Thanks man! Props should honestly go to box most of all, as he's the one doing pretty much all of the coding, and is bringing my vision for TFCL alive with his awesomeness. I feel like he deserves way more credit for this, as without him, TFCL quite frankly wouldn't exist at all. Plus, I feel kind of bad that everyone is crediting me and overlooking him, simply because I'm the public face and head admin for this thing. I may come up with the ideas and am the man in charge, but box is really the one to bring my ideas to light. So yeah, props to him! :D

ArraySeven is also playing a pretty huge part, and helped us design the TFCL medal, the logo, and pretty much all major art assets and videos, like the adorable sentry animation. That's all him, so huge props to Array as well.

DubThink created the 3D model using Array's design, all based around my feedback on what I think it should look like.

And then there's me. I'm honestly just the brains, and come up with the ideas on how to make the best league possible. I also manage the website, and write all the content that everyone sees. Oh, and handling the business side of things, like getting sponsors and advertisers on board, as well as investors.

The fact these dudes are putting up with me at all is a damn near miracle. When I get hooked onto a project like this, especially one that I have such a huge passion for, I tend to get rather bossy. Like, sometimes I actually get angry at myself for saying or doing something that's inconsiderate or stupid, with me never truly appreciating the work that these people do until after I sit back, calm down, and truly look at their awesomeness. I know Array definitely noticed this, and I'm pretty damn sure box did as well, though he's been pretty polite about it.

Er, anyway. Point is, others are on board, and doing awesome stuff, with box basically creating TFCL from scratch. So he's the hero here, not me.

edit:
And I kinda just realized I went overboard with my response. You didn't really ask who the team was, but more like, thanked us for what we're doing. I wanted to write a simple reply naming the dudes that should receive the real thanks, and kinda went overboard in the detail department.

Okay, so I've been putting a lot of thought into this, and TFCL's use of the global whitelist. If the global whitelist is indeed remaining as it is, with the quick fix being unbanned, I will be implementing our own custom whitelist for TFCL. There's enough demand for a different and fair whitelist that I simply can't ignore it. I myself dislike the new changes, and hate that I, nor any other league, had any real say in the changes. We just had to sit back and watch the shitshow happen.

So yeah, if the global whitelist isn't changed back to the way that the community wants it, TFCL will no longer use the global whitelist.

Vanilla please

https://static-cdn.jtvnw.net/emoticons/v1/1/1.0

If you want your league to grow, a non aids whiteliet is a huge selling point

Here's a possible whitelist - http://whitelist.tf/6806
Here's the global from last season - http://whitelist.tf/competitive_6v6

We're pretty much going to use one of them, or some kind of in-between. Not sure yet.
There's also a chance we may not use either. This is all dependant on whether or not the quick fix and soda popper continue to be allowed in the global whitelist moving forward. Either we'll just revert to what the whitelist was for last season, or we'll create our own. Still undecided.

Any feedback?

There are a lot of bans in there that aren't really necessary. Pyro secondaries? Demoknight weapons? There's a LOT of unbannable weapons in that list. I would understand if you were trying to promote a more vanilla style of play, but then meanwhile you've left the Rescue Ranger and the Natascha unbanned, so I'm not really sure what that list was going for.

I would recommend just keep your whitelist the same as the global whitelist, just keep quick fix , and soda popper banned.

Try rewind whitelist +pomson +dalokos bar -machina and maybe -natascha

That's a fair point. The main goal with that whitelist was to create a more vanilla experience, while still allowing some unlocks that some people find useful, and serve a valid purpose. Banning weapons that people just don't seem to use in serious play, like the Force a Nature or the Fan of War. Weapons that can be used to troll, like the Rocket Jumper, were also banned in that whitelist.

The Rescue Ranger meanwhile serves a valid purpose while holding as an engineer, extending the survivability of the Engineer by allowing him to repair his gun from afar. The Natascha also limits the scouts slightly during last defenses, giving the heavy a bit more of a purpose than simply being a walking sentry standing on or near point. These were mostly just suggestions by other players, and of course nothing is set in stone in any way. If you (or anyone) has other whitelists that you'd like to see in league play, just link me to them.

