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LAN Downunder 2025: Qualifiers Bracket

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LAN Downunder 2025: Qualifiers Schedule

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Alternate Account Ban

• samdean STEAM_0:0:790217762
  • (ALT) Smoop2020 STEAM_0:1:556622048

The player above has been found using alternate accounts to play within ozfortress. As such, the players have been banned from ozfortress.com, the community's competitions, and all other ozfortress properties for 2 years. If they are found attempting to evade their ban, their ban will be extended.

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Should any individuals or groups within ozfortress be found housing the listed player/s in our competitions, or aiding in ban evasion, those responsible will face severe penalties.

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We're looking for more Behaviour Panel members!

We just recently said our farewells internally to a panel member who has been with us for many years, and we wish them the best of luck in the future. So, as the heading says, we are looking for people! We're looking for panel members, and ideally a future Behaviour Panel Lead. If you think you could fit what we are looking for in a panel member, please send an application.

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Infraction Threshold Ban

The following ban/s are for accruing enough infraction points to reach a Infraction Threshold ban. The duration of this ban is listed below.

croppy STEAM_0:0:713881872

This player has accrued a total of 60 ozfortress infraction points. As such, the player has been banned from ozfortress.com, the community's competitions, and all other ozfortress properties for 1 year, after which they will serve a 12-month probation, in which any reoffence will double the severity of the penalty. Their ban duration will be extended if they are found evading their ban.

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Should any individuals or groups within ozfortress be found housing the listed player/s in our competitions, or aiding in ban evasion, those responsible will face severe penalties and hefty league bans.

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Here it is, our near-seasonal changes post. Nothing here should be too shocking to anyone in our community given recent events.

ozfortress x Matcha Bookable

Something that might be bigger news however - we are working with Matcha Bookable to enforce ozfortress bans on their servers from Season 42 of Sixes/Season 9 of Highlander onward. Whilst au.serveme.tf will still be the primary server provider supporting ozfortress, it's good to have another provider just as dedicated! We would like to thank them for working closely with us and we hope to keep working with them going into ozfortress' future.

Global Ruleset Changes

• Added 12.4. Disbanding of Teams with "Cheaters": Teams who are found to be playing with someone cheating in season competitions will have all their matches overturned and will be disbanded. If we determine the rest of the roster was unaware of their teammate's unfair play, they will not be barred from joining other existing rosters for the remainder of the season, and will remain eligible to receive medals at the conclusion of that season.
• Existing 12.4. ozfortress Bans is now 13. ozfortress Bans in the Global Ruleset.
• "Evidence Bans" ban-type has been renamed to "Unfair Play Bans (Ban Sub-Type)".
  • This ban-type name change was made to make it a little clearer what these bans are for, and will include the ban sub-type next to it.
• Unfair Play Bans like the departing Evidence Bans still include Game Modification Bans and Map/Game Mechanic Exploit Bans, but instead of the shorter ban durations these ban sub-types had previously, both now mirror the parent Unfair Play Ban duration of 24 months/2 years.
  • "If we are willing to ban a player for the usage of banned game modifications or map/game mechanic exploits because they provide an unfair advantage akin to cheating, why should we treat them any differently to the usage of third-party programs" has been a point raised within our team numerous times in the last year, so we have opted to have these ban sub-types mirror the parent's ban duration.
• Community members found to be housing permanently banned individuals or assisting in evading their permanent ban will receive 2x the existing Evasion Assistance Ban. Previously, this ban's duration was two years, but we have lowered it to one year. However, as mentioned above, if you are found housing or aiding in ban evasion for permanently banned players, you will receive two years.
• Maps must be played in top-to-bottom order as seen on that match's match page, for both regular season and playoff matches (including playoff matches without pick/bans). Teams are not permitted to change this order, even if both rosters agree.
• 10.2. Server Providers, 10.2.1. Third-Party Servers and 10.3. Server Locations have all been updated to reflect the current server ecosystem. Matcha Bookable servers can be used as long as their servers meet our requirements at the time of use.
• Updated 4.6.1. Player Restriction Limit to reflect Sixes not currently enforcing a Player Restriction Limit on rosters.

ozfortress Team Captain Discord Changes

• Unapproved Casting Organizations will no longer be able to see all match channels, and will need to request to cast a match by directly pinging those team's captains, and the division administrator in #captains-corner.

Additional Docs Changes

• Bans page has received more updates outside of just Unfair Play Bans as noted above. Most ban types have had their descriptions expanded or reworded to make more sense, and the previously mentioned 2x punishment for players found housing permanently banned individuals has been added to the Evasion Assistance Bans category.
• All previously missing bans are now listed in the relevant Bans docs pages.
  • Unfair Play (Anti-Cheat) Bans
  • Player Behaviour Infraction Bans
  • Other Bans
  • Past Bans
• We are looking to replace these pages with an automated page in the future.
• Self-managed Servers guide page updated to include current server plugin requirements.
  • SrcTV+, Demo Checker plugin and Enhanced Match Timer have been added. Improved Match Timer (by b4nnybot) has been removed in favour of Enhanced Match Timer by Shigbeard.
• Updated Highlander Ruleset with Highlander changes, see the Highlander changes post here.

