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Dear ETF2L,

this is an open letter to the administration and members of ETF2L.
For some time now pretty much every day we can participate in the seemingly endless discussion on the forums: “Unlocks / No Unlocks”.
We discuss the advantages and disadvantages of them, but also how we can grow the TF2 community and just general interest in TF2 as an e-sports title.
Already discussing the smallest details in unlocks and metagame without considering any of the necessary steps beforehand.
There seems to be no common plan as to how we can achieve our common goals.
I would like to start with suggestions, criticisms and recommendations and invite to an open discussion.

One of the most common issues that we face at the moment is that the spread between Public TF2 and Competitiv TF2 is too big and the absence of unlocks in our current system could deter people interested in the game.
I think here lies one of the greatest errors in the present discussion.
In order to generate more interest in ETF2L and competitive TF2 in general we have to advertise where people play: on pub servers!
We should reach out to existing communities and ask them to let us advertise on their websites/servers.
we should have our own public server showing people our community and playstyle.
I don’t think we should just convince a few pub players and hope that they have enough friends to tell.
We can’t afford to have an ETF2L pub server resticted only to ETF2L members by some plugin.
Why dont we make a partnership with with that guys that are running the tf2lobby system to “farm” the guys that are actually at the first step from pub to comp?

ETF2L and VanillaTV have made great progress in organizing and covering matches.
Today we have a steadily growing number of viewers as well as streamers drawing more attention to TF2.
One important thing TF2 is lacking is prizemoney.
At the moment we are lucky enough to have a few community members who generously provided money for cups to sweeten the competition and make people give that extra bit to be “THE BEST”.
Will we only play for mousemats and backpacks in the future?

At the beginning of this year we entered into a partnership with Thermaltake and advertise their products / site on the Main Page.
And there is also other advertising running quietly in the background.
ETF2L has no Spending on servers salaries and cups – the latter is always “outsourced” instead (see Excello, dignitas).
Where does the money go?
Couldn’t this money be used to increase the prize pool of ETF2L and thus making winning a season a lot more desirable?
Couldn’t this money go into regular “in house” cups to the community which would be more potential streams/casts/viewers?

Right now we could be at a turning point for european tf2.
i46 will be the biggest TF2 LAN to date, with american and european teams facing off and getting a lot of attention.
This attention should be used to get a lot more people to ETF2L and competitive TF2.
If we don’t find a way to make TF2 more attractive then wel will lose a lot of good teams after i46 and with that TF2 fans just because their heroes are not playing anymore.
What reason is there to be the best just because you’re next on the skill ladder and the top people are just too bored to play?
Only when that happens is it time to discuss the necessity of unlocks and their impact on tf2.

If i can help the etf2l to achieve any of these goals i will gladly do it,

Cheers Ipz

Why dont we make a partnership with with that guys that are running the tf2lobby system to “farm” the guys that are actually at the first step from pub to comp?
caus the dude running tflobby was online long time ago, so I doubt its doable

I don’t want to go off on a rant about ETF2L, but I’ll just say they have proven completely unwilling to incorporate a serious competitive atmosphere so we quite simply need somewhere else to play that will do so. LAN(finals)/prizes are secondary here to something that segments the top players and makes their status look appealing. I can’t help but feel that this ship sailed when we hung ESL out to dry, I can only hope that i46 can do something to rectify this situation.

This doesn’t come from some desire of mine to be an internet hero and have random guys on the internet suck my dick. You only need to look at the american scene – they have substantially less players in 6v6, but substantially more viewers. On a DAILY basis the top players from America will get their personal streams watched by the kind of numbers VTV expects from a semi-high profile cast (pre twitch front page figures). One can argue this is partly to do with unlocks, but I personally put it down to the fact that they are backed by a serious esports organisation which makes their players look professional, which gives birth to admiration from prospective fans. If it was all down to unlocks then they would have more players than we do, but that isn’t the case.

Edit: I should say that I feel this could in part by achieved by ETF2L, however they remain so desperate to make sure everyone is on an even basis in all aspects of the league that this just isn’t possible. That’s not a bad thing, but what TF2 needs to continue operating as it does (or become better) simply does not fit into the model they’ve set out.

Is there an e-sports league in Europe that could take on tf2 and host an invite tf2 league similar to the US? Other than esl?

Contact ESL.

Inb4 ESEA invite.

Also +1 etc

Quoted from kaidus

I don’t want to go off on a rant about ETF2L, but I’ll just say they have proven completely unwilling to incorporate a serious competitive atmosphere

Yeah, they’re only the biggest comp tf2 league in the world. Haha.

I can’t believe I logged in just to reply to that. fml

The real issue with TF2 is that people will post in this thread and think they’ve helped. Nothing will happen and everyone will feel like they tried.