Hello all,

We at EssentialsTF are undertaking new projects and as such believe it is a good opportunity to explain where we are taking the organisation over the next few years and how that is likely to effect our events and coverage.

The first project of ours is to ensure financial sustainability for TF2 events and coverage, from purchasing equipment, renting venues, and supporting volunteer expenses; there is plenty of costs that come with running tournaments and coverage in TF2. To do this, we are committing to producing frequent and high-quality streams and content where possible and as such we will be covering as much of the upcoming and future ETF2L seasons and affiliated tournaments & events. Streams will go live on our Twitch page as per usual, and VODs will be uploaded on YouTube promptly. In addition, with the hard work of our staff we'll be working through a backlog of events and getting them up on YouTube. The upload priority will be on recent events such as the ongoing ETF2L 6v6 Spring 2024 Season, with coverage of the poLANd.tf 2024 Winter LAN, i71, i69, and other past tournaments following.

Any money raised through our efforts will be directly re-invested back into ETF projects, whether that is LAN, Online Coverage, or supporting community projects. We'll be exploring other content and revenue streams in the future but for now our focus is on consistent and quality livestreams.

To manage this undertaking, we're looking for people to join the ETF Team! We're currently looking for people to support:

• Social Media
  
• Content Creation (Video Editing and Graphics)
  
• Producers
  
• Casters
  
• Developers

If there is anything here that you think you can help with, we'd love to hear from you! Contact a Team Leader via Discord with a basic background of any experience / skills you think would be useful for the role.

Finally, there have been a fair number of questions regarding an ETF LAN this year. As of right now there are no confirmed LANs and we would encourage that people avoid booking tickets for events or hotels in advance until we make any formal announcements. We are committed to running a LAN in 2024 and we should hopefully have more information later this year.

We're open to any comments, feedback, or questions as per usual. Either contact us on the ETF Discord or reach out to me or any of the Team Leaders. The rest of the team and I are incredibly excited about what we are creating and we hope that you look forward to what we do.

Links
Website
Discord
Twitch
YouTube
Twitter/X

Bumping this thread since it got kinda buried under the whole alt situation.

I am still looking for participants for this study and would like to get this done soon, I would be willing to extend the deadline for applications but there would need to be further interest. There have been a number of people who have expressed interest as individuals which is appreciated, but this study requires full teams to take part as how you play as a team is a key component of what I intend to investigate.

All relevant information is in the original post although I am open to any queries you may have.

This request is now closed, thank you to those who have made enquiries.

Hello all,

I am currently undertaking research as a part of my doctoral studies and as a part of that I am doing a follow-up study investigating expert video game decision-making that is similar to the one I made a request for a while ago. Taking part would require participants to record one of their matches (either a scrim or an official) and then sit in a 1 hour recorded interview in the following days/weeks (you should allow 2 hours of your time). I am looking for full teams to participate who have competed in any of the following league divisions and above, or equivalent:

• European Team Fortress 2 League (ETF2L) - Division 2
  
• Recharge Gaming League (RGL) - Advanced
  
• ozfortress (OZF) - High
  
• AsiaFortress - Division 1

All team members must also be over the age of 18 and have access to a computer or device capable of conducting a video call and recording video with a quality of at least 720p at 30fps. Taking part in this research is entirely voluntary. It is up to you to decide if you want to volunteer for the study.

I will be happy to respond to any questions you may have in this thread, but if you want the full details of the study I recommend that you reach out to me and I will send you documents with everything you would need to know. All necessary information will be provided and you will have at least 24 hours to review all documents before any scheduled interview/study.

The deadline for applications will be the 28th January.

If this is something that you feel that you would be interested in taking part in and you meet the above criteria, feel free to reach out to me through my Discord (DrHappiness#0897). If you would prefer to contact me via email, please send me a private message where I will send you any contact details you require. I will not be sending any documents through TFTV.

That aside, I thank you for your time.

DMCA Notice

If this is to be believed (I have no idea how to verify this), but it seems that the reason this got a DMCA takedown notice is that it ported TF2 assets to Source 2 and redistributed it on s&box which doesn't have a license for using Valve assets. While I think its weird that TF2 assets being ported to Source 2 is a problem, there does seem to be some justification.

Kinda similar to when OpenFortress and things like that got DMCA'd for using leaked source code.

Edit: According to the TF:Source 2 team, they contacted Valve and got confirmation that this DMCA claim is legitimate.

