The Highlander Open: It begins!

The Highlander Open Cup

The whitelist for 9v9 has been updated and can be found here. Updates: 

• The Conga taunt if used at the end of a round can glitch hitboxes for the next round. Therefore it will be banned.
• All the new weapons from the recent updates will be allowed.

We’re here now at the start line of The Highlander Open. If you were unfortunately unable to sign up in time, you can still sign your team up and you’ll be added to the waiting list where you could be added to the cup if another team drops out. We also have a new screenshot of one of the medals here. Looking good, eh? With that out the way I want to go over 4 different items with this post. In addition  There is information under the Schedule section which you should read carefully as it is very important to how the weeks run.

Groups Stage Tables now available

Yes, you read it correctly, the tables are now live here with 256 teams so all you teams out there can now get busy scheduling your Week 1 Group Stage matches! Remember though that your Week 1 match must be scheduled by Friday 11th July for sometime in Week 1 (13th-20th July) in time for the start of Week 1. If you signed up but are not in the tables, you will be on the waiting list in case a team drops early on in the tournament.

Teams without 9 players on their roster by Thursday 3rd July may be removed from the competition, please make sure you have enough players. Let an admin know if you are dropping from the tournament.

If your match isn’t scheduled, you and your enemy team will receive a default date for that match on its page. This same style also applies for Week 2 & 3 in the Group Stage. Details about the other dates are below. More information about default dates is available here.

Schedule

Sort-of the big one here. There has been some minor changes to the overall schedule but nothing that will impact your team on the whole. We can now also show the full schedule with the Single Elimination playoffs included! Relating to the bits below about Schedule deadlines, the rules have also been updated to accommodate the change.

The cup will be in 2 main parts, the Group Stage and the Single Elimination Playoff Stage with finals at the end.

• Final groups announced: Now (above)

• Schedule deadline for Week 1 matches: Thursday 10th July at 23.59 CEST
• Week 1 start: Sunday 13th July
• Deadline for Week 1 results: Sunday 20th July at 23:59 CEST

• Schedule deadline for Week 2 matches: Thursday 17th July at 23.59 CEST
• Week 2 start: Sunday 20th July
• Deadline for Week 2 results: Sunday 27th July at 23:59 CEST

• Schedule deadline for Week 3 matches: Thursday 24th July at 23.59 CEST
• Week 3 start: Sunday 27th July
• Deadline for Week 3 results: Sunday 3rd August at 23:59 CEST

The results for each week in the group stage will need to be submitted by 23.59 CEST on the sunday (shown above) at the end of their respective week otherwise they will be nullified (0-0)

• Tiebreaker Week: Sunday 3rd August to Sunday 10th August (If you are tied in points with another team in your group after the three weeks, you will be issued a Tiebreaker match for this week)

At this point the top 2 in each group (128 teams in total) will be placed into the Single Elimination Playoffs (starting Sunday 10th August) where each round half of the teams previously will be knocked out of the cup. These matches will need to be scheduled and played promptly like in the group stage.

• Round 1 of playoffs start: Sunday 10th August
• Round 2 of playoffs start: Sunday 17th August
• Round 3 of playoffs start: Sunday 24th August
• Round 4 of playoffs start: Sunday 31st August
• Quarter-Finals week start: Sunday 7th September
• Semi-Finals week start: Sunday 14th September
• Grand Final to be played between: Sunday 21st September and Sunday 5th October

Maps

The rules regarding how maps are played depending on the type are listed here and below. Take care to read the sections carefully.

Map rules:

Each  map has different rules depending on the game mode. Winners of a map get 3 points, and losers get 0 points.

• 5cp maps (Granary/Gullywash/Process) are played with timelimit 30 and windifference 5. If scores are tied play a golden cap.
• Payload maps (Upward/Badwater)  First team to win 2 rounds wins the map. If scores are tied (1-1)  play a golden cap.
• A/D maps (Gravelpit) First team to win 2 rounds wins the map. If scores are tied (1-1) play a golden cap.
• KOTH maps (Viaduct/Lakeside) are played as a best-of-5. First team to win 3 rounds wins the map.

