Byte — With every LAN there is a aura of what things went well and some things that didn’t succeed so much. This LAN being the biggest LAN to date in relation to top TF2 teams coming across the globe, we should take a step back and see what was delivered and what wasn’t.
Good – Attendance
The attendance was slightly less than last years, but the main thing that stood out was the amount of top teams entering, and along with where they have come from. HRG coming from America and Team Immunity all the way from Australia, not to mention the top four European teams coming down:
frenchies, Infused, TCM (aka Broder), Epsilon E-sports. This made it a heavy boxing fight for the title, but also let’s not forget the other teams competing who have come to play for fun, major part of TF2 at any i-series.
TF2 Fans!
Good – Team Immunity
Was a total pleasure to have these guys at i-series, don’t think anyone can argue that they were definitely one of the underdogs coming into this tournament. They not only proved that they can compete with anyone but came so close to being in the finals. All of them were so friendly, and very down to earth players, which made it a joy to speak to them and we would definitely want them back for i52 to compete against the Americans and EU teams. If anything Team Immunity coming to i-series would have sparked an uproar in the Oz community and probably bring back some old skoolers and newcomers and want to live the dream that these 6 fantastically skilled guys have been through.
Bad – Information
Following from feedback but also seeing it from the outside, relaying information to the mass public was an issue. With a static VanillaTV website made just for i49, unfortunately it was not relayed in time to the internetz but was also not used just because of the sheer production we were trying to deliver. This meant some people missed certain games or had to find out from other people; this wasn’t optimal. Along with displaying the schedule alot of feedback was given to display the brackets before and after the games ended and logs, to which VanillaTV quickly adapted too, so thank you to all those who provided constructive feedback.
Good – Quality of Games
This year, no one could predict who was going to win; alot of the community members stood firm with their decision of Epsilon e-sports to win with relative ease. However it wasn’t that straightforward, with some close shaves against TCM in the invite group and grand final, Epsilon were kept on their toes. At the same time some absolutely quality games between iM vs HRG and TCM vs Infused, and then the Frenches vs iM. I myself had alot of the community members at LAN come up to me saying “it’s so hard to predict anything, it’s so exciting!” This was so true – every game we streamed had a full crowd at our mini booth. The Aussies turning up the gears made it so much more interesting against anyone they played, simply the best in terms of LAN’s I’ve been to for TF2.
Things were getting intense on the Finals Stage
Good – Production
So this year we saw the masterminds of production, combining their full technical skill levels and making it amazing for you, the community. We had Lange, Arie, Bones, bluee and atmo, producing the content.
BoneS – The green screen was the best of it all for sure, having people going “how did you get someone in team fortress 2″ in the stream chat was priceless, major thanks to bones for that, simply the best asset we had out of everything. Along with providing the 600 cables and various audio setup, computers and monitors so that we could deliver the luxuries.
Arie with his “best in the world currently” camera made the quality amazing for interviews and recordings just amazing too. VanillaTV are very lucky to have him and that his hobby is photography is kinda a plus! ;).
bluee & atmo – These two fine individuals made it beautiful to watch the game with the visuals of the spectator plugin and the nice overlay plugin to show stats and dmg numbers and various other things.
Lange – Simply put, one man unit. So talented and multi-tasked, you’d have to question if he’s male! But he could do so many things in one go and at the right time, just simply put, amazing. I was there shaking his hand at the end of each day just for making it happen. Was a joy to work with this man.
All that would be needed to top this production is Torden as our designer!
Bad – Internetz!
Yeah no surprise, the internet once again was a huge factor to our stream going down, but also people timing out during officials was inevitable. Unfortunately this was in no ones hands bar Virgin Media, as much as I’d like to slate this ISP company. All we can normally do @ LAN is sit and wait until all connectivity is fixed, at some stages it was so slow with 0.6mb/sec down and 400mb/sec up, which was laughable. I think the worst thing out of everything though was the DoS attack that occurred as we were approaching the TF2 final, which meant there was no internet for anyone at LAN for a lengthy period of time, resulting in issues with load-outs: when will Valve start to implement a client side loadout list?
Good – Content
As a whole, the content VanillaTV managed to deliver, with an intro and an outro (which is hilarious and available soon!), and the various interviews we did with top teams and individually was great, there was a slight audio sync issue but still a lot was delivered and in the highest of qualities, with various “getting to know you” and post-analysis match interviews it was great to have Sal and myself deliver the questions to HRG, iM, TCM, Dis and various other members.
There’s that guy on the mic again
Good – HRG
Of course no hyped up LAN would be successful without an American team there. These guys not only so chilled out and friendly but came over to retain the “World Title” for America, it was a shame that we couldn’t conclude the whole EU vs US final this time, but fear not I’m sure we’ll make it happen next year. A special shoutout to Shade for doing the interviews and general Q & A’s, such a smoothy this guy is, so confident and one sexy man! Big props to all six of HRG members for coming to i-series and making it that hyped up special LAN.
Good – Casters
While I can imagine not everyones 1st choice was doing each top tier game, VanillaTV had to deliver with what was available. VanillaTV would of preferred Admirable and Pledge be in the casters pool there to deliver alot of the games, unfortunately they were not available. However, the games casted though by
Arx, Beta, Byte, Skully and Mia, Sal and special cast Shintaz + Coleman made it to a acceptable and high enough standard and most importantly no hyped game was missed. The final itself which was delivered by Arx & Beta, so professional and VanillaTV was very glad that those two delivered it in emphatic style.
*Special shoutout to Pognon, this guy is a legend, managing to cast so many games and stream at a good level by himself throughout the 3 days of coverage, was simply amazing. Not only that he found time to mingle with the TF2 community, and make some hilarious memories for some. So enthusiastic and a joy to work with, if anything I myself was proud to have him in VanillaTVfr.
Good – VanillaTV
The quality of everything that was done at LAN, provided proof as to why we were there. From all aspects, managing, producing content, production, audio setup, visuals everything you can think of basically. Lets not be fooled there were some mistakes and minor problems that were dealt with, but not accounted for, but these things happen when you’re aiming for the best. This involved ALL of the VanillaTV staff, contributing in one way or another; we had in total 18 staff at LAN. I will mention them all, for full recognition:
Byte, Arx, Skully, beach, DavidtheWin, CUBE, SuddenlyStarMia, Anders and Beta
Rinta
huhy
Arie
Sal & Lange
atmo & bluee
BoneS
Pognon
Best – TF2 Community
If some of you sit back and think about how much money was donated so that teams could actually come to LAN, we ended up helping out Frenchies, Broder, Team Immunity and HRG, would love to see this occur in any other game, just simply wouldn’t happen. I suppose the fuel behind all of this, is people wanting to see this game succeed but at the same time, it will fuel people into wanting to play again, prove a point, bring players closer together and most importantly want to continue playing the game. Give yourself a special pat on the back, for all those who contributed in one way or another.
Originally published on VanillaTV (vanillatf2.org) on 2013-08-27 by byte.
Recovered from the Internet Archive (archived copy) as part of tf2esports.com's preservation of VanillaTV's TF2 coverage. The original site is no longer online. All rights remain with the original author; reposted for historical reference.