Got Frag thread unlocked apparently: Link

The following interview was conducted this afternoon (PST) between eXtine and Blight Gaming's owner BlackFoger over the span of two hours. The topic matter spawning this chat was the very contentious "blight gaming" Got Frag thread that RK- took upon himself to shut down after "private info" was posted. BlackFoger mentioned after the interview that his XFire account information was given out and the BlightGaming website was also hacked to erroneously display that Blight LLC was shutting down to lack of funds. There are currently multiple shenanigans going on at that site. Meanwhile on GotFrag there is a new thread going where people are re-posting their issues with BlackFoger. A lot of reading out there, and a lot of reading below.

We discuss the ESEA LAN results, how the player's trips got financed, the Blight Contract posted on GotFrag, and other facets of BlackFoger's Blight LLC. The transcript is edited of extraneous remarks and Black Fogers comments are left untouched. Everytime there is a new line it is from a different steam message.

Yeaaa.... This whole eXpressions series hasn't quite lived up to it's promises yet as I haven't been getting them out nearly as frequentyl as I'd like. Instead of short topical aticles, I'm having to play a lil catch up. A lots been going on with eXtv and TGBF.tv, BUT THATS NO EXCUSE :)

Engineer Update:

The Engineer Update finally dropped, with a bit of surprises, a dash of predicted changes, and a little controversy. With the Golden Wrench crafting giveaway, DrunkenFool exploited insider information to determine when drop times were going to be. Derek was in the server while DrunkenFool counted down to a drop. Derek's craft and DrunkenFool's actions fittingly earned both of them a VAC ban. DrunkenFool took his in stride with an irc interview describing his feelings on the ban which Robin Walker himself explained to the creator of TF2Items.com

Yes, that was old news. Newer news is the Golden Wrench Charity drive, in which the owner of the #31 Golden Wrench is raising money for the Childs Play Charity through a scheduled destruction of the trouble causing item itself. The charity effort has gained steam and is not only almost at $4K raised for this fantastic cause, but also has solicited agreements for the destruction of other wrenches. Check out the page and spare a buck if you got it.

The Engineer update brought some new maps: Upward, Hightower, and Thunder Mountain.

The first and most important step to the start of a team is building a team itself!

Recruiting can be the hardest, longest and most painstaking process to account for and the pre-requisites you decide to be important are what will craft your future team. You want to make sure that you ring every bit of information out of your potential recruits that will matter to you. Without first establishing a set of expectations for your team that really sums up what you want you team to do and be, the candidates that come your way will be infinitely disappointing. For my team my initial pre-requisites and requirements were as follows:

Availability: Availability will decide not the overall skill of your team but the development of skill and the progress your team will make as a whole. If your team overall can only manage to make 1-2 scrims a week then chances are your team is going to develop at an alarmingly slow rate. If your team plays 10-15+ scrims a week chances are you'll litterally see progress with your team in a days time. 

Much like the older series started by community fortress writer Alar Ensis this is a series detailing a team breaking into the competitive scene. The principle reason for this series is not only to entertain the high echelons of tf2 with humorous perversions of skill but to educate new teams starting out and low tier teams by listing the processes, actions, and events that have occurred and will occur to our team that have strengthened us.

To start we will go over some standard questions who am I, how did my team start, and why did it all start. Because my team at its present state is fairly well known, clearly not top shelf, but good enough I will describe past events in this article called “Some History”

Who am I ?: I am Adam “Forsaken” Melo, I got my start playing games via console and then within weeks got a pc. I’ve captained teams, clans, guilds, and outfits on the following games: Socom 2 & 3, Everquest for Playstation 2, Everquest for Pc, Everquest 2, LOTRO, Guild Wars, Counter Strike: Source, Planetside, and many other games that I cannot even remember to count. I’ve organized group numbers of 5 to over 5000 (Planetside & Graphic’s Design Communities) and being in the captains seat has always been my thing. I started playing team fortress 2 after a brief stint of cs:s and i've never looked back.

Hawkeye linked me this and I thought you guys should see it. It's vitally important...

...for the lulz.

TotalGL has teamed up with Valve Software to bring the TF2 community a Free league with Awesome Prizes!

What's better then playing Team Fortress 2 for free? How about Playing TF2 for free with Prizes for the Top 3 teams!  And what could possibly be better then that right? Well I'm proud to announce that TotalGamingLeague's prizes are being provided by our favorite game developer - Valve Software!

After talking with the awesomeness that is Robin Walker, Valve is going to supply the Top 3 teams with merchandise and possibly even signed memorabilia to salivate and coon over. For any of you who don't remember the recent TF2 shirts, posters, cards, mugs, etc that have grazed the Teamfortress.com blog head on over to their store to check out what might be in the works for the TGL S5 Victors!

And like a bad Infomercial, I can't help but say: But wait, there's more!

On comes Season 7.... or maybe not?

ESEA has announced Sign ups for it's Season 7 campaign alongside a slew of new features and announcements that on top of a larger prize pot also includes the ever so tasty to talk about threat of not supporting usl.  Yea there's a catch, and its really quite simple - ESEA is asking that the TF2 Community supports ESEA by signing up 50 teams into the Open division, and considering that last season ESEA had 40 this doesn't seem like too big of a stretch.  One thing to keep in mind however is that with the addition of an Intermediate division, the number to sign ups doesn't only have to go up by 10 teams but presumably 10+ the number of teams that move into intermediate.

