Welcome to our new friends who are joining us in the League of Evil Administrators

Before we discuss any of the changes we are making to this season, we would like to welcome some new league administrators to our ever-expanding team. Quick side note, we are still looking for more Asia region league administrators to fill out our team, if this position tickles your fancy, please give our application a look. Without anymore delay, we would like to officially welcome both omni and bird as new probationary league administrators. We have adopted a probationary system publicly due to some past administrative mishaps; this period will last for 6 months on which they will become full league administrators. However please do not let this fool you, they have full administrative abilities, and as such deserve the full respect you would give any other staff member.

Map Pool changes, additions and... Ashville?

Coming into this season, we put a focus on the map feedback provided through our poll. We have heard your opinions on 5CP as a gamemode in Highlander, so we want to try one more thing. For this season we will be replacing Vanguard with Gullywash, a popular map played in European Highlander. We have evaluated our map pool from the previous season, taking into consideration the feedback regarding every map in the pool and have changed our stance on Coalplant / Ashville. While Coalplant is typically favoured by European players over its sister map Ashville, with the release of RC2A for Ashville (the “Spring Refresh”) we have decided to move back to this new version of Ashville as it offers a more complete experience featuring numerous bug fixes, gameplay changes and a new design. Our complete map pool and weekly map schedule for Season 6 can be seen at the bottom of this page.

TF2 Competitive Fixes

While we have previously discussed the TF2 Comp Fixes plugin made by twiikuu, we are amending those listed changes to fall into line with what ozfortress has chosen to run, this is to promote consistency in competitive play within our region. Our list of “fixes” can be seen below:

sm_fix_sticky_delay 1 (this is just a straight bug fix)
sm_fix_slope_bug 1 (this also is just a bug fix, a much sought after one)
sm_rest_in_peace_rick_may 255 (will hide the Rick May tributes and make them have no collisions)

Roster limits, again, are being changed (but I promise, you'll like this change)

Another point of contention in the past has been our roster limit. For some history, we initially started out with 17 as the maximum number of players allowed on a single roster in Highlander, however coming into Season 4 we had discussed changing the overall roster limit to 15. Ever since, we have been adamant on our 15-player limit. This was to try promoting less inactivity from substitute players overall, especially on higher up teams along with trying to promote more teams (again mainly focused at the top end). This is perhaps one of the most contended points we have had thus far (other than cp_vanguard which will not return, do not worry), but for this season it is something we plan to change. Our original worry with reverting this change was not that we were not willing to change the roster limit but that it was a very particular vocal small minority initially. As the seasons have gone on, we have seen a more even split regarding roster limit in terms of where the votes are coming from. It is with this knowledge that we will be reverting the roster limit change, bringing the maximum number of players allowed on a Highlander active roster to 17 players once again.

We are working towards clearing up inconsistencies in our ruleset

With that last point we can probably just drop the mic, since most people are most likely here for that, but we have another focus you should know about. With the aim of future seasons being a refinement on our existing ruleset, we will be ensuring that our ruleset is explained and documented in a more thorough and concise way, avoiding any further vagueness or confusion.

Where does this leave Asia?

Please note that all of the changes mentioned above in this post are also retroactively applied to the upcoming season of Asia Highlander Season 5, however we have further documentation coming for it specifically which will cover some key grievances expressed by you; improved administration / more league administrators, more regional server providers through potential third party organizations, as well as better guides and tools for transitioning from other leagues or formats, or if you are new. Please keep in mind these changes will be made over time, but we are excited for what the future of all our supported regions holds.

Helpful Links (click on them)

Map Schedule | Key Dates | Match Casting | Whitelist | Competitive Rules | Community Rules
Transfers | Player Pool vs Active Rosters | Roster Lock
Server Guide | Staff List