for something they can win? Or perhaps they're paying for a service they'll be using. A lasting service will always have a web interface, and coming from experience, it is something that requires a lot of patience, skill, and people who can help.

Entry fees are something that requires skill to balance. You must know exactly how much people are willing to pay for your league. No one wants to give money to a new company unless something they are providing is seen. If I released a new league that was exactly the same as ESEA or RGL, but you still had to pay just as much as those services, people will not (I hope) come to me playing even with a prizepool because they simply don't know me (as the company) at all, and this makes it even more concrete when I add in that, "I, on behalf of the company, is taking the payment". No one wants to give me, even on behalf of the company, money because you, the end user, does not know me. They have no idea who I am in relation to the company.

There's so much more to this that I don't even think about right now.