Being a leader has never been easy. You’re in a position where you have to make a decision for many people, often with little time to either reflect, or gather information. With hundreds of teams and over 10k website visits per day, the leaders if ETF2L not only has many daily challenges – but a huge audience who will watch keenly every move they make. Its not so much a question of “if” a mistake will be made – but a question of “how” to deal with it once the mistake has been made. Having lost his voice at the ETF2L forums, Wildcard enters the Rant, to discuss just that.
Throughout my time playing TF2 ETF2L has always been the number league in Europe mainly because of the amount of teams who signup and compete it has become the “home” of competitive TF2, and so it is with some regret that I find myself having to come here to a site related to it only by its content and publish my side of a story as I’m unable to do so on there’s as they banned me once again. (lesson to self: don’t call an admin decision “silly”)
There is going to be 3 major talking points of this Rant:
The discussion of the hijack rule
Sektor Gaming aka 21Grams and my 3 year ban which lasted less than 1 day
The consequence I got from discussing the hijack rule and ETF2L admin staff in general
**
part 1. The discussion of the hijack rule
So lets get started, as many of you will be aware there is a heated debate on ETF2L right now called Mid season “hijack rule” changes
Lots of you im sure will have your own opinions on this and you can see most of mine stated in the thread its self, but here is a quick summary anyway.
ETF2L made an agreement with px1/2 that px1 players would be allowed to move to px2 and play in there games as long as only 2 played at a time and hence circumvented the hijack rule which as it stood at that point in time stated that a team with 50% or less of its original players would be considered hijacked basically.
ETF2L did not inform any teams within the division of px2 that this agreement occurred and the only knowledge of it was from a forum post 10 days prior by one of there players discussing the demise of px1.
ETF2L put no cap limit on the amount of new players px2 could bring into their team and so quite possibly if they wished px2 could field an entire new lineup of players, what happened in fact was 2 of the original px2 players played in there game vs Equality while 2 were new players and 2 were from px1.
The rules state that a player can only change teams once during a season and 2 of the players which joined px2 from px1 had already changed teams and so broke this rule.
For those of you who have read that thread I’m sure you can see my point of view in changing a rule mid season, never before as far as I’m aware in etf2l has a rule which has already been enforced on some teams will then be changed to benefit another, ie allowing px2 to continue with ex players from px1 and new recruits, you will also see that some of px1 players have also broke the rule which is as follows
1.7.3 One team change per competition allowed
A player is allowed to do one team change during a competition. A player changing from a dead team doesn’t count as real change.
Now we can all use our common sense here and know perfectly well that if a player has not actually played any games for a team he has joined then the rule most likely should not apply, but it is quite clearly there in black and white as the rule was implemented because of what happened to Blame a few seasons ago so I’m quite accustomed to it :)
With that said px2 breaking the the rules regarding players changing clans and with Equality the team which px2 played, unaware that the admins had allowed px2 to use all of these players on there roster which would break the 50% hijack rule limit, is it not fair to ask that the game be replayed now that everyone is aware of all the “deals” etf2l admins made with px2 regarding there roster.
I believe that if a rule is in place at the start of the season and you have applied it to one team that rule should be enforced throughout the entire season or if it is that game breaking should be applied retroactively so that any prior results or decisions would all be based of the same rule set and we would not have the current situation of “one rule for one, one rule for another”.
And that will lead me on to my next topic of discussion.
part 2: Sektor Gaming (aka 21Grams)…
…and my 3 year ban which lasted less than 1 day
You can view the chat logs in there entirety at the following links:
All chats prior to season 7 starting,regarding Sektor Gaming / 21Grams, and the admins decission to keep them div3.
My conversation with D2M (head admin of ETF2L) after he banned me for 3 years for posting the above chat logs on ETF2L.
For those of you not willing to read the vast logs, i’ll summarize a few points for you:
Sektor gaming had 5 members from season 6 still in there roster and so the hijack rule should not apply
There was no contact with any admin prior to the season 6 divisional placements being published regarding Sektor’s member status while other teams had regular contact with etf2l admins regarding the hijack rule and if they would be able to field a full team for season 7
Numerous teams who finished below Sektor in season 6 emapthy , blame, to name but a few got automatic promotion to division 2 while Sektor remained div3 even though they finished higher
Northwave who lost their playoff game and still got promoted above sektor into division 2
And at the time the hijack rule was not implemented (officially) at the time these decisions were made as far as I’m aware and only published afterwards.
The 3 year ban by D2M apparently was only to get my attention, and would be removed once he had a chance to speak to me.
When all of these points were raised prior to the final standings for season 7 this is the comment that best sums up the admins’ choice.
1.[15:00] 2nd place is nice, but 1st is automatic promotion. Your lineup has changed, your team has changed, and as such we did not put you into Division 2. There was no playoff game originally because before whatever crap went on in your team, we felt you were the strongest of the play-off teams and were considering automatic promotion to Division 2.
2.[15:00] Since your team lost players and you no longer have the same lineup that we were considering for the above, we came to a new decision.
