Inverted42

Points: 47, Level: 1

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2011 is the year of E-sports for PC, and there is no denying it. What started out as a surge of interest in Starcraft in the Western hemisphere, has turned into one of the biggest paying E-sport tournaments in the world. The NASL.

Now you many be thinking, what does this have to do with Team Fortress 2. At first nothing. The PC community has lost the Competitive Lans that were so prevalent before the time of the Xbox 360 and the PS3. I remember the tournaments with Fatal1ty owning it up in Quake. I remember the Counter Strike tournies for big cash prizes. What has happened to them? They are all gone, or online only now.

The Consoles created MLG, a circuit of Game lans for competitive console gaming. While they held events for PC games sporadically, they always remained a console company at heart. That is until Starcraft 2 came.

Sc2 is now one of their best viewed games in the entire organization, and it is their newest game series. This is just the start for the PC community.


MLG currently only has 3 games played regularly. SC2, Halo:Reach, and COD:BO.
WE will be the 4th. Team Fortress 2 is one of the best competitive games on the market. Our community, while not as large as the blockbusters like halo or COD, has the most enthusiasm I have seen, and is only beaten by the Starcraft community.


Let us make it our Goal to get Team Fortress 2, and our other Favorite PC games into the MLG circuit. Lets spread the word of our favorite games. Lets breath NEW LIFE into this competitive scene.

With Competitive lans comes prize pools larger than anything we currently have in ESEA or Cevo, Sponsorship, Publicity, and our rightful place as the best platform out there.

Contact your favorite Podcasts. Contact Robin Walker, and Gabe Newell. Head over to the MLG Forums and make your voice heard. TF2 is one of the best competitive games with a capability of being spectated(most games are horrible for spectators.) It happened for Starcraft, now lets make it happen for Team Fortress, Counter Strike, Quake or any other PC game that you love.

Let MLG know there is a Demand for a competitive PC Tournament Circuit.

YGC

Points: 432, Level: 8

Activity: 16.7%

I like this proposal but it looks like it will be hard to execute. Maybe we can start by making threads or emailing the big companies? Although we would need some stats of the TF2 competitive scene. Maybe a number of how many teams/players/leagues we have going on for it.

internetexplorer_

Points: 1,812, Level: 26

Activity: 8.3%

What's in it for me? Anything but good new 5cp maps is pure novelty.

Quake and CS are still going with ESEA,CEVO,IEM etc - IEM especially is trying to get bigger and reach a wider audience, but at some point to grow you have to lose credibility. That's why all the MLG events are loaded with kiddies watching Halo while a small crowd of old-school gamers are watching Starcraft 2 matches.

I think you need to be really careful in thinking about what it is you want for TF2. Is it recognition by 'gamers at large' or by the media? More prize money for top-level players who would play regardless? More attention from developers?

TF2 comp players (and the developers) have already put a lot of time into promoting competitive play, and the reality is most people who still care about TF2 are already involved in the comp scene or have pathetic psychological barriers preventing them.

Also, MLG is kind of a joke - I'd hate to find out that a bunch of people had paid $10 to see a grainy, blurred TF2 stream cut out 30 times in an afternoon and be replaced by extine and djWheat commentating a server demo.

Magus

Points: 1,205, Level: 20

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As much as I love what you're saying, it's just HARD. This game is not repected by the e-sports community due to the fact the game is considered as a joke. The game is more about hats than balance and optimization and true gameplay. A game like quake gets better updates now-a-days than TF2 does. It's sad, but true.

If the game could be taken more seriously, I can see it being naturally accepted. But there's a reason it hasn't been already.

Inverted42

Points: 47, Level: 1

Activity: 23.5%

Their Sc2 matches are actually drawing a larger crowd than their Halo and COD:bo matches. This alone is evidence for them to increase their PC scene.

Zigzter

Points: 2,563, Level: 32

Activity: 0%

I dunno...I definitely like the idea of it, but it seems like the comp TF2 community is minuscule.

