Nope, you don't even have to have one person paid on the roster. You can add 5 people and everyone pay Wednesday. Schedules will be made sometime Wednesday night and be released early Thursday morning though, so you still need 6 paid up with steam IDs by then, if you wanna be playing week 1.

edit: this is all answered in the town hall group for any others who have more questions

The difference is we're not delaying the season start date. In previous seasons when ESEA extends registration, it pushes back the scheduling of matches as well. CEVO is proceeding with the initially announced start date as planned. Teams who don't pay in time get punished by missing out on matches that they (some of the team) paid to play.

Unfortunately, as of right now more than two divisions doesn't seem plausible because of the size of our prize pot. Like you said, registration's not closed yet so we're not sure how many teams we're even looking at yet. Again, this is the first season of this type of league play-- pay to play, two matches a week. ESEA was once just open and invite as well, same structure. Move some teams of higher caliber up and put the rest in the bottom. It grows from there.

CEVO registration closes tomorrow, Monday Feb 17 at 11:59pm CST. We've also extended it so that existing teams who have rosters made by that deadline time will have a few extra days to get 6 people paid and readied up. If they're not ready in time, they simply won't be scheduled for week 1 matches.

22 new rosters in the past 4 days and now 25 teams readied up! reminder that any teams with existing rosters have an extra couple days' grace period! teams must have 6 players paid with SteamIDs to be "ready" for match scheduling. Week 1 Match 1 schedules are expected to be released early Thursday (2/20) morning so make sure you're ready in time to be scheduled! the item whitelist poll will also be up soon for league members to vote on

CEVO's whitelist hasn't been finalized, an in-house poll will be coming up in the next two days for league members to vote on items

don't worry we've all been there
http://play.esea.net/index.php?s=league&d=register

Will registration be extended or is the Mon, Feb 24 date final?

paying league fees the day rosters unlocked = not a bad choice again
this is awesome, thanks! i'll be promoting this to cevo open leaders to make sure they know about this

edit:

http://i.imgur.com/uXPIDjQ.png

(from another thread)

[/quote]

Open teams aren't working towards a LAN, they're working towards doing well in open and learning how to play the game. So many of you think that this game will "die" without LAN/invite/ESEA yet look at how many brand new names are signing up and paying to play in CEVO this season. Don't play competitive if you don't care about supporting LAN? Are we really that selfish? If anything, higher level players should be trying to foster the growth of the bottom end to ensure that the game won't die. why is it our expectation to have the brand new, largest percent of people support the experienced, seasoned top 5%? Your stance basically says that 50 open teams should sign up so that 24 people can go to Texas for a weekend. As prestigious and exciting as LAN is, try thinking of the others.

TF2 is not dead. And it won't die, as long as we facilitate good competition and experience for new open players. By this community's logic we should give all our resources to senior citizens because they've lived life and deserve it, rather than improving the lives of young kids who have their whole life (tf2 career) ahead of them.

all league fees from S4 will be going towards S5's prize pot. with a conservative estimate of 60 teams x min 6 players x $15 = $5400. And that's a very conservative estimate.

I read the entire first post and thoroughly skimmed everything else, but here's my two cents:

1) ESEA's higher divisions have never looked stronger than right now. Open is empty.
2) CEVO's initially registered teams and a majority of the currently 91 rosters are new players.

From my opinion as a relatively new player in this community, there is a large focus on the upper levels of competition. LAN, Invite players, high prize pools. While inviters and seasoned LAN players have most definitely paid their dues and worked their way up, that doesn't necessarily mean they deserve all the focus. The reason for ESEA's "impending death" is lack of support from the bottom. Yet, have any of you actually taken the time to talk to these people? Do you see any of them on these forums?

