WELCOME BACK JAKE !

when you truly finish configuring your config/hud exactly how you want it after spending a long time figuring it out

Speaking of pubs, do y'all want to play a pub tonight that's listed in the Servers tab?

Whoever's bored and just wants to play around could meet in like 30 minutes from this post (around 6:30PM Eastern) on this server:

Looks like no custom downloads and server has in title "Nocrit Nospread NoCrash" in it's name. So it seems pretty good.

Once starting this video, it was hard for me to stop watching. Their commentary throughout was quite nice to hear and some of the bits were interesting. It may be futile, but it'd be cool to still see the same for Episode 1 and 2 to see what more they may add in terms of some of the parts they developed/worked for extensively.

A caught VAC banned cheater should really be either a permaban or at least 10 years (which is practically a lifetime ban).

If the kid responds back and actually apologizes, they should have a reduced sentence. If they don't, then it's actually fine as that would mean they don't care enough to apologize and don't care to play competitive TF2 through ETF2L which works out.

With all the recent happenings/mentions in the past few years in regards of exposure of certain people in the community, the unfortunate experience that some players were victim to, and the overall "toxicity" (for this post, summing it up as the use of racist, sexist, homophobic slurs, and being a rude jerk) that has been around the community throughout all these years (and some of RGL bans of them), the need to pay attention to these issues and take action only becomes more critical for the community in my opinion.

Tagg is a great guy. I remember some of us playing Xonotic with him and he was having an enjoyable time as we all were, he's a genuinely cool dude from my perspective and it's truly sad he had to go through what he went through in his video (aside from the TF2 weapon balancing). For as long as I could remember and as well as all the other old TF2ers, toxicity has always been around for years and will continue in TF2 or other games. Back then people were "tolerant" of it while not being toxic themselves and there are still many today that are like that. That doesn't mean toxicity is okay though in the end. Yes, it does happen in games like LoL, CSGO, or any other game, but those games also have large playerbases/communities and if they lost players because of toxicity, they'll still always have many players. For the TF2 competitive community specifically, we're not as "huge" as those other games and in my opinion every player counts. It's also especially easy to lose new players that are just trying out comp TF2 if they encounter "toxic" players in their first few games and they start to quit because of it. Same goes for long time players that eventually get tired of it. And if anything, this video from Tagg may unfortunately discourage some players from trying or considering competitive TF2.

As mentioned before and despite all that has been happening in the community, the question still stands, will anything get done about this? Or just like all the other videos/threads/happenings from what the community now knows, will it just be ignored until the next thread? As for what can possibly be done about this, I'm sure people could think of all sorts of ways to work towards making the community a less negative experience. While many are opposed to RGL, they have already taken the initiative a bit in an attempt to try to show that this negative behavior isn't okay. Forum moderators could start cracking down more on certain posts/people. Players could start being less of a jerk and the nice/tolerant ones can start to speak up against those that are being toxic.

Also, a shoutout to all of the nice players/contributors who happen to be reading this that have stayed all this time, put up with the bullshit, and maintaining a more positive experience for the game and other/newer players. While competitive TF2 is a great attraction in terms of ruleset, it's people like you that really make it far more enjoyable and worth staying, and this community would be utterly worse without you guys. Thank you for being awesome.

Can't wait for the speedruns on this one, will also save me some money.

I'm glad I made the cut.

Lippu by ahxnxa and ovo
Youtube reupload is blocked in my country so here's this:
https://www.igmdb.org/?m=76

The Contenders 2 by entik:
Part 1 & 2 are on Youtube, but Part 2's music is gone, entik's twitch vod will have the full movie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jx6h70gDL3g

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/46707515

Indeed. The same also went for lobby/pug services in the past. In the end, the community will/usually decide which will end up sticking around, usually the distribution could be like 70/30 or 80/20 and it winds up forcing the community to follow where the crowd is.