Like...pick a random TF2 player who has a few seasons under his/her belt. I bet there's a good chance their name would at least ring a bell.

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TF2TV

Points: 306, Level: 6

Activity: 5.9%

wait, am i hearing this correctly?

you guys are saying things like "What's in it for me? ", giving up already because it seems to hard and impossible? not even realising that getting TF2 on a major event like MLG would be amazing, not because MLG is so extremely well organized, but because it would be grand for the TF2 community in its whole! Saying things like this is not reminiscent of the the TF2 community i know and love!

Mayby it is because i am an european TF2 player, but time and time again, on every single LAN event, the TF2 crowd has been the most enthusiastic bunch, every time we manage to be cheering louder, laughing harder, and creating the biggest ruckus every time we can, making people who have never even heard of TF2 become more interested in it!

This is not about you liking competitive TF2, the state TF2 is in, or whatever you think of MLG! This is about what you can do for the game YOU love! So like Inverted42 said:
One man (or woman) cannot make amazing things like this happen, only if we manage to pull together, we can create thing that amaze everyone, and then we can look back and say, this is what WE have done!

internetexplorer_

Points: 1,812, Level: 26

Activity: 8.3%

Sorry but MLG isn't well organized. Like I tried to hint at, the Starcraft 2 stuff this weekend has been a complete failure in many ways, and it only serves to highlight how much better every other starcraft league with LANs/broadcasts is being managed. Earlier SC2 MLG events were pretty bad too, and it was again because of management and promotion issues on their end. They might be or seem like 'the biggest' but that has basically zero relevance with TF2 because it's such a niche game with such a small community.

I agree that the TF2 community is really enthused, but like Magus said it's also tiny. People DO think TF2 is a joke as well, because it's not 'gritty and realistic' enough for them, or 'it's old' (MLG always makes sure to highlight the latest iteration of the Halo series). Also, Magus mentioned Quake - Quake Live is probably growing faster than TF2 because it has a strong presence at the IEM events, and has regular updates geared toward competition and skill-indexing. It also doesn't have terrible performance that degrades further every month. A good chunk of the vocal, skilled and entertaining TF2 players also play Quake/QL.

From my perspective, the best way to help the TF2 community grow is by signing yourself and your friends up to a league, and playing matches...then telling your friends to watch those matches to entice them. That or some kind of marketing strategy tying it in with Quake and the quake community. Contacting your senator and telling them to put +1 on a petition about MLG is mostly wasted effort. The game simply can't move up to something that size at this point - it's too small and basically isn't marketed to anything but existing TF2 players who would spend money at the mann co. store.

It also doesn't help that our 6v6/9v9 competition formats are player-created and player-maintained, and all the associated stuff (like MGEmod, scrim channels, tf2lobby etc) has been entirely ignored by the developers. Starcraft 2 is easy to set up for competition out of the box, and probably so are whatever console shooters are being played next to it at MLG events. Because of this difference, most people think of TF2 as 'the game with the funny guy eating the sandwich and the pyro hehehehe' rather than 'the game with the uber timings and the push-and-pull gameplay.'

Inverted42

Points: 47, Level: 1

Activity: 23.5%

Ok , lots of stuff to address.

Firstly lets go and look at the MLG stuff regarding SC2.

With Sc2, it requires an internet connection to play on Battlenet servers. They do not have lan. The internet in Dallas PERIOD, not just at the venue has been incredibly bad this weekend. So much so that today they drove in a satelite truck to do internet that way.

The Stream is actually not MLG's vault at the Venue, but the fault of the restreaming company that they send the video to. They stream the feed to another company which then copies and distributes it to the website. They chose a shitty company.


2. Next you say each update degrades competitive play and skill. If you haven't noticed, ESEA, CEVO and all the other leagues ban 99% of the new items as they come out. These Updates do not effect the 6v6 Gameplay that we know.


3. Then you go on to say that the console games are set up out of the box for competitive play. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? They have HEAVILY modified rulesets for all their console shooters. They have to. None of the shooters these days come balanced out of the box. In fact we used to have mod tools to do this specifically on PC before the COD series took them away.

