VanillaTF2

Byte — Yesterday was a highly anticipated match between Crack Clan and Vinland. Both casting stations, VanillaTV & TF.TV organised quite a bit to deliver this premiership game. For those not in the loop of what happened last night, the game came to an abrupt end, after only 4 rounds of the entire match being played, due to a dispute between the veteran Darn and ipz / Crack Clan, over allowing the FOV (field of view) extended from the maximum default. There was no obligation for Crack Clan in accordance with ETF2L rules to allow this feature. While it was not defined in ETF2L’s rule page, it was mentioned in one of their news post (27th of April 2013) as an update with the following:

“Using a server that allows higher FOV values is allowed if, and only if both teams agree. The hosting team must inform the visiting team about the increased FOV before the match starts.”

To be fair it’s clear as night and day, it should be agreed before hand & agreed by both teams into using it. Clearly it wasn’t, so it was decided in the match. Could this have been avoided before the match? Looking at irc, one of the leaders from Vinland, Rake, stated:

[Rake:] emb, imho it either has to be straight out banned or allowed
[Rake:] but this compromise just means that people cant actually use it

I personally agree with things being dealt by the league more so than the players, as it will cause delays and problems in the long run if dealt by the teams. For example as we saw last night, seems no one thought of asking the other team if they’re okay with using an extended fov a bit more in advance.

Similarly ETF2L have the same rule for mercs, must be agreed with the opposition and preferably stated on the match page, so that admins don’t apply a penalty. However with so many rules in the league one can only sympathesize with teams not knowing them all 100%, so the best solution would surely be making a cut off point for specific rules. The FOV setting being clearly one of those, however not all rules should have a clear cut decision.

So reading up on the ETF2L forums about this, obviously someone had to vent their frustration and disgust at this whole matter. The thread can be found here. Darn himself has made his own comment about his actions stating:

Dont blame the team. I did say them to get a merc or something. I have no interest to play without the fov anymore, you can talk all you want about being ‘professional’ and what not in this very ‘professional’ game. For me, to be able to play proper and have _fun_ with the game I need the higher fov. This season, these points mean very little to me if I have to grind thru the games. Saying that if the rest of the teams dont want me to use the fov im done. Sorry for all the people who tuned in to see a game.

While I can understand his point, in that he’s been there and done that a million times in TF2, along with achieved so much in his previous years with 4kings/Dignitas, coming back to the game for darn has been a ballache and very difficult for him to reignite that initial passion and flare in Team Fortress 2. Having said that, TF2 has moved a long way from those days and is a different scene and how certain things work is nothing like it used to be, so one has to accept and continue or leave peacefully, without ruining the fun for those joining the game or are in progress of learning/moving up the skill ranks.

Our intrepid reporter Arie had a chat with a member of both teams, first up Ipz, from Crack Clan:

VanillaTF2: The day after, are you surprised about the reactions? Especially people defending Darn?
Ipz: aslong as the right people get my point, i cant talk sense into everyone, if i try i end up really disappointed. In the end we did it cause we thought they might take rounds of us

VanillaTF2: can we quote you on that?
Ipz: lol ye they took rounds of epsi and of bff

VanillaTF2: If you’re not worried about maps, but rounds, why bother?
Ipz: numlocked talked to me on his stream the night before saying that they could suprise us, so im not giving out any advantages, which a higher fov is / to my enemy if my team cant utilize on it cause they arent used to it, hence would not increase their fov. I just dont want to drop rounds against anyone, the 2 rounds that we lost vs bff each map hurt already tbf
we want to lose rounds when it comes to broder and epsi, but not before

VanillaTF2: People might consider you default hunters for such behaviour.
Ipz: How could people consider that default hunting? I dont think there is a single person out there, even the onces that know rauli, that predicted him to ragequit. This guy comes to our server, being unbelievably disrespectful before even a single word is exchanged in English. The first sentence in finish calling us all kids and since james is gone this team is full of shit, then he wants to force me to disadvantage myself for him? We just got a bunch of racial slurs and some finnish bullshit that noone understands, but still people go on forums claiming we baited him?

VanillaTF2: Do you feel ETF2L should make a statement/rule to prevent events like last night?
Ipz: I don´t really care for now how ETF2L is gonna handle the fov case in the future and how they will punish the ragequit. All i care about at the moment is that Darn is getting called out for beeing a racist fuck

VanillaTF2: You’re quite pissed about it still
Ipz: ofc i am, we are working quite hard without any financial benefit for some month to push the quality of tf2 in Europe abit so everytime this stuff happens im super pissed about it cause it throws me back another 3 months.

We also talked to Rake of Vinland:

VanillaTF2.org: Hey Rake, is Vinland going to keep playing, and if so, how will you deal with opponents not allowing wider fov?
Rake: Well we hope to keep on playing, however after last nights “match” it’s obvious that not a single team is going to allow a higher FoV anymore, and as such we’re looking into our options.

