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Quoted from tesco

[…]
i don’t know why would you need a cup or a ladder or anything to play highlander – you can get 18 available players, and do a mix, or get 9 friend, and get on IRC to search an enemy….

Wow. I don’t even know how to comment on that. So much wrong with it, It’d be easier to say what’s right with it:

Quoted from tesco

what’s wrong with it? we did a lot in the summer, and had loads of fun…especially, if you can get 18 players, not just wait for an another highlander team on IRC

Because without a competitive higlander scene, it will be as dead as it was before. No doubts at all. Not even any mixes would be played.

Quoted from tesco

and if you get a doublemix?

Then…. maybe ;)

tldr not enough interest

Constructive wall-of-text version:

Quoted from Sheridyn

[…]

Why should ETF2L supply?
– Massive interest as shown by the oversubscribed Community Highlander Challenge

And a massive lack of interest when it came to actually scheduling and playing their games.

I won’t crunch numbers for you but you can take a quick glance at the group fixtures http://etf2l.org/high/group-fixtureshere[/url]. Take the Tiebreakers as an example, as they were between the group’s most active teams.

Notice how many were played at obvious default dates – which means the teams didn’t care about the match enough to schedule it.

Now, look how many of them were default wins or even worse, have been coinflipped! It means neither team cared to as much as show up on the default date, completely ignoring their most important group match!

And this is in a league that has guaranteed prizes for just playing all your matches, even for losing them!

Quoted from Sheridyn

– A lot of teams from the HCC want to continue playing but there is a deficit of oppportunities for highlander teams
– A lot of players and teams really love the highlander format – the statement that “most are not interested” may be true for some involved in 6v6, but I think there is definitely sufficient interest for a league – especially one without the restrictions of the HCC (when it comes to buddies, etc.)

There’s the http://etf2l.org/ladder/9v9tableHighlander ladder[/url], which has no div, date or map restrictions and guarantees Highlander games as long as you schedule some days in advance…

Yet despite all this, there’s less than a dozen persistently active teams on the 9v9 ladder!

If they like Highlander, if they like organized matches that receive attention – why aren’t those teams that “love highlander and want to play more” active on the ladder?

If the ladder was bristling with activity from several dozen teams, you could just point at it and say: “Look at how busy the ladder is, easily enough active teams to fill a full-time highlander league!”.

However it’s almost dead, which just goes to prove the opposite – not nearly enough interest to warrant a league.

Sorry, I had to answer this before I went to bed. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to sleep ;)

I’m pretty tired though, so I’ll keep it short.

tl;dr: Your arguments are very simplistic, shallow and pessimistic.

Quoted from emb

Take the Tiebreakers as an example, as they were between the group’s most active teams.

I don’t know why you would draw the conclusion that those teams are active. Those matches being tiebreakers doesn’t say anything about how active the teams are, in such a minimal group of only 2 (sometimes 3) opponents.

Notice how many were played at obvious default dates – which means the teams didn’t care about the match enough to schedule it.

You mean like most 6v6 teams (almost 70 % were defaults this week)? Even my team got default dates. That’s just a general problem which doesn’t say that the teams are uncommitted.

Now, look how many of them were default wins or even worse, have been coinflipped! It means neither team cared to as much as show up on the default date, completely ignoring their most important group match!

12/38 were defaults. Anyone pretending he’d be able to draw any kind of conclusion from that, completely overestimates himself. Even if you looked at the group stages, you wouldn’t even be able to draw any conclusion as to whether the interest for a league is big enough or not. From this small of a selection (the tiebreakers), under these circumstances, it’s impossible.

There’s the Highlander ladder, which has no div, date or map restrictions and guarantees Highlander games as long as you schedule some days in advance…

Yet despite all this, there’s less than a dozen persistently active teams on the 9v9 ladder!

If they like Highlander, if they like organized matches that receive attention – why aren’t those teams that “love highlander and want to play more” active on the ladder?

If the ladder was bristling with activity from several dozen teams, you could just point at it and say: “Look at how busy the ladder is, easily enough active teams to fill a full-time highlander league!”.

However it’s almost dead, which just goes to prove the opposite – not nearly enough interest to warrant a league.

Alright, let’s compare it to the 6v6 ladder: http://etf2l.org/ladder/table/
How many active teams on there?
Point is, it was very active until the tournament and season 8 started. People can’t be arsed to keep a ladder active, it’s gonna fail every time. Just as I said before, they either stay busy with something more serious and rewarding (a league) or just drop it after a while.

Anyhow, I’m glad someone elaborately brought this up, as I know a lot of people have the same views.

ashkan, I love you buddy but you’re missing the point. :D

ETF2L is run by admins, who have a huge amount of love for the game they play – 6v6 – and want to see it grow. ETF2L was setup with this in mind. I’m sure you could pull in admins to deal with highlander, but at the end of the day its still going to add huge amounts of work for people that have no real interest in it.

Also to whoever said advertising, ETF2L has a main sponsor (Multiplay) who ask for nothing in return, and some google ads on the bottom right of the page that (given what I understand this sites traffic to be) are unlikely to generate any more than £20/month.

It is of benefit to nobody involved with the running of this league to promote highlander in any meaningful way beyond the highlander challenge when to be totally honest, highlander is really just a minor taste of everything good about 6v6.

Actually, I’m going to derail this post completely and go on to make a “go 6v6!” sort of post.

