BiankaTV

witam wszystkich. ostatnio troszke mi sie nudzilo, bianki brzuszek wymasowany i tak sie zastanawialem co ciekawego porobic no to pogadalem sobie troszke z pewnym irlandczykiem. zapewne kazdy kojarzy go z vanillatv czy teamfortrestv. zapraszam do czytania.

pez: hi how u doin?

Admirable: yeah I'm good, just tired =D

pez: lan trip?

Admirable: 13 hours of travel today yeeeeee, 3 hours of sleep.

pez: nice, may i make a quick "interview" about tf2 with you?

Admirable: polish content? cool.

pez: yes. scene was quite strong few years ago but at the moment, there is no polish site alive.

Admirable: we need Virtus Pro TF2!

pez: indeed, so may i ask u about few thing? do you have a time?

Admirable: yeah lets do it.

pez: ok, at first what do you think about tf2? is it still growing?(competetive ofc)

Admirable: I think TF2 is in pretty good shape for an eight and half year old game. We are still like the third or fourth most played game on Steam most days, but as it has always the problem is persuading the sizeable player base to play competitive!
The competitive community seemed to have plateaued a couple of years ago in terms of ETF2L season signups and has been slowly decreasing, but at the same time great new services like TF2Center, serveme.tf and logs.tf have been making it easier to access competitive play. We finally have matchmaking on the horizon which is going to be a great platform to recruit new players to the competitive community.
For some time we have steadily had valuable top players (particularly leaders) leaving the game creating a very inexperienced top tier that seem to think DM skills are the be all and end all and cry when they can’t out think their opponents (see ETF2L Premiership Finals post-game interviews).
tl;dr competitive seems to growing from the bottom, but the level of experience and number of leaders has decreased.

pez: if ESEA or other big league like ESL makes a tf2 league, would it make a difference?

Admirable: Well we already had a shot with ESL and ESEA and blew it both times for different reasons. I think in Europe we have been spoiled by ETF2L which has offered a service deemed “good enough” by the community.
ESEA and the 5 figure Invite prize pool three times a year is obviously a big factor in why North America has produced the best teams in the modern era, although their lack of LANs might impact them this year.
The amounts of money that I think are required to make European players really try hard and invest more time in to perfecting their game (or even bring the greats back from the retirement) are not trivial. ETF2L will never be capable of finding the money and driving the growth at the top of the scene. ETF2L needs to die, it is too comfortable in keeping the status quo and lacks any ambition.
Do I think ESL or ESEA would then save us? Maybe ESEA, but whilst ETF2L lives no one will sign up for it again. The miracle we need for competitive grow quickly at the elite level is Valve sponsored tournaments.

pez: what about highlander? is it helping 6v6 mode? gameplay is not the same but sometimes players who are not good enough for 6v6, can play HL in open and after that they handle open in 6s. on the other side, players with HL and 6s teams, miss 6v6 matches coz they have to play HLs match, is it a problem?

Admirable: Yeah I am a fan of highlander, not just because it can be a good stepping stone to traditional 6v6 play, but it is actually an interesting game mode. I’ve enjoyed my time playing Premiership highlander, I think it has a lot of depth especially when you are playing with a serious team against good opponents.
I would even go as far as to say that competing in highlander can make you a better 6s player and obviously the reverse is true. You might feel like players would be better off practising 6s or DM, but playing highlander (and really trying) will give you new insights on Team Fortress 2. As with anything in life, you get from it what you put in to it.

pez: if valve makes tf2 in source2 engine + matchmaking be official out, would it make tf2 more popular in competetive mode and is it a chance, someday in future, players will get paid in tf2?

Admirable: Source 2? Hahaha! That would be fucking awesome to see debuted in TF2. Lord knows we need performance improvements, but really would be surprised to see that happening any time soon. Do you know something I don’t? :D
Matchmaking will be a good tool to convert existing non-competitive players, but I would be surprised if it had a big impact in the wider eSports scene. People have too many preconceptions about what Team Fortress 2 is for a matchmaking update to suddenly catapult it in to the realm of professional play.
I feel like matchmaking should ensure that the competitive scene doesn’t die any time soon, but only big prize pots from Valve will make outsiders stand up and take notice. Team Fortress 2 @ The Invitational or GTFO.

pez: i have heard that source2 gonna be out soon, at least i hope so;)

Admirable: Save us GabeN!

pez: LANs, everybody loves them. is dreamhack only a one hit or tf2 could be there in next years?

Admirable: Next years? Seems possible we might see TF2 at DreamHack Summer :>
Insomnia 58 will be the biggest Team Fortress 2 event in history.
Get fucking hyped!

pez: do you have something to say about polish scene? have you ever played with some old polish gamers like cubeth or some new blood like wonszu?

Admirable: Polish TF2 seemed to be having a resurgence a few seasons ago with a lot of good players in the High Tier, but for whatever reason they haven’t broken in to the Premiership. If Poland wants to produce a great team that can break in to the top tier they just need to play together and stick together for a few seasons.
I had the good fortune to play with Phromelo and Bonkers with coolclan in Season 19, both excellent players with a lot of raw talent. I am always looking out for new talent and I hope I was able to at least give them some idea on how to play the game. I know I learned a lot from cube back in my early years of playing, and deith was a beast. So yeah, I have love for Poland! Also Nor was a cool motherfucker :D

pez: thx you so much for interview mate. i hope you still will cast tf2 games;) thx once again.

Admirable: Thanks for talking to me. I am always the guy asking the questions instead of answering them. Shout out who anyone who ever did anything for the competitive scene. Stay strong.