Also as mentioned in the OP:

I don't quite see why people continue to say it's "too late". Sure RGL announced itself prior already, but NACL still has some time to further establish itself and release more info.

If anything, both this and RGL could survive and work well in certain ways. It seems that RGL has the money so those like b4nny and etc. will be playing in that league. But will the league allow the players to play in the way that they prefer in terms of whitelists, maps, match formats, and etc. ? RGL could easily be the money league that doesn't quite have a format that people agree with while NACL could be the league that can provide a way to play that the community might prefer and perhaps be more "fun".

Anything could happen. It's still a bit early to make calls, but things will eventually/hopefully sort itself out in the next few months and we'll all see where it goes. It's unfair to put everything into RGL just because they announced first and ignore/neglect other leagues that are trying and in the end just trying to help and haven't been given a chance.

Let the best league win.

Hopefully, the staff, service, and satisfaction between each of the leagues will be compared and be a ultimate decider on which will succeed ESEA. It'll be interesting to see which players pick what league and for what reason.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50rlHVe6g9Q

After trying to catch up(probably missed quite a bit anyway) on the whole league stuff on which will be the new replacement, I think it's important to consider a lot of things.

First, I want to say that with ESEA ending its ties with TF2 as a league, this is possibly a great opportunity for the NA TF2 Community(or the whole TF2 community in general) to have a new beginning with a new league that can/will hopefully do better than ESEA during its run and perhaps even open up a chance to gain new players hopefully. Two important things to remember is: 1. What does the community really need? 2. Who can and is willing to provide it if possible?
I'd say #1 is highly important as it may ultimately lead to what people might choose to do, here's a short list of what I think the community could use in accordance with a new league:

A. A very organized, dedicated, knowledgeable, TRUSTWORTHY, and fantastic team that is highly likely to ensure good quality and not be questionable(as we known of in the past...)
B. Willing to communicate with the community and take them into consideration.
C. A very decent well-running functional website with a great UI in order to actually run the league and represent information.
D. Connections with a great production team/casters and of the sorts, kind of tied with A.
E. Multiple available decent servers with an actual working STV.
F. Willing to communicate with the community and take them into consideration.
G. Actual possible unity(the more unification there is, the better for games like TF2 and such).
H. Willingness to improve, as maybe they don't start out well at first or have X, but are willing to expand and provide it in the future.

There's probably a lot more, but do note I didn't list "LAN" or possible LAN. It's important to consider that you have to think about what's most important and I know that some leagues or people have this idea of trying to have a TF2 LAN or some eSports ideas involved and such, but there are also many people that are done/past that and just want to play the game, but hey you never know, maybe if we can first establish a good community-run league then there can always be plans for LAN in the future. Personally, I think it's more important to establish the most unified "go-to" league that has a lot of the aspects I mentioned and is more community-run, because a community can last longer in the long run than a different provider(ESEA, ESL, Faceit, or etc.) as you never know how long they might last or continue to support the game.

I haven't checked out all these new leagues that are popping up, their site UI, and what they can provide/do for the community, but one other important thing to consider is the players themselves and which league they decide to go with. We're still generally a small community with a limited number of possible teams. It is not good if a community as small as competitive TF2's splinters. An example, back then after tf2lobby ended, people were splintered between tf2center, tf2stadium, and tf2.gg for a small while, with all of them having great UI and potential, but just an unnecessary splinter. I'd think it'd be cooler if some groups/leagues collab, as someone mentioned having RGL+twiikuu team work together(which can be good as we lessen the # of possible splinters and can put more people working together to be able to handle providing the service).

Anyways, I hope in the end it all works out and the community be will be able to settle in a fine league run by a great team. Just remember to consider what the community really needs to survive and be able to have them play the game they love.

Used to be between:
20 pc McNuggets
2 Plain McDoubles
2 Cheeseburgers

with an additional fries + large drink, but now I just mix it up and try to utilize the McDonalds app (which as of lately included/includes $1 Large fries).