The Hard Talk: Community Contributors

I personally find the use of ESL for promoting your own agenda a bit tasteless.

You can justify it to yourself however you want. I want to point out it's my personal opinion and it is what it is. I appreciate your efforts and acknowledge the amount of time you've spent for this community.

For me, someone becoming an official ESL caster does not mean they can promote their own content (as much as you have done - I know, it's an imaginary line).
That's how I see it. I'm sorry if I offended you, my wording was a bit rough.

Whaaat? What a pretentious thing to say, how can you possibly think that? Relic literally have told us to stream ESL on our own channels to grow our following and promote our own channels. Notice how none of us stream on Relic's offical Twitch? likewise Relic Kyle always plugs our Youtube/Twitch channel multiple times in every stream we're on together. Did you see him plug all of our channels twice in a 1 hour stream? From the get go, Kyle told us that streaming on ESL is an opportunity to promote and grow our channels and following.

It doesn't matter what we're doing, ESL or Community Tournament etc. Casters and content creators should always be able to promote themselves to encourage them to continue doing the work they do. Do you think we should be getting nothing out of doing a 9 hour stream considering we are not even getting paid? Would it even matter if we were getting paid, what difference does it make? What's the actual problem with self promotion, where is the issue? Maybe if it was like, once every 30 minutes it'd be a bit annoying but we're only plugging ourselves once every few hours. And even if it's a little bit annoying, so what?

Casters self promoting isn't a tasteless promotion of agenda, it's giving people a means to follow our content where they can continue to experience our passion and love for the game, which is good for promoting the game and community overall.

I would love to be able to pay my staff

You would love? So why you didnt on the OCF? You had the money.

Let's check some OCF Stretch Goals:

$4750: Rogers' 24h Stream
$4250: Fan Fiction by FichtenMoped & Staff
$3500: COH2 Units Wallpaper Pack by TM.Dutchy
$3500: Stream anthem by Lynskey
$2500: New Forum Avatars by Strummingbird
$2100: CieZ' 24h Stream

So, that guys helped you to increase the prizepool. People paid with donations to see their work. And how much did you paid them? You had 5000$, how much?

You guys wanna some hard talk? Ok let's talk then.

If you wanted to grow the website, reinvest some of the money, give Jackas4life a bloody social media budget, get social media buttons on the website, make the site better for mobile users, make a bloody app, idk what countless people suggested to improve the website.

Why isn't this happening?

Because someone has to put the work in to get them done. Brainstorming is great, but inferior to getting things done. Do you know how much coding your ideas would take? How much money, and where it should be spent and why?

An idea is the first step, planning the second, and rolling up your sleeves is the third step to doing things. What did you do? You quit. At the first step, it seems. You didn't plan.

You didn't ask yourself questions. How do I get the coders involved? Do they even have the time? Do I need to recruit new people, or learn coding myself, or both, or something else? And what about the budget? How can I scrape together one? Or can we make do other ways? And so forth! You could have posted the ideas in the green staff forums to hear people's thoughts as well. But.

You didn't. From what I have heard, you private messaged Ami about it. But here is where my memory fails me, as I do not remember or haven't heard what happened so. Either way, I do know that Ami is not a boss. You didn't need his approval to get started.

He has a very hands off approach to the staff, expecting them to find things to do themselves.

Leaving the rest of staff on their own for 3/4 of the time

We are a group of volunteers. It is up to us to find out what we would like to do and do it. We cannot rely on others to find it for us. Or to do it for us. We must get to it ourselves.

How do you expect to succeed when you're working with passionate people who want nothing more but this game to succeed and your website to grow when your attitude towards change or improvement is so stubborn?

Personally, I do not care for Ami's attitude. He has his reasons for being that way, just as you have yours for being such as you are. Like us, Ami is a human being, with strengths and weaknesses. He is but one part of the team here at COH2.ORG. Of course, being one of the site owners, he has a bigger say than most. Even so, he favours giving his opinions, rather than orders. The latter of which I have not even seen happen once during my stay. That is Ami for you.

He is hands off, remember?

You may see it differently, Kluge. There is nothing wrong with that, and I respect your opinion. It is also possible that I may have misjudged Ami, but I am sure he will speak up if that is the case. He usually does, from my experience.

