With a recent occurrence of exploit use, we felt we needed to not only clarify our stance on the usage of exploits within ozfortress competitions but also expand upon the existing exploits clauses in our rulesets to provide a rough idea to players of what is and isn’t allowed. The existing clauses did not actively reflect where we have stood since our previous post regarding exploits, nor the more modern Team Fortress 2 we all keep coming back for.

The focus of the update to the exploits category within our rulesets was to significantly expand on the list of more common exploits and provide players with further understanding of the types of exploitation that may be prohibited. Anyone unsure of where a potential exploit falls still needs to reach out to an administrator for a ruling prior to making use of it. With these updates to the exploit section, we have categorized exploitation under two names, Game Modification & Game Mechanic exploitation. We feel these two categories cover the bulk of exploitation and provide a clear understanding and separation of exploits.

We have chosen to adopt a 3 - 24 month punishment length and will be reviewing future cases on a case-by-case basis. Punishment length will be determined by multiple factors, including but not limited to severity, intent, maliciousness, and the exploit itself.

To reiterate our stance on exploits; it is the sole responsibility of the individual player to be totally and unequivocally aware of what game-modifying custom files they are using within the ozfortress community, and it is critical that anyone who is unsure whether or not something is considered an exploit, that they seek out administrators for a ruling to be made.

You can find the updated exploits section in our ruleset under 6.1 Exploits.

Thanks,
The ozfortress staff team.

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A BRIEF EXPLANATION

If you haven't seen our previous post, or even Respawn League's own post, you might be living under a bit of a rock. Good morning starshine, the earth says hello, and so does Highlander! ozfortress will be carrying the torch for Respawn League's main format going forward, and we hope that we will be able to deliver you even more exciting formats, tournaments and events going into the future.

RSL ASIA WILL NOT BE MAKING THE MOVE

Whilst we did want to continue RSL Asia, there will be no Asia specific division within ozfortress Highlander Season 1. Any and all out-of-region players are welcome to join in-region rosters, but there will be a cap on the amount of out-of-region players on a roster.

WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO THE RSL WEBSITE?

The RSL website will become functionally static, meaning the leagues, posts, users and teams will remain, but you will not be able to create new ones. There will be a pinned post on the front page of the website directing to ozfortress. This will be done to still allow people to see their past Highlander accolades, roster history and more.

RSL INFRACTIONS & BANS HAVE BEEN REVIEWED

For any of those affected by this, we will be reaching out to you within the next 48 hours to let you know what is happening.

A BIT ABOUT RESPAWN

Respawn League, founded in mid-late 2018 by core & Brady, was founded in youthful eagerness to improve and expand upon Highlander not just as a format, but as a community within our region. Over the years we have seen many staff members, even more contributors, and hundreds of players. Having just recently reached over two thousand accounts, nearly three hundred teams, and twelve hundred matches over thirty-three competitions! We owe that growth, this opportunity, and much more to you, the community. We are hoping that this move is one that does not alienate either league and gives you the player the best possible experience we can provide.

SO, OZFORTRESS HIGHLANDER SEASON 1?

Since this is it's first season, we have been sure that not too many changes have been made to the ruleset, and while the wording of a clause (or where that clause might actually be listed) is different, we have aimed to keep the spirit and intention behind each clause intact. Please feel free to bring up any potential issues you see to us, we are happy to work with the community on addressing issues.

Since this is also a continuation of sorts, we have kept the map pool fairly similar, just with updates to map versions. During the signups period, we will continue to work on Highlander documentation, be it rulesets, guides or other docs.

NEW STAFF

We previously announced the Highlander staff you would be expecting to see with the commencement of this season - but we had a secret under wraps. Please give a warm welcome to Sperkle, who will be our newest league administrator for OZF HL 1.

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Thanks, and have fun!
The ozfortress staff team.

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HIGHLANDER

So, not what you were expecting? Don't worry, we weren't expecting it two months ago when we dropped our annual April Fools. So, how did this happen? Well, as some of you may know, Respawn League was the brainchild of myself (core), started in late 2018 as an alternative to what was available at the time with the hope to improve on the Highlander scene within the oceanic region. There are numerous reasons behind this merge, but it is hard to overlook the plethora of benefits that come from consolidating the two active leagues under one banner.