Yeah, that's most likely what we'll end up doing. Keeping the options open though, in case someone else has any suggestions. Will probably end up using whatever the majority of people want.

edit: So like this?
http://whitelist.tf/6810

Those weapons are still unfinished to play against, they're not op but they are gimmicky and it allows for troll playing which is just plain annoying
http://whitelist.tf/6811

I can appreciate wanting a whitelist that promotes a more serious experience. Obviously for a vanilla experience you would want to just go for bans, but trying to allow real utilitarian weapons is brings the same kind of debate that the global whitelist did. Trying to allow utility weapons that promote different playstyles is very difficult. The issue with the RR and Natascha in particular is that they are essentially straight upgrades in 6s. As long as engi is used exclusively for holding last, it will pretty much always be more effective to put the gun in a spot with line of sight to the spawn door and then switch classes the second it goes down. And the Natascha's damage penalty is not enough to make up for the fact that it completely shuts down scouts with zero effort on the part of the user.

Regardless of any opinions on what weapons are overpowered, saying that things like the scout shutdown are just extra utility opens up all sorts of weapons that you have marked as banned which players could find useful. The flare gun, quickiebomb, market gardener, buff banner, loch n load, the booties, and quite a few more all either have stats which could be labelled as "extra utility," or are not nearly weak enough to be labelled as troll weapons.
If you want to allow as many weapons and their utilities as possible, just go with the global whitelist. If you think the RR and Natascha are fine for comp play, that's probably the correct option.

Beyond that all I have are my own opinions from weapon to weapon as to what is and isn't overpowered. Here are a few whitelists I think would promote serious play:

To promote vanilla play without actually being vanilla: http://whitelist.tf/6812

Avoiding only the worst overpowered or troll-level weapons without just being the global whitelist: http://whitelist.tf/6813

I'm really liking the second one. http://whitelist.tf/6813

And yeah, those are some very valid points. Choosing a solid whitelist isn't and never will be an easy task, so it's really about picking what's fair and balanced for the majority of players. The whitelist you provided appears to fit that niche.
Though if anyone wants to throw in some feedback, I'm all ears. Basically, should TFCL use this as our whitelist, assuming the global isn't reverted?
http://whitelist.tf/6813

I would say anything that isn't the meta is classified as a troll weapon, nobody will really use those weapons seriously.
http://whitelist.tf/6811 These are all the weapons we use and discourages troll play which is incredibly annoying to play against

"ban it if it doesnt add anything good to the game of competitive" whitelist please

They may be unlikely to get used seriously, but they still have the potential to offer a serious game. The phlog, though--there is no reasonable situation where that weapon will actually perform better than stock.

Also your whitelist allows the splendid screen???

Fair enough white list. I don't agree with some weapons, but its better than the current global white list

https://clips.twitch.tv/drackk_/DrabOysterSwiftRage I forgot to put charge n targe instead of screen. And that's why I put weapons like the huntsman and black box+conch

Which whitelist are you talking about?

although If I was making a league I'd use http://whitelist.tf/6816

Minimaly invasive whitelist http://whitelist.tf/6817

I don't really agree with some of those bans but I get the reasoning behind all of them except the pocket pistol. It's not really that good a weapon, is it?

yo the scorch shot is really annoying but everything else is good imo

http://whitelist.tf/6799

My ideal vanilla whitelist. In a perfect world, I'd switch xbow for overdose, but that's an unpopular opinion that I'm willing to compromise on.

Seems to have been nerfed sense the last time i've bothered to look at it. It used to be + 25hp for 25% fire vulnerability or something stupid like that.

Just a quick update.

TFCL will end up banning the quick fix for this season, no matter what. However, if ESEA opts to do the same, we will simply mirror their whitelist. There would be no real point to not use the same whitelist ESEA ends up using, especially if the main complaints are quick fix, soda popper, and solemn vow.

Oh yeah, and we kinda need some more teams.
We only have 9 teams readied up for the 6v6 season, and a single team for highlander. The sixes stuff is pretty much guaranteed to happen no matter what at this point, but highlander might get cancelled if we can't secure at least 16 teams for the format. That is, teams that have readied up with a full 9 player roster. (there's 15 hl teams right now)

I'm hoping for around 30 or so sixes teams, and 16 highlander teams. So if you haven't already, please be sure to create your team. Just sign into the website, and go here - http://tfcleague.com/tfcl/team-create/
If you're not signed in, you'll receive an error.