So, that guys helped you to increase the prizepool. People paid with donations to see their work. And how much did you paid them? You had 5000$, how much?

You know, the people that stick around on the staff are usually not after money. Those who are quickly figure out that there is none to be found and leave. Money sounds nice, but it isn't the reason why we are here, or at least, it isn't the reason why I am here. I cannot speak for the rest of the staff.

Also, money is a touchy subject. There was a thread made during the time of OCF that was about the money. I remember a point made during it; ESL tournaments take half of any prize money. I believe that was also the cause for COH2.ORG, so I do not think that is unfair. As for how the money was distributed: I do not know.

We'll talk again after 2 year Yukiko. Just assuming things from what you've heard is a dangerous thing. You say I never planned? If any director here would be so kind to post half of my threads in the orange forums, you'll see that you're wrong.
With all do respect but after seeing what you wrote about me even when we barely talked in my would be resignation thread, I can't take your opinion very seriously. As far as I care you're still on your honeymoon period with .org and it's staff. Everything is looking jolly good and problem free. Take some time to look closer in the obvious cracks that appeared.

Money makes people ugly, let's leave it at that.

Just assuming things from what you've heard is a dangerous thing. You say I never planned? If any director here would be so kind to post half of my threads in the orange forums, you'll see that you're wrong.

Indeed, my apologizes, Kluge. As you know, I do not have access to the Orange forums. May I ask what became of your plans? Did they bear fruit?

With all do respect but after seeing what you wrote about me even when we barely talked in my would be resignation thread, I can't take your opinion very seriously.

Hmm. There were two replies to that thread by me. I assume the psychology talk, a reply to something Ami said, was the thing that offended you? Not my intention. In fact, it slipped my mind that my example of a Taker could be taken as an offence, as to my mind, I was thinking about the extreme examples of Takers, Matchers, and Givers. Of which I thought you sounded like a taker. But not the extreme type, although the text hinted at it. It is my fault for not writing my thoughts properly. And for that, I am sorry, Kluge. I did not mean to hint at that.

The other reply was about the fact that I had witnessed some of the things you had been saying in various Twitch chats about other members of the staff. Harsh things. Unpleasant to hear. I then went on to speculate if you could have been responsive for a leak we had at an earlier time. As you know, saying bad things about the staff seems like a motive. But there is no evidence for it, just speculation.

By now, everyone else is a bit confused since they cannot view the replies themselves, nor the thread. Usually, the Staff Forum's threads are not to be posted or quoted outside of them, but would one of the Black Admins make an exception for my two replies and post them here?

As far as I care you're still on your honeymoon period with .org and it's staff. Everything is looking jolly good and problem free. Take some time to look closer in the obvious cracks that appeared.

Cracks? What cracks? Would you tell us, please?

Money makes people ugly, let's leave it at that.

This indeed is the heart of the issue.

- "Ami pocketed 5000$!"

- "Ami didn't pay us, the OCF Volunteers, any of that money"

- "Ami is only in it for the money"

The hypocrisy is thick and the motivations ugly.

There's no holding back this tsunami of salty butt-hurt being spewed on any event or chat you can spam until banned, because the arguments are not what drives it - the driving force is your emotional response to money being introduced and you being left out.

Trying to create an economical ecosystem for CoH2 is what CoH2.org is all about, AFAIK, since it is a driving force for competitiveness. If your emotional integrity can't handle that, get out of the way!

Whaaat? What a pretentious thing to say, how can you possibly think that? Relic literally have told us to stream ESL on our own channels to grow our following and promote our own channels. Notice how none of us stream on Relic's offical Twitch? likewise Relic Kyle always plugs our Youtube/Twitch channel multiple times in every stream we're on together. Did you see him plug all of our channels twice in a 1 hour stream? From the get go, Kyle told us that streaming on ESL is an opportunity to promote and grow our channels and following.

It doesn't matter what we're doing, ESL or Community Tournament etc. Casters and content creators should always be able to promote themselves to encourage them to continue doing the work they do. Do you think we should be getting nothing out of doing a 9 hour stream considering we are not even getting paid? Would it even matter if we were getting paid, what difference does it make? What's the actual problem with self promotion, where is the issue? Maybe if it was like, once every 30 minutes it'd be a bit annoying but we're only plugging ourselves once every few hours. And even if it's a little bit annoying, so what?

