Dear Captains,

We are posting this on behalf of the ETC Chairman following the disappointing circumstances around the exit of 40k as a system from the ETC. We have had discussions with the orgas in light of this and are confident that despite this setback they will still deliver an excellent ETC . There will be absolutely no change for T9A/FOW/WHU/AOS.

There will be a further statement at some stage from the remaining chairs over the circumstances around this but I believe the best way forward now is to focus on delivering a fantastic ETC.

The position of the organisers is: Absolutley no consequence for other systems. Same price/date/venue/quality.

More news to follow, but please rest assured we intend to make sure the ETC is as good as ever for you.

Regards

The ETC Chairs

tneva82 wrote:
Is europe going to have 2 competing 40k team tournaments soon? And wonder what the 40k captains felt that ETC didn't provide?

Slipspace wrote:
I don't quite get the non-country team event. Isn't the whole point of the ETC that it's more or less a "World Cup" of whichever system you're playing and countries are, at least theoretically, playing to win the ETC as a whole for their nation? Also, given that there's not a huge cross-section of players who would be willing to spend the time and money to travel to the ETC who aren't already involved in it, I'm not sure who's going to be on the 6-man teams they're proposing.


Seems like this was pretty much inevitable at some point anyway. The ETC is a bit of a weird event from an organisational point of view. It's not organised by the same people in the same location each year, which I imagine causes big problems with getting a consistent exerpeince for everyone and you're relying on people of varying levels of competence and experience each and every year rather than the same people who can build on what they've learned in previous events. The whole organisational structure seems pretty convoluted to me too. Combine that with the problems of finding venues big enough for the size of the event and I'm surprised something like this didn't happen earlier.

Slipspace wrote:
I don't quite get the non-country team event. Isn't the whole point of the ETC that it's more or less a "World Cup" of whichever system you're playing and countries are, at least theoretically, playing to win the ETC as a whole for their nation? Also, given that there's not a huge cross-section of players who would be willing to spend the time and money to travel to the ETC who aren't already involved in it, I'm not sure who's going to be on the 6-man teams they're proposing.

tneva82 wrote:

Slipspace wrote:
I don't quite get the non-country team event. Isn't the whole point of the ETC that it's more or less a "World Cup" of whichever system you're playing and countries are, at least theoretically, playing to win the ETC as a whole for their nation? Also, given that there's not a huge cross-section of players who would be willing to spend the time and money to travel to the ETC who aren't already involved in it, I'm not sure who's going to be on the 6-man teams they're proposing.

I would figure short of 40k capains who seceded being jerks and organize their event on same dates just for fun many of the same players will be playing in ETC luxemburg anyway.

James Edward Brown wrote:40k at the ETC and moving forward

These are my personal views on the recent ETC split although caveat I am closer than most as a current ETC Chairman. I’ve been involved with ETC since 2015 both as a Captain and for the last two years as a Chair. One of the reasons I’m writing this is I’ve been asked a lot of questions by various people about my views and easier to share them at once.

There has been a lot of accusations and drama regarding it which I think reflects the feeling about the circumstances. However on reflection and having chatted to a number of the people I know within 40k community it was likely an inevitable destination for 40k. While extremely disappointed in the manner in which it has happened (mid-ETC cycle) and the breaking of good faith with the current orga. dwelling on that will achieve little.

I personally felt the ETC charm and draw was bigger together but 40k has chosen to forge its own path. It won’t be under the current ETC banner but as the 40K World Championships.

There is a lot of nerd politics and history within ETC (far more than I’m aware of) and the nature of the bid process, the volunteer nature of the Chairs and the struggle to set up a vehicle to take the ETC further has contributed. The size of the event and no central ownership of terrain etc. means it’s hard to build year on year. The nature of the chairs also meant they were often focused on their own system and didn’t have a wider view. From a personal standpoint, I wasn’t aware around the depth of feeling and history from the 40k Captains. They are a tight-knit community and there is sometimes very little cross over between the systems. They clearly trust their current leaders more than the wider ETC system

There were also a number of issues that arose around nationality eligibility, mercenaries, banning players etc. that were never going to be dealt with to satisfy everyone.

With the massive growth of 40k the revenue and sponsorship opportunities the driver of this was too big. There was already pressure from some areas to admit teams that didn’t fit the current charter. I expect the 40k event to possibly go in a different direction to its current format given the hype around the game.

