awesome dude, gr8 sniper, I taught him everything he knows about this game so hes probably high invite

I might have to beg for my eseanews admin back, but should I write some articles about standout players in open/IM

I feel like player profiles are kinda lacking

vanilla's a super chill dude, is super dedicated, and a really smart player

can definitely play at the levels he advertised for

pick him up

can cbear/sal give any indication as to which questions will be asked

FUCK THAT SERVER

STILL GIVES ME NIGHTMARES ;_;

oh one more one more:

question 10) on the ugc staff page (http://www.ugcleague.com/staff.cfm)

infinite is described as a "hl head admin"

why is he involved in 6s decision-making for ugc in the first place?

oh one more:

question 9) for a long time, infinite was completely resistant to ending the invite player limit, saying that ugc would like die because teams would ragequit due to the invite players. finally, he acquiesced, and it's been a massive success. the skill level of hl has risen a lot, more games get casted, more players from hl become known as superstars, etc.

could this mean infinite is wrong about what catastrophic outcomes could result in other areas?

question 1) you guys say you wont just let platinum players vote on maps because it's a "community league" and thus everyone deserves a say

in that case, why do admins decide the maps at all? why not make it ENTIRELY a vote?

question 2) can you explain exactly how a free premium deal for ugc 6s would reduce the number of teams in 6s for the next season and harm ugc? follow-up question: do you realize the top ugc 6s teams are leaving for esea anyways?

question 3) you guys constantly deflect criticism on the forums by saying that only a small minority of people post on them, and that people go there just to complain. well, isn't that kind of what happens when you set up a FORUM for discussion? is there a better way CURRENTLY in place to obtain feedback about ugc decisions? if the best way to criticize decisions is delegitimized, how can anyone criticize ugc successfully at all?

question 4) do you guys realize that whether criticism is constructive or not is based upon whether it suggests what you can do to improve the problem, and not how much you like the person saying it?

question 5) infinite, every time people complain about your admin decisions you say something along the lines of "you weren't around when ugc started and have no idea how much good I've done, so you can't talk". how is that at all related to unpopular decisions you are making NOW?

question 6) the current map list was decided primarily as follows: before season 8, the team leaders voted on which maps they preferred from a map pool. the winners were used last season. this season, the RUNNERS-UP from that pool make up the majority of the maps.

do you guys realize how dumb that is???

follow-up question: you guys say that it's better for the map list to change a lot every season, and to not play the same maps over and over again regardless of how popular they are. why is that so important, and why don't other competitive games do that?

question 7) infinite, you have said many times that you dislike 6s because you feel it limits what tf2 is supposed to be. please explain this belief and attempt to defend it to 6s players who scrim like 10 hours a week and feel like the metagame shifts a lot in 6s.

question 8) ugc primarily grew out of tfc, and two teams (exodus society and djedi), two of the earliest hl teams, produced a huge portion of the admins and most famous community members. these teams and players are really good friends with each other and support and defend each other in discussions about tf2. on the ugc forums you will often see a string of 4 or 5 admins posting in a row, essentially saying completely identical things, just to back one another up. infinite consistently says that the tf.tv forums, where he receives massive hate, are just an anti-highlander circlejerk, which is why he comes off as worse than he does on the ugc forums.

in light of all i've just said, which possibility seems more likely:

a) the ugc forums are balanced and have many viewpoints and the tf.tv forums are a big circlejerk, preventing infinite from discussing things reasonably without getting attacked.

b) the ugc forums and its legion of admins are a circlejerk and infinite is so used to an army of yes-men that every time he ventures out of it he's surprised at how he can't act like as much of a stubborn know-it-all as he does on there and assumes it's because everyone is just jumping on the hate bandwagon when it's really just him being a dick.

bonus question 1) how come I get banned from the ugc forums for making a joke about autism yet infinite blatantly commits transphobia by intentionally referring to marisa as a "he" and does not get told to stop?

bonus question 2) why is cold an admin? (you don't need to actually ask these)

yeah the plat hl teams definitely wouldnt switch over

canadian multiculturalism has doomed the trading community

debatable

A wise man (useoftoaster) once said: "Every time I hear the word 'invite' used to describe a player I mentally replace it with 'really good'".

Think about how it would sound if you were whining about one of their players being really good and that being unfair. Ridiculous, right?

Kraka, zalfy, and eulogy are doing really well and they have invite/im experience. Indust, rekuso, cprice, etc. are doing just as well and have never been past open. Good players are good players, chillax. Last season, br0nze lambert and dumbbrain shat on open and they're way less experienced.

Besides, division tends to mean a lot more for the skill level of teams than it does for the skill level of players. An IM team might have some guys ready for invite, some fit for im, and even some that belong in open. But, their team as a whole is clearly IM level. Half the players who jump a division do just as well in the higher div as they did in the lower one, and a lot of washed up ex-invite players do pretty shitty in im (or even open if they're kaytee)

honestly I think after sal's posts the majority of the people just jumped on the opposite bandwagon

so, this article was moved to private (not by me, by someone else at eseanews).

however, after giving it some thought, I think I agree with their decision.

I wrote this article while extremely angry literally minutes after the incident in question. I wanted to use the platform that I had access to to express that anger, to hopefully help provoke a response from ft and to address a few important points about the fragility of our game. my mistake was not realizing that so many of the eseanews readers are not from tf2, and thus airing out drama like this harms our image in the eyes of players from other games.

I still stand by what was said in the article, but it was irresponsible to post it.

that being said, I'm assuming everyone was surprised that I had admin on eseanews to begin with. well, officially I'm a special features writer, I just have been too lazy to do anything. I think I might make a topic asking for suggestions/feedback about ideas on what to write about.

I'm glad that the anger directed at your team provoked you to make an actual response, thank you for giving your side of the story