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These words will not be pleasant, nor, I expect, be received with completely open ears. There is a problem within, or should I say, with the community. It is only at LAN that I am reminded that the TF2 community is not full of selfish people. We only show what we can be at our best when we meet face to face. As a competitive game, TF2 is looked upon as joke by many other communities, this reputation is due to everyone in the community and has nothing to do with the game.

Lets get to the heart of the problem straight away. The community is made up of self-interested people, who are unwilling to do anything that does not directly help themselves or their teams. Starting with in-game attitudes, we have seen a greater increase of bad manners and a lack of respect for others in the community. Even at the top of the scene we have players like Knoxx, who even in the grand finals of i43, in front of people outside our community, to comment on how Infused got a “free round”. There is ever more bind-spam from players, which can be ok if it is a positive comment, but mostly they are simple, childish taunts. On match pages there is ungenerous behavior and petty squabbles to be found everywhere.

Onto issues raised, some inadvertently, by the newly formed TF2 Podcast, Pirate Radio. Starting off with the complaint about bad default dates, although this is true, it is merely sign of a larger issue, one that was also touched upon by the same Podcast. Although I respect the admins for their efforts and admire them for their dedication, there is a lot of ineptitude in the ranks. It has taken this long for even a hint of prize money to enter into what is the largest TF2 league in the world. Sponsorships should have been more pursued much harder and actual cash prizes would do wonders for attracting sponsors for teams, even people from other games. As ETF2L is a community league it is run by people who have to idea how to run, what is essentially, a business. ETF2L has done more harm than good for TF2, it is a place isolated from the rest of e-sports, we love it because it is our own and it is killing us. Now with ESL dropping TF2, it just shows how little we care about the game in the long run, most of the community thinking only short term about themselves. ESL had massive problems, but it would of help TF2 so much. People blame Valve for not supporting the game competitively, but we have done nothing as well, become more self-involved and less open.

A point that was rather inadvertently raised by Greg on the podcast is an example of the problem. On his rant about admins he mentioned the Cup, how it was a joke BECAUSE no Prem teams joined. He wanted the admins to make an invite cup and reach out to the Prem players to ask if they would play. DJC scornfully said that he did not want his maps picked by some div three player and that their feedback was useless. These examples show two of the most worrying signs for TF2. First is that Prem players are some of the worse for getting involved in the community. The Prem teams all know each other, they could have arranged it among themselves to all enter, instead, like four year olds, or like someone with a Dependence Entitlement (look it up) they wanted admins, nay, expected the admins to do it for them. This level of arrogance is astounding to me, it hurts so much to see the players who want the prize pots the most be the most unwilling to contribute themselves. On DJC’s point, the same issue arises, the Map Testing Group that was setup to help new map makers get feed back and improve their maps for competitive play, is deviod of anyone Prem players and very few div one or two players as well. I would even hold them by their hands, as they seem incapable of organising themselves it seems, and organise the mixes for them. But not one has approached me about it. The same story is true of the Newbie Mix Group, what could be better than the Pros of a scene to show that they are willing to help new people. But the only one was Exfane, a rare White Knight, the rest are no where to be seen.

This problem of entitlement or laziness extends to most people. There was a rallying cry for writers on Cadred, something that the TF2 community rejected, in a, it is us against them, mentality. It would help bring new players into the scene, more sponsors, better LANs and yet no one would step up to the call. It takes little time or effort to help, yet no one stepped up.

The Podcast also pointed out that VanillaTF2 was the face of the community, so critised the posts maybe by Pledge and Byte for showing an ugly side. But you have to ask what it was replaced by. The next post was a link to the Podcast, where three people rip on others in the community, provide no solutions and represent the community in the worse possible light. The combined hypocrisy and stupidity that went into that thought is startling. The fact that a lot of the people like the Podcast shows we prefer to be mean-spirited, rather than supporting.
The newbie Christmas Cup offered me some hope, with players volunteering to help, a lot of them Prem, some going beyond the call of duty. But even this was tainted by the number of people so unwilling to even consider it. I stick around in TF2 for the people who are willing to put in the work: Pinky, who has helped and partly taken over the New Map Testers, Monkeh and especially Chaplain, who did so much work for the Newbie Mix Group with the Cup in particular, Greg and Admirable who wrote for Cadred. It is sad to see less of these people and more of the people who just do not care.

