These bans do come from reports. The MAL player ban came from a report. In my 5 seasons working at RGL, I've seen a single staff member (not even a 6s admin) comb through logs, and they were removed from the organization over a year ago for that and similar problems. We've even warned league players for combing specific players' and teams' logs for infractions, which is a form of witch-hunting and prohibited. If you actually read any of RGL's articles, you'd see that in almost every single article related to bans, we put in brightly colored text that we only ban off reports. The most recent article, which you should go read because clearly you haven't, mentions it. If a player is banned, it is because they were reported.

In many hundreds of reports we've handled with logs, this is the first time anything like this has occurred. Logs.tf does not display timestamps, and we have no good reason to assume chat messages in the log did not happen during pregame or the scrim, as you can see in the log here. When the rare odd edge cases like this happen, we have an appeals process to handle it, which worked as it should and the players were unbanned (due to the high-profile nature of the MAL case, we took a bit more time to figure out our response internally before rolling back the bans).

It bothers me how this is branded as "fix[ing] the issues with map geometry as well as minor aesthetic and performance improvements" when it's much more than that. Heaven knows steel is a good candidate for fixes and/or a pro version, but branding this as a set of completely uncontroversial fixes rather than a full on pro version of the map feels inaccurate and possibly disingenuous.

(I think the same can be said about all of the Refresh: maps to a lesser extent. I generally support efforts to improve the map pool, but feel that Refresh: misrepresents itself as focusing on purely clipping/bug/perf fixes while doing much more than that)

In this case, this was all a joke on prc's part, so no, no one's getting paid $350 to play in main lol

Paying a player to join/play on a team is totally fine, and would be expected if the tf scene got large enough (similar to other esports scenes with salaried players). There'd only potentially be an issue if a team maliciously paid a player to leave a team before a critical match, which could be a form of match fixing (which isn't the case here, even if prc was paid).

Based on their preseason performance, we're expecting them to be fine in Main. We're definitely keeping an eye on the situation though, and may restrict them in the first few weeks if it's clearly needed.

https://push.dubthink.com/2020/11/hl2_2020-11-16_01-05-17.png

I've been using Iowa Quixalite servers for my team's scrims whenever possible for the last week, and have been super happy with them. I've found that most people get around the same ping to Iowa as they do to Chicago, with some people better and a few worse. Tibby was getting ~30 ping to Iowa, and normally gets ~60 to Chicago. I'm super excited for this partnership :)

PSA that footstep replacements are also banned in the RGL ruleset, so NA players should also be checking they don't have a problematic version of m0rehud or cleantf2.

http://kraft.singles/

I finally got a bit of time to look through the changes and compile my thoughts. In general, I dislike seeing people edit maps and put them out publicly without at least making an effort to contact the original author, and as an aspiring mapper I would be very frustrated if someone did the same with one of my maps, but I think small QoL improvements aren't all that bad to do without permission if the author is no longer in the scene as is the case here. (still, at least try to contact them)

I've compiled my full notes here. The main areas I'm critiquing are 1) a number of common trap spots that are now clipped, 2) a few odd player clipping decisions, and 3) edits that either have larger implications than might be expected, or have little gameplay merit but damage the artistic/visual integrity of the map.

Shotgun soldier still destroys players as much as it always has, but with today's meta, the extra heals shotty pocket takes will almost always have more impact on your demo, scout, or having a 300 health jay-style combo roamer. Shotgun pocket isn't bad, but there's much better options.

tl;dr cocaine isn't worth it

read the full article here

6s staff changes

• Daffodil will be stepping down from their position as the Traditional 6s Head Admin, with Makkabeus Rex filling in and taking over as the head admin for that format.
  
• boxcar and hawko will be stepping down from their positions as an Invite and Amateur Traditional 6s admin respectively.

We would like to thank them for their work and time spent volunteering and wish them the best of luck in their future endeavors. As a result of these staff changes, we are looking for mature, driven individuals who can help us continue to deliver a great platform to ever greater players.

If you are interested in working as a division admin or moderator to help improve our formats, then we encourage you to apply. Moderators are expected to help resolve match issues, player issues, and help build their respective divisions schedule alongside the rest of the Admin team. Admins may also be asked for input on things like off season events, graphic design, and other things across the league.

Apply here!

Rule updates

A number of RGL's rules have been updated to provide additional clarity, fill in some gaps, and in particular to better support casts by RGL and other casting organizations. Read the full changes in the article.

tl;dr matches casted by RGLgg, TFTV, CappingTV, EssentialsTF, eXtvesports, KritzKast, and FiresideCasts will be all be subject to RGL's casted match ruleset. These rules cover servers, team leaders communicating with the casting org, rules for player streams, and players using proper aliases among other things.

I'm super puzzled by why there's so many people clamoring for the iron bomber to be banned now when I've heard extremely few people wanting it to be banned in the past 3 or so years since it became popular. Weapon bans should be based on their net impact on the game, and given that essentially the entire community has been fine with the iron bomber's impact for years, and nothing has actually changed, this all feels really odd to me.

I agree that the behavior of the IB and stock should match behaviors, and would love to see valve or maybe a plugin fix it - either by bringing the IB in line with the rest, or making the rest (or at least stock) match IB. However in the meantime, I think banning something that the community has been largely fine with for so long just because of some new info (that doesn't change anything about its behavior) is kinda stupid.

This team has a huge amount of potential, and all of my tryouts with them were enjoyable - absolutely worth trying out for.

I'm making some tweaks to sunset hud and can't figure out how to get the chargeamount to show on the match hud. For reference, the respawn time works fine. What am I missing?

https://push.dubthink.com/2020/09/atom_2020-09-05_00-40-59.png

This. To be extra clear, removing the sniper scope is considered an exploit and people have been banned for it before in RGL, and I believe most other leagues are the same.

Looking for a S4 team to get good with wow