When the update for CS came out that had drivable vehicles for the first time, it was a week before a big local LAN. We spent all weekend on some giant racetrack map laughing our asses off the whole time for two full days.

Before this thread gets appropriately locked - I want to try and channel a little energy toward dealing with what I see as the real barriers to improving the speed and accuracy of TF2 league discipline.

I am saying this as not only a retired RGL admin/RC member - but also as the parent of a teenager who is very online. (I am not going to violate any confidentiality on any case here or talk about my own family and life).

As far as I can tell, few or none of the people talking about league discipline here actually experienced reviewing cases and deciding when/how to act and that doesn't invalidate their views, but please keep that in perspective.

The biggest issue by far is a lack of reporting. I have heard and seen many people complain heavily about league slowness or inaction on issues, but themselves never filed a report and seem oblivious to the idea that the league cannot act on what it does not know.

There's just this assumption that because some people talk about things in private discords, that league staff already know and the delay is just waiting for them to get around to it.

As volunteer-led, community leagues - almost all the incidents that made this video took place completely outside of any definition of 'on-platform' activities. They're in private discords and direct messaging or player's past/offline activities.

Leagues cannot see these things to act on unless a victim or someone who sees it takes the time and effort to document and report.

Dealing with these requires facts to be seen and understood. Without them, the leagues have a choice, just ban people based on opinions/innuendo or wait for judgement until facts and evidence come to light.

RGL has historically sat on the somewhat conservative side of needing to be pretty sure before banning a player, at least since well before I joined RC (way less than 'beyond a reasonable doubt' but a lot more than 'I heard XXX is a pedo'). People can and do report bullshit sometimes. There are people in this community that could have ended up in this bullshit video that did not belong there because someone doesn't like them or has bizarre understandings of what harassment or misconduct might be.

What the loudest complainers don't seem to recognize is that when we demand action from the league on the former - we're setting up a situation where innocent people will get not only banned, but harmed.

Moving that line might get a couple of people on the perm-ban list a few days or weeks faster, but it is 100% certain people who did not do anything wrong would also end up there by that standard.
And I don't think you can un-ring that bell.

It would be a lot more productive if people debating and complaining approached the issue with a mindset of that line and whether/how it can or should be moved instead of assuming leagues 'know' everything that happened and it's just a matter of clicking the ban button or not.

But, even if you don't want to get into the debates - if you have seen these behaviors, please, please file reports and share the evidence.

Please never assume because some of the evidence is in a team discord or circulating among your teammates or friends that the leagues know. They probably don't and it would be way better to see the same thing reported 3 times than everyone to assume someone else has done it and then be frustrated that discipline hasn't happened yet.

Decided it would be haha funny and edgy to ring Nursey for a few scrims and even made sure to ask the other teams if they were OK with it first.
And then I had to fill in as TL for a few weeks while he served the ban or doing it.

Bumping this thread rather than make a new one.

The deadline for team registration for the Experimental Map Cup is tomorrow night (Sunday, Jan. 4 at 11:59PM EST). We have a great turnout of Amateur - Main level teams so far, but we could really use a few more in the Advanced-Invite level.
Not just for rounding out good, competitive divisions, but also for feedback on the maps.
Getting good trials and feedback on these maps is crucial if we're going to get more variety in the map pool..

So, if you're considering playing in the Spring season, I'd urge you to get the gang back together and join us for this event.
At worst, it's four nights of playing something different and a little opportunity to prep your team cohesion.
At best, you might win some matches and influence the future map pool.

Also of note - both passage and nile mappers have updated their maps and so we will be using those updated versions for the Cup:

cp_nile_a8a
cp_passage_a14b

Speaking of the upcoming Spring mini-season - announcement of more details and registration opening will be coming in just over a week!

Is this feature already windows compatible or any plans to implement?

Registration is open and maps announced for the Map Cup taking place in mid to late January!

Read the full article here

Maps are:
cp_nile_a8
cp_passage_a13 (note: passage is the successor to cp_skytrain)
koth_govan_rc1
cp_subbase_b3

All four of these maps have seen extensive work by their creators to be viable for Sixes and have an active mapper. I’m very optimistic players will enjoy playing them and one or more will be in the sixes regular season rotation. I hear a lot of complaining about map rotation being stale - this event is a critical step to expanding the pool, so I hope a lot of you are able to give it a go and help the mappers refine their work and the community expand the pool.

gulp

Primarily it's monitoring tickets and answering them, checking transactions and approving or denying (or restricting when needed), checking matches to ensure everything is proper (logs, players paid up, ringers declared, etc), managing playoffs and interacting with Team Leaders on whatever support they need throughout the season.
At beginning of the season, they have to review and place teams, including issuing restrictions.

For those of you clamoring for earlier times, this Spring we’re offering 930PM match times (EST) for higher level players as a test case while keeping a 1030 option for those who prefer it.

If you are a proponent of those earlier times, this is your chance to show it and help prove it can be viable.

Thanks for posting this, traveling for work so I wouldn’t have been able to for a couple more days.

I’ve gotten some good questions and solid feedback already from players both enthusiastic and less so. I urge players to fill out the post season surveys and feel free to message me if you want to chat about how RGL can be better for players/the long run.

Lastly - I can’t emphasize enough that the Sixes staff has some really great and hardworking people, but we are shorthanded and that makes it tough to put on events and service the community as much as we’d all like. If you have the interest and time to help, please consider applying for staff. Especially if you’re a longtime player and/or supporter of competitive TF2 in North America.

This is really an amazing tool that can be incredibly useful.

Big props to the devs for making this.

You can still pick up dropped mediguns and preserve some of their uber.
The change is to mediguns that had the charge activated - the charge now drains much faster as per the next change in the log, and the charge is not cancelled by being dropped.

So, you can still pick up the enemy medigun and have that advantage, you just can't drop yours during your uber and preserve it - ie use, drop the gun, pick up theirs and repick up yours and preserve most of your charge as seen in
this video.

I pre-ordered the Orange Box so was able to play in Beta in September 2007. I was 30 years old then, about to get married, two years before my daughter was even born.

I was vaguely aware there was a competitive scene for TF2 but it didn't exist as far as I was concerned. Found a community server pretty quickly and had a lot of fun there playing with a big group of regulars for a long while - seeding servers and playing custom maps - spent way way too much time on 24/7 Warpath2.

The way the game was then definitely holds an outsized spot in my head canon. I still think of every unlock or gameplay change as "new tech" - as in airblast seems like it was added after 5 years instead of 10 months. I remember people getting their first hat drops in the game and making big deals about them the way people would today about getting a top tier unsual effect all-class hat. It was months before I got my first one - a Vintage Tyrolean I still have.

I still find the game a lot of fun to play, though I finally realized I can't keep committing the time to play seasons anymore (and am ~6 years into knowing I'll ever be able to be good at the game) - still love it and appreciate the many interesting folks I've met playing it over the years.

Nothing makes it tougher for people who want to prey on children than siphoning everyone underage into one place.

Repeating the announcement made earlier this evening on the RGL Discord - we have decided to delay the Invite and Advanced seasons by one more week to allow some teams to finalize rosters. During this time, we are open to any additonal teams that want to form for either of these divisions (not Main or below). If you might have a team to form or revive a previously dead/inactive Advanced or Invite team - please reach out to Tristen, a.t. or myself right away.

This extension also moves the deadlines for having 5 paid roster players to Saturday, Sept. 20. The Invite poll deadline has also been extended to midnight EDT Thursday, Sept. 18.