I do think the casting rule is dumb. The primary reasons given are just dumb excuses that are immediately fixed by setting up 1 STV relay server per concurrent official RGL cast, and the secondary reasons (the real reasons you have this rule in place) are unacceptable and display priorities that work against the community.

There is more than one way to cast a match. Twitch viewership is not a zero sum game. I would like to cast matches from spy povs, geared towards spy mains, which is a completely different provided experience from the traditional match casting format. You have been using the sponsor excuse for 9 seasons now, but there is nothing to show for it. You are picking up all the downsides of a big sponsor-friendly organization with none of the upsides or resources associated with actually being one, at the expense of the community.

Have you specifically been told by a potential sponsor that you will receive resources conditional upon single stream viewership? If so, it seems like you are seeking money at the expense of community involvement. If not, then your paragraph in that section is meaningless, but the community is still harmed. Doesn’t RGL claim to be a community league?

The purpose of these posts is not to get my kicks in, but to try to prevent RGL from doing something stupid. By ignoring me, you are just deciding to allow me to be dissatisfied because it probably costs less to you, and this is an unacceptable approach for a community league. I believe the things I’ve said, and I like to believe that RGL wants to have good intentions and so you believe the things you say, but this rule exposes a corruption in your intentions and I think you should address it.

I’ll tell you how I am feeling as a result of this interaction. I think that nothing will happen and that this rule, which I think is terrible, will continue to exist unchanged. I do not see any good reason to keep this rule, so I will continue to think that RGL enforces at least one terrible rule that prevents me from creating and viewing community content that I would like to exist. I feel that my time on this thread has been wasted, and I am discouraged from doing something like this again, which would result in you receiving less feedback in general and less community involvement from me. Maybe this is your goal?

This one interaction is an example of many different interactions that several community members have had with RGL. If you don’t understand this, then you are failing at doing your job well. If you do understand this, then you are ignoring it for reasons I don’t understand, but about which many will be cynical. There have been several moments over the lifetime of RGL where others along with myself have decided not to try to improve the league, because of past experiences like this one.

This is such a bad response and a good example of how RGL makes it hard to not disengage from community involvement.

It has now been 26 days since my last post on this thread and well over a month since my original post, and I have not received a response from anyone at RGL, except for the one reply near the top that didn’t address the content of my post. It seems like I was correct in my last post.

It would help if RGL could at least state in advance which matches RGL is casting, so members of the community can know which STVs they are not allowed to enter and can plan ahead of time. Either way, this rule is wrong and has no place in a community league. Clearly you don’t agree, but it is frustrating that you are apparently unwilling to discuss it.

To be clear, I am entirely against any league rule which bans players for entering or streaming the same match as RGL.

Here are your justifications for the rule given in this article:

• To help mitigate possible DDoS attacks with STV information being leaked
  – Anyone who is able to receive leaked STV info could also receive leaked server info, so this point is meaningless. It looks like you added this as the first bullet point for shock value.

• To avoid the server being affected performance-wise
  – You could host matches that are being casted by RGL on servers with resources capable of supporting more viewers. I’m sure that this is unpopular with teams who own their servers and like to play matches on them, but it seems more desirable than banning other players for entering the STV. I’m sure other restrictions exist anyways to enforce that at least RGL can enter if they please, so extending that rule doesn’t seem too bad. Preferably, RGL can provide STV relay servers to third parties, or address the STV relay bug in one of several ways discussed earlier.

• To avoid an STV slot being taken away from the production team
  – This is fundamentally the exact same issue as given above, listed a second time.

Secondary considerations:

• Promoting coverage of more invite matches happening during the same day and time rather than multiple coverages of the same game
  – Different casts provide different experiences and perspectives. For example, I have been casting exclusively from the spy POVs each match, which is entirely different content than a traditional cast of the match itself. The promotion of diverse coverage does not necessitate match exclusivity. There is very often only one interesting game per week, and having different angles of the top matches is a net positive.

