is this an option? have I been a sheep this whole time? Should I break the chains and forego the preheating step that has oppressed me?

Deleted, I'll hold that L.

Yeah this is sort of what I thought was going on. The insistence that "Sidular is a company" is misleading in this case. That site lists two contributors, you and one other fellow. You can call it what you want on paper but this is not some separate entity like you seemed to imply, this is your project that is legally separate from you but for all intents and purposes is a 2 man operation with you at the helm. For tax purposes it may be distinct, but this is just your money.

My concerns about somebody's private capital being what sustains the NA scene are valid I think. RGL has problems, but I actually think it makes a lot of sense for the main league to be fully self sustaining financially. I'm not sure if RGL turns a profit at the moment, but it is currently being run with the goal that prize pools, lans and all of these other services are covered by league fees. That means lower prize pools, but it also means that we aren't reliant on the whims of some rich kid.

RGL's unilateral control over TF2 in NA kinda sucks but at least there isn't one guy at the top who can just threaten to pull out if things aren't run exactly how they want. That might be a bit of an unfair characterization, but its one I feel like I have to make when I hear the way you characterize RGL.

At the end of the day running a league is really hard work and people are going to be unhappy with you. You seem to have a bone to pick with RGL and that's reasonable, but if you're going to try to fix the issue I think you need to make an effort to actually identify what the issues you have are. You shit on RGL pretty hard in that news post but don't seem willing to get into details. Like this whole thing is framed in a way that implies that its a lack of features and services? I don't buy that.

Why exactly do you feel that we need another CEVO? There are plenty of valid reasons, but if you don't outline them I am going to assume you wish you could say slurs in matches.

Pick up Games
RGL has this.

Automated Scrim Scheduling
This doesn't exist but for good reason. I could be off base as I haven't played in a while, but I have lead and scheduled for dozens of teams and would have no interest in this. Maybe its good, but I think this is one of those things that doesn't need to exist.

Global Server Network
na.serveme.tf. RGL also can provide match servers now.

Cups, Tournaments, Seasons
RGL does this.

Prize Pools
The financial transparency statement will inform my opinion on this for sure. If you're operating at a loss and that money is from a separate corporate entity I am confused about that company's financial incentive. Is there a mysterious company that is willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars with the hope that TF2 as an esport could become profitable? League of Legends as an esport isn't profitable. Companies do not exist to lose money.

Match Making Service
faceit

Host Your Own Stuff
challonge, start.gg, etc

Advanced Analytics
more.tf, trends.tf

All of this exists already either in RGL or with third party tools. The problems people seem to have with RGL often stem from how central they are to the NA scene and disagreements with how RGL leadership make decisions that end up being unilaterally enforced across NA tf2 as a whole. I don't think making a different RGL that does the same stuff but aims to be even more centralized is a very well thought out idea.

Hope its cool and dumping what is clearly somebody's independent wealth into TF2 is pretty hype. That said the amount of "will be" I see in this post makes it sound like you have a design doc with a list of existing tools you plan to repurpose except with you in charge. If that isn't the case and you plan to rebuild all this stuff from the ground up (not just reskinning more.tf and the dozen docker image on vps solutions that are out there for automated match servers) I am very skeptical that a release date of this year will actually happen.

I'd usually say competition is good for stuff like leagues but I think realistically you either split an already very small scene for no good reason or we end up upfragging "TFCL bad" posts instead of "RGL bad" posts in 2 years when the new league that planned to be an even more centralized authority than RGL turns out to be... an even more centralized authority than RGL.

I am glad my forehead was present for this historic moment

https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/squadron-eighteenwheelers-lead-way-down-260nw-650334397.jpg

Guys this is just the price we have to pay to eradicate woke! Please try to remember that as the world plunges into poverty and the hopes and dreams of you and your loved ones are shattered. The life of scarcity and debt that awaits you and your children will own the libs and that really makes it all worth it.

Oh the no foreigners rule is news to me. That's insane, high ping really just affects the player with the high ping. Consistent high ping on an enemy team is basically a non-issue. As someone who has gotten facerolled by SA teams I don't think ping was ever a contributing factor. Let the brazillians cook.

$650 is very literally 40 hours of work at 15$/hr and there are 6 of you.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/60/Shinygoldfish.jpg/1200px-Shinygoldfish.jpg

every clip being a last fight where heavy is good or the other team throwing so hard it looks staged is very funny

I use AI for tedious but simple stuff. Regex, excel formulas, python list comprehension, stuff like that. Usually a 1 liner of some sort that I can thoroughly test without too much effort. Sometimes when I have to implement a new concept or understand some terminology AI is nice as well. "What is X in the context of Y" sort of thing. If the stakes are low that can be a lot quicker and more effective than reading the docs, or it can help you to narrow down what docs you need to be reading. I do not trust AI to be more than like 70% correct even on a good day, so I really don't like using it for anything other than getting a jumping off point or generating something that can very easily be tested and corrected.

Keep it out of art.

https://web.archive.org/web/20250220040934/https://steamusercontent-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/56961211789843601/D8B4BE3D988E2A9C966EAEB65DF8DBD7BD9B3AA8/

this post doesn't have enough Defender of the Fatherland Day spirit, tonight you will be visited by 3 ghosts.