VanillaTF2: Ipz went on record to say, more or less: “We didn’t want to lose rounds to this team, the dropped rounds against bff already hurt. numlocked warned us beforehand we might get surprised, so we didn’t want to give them any advantage”
Rake: Well well

VanillaTF2: Are you surprised cc turned out to be a little bit afraid of you guys, even if it was just a fear of losing rounds, not maps?
Rake: I hardly see it as a reason to deny higher FoV. I wasn’t expecting them or broder to do it, more so the teams that we’re actually competing with (solar, rlm, lms). And we’ve been having fairly good results at fairly random intervals, I guess they assumed we might pull something out of the hat last night.
However it would’ve been a lot better, everything considered to just play with the higher FoV cap, especially after seeing Darn’s reaction, and noticing that he’s not even trying to play

Arie — So after all the preparations for a good TF2 cast: Scorescreens, relays, overlays, live stats, mumble comms, forum posts and reddit threads (and that once for VanillaTV and once for TF.tv) and hundreds of people watching on the streams,  Vinland had to forfeit the match after less than 10 minutes when their star player  Darn left the game after  Crack Clan refused to change a server setting to allow a wider FOV.

Interview with Crack Clan after the match:

This setting is available through the TFTrue plugin and allows a higher FOV than the normal maximum of 90. The default setting of TFTrue is the same 90 degrees FOV. However, Darn likes to play with a FOV on 110, you can see that in our VOD of the  Vinland vs  Skidmark Central.

Now I’m a bit on the fence regarding the fairness of a wider FOV. Players have been using wider FOV for ages using custom resolutions, but Openplugin and TFTrue have made it less of a hassle and less of a pain on the eyes. Ultimately I think the advantage of seeing a wider battlefield is probably negated by the smaller players you have to shoot at.

Where does this leave team Vinland though? It’s a darn shame that a team that was off to such a good start might now fall apart over something totally unrelated to the normal struggles of a new premiership team (e.g. poor results or the team not getting along). Will this be the end of Vinland and the first drop of the season, or will they rebound in time for their upcoming matches against teams they have a chance of defeating, and will there be anyone left willing to cast those games?

beach — As the off season draws to a close with ETF2L’s Season 15 due to begin in little over a week’s time, it’s time to look into how the Premier Division is shaping up for the coming season. Let’s begin at the top:

Epsilon eSports
Roster
Medic – Knoxxx
Demoman – numlocked
Pocket soldier – Mike
Roaming soldier – GeaR
Scouts – schocky and basH

The team who have dominated European TF2 for the past few seasons really need no introduction. This season sees the return of German powerhouse  GeaR to the roaming role, leaving Season 14′s top roamer  Mike to return to the pocket soldier position in which we saw him dominating during Season 13. I would suggest that this is definitely an improvement (if perfection can be improved upon!); GeaR was on fantastic form in Season 13, so if he can return that form, Epsilon will no doubt be cruising to another Grand Final. Epsilon remains unchanged for the rest of the roster and still maintain an unbeaten record despite finally losing a map to broder in the Season 14 finals. The only question is can broder go one better this season and take the title?

Ipz- — Season 14 has had its highs and lows, but it would have been nothing without the people involved. A certain subset of people have shaped the season and improved the experience for me and the entirety of the community, and I want to thank them specifically for their contributions to TF2.

Firstly, I’d like to thank ETF2L, who create the environment that we play our games in. My experience has been endlessly enriched by the openness and ability of the head admin team, who have considered every idea we’ve put forward, and made this season this best ETF2L has ever seen. They have done everything they can to alleviate the age-old gap between the Premiership and the ETF2L admin team, and I honestly believe the scene is closer because of it. I would like to personally thank Sonny Black for working his hardest every day, broadening TF2′s horizons and contributing a substantial amount of time and effort, culminating in a long overdue Head-Admin position. If ETF2L continually move forward in the way that we have become accustomed to from Season 14, TF2 in Europe could become really special.

hippole — New Year, new season, new teams, new players. In team transfer news, there has scarcely been a more exciting time than now and with a recent drop in the frequency of TF2 news, I felt it was time there was some real meaty gossip for the community to get its collective teeth into. Without further ado, let’s announce some of the new teams and lineups that are expected to grace the top flight of European TF2 in ETF2L’s coming season:

New Teams

Byte’s Tea(C)M

Demoman – Byte

Soldiers – Forsak3n + 1

Scouts – Gubbins and Rake

Medic – Ally

What is probably most interesting about this team is the lack of long term premier division experience. In fact, aside from Byte, all other premier experience in the team has either been limited to a single season or been over a year ago. The inclusion of roaming soldier extraordinaire Forsak3n and new-kid-on-the-block Ally make this one of the most exciting new teams to mention, a mixture of the huge experience that Byte brings to any team along with fresh talent could make for a sensational break into the top flight or a potential flop. I fear that consistency early on will be the main issue for these guys but in terms of dedication I can see them coming up tops and sticking through the hardships that come from such an inexperienced lineup. Rumours were flying that Zebbosai would be involved in this new lineup but it would appear otherwise. Perhaps Byte will aim to bring in one of his old friends to give the team a more stable backbone or will he continue in the same vein for the final player? There have been stirrings about Cyber’s return but so far only linked to a backup position.

Traxantic — When HYS first asked me to come back to TF2 I would never have envisaged what was right around the corner. It is really quite special when you are part of a team that clicks with each other and get along extremely well. Playing the game is one thing, but the social aspect makes the whole experience a lot more enjoyable. But all good things come to an end.

“Turbomonkey #lft: I thought you guys made such sweet music together”