"this will be either the first of ma[n]y Thursday night events or the last event we will attempt on theSGL for Team Fortress 2 (which for me would be a crying shame - but if teams simply don't want to play there is no point in banging our heads against a wall about it)"

Yes.. it would be shame to discontinue events for a popular game because your short-notice one-night fluff cups (with no reward yet requiring a tiresome anti-cheat app... sigh) haven't been popular.
Here's an idea; run a serious cup or league competition, or a genuinely 'zero hassle' fun comp, then judge how popular you are.
If you have real events coming after the summer that will be worth the bother of registering a clan and using yet another anti-cheat util, please feel free to correct me.

Thank you.

The fact of the matter is that we will fill one night events for cod4 , css , cs1.6 , trackmania and now americas army with little effort. hell we even drum up a fair number for guitar hero - looking forward to that one. Against this backdrop of gamers eager to play the lack of interest from tf2 teams stands out like a sore thumb.

I LOVE tf2. it should be evident from the time and effort put into the posts. I say this so im not labeled as some kind of wierd tf2 hater - nothign could be further from the truth , its the only actual fps game i even play nowadays - only dustbowl though, i do like that map and i dont play enough to spread myself around different leave - but i digress.

Are you able to understand how it looks when everyone else is playing and getting stuck in when the tf2 games aren't happening with a lack of interest. Time after time the lack of prize is cited. Its a one night cup - what do you expect ? I would prefer to think that the game perhaps doesn't lend itself to a one night format and that's the main reason because otherwise what im left with to use your own words is a game where not only will the players wont play without prizes but also find it "bother" to register a team and double click on the SGLac icon. It isn't what I would generally term a hardship.

Obviously the teams disagree with me as they aren't playing so obviously we haven't got it right. But where the obvious fact is that teams are going to feel they are doing us a favour by playing and then only if there is a payday at the end of it - it gets disheartening. Where I say we will discontinue events for tf2 then that's not a threat designed to make people play (at this point no ones playing anyway so ....) its just a statement of fact. If my crime is simply being honest and stating we are ending them through lack of interest then guilty as charged. What I need to do is either give up and use my time on games people aren't asking for prizes for a four match cup or find a better way to do things to make them more attractive.

The question here which would be really good if you wanna come back and answer it for me (out of interest - not as a challenge...) is : Why would we go ahead with planned cash prize events starting from the 4th of September for Team Fortress 2 when I could easily divert the funds towards players and teams who have shown an interest in competing and playing simply for the fun of it in all the other games we host here and don't simply turn up when there is a free lunch on offer?

Right now I don't have an answer to that question and will probably go ahead with the planned event, but i honestly couldn't tell you just why.

Uzi ses it all there but i have one thing to add...

Next time you want to critise something don't be a loser about it and sign up under a new account, use your proper web name and your proper tag.

Maybe you misunderstood me. I wasn't complaining about the lack of cash prizes per se, more the anti-cheat requirement for 'zero hassle' fun events. If this is an organization-wide rule that applies to all tourneys, fair enough. If it's an event-specific decision... well, it's baffling to me.

I don't believe that cash prizes are essential for popular competitions. The biggest TF2 league and cup (ETF2L) events have no cash incentive yet attract all the big teams and set the standard for all other comps.

I think that gauging full support on 5v5 one-night events is unwise, for the reasons I stated previously (and that 5v5 is a rather bizarre choice) but if that's the way things are done then, yes, you will see a dearth of interest from the community. The consensus is for 6v6 (or possibly 8v leagues and cups with sensible rules and map choices. If your organization wants run things differently you won't see a lot of major interest.

I understand the decisions from an admin/business viewpoint; you need to support the most popular games to function. If TF2 doesn't fit the model, I understand and the community is hardly going to be bitter about it.

I guess my suggestion is that you should run serious events (prized or not) and promote them to the community. I don't know how much interest another set of comps (similar to the EDL, ESL, ETF2L) would generate, so I don't have the magic bullet solution.

Thanks for replying, Uzi.

BTW Blizzard - I didn't already have an account. I wasn't flaming, and I'm interested in continuing the discussion with Uzi. The fact that I'm commenting anonymously doesn't invalidate any of my points. I highly doubt you would know my nick so it has no bearing on this, though I play clan TF2 in the popular competitions. Please think before you post – an admin should know better than to make petulant flame comments anyway.

re 5v5 , i do that every time - all our other games are 5v5 just a habit to click the 5v5 button, it is supposed to be 6v6. I'll go change it though I doubt its going to make any difference at this stage

I apologise for my comments, i was annoyed with work this morning. You have good points again my apology's

It's understandable, Blizz. My first comment reads more like a rant than I intended.

It's clear from what you've said that there are problems with supporting TF2. In terms of popularity, it suffers in comparison to CS and COD4. A majority of gamers see it as a very fun pub-server game with little attraction for the competitive players. The community (although growing) is still small and served fairly well by the existing leagues.

I think there's an issue of the resistance to change as well. TF2 would seem to be the perfect game to experiment with team sizes and class makeups (Highlander) but the stubborn adherence to 6v6 feels restrictive to me.

I don't disagree with the 'standard format' as it's based on the importance of teamwork and skill while minimizing the luck factor. But the community's reluctance to try new things could be holding us back from bigger and better games in the future.

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