• RGL is in talks with different sponsors and selling the brand is difficult when the official RGL stream has low viewer counts
  – Twitch viewership is not a zero sum game. Given any two streams, a viewer might watch both, one, or neither. A viewer of one stream may choose to not watch at all rather than watch the other stream. Since every other reason given is bogus, this seems like the only real reason for this rule, and it puts the interests of the league above the interests of the community. At what point do the upsides of a sponsorship get outweighed by the downsides it pressures onto the community? Would you drop HL if a potential sponsor would consider a league that only supports 6s? Or if that potential sponsor demanded a certain whitelist, or wanted to put in place some other ridiculous rule banning players for something stupid? If you truly are in talks with a sponsor that refuses to support your brand unless you ban anyone in the same STV as you, then you should drop that sponsor and look elsewhere.
  – Why then are players in the very same match allowed to stream their own POV? Why are other matches allowed to be casted at the same time? Do these things not take viewers away from the official cast? You claim to want coverage of more invite matches, but here claim that you want more viewers, at least somewhat acknowledging that less important matches are less desirable to viewers.

The one response to this was a sentence stating that STV relays in TF2 have a bug. That seems like an RGL problem that should take precedence to be addressed above plenty of other things that RGL is doing, and certainly above banning players for streaming matches or sitting in STV. The way these issues have been presented and feedback has been ignored comes across as extremely scummy. You clearly think that RGL has made the right choice if you will go so far as to ban players over this, but I hope that I have demonstrated by now a certain level of investment in this issue to warrant a good response.

i am IP banned on this website. I have to post this from a VPN. Mothership told me to DM his discord. I can’t DM mothership on discord because it says he is not accepting friend requests. I cant join the RGL discord to message him there because I am banned from that. Can an admin please help me.

kindest team mate? Odb
kindest in general? Banny
best team leader? Giraffe
team mom? Bowl of Mayo
sends cutest pictures? Karl
the artist? Vryktion
best pets? Oblivion
best stories? Pablo
best coms? Dave
funniest coms? Chubbz
funniest? Dimento
helped you the most? Arzt Hispanian
mvp? Lenny
who do you think is going to make it to the top? Carcin
best team mate? Hunter
best music taste? Niko Jimms
most reliable? Habib
who is just cool? Slemnish
most likeable? Jerry
fanciest setup? Syath
worst setup? Alto
the one person that games in bed? Zuchima
the kind drunk? Sully
the back bone? Vipa
funniest names on steam? Jarrett
most confusing? Lary
best quotes you have? Moose in a Suit
funniest dropped uber? Sandblast
funniest death? Barycenter
most impressive moment? Andrew

@scaredy-bat said in RGL Conduct Survey #4 Results, Global Rule Edits, & 2021 March/April Bans:

@shotaway This is getting a bit inside baseball for me, who’s relatively new and not privy to whatever histories or whatnot that are shaping this conversation. Why is it a bad response to point out that there is a bug which makes relays a non-solution?

It’s a bad response because it’s just a deflection of the issue. “Sorry, there is a bug that lowers STV relay quality, so instead we will ban you for casting our matches.” Is this bug well-known? Does it occur 100% of the time, or are there preventative measures that could be taken? Is it possible to build a workaround? Why not have the official casters in the STV while providing the relay server to third parties? Instead of putting any thought into solutions at all, RGL instead decides to offload this problem onto the community and ban anyone entering STV.

If the problem really is about issues that arise with too many people in STV, which never really seemed to be a problem until a few seasons ago (but I’ll believe you), then why not just have a measure for dealing with this when it happens, instead of blanket banning in all cases? Why not host RGL casted matches on servers with more resources? Why are “casting organizations” allowed to broadcast the same match? Why does this rule only exist for the official RGL casted matches if it affects the playability of the server regardless? The DDoS line is asinine, because anyone using STV info for an attack can get the server IP the same way. The first of the secondary considerations is narrow minded, because different streams provide different content regardless of which match is played.

The last bullet point of the secondary considerations is obviously the main concern, and the existence of the STV relay bug doesn’t address this at all. It should be unacceptable for a community league to take this stance. Refer to my first post.

