Servers, Plugins, Sixes/Highlander changes, Staff, BearCasts, Summer Cups and Upcoming Seasons!

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Well, it's been a bit. You're all probably wondering when it's all dropping, when you'll see our teased Summer Cup, and when the following seasons will be. We'll answer that below, but there are a few housekeeping items that provide some context as to why things have taken so long to progress.

The Server Situation

There's a bit to unpack here. As you may have noticed, there is some stuff happening with our servers. In early October, our current server provider Qixalite, whom we work very closely with, announced that they were pausing all of their Team Fortress 2 services. Initially, the plan was to use our own hardware, with their booking software, but this changed. For one reason or another, we needed to find another solution. Enter serveme.tf, a name some of the "boomers" amongst us will recognize. With a name synonymous with quality, serveme.tf provides bookable game servers globally, so we've partnered with them to bring au.serveme.tf to life!

So what does this mean for you?

With the swap in providers, comes a few changes to how you use bookable servers. There will no longer be a Discord bot, but instead, a full web interface for booking and controlling your server. We have an updated booking guide ready for au.serveme.tf's full release, which we'll give its own post.

With the transition away from Qixalite services, however, comes further cost. Sadly that is the nature of renting server hardware. We'll update our Patreon goal to reflect that once everything is finalised, and let everyone know. We do however have some planned additions to our Patreon Tiers, namely au.serveme.tf Premium will be included in our tiers. More details on exactly what is included will come in a follow-up post, so keep an eye out for that.

Please hang with us while we resolve any potential teething issues with the new setup, and as always you can reach out for help with the new system when it arrives!

o7 Qixalite, we'll meet again!

We would like to thank Qixalite, especially their server team, for everything they have done for the ozfortress community. They were the invaluable lifeblood of our community for many years, and whilst their contributions may have not been fully recognized by many, we hope to see them again. One final o7 for Qixalite!

Plugin changes & additions for future seasons

Many of you who have completed our Sixes and/or Highlander polls will have seen a question related to a plugin aimed at reducing, limiting or removing interpolation abuse, most prominently seen in Highlander with Spy melee. Whilst we may not implement anything for our upcoming seasons or cups, it is still planned, but we want to ensure there are no unintended side effects of its usage.

Sixes and Highlander seasonal league changes

The post-season polls for Sixes and Highlander contained a lot of potential changes depending on player feedback, and we have some of our own changes to implement as well, so below you will find three, mostly-complete lists of changes for our upcoming seasons.

General changes

General changes, not limited to one or affecting both Sixes and Highlander:

Clarification/changes for "Inappropriate or unrelated posting in Match Threads, specifically Match Communications." infraction:
- Posts in Match Communications/Threads that do not fit our Post Guidelines prior to the conclusion of a match, from scheduling the match day/time to posting scores, logs and other final match details will be infractable.
- Posts in Match Communications/Threads that do not fit our Post Guidelines after the conclusion of that match will not be infractable. Please note, this does not include content that breaches our Community Guidelines or Infractions Ruleset, this content will always be actionable and infractable.
- The above changes have been made as a step back from our initial implementation of the rule, whilst still protecting the match organisation process. We've stated it before, but if it is in our rulesets, we will act on it to the fullest extent of the rule.
We're raising the penalty/punishment for the usage of Alternate Accounts within ozfortress from 12 months to 24 months.
- The usage of Alternate Accounts has increased from when the rule was first implemented, so we feel it is a well-overdue increase.
- Account Sharing penalties/punishments will remain at 12 months as of now.
We're making the following changes to our mercenary rules across the board:
- Lifted the overall season mercenary limit from "Teams can only make use of mercenaries within four matches per season" to unlimited, but teams can only make use of an individual player as a mercenary twice within a season. In essence, this means if your team was to merc LordShidden for two matches, they could not be used as a mercenary again within that season.
- We've made this change to no longer limit teams' mercenary usage within a season, but also to prevent teams from making use of the same mercenary for an extended period of time.
- A Sixes team can only make use of two mercenaries per match, and a Highlander team can only make use of three per match.
Mercenary class denials and/or class locking needs to be stated along with the approval of the mercenary in Match Communications.
- This is so we as administrators know, but also to cover your team on either end of the mercenary equation in the event of a dispute.
Not really a change, but we wanted to reaffirm our position on mercenary denials/disputes:
- We expect that teams seeking to use mercenaries within their match should be asking for at least three mercenaries before contacting an administrator. We've found that in many cases if a team had sought out a third option, the opposing team typically allows that mercenary. You are still free to dispute mercenary denials, but do not be surprised when we ask if you have requested three mercenaries already. This is the expectation we've set internally when handling these disputes, so we wanted to inform players of how we approach these.
Out-of-Region player limits have been lifted in favour of a general Out-of-Region Ping Limit.
- We've opted for a ping limit to allow reasonable inclusion of players outside of our supported region. We've set this limit at 150 ping for now, and are open to feedback on this limit. During the seedings process, we will be doing general ping checks on those who are not from Australia or New Zealand to ensure they are on average at or below that limit.

Sixes changes

We're looking to make changes to the Round Timer value used in our configs, which we'll be trying in the Summer Cup.
- We're also looking to make changes to the Round Win Limit, or removing it in favour of our traditional Win Difference, AKA the mercy rule.
We are intending to make poll results public, but do so in a way that is sustainable for administration and respectful to our typical pre-season time constraints.

Highlander changes

Highlander's Playable Match Days have now officially been changed from Monday - Friday to Tuesday - Saturday.
- Over half of the poll submissions wanted the change, with a quarter being indifferent.
We are intending to make poll results public, but do so in a way that is sustainable for administration and respectful to our typical pre-season time constraints.

Staff; who's gone, who's new!

We're losing two champs. Chimes and Thyme have served as a League Administrator for over a year now, and both were invaluable members of our administration. Chimes joined us during our transition period from catfish to core as Head Administrator, and Thyme came over from RSL to get Highlander in ozfortress up off the ground. Whilst we can't hope to replace them, we know a guy. It's big shoes to fill, so brace yourself, community legend frydog has stepped up to take this mantle, and we have full confidence that they will become an integral part of our administration, as long as he stops simping on Twitter.

Approved Casting organisation addition: BearCasts!

BearCasts has been on the job for a while now, providing coverage of Highlander initially, but later expanding to cover interesting Sixes games. It's not often we get to see a group of vocally inclined gamers get together and build something unique, without the lack of professionalism you typically see. BearCasts are nothing short of top-tier, and we feel it's time for them to be recognized as such. From Sixes Season 36/Highlander Season 3 onward, BearCasts will be joining KritzKast and CappingTV officially as an Approved Casting organisation.

Head over to their Twitch channel, and make sure to click through their socials and follow them for more TF2 action!

Summer Cups & Upcoming Seasons

Yup, plural - Summer Cups. You'll find out more soon, but we'll leave you with this; Summer Cup will be two separate, two-night cups - one for Sixes and one for Highlander. The structure of which will be a map test cup. When it comes to signups time, we will be doing something a little different. Both Summer Cups and Sixes/Highlander seasons will have their signups open close to, if not at the same time, and it'll be soon. Sixes and Highlander seasonal league signups will be open for longer than their typical signups periods, and will close after their respective Summer Cups!

Stick with us, we have a YEAR ahead of us!

Whilst it has been a bit of a slow start to the year, we hope you can understand we've had a lot on our plates, volunteer-wise or personally, but we're looking to make strides in 2023, and we hope to see you there when we do.