Saw the same thing happen in my area as well. Cool to see you around Overwatch - you going to be writing for over.gg soon?

Most of this is highly exaggerated and the author clearly has something against steel.

The event started with delays, yes, the same as almost every other LAN tournament. Splyce arrived at the time they were told their matches were going to start I assume. My team did the same. The tournament concluded before 11pm (less than 2 hours over schedule) which is actually pretty good for an amateur LAN tournament.

For the headsets not working, my team all brought their own, as is normal for LANs, and had minimal issues that could be solved with a simple computer reboot. The layout was pretty bad but this was not a LAN center - it was the showroom for Alienware at the Microsoft store. The wireless connections were really bad to play on but I don't believe it changed the outcomes of the matches by much. My team played on the wireless computers all the way until the finals, where we switched to the wired computers, and lost fair and square to Splyce. Due to the layout of the computers, all of our opponents were on the wired connections throughout the tournament. We experienced lag and disconnects but were still able to win with our pug. All of the monitors at the store were 60hz. Splyce was not playing on 144hz monitors. I played on both setups and they were equally as bad. The metal and wooden stools sucked. None of the teams/pugs there besides Splyce were good. It wasn't ideal but I don't think the outcome of the tournament would have been any different had everyone been on wired connections. The finals were played with both teams on similar setups. The best team at the event, Splyce, won, and took home the prizes. There were no prizes for 2nd, 3rd, or 4th place.

For the spectators, it was not a good experience. Mostly what was written is true - there were no spectator areas or the stream being shown anywhere. Pizza and drinks were available on the 2nd floor. People were kicked out of the venue before the finals even started as the store was closing. My girlfriend and teammates girlfriend were not allowed back into the store to watch the finals even though they both had tickets.

Steel's LAN antics weren't really anything out of the norm. He wasn't being overly obnoxious or anything - just getting into the game and hyping up his team. A little trash talk to the other teams is normal. I wasn't listening to everything he said but from the examples given by other people, I thought it was pretty tame.

The event was not the best run and it was obviously their first time running a tournament for a team FPS game. For hearthstone tournaments, this setup is probably more than adequate. I wasn't there the whole time and obviously could not hear the admins dealing with other teams. From my view, the admins seemed to be trying their best to get everything running as smooth as possible. This wasn't a professional organization running an event. No one should have expected that either - the entire tournament was set up through a meetup.com page, used a challonge bracket, and imgur images for team rosters and tournament scheduling.

I didn't get any indication that steel or Splyce were working with the tournament organizers to rig the event in their favor. Most of the article is just the author's preconceived hate of steel coming out. Maybe I would have been more annoyed at them if I felt the hardware issues caused my team to lose. But again, only first place received prizes (an Alienware desktop and swag from the sponsors, no money) and a team that played on the shitty setups all day (playing against teams on the wired connections and "superior hardware" as the author alludes to) made it to the finals, too. We lost to a better team.

Looking forward to it, thanks for your hard work!

Ranked Mode Developer Update Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L28555oaDI4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L28555oaDI4

Patch Notes: http://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/20742886413

PATCH HIGHLIGHTS:

New Play Mode: Competitive Play
Earned some battlefield experience and ready to step up your game? Prepare to prove yourself in Competitive Play! Designed for those seeking a more serious challenge, Competitive Play is our new game mode in which players can compete and “rank up” through a series divisions and tiers in monthly seasons.

To join a Competitive Play game, select “Play” from the main menu and then select “Competitive Play.” You can queue up for Competitive Play games solo or in a group (of any size), and the system will do its best to match you against other players who’ve also queued solo or against players in similarly sized groups.

Please note that you must be at least level 25 in order queue for Competitive Play.

GENERAL:

Progression Rewards

Several new sprays, player icons, and voice lines have been added
Some of the less popular sprays and voice lines have been removed
New Legendary skins have been added for several heroes:
“Gearbot” Bastion
“Junebug” D.Va
“Scavenger” D.Va
“Sparrow” Genji
“Fool” Junkrat
“Hayseed” Junkrat
“Scarecrow” Junkrat
“Breakaway” Lúcio
“Slapshot” Lúcio
“Abominable” Mei
“Yeti Hunter” Mei
“Raptorion” Pharah
“Thunderbird” Pharah
“Plague Doctor” Reaper
“Stonehardt” Reinhardt
“Islander” Roadhog
“Sharkbait” Roadhog
“Commando: 76” Solider:76
“Night Ops: 76” Soldier: 76
“Comtesse” Widowmaker
“Huntress” Widowmaker
“Arctic” Zarya
“Siberian Front” Zarya

Leaving Games

Leaver Penalty
If a player’s game completion percentage falls below our required threshold, they will now receive a warning message (this percentage is calculated based on their 20 most recent games)
If that players continues to leave games after receiving this warning, they will incur a 75% XP penalty for future games
This penalty will be removed once the player raises their game completion percentage above our required threshold (again, this percentage is calculated based on their 20 most recent games)
Play Interactivity
Players who are in the team spawn room and have selected a hero will no longer be removed for inactivity until 45 seconds after a game has started
Players actively browsing heroes in the “Assemble Heroes” selection screen will no longer be considered inactive
Removed initial warning message displayed after leaving a game
Note: Competitive Play will have additional rules and penalties for leaving games

