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Signed Up April 15, 2013
Last Posted September 28, 2019 at 8:12 AM
Posts 862 (0.2 per day)
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#67 New Beginnings in TF2 General Discussion

Hey all, just wanted to share that we're looking for people to help us start and run this league! If you're interested, please fill out this staff recruitment form.

SirCupcakeMy issue with your idea. I don't know who it serves. In mind, it neither makes sense for any leagues or players. Leagues' (especially community driven ones like ETF2L and ozfortress) primary focus should not (and isn't as far as I can tell) be attracting new players. A community driven league aims to satisfy the community that's, well, driving it. Satisfying their players base, namely the players who are already interested in the game, is how a league persists. If there are people in your league who have played the game for years and years or travelled to different countries to play, you generally try and keep them around. Thus it makes sense for leagues to try and act to please their playerbase. Now what I don't understand is how it is in any way appealing for any league that has its own unique approach (and all of them do in their own way) to try and become part of a unified TF2. It directly stands in conflict with a league's interests and by extension my interests as a player. Here's why I believe that's the case:

A league wants to cater its players and make the game as enjoyable as possible to keep them around.
I, as a player, what to be heard by the league as clearly as possible.

To me it makes absolutely 0 (zero) sense how implementing an additional layer of discussion for league specific issues is going to help these two points. The closer decisions happen to the player base, the more accurately they are going to reflect the playerbase's interest. Quite literally the best case scenario of adding this additional instance of discussion would be that I as a player get the same amount of representation I would have gotten without said instance. You either end up summarizing opinions from different sources, effectively losing the opinions of those who didn't agree (very much like it is the case in an electoral college or a first-past-the-post system) or you don't summarize at all, at which point I'm wondering what the point of the entire thing is if the best case outcomes the same as it is currently.

In conclusion, I'm trying to say that I believe (and I feel like generally speaking this makes sense) that, if you're accurately trying to reflect the interests of the playerbase a devolution of the decision-making process is needed, not adding extra steps on top. It makes no sense to me how adding this extra step is in the interest of any league, considering it a) complicates the process of appeasing their players, b) actively hinders their competition with other leagues and most importantly c) creates a lack of alternatives and variety which may even hinder the game in the long run.

And at the end of the day, it is your org, a new entity in the scene asking the leagues to adhere to your system of deciding league specifics on a more global scale for benefits that are still fairly unclear to me. If you're already creating a platform for allowing easy exchange between regions and leagues I don't see the need for deciding anything league specific on a global scale. All the issues we had in the past, e.g. the map bullshit at lan, approaching outside organizations, etc., can just be discussed on this platform. That's what I like about it and what it does well. Exchange of ideas and suggestions to help form decisions. It shouldn't try to be anything more than that. Keeping the decisions close to the players. For me, that's what by the community, for the community means.

To be clear, I don't believe that attracting new players should be the main benefit of a global org, though I recognize the two have been conflated recently thanks to the global whitelist. Rather, the main benefit should be to formalize the process by which leagues are coordinating, and make sure that the process involves all stakeholders. Regardless of whether or not this global org is formed and ends up being successful, leagues will still coordinate with each other in some fashion, and previous experience has shown that informal coordination an lead to unintended consequences, such as player voices not being properly represented and decisions being made that a majority of the active community do not agree with. With a formalized process, there's more transparency as to what is happening, and the participants will be encouraged to focus on the most important goal, which is making decisions that benefit the entire scene.

As far as forcing leagues to align with each other, I don't believe that it's within the capability of a global org to do so, nor do I think it's wise. This may dilute the power of the global org somewhat, but it's definitely important for leagues to have the final say on matters so that they can be focused on serving their players above all. Ideally, leagues would participate and contribute to whatever the global org is developing, and would adopt what the global org comes up with as much as possible for the purposes of alignment, but would also make (hopefully limited) adjustments as needed to serve their needs.

