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Quoted from Reservoir Dog

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Because nobody is making a profit out of all this, and even thinking something like a pickup can damage tf2center numbers is laughable.

tf2center and tf2pickup have different target audiences. tf2center targets a more broad audience, while tf2pickup targets people who are already familiar with competitive tf2. it would make zero sense to advertise tf2pickup on tf2center because only a small part of tf2center is the target audience for tf2pickup.

Quoted from Russian Guyovich

You’re mostly right, however I wouldn’t say it makes zero sense.

A nice feature to have would be to advertise tf2pickup to anyone who has played a certain number of tf2center lobbies (say 100 or so).

We (at TF2C) don’t want to become an entry-level-only site, and we’re focussing on improving lobby quality at the moment, particularly for higher-end games.

We don’t want to be encouraging the higher level players to leave since the new players then have an even harder time improving, and we become TF2Lobby-esque. We’ve done pretty well (as far as I can tell) at attracting and retaining more high-level players than Lobby ever had, and the next step is to do what we can to retain those players and make sure they are catered for as best we can :)

Make mixes on spreadsheet, ask your friends -> problem solved

Quoted from fraac

Wiethoofd, people are clearly saying that as well as balancing you need the ability to set a minimum skill requirement. You can use the same ratings for this, no?

There’s a number of things being asked for, what the spreadsheet method boils down to is a most-skilled-served-first regular game that will go ahead after a certain period with the best players signed up in that period getting in to play.

The main problem with ratings in this regard is if it’s a closed sub-population in terms of wider participation with the whole population of the service. If exclusion happens when ratings drop, which they will for some players if they only play in these games, then a significant amount of the sub-population will drop out of these elite groups unless they also participate with the service’s general population to keep their ratings up by thrashing scrubs.

They will also find that players in the wider population have disproportionately high ratings because they haven’t been playing against them and beating them to keep them down so players who you wouldn’t expect to have access will start turning up. It would be possible, and desirable, to give high level competitive players an initial boost and a baseline level can probably be inferred from the limited participation records available, but even so over time it would have to be accepted that bleed from the original population would happen.

One solution to soften this would be a series of stepped game groups with descending skill ceilings so if you found yourself locked out of a higher one you could at least earn your way back in without having to start playing in the open population, and the open population would have a stepped series of higher levels to aspire to.

To launch all this in a single big bang installation is quite a challenge. There would need to be quite a bit of effort involved in identifying competitive players and assigning them to the appropriate skill groups to ensure their special treatment. Not impossible but it’s a lot to do for a small number of players.

Quoted from jakeowaty

tl;dr

Why don’t you join the spreadsheet with TF2Pickup? Everyone just join up there, since everything is set up (including the website, server and mumble), so you don’t even have to provide your own shit. At a set time just go there and play. Much easier finding subs as well if there is a need. And everyone is happy.

That could work. why not give it a try?

Quoted from jakeowaty

tl;dr

Why don’t you join the spreadsheet with TF2Pickup? Everyone just join up there, since everything is set up (including the website, server and mumble), so you don’t even have to provide your own shit. At a set time just go there and play. Much easier finding subs as well if there is a need. And everyone is happy.

Sounds good, would mean pretty much anybody can organise one. But does the host have any control on that website? I’m not familiar. And if only one game can be played at once, what happens to the people who already signed up?

With serveme.tf doing so well, plus everyone and their dog having a server / friend with server, is game-server availability really a limiting factor? I could donate a handful of servers for mixes if it’s really a problem.

Shameless plug that all this can be done on TF2Center already (and already is, ala EZmixes).

Sign up to specific teams (as spreadsheet currently implies) – supported
Multiple mixes at once – supported, without need for admin intervention
Hosted mumble server – supported
Automatic log uploading to logs.tf – supported
Lock entry to those signed up on mix – supported (via password-reserving slots)
Control over players – supported (via lobby leader)
Substitutes – supported

In addition to all this, having the games appear on TF2C exposes them to our large and active user base, encouraging people to investigate mixes and grow the userbase. You still have the control of quality that is desired (just don’t give access to the spreadsheet), but more people interested means more people may make the step up.

Quoted from foxy_dave

Shameless plug that all this can be done on TF2Center already (and already is, ala EZmixes).

Substitutes – supported

TF2center Ezmixes sub system is horrible, it is quick yes but the subs you get are mostly entry level players. So it really isn’t something that is implemented.