Zigzter

Points: 2,563, Level: 32

Activity: 0%

Unlocks aren't the only thing that change TF2 gameplay. :/

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internetexplorer_

Points: 1,812, Level: 26

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Yeah when I say performance degrades I mean that people literally lose fps all the time because the game gets more and more bloated. At some level, good players are basically cast out if they can't afford to buy new hardware or don't want to run the game on settings that look like shit, whereas with quake and sc2 the requirements are lower AND remain stable.

The update content definitely affects 6v6 too, though - look at the kritzkrieg, rocket/grenade ammo reduction and all sorts of stuff. The items that aren't banned are used in their niches and it's really cool.

Inverted42

Points: 47, Level: 1

Activity: 23.5%

This was before they released the low poly models for all the unlocks. Most of the models were all high poly regardless of distance or settings. They have been adding these low poly weapon models back into the game. In fact people have begun to see increases in FPS as they have done this. It's not as bad as you are making it out to be.

And I never said Unlocks didn't effect the game. I just said 99% of all new unlocks are banned from competitive 6v6. Your arguments are very weak at best. Why would you not try to at least see how far we can get this game. Hell ESL-America hasn't even picked it up. Get it on ESL get it into the IEM tournys. Don't just give up on this game. If you can't even try to support it, then why even play it.

internetexplorer_

Points: 1,812, Level: 26

Activity: 8.3%

Who said I was giving up on TF2?

Hawkeye

Points: 5,566, Level: 51

Activity: 8.3%

Inverted,

To be perfectly honest, I really think your out of touch here.. Let's review some facts..

Most of the major sponsors in TF2 have been leaving in North America, (EG the most recent, cannot imaging some of the others staying around to much longer.) The reason for this is simply it not all that profitable for them to field a TF2 team, send them to LANs and so forth. It's quite a bit of expense, so what is the return for them?

The comparison to SC2 is just horrible, different game, different market, and frankly has a lot more mainstream interest then TF2. As previously stated, fielding a player or two in SC2 generates a LOT more for an organization then TF2 does.

When approaching these things, you really need to ask yourself what's in it for Valve/MLG/[anyone else]. When people sponsor teams/events they are expecting a return of something, what is that with TF2 to be honest? The population of players is fairly small compared to all the games listed above, so it's really not going to get market penetration compared to the same dollars spent on CoD/SC2/Halo/CS to be honest. Having everybody mail bomb various people isn't exactly the approach I would take, you may want to have something a little better to propose. Take some serious time and effort to look at that, you might figure out why TF2 never took off already. What you proposing isn't impossible, but would have made more sense in 2008 then 2011.

Now to address some other aspects..

1) Regardless of what exactly is the cause of the issues, the perception is important.

2) The banning of items and the performance issues of each update have little to do with each other to be honest.

3) No game comes out of box ready for competitive play, many simply never attempt (BC2 anyone?)

shdw.puppet

Points: 3,599, Level: 39

Activity: 66.7%

I have to second Hawkeye here, TF2 is a fantastic, fun game... to play. Watching it, if you arent "in the know" isnt all that interesting. The COD series, people can get behind (run, shoot, objectives) same for CounterStrike. Back when Directv had some of these events live and on demand, there was a reason games like TF2 didnt make the cut, CS, StarCraft, certain sports games and quake.

Now I am not into quake, so I dont understand it, but SC2 is easy. The starcraft series has so many followers, the game in and of itself is so ridiculously complex yet so simple on the "big picture" scale that it is accessable to a lot of people. I was at a LAN recently where a lot of people who had never played starcraft (obviously knew what it was and all) were watching these high level master players duke it out, and were fairly excited about it. That is the kind of thing that gets sponsorships. People are willing to watch these casts, watch the advertising that goes with it.

