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Hi,
My name is Matt "Revolution" Duff, I play Starcraft for the Root academy, Seed, and I play in a lot of online cups, and with the recent discussion about an in game tournament system, I decided to create this.
Yesterday I decided to make a concept of an in game tournament feature as a lot of people have been discussing it, and although I just went purely based off what I would like to see and not what I have seen in any reddit/ teamliquid threads, I thought I would share some of my ideas. Of course it is not perfect, and I think next I might try a full battle.net client redesign, giving me more options, and the ability to try and include a load of features which people want to see for LotV. I'd love to hear your feedback on what I have created, and hopefully we get to see these features in LotV.
(click on image then again in imgur to see full size)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/zEI9nn5.png)
Quite simple, just added a new button on the home screen which would take you to a tournament section in the client.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/hGvSk0v.png)
This is styled off of the arcade screen, which would mean it should be easy to navigate as it isn't completely different, it gives different tournaments a spotlight as they approach, and includes WCS ranking so everyone knows who is in the top 16.
Completed Tournaments- lets you view brackets, and if selected in the rules, you could download replays from games you want to see, as well as find VOD's for any games that have been casted
Ongoing Tournaments- again lets you view brackets of tournaments, as well as being linked to a stream so you can watch the games live
Upcoming Tournaments- allows you to see what tournaments are coming up, sorted by date, where you can sign up, and will be able to check in at the designated time
Create Tournament- Where you can create your tournament, set all the rules, add casters, admins and any other information
Manage Tournament- You can come here to edit rules and dates of your tournament
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Oh9oZ2Z.png)
Simliar to the create clan page, you can set the name, mode, max players, rules, prize, start date and to choose the tournament logo at the bottom. Under different sections a second list would appear on the left to give more options to your tournament, as seen in the image on the "mode" section, you are give an option to change the length of series per round. The "rules" section is where you can set a map pool, select your casters and admins who will be included in the tournament, setting any limits on leagues etc.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/2JoPqSa.png)
This I feel is the worst designed image, but I wanted to keep it based off the current game client which made it quite hard to design. There are options to show you who has already signed up, the rules, an overview, and also buttons that remained blacked out until the start of the tournament which then light up linking you to the brackets and a stream if you want it.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/BUl0SQG.png)
A notification letting you know the tournament is about to begin in the main menus, if you dont join your spot would be forfeited, helping the tournament to run smoother. This links you to the tournament portal.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Q9Muw1w.png)
The tournament portals main screen is the bracket, and automatically adds you into the tournament chat, where you can receive updates from admins and find out if casters are looking for games so you can add them to your lobby if they so desire.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/lHKr9UA.png)
Once you join you "lobby" you will be able to chat with your opponent, as well as do all the vetoes in game, with a map list displaying your win rates, helping you to decide which maps to play.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/OQjSkyr.png)
Once the maps are set they are displayed next to the chat, you have an option to invite the casters, which on further thought for tournament with multiple streams would need a drop down option to select which casters to invite, as well a a forfeit button and a start button. I was thinking the start button would work like a "ready up" button, meaning the game wont start until both players have selected it.
That is the extent of what I have designed. As I said earlier I would love to hear some feedback, as I want to do a complete client overhaul mock up, and I want to include as many features as possible, and try to make the client and easier place to navigate.
You can follow me on twitter here, where you can expect to find other graphic design work as well as links to my stream, as I would like to stream my design process for a new client so others can give feedback as I go!
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Looks good, but I feel that with prize being something someone who creates the tournament just fills in, there would be no quarantee of there actually being a prize ( that is if anyone can create a tournament).
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On August 27 2014 21:07 SunHee wrote:
Looks good, but I feel that with prize being something someone who creates the tournament just fills in, there would be no quarantee of there actually being a prize ( that is if anyone can create a tournament).
Yeah i was thinking this, it would be good if there could be a way to put up prize money, so the tournament maker puts in $50 or something, which gets automatically paid out to 1st/ 2nd when the tournament finishes to there paypal or something, not sure that would be possible but it would be good if it could be done
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Dude this looks sick. Now there needs to be an automated system added in from Blizzard, perhaps as one of the categories on your left hand menu.
Make some nice portraits available from winning tournament games like we had in Warcraft 3 and call it a day.
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On August 27 2014 21:16 Vindicare605 wrote:
Dude this looks sick. Now there needs to be an automated system added in from Blizzard, perhaps as one of the categories on your left hand menu.