So take this as a plea or a warning, it doesn’t matter as long as you change. This applies to everyone, if you do not want to see the game die take some responsibility and grow up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3jFTzhdZF4

tf2 cartoon game bad graphics noob game

tl;dr what have YOU done for the community?

I thought so.

On the subject of the newbie mix cup; Crash and Chaplain did amazing amounts of work, especially considering the few resources they had available; Steam groups and Pastebin. If anything, they deserve a McGuyver award and not the shit they’re getting for the cup failing (because that wasn’t entirely their fault, rather the lack of contribution from others). Yes, it was a bit badly organised, but as Crash is pointing out in his wall of text above; what have YOU done to help them? Is it lack of creativity or mere laziness that nobody else has thought of doing a newbie mix cup? As far as I’m concerned, we should do this more often. Monthly even. With more help and better resources this would be amazing.

Regarding etf2l default dates; I don’t know what was said in the cast as I didn’t manage to listen longer than 10 seconds due to the cringeworthiness of it, but yes, default dates may have been bad, late, awkward and ..lacking.
But spend a minute thinking about why there are default dates in the first place..
We set default dates because teams do not bother to arrange their own games! You want to play in a league but you do not even bother contacting your opponent to get your game sorted. What do you expect of ETF2L? We can’t magically cast a PICK THE PERFECT DATE spell to satisfy everyone. The worst part is that, when teams get a default date, they have the guts to complain about it as well! Fucking ridiculous.

Agree with most of that.

We have a fair amount of prem teams moaning about “div 6-3 admins” (correct me if I’m wrong) but I don’t see any prem players applying to be admins?

Quoted from Spike Himself

tl;dr what have YOU done for the community?

I thought so.

On the subject of the newbie mix cup; Crash and Chaplain did amazing amounts of work, especially considering the few resources they had available; Steam groups and Pastebin. If anything, they deserve a McGuyver award and not the shit they’re getting for the cup failing (because that wasn’t entirely their fault, rather the lack of contribution from others). Yes, it was a bit badly organised, but as Crash is pointing out in his wall of text above; what have YOU done to help them? Is it lack of creativity or mere laziness that nobody else has thought of doing a newbie mix cup? As far as I’m concerned, we should do this more often. Monthly even. With more help and better resources this would be amazing.

Regarding etf2l default dates; I don’t know what was said in the cast as I didn’t manage to listen longer than 10 seconds due to the cringeworthiness of it, but yes, default dates may have been bad, late, awkward and ..lacking.
But spend a minute thinking about why there are default dates in the first place..
We set default dates because teams do not bother to arrange their own games! You want to play in a league but you do not even bother contacting your opponent to get your game sorted. What do you expect of ETF2L? We can’t magically cast a PICK THE PERFECT DATE spell to satisfy everyone. The worst part is that, when teams get a default date, they have the guts to complain about it as well! Fucking ridiculous.

Nice of you to say, but it was party my fuck up, in various ways. I have learnt next one will be better organised.

Quoted from Spike Himself

[…]

This is a ridiculous standpoint anyway. You don’t need to be good at games in order to be able to run a league or code the website. Besides we have forums where everyone can post and we create feedback threads for almost anything we do.

Yeah I understand and agree with that.

I think its based more upon more when you have to make decisions based upon how the game is played?

Quoted from lolage

[…]

Yeah I understand and agree with that.

I think its based more upon more when you have to make decisions based upon how the game is played?

As this will inevitably bring up the unlocks discussion, I have to admit that the arguments brought up within the admin team that were against a vanilla ruleset have not in the slightest been ridiculous or unfounded. In fact they had little to do with gameplay for the most part. They were mainly points of discussion that the “louder voices of prem” simply disregarded because it did not agree with them.
What these arguments were is not for me to share, though, nor would they belong in this thread.
(with that said, I am personally in favour of a vanilla ruleset. inb4 continuity quote)