If you have read the chat logs in there entirety which I suggest you do as it will give you a rather unique insight into the decision making behind ETF2L, Yes they are the biggest league in Europe if not the world for TF2, Yes they have a vast workload to handle because of all the teams and lack of admin staff currently to run the league but does that mean if they make a mistake it should be swept under the carpet as to help them maintain the illusion of infalability. What was 21grams was a team who regularly beat div2 teams with there lineup when i was with them, this was proved by them finishing 2nd only to a potential div1 team. For the current admin staff to take away there earned place in division 2 especially when with hindsight we can see that div2 already has 5 dropped teams its quite obvious they made the wrong choice.
But lets not dwell to much on Sektor as that’s dead and buried now and as much as I would like there mistake to be rectified its impossible :)
Which brings me onto my next little topic of discussion, “dead and buried” being an apt phase to continue with.
part 3: The consequence of discussing the hijack rule
Now I would of continued the Hijack rule debate on ETF2L forums and none of you would be reading this but D2M in his wisdom decided I myself had broke the forum rules and this occurred,
The following is the post’s that I believe caused this ban:
By D2M:-
From having a quick look – Forzeagle did not play for Sektor in Season 7 of ETF2L, so is fine to play for Paroxsym 2. He only previously competed with Procella. Khaoz has also only played matches for one team in Season 7 of ETF2L, so is fine to play for Paroxysm 2.
If either of those players had played ETF2L matches for more than two teams this season, you would be correct – they would not be allowed to play for a 3rd team.
And with regards to posting on the forums, posting purely to have a “dig” at someone (as you like to call it), is frowned upon. Please respect the forum rules when posting, or just refrain from mashing the keys and hitting Add Reply. Repeated rule breaking leads to forum bans, as many of the repeat offenders are aware.
lol k :) point still stands linking to a forum post and using that to backup a statement that people were informed about an admin decission is silly, unless you expect all players to read every thread on these forums for updates on admins decisions. I was under the impression news post were used for that. And unlike the admins , I’m unable to delete my posts.
1.7.3 One team change per competition allowed
A player is allowed to do one team change during a competition. A player changing from a dead team doesn’t count as real change.
No where does it say they have to actually play in their games, it simply states changing teams, which is what they did, and so according to the current rule set is breaking them.
And finally by D2M:-
No, they didn’t. And I see you didn’t heed my warning by continuing to make derogatory comments towards our staff.
Speak to you in 30 days :)
It would be nice if you showed the same eagerness for turning any topic that might relate to your beloved ex-team into your own little battleground against our admin team, into positive ideas for improvement. Continually acting up and making poor and ill-advised comments do very little for anyone to take what you say very seriously at all.
I’m disappointed that after our lengthy discussion on IRC about 6 weeks ago, that you have not listened to anything I said at all.
Now I have to say I feel rather hard done by here as my replies in that thread, as far as I’m aware I did not insult any admins or break any prior agreement I had with D2M in publishing our chats, save from calling some of there decisions silly and getting no valid response to my questions. But the choices made by some admins in ETF2L with regard to this thread does beg the question: Is the current crop of admins capable of running the league in the best interest of all those involved?
[23:51] i’m trying really hard to help the league out
[23:51] kop is fucking useless
[23:51] only good admins are active admins :)
[23:51] i had to beg him to add racio so i at least had someone to bounce ideas off
[23:51] and most admins like the position and the titles :)
[23:52] i’ll be honest with you too, right now i’m considering leaving the admin team
[23:52] i’m fed up of the abuse
[23:52] if people want to force out admins that care and really want to change the league – they’ve gone the perfect way about it
[23:52] the inactive admins are a massive waste of space
[23:53] well there’s 3 head admins
[23:53] i’m just more vocal because i hated the way daykiller was silent about everything
[23:54] if they lose me, they’re gonna be fucked :( but i’m rapidly losing motivation
Something else that has surprised recently me is that after my last conversation with D2M 6 weeks ago I + many other people had applied for admin status, as you can see from above they are in desperate need of them, yet it has been 6 weeks and not one person has been promoted to a admin to help them nor has any such discussion occurred between admins from what I have been told by asking them. If things were as dire as I was lead to believe wouldn’t something of been done by now and if not why not?
With all the above said and brought out into the open i’m sure many people believe I have a personal vendetta against ETF2L and its staff. This itself is not true. I have a lot of respect for certain members of ETF2L staff who put in there own time to help run the league and try there best to keep it going. However, I think it’s important to allow for an open discussion in what is wrong, and what can be improved – without the fear of being censored or banned.
**A final question I will leave with you all is this:Should any player who not only feels that an admin decision is wrong but has proof and can validate that 100% be ignored and in the end banned for trying to justify his views? And, if so, where else can he let his views be known?
I had promised not to publish the later of the chat logs, but being banned by D2M for doing what I regard as nothing wrong, changes the deal. Shoutouts to people who still talk to me after this is posted ;) and to ETF2L if I’m not perma-banned :P
-Wildcard
Originally published on VanillaTV (vanillatf2.org) on 2010-04-01 by wildcard.
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.