IT is monitoring the hardware side of things, and my team is monitoring the physical space. “It’s our way of monitoring players physically. One of the most important features that OWL instituted for online competition is a field of view camera where the players compete. When consuming a non-sponsored beverage, he was instantly called out on it, and Mierzejewski said that’s because they’re always watching those field of play and coaches room cameras. So during the “normal days” we had referees standing behind the players, we had a dedicated IT team … obviously we can’t do that anymore.” The OWL competitive integrity team is always watchingĪtlanta Reign main tank Blake “Gator” Scott learned the hard way that he is always being watched. “From the very beginning of the OWL we always had the stage that we controlled and monitored whenever a player was on it. “The thing that has changed a lot is how we monitor the competition spaces,” Mierzejewski said. Going from in-person events to online-only changed the way Mierzejewski and his team did their jobs. “One main thing my team does is work directly with the GMs of each of the 20 teams of the league to make sure they’re being heard and their needs, questions, concerns and feedback is being pushed through a pipeline that the league as a whole can hear,” Mierzejewski said. Moving from in-person to online events proved a logistical challengeīecause the events are now online-only, Mierzejewski and all of the teams’ GMs have a close-knit relationship. Midseason, the operations team were forced to come up with some kind of solution so that competition could continue. Then, matches started taking place at teams’ home locations in Season 3, but only for the first few months before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the United States and halted all in-person events in March 2020.
Read more: Overwatch League Power Rankings entering the Summer Showdown Overwatch League’s format shift during the pandemicįor the first two years of OWL, when the competition was all based out of a studio in Los Angeles, California, maintaining match integrity was relatively easy for the operations team because the environment was controlled. Today, he is focused on competition operations as well as the products, format and development of the tournament cycles for the 2021 season.
#OVERWATCH ONLINE LEAGUES PRO#
He helped build the Path to Pro Contenders and Open Division leagues and then moved over to the OWL after it started gaining traction. Mierzejewski joined the Blizzard team in 2016 just before Overwatch was released. Nerd Street caught up with senior manager of competition operations for the OWL Adam Mierzejewski to get more insight. What fans might not know is how much thought goes behind match integrity now that teams are all competing in various locations around the world. Even though fans are viewing matches in ways they might not have expected due to the pandemic, the operations team behind the league has made sure that fans still get the exhilarating experience that they’ve come to expect. Overwatch League match days are an exciting time for fans all over the world.
0 kommentar(er)