Casters self promoting isn't a tasteless promotion of agenda, it's giving people a means to follow our content where they can continue to experience our passion and love for the game.

The use of DLC codes provided by Relic to make people subscribe a youtube channel or post a comment to a youtube video was my primary concern. Those DLC codes were meant for give-aways? I failed to emphasize that part. I also mainly criticized A_E for that, not you. Of course you are supposed to promote your channels. Just the way of the DLC codes were being used for that was something I found wrong.

The use of DLC codes provided by Relic to make people subscribe a youtube channel or post a comment to a youtube video was my primary concern. Those DLC codes were meant for give-aways? I failed to emphasize that part. I also mainly criticized A_E for that, not you. Of course you are supposed to promote your channels. Just the way of the DLC codes were being used for that was something I found wrong.

On that stream in question it was on Stormlesses stream - we did one giveaway for a raffle, one for stormlesses followers, and one for new youtube subscribers to me. I also did this in the kick-off cup out of CODES GIVEN TO ME FOR A YOUTUBE COMPEITION FROM KYLE. (Rattenkrieg Challenge that I received no entries for )

It was fine, even handed, and in the context of a nine hour stream.

The next week instead of doing one for youtube subs I did one for the first person to comment on a random video from three years ago... as a weird joke competition. The video happened to be my first ever cast.

I've achieved my goals of growing my youtube channel using DLC now, and only did it once with a single ESL related code anyway, and have already laid off the plugging, as evidenced in my recent 10 hour stream of casts.

Perhaps you should now lay off me a bit on this particular issue.

ON that stream in question it was on Stormlesses stream - we did one giveaway for a raffle, one for stormlesses followers, and one for new youtube subscribers to me.

I think what Janne is trying to say is that people shouldn't be subscribing to our channel unless they really liked the content and this forces them to do so just to get a shot at some DLC they want. The Moobot raffles we've run so far are actually just the same where people 'have' to be a follower to win.

If i'm reviewing this comment objectively with regards to 'viewer satisfaction' I would actually agree with Janne here. I think it's acceptable to plug our own channels etc as this is a small token of thanks from Relic for doing what we are doing at the moment, but I actually agree that I don't think that forcing likes and follows is respectable.

If someone is viewing my channel for ESL but doesn't want to follow, they should still be entitled to win prizes. I think that's more respectable in hindsight and myself personally will keep that in mind for future raffles.

Don't take these comments personally GG & A_E as I don't think they are meant to defame any of us. The end point is that a point has been raised and we should decide where we stand on the issue. And looking back at if I was a viewer on a channel I wasn't following. I would not have respect for being forced into DLC follows

Right well we've already gotten growth from that particular avenue anyway, so by laying off it now, we can satisfy both camps. Let's move on.

Perhaps you should now lay off me a bit on this particular issue.

no way! you wont get out of it that easy.
on top of the initial accuasation i suspect that all your posts here on coh2 are only made to promote your youtube channel through your ads in your signature. thats evil!. even worse: you got me - i could not resist to subscribe and donate 5 euros.



on the original topic:

i guess relic had two options

a) pay esl for organizing a good tournement with volunteer community casters
b) pay coh2.org to organize a probably even better tournement.

it might be sad for the insiders who know what coh2 could have done with this kind of cash - no question it would have been great!

but: going with esl is kind of the obvious choice here. and while the hype, the organization and the streaming might have been better with a coh2.org event - the esl tournement so far is great as well and with the experience of the first month and the increas of the prices it will even get better.

Indeed, my apologizes, Kluge. As you know, I do not have access to the Orange forums. May I ask what became of your plans? Did they bear fruit?



Hmm. There were two replies to that thread by me. I assume the psychology talk, a reply to something Ami said, was the thing that offended you? Not my intention. In fact, it slipped my mind that my example of a Taker could be taken as an offence, as to my mind, I was thinking about the extreme examples of Takers, Matchers, and Givers. Of which I thought you sounded like a taker. But not the extreme type, although the text hinted at it. It is my fault for not writing my thoughts properly. And for that, I am sorry, Kluge. I did not mean to hint at that.

