Last Week Overwatch #3

Overwatch, Blizzard’s latest and first FPS game, has been immensely popular since its launch. Since it’s being a phenomenon these days, XG Blog decided to feature this column as a summary of what happened in the community of Overwatch every last week.

New Hero Coming Out in August?

[UPDATED] On July 12th, the new hero has been confirmed to be Ana Amari, Pharah's mother, and is added with a new patch on PTR already. You may see the official profile here: https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/heroes/ana/

Last week an image was posted on the official Twitter, referring to the communication records over a new weapon design among the initiators of Overwatch. The new weapon, known as “biotic rifle”, is believed to belong to the new hybrid hero who can do both sniping and healing.

Blizzard is going to host a panel on San Diego Comic-Con later this month, on which the developers will “present a behind-the scenes look into the creative process of developing the art, design, and story for Overwatch’s newest hero,” according to the official description.

Source

Comic-Con Panel - https://comiccon2016.sched.org/event/7f28?iframe=no

“Prototype Biotic Rifle” - https://twitter.com/PlayOverwatch/status/750736158624215040/photo/1

Lawsuit against Cheat-Maker Claiming Millions Lost

Justice does not rain from above out of thin air. In order to protect its own copyright and reputation, Blizzard has taken the first legal action against the Germany-based company Bossland for selling and distributing the cheating tool “Watchover Tyrant”, covered by TorrentFreak.

According to the complaint, Blizzard argued that Bossland has caused it to lose “millions or tens of millions of dollars in revenue”, and the defendants are attempting to “destroy or irreparably harm that game before it even has had a chance to fully flourish” as it added. Given the Competitive Play mode has been blamed for its unbalanced matchmaking and cheating abuse, it seems that the gaming giant is looking for more aggressive solutions to ensure the best experience in game and beyond.

For the full story, please head to TorrentFreak and learn more.

Source

TorrentFreak - https://torrentfreak.com/blizzard-sues-overwatch-cheat-maker-for-copyright-infringement-160704/

Unfair Penalty for Disconnecting Removed and More

As previously announced, a new patch has been issued last week and players now receive no penalty when they reconnect to the matches they had disconnected from. They also adjusted the duration of Sudden Death for every map except for Hollywood, and for more details of the patch note, please see the source below.

Yet another blue post on the official forum revealed a fix off the patch note: Mid-match leavers no longer affect how Skill Rating is adjusted at the end of a match. It means that players will now gain or lose Skill Rating properly as intended and can be prevented from bad experience caused by trolling. Still, the developers will keep monitoring how the system works and what the feedback suggests in case to improve Competitive Play for future seasons.

Source

Patch note - http://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/20745606613

Blue post - http://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/20745727098

ESL Holds the Largest Tournament to Date with 100k Prize Pool

ESL Atlantic Showdown, the biggest Overwatch tournament so far, has just started its Qualifier stage on 4^th of July. The Qualifier stage will last four weeks respectively in EU and NA, determining the best 32 teams (16 in each region) to enter into the regional finals, and finally 8 regional representatives altogether will play against each other at Gamescom in Cologne.

The first qualified teams in week 1 are as below, and we will keep it updated as it proceeds:

NA   -       Team EnVyUs, Northern Gaming Red, Luminosity Gaming, Cloud 9

EU    -       Misfits, SG-1, ANOX, REUNITED

Source

Tournament Website - http://www.gosugamers.net/overwatch/events/533-esl-atlantic-showdown