It is all about money. And to get TF2 to be popular like those other games (almost impossible imo) you need to have sponsors see why it is profitable. Start small, casting organizations like TF2TV, Extine, MGE, if they start attracting single sponsors, maybe an add spot here, a shoutout there, make the model more of a TV station, generating content at a loss, recuperating massively from advertising.

That is how competitive gaming as an industry is going to get anywhere, because to be honest, I know a lot of people who would watch it, I know a lot of people who do. But for it to be profitable, organizations need to a.) stop charging for higher quality (shits annoying) and start attracting real sponsors from energy drink companies, peripheral companies, server providers, computer manufacturers, anything even remotely related to videogaming.

Viper

Points: 2,068, Level: 28

Activity: 0%

I'm glad to see people all excited to pump up Team Fortress 2. I mean I love the game more than all the other FPS games I have ever played. But I mean, Brink is just around the corner...

internetexplorer_

Points: 1,812, Level: 26

Activity: 8.3%

and it won't be half of what TF2 is, but it'll probably get more attention because quakelike games just aren't cool to people anymore

Zigzter

Points: 2,563, Level: 32

Activity: 0%

Brink looks dumb as hell, with shitty looking animations.

I don't see what all the hype is about.

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chapdizzle

Points: 1,312, Level: 21

Activity: 16.7%

the issue is the graphics. it looks like a cartoon. while that says NOTHING about how the game itself plays, it's hard to catch an adult audience with cartoony animations. css had the same issue with CGS, because the casual viewer has no idea what the fucks going on, and cgs decided to do 3rd person only, which made the game look like shit and retarded as fuck.

gotta make the game appealing to an average joe, and THEN it'll start getting picked up by large gaming leagues.

lyse242

Points: 1,250, Level: 20

Activity: 8.3%

A good shoutcaster I think can make the game accessible to the "average joe"

internetexplorer_

Points: 1,812, Level: 26

Activity: 8.3%

yeah, I started watching broodwar before I even played because tasteless makes the game so interesting and hilarious

now I play and watch SC2 because he has some kind of mesmerizing spell over me

extine could do it, I think

Proven

Points: 995, Level: 17

Activity: 8.3%

Extine could do it, maybe, but his casts are generally geared for other competitive 6v6 players. And some of his casts that focus on newer items (like the Battalion Backup incident) or on other strats (Highlander games) leave him looking a little out of his element.

And I think he could really use a consistent casting partner that he gels well with.

Zigzter

Points: 2,563, Level: 32

Activity: 0%

Well you can't expect him to go "Well looks like the Medic dropped uber.", and then go on explaining what dropping ubers means.

Besides, there's always this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hts1uTjd6mc

(Which could use a lot more exposure, but it's still there.)

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Jazzy

Points: 299, Level: 5

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The issue with TF2 becoming an esport is a couple of things.

-The skill ceiling is low

-The game is hard to follow/spectate and is unexciting

-The competitive community and pub community have different passions for the game

-The community is unfriendly and has low overall skill.

The biggest issue is that the game is hard follow and unexciting, and the second issue is that the game has a low skill ceiling.

Actually this game has some of the same problems the CS community has in the form of viewers.

CS is overall boring to watch if you don't understand the game, the same with TF2.

CS survives because of its ENORMOUS player base, so people can get viewers, and in general people are following the scene because they are part of the scene. CS viewing is sustained by those that play it, or those that used to play it.

TF2 is the same way, those that watch pro matches are those that are already part of the COMPETITIVE tf2 community. And that is the issue, those that are already interested in competing themselves are watching others compete, while other communities have people that are purely spectators(SC2 is a great example). Most of the tf2 community is pubbers, and it’s going to stay that way, and trying to explain 6v6 and make it exciting to a pubber is retarded.


TF2 is really hard to follow, doesn't have a lot of high and low moments and from an observing commentating view its incredibly hard to make interesting.

Also, how is the average person gonna respect TF2 pros? The skillset they have to learn to be good at this game is so small, very few people respect top quake players skills, how the fuck are they gonna respect some invite scout that shoots shit good.