As London has said before, going insane with speculation and "begging" for open teams to sign up is ineffective-- especially when it's on these forums where new players either 1) don't go, or 2) are too intimidated to post in. You ask "why would anyone choose CEVO over ESEA" and beyond the circularness of this question, ask yourself what the reasoning behind their actions are. What are open teams looking for? What experience does playing in ESEA offer them beyond a $35 fee and 2 matches a week? You expect these people to join a league based on the premise that it's "the most competitive" and has the longest legacy. Again, how is that supposed to appeal to open teams?

I've added and talked to over 20 new leaders from cevo open teams in the past two days, trying to ensure that they are feeling welcome and up to date with everything going on, since CEVO is in its early stages and has a lot to be figured out right now. I can identify with them, because last season I was one of them. They're not looking at invite rosters and seeing how teams have rearranged themselves. They're wondering how scheduling works, what a whitelist is, and how to find scrims. That's why I created the Town Hall group, and that's why I plan on creating a group just for Open teams to have a place to actually know each other and talk rather than losing a few matches, getting discouraged and disbanding. There has to be a good experience when you start beyond just playing 2 matches a week. If you can show open teams a good time and something worth working towards, then they're more likely to stick it out through losses and try to stay together. That's how you get them to commit, and make them aspire to be like you someday. IM, Main, Invite, whatever.

But nowadays there's so much focus and attention around the upper levels of the community, it barely feels inviting to newcomers at all. How can we expect to sustain a competitive scene if we let the top 5% dominate without working to bring in and keep new players? That's why I volunteered to help staff CEVO. Because I love this freakin game. And again, I WANTED TO PLAY IN ESEA. (Seriously though, do I get my $45 back cos I already paid for three people... different issue.) But if ESEA is no longer viable, then I am willing to work as hard as I can to ensure that competitive 6s will continue. We all should, whether that means playing in ESEA or in CEVO.

I said in another thread, CEVO's got at least 65 teams now with committed payments. If you really expect all these open teams to suddenly up and pay another 6x35 = $210 to register in ESEA because you're begging them to on a forum they don't go to-- I wouldn't hold your breath. But rather, if you're the seasoned veteran who loves tf2 and wants to support competitive, why beg them to pay more when they barely have started the experience so that YOU can benefit? Yes, CEVO won't be perfect this season but ESEA was once open and invite too. The more teams that sign up now, the better chance you have of skipping a step and being placed in main, and the stronger S5 will be in the summer. I have nothing against ESEA. I'm not a total fan of CEVO. I'm an advocate for whatever supports competitive tf2 6s the most. And right now, that is CEVO. So if you love this game, wake up and be honest with yourselves and your teams about your options.

CEVO Registration closes at 11:59pm on Monday, February 17. Existing rosters will have an extra few days grace period to get 6 players paid and readied up if not "ready" by the deadline. CEVO players, please join the CEVO Town Hall group for further announcements and updates.

Good luck to all teams in their endeavors, hope to see you this season.

does anyone know why number of open teams keeps fluctuating? i saw five teams listed last week and now there's only two...

Question: would you guys prefer it if I made this a huge tf.tv thread instead? I would gladly update it, and maybe we could get it stickied to stay at the top. Example of how people should comment on the thread:

Example of how it'd look:
TEAMS LFP
MAIN

• Flash Sharks: LF Scout and Pocket | STEAM | ESEA | CEVO | tf.tv

MEDICS LFT
MAIN

• Quindali: STEAM | ESEA | CEVO | tf.tv

DEMOS LFT
MAIN
OPEN

etc

the group has not been up for a full day yet and there have already been 3 posts in the recruitment forum. this'll probably take some effort from me to get going (which I will start working on after I settle other things) but once it starts to fill out why wouldn't you use it?

i guess maybe the idea's not clear but it's not supposed to replace or copy LFT threads on forums, it's supposed to supplement that by creating an overview of everyone looking for team. as a leader, haven't you ever thought "damn i wish there was somewhere i could go to see every scout LFT right now" or as a player similarly, somewhere to see all teams LFP. this is supposed to be something to help facilitate recruiting so that teams and players waste less time and find each other faster.