Technical Updates

Network Graph
You can now enable a network graph while in-game to help diagnose client networking issues
Hit CTRL+SHIFT+N to toggle the network graph on or off
Network Quality Status Icons
The client will now pulse network status icons when packet loss or a network stream stall is detected
You can disable these icons from the Gameplay settings menu
High Bandwidth Custom Game Option
You can now enable a high bandwidth mode for Custom Game, changing the client update rate from 20.8Hz to 62.5Hz
Improved the regularity of player commands being sent from the client to the sever
Reduced the maximum rewind time allowed on behalf of high-latency players
Note: High-latency players will now extrapolate and potentially mispredict as a result

MAP BALANCE CHANGES:

Control Maps

Each round now has a unique name
Rounds are now shuffled in random order
Ilios
Minor revisions to art and collision have been made throughout the map
Lijiang Tower
The control point room in the Garden has been enlarged
The pillars in the Control Center have been removed and two new walls have been added
Route 66
Revised first tunnel on the left outside of the starting attacker spawn
Removed ability for players to enter the hanging train above the starting attacker spawn
Further adjusted payload size to ensure all heroes can move around it in narrow locations
Significant revisions to collision have been made throughout the map

HERO BALANCE CHANGES:

Mei

Ice Wall
Can now be destroyed early by activating the ability again

Developer comments: This is a simple quality-of-life change that helps Mei have better control of her Ice Wall.

Mercy

Caduceus Blaster
Now automatically reloads when not in use

Caduceus Staff
Players can now swap between healing beam and damage beam without losing the beam’s target

Guardian Angel
Range increased slightly
Cooldown decreased from 2 seconds to 1.5 seconds
Will now destroy environmental objects when you come in contact with them
Can now be cancelled by using the ability again

Developer comments: Some quality-of-life improvements for Mercy players, as well as overall improvements to Guardian Angel. We think the changes will help her reliability and survivability when she is the middle of a firefight.

Symmetra

Photon Shield
Shield amount reduced from 50 to 25

Developer comments: We feel that Symmetra's win rate is still too high at all levels of play. We want to do a pretty big swing here to see how it impacts her overall. This is a significant change that we'll be monitoring closely.

Torbjörn

Rivet Gun
Now automatically reloads when not in use

Developer comments: Similar to the pistol change for Mercy, this is a simple quality-of-life change that helps streamline using multiple weapons.

USER INTERFACE:

Career Overview

Reorganized the statistics on the Main Overview, Hero Comparison, and Hero Statistics pages
Averages shown are now per game averages, updated from per minute

Game Options

An option to select custom crosshairs has been added
The following hero-specific options are now available:
Genji
Automatically climb walls
Hanzo
Automatically climb walls
Junkrat
RIP-Tire: Automatically climb walls
Mercy
Toggle Beam Connection
Reinhardt
Toggle Barrier
Soldier: 76
Hold to Sprint
Widowmaker
Toggle Zoom
Mouse Sensitivity While Zoomed
Mouse sensitivity scale has been reset and re-calibrated

Spectating

Several polish updates have been made to Spectator Mode

BUG FIXES:

Maps

Fixed an issue on Watchpoint: Gibraltar that allowed players to access out of map areas
Fixed an issue where leaver penalties were being incorrectly applied to an account

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTH2ZPgYujQ

. <--- the joke

O <--- your head

http://www.gosugamers.net/overwatch/news/34717-envyus-overwatch-change-up-their-roster

EnVyUs drops Esper from their lineup and add Buds, a former teammate of Talespin in Shootmania. With this move, the following role switches happened:

ras: Flex -> Support
coolmatt69: DPS -> Flex
Buds: DPS

http://cloud9.gg/news/c9-overwatch

http://us.battle.net/overwatch/en/blog/20055970/

May 3-4 open beta early access for pre-orders
May 5-9 open beta
May 24 release!

New developer update focused on ranked play: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pLuXWNDsp4

VoDs: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgdDiI6jXMUsj4GF2qcsrjE2Bka5I9jtG

I would guess people with proven success at other similar titles or multiple games that have a good attitude and mindset towards new games.

About ranked play during the Blizzcon Q&A from the Reddit live thread:

"They don't have anything specific at this point to talk about, but have been doing preliminary design. They've been talking with members of other game teams (HOTS, SC, etc) to get a sense of what works well and what hasn't worked in the past for Overwatch. They're hoping to have something for launch in terms of ranked play, but if they don't have something they're happy with by then it'll be a post-launch feature."

http://us.battle.net/overwatch/en/buy/ to make it more official.

I enjoy the shit talking aspect of competitive FPS games. I absolutely hate the SC2 and Hearthstone good manners everyone is friends :D! vibe they have.

They've ran leagues for SC2 and LoL before. If it's popular enough they'll try it.

I thought nerdstars died with GotFrag... glad to see them around still.