Also remember there's a $120 prize for 6v6, and a $90 prize for hl.

When does the season start, I can't find it on the website, unless I'm blind?

At this point since both ESEA and UGC are established leagues with 8-week seasons, you might want to consider doing your seasons a little differently from UGC and ESEA. Maybe try short condensed ones or something (8 matches over 4 weeks), that don't start at the same time as the ESEA/UGC season is running. I think that might be up a lot of people's alley, and you'll be able to pick up a lot of teams that couldn't make the UGC/ESEA deadline or people who can't for various reasons commit to 3+ months of stuff. You might also be able to draw in some of the "retired" players who got burned out of long seasons but would want to play with friends for fun while it lasts.

Because while I think you're a cool guy and you're earnestly trying to make this work, I think a lot of people just get enough TF2 between scrims and UGC and ESEA matches (both leagues with established history and competition so players are reluctant to leave them) that they don't necessarily feel like they want to play a third league with the same exact set-up as well. At least that's the boat I'm in, between playing for a friend's UGC team and leading a team in ESEA.

The schedule information is on the home page.

http://puu.sh/trP9U/4fb5894886.png

We actually have a system in place that could allow for that. Basically, we'd generate two matches per week, and let the players more or less choose when to play the matches. They'd have about 6 days to play the match before the next week is generated. So basically, the schedule is generated every Sunday, and teams have up to Saturday to play their matches.
This however brings with it some issues, especially for lower ranked teams that are used to the way UGC is operated. I ended up polling around 20 UGC 6's teams, and give or take 10 highlander teams. The 6's teams were heavily against the two match per week schedule, with most saying that it was simply too much for them to reliably handle. At the same time, every single highlander team said two matches per week was overkill, and they sometimes can't even get all 9 players for the single Monday match.
That's one of the main reasons I decided to do one match per week, with an 8 week traditional season. But instead of putting the default days during the week, it'd be played on the weekend, which is when a large number of teams prefer to scrim. The idea was to take away one of their scrim days, and turn it into a match day. This was a middle ground approach. Sadly, it's kind of backfiring, as teams are either taking TFCL too seriously, and end up using TFCL as their secondary or even primary league. Or they just don't use it at all.

Also, the first matches are scheduled for the first week of February, which is two weeks after UGC, and *was* two weeks after ESEA. Now, it's basically one week apart, with UGC being first, ESEA second, and TFCL third. So yeah, the idea of grabbing teams that didn't make the ESEA or UGC deadline, was kinda one of the bigger plans for TFCL's first season. It just didn't end up working out that way.

I agree with you fully. One of the main things and intentions with TFCL, was to try and create a league that offers the same level of features as ESEA, but to bring it down to a free level. Also introducing things like automated scrimming, misc leagues and tournaments like bball and ultiduo, and other things that no other major league provides. I want TFCL to be an alternative league, while also being a serious league for practically anyone to play and have fun in. I know I can't realistically compete against ESEA, nor do I really intend to. You're paying for ESEA, so it only makes sense that you'll get and compete against the best of the best. But at the very least, I was hoping that a number of ESEA teams would consider giving up one of their usual scrim days, and playing in TFCL instead. They might even win some money if they end up taking home first place.

With all that said, TFCL isn't intended to be a clone of UGC or ESEA. Once we're a little more established, we'll be hosting things like bball tournaments and seasons, ultiduo, mge, heavy boxing, 3v3 (custom format), a Wipeout-style obstacle course competition, and pretty much other random things to draw in a more casual crowd, and introduce them to competitive TF2. Things like an intro division, where teams can play to learn and grow, as well as a coaching service, and rewards for people opting to coach newer teams and players. Undecided on how to handle the coaching thing yet, but it's definitely a planned feature moving forward.

In the end, I want TFCL to become the home of competitive TF2, for both high and low level players alike. To be a sort of learning ground, while still offering high level competitive play in the form of 6v6. Right now, we're more or less the same as UGC, feature for feature. But come March, we'll have an auto scrim service up and running, and then a little further in the summer, we'll have a pug-like system for self-hosted competitions and tournaments.

You do realize where youre posting this, right?