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Permanent Ban

• Xstroyer STEAM_0:1:567280780
  • (ALT) Eve STEAM_0:1:99017819

This person has been permanently barred from all ozfortress properties due to continued breaches of our Community Guidelines and evading their bans using alternate accounts.

Should any individuals or groups within ozfortress be found housing permanently banned player/s in our competitions, or aiding in ban evasion, those responsible will face a doubled penalty for Evasion Assistance. We will discuss this in further detail in an upcoming news post, but for now - know that we will not tolerate any permanently banned user being housed by anyone within our community, and will punish anyone doing so much harder.

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Alternate Account Ban & Evasion Assistance Ban

• Andreas Vesalius, aka Lazz STEAM_0:1:495213138
  • (ALT) shuriken STEAM_0:1:60402428
• emo/Half Evil/wally west STEAM_0:1:103417454
  • (ALT) cinnamoroll STEAM_0:0:24434043

The players above have been found using alternate accounts to play within ozfortress, whilst also helping other banned players evade their ban using alternate accounts. As such, the players have been banned from ozfortress.com, the community's competitions, and all other ozfortress properties for 3 years. If they are found attempting to evade their ban, their ban will be permanent.

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Evasion Assistance Bans

• AlteredReality STEAM_0:1:105261046

• Sassy STEAM_0:0:70838225

• kiiki STEAM_0:0:95410728

• mxmnoon STEAM_0:0:574825485

• postmeridie STEAM_0:1:91352448

• szn/علي STEAM_0:0:25371100

• tao STEAM_0:0:485034200

• xanny STEAM_0:1:111808620

The players above have been found assisting a banned player in evading their ban. As such, these players have been banned from ozfortress.com, the community's competitions, and all other ozfortress properties for 1 year. If they are found attempting to evade their ban, their ban duration will be extended.

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Regarding Alternate Accounts

Some alternate accounts/shared accounts/bought accounts are not listed here, but our policy is to ban any obvious subversion account.

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Ban Resets

This Ban Reset is not related to any of the bans above.

• nxs STEAM_0:0:48363852

This player has accrued 30 ozfortress infraction points whilst serving their ban. As they accrued these infraction points during their ban, the player has had their ban reset back to a total duration of 1 year. After their ban, they will serve a 12-month probation, in which any reoffence will double the severity of the penalty. If they are found attempting to evade their ban, their ban duration will be extended. Please note, a permanent ban is being considered on further reoffences by this person.

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Should any individuals or groups within ozfortress be found housing the listed player/s in our competitions, or aiding in ban evasion, those responsible will face severe penalties.

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We get the title of this post is a bit wordy, but we promise the plugin and each person's interaction with it couldn't be simpler.

Are you automatically recording your demos with ds_enable 3? If you also have ds_autodelete set to 0, you have nothing to worry about - you might see some messages in chat saying you're all good, but you have nothing to worry about. If however, you have ds_enable set on any other setting, or ds_autodelete set to 1 (which automatically deletes all demos after they are recorded), then the plugin will warn you in chat after you join or upon both team's readying up.

This plugin has two modes. Currently, the plugin is set to its warning-only mode, which notifies everyone on the server of a player's settings when they join the server, or on ready up. In the future, we may opt to turn on the plugin's kicking mode when a person has invalid settings, which in addition to the two already performed checks in the warning mode, can also prevent a person from joining the server if their settings are invalid.

We are planning to leave the plugin on warning-only mode, for now, to get some numbers on who doesn't have their settings set correctly, who opts to manually record, etc. Once the plugin has had some time to simmer in everyone's minds, we'll look at making any needed changes/changing settings. A big thank you to everyone involved in making this happen, and an even bigger thank you to Shigbeard for bringing the plugin to life!

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Account Transfers

Over the last couple of years, ozfortress has sparingly transferred or changed the Steam account connected to an ozfortress account in various instances. This process is entirely manual and is also not an established procedure within our ruleset. This was originally our intention, to keep the process undocumented, and apply it rarely as it is an entirely manual and tedious process. However, this has caused understandable confusion - confusion we could have avoided easily by documenting the process.

Full unban: submarine/hands

If you aren't entirely sure what we're on about, raving like boomers, well we have egg on our faces. We recently issued an Alternate Account ban to submarine/hands, of which we had solid evidence, but later found during their appeal that they had contacted a past administrator who simply forgot to bring their request for an account transfer forward to the rest of our team. At the end of the day, it happens, this time it just happened to happen when everyone would have least wanted it to happen. As such, this player has been unbanned.

