Hello team, this season we will have a new system for vetoing maps in the regular season. Previously, all 8 maps in the rotation were played in the regular season, and you would ban and pick maps in the playoffs. Starting now the veto system for selecting maps will be used throughout the whole season. You can see the details here: https://play.esea.net/index.php?s=news&d=comments&id=15175

Basically, for every match, each team will ban up to 3 maps (bans may overlap) and one of the remaining maps will be selected to be played. Bans will be locked in 2 days before the match is scheduled, so teams will have to select their bans ASAP for each match, but it will be much easier now as it will be done on the scheduling page instead of match comments/support tickets.

The first concern I can see being brought up is that this will lead to the same maps being played over and over. I think it will definitely lead to some maps being played far less or maybe not at all, which I don't think will be a bad thing. Some maps are less popular for a reason. The other thing that this changes is the map pool no longer needs to be 8 maps, and I think the veto system will work better with 7 maps, or even 9. There will obviously be a lot of debate on which maps should be removed or added, so I'm looking to get some feedback in this thread on the new system and the current map pool. I'm only looking to talk about the new map system in this thread but I'll look to make another announcement regarding IM and other stuff later on. thanks for listening

add me on discord tri#9625 if you need assistance

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/01/02/intel_cpu_design_flaw/

Looks like it affects pretty much all Intel CPUs. The patch to fix it will incur some kernel overhead so I'm guessing it will affect gaming/everyday performance at least a little bit.

The team figures we are looking to reach this season are 50 Open, 25 IM and 9 Invite. We can have more or less in IM but Invite will not be run with less than 9 teams. Currently we have 7 confirmed Invite teams but no teams are stepping up to the last two spots and I don't think it will change between now and reg ending. Some of the teams who look to be Invite-capable are averse to playing in it.

As of last season the cost to play Invite has been lowered to $40 per player which, with the free premium for being on an Invite roster, makes the cost of playing in Invite roughly the same as playing in IM. I know that cost may not be the most prohibitive factor for players who may not want to dedicate their season to being hyper-competitive, and I don't want to bait people with the promise of LAN™, but there really is no way that we will improve the scene or add a LAN event if people don't want to even play at the highest level.

I'm not trying to guilt people into playing Invite if it will be legitimately unfun for them, but we need to have a top level of competition. Thanks for listening.

As you may have heard, ESEA's next season of open will be free to enter and registration has just opened up. Everyone should have gotten a PM on the ESEA site about the number of teams in each division for next season. Those are the numbers I would like to reach because we won't get a LAN without showing some growth in open/stability in all divisions.

I will be referring to the spreadsheet and making my own list for IM and Invite teams. All playoff open teams should be getting an IM spot. Contact me if your team would like an IM spot. Priority will be given to teams who played last season but I don't want to see anyone playing in Open who could be playing in IM instead. If you want an IM spot please make an open team and fill it with your roster. Since there are no fees your team won't be removed and we can get to adding IM teams.

Let's try not to wait until the last minute to register. I can't hate on people for procrastinating but last season we obviously didn't have a reg extension and I'll go ahead and say we won't have an extension this season either. I want to have IM filled and paid up well in advance so that we can guarantee having the division up and alive for next season.

https://play.esea.net/index.php?s=league&d=register

IM teams have been moved up as of Jan 2nd. Everyone get paid up

Everyone please do the map bans in your match comments then open a ticket (under league) with "vetoes" in the title to get the maps set. Thanks all. I can't set the maps so you will have to do this.

This season, instead of a predetermined map order for playoffs we will use a map veto process for each playoff match. This will apply to both divisions of the league (I THINK). Here's how it will work (Team A is the higher seed in this case):

Team A remove a map
Team B remove a map
Team A pick the first map of the best of three
Team B pick the second map of the best of three
Team A remove a map
Team B remove a map
Team A remove a map

With the remaining map being the third map in the best of three.
Unfortunately with an 8 map pool the higher seed will have the advantage of an extra ban (rather than just first selection) but I think the benefits of this system will outweigh the drawbacks.

Regarding the Pyro update, we will go with the same whitelist as ETF2L and ozfortress for now and evaluate all the changes once the season ends.

I'm working on getting the map list fixed asap. We won't be running prolands this season since I'm not sure if everyone prefers that version quite yet.

#85 I don't think it's possible at this point and I don't want to double bait everyone
#87 make an invite team and die in the 1st week plz so we can hit the quota
#88 I added you

We're really close to the registration deadline. At this point I don't think there will be an IM division. Like I said before, the people in charge of the league can only see the number of paid teams in open. It's my fault for not stressing this more. To them, if there are only 3 paid teams in open, it looks like they won't even be able to run an open division.

It's a catch-22 where if teams don't sign up AND pay up in advance, then I can't really convince ESEA to add another division, but people are hesitant to sign up if they don't know which division they'll play in. People have a habit of waiting until the last second to register and pay up, or banking on an extension, which I completely understand, but it doesn't help when I'm asking for things from the league. I was not trying to bait people, which is why I'm saying this now and not when reg closes. I fucked up so I'll work harder next time.

Some other news: We still need 1 or 2 more Invite teams. Invite fees have been lowered to $40. The prize pool is tba but should not see a significant drop.

I will have a significant number of premium codes for open teams, so please don't worry about having premium for the season if that's a concern.

I updated the op. registration won't be extended so everyone needs to sign up for open now now now

Hey guys, tri here. I don't want to make a long PR post about how TF2 is amazing and we should all make it great again. Here's what we need to have a good season of ESEA:

30 Open teams
17 IM teams with every team (mostly) staying alive.
9 Invite teams

I have been asking/begging the important people around if we can have TF2 back at LAN (which is sponsored by Mountain Dew so we can be esports now) and I know that it is possible but not with struggling Open/IM and few teams actually wanting to play in Invite. Right now, I just want to bring back IM, but it will only happen with enough Open teams left over AND all the teams in IM staying alive.

To the people who every season go out and try to find new players and get them to make teams, coach them and get them to sign up for leagues: Thank you for all that you do. If you need help from me in getting the new teams to sign up, please talk to me directly. If you're one of the new teams looking to play in ESEA this season, please contact me also.

UPDATE 9/15:
Looking at the number of teams in the s26 rosters spreadsheet, I don't know if there are enough teams to bring back IM.

For the people who actually make the decision on if a division will be added, all they can see is the number of teams (paid) in open, so please sign up for Open league if you are intending on playing this season. If there is a large enough surplus of teams in open, IM can be added and fees can be refunded/redistributed.

Regarding the Invite fees and prize pools, obviously I don't really have a say in the numbers. I will try to address it at a later time before reg ends.

I assume anyone who wanted to play IM would've hijacked a roster already, since we haven't been enforcing the hijack rule. But if you need a new IM roster then message me.

Client may still be updated tonight but it doesn't look that likely. Big sorry to everyone

If you need a reschedule post the match stats page here (not the scheduling one) with both teams agreeing to a time. You can reschedule up until next Thursday (9/22).

try to avoid scheduling over default times for your division it will cause problems https://play.esea.net/index.php?s=content&d=league_rules_tf2#MT

We still need one more IM team so if any open teams want to be moved up now's your chance