SO HOW IS THIS GOING TO WORK?

Respawn League (RSL) is being dissolved and merged with ozfortress. This includes the Highlander format, much of the existing ruleset, the staff and other services. What will not be making the jump, however, are the team pages and roster history. This is a technical limitation, and our solution to this will be to add a "Legacy Highlander profile" link to user profiles.

Whilst speaking about how this will work, it is important to mention who will be working to make it possible. Please give a warm welcome to the newest additions to the ozfortress staff team:

• bird (Highlander Head Admin)
• Platinum (shy) (Highlander Admin)
• Thyme (Highlander Admin)
• LiquidAlchemy (Highlander Admin)
• Bakes (Highlander Admin)
• Rainy (Highlander Admin)

Those high IQ gamers amongst us may be wondering, two Head Administrators? Not quite, over the next month or two, we also plan to announce our Sixes (6v6) Head Admin. We are restructuring our staff roles to better delegate the workload for seasonal leagues and allow us to plan more tournaments and events for you!

So, how can you reach us with issues, and who do you go to? Good questions, hopefully, we have equally good answers. We will be splitting our existing #admin-support into two channels, #sixes-support and #highlander-support. We will also be adapting our ticket system to better differentiate between leagues for support tickets. As for league administrators, we will also be separating them into Sixes Admins and Highlander (or HL) Admins. Functionally, everything else should remain the same, but we will let you know if we find a better way to handle something.

Player behaviour is an area we want to continue to improve on, and it will remain as it is currently for ozfortress. What this will mean, is that slowly over time we will be expanding our Behaviour and Anti-Cheat panels as we feel we need, and by having entirely dedicated panels to review cases separate from staff, we aim to continue to lessen the workload on any one person, increase impartiality, and response time.

WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?

As we mentioned earlier, there are a number of factors in this "merger", and there are a plethora of benefits. Many of these factors are internal, from website maintenance and management to a lack of purpose-built roles. By merging Highlander under the ozfortress banner, we will be able to better market Australian Team Fortress to potential sponsors, and work closely with other organisations to plan tournaments and events at a larger scale than before, not to mention more off-season tournaments and a wider range of tournament formats. The benefits for you the player do not end there, but it is worth us noting some of the benefits for us internally. By leveraging the existing Behaviour and Anti-Cheat panels ozfortress has (and expanding them as needed), we will be able to tackle more issues, more cases, and more projects - in a way that wouldn't have been sustainable for us before.

But that is enough trying to sell you on it, we'll let our actions do that. If you have any questions throughout the next few weeks, please feel free to ask!

THERE ARE SOME CHANGES COMING

As you would expect, we have some documentation to update. The existing "Rules" that link to our Competitive Ruleset for Sixes will be renamed to "Sixes Ruleset", and the Highlander Ruleset (modelled and based on the Sixes Ruleset, with Highlander specific rules from the RSL Ruleset) will be its own, separated link. Other documentation like the Transfers page, Newbie Guide, Server Configs and more will be updated to reflect the changes correctly. We do ask that during this period of time you allow for some teething problems when it comes to the documentation and general splitting of resources, as this is the first time ozfortress has hosted a second seasonal league.

There will undoubtedly be some changes to the news and announcements, both in Discord and on our website. What these changes will be and how we will go about delivering news content to you in the future is something we will work on. Speaking of Discord, we will be working to make some changes to split channels for both seasonal leagues, along with being able to hide specific formats, channels, or news streams depending on your own preferences.

HOW ARE WE HANDLING BANNED OR INFRACTED PLAYERS?

The Behaviour Panel accompanied by some admins will review currently banned and/or infracted Respawn League players. Players who have been banned for usage of third-party clients, exploits or anything not covered by infractions on either league can be reviewed upon request by that person.

OZFORTRESS HIGHLANDER SEASON 1

Much more info regarding our first season of Highlander will come when signups open, but for now here's the bare essentials:

• You can sign up for ozfortress Highlander Season 1 from Monday the 30th of May, until Thursday the 9th of June. We aim to have seeding out by the 11th of June with the season starting on the 13th of June. This gap between the closing of signups and the start of the season is to give the administration team time to seed teams with community input. ozfortress Highlander Season 1 will begin on Monday the 13th of June.
• Tiebreakers are handled the same way as Sixes, which happens to be identical to how RSL ran Tiebreakers.
• Max roster size is fifteen.
• Transfers are handled on a weekly basis.