The original ban post has also now been edited to reflect this.

3.3.1. Account Transfers

What was made clear is the purposeful obfuscation of the process is detrimental, so we've added a public account transfer process (and even a rule to the Global Ruleset: 3.3.1. Account Transfers) to prevent any future confusion. For now, there are no listed conditions that need to be met or any other stipulations - but this will change post-season. Traditionally, account transfers have been reserved for cases of players losing access to their main Steam account (the one connected to their ozfortress.com account), and we don't expect this to change, but we're open to feedback like always. To be clear, the use of Alternate Accounts, or sharing of another user account (Account Sharing) is strictly prohibited and always will be.

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Demo Check Penalties Updated

In some of our prior posts, we detailed changes to our 8.9.1. Demo Checking rule, in particular its penalties. We also noted that we would be paying close attention to those penalties and their ban lengths, and see if any adjustments were needed going forward.

Effective immediately, demo check failures that are not related to Anti-Cheat will now only incur a 3-Month Ban on a second offence and a 1-Year Ban on any further offences. These have been lowered from their previous 6-Month Ban and 2-Year Ban. We'll continue to keep an eye on things, discuss player feedback internally and see where we want to take this system.

Potential Steam Cloud Issues

A couple of users have reported Steam Cloud either rolling back or messing with their game settings, potentially affecting their ability to record POV Demos. We wanted to reissue a reminder that it is the player's responsibility to ensure they are recording POV Demos, and we believe there are enough indicators of when a recording starts to know when a recording doesn't start.

We have not received many reports of Steam Cloud failing, but we are looking to investigate it further. For that to happen, we need solid evidence that Steam Cloud is rolling back game settings or perhaps even custom files. If you have experienced this issue and can share any information on how or why, please contact core directly on Discord.

Demo System Settings

What seems to be the most reliable way to ensure Demo System settings are saved currently is to add them to your config files, specifically your autoexec.cfg. To do so, copy the following lines and add them to the bottom of your autoexec.cfg found in either steamapps/common/Team Fortress 2/tf/cfg/, or steamapps/common/Team Fortress 2/tf/custom/foldername/cfg if you have your config files in your custom folder.

Alternatively, you can use the config file we are providing, and add either of the following lines to either your autoexec.cfg or your launch options:

• exec demosystem to the bottom of your autoexec.cfg.
• +exec demosystem.cfg to the end of your launch options (right click on Team Fortress 2 in your Steam Library > Properties > General > Launch Options).

For either of the options above, you will need to download the demosystem.cfg config and add it to steamapps/common/Team Fortress 2/tf/cfg/. We will update our POV Demo Recording guide shortly to include this new config and the instructions on how to use it.

Please Note:

If you use mastercomfig, any custom user configs (including this one) must go into a specific directory to work.

Demo Check Failure: Second Offence

Raelen STEAM_0:1:60849964

The player above failed to produce POV Demos when requested a second time. As they have been unable to provide their POV demos twice, they will receive the second offence penalty. This player has been banned from ozfortress.com and the community's competitions for 3 months. Their ban duration will be extended if they are found ban-evading during their ban.

Ban started 28/10/2024, and will end 28/01/2025.

Should any individuals or groups within ozfortress be found housing the listed player/s in our competitions, or aiding in ban evasion, those responsible will face severe penalties and hefty league bans.

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The ban below on submarine/hands has been rescinded. Whilst our evidence suggested correctly that this user was actively using an Alternate Account within ozfortress, this user requested in the past to transfer a new Steam account onto their existing ozfortress account, but that request was not properly forwarded by a past administrator to the rest of the staff team. You can read more about this here.

Alternate Account Ban

submarine/aigis STEAM_0:1:217462379
hands/y-g STEAM_0:0:16964609

The player above (submarine/aigis) has been found using an alternate account (hands/y-g) to play within ozfortress. This player has been banned from ozfortress.com, the community's competitions, and all other ozfortress properties for 2 years, after which they will serve a 12-month probation, in which any reoffence will double the severity of the penalty. Their ban duration will be extended if they are found ban-evading during their ban.

VAC Ban

magnett/nazgul STEAM_0:1:159946378

The player above has recently received a VAC ban from Team Fortress 2. Because of their VAC ban, this player has been banned from ozfortress.com, the community's competitions, and all other ozfortress properties for 1 year, after which they will serve a 12-month probation, in which any reoffence will double the severity of the penalty. Their ban duration will be extended if they are found ban-evading during their ban.

Should any individuals or groups within ozfortress be found housing the listed player/s in our competitions, or aiding in ban evasion, those responsible will face severe penalties and hefty league bans.

Typically, getting above 90 points would incur a longer ban, but we have chosen to keep the ban to one year in this instance and will be looking to make a change to the Infraction Ruleset to better accommodate bans like this as they are rare (bans that are not Ban Resets, bans whilst serving probation).