I come from a public server background. I bought TF2 in March 2008. Played the game for about a year and a bit on public servers. Like really properly close nit communities. Originally a group called =]CAC[=, who were just awesome and I loved playing with, then after that fell to bits I formed my own community along with a few ex-members of CAC. That EBC, Epic Banana Clan. Absolutely loved it, met a couple of people involved with it irl at LAN’s, still speak to some of them, and i’d say 3-4 of the members are currently active in ETF2L now as 6v6 players.

When EBC was starting to go on the rockies a bit (public servers not really filling up, people falling out, etc), I got an offer to play a mix with some people as medic. We’d played nG having competed in Wireplay’s 7v7 tournament, and I’d chatted to some of them quite a bit and some of their members were starting their own team, hoping to enter ETF2L Season 5.

I played with them a few times. I loved the fact that it was a small group of really good friends (most of them knew each other irl), we had proper tactics, worked together, the whole thing was just amazing, a far better experience than anything I’d ever had in TF2 up until that point, and infact despite playing for teams just so far beyond them skillwise (looking back we were just so amazingly bad) I’ve never had that much fun in a team since.

We played highlander in EBC, probably a better/friendler group of people than most highlander teams. But honestly, having spent an equal amount of time on both sides of the fence, I do really, really feel that 6v6 is great, public is great with the right community, and highlander is kind of this just annoying middle ground that people came up with to try and pull people towards competitive play.

If that sounds elitist, so fucking be it, but at least I’ve spent an equal amount of time on both sides to come to that conclusion, so don’t go whining because I’ve potentially insulted your opinion.

Quoted from Skyride

ashkan, I love you buddy

Couldn’t you just have stopped there? :D

ETF2L is run by admins, who have a huge amount of love for the game they play – 6v6 – and want to see it grow. ETF2L was setup with this in mind. I’m sure you could pull in admins to deal with highlander, but at the end of the day its still going to add huge amounts of work for people that have no real interest in it.

As already stated, they’d let other people do it. People “who have a huge amount of love for the game they play”. I don’t see how that’ll add huge amounts of work for them (other than the initial setup of course, and whatever maintenance is needed from the site admins). In any case, we’re sitting here discussing the administrators’ willingness to put in work for something new, as if theorising about how a physical object would respond to an applied force. The admins can share their thoughts, and two of them have already done so. Obviously, those two are willing to help out.

ETF2L has a main sponsor (Multiplay) who ask for nothing in return

This baffled me a bit… nothing? Other than promoting themselves? ^^

The rest of your post just goes on about why 6v6 is better than 9v9/7v7, so I’m not gonna comment on that :P
Some people like 6v6, others like highlander. As with most things, it’s all just a matter of taste. I know a lot of people who dislike 6v6 but like highlander, whether it be because they can play their class in highlander, or because they don’t like the pacing and gamestyle of 6v6, or simply because they’ve grown tired of the 6v6 format.

One thing though: How do you pronounce “=]CAC[=”? :D

Quoted from emb

My point being, if you want a 6v6 match, the 6v6 Ladder is probably the least convenient place to look for one.

Sure, I agree on that. However, there is no point in playing the ladder in highlander either. I’m just trying to get as many matches played there as possible to show off at least some of the highlander activity officially. Maybe I didn’t make it clear enough in my latest post, but what I’m saying is that there is much more activity going on outside the ladder. Most of the active teams aren’t even on there. Why only reach out to part of the highlander teams? Why challenge random teams for a specific date and hope they will answer? Why send out an open challenge that in worst case is answered by an American team that wants to reschedule the time, and is on a different skill level anyway? Why go through the administrative hassle? Just so you can gets some points registered that don’t mean anything anyway? The easiest way is to just contact the teams you know would fit as opponents and get something setup, which is what most teams are doing.

As stated a couple of times before, a lot of teams are expressing their interest in a league. There’s even an all-French 9v9 league being started. I know almost nothing about the French scene, but I do know 5 French teams who would be in a highlander league, and apparently, there are even more. Let’s see how that goes, not even I am too optimistic about it, since it’s just aimed towards people who can speak French.

In any case, you can’t judge the highlander scene by the ladder, at all.
I’m not pulling this stuff out of my ass. I haven’t spent hundreds of hours during the last months on something that isn’t there. I’m not imagining people asking me every other day about what they’re supposed to do after the tournament, if there’s going to be a league, if there are going to be more cups etc. I’m not someone to fool myself in that way, and I’m not someone to push for something I don’t strongly believe in. I’m tired of hearing people who are afraid of what might happen if a highlander league isn’t a major success, and who are not deep into the highlander scene, try to prove to me that there’s not any activity, and compare it to American leagues or Wireplay. Wireplay doesn’t even have enough admins overall for TF2. They only have 1 admin (non-dedicated) for 7v7. They have done almost nothing to promote it. Me just asking some friends on other highlander teams increased the number of league teams by 20 % (due to their being so few teams already). It would’ve been a lot more had the tournament been over by then. That’s just ridiculous, and shows the total lack of committment to 7v7 in Wireplay.

I’m not saying that highlander is more popular than 6v6. I’m not saying it will ever be. I’m saying that with the dedication I’ve seen from a lot of highlander people (and the interest shown by the community), giving them the opportunity, a highlander league is something to count on.

I hereby end the discussion on whether the interest in highlander is big enough. As with the game itself (Team Fortress 2), I have not seen any reason as to why highlander couldn’t be fairly popular. I see no fundamental flaws in it, and why it wouldn’t be able to exist in the current environment. If we applied the same way of thinking on TF2 as some of you are doing on highlander, the game would’ve been dead long ago.