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If you want to read more, there is a post on the Respawn League website.

Thank you all,
The ozfortress staff team.

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KEY DATES

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Signups & Seedings Period

Monday 30th May 2022: Signups Open
Thursday 9th May 2022: Signups Close, Rosters Locked
Saturday 11th / Sunday 12th June 2022: Seedings Released

Season Key Dates

Monday 13th June – Friday 17th June 2022: Round 1
Monday 20th June – Friday 24th June 2022: Round 2
Monday 27th June – Friday 8th July 2022: Round 3
Monday 11th July – Friday 15th July 2022: Round 4 (Final Transfer Window & Roster Lock)
Monday 18th July – Friday 22nd July 2022: Round 5

Playoffs Key Dates

Monday 25th July – Friday 29th July 2022: Page Playoffs
Monday 1st August – Friday 5th August 2022: Semi-Finals
Monday 8th August - Friday 12th August 2022: Grand Finals

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PAGE PLAYOFFS

All brackets will be using the page playoff system for their finals. Matches with a single listed date will be locked to that date, and those with a range will be negotiated within that range similar to regular-season matches.

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ADMINISTRATORS

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HIGHLANDER HEAD ADMINISTRATOR

• bird

LEAGUE ADMINISTRATORS

Premier

• Bakes
• Platinum

Intermediate

• Thyme
• Sperkle

Open

• Liquid Alchemy
• Rainy

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UNLOCKS

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View the whitelist at whitelist.tf

New items added to the game during the season will be banned until the next season. Modification of weapons will be evaluated by the administrative team. Taunts that are silent and/or toggle-able have been banned.

It is the responsibility of the player to not use these weapons in matches. The whitelist not loading or loading incorrectly is not an excuse for using banned items.

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TRANSFER WINDOWS

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Our transfers system sees transfers approved every week. Transfers will still be approved on Saturday and Sunday between rounds, however, teams should take note of the transfer windows in order to prevent issues with their rosters during the season. Transfers can be requested at any point during the season, however, the players in question will only be reviewed during the transfer window. This means that an approved transfer will only be eligible for use after the next transfer window. The listed transfer windows can be found below.

For applicants to be eligible to play in a particular round, the transfer application must be submitted by 11:59 PM AEST/AEDT time the Friday of the round before the transfer window.

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Monday 13th June – Friday 17th June 2022: Round 1
Monday 20th June – Friday 24th June 2022: Round 2
Monday 27th June – Friday 1st July 2022: Round 3
Monday 4th July – Friday 8th July 2022: Round 4
Monday 11th July – Friday 15th July 2022: Round 5
Monday 18th July – Friday 22nd July 2022: Round 6 (Final Transfer Window & Roster Lock)
Monday 25th July – Friday 29th July 2022: Round 7

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PLAYER RESTRICTIONS

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This page will show all player class restrictions for players in OZF 34. It will be updated throughout the season with each transfer window.

INTERMEDIATE

• sunfish/ozy restricted off Demoman & Sniper
• omni restricted off Scout
• ella/Max restricted off Sniper
• Brady restricted off Sniper
• kanon restricted off Scout
• Auz restricted off Demoman
• smazza restricted off Scout & Sniper
• ether- restricted off Sniper
• rintincan restricted off Scout & Soldier
• Lev restricted off Scout

• doc restricted off Scout & Soldier

  Open

• Titan restricted off Sniper

• yummy restricted off Scout & Sniper

• Ruse restricted off Scout & Sniper

• emgee restricted off Soldier

• dauq/90210 restricted off Scout, Soldier & Sniper

• elmo restricted off Scout, Soldier, Heavy & Sniper

• ShaDowMark restricted off Soldier & Demoman

• Parelli restricted off Scout

• Lazz restricted off Scout, Soldier and Demoman

• mori restricted off Demoman
  This page will show all player class restrictions for players in OZF HL 1. It will be updated throughout the season with each transfer window.

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