Make some nice portraits available from winning tournament games like we had in Warcraft 3 and call it a day.
When I do my complete overhaul you will see what I was thinking of as a way of showing you had won tournaments, because i had thought of this
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This looks so neat, I wish we had a tournament system like this ( or even better  )
I hope blizzard actually includes these in-game tournaments everyone talks about, I think a lot of people will be very disappointed if they don't include it in LotV
Edit: Also, they should make the tournament map pools customizable, not only ladder maps, that would make tournaments quite a lot more boring
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Looks good 
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This is what people ask since 2009.
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Cool post Matt neat gfx
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This looks awesome. A few tweaks here and there and it would look amazing. It should be added to the client.
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Blizzard! Pay this man and implement this asap please
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This is super cool. A few things to be done, as mentioned already, but looks awesome
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Awesome work. Small suggestions: Make the ordner in the second picture: 1. Ongoing 2. Upcoming and 3. Completed
Also on the main tournament page there should be an option to watch the games. Maybe you could click on the bracket and it would then open a box with some information about the current score and buttons like "Observe game", or "save replays".
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Interesting idea. I think you choosing to stick with the general graphical identity of the current B.net is a good choice. It really shows what having in-game tournaments could be like ! I like how you tried to be as complete as possible with all the different screens and all. I also appreciate how you tried to include everything (thinking about casters and all, vetoes, etc). However I think such a system should be aimed at grassroots type tournaments. I don't see WCS, DH or IEM use this feature, as they are doing fine without it already and organising a bracket isn't really a big deal when you're organising such a huge event. But this feature could really help the average Joe set up a tournament quickly to spend an afternoon of fun with a few friends !
But seriously, everytime I see a thread related to B.net, I can't help but feel like it doesn't look that great. (I don't mean your work which is amazing, I mean the general B.net 2.0 design). It feels heavy, clunky, and unnecessarily complicated. I would love LotV would include a massive overhaul of B.net 2.0, which would make it more clear, lean and include the possibility for micro transactions, skins, user-generated tournaments, automatically-generated tournaments, and all the other features we talked about in these forums... One can dream, right ? :-)
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Oh god :/ Give me this now!!!
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Really nice workflow. I hope we can see this somehow implemented, but I'm not very positive on it.
Maybe we get something similar implemented for starbow's client, but it won't be as nice as directly having it in B.net.
All in all, great work!
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look like a cool start. Could be useful for both big tournaments and people that just want to play in a tournament setting. Amateur tournaments are some of my best memories from starcraft.
I imagine you would need some sort of mode where the administrator would need the ability for more control for bigger tournaments if they would want to make use of it. However, it would completely eliminate that somewhat awkward stand around while they ban maps that we see in some tournaments and would speed up the process as admins can get players in the booth quicker.
Would be cool though just for automatic amateur tournaments as it breaks up the monotony of just laddering continuously. Perhaps implement something where you have league restrictions for people to join tournaments.
Looks cool hope you see it through.
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That is a really impressive effort, OP! Nicely done. Hopefully Blizzard implements something like this.
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Hope blizzard will do something like this in LOTV
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United Kingdom31935 Posts
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I believe we may have another big update to our current main menu in lotv, what you suggesting is great though, the flow looks great
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Blizzard. Please take this as an example.
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Oh my god, I know I should not be so amazed by this, because blizzard was supposed to do something like this years ago, but here I Im sitting in disbelieve how amazing would this be for online tournaments(like GO4SC2, Zotac etc..)
Blizzard please do something like this!
And btw give this man a cookie!
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Would be interesting to have Blizzard act as a middleman for the cash end of things. I am thinking Entry Fees and the like as well as prize pools. There would likely have to be some governmental compliance stuff for it somewhere along the line.
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This should've been in the game years ago. Give this man a job, Blizzard!!!
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Awesome stuff! I think an in-game prize system would be a great idea for microtransactions in SC2. The tournament host would enter in his money and maybe Blizzard would take a small cut (maybe even a static fee, like $5 or something), and the rest goes into the tournament.
Would be a great way for Blizzard to get more revenue for the game to continue to support it after LotV.
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On August 28 2014 01:20 Brutaxilos wrote:
Awesome stuff! I think an in-game prize system would be a great idea for microtransactions in SC2. The tournament host would enter in his money and maybe Blizzard would take a small cut (maybe even a static fee, like $5 or something), and the rest goes into the tournament.