LUX2020

Where does this leave Lux2020? I have full confidence that the guys will overcome this and move forward for the good of the other systems, including funnily enough 40k! 40k is so big at the moment Europe and the world can accommodate another teams event of this scale. To bridge the gap left by 40k they have an option to release additional space they were going to hire, saving cost plus the following below.

A 3-day long (Friday-Sunday) 40K 6-man team event. For this tournament, there will be no country restrictions (i.e. multiple teams from the same country are allowed and welcome). More details about the rules pack will follow;

Any restrictions on the 40K ESC tournament will be lifted. Registration goes back to a simple first-come, first-serve basis. Players who preregistered on T3 will be contacted soon concerning this policy registration update;

We will host an "A Song of Ice and Fire" tournament. More details will follow;

Feel free to flick me a message if you want to discuss attending ETC 40k or anything related.

Cheers James

Neil Kerr wrote:Why 40k left the ETC

As many people are aware, the ETC 40k community voted overwhelmingly to break away from the ETC and start up their own 40k team tournament (90% to leave, 70% to leave this year). Since then there has been a lot written on various forums and groups about this decision, most, unfortunately, is widely inaccurate and understandably emotive. So this will be my attempt to set the record straight and provide some perspective on what led to 40K breaking away from the ETC.

Apologies in advance as this is likely to be a long post.

Who am I? My name is Neil Kerr and I have been attending the ETC since 2009; 5 times as a player/captain (Team Scotland) and 6 times as Head Referee/TO. I am also the person who has been over the years increasingly pushing for 40K to leave the ETC. Yes, despite what some people have written, Tom and Isik were against leaving for the longest of times. So, in my usual overly egotistical way, I guess a lot of ‘blame’ should be laid at my feet instead of theirs.

What is the ETC? It is a multi-system team tournament that has grown since 2007 to become one of the biggest tournaments in the world. It is driven by the ethos of “for the players, by the players.” And has a charter which lays out the rules by which all the systems which compete with the ETC must adhere to, including but not exclusively: one team per country, that a captain is a captain until he decides otherwise, that the ETC is not responsible nor will get involved with any teams internal organisation or selection. Any changes to the charter require a majority vote of all captains/teams from all systems (which makes it very hard to change anything). Then to ensure the charter is upheld, and in general, to try and steer the ETC as a whole there is a group of Chairmen (normally about 5-6) who are elected by captains. Generally speaking, the individual chairmen are often a captain or person involved with one particular gaming system, and their individual focus more often than not focuses on a said gaming system with zero interest in any of the others. I know this because I was once a chairman. It is not all doom and gloom, I still believe that the ETC has always been, in my opinion, an event founded and run with the best intentions at heart. The problem is that as it has grown over the past 13 years it has become unwieldy, and specifically struggles to satisfy the needs of the 40k players.

The reasons for 40k leaving the ETC all come back to one thing; lack of control. For an event that is meant to be “by the players, for the players”, outside of collectively writing the rules pack and missions, the 40k players, captains, referees and TO, have in actuality very little to zero control over their tournament.

This is the single overarching reason why the 40K ETC community voted to leave.

Currently, the ETC works thusly; proposals/bids to host the ETC are put forward by various people which are then voted on by the ETC captains. The winner becomes the ‘host organiser.’ This organiser is meant to then provide everything the ETC needs to run; said needs being dictated by the various individual systems. The problem is that in truth once a host organiser has been voted in they have total control, and everyone just has to hope that they deliver on what was promised and what is required. What has happened, time and again, is that organisers have fallen well short of meeting the requirements of the various systems, to flat out ripping off the attendees and not even bothering to provide the most basic things. So what we have is a tournament that is meant to be ‘by the players, for the players’ but is in reality ‘by some (often) random group of people, that hopefully won’t be a total disaster.’ Seriously, I am not exaggerating when I say that teams show up to the ETC hoping that it won’t be a complete cluster-feth. To name a few examples; in years past we have had organisers openly ripping teams off and cashing huge amounts of money, not providing even painted tables to play on, and my all-time favourite, not providing sufficient toilet paper (that year I ended up going and buying toilet paper for all the 40k players myself). Suffice to say, whilst the ETC positions itself as one of the world’s premier tournaments, the quality of the venue, terrain, and overall player experience, is often far from that. If it wasn’t for the amazing people that keep coming back to play each year, the ETC likely would have failed a long time ago.