I am glad that I had the pleasure to work with Ohia because she was a fantastic, committed, and - most importantly - kind individual. She had tremendous drive in trying to improve the scene in their own way; interested in all the different aspects of the TF2 volunteer space, from adminning to production and casting. Their passing is a massive blow to the community and is something that I'm still processing, gone too soon.

The messages here shows the impact she had on others and their infectious personality is one that I will dearly miss. My thoughts go to the family and friends, rest in piece.

TL;DR Casual Mode sucks, Quickplay sucked a bit less, Valve dropped the ball.

I agree with him that Casual mode kind of ruined the sense of community where people could hop in and out. But I do think he's looking back with rose-tinted glasses a little bit. Quickplay wasn't exactly newbie-friendly and its 'wild west' nature meant that your experiences could vary wildly. Can you imagine the current day bots with access to sprays? Although at least with quickplay, you weren't stuck if the server wasn't your thing; you could just leave.

Casuals not great, but Quickplay wasn't either - people just point at everything in and around MYM as the reason TF2 as they remember it died, when that wasn't the case. Valve's failure came with not developing Casual further and making finding alternative ways of playing easier (Community Servers). The server browser is ancient and really needs a rework.

In my view Casual was supposed to bring a 'standard experience'. "You playing the game for the first time? Here's the basic way to play TF2". From there, people wanting something different could look towards community servers. The intent is fine, but the execution was bad and no attempts at fixing the issues it created were made.

No one thing from an update 'killed' this game, its just that MYM was a turning point where it was clear that Valve as a whole (not the TF Team) stopped giving a shit.

Honestly, anytime I've stood behind players on the stage for an Insomnia Final has been pretty damn memorable. The one standout moment is i63 with Se7en winning Granary in the last moment. Watching a wave of people in front of you leap up and cheer like that was something to behold.

Its pretty cheesy to say, but seeing people having a great time at LAN and making their own memories is the most gratifying feeling for me. When you can say to yourself that "I helped make this happen", that feeling of accomplishment is a huge reason why I keep doing this, years after I thought I'd stop.

LAN is awesome.

TBH its impressive how Zesty Jesus can consistently put out bad takes. The man (and this is genuinely true) believes random damage spread should be left in the game because theres enough randomness in the game that it doesn't really have an effect. Bruh.

Also welcome back King.

It was planned to be a one day thing, but I'm running into a bit of difficulties with the University regarding finding a place on campus to do this/equipment to do it with.

At this point, the study is likely to be conducted purely online. I should be able to confirm this and make a formal post sometime in the next couple of weeks.

Thank you to those who have mentioned interest.

TL;DR: I don't want to play TF2Center nor another version of PugChamp. Please keep an active list of In-Houses. We NEED a proper pug site for new players.

Forgive me for being pessimistic, but my experience in trying to play regular competitive TF2 outside of league/tournament play has been miserable. Most In-Houses have been fine for a while and then either some circlejerk joins and pretty much takes over or it dies after a month. TF2Center is Valve Comp with the proper ruleset but you have to wait 20-30 minutes for people to play medic. New pugging platforms end up like PugChamp with the same circlejerks, and whilst TF2Pickup is far better it still has the same issues.

The closest someone or something has gotten is Faceit. The old system (Before Pro League) had the right idea of clicking on a "Play" button; once you have 12 it puts people in a lobby with an 'attempt' at balancing the teams and lets the players figure it out. But that had a whole host of problems from everyone starting at the same ELO meaning balancing was awful, arguments over who played what, and because people didn't play it often the platform became inactive and degraded . Matchmaking platforms need enough players for balance and sustainability, which is one of the MANY reasons Valve Comp didn't succeed.

Finding the right solution is tough because everyone wants different things. Its why In-Houses are the way people do things right now; people have a lot more autonomy over how they want to play competitive. But that makes it harder to engage for less active or newer players.

I would like to see a proper platform/system is for that gap between Casual and Third-Party Competitive that Valve Comp was supposed to fill. Somewhere like Faceit where you can queue and play competitive in an environment with similar players without having to jump through many hoops to play. For more inactive players like myself, an active list of In-Houses with some descriptions like "Chill", "Serious", "Low-Div" and "High-Div" so one could choose what places suited them best.