The other reply was about the fact that I had witnessed some of the things you had been saying in various Twitch chats about other members of the staff. Harsh things. Unpleasant to hear. I then went on to speculate if you could have been responsive for a leak we had at an earlier time. As you know, saying bad things about the staff seems like a motive. But there is no evidence for it, just speculation.

By now, everyone else is a bit confused since they cannot view the replies themselves, nor the thread. Usually, the Staff Forum's threads are not to be posted or quoted outside of them, but would one of the Black Admins make an exception for my two replies and post them here?



Cracks? What cracks? Would you tell us, please?

Thanks for that reply, appreciate you being straight forward.
Compare staff activity and staff sentiment now to a year or a year and a half ago and you'll know what I'm talking about.
Honestly, I said what I had to say, I'm done with this thread.
Thanks again Yukiko.

This indeed is the heart of the issue.

- "Ami pocketed 5000$!"

- "Ami didn't pay us, the OCF Volunteers, any of that money"

- "Ami is only in it for the money"

The hypocrisy is thick and the motivations ugly.

There's no holding back this tsunami of salty butt-hurt being spewed on any event or chat you can spam until banned, because the arguments are not what drives it - the driving force is your emotional response to money being introduced and you being left out.

Trying to create an economical ecosystem for CoH2 is what CoH2.org is all about, AFAIK, since it is a driving force for competitiveness. If your emotional integrity can't handle that, get out of the way!

Can you point me out where I said that? My original point (25 million salt posts earlier) was that Ami's complaining about Relic' support and Relic not wanting to sponsor them finanically. Making it look like as if Relic are the bad guys in this whole ordeal when he's responsible for it himself. Where's the irony in that huh?
If you think a viable economical ecosystem is that one guy who occasionally rolls in to do monetised events gets to keep half of what the revenue is, without even considering the people working on his site 24/7 because they love the game, then recheck your values. I don't give a rats ass about money, I play the game because I like it, I contributed to this site because I thought it had potential and I'm working on V3E where NO ONE gets money because I like doing what I do. Fuck me even if he did decide to pay us out, do you think I'd have the balls to claim a dime? Artists, referees, these are the guys with the hard jobs. Think before you try to turn this on me mate.

As I said to Yukiko, I'm done with this thread. I gave this site my best for a long ass while, it saddened me that things turned out as they did but fuck me if I didn't try to avoid it. For this website and it's users' sake.

This has escalated really fast.. The hate is strong in this one. Bashing each other isn't the way to go. Anyway, I'm speechless..

I am tempted to release some facts on here. So Very Tempted.


Gotta tone down the cage *deep breaths*


So far I like where Kyle is taking us, however it is long overdue(not his fault for that).
He's kinda like the new guy that has to re-work an entire evil empire. *cough* RELIC *cough* 80/20 Kyle's favor, give him a chance



Ami you remind me of two-face.

You've done invaluable good for this community, but also have other initiatives most people are unaware of. 50/50 Just gotta ride the chance and opportunity bandwagon


IpkaiFung reminds me of a salty old guy who's dealt with way more **** than most people should have and now wants to write a 500 page story about his whole ordeal back in Nam'.

Support the ideas, gotta be realistic though 90/10, idealistic, but Relic is Relic.


Kreatir is a salty pirate that has been around and abondoned the community several times due to a combination of failure to push his pet projects and Relic denying him his rights as a godly tournament organizer(which is laughable at best, sorry kreatir I remember the long waits, awful rules, and mediocre organization of your previous tournaments, it was nice to try but it's just not your field of expertise. ) #TheFireRises

40/60 We need a new Captain.


On the position of where ESL casters stand, at least we have ESL casters dedicated to a cause, where as if we had Dane or a Krebs-like figure it what would be for money and not the community.

Brownie points for ESL casters 100/100


Mods please be considerate for once. Know I tried to withhold even meatier information at this time.

Stop exaggerating, Kluge. COH2.ORG, LLC is a partnership. It is owned in parts by myself, Seb, and Marco. After OCF, Janne252 was made a partner. We distribute a portion our earnings after a year to the owners (it's pointless to do them more often because the amounts are so small). I will admit that this has been a losing venture for us owners with regards to time spent versus money earned, on quite a grand scale. But, and I know this is hard for you to accept because it goes against your entire campaign to smear us, we do it because we love it.

