so......... amputator buff, anyone?

I disagree with the idea that we need a community consensus.

The community will be split, but there's nothing preventing anyone from playing multiple leagues for a season or two.

From my experience, CEVO's a solid option - while it's missing a LAN, it has a decent client and cash prizes.

UGC has neither a client nor cash prizes, but is f2p and easy to get into.

It may take a season or two for the community to solidify behind one of the alternative leagues, but the simple decision of "stop playing ESEA, explore other options" should do it.

I think that a different gaming community has drama which now includes a twitch mod/admin? Someone named Horror, anyway. And twitch admins are involved.

So Saber here thinks we should care since we also use twitch and it's major drama in another community. But we're all busy circle jerking over either b4nny and lauren or the ESEA settlement so it comes off as confusing because why do we need some other community's drama?

This one is pretty clever, too : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_I0Jb40Bwy4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAqGUUv-XJs

"med's lit, I'm down" is an undeniable classic. everyone's said it.

Mouse, in a way, I agree with you.

But the thing is, he shouldn't escape punishment because he's a "nice person" and "did well at LAN".

With the phrakture incident and now this it would behoove the community to come up with a firm, coherent stance on how it feels about cheaters. A VAC ban's non-trivial, even if it's for a different game/on a different account. If the community's feel is "as long as they don't cheat in a match", so be it, but the players should still find it reasonable that their demos are reviewed with a little extra scrutiny.

I feel like I have to end this post with something lewd or it'll get ignored. B==D

I read this thread hoping it'd get juicy and went 5 pages feeling like it was pretty dry and then I hit page 6 and now I'm just disappointed.

Like, really. Let's see, we have:

1) insom - confirmed VAC ban (although not for TF2), shitty attitude in pugs (okay, we've all been there), likes to troll and has a really poor choice of words.

2) dflame - 0 VAC bans, accuses people of hacking sometimes when they don't, periodic attitude problems, sometimes trolls, poor choice of words sometimes.

3) breloom, harvest, CharlesChoy, etc - like to stir the pot.

Why are we focusing on 2 and not 1? Like, why is it a bigger deal to call someone a hacker than it is to hack? Why are we lashing back harder against someone calling someone a hacker in PM than someone else photoshopping a VAC ban onto someone's profile? I'm just really really confused.

I sent you this on steam earlier, but I've had good luck with ge.tt - http://ge.tt/

Nice interface, doesn't noticeably limit your up/down, free.

Personally, I want phrakture to respond in part because most of this is huge conjecture, but also because it would be nice to have a statement on record for him that said something like "I would never, ever hack in a real scrim or match" and an acknowledgement that the community will be scrutinizing his play exceptionally hard. You can say "well, of course he knows that", but you're not him. Your cognizance of "cheating in a scrim or match would be stupid and he shouldn't jeopardize his main account like that" isn't his cognizance of that.

What I would like to hear from him is something like "as you can see, I was caught using an aimbot while sniping in lobbies on an alt, I realize that was wrong, I would never do something like that again (at least on my main account)."

Personally, I think anyone who hacks in any situation has a huge lack of respect for the game. Whether or not we can tolerate that as TF2 continues to grow isn't for me to decide, but I don't find it to be out of the question that he would hack in a different situation, if he feels that way about the game.

Also, if I were to hack, I'd make an alt to test the hacks on before risking it on my main account. Given he has at least 5 alts, at least one of which is VAC banned...

Dude, I think I lost you on this metaphor. Can you elaborate in more detail? Maybe a lot more?

I really want to tell you about the embarrassing names I gave myself when I was young, but I think I wrote even more embarrassing fanfiction under each and every one of those names.

Also, are you still looking? I mean, 6s rosters lock today but I could probably find room...

Somehow I don't remember that conversation. Are you sure it happened?

So if I can just ramble about my pipe dreams for a league/LAN type situation.

I'd like to see a community-centered LAN, simlar to GXL, with freeplay events and TF2 events and maybe a smattering of other games. Travel would be reasonably priced if people knew sufficiently ahead of time so that they could book cheap travel (and as it is, some people flew to GXL). Additionally, you'd have some feeling for the potential prize pot if people bought tickets sufficiently ahead of time.

Where my pipe dreams differ from exactly what happens with LANs like GXL is I like the idea of a pre-LAN "season" to determine seeds for LAN playoffs. While every team could guarantee they'd play at LAN, chances of winning first would depend on the pre-LAN season. Additionally, teams that placed, say, in top 3 in the pre-LAN season would get something like a $200 credit perperson to offset travel costs, making some solidly competitive matches more likely at LAN.

While it doesn't solve the cross-country travel problem, it ameliorates it for top teams. Also, regardless of how much is done in that regard, some people won't be able to make a LAN :(.

Honestly, with a monetary sponsor, something like this could be done to supplement the CEVO competition as it is. CEVO already has cash prizes for the winners.

Before you tear this idea apart for being unrealistic, I'll re-iterate that it's just a pipe dream.