FEEDBACK FORM

Its been 2 months since Insomnia 71 and we would like to hear from you! Whether you were just watching online, played in the tournament, just hung out in the viewing area, or couldn't attend but wanted to (if you didn't attend, why?). Any and all feedback is welcome, so don't hold back - we can take it.

You can either put your feedback in the form above, or talk about it in this thread.

Some areas of interest for us that you can help us with your feedback.

• New TF2 Zone
  
• Tournament Format
  
• Viewing Area
  
• Livestream
  
• Insomnia as a whole (We'll try to send that to the organisers)

Edit: In-person part of the study is likely not happening and will likely be online only. Recruitment for the study is planned to take place late Dec/early Jan. Details to come soon.

Hello all, I need a favor

I'm looking to do some research for my thesis in late Jan/early Feb which would be a couple of PUGs/Scrims with six people playing online and six in-person in Portsmouth, UK. Basically what I really need to know right now is how many people locally (or are willing to commute) can play in-person when I make a formal request for participants. A full team, or one with 1-2 mercs, would be ideal but mainly looking for people that can make it down without assistance.

If you need more information etc, its probably best that you reach out on Discord (drhappiness) or in here. I'll try to answer any questions where I can right now.

Shoutouts to Arch, Kirsty, and Jon for another great event under our belt
Shoutouts to eepily and bum for helping organise this event with Essentials
Shoutouts to all of the crew for a smooth event and production
Shoutouts to Sodium for being my admin buddy for the weekend
Shoutouts to AMS, Loris, and Beater for all of their offsite content
Shoutouts to all the players who competed in both the main and casual tournaments
Shoutouts to Player1Events for having us for another Insomnia
Shoutouts to High Viz for a great stage production
Shoutouts to Valve for giving us some cool stuff to give away

If you are playing in the TF2 Tournament or are interested in playing in our TF2 Zone at all this weekend, please come over to the entrance to TF2 Zone tomorrow (Friday 8th) at Noon (12:00pm). Gather around the big red sign saying “Team Fortress 2 Tournament Zone” in the Esports Arena (Hall 4).

We will be running through how to use the TF2 Zone, some general guidelines and rules, and then all relevant tournament information, as well as give players the opportunity to ask any and all questions.

Rules etc will be posted in front of the TF2 Zone, but tournament players must attend, as that is how you will officially check-in for the event. If you are looking for a last minute team, please try to turn up, we're going to try and match people up there.

See you tomorrow!

Players looking to use the TF2 Zone for both official matches and otherwise, in order to make sure people can get on and off PCs as efficiently as possible we ask that you follow some key steps and guidelines.

• If you are using your own peripherals, please swap them after your match(es) with the original hardware.
  
• Prepare your configs/HUDs/etc in advance - use a USB stick or Cloud Storage so you can install things quickly.
  
• Make sure that any installed configs/HUDs are correctly removed after your match(es) so other players can set up their own quicker.
  
• Any non-config changes (like changing resolution or DXLevel) should be reverted before you leave.
  
• If you log into any platforms (Steam, Discord, Websites, etc), it is your responsibility to log out.
  
• If you have a scheduled match, please be on time. Lateness will not be tolerated.
  
• Admins will inform you when you are scheduled to come off your PC, make sure you are finished on time.
  
• For non-tournament matches (PUGs etc), if Admins ask you to stop the match do so immediately with console commands.
  
• If there are other player's configs on the PC not within the game folders, DO NOT TAMPER WITH THEM. You are free to remove any files in the game folders when installing your own configs/HUDs. Anyone caught tampering will be disqualified, removed from the TF2 Zone and/or the Venue, and banned from future ETF events.
  
• Obviously PCs are not to be used for unauthorised purposes (hacking etc.). Additionally, avoid playing other games in the area - its a TF2 Zone (Warmup games like Aimlab/Kovaaks are fine)!

In the event that you finish your tournament match early (quick 5-0, for example), that doesn't mean you will be booted off your PC immediately. You have the PC for the whole of the match slot - if your slot is an hour you have that whole hour. You can fill up that time with anything else: Scrim, PUG, whatever!

As a spectator, if you see there are available spaces in the area and you wish to play TF2 on them, that being anything like PUGs, Scrims, Pubs, MvM, etc. please speak to the admins at the entrance of the TF2 Zone. You must be assigned a seat, don't just sit down. They will inform you of which PCs are available and for how long. Admins will be available all weekend to answer any questions you may have and will ensure everyone has an opportunity to play. Follow all instructions by the admins at all times.