Secret Meeting @Blizzard

[InventiveMeasures]

I suspect maybe news on the official 1st season, spotlight of new dragon hero (I'm guessing it'll be Tarecgosa or Alexstrasza), arena release date, and maybe an announcement on how they're going to integrate Heroes and Battle.net with MLG.

[Nerraw]

I suspect maybe news on the official 1st season, spotlight of new dragon hero (I'm guessing it'll be Tarecgosa or Alexstrasza), arena release date, and maybe an announcement on how they're going to integrate Heroes and Battle.net with MLG.

...I had forgotten they acquired the MLG assets. That's actually a really nice observation.

[Life-Binder]

arena and a dragon hero hopefully !!

[Mormolyce]

I have no idea who those people are, so I assume this is something to do with competitive play.

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arena and a dragon hero hopefully !!

Can't wait to see what the dragon is all about, and Arena of course we've been waiting ages for!

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I suspect maybe news on the official 1st season, spotlight of new dragon hero (I'm guessing it'll be Tarecgosa or Alexstrasza), arena release date, and maybe an announcement on how they're going to integrate Heroes and Battle.net with MLG.

Seems likely.

What the hell are the MLG assets anyway?

[ErothTV]

arena and a dragon hero hopefully !!

Sorry, but Arena is coming late this year. Probably Q3 or even Q4.

[Life-Binder]

. Probably Q3 or even Q4.

so late ? =/

meh Ill be deep in Legion by then



well at least I can hope for a hero in permanent dragon form and not just short ulti transformation

would love that, I have that dragon fetish Oo

[Ryme]

My hope is still Chromie as a time-manipulation healer, but my expectation is now Rhonin as... something, probably assassin maybe specialist.

[Nerraw]

MFPallytime has revealed the exact time at which his NDA expires!

https://twitter.com/MFPallytime/stat...69305834065920

If I understand my timezones correctly, that is Eastern Time. That would put it at 17:00 Central European.

[Wildmoon]

I hope there's something about support role. I think their design choice that limits support to be just healbot is terrible and is holding the game back. The role is just far less impactful that others. It also limits the design space for future support heroes because they must at least have something to do with health pool.

[DeadmanWalking]

My guess is that contracts are being signed to be the official faces of Hots, commentators and such at the huge esports events.

[ErothTV]

Khaldor has posted some photos on his FB profile from the meeting.

Check this one out, exactly the badges.

Season One is incoming, boyzzz!

[Sliske]

What does the badge actually say? Grand ____ ?

[Muis]

Grandmaster I'm sure, from the new ranking system they are adding.

[Frozen Death Knight]

What does the badge actually say? Grand ____ ?

It looks like it says "Grand Master".

[ErothTV]

Yup, it definitely is "Grand Master".
Though, I am not sure if that rank this change is enough.

What would be the difference in the ranks between what we currently have?
They need to show MMR.

[Life-Binder]

dat Kerrigan, wow

[Nerraw]

Yup, it definitely is "Grand Master".
Though, I am not sure if that rank this change is enough.

What would be the difference in the ranks between what we currently have?
They need to show MMR.

DBro has been hinting that they're implementing the league system from Starcraft 2.

For those who don't know/haven't played SC2, the ranked system is split up into leagues based on skill; it starts at Bronze League, then Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, and Master. When you complete your placement matches, you're put into a league that should roughly correspond to your skill level. There are parallel divisions within each league, ie. you can have as many Gold divisions as needed. Each division has a maximum of 100 people but is seeded in such a way that if you're top 10 in one Gold division, you're roughly in the top-10% playerbase across all of the Gold league. You are awarded points on wins, and said points are retracted with losses. If you win a lot of games in a row in your league, you are eventually promoted to the next one. When SC2 first came out, you could be demoted as well when losing a lot, however they removed that feature some time ago. How the HotS implementation will work, I cannot say.

The Grandmaster bit comes from the SC2 Grandmaster League. It is a special league with only one division, fitting 200 players. These slots are reserved for the 200 best players in each region. Unlike the other league divisions, this is a direct leaderboard where you can see how well you're doing compared to the absolute best players in your region. Currently Rank 1 does not mean much. The eventual implementation of Grandmaster is intended to fix that by seperating the REALLY good players from the regular good ones. And in contrast to the other leagues, you need to play each week to keep your spot. If you're not playing, someone else will get your position.

[ErothTV]

DBro has been hinting that they're implementing the league system from Starcraft 2.

For those who don't know/haven't played SC2, the ranked system is split up into leagues based on skill; it starts at Bronze League, then Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, and Master. When you complete your placement matches, you're put into a league that should roughly correspond to your skill level. There are parallel divisions within each league, ie. you can have as many Gold divisions as needed. Each division has a maximum of 100 people but is seeded in such a way that if you're top 10 in one Gold division, you're roughly in the top-10% playerbase across all of the Gold league. You are awarded points on wins, and said points are retracted with losses. If you win a lot of games in a row in your league, you are eventually promoted to the next one. When SC2 first came out, you could be demoted as well when losing a lot, however they removed that feature some time ago. How the HotS implementation will work, I cannot say.

The Grandmaster bit comes from the SC2 Grandmaster League. It is a special league with only one division, fitting 200 players. These slots are reserved for the 200 best players in each region. Unlike the other league divisions, this is a direct leaderboard where you can see how well you're doing compared to the absolute best players in your region. Currently Rank 1 does not mean much. The eventual implementation of Grandmaster is intended to fix that by seperating the REALLY good players from the regular good ones. And in contrast to the other leagues, you need to play each week to keep your spot. If you're not playing, someone else will get your position.

Yeah, except that Grandmaster league for these 200 players, what is the difference between having ranks than 'Bronze / Silver / Gold / Platinum, etc" ranks?
None. For me at least.

[Deleted]

Antihero had the idea that it might be an expansion to the tournament scene with more LAN tournaments. His reasoning was that they invited a lot of casters as well and not just content creators.

[Nerraw]

Antihero had the idea that it might be an expansion to the tournament scene with more LAN tournaments. His reasoning was that they invited a lot of casters as well and not just content creators.

Maybe ingame automated tournaments like Warcraft 3 and most recently Legacy of the Void?

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If that's the case, I can't wait for the next round of matchmaking complaints.

"I'm silver and got matched against a platinum!" or "I'm Gold and someone on my team made a mistake!"

It *should* be a lot less common considering it's 50 ranks being compressed to 6 leagues.