artwork by soda (@Sodaboop on Twitter)

---

Returning with Season 34, we've been hard at work updating the documentation across ozfortress.com. We now have the competitive ruleset amongst other documentation displayed in PDF format, allowing us to more quickly make updates without needing to wait. We're hoping between this and a general drive to ensure what we have within our rulesets and docs is what we truly agree with and enforce going forward.

We are open to suggestions, feedback and concerns regarding any of the content on ozfortress.com. We want to continue our push to ensure our community feels represented within our decision making, and we hope going forward that it shows.

Competitive Ruleset changes for Season 34

One thing that has been in the back of our minds when considering and working on changes for this season, was that we should be able to get behind and enforce any and all rules within our ruleset with 100% confidence. We have split the list below into two categories; Changes and Clarifications. We are providing some clarification on specific rules that players raised concerns or queries with last season.

Changes & Additions

• Mercenary usage in a Playoff match no longer requires the team requesting the mercenary to seek administrator approval. This has been a rule for many years, but as of the last year or so we have noticed an uptick in the number of captains either forgetting or neglecting to seek approval for their mercenary, so for Season 34 we have decided to remove this requirement. Teams and captains can still deny specific mercenaries, and can still request administrators review mercenary requests.

• Broadcasts of a player’s POV outside of a casted setting where STV delay is enforced, a minimum observable
  delay of at least ten (10) seconds is required. We define “observable delay” as a combination of personally set
  stream delay (for example in OBS) and standard Twitch/YouTube streaming delay. We have made this addition to the ruleset to safeguard teams against stream sniping / players using low delay player POV streams to their advantage. In the past we considered this to be on the player streaming, but feel by instituting a clause for it in the ruleset, it will add further consistency to POV and match streaming.

• Players being requested for transfer must have either a public profile or be reachable (on the friends list of an administrator and have their profile set to friends only), private profiles we cannot verify during the transfer process will be denied and will need to be re-requested in the following window, and meeting the same criteria.

• The sale of in-game ozfortress medals (and any other medals) is strictly PROHIBITED. Valve has a strict policy that league and tournament runners do not sell Medals/Promotional items for any currency (in-game, monetary or otherwise), and this policy is also passed on to those who wish to receive said Medals/Promotional Items (meaning you, the player). Selling a slot on an active roster for in-game items or money is also strictly prohibited. Individuals or parties caught selling/trading for medals will be reported directly to Valve. We feel the clause here outlines our stance on this perfectly, but this is a restriction and expectation placed on tournament runners by Valve.

Clarifications

• Teams can only make use of mercenaries within four official matches per season. This has been inconsistently enforced in the past, but for Season 34 and beyond we are committed to enforcing this rule, and tracking mercenary usage as a whole.

We hope that players understand we are making strides to ensure consistency within our competitive ruleset, and make meaningful changes that players are rallying for. We have some exciting news coming up and we hope you are just as excited for them too!

---