It is obvious that RGL does not want to find a way for the community to stream the same match as them. I could sit here and write essays, but I don’t want to waste my time when the response is like what was given in this thread. Nobody wants to waste their time, and this is why it becomes hard to not disengage.

Every member of the community wants cheaters to be banned from the league. Does a single member of the community want players who cast the same match as RGL to be banned?

https://imgur.com/a/7hb5Jcu

why the clipping on the green hose was removed

i withdraw my support for region wars

i support another region wars

I propose that we give full MP for the winning team and 0 MP for the losing team. We could keep counters for rounds won/dropped and use this for any tie breakers. This seems like a natural and simple solution that rewards the teams that win with higher seeds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0qmkQGqpM8

in this thread, we talk about which TF2 classes would do something.

i’ll start:

which TF2 class would get the covid vaccine? I think definitely the soldier, but some of the classes like medic, spy, and engineer might avoid it. what are your thoughts?

@Alto it’s one thing to say it should be removed and another thing to remove it while claiming there were no gameplay changes

I can appreciate the intention and your dedication towards map improvement, but anything that changes gameplay shouldn’t be passed off so lightly and tossed right into the season. There is a difference between the visual feel and “creator’s vision” of the map (it was added in 2008 and last updated in 2013; the map should be considered out of the original creator’s hands) and its functional gameplay topology. Removing a sightline that doesn’t feel like it should be there might be a small fix in terms of aesthetic or QoL, but it could change the way the point or the whole map is played. For instance, if that sightline is no longer viable then teams might position completely differently, placing emphasis on different points altogether.

That soldier spot above B has been considered a legitimate gameplay option for years. Removing it eliminates that gameplay option entirely, reducing the map to something else. Severing a gameplay option is probably never isolated and will change the weights of other gameplay options. Spots like these either exist or they don’t and the fact that it might be an unintended pixel walk doesn’t change its existence as a gameplay option. If the goal is QoL, you could easily add some other prop up there to address it while also attempting to keep it functionally the same. If the goal is larger than this, then it should be dealt with as a gameplay changing update and not passed off as if it were a set of nonfunctional changes as it seems to have been implied. Maybe they are justified improvements, but if so then I think there should be more talk before it’s implemented.

I’d like to add that I think adding another instance of separation from the vanilla game by creating a new map file for cp_steel is probably not the way to go, but this is besides the point and I’m sure many would disagree with me.

I haven’t fully read through this thread, but someone mentioned that there are no gameplay changes. However, cp_steel is well known for its many quirks that involve weird clippings and wall surfs that open up the map to a lot more movement options. Anything that affects clipping, particularly on this map, can be a big deal. That sniper window on B being filled in is a big change. Moving props around is a big deal. “Small changes” can change the dynamic of a point, cut off or add routes around the map for a subset of classes, or alter sightlines which seriously affects gameplay.

Maybe these changes are justified, or maybe they aren’t; but I’m not a fan of passing it off as some small non-gameplay affecting, minor bug fix “refresh” update.

Maybe I’m out of the loop, but who in invite outside of this thread is even aware that cp_steel got changed?

I know how frustrating this rule has been for me, and it’s a shame to see it affect others, especially those whose streams have a much wider appeal. The casting restrictions and strict adherence to it with no exceptions despite how well many people in this community know each other is just bad. I talked about it in another thread and got no official response, but hopefully this thread displays more community figures against the restrictions.

RGL should want the MCM cast to take place, even if it is concurrent to their own official cast; and so RGL should try to help it happen. Instead of pointing at obstacles as excuses to have these restrictions, RGL should internally want to see these obstacles as issues that need to be fixed. However, it sounds like this isn’t the case. For RGL to not want MCM to be able to cast is antithetical to a major point for many in HL to move from UGC to RGL, the “community league” aspect.

I see that mothership linked the thread with my posts. Thanks. I would love for more discussion to exist in there because I genuinely want this rule to change. I think many others do too, but so many people disengage from this kind of activity. “I have years of pent up frustration over casting restrictions.” is a sentiment that chinatown shares with so many people.