The other issue of control that the 40K community has is with how the being part of the ETC is restricted and controlled by the aforementioned charter and that any exception or change requires either the chairmen’s’ approval and/or a majority vote of all the systems, not just the system that wants to make a change/exception for itself only: The 40K community wants to allow the UN Team (created when there is an odd number of teams) to be allowed to podium if they manage to - reward the large financial commitment made by these ‘stand-in’ players. Disallowed because the charter says no. The 40k community wants to allow a ‘Greater China’ / ‘Greater Asia’ team to help spread knowledge and interest of the ETC in Asia and hopefully in the future have national teams from that region. Disallowed because the charter says “one team per country” and greater Asia is not a country. This is just the most recent two examples of a long-running problem where 40K cannot make decisions for itself that would only affect itself because they go against the charter. Because the power to make changes or grant exceptions resides within the hands of a few people, the majority of whom don’t care about 40k (because if they did they would allow such reasonable requests). All in all this situation breaks the ETC’s core ethos of “for the players, by the players.” Instead, it has become, “for the players, by the players who don’t even have an interest in the game you play.” It’s like saying Baseball should decide the rules for Football. Again all the 40K community ever wanted was full control over the 40k side of the tournament.

Lastly, time and again the 40K community feels like it’s specific needs are not been met. Terrain is a great example of this; as any 40K player knows good functional terrain makes or breaks a game. Because of the fact that the ETC is hosted and organised by a different group of people each year, the quality and functionality of terrain has been hit and miss, to say the least. Some years we have had good terrain, others almost unplayable terrain. On top of this, the 40K community has always wanted to have standardised terrain maps for the various boards that teams will compete on (a mix of heavy, light and medium terrain). Something which has been generally impossible to achieve given the fact that most ETC organisers borrow their terrain from a multitude of sources, making it impossible to have any consistency let alone standardisation. 2 years ago Isik and Djuro, created a set of high-quality foam card terrain that was functional and allowed 40K to finally implement standardised terrain and maps. This terrain was then sold post-ETC to help recoup costs and subsequently, Isik set up a company that sells said terrain. Last year, Tom as one of the Serbian organisers invested a lot of money before, and after the ETC, to purchase enough of said terrain to enable future ETC’s to borrow/rent it. It is worth noting that this terrain was developed in conjunction with the 40K community to meet its requirements. Now what has happened is this year the Luxembourg organisers have, as most organisers in the past have done, completely ignored the clear wishes of the 40k community and instead decided to commission their own 3d printed terrain from a company without ever once asking the 40k community what it wants. This, ‘we know what you want better than you do’ attitude is the very same attitude many host organisers have exhibited in the past. And once again it goes directly against the core ethos of the ETC; ‘for the players, by the players,’ to instead be ‘for the players, by a group of people who really don’t care what the players want.’ To add into this all manner of conspiracy theories regarding how Tom and Isik are making vast profits over forcing the 40k community to use its terrain. Lies spread by people who never bothered to ask the 40K community if it was true or not. I encourage anyone reading this to reach out to their respective 40K Captains and Teams to confirm what I have written.

So given all the above, plus other minor issues to boot, the 40K ETC community finally lost all faith in the Chairmen, Organisers, and ETC in general to ever actually truly listen to what they want and allow 40K to control its own tournament. The net result was a vote by all the current ETC 40k Captains to (A) leave the ETC and set up their own event, and (B) to leave immediately this year. Once again it was an overwhelming 90% of 40k teams that voted to leave, with 70% of them voting to leave now. So when someone writes that this is all a coup, done behind closed doors, with no validity whatsoever. I ask you, how does 90% of the 40k teams constitute anything other than a true and free exercise in a democracy where 40k has decided to take control of its own destiny?

I will finish by saying it truly saddens me that we have come to this juncture. The 11 years and 1000s of hours and 10s of 1000s of Euros I have invested in the ETC over the years would never have happened if I didn’t think it wasn’t something special. But at the end of the day, I love 40K and the people that make up the 40K community more than I love the ETC as a whole. And the ETC for a long time, not just recently, has not been able to adequately live up to its fullest potential. So it is with a heavy heart that 40K leaves the ETC. But at the same time, I only wish the very best for my friends and everyone else still involved with the ETC.

Change is inevitable and so the 40K community is now looking ahead to this year's inaugural 40K World Team Championships - details of which will follow once all the captains and teams involved are in agreement. Until then, remember; it is a game about war, not war about a game.

Neil ‘Skcuzz’ Kerr