I personally am in a unique position. I made good money in New York, had an incredible living situation (I built out an artist's loft and lived practically rent-free for 7 years in Brooklyn), and also made good money at a digital craft firm here in Berlin when I arrived. Since then, I have focused my efforts on COH2.ORG. Over the last 3 years, I've lost significant personal savings. This is my decision, and I don't regret it. I am immensely proud of what we've accomplished here.

COH2.ORG had never asked for anything from our users or this community until OCF. We waited around for over a year for this "$18,000 ESL Event" that Relic announced at Gamescom 2014 and nothing happened. Finally we gave up on Relic and called on the community to fund an event. The response was overwhelming. We were straight up about where the contributions would go, saying clearly on the donation page that 50% would go to the prize pool and 50% would go to COH2.ORG. We also told all of our orange staff in advance that we would not be able to pay them. The $10.8k that we raised from over 1000 people speaks the loudest, much louder than the few of you that are trying to smear us as greedy bastards. This community loves what we do because we put our heart and soul into it.

We're also transparent. Try asking Relic/SEGA/ESL about how much of a commission SEGA is paying to ESL to host these cups. Try asking Relic the details of their marketing budget, or how much it cost to fly Quinn to London to speak with a historian (nice idea, but they totally botched the stream), or do a live action trailer. All we are asking for is a tiny tiny tiny portion of that budget to help us exist. When we negotiated SNF5 with SEGA, the plan was to continue SNF and make it a regular thing.

i guess relic had two options

a) pay esl for organizing a good tournement with volunteer community casters
b) pay coh2.org to organize a probably even better tournement.

What about option c) support both?

If COH2.ORG could become a viable venture, where we could first pay the owners/coders even half of what they are worth, then we would love to expand this organization and start paying other contributors such as media managers, refs, writers, editors, moderators, artists. I am the biggest proponent of people getting credit for what they do and I value the contributions that we have all made to this site greatly.

Because someone has to put the work in to get them done. Brainstorming is great, but inferior to getting things done. Do you know how much coding your ideas would take? How much money, and where it should be spent and why?

didnt want to get involved, but here i have to.

i initially applied as coder. was put on staff as referee. did my job as referee. admittedly not a lot of work, but never got thanked either.

as for coding, i had several ideas and had at least half implemented quite a fee of them. for example in aplha/beta i wrote a program to automatically extract unit stats and put them in a sql db. it wasnt finished, but it could have automated thr process of extracting unit stats. you could have had a patch comparison. your stats would always be up to date. and we could have had it on coh2.org pretty much on release (or at least not long after). i also had an idea for an android app. or if you go back and look at the website feedback threads, i posted a few bugs and/or bugfixes. but i never got to be a coder. never got access to the coder tools.

well, i guess.... in the end its not my loss, right?

Also, money is a touchy subject. There was a thread made during the time of OCF that was about the money. I remember a point made during it; ESL tournaments take half of any prize money. I believe that was also the cause for COH2.ORG, so I do not think that is unfair. As for how the money was distributed: I do not know.

with the difference that esl has paid employees.

Show Spoiler

love it

It was all worth it, thanks Von, that was the ejaculatory celebration half time show we all needed in this .ORGy of salt

Heyo,

it is like christmas eve in here, when everybody is a bit drunk and tells his family members what he really thinks of them. Well here is my two cent:

Of course did ami screw up with relic in the yoink stream (why on hell yoink had to put it online anyway, i will never understand). Of course Ami can be annoying - probably more than other people - but that is mostly because he cares and he wants to create. You can´t have one without the other. He is an perfectionist and he tries to up the production value. I truely understand, that if relics offers him a WFA key for a big tournament like OCF, it is like treating him like a child. Maybe it was from relics side still deserved after the yoink incident, but now it should stop.

What i am trying to say is: I dont care if ami is "two-faced", he is such a prominent figure in the community because "he gets shit done" and without him there wouldn´t be ESL or any competitive scene of coh2.

Best Regards

awa59b

PS: I think ami hates puppies, even the fluffy ones...