The issue with TF2 is not the graphics, the issue with TF2 is the gameplay, even vanilla.

You may love the game, but you have to admit that the game is easy to learn, the game is boring to watch, and the game is hard to follow. Top it all off with the community we have and its not easy to see why its a failure as a competitive game much less a major e-sports.

Zigzter

Points: 2,563, Level: 32

Activity: 0%

I find TF2 fun to watch. :/

Granted, the stalemates can bog it down and turn it into a snooze-fest, and a game like SC2 is much more exciting to watch at high level play, but I'm still entertained by it.

(But then again, I play competitive TF2 and suck shit at SC2, so maybe I'm just reinforcing your point.)

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mightymonarch

Points: 1,306, Level: 21

Activity: 8.3%

Both of my roommates, who don't play TF2, thoroughly enjoy watching when I play, be it pubs or matches, so IDK.

Proven

Points: 995, Level: 17

Activity: 8.3%

It's hard to follow the action for the same reason it's hard to follow the action in any team sport video game: Once you get to a sufficiently large team size there can often be multiple fights going on at once. The kill feed is at least useful in this regard, and waaaaaaay more noticeable to a new player than it is in almost every other FPS.

Heck, Starcraft has the same problem at a high enough level, with the players fighting each other and flanking each other at multiple fronts at once.

This is also why chokepoints are so prevalent on pub maps. It brings all the action to one main place, and then as players get better they start to take and hold the flank routes more, which then causes the multi-battle team situation on higher level pub servers.

Wasn't TF2 was objective/control point designed specifically to get the action to center around a few places on the map at any one time, to make it easier?

Basically what I'm getting at is that TF2 does a lot to get people to understand the gist of what's going on, and even I've been able to entertain a few people before just watching me play over my shoulder. But then explaining what's going on gets really complex simply because of what all the classes can do, along with the tactics that go along with it. Looking at even just MLG games, Halo is simply kill the other side enough to spawn them away from the objective, and gain ground and resources to make it easy to kill them more than they can kill you during deathmatch.

internetexplorer_

Points: 1,812, Level: 26

Activity: 8.3%

A simpler way to put it is you have to know the game to appreciate spectating it.

I've been sitting around playing a duel in Quake Live countless times, and had people glance at it and say "so is this just like...1v1?" Considering that's the game mode where competitive FPS playing spawned from (look up the early quake tournaments where thresher won Carmack's ferrari and stuff..) it's pretty hilarious. But the point stands - to non-gamers (or to more casual types) the really nitty-gritty stuff we take for granted is just that. In the case of Quake, most peoples' passing interest in it consisted of them playing a free for all with quad damage and a 70 degree field of view (unheard of in my world!), so they have no concept of why anyone would want to play a 1v1 duel for 10 straight minutes.

I really think all it takes is a good commentator to make it exciting, though. You don't have to see the scout fighting in the valley if the camera is showing the bridge/choke (on badlands) and the commentator says "so the heavies and the medic are trying to hold the chokes while the scouts flank through the valley and look for openings that the heavies can exploit." It's all about knowing how to explain the game so that you aren't lost in the details, and the main idea gets across (the team is split in two and they're trying to push spire while defending mid). I brought up Tasteless and SC2 earlier because Tasteless and Artosis both do an excellent job of explaining the higher-level stuff in a straightforward way. You don't have to know how bunker rushes work to understand why they're devastating if the commentators explain it to you. Then the next time you watch (because you're hooked, right?) and you see a bunker rush, you remember the explanation and you get excited.

SuicideSwitch

Points: 640, Level: 12

Activity: 8.3%

I know this threads been dead a while but I read this blog post and I think it makes a sound case for why E-Sports becoming mainstream has a huge wall to overcome, and its nothing to do with the games themselves. http://www.toptiertactics.com/2011/0...-anytime-soon/

kuza

Points: 2,021, Level: 28

Activity: 8.3%

I don't know why you guys even bother to respond to jazzy, his opinions are always so off. It's liek he's trolling uncontrollably.