It brings us great relief to announce that the summer hiatus is almost at an end, and the time for our 10th season is at hand! With i43 practically over (Check it out!) and only 17 weeks until Christmas, we have a decent window to host what will be our 10th main season. So without further ado, here are the spicy details of ETF2L Season 10!
The MAPS!
The public has spoken! The 6 maps which received the most votes and form our Season 10 Map Pool are:
- Badlands (94% of votes)
- Gullywash (90% of votes)
- Granary (89% of votes)
- Gravelpit (66% of votes)
- Obscure (60% of votes) UPDATE: The rc1 version of cp_obscure_remake has just been released and will be used in the league (pending newer releases).
- Snakewater (59% of votes) UPDATE: The final version of cp_snakewater has just been released and will be used in the league.
Many thanks to the 1,475 who voted!
We welcome 2 new maps to our map pool. One is a familiar name, returning from the cold with a sunny new theme and various balance updates. From the mind of Byte and the mapping skills of Vince comes cp_obscure_remake_b3. Download it here. The second new map has gained a high number of dedicated fans and takes a well-deserved spot in the Season 10 pool. Be sure to download Chojje‘s amazing final version of cp_snakewater here.
Map schedule!
With those maps, the week-by-week order of them will be as follows:
Week 1: cp_badlands – cp_gullywash_pro
Week 2: cp_gullywash_pro – cp_gravelpit
Week 3: cp_gravelpit – cp_granary
Week 4: cp_granary – cp_obscure_remake_b3
Week 5: cp_obscure_remake_b3 – cp_badlands
Week 6: cp_badlands – cp_snakewater
Week 7: cp_snakewater – cp_gullywash_pro
The Rule UPDATES!
There has been a tremendous amount of debate regarding the unlocks. To put the whole thing behind us, and hopefully allow us to focus on more important things, we will be adopting a “vanilla” ruleset.
- Allowed unlocks: Blutsauger, Kritzkrieg, Übersaw and Crusader’s Crossbow.
- Reskins of stock weapons (Lugermorph, Holy Mackerel, Frying Pan, Iron Curtain, Golden Wrench, Big Kill, Enthusiast’s Timepiece) are also allowed.
- All other non-stock weapons are banned, including the Original.
Other Rule Updates:
- We have updated the rule on requesting demos from opponents –
Demos can be requested by an admin or any player of the opposing team.
Admins may request demos up to 14 days after the match was played. They can request as many demos as they require.
The opposing team can request demos up to 48 hours after the match was scheduled to start. They can request demos from up to 2 players for each map.
A player whose demos have been requested has 72 hours to upload the demo, starting from the time the request was made.
Failure to supply a requested demo will be punished.
- We will also be creating a forum thread that allows team leaders to post if their team has folded. This will give teams a new way of informing the admins and the community about a drop from the league, and optionally the reason behind it. Only admins and team leaders will be allowed to post in the thread, and such a post will be enough for admins to implement the drop. However, teams that wish to request a drop in private can still choose to do so by contacting an admin on IRC.
The SCHEDULE!
In the past, our weeks started on a Monday. Most of our teams, however, are known to play their games on Sunday-to-Fridays. This season, ETF2L weeks will start on Sunday and end on Saturday (match deadline). The schedule deadlines will now be the Thursday before the week starts, on 23:59 CEST. We hope this will make scheduling matches, as well as default dates, easier to deal with. Feedback on this in particular would be appreciated.
As mentioned earlier, the playoffs and long season can make fitting the schedule between holidays quite difficult. In an attempt to remedy that, Season 10 will feature divisions of 8 rather than 10. This meanz only 7 match weeks, so we have a bit more time to run the season smoothly. Please let us know what you think about this in the schedule feedback thread.
Signups will close on Monday, September 12th 23:59 CEST. Divisions will be announced on Sunday the 18th and Week 1 will start on Sunday, September 25th.
SIGNUPS!
What are you doing reading this when you could be signing up? Do it, sign up now!
You can apply for a specific division when signing up, between Divisions 1-6 and “unknown”. Teams applying for the Premier Division should contact us on IRC or on the email address below. If your team wants to request a higher division seeding, be sure to send us an email with an explanation of your case and screenshots of some good, recent results. Mention your team name and the division you are aiming for and send it all to [email protected]. Please collect all screenshots under one link, for example using imgur.
FEEDBACK!
We are always interested in hearing what the users have to say about ETF2L. You can give your opinion on the map pool, the unlocks, the rule changes and the scheduling system in their respective feedback threads.
There is still information to come regarding Season 10. Keep an eye on the front page for news on prizes and more!