Finally, I want to emphasize that the creation of a new league is definitely our first priority. The global org is being proposed at this time because the shift away from ESEA is the best opportunity to make shifts toward a global ruleset as appropriate, but the league should definitely do what is best for the NA scene first.

posted about 4 years ago
#35 New Beginnings in TF2 General Discussion

Hey all! I'm very glad there's been a lot of support as well as discussion around this. I'd like to specifically address SirCupcake's post as he brings up good points that I do want to make sure we address. (I'd like to note that I am speaking personally and not on behalf of the entire group.)

SirCupcakeI guess another thing that slightly worries me is how non-organic this entire approach seems. While I see the benefits for the few of us competing internationally of unifying the scene, I'm just a bit worried that this will somewhat hinder it in the long run. Everyone's aware that it's far from easy coming to an agreement on topics (such as whitelists and formats) and I've always felt the most logical approach to fixing that issue was to provide a (supposedly) good alternative and let the playerbase decide how they feel about it in the long run. Players are naturally going to play, and keep playing, what is most fun. So why not take this as an opportunity to rethink things, come up with a new (or suitable) idea and offer more variety (on a sensible scale *cough*). I can see the some of the upsides of a universal consensus but I'm not convinced it's entirely the best approach for some specific issues.

The goal of this isn't for some select minority to enforce a standard of TF2 that every league must follow for the Good of the Scene(TM). I don't think that's even possible or wise. Rather, the goal should be to have an org that is driven from the ground up that takes everyone's concerns into consideration across the competitive spectrum, even if they ultimately don't agree with what's decided and decide that they want to provide an alternative. (After all, competition will make everyone better.)

Trying to unify the leagues also has huge benefits beyond international competition, in my view; in particular, the differing rulesets between leagues adds an artificial barrier for new players, who may be faced with a different experience depending on which league and region they're playing in.

Having the new NA league driven by the global org seems to be a logical choice given that its decisions are driven by the community - however, if the needs of NA players are really significantly different from that of the global community, I could see that league having limited exceptions that diverge from the decided ruleset (though obviously they should be kept to a minimum where possible).

SirCupcakeI feel like part of the reason that for example the global whitelist was so much of a disaster is how split everyone is on the very specifics of it. There's a lot of differing on opinions especially on a small scale. With the way the TF2 community works, there's always been some who get heard louder due to popularity, sometimes justifiably so other times not. What does your idea of finding fair solutions that please most people look like? I feel like this point is worded very vague and yet incredible difficult to realize.

Following from above, the idea would be to have a structured approach to deciding the issues that would promote order rather than the chaos we've seen in the past. In particular, I'd like to see a committee approach where involved leagues and other organizations each have a number of representatives that are presenting the views of their community. (For example, ETF2L as a league might have four representatives, two of which come from league staff and two of which are elected by their player base at large, ensuring that both the league and the players have their voices heard). This should definitely NOT be driven by a small group of people who have outsized influence over the community.

Having a well-defined structure allows there to be set procedures on how things are decided, but also allows for input from the community to be taken in appropriately. While a potential committee would make the final call on what the global org's recommended ruleset is, the members of the committee would draw upon information from the parts of the community they represent, and the committee could also draw upon information from the community directly by running surveys or running playtests, such that the final decision does represent what the overall competitive scene desires.

I don't think it's possible for everyone to be happy with what ultimately ends up being drawn up, but they should feel like they have a say in what is decided; if that's not the case, then the global org is not doing what it should be.

posted about 4 years ago
#1191 PugChamp in Projects

Harassment and abuse are significant problems within the community that must be addressed.

Anybody who harasses or abuses other players on any ChampGG platform will be subject to a minimum suspension of a week, with increased penalties for major and/or repeated incidents.

In addition, while we don't believe it is within our purview to police conduct that occurs off ChampGG platforms, we do have the responsibility to moderate our community and its members to ensure that people can feel comfortable participating. As a result, we will reserve the right to ban people for off-platform conduct when we feel it is required to protect the ChampGG platform.

posted about 5 years ago
#1187 PugChamp in Projects

Seems like the servers are working again - please let me know if there are any further issues.

