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.

As the title says, teams playing in CEVO-M or CEVO-P this season should get their players paid by midnight tonight in order to take advantage of the early bird fee reduction. After tonight, the fee increases $5 to $20. From the CEVO site:

The regular event membership fee for the Professional and Main Divisions is $20 USD per player. However, any player who registers by midnight CST Friday, July 23rd will receive a discounted early bird rate of only $15 USD. Players may register for Season 6 without already being on a team.

Registration for CEVO Team Fortress 2 Season 6 opens on Sunday, July 11th at 7 PM CST and will remain open until Sunday, August 8th at midnight CST.

Although it currently only supports CS 1.6, CS:S, and COD4, you can do your part by voting for TF2 in the poll on the bottom left of the main page!

From the press release:

We would like to welcome everyone to Cyber-Sports Network, for those of you who haven't heard of CSN here is our
mission statement:

The Cyber-Sports Network (“CSN”) is the operator of an online eSports league platform that facilitates gaming seasons and tournaments among players, teams and organizations. Cyber-Sports Network will strive to be the standard in eSports worldwide for competitions and communities. CSN will be offering opening events for six game titles on the PC and Xbox 360 platforms, with over $6,000 in guaranteed cash and prizes!!!

Background:

Cyber-Sports Network is founded on the beliefs and passion of online gaming. The core of CSN dates back to the early stages of gaming with its founders having a decade of casual, competitive and managerial experience. The founders Adam Zittel, Andrew Tomlinson, and Gordon Hon have been developing CSN for several years. They have a dream to unite gamers under one roof to compete at all levels of play and become one single community. They have every intention of bringing the players the best possible run events with dedicated staff members and coverage from some of eSports most renowned commentators. CSN staff members will be very involved with the community in order to make sure the right measures are taken to ensure the fairest atmosphere of play is available. The "CSN Scout" client will be used by competitors in order to keep the playing field as fair as possible and catching any cheaters along the way. The client also has its very own chat system in which players will be able to join scrim channels for their game of choice to find practice matches and pugs. We ask that everyone give CSN a fair chance at becoming the next big league, and help us spark something huge for eSports world wide.

TGL Season 5 if officially in the works and your help is needed!

Total Gaming League is hard at work dusting off the good old TF2 try pants as we prepare to launch our long delayed Season 5! TGL has been away from the TF2 scene for far too long and it's time to see some good old Rough neck TF2 once again. Some of you may not have ever even heard of TGL but the league had in fact supported the game since its release for 4 season before taking an extended break. In order to make TGL successful and enjoyable for the competitive community I am trying to focus on developing the league around specifically what the community wants and I can't do that without help from you guys!

Therefore I'll be hosting a meeting in TGL's Ventrilo (IP: 64.34.180.228 Port: 3520) tomorrow night, Thursday, at 10:00pm EST to discuss 3 major topics:

First: Game play mechanics, and by this I mean should we keep the half system or go with pauses between rounds, 30 minutes halves vs 20 minute halves, 4 points to half or 3 points. Things like this. Im gunna be honest and say I doubt major changes are going to happen but because of the recent CommFT discussions (http://commforums.com/competitive-match-.. I at least want to see what everyone thinks and maybe test something out in a preseason match or at least put it out in discussion.
Things to think about for the meeting:
- Break @ a Half time vs. short but longer then current breaks between rounds
- Length of match both in terms of points and time
- Overtime periods vs. golden cap

TGL has returned from the dead to announce their fifth season of TF2. They ran quite a few seasons back in the early days of competitive TF2 and many veterans fondly remember the TGL Roughneck Challenge. The TGL management has been looking for admins for quite some time and finally found the right Head Admin in the form of brute. Those of you who have been playing since beta will remember him from solid teams in the early CEVO and TGL events.

brute is hosting a community meeting tomorrow night (Thursday, July 22nd) at 10 PM EST to discuss match formats, maps, weapons, etc. The meeting will take place in the TGL Ventrilo server - IP: 64.34.180.228 Port: 3520. Be sure to be there if you want to voice your opinion about this upcoming season of TGL.