Golden Caps:

Golden caps are used to separate teams when there is a tie in a map. The format is different depending on the game mode. Winners of a golden cap get 2 points, and losers get 1 point.

• 5cp golden caps (Granary/Gullywash/Process) are played when scores are tied at the end of the map. Golden caps should be played with timlimit 0 and winlimit 1.
• Payload golden caps (Upward/Badwater) are used when rounds are tied 1-1. The winner of the next round wins the golden cap.
• A/D golden caps (Gravelpit)  are used when rounds are tied 1-1. The winner of the next round wins the golden cap.
• KOTH golden caps (Viaduct/Lakeside) are not needed. First team to win 3 rounds wins the map.

The map pool is as follows:

• koth_viaduct
• pl_upward
• cp_granary
• pl_badwater
• cp_gullywash_final1
• koth_lakeside_final
• cp_process_final
• cp_gravelpit

The map schedule for each week is as follows:

• Group stage Week 1 – cp_process_final & pl_upward
• Group stage Week 2 – pl_badwater & cp_granary
• Group stage Week 3 – cp_gullywash_final1 & koth_lakeside_final
• Tiebreakers are played best of 3 maps from the pool above

• Round 1 playoffs – koth_viaduct & cp_gravelpit (cp_process_final as decider)
• Round 2 playoffs – cp_granary & pl_upward (koth_lakeside_final as decider)
• Round 3 playoffs – koth_lakeside_final & cp_process_final (pl_upward as decider)
• Round 4 playoffs – pl_badwater & cp_gullywash_final1 (cp_granary as decider)
• Quarter Finals, Semi Finals and the Grand Final are all played Best of 3 maps from the pool above. Details will be listed on your match page

Player numbers in teams

If your team does not have at least 9 players on the roster by Thursday 3rd July, the team will be dropped out of the cup.

Contact

If you have questions about the information above, feel free to contact an admin via the #etf2l IRC channel here.

Other information previously mentioned

Servers

You have a few options in regards to servers. You could purchase a server from hosting companies such as PurePings for your games. Another way is via the brilliant serveme.tf service courtesy of Arie where you can rent a server for a couple hours completely free for all competitive TF2 uses. The final option, our lovely folks over at PurePings have given us a range of European servers that you can use. Just contact an admin here and ask for a server for your match.

Also, your team needs a way to communicate with one another right? Well in the competitive scene we mainly use Mumble as our voice chat client so to benefit you lovely players more we have a 10,000 slot mumble server set up (courtesy of Team Colonslash) for you to join and have a channel for your team, it couldn’t be easier! IP: mumble.highlanderopen.org    Port: 9004

Your server will need to have a special Highlander config file and weapon whitelist (9v9 ones here) on the server used to set the competitive environment. If you rent a server from serveme.tf, you will only need to select the right ones from the drop down menus. If you are provided a server from ETF2L for your match, the configs will already be set and an admin can help you in regards to map changes and more.

How do we show proof of the score when we submit results? What’s this ‘P-REC’ thing?

At least one person during the match will need to take a screenshot of the output of the ‘status’ command from the console window as well as taking screenshots of the final score of every map in every official match.

P-REC is a tool which you can install onto your TF2 client. It can automagically record a POV demo of your competitive matches as well as automatically taking screenshots of the status command output and the final score. You can find more out about it here and how to use it.

Can we have more people on our team roster as subs? (more than 9)

Absolutely. But make sure there is no more than 1 player who has played in Division 5 or higher as such people count as ‘buddies’ and that there isn’t more than 20 on your roster in total as that is the limit.

What if my team isn’t available to play one (or more) of our games?
What if the enemy team doesn’t show up for the match?
What if we cannot access or rent a server for our match?
What if I need to find out about something that’s not here?

Contact an admin via the #etf2l IRC channel with ‘!admin HLO typemessagehere’. Whatever the problem, an admin will be happy to help you.

Have fun and good luck to all that participate! –  Jon