Also, MixChamp should be back up now.

posted about 5 years ago
#1183 PugChamp in Projects

Our servers are crashing due to the latest update. I'm trying to figure out how to get them stabilized.

posted about 5 years ago
#1167 PugChamp in Projects

Certificate was renewed but our web server didn't pick it up. Should be fine now.

posted about 5 years ago
#120 bring back pugchamp in TF2 General Discussion

I'd like to make it clear that erynn and I do not condone people advertising PugChamp or purposefully disrupting play on other competing platforms.

That being said, FACEIT and TF2PL are not uniquely victims here. We ourselves have been subject to attempts to redirect people to FACEIT in the past. In general, it happens when players have a strong preference and want to drive more people to their platform of choice. You only really have two options: moderate the chat to remove those mentions (like TF2Center does) or ignore them.

The community can be extremely harsh and expecting everyone to be civil if not positive is a bit naive. Take it from us - we've had to deal with it for over two years now.

posted about 5 years ago
#55 bring back pugchamp in TF2 General Discussion

It's quite heartening to see renewed interest in PugChamp - a month ago, I wasn't even sure whether there was going to be any interest if we did work to rewrite the platform, and feared whatever interest we did get wouldn't be enough to get us out of the deep red.

That being said, I think bashing FACEIT and TF2PL is unwarranted. They were trying to fill a gradually-expanding hole (as PugChamp was built over the course of a couple of months and wasn't particularly well-designed for taking over the global PUG community as it did) and they did a fairly adequate job at it. On top of that, there are many advantages FACEIT has right now, including some that we may never be able to match like access to sweet, sweet VC money and a more well-known platform that can draw in outside interest.

At the end of the day, competition is good because it serves to make the options better in the long run. I've observed and noted down quite a bit about the two systems and their pros and cons, and have gotten a lot of ideas on designing a better system that I hope to implement if we do go forward with rewriting the platform.

posted about 5 years ago
#1164 PugChamp in Projects

Hey everyone,

After many months of planning, we have come to the point where we need to make a decision on the future of PugChamp. While we would like to freely proceed with developing new versions of PugChamp and related services that address current issues as well as introduce new exciting features, there are several restrictions that we must consider and steps we must take beforehand.

To help us make this decision, it would be appreciated if you could fill out this form:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSevRGRgzSJ6Z8sBoPjtlRgrJxw4K2vslaE6KkyGUDy2JLGo_w/viewform

The data we collect will give us a better idea of whether a future version of PugChamp can be sustainably maintained, as well as what directions we need to focus on when developing a new version.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask and I will attempt to answer to the best of my ability.

posted about 5 years ago
#64 Rewind II details revealed in News

If you are the leader of a top-level team interested in receiving an invite to the finals, please reach out to me ASAP (Twitter DM or Discord PM preferred).

posted about 6 years ago
#32 Rewind II details revealed in News
CitricDo we know yet what time the open tournament will start on Friday?

9am.

posted about 6 years ago
#1 ESEA Season 27 Open Discussion in TF2 General Discussion

This is the discussion thread for the ESEA Season 27 Open division.

Congratulations to the Season 26 champions KRIT eSports!

ESEA Season 27 Open Standings
ESEA Open Schedule & Results
ESEA Open Statistics
ESEA Open Transactions
ESEA Season 26 Open Discussion Thread

posted about 6 years ago
#1 ESEA Season 27 Intermediate Discussion in TF2 General Discussion

This is the discussion thread for the ESEA Season 27 Intermediate division.

ESEA Season 27 Intermediate Standings
ESEA Intermediate Schedule & Results
ESEA Intermediate Statistics
ESEA Intermediate Transactions

posted about 6 years ago
#1 ESEA Season 27 Invite Discussion in TF2 General Discussion

This is the discussion thread for the ESEA Season 27 Invite division.

Congratulations to the Season 26 champions (for six seasons running) froyotech!

ESEA Season 27 Invite Standings
ESEA Invite Schedule & Results
ESEA Invite Statistics
ESEA Invite Transactions
ESEA Season 26 Invite Discussion Thread

posted about 6 years ago
#1084 PugChamp in Projects

It has been fixed.

posted about 6 years ago
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