I think the community if it chooses to can absolutely accomplish this goal, the question is, are we going to?  I've talked to several people from different stages in their competitive careers and the reactions have varied from a battle cry to support and in extreme cases "save the game" through this league to "*%$@ that, they called us whiners, that's classy customer support right there." ESEA has been what many consider to be the games top league for the past several seasons, and for the past two in particular ESEA has brought TF2 to public venues at their Lan Championships.  I for one hope that ESEA sticks by the game and that the community can rise up to the challenge but either way, I think the game's only going to grow - with or without ESEA.

From the CEVO site:

The Professional Division (CEVO-P) is our most prestigious division and consists of only the top twelve teams in North America. Teams are selected for this division based on their performance in CEVO last season (top 4 from Pro and top 2 from Main) and their performance in other leagues.

We were originally going to use a Professional Placement Tournament to fill the division but we have decided to directly invite qualified teams. If I have not talked to your team already and you feel that you deserve to play in CEVO-P this season, read on...

Applications:

Teams that have not qualified or been invited yet, and are interested in competing in the Professional division can apply via email before Thursday, August 5th @ 11 PM CST. To apply, teams must be signed up in the Amateur division with at least 6 "@ready" members on their roster.

Please send the following to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to apply.

1. Team Name
2. Link to CEVO team page. (Can be found on the standings)
3. Team Experience / Accomplishments (CEVO, other leagues/tournaments, other games, etc..)
4. Why you feel that your team deserves to be invited into the tournament.

I thought we would have to go this route when I originally announced the Placement Tournament and I think it's better given the current structure of the upper tier.

Netcode Illuminati is now branching out to TF2. The NCI community is well-known in the Source world and has provided active forums for Source players for many years.

The TF2 section will have premium content in the form of Video commentary where top TF2 players explain in detail - our strategies, our thought processes, and why we make the decisions we make. All of our contributors will be active on the forums to answer questions from the community. We will also provide lessons.

Check out our forums here: http://www.netcodeilluminati.com/forums/

LAN ETS is at it again this fall with a $1000 6v6 TF2 tournament in Montreal. The TF2 tournament is being run alongside tournaments in CS 1.6, CSS, QL, LoL, GH5, FM3, and FIFA 2010. Check out their press release:

As everybody probably noticed, we released a completely new redesigned WebSite for our upcoming Lan ETS WCG Special Edition event. This event will be held at École de technologie supérieure on September 3th, 4th and 5th under a new formula that pairs the main Lan ETS event and the WCG Canadian championship.

Anyone who wish to participate can now register on the WebSite and join a clan and/or tournament. 2010 WebSite registrations are still valid so for those of you who already have an account, you only have join for the new tournaments from the Inscriptions section and get a new seat. Payments will be accepted shortly to make sure everybody can reserve a place so come back often to get good seats!

Players should note that only people who participate only in consoles tournaments can enter the event freely. Furthermore, only people participating in PC tournaments can bring their PC.

Please come back often on the WebSite to be up to date on new announcements that can be transmitted.

- The Lan ETS team.

The LAN ETS crew is expecting 400 participants with entry fees of $45 per player. You can read more information about the event HERE. We will be providing more updates as we near September.

With Season 5 set to kick off this week I want to take a minute to fill everyone in on the final changes we've implemented for this current season.

Skill Divisions:
Platinum  - For experienced teams who have had good records in previous leagues. Entrance by request, invitation or admin discretion.
Steel - For teams that are new to competitive TF2 or low teams.

Final Maplist:
Wed, 8/4/10 (Pre Season) cp_coldfront
Wed, 8/11/10 cp_badlands
Wed, 8/18/10 koth_viaduct
Wed, 8/25/10 cp_prolane
Wed, 9/1/10 cp_granary
Wed, 9/8/10 cp_yukon
Wed, 9/15/10 cp_gravelpit
Wed, 9/22/10 cp_obscure
Wed, 9/29/10 cp_gullywash_imp3
Wed, 10/6/10 cp_freight
Wed, 10/13/10 cp_mainline
Wed, 11/17/10 Playoffs (tba)
Wed, 11/24/10 Playoffs (tba)
Wed, 12/8/10 ALLSTAR MATCH (More details to come)

Match Time:
Matches must be played by Friday of the week they are assigned. Each match has it's own match comm section on the website. If team captains cannot agree on a time then the match will be set for the default time of Wednesday @ 930pm ET.

Class Limits:
1 Demo, Med, Engie
2 of everything else

Weapon Bans:
Sandman only

TGL S5 Official Launch

Check out the Poll Data & coverage I've provided: Check this Thread out!

Preseason is planned to start the week of August 15th with team signups being closed at the conclusion of the Preseason so hurry get signed up!

The poll started to see a dive in the rate that people were responding around 3:30pm today so I decided to collect the data, crunch the numbers, and report back to the community on how you guys spoke.  With this, TotalGamingLeague TF2 Season 5 is officially kicking off and taking Sign-Up's so please head over to our website and get your team registered for the 6v6 Open.  Any changes with divisions/conferences will happen when I see what kinda teams I'm working with.

So the big ticket item: Maps

Preseason 1 - cp_well
Preseason 2 - koth_ashville
Week 1 - cp_coldfront
Week 2 - cp_freight
Week 3 - koth_viaduct
Week 4 - cp_gullywash
Week 5 - cp_granary
Week 6 -cp_gravelpit
Week 7 - cp_yukon
Week 8 -cp_badlands

The map vote resulted in a very close Top 4 of Freight, Coldfront, Yukon, Well in that order all separated by 4% points.  Coming in fifth place was Dustbowl after I subtracted some trolling votes (shame on you for thinking I couldn't tell ;P).  I think we have a solid line up of maps with the preseason giving a taste of new and old while the season has maps that are pretty much solid all around with varying level of issues spread across but nothing huge.