Would be a great way for Blizzard to get more revenue for the game to continue to support it after LotV.
Blizzard needs to hire people like you
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This is extremely well made. I hope blizzard's eSports division actually pay attention to threads like this on TL... they could really learn somethings their fans have to offer.
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10/5. If we make noise, Blizzard will at least consider it.
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it really is sad we don't have this already. this was a feature in wc3 TFT which came out ten years ago.
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with the SC2 team being as small as it seems to be, it's not very likely for this to be a part of LotV - unless they've already started developing something like that, which I really really hope. In-game tournaments would be so awesome!
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Looks amazing. I think Blizzard must be planning to do something like this for legacy of the void. They are just saving the good Battle.net for the last expansion. I mean even WC3 had in game tournaments; there's no way SC2 shouldn't. They just need some new features to sell the last expansion. That's my theory anyway.
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That is the extent of what I have designed.
As much as I would like in game tournaments, I don't think Blizzard's problem is simple UI design. They have to code what's behind too, which is a lot more work. Don't get me wrong, they could probably do it pretty easily, but the main "design" work as the OP calls it just isn't the pretty buttons.
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Russian Federation262 Posts
Definitely, i wanna see it live!
Back to sweet WC3 times 
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Awesome concept, I like it a lot.
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On August 27 2014 21:13 revoluti8n wrote:Show nested quote +On August 27 2014 21:07 SunHee wrote:
Looks good, but I feel that with prize being something someone who creates the tournament just fills in, there would be no quarantee of there actually being a prize ( that is if anyone can create a tournament). Yeah i was thinking this, it would be good if there could be a way to put up prize money, so the tournament maker puts in $50 or something, which gets automatically paid out to 1st/ 2nd when the tournament finishes to there paypal or something, not sure that would be possible but it would be good if it could be done
Blizzard already has a money system (b.net Balance or smth). If you were only able to use that money it be easy to guarantee that the money was there. In addition blizzard would have to give us a way to get the money out of the system again. Also they could collect a fee on this like they did with diablo, so it wouldn't be pointless for them either (if it blows up).
In general this looks really great, I hope blizzard will notice such an elaborate post (actually I'm sure they will) and act on it.
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I think you're overestimating how much Blizzard cares about this game. Adding a tournament system costs money. Maybe for LotV I guess... I don't really see sc2 getting a lot of features unless it goes subscription or gets a bunch more expansions.
Very cool concept though, very well done screens.
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Wow I would LOVE this. As being someone who loves to compete but does not have a very good schedule for qualifiers and such (was only able to play in two Red Bull qualifiers (the ones that landed on a Sunday)) this would be very sweet. I could log in and see what tournaments are going on when I have the time to log in, and try to compete! Reminds me of places like z33k.com but in game, which makes it even more convenient.
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On August 28 2014 04:22 Damnight wrote:Show nested quote +On August 27 2014 21:13 revoluti8n wrote:On August 27 2014 21:07 SunHee wrote:
Looks good, but I feel that with prize being something someone who creates the tournament just fills in, there would be no quarantee of there actually being a prize ( that is if anyone can create a tournament). Yeah i was thinking this, it would be good if there could be a way to put up prize money, so the tournament maker puts in $50 or something, which gets automatically paid out to 1st/ 2nd when the tournament finishes to there paypal or something, not sure that would be possible but it would be good if it could be done Blizzard already has a money system (b.net Balance or smth). If you were only able to use that money it be easy to guarantee that the money was there. In addition blizzard would have to give us a way to get the money out of the system again. Also they could collect a fee on this like they did with diablo, so it wouldn't be pointless for them either (if it blows up). In general this looks really great, I hope blizzard will notice such an elaborate post (actually I'm sure they will) and act on it.
First, great job OP, I was wondering how you did these shots... are they a photoshop thing or a mod that you did?
Secondly I think it would be a great idea to have an option for tournaments to have an entry fee that comes from your bnet balance and can be thrown into the pot for prize money. Perhaps some sort of crowd-funding option for spectators to contribute to the pot as well.
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A few thoughts:
I question VOD implementation into the client. Obviously most vods are found externally on sites like Twitch and Youtube, and previous history has shown that Blizzard will at most only provide a link to this external stuff. I don't think Blizzard would be willing to implement this external stuff much since it's outside of their control. It would be neat if there was a way to store audio to accompany replays as a compromise to this.
I also think bracket creation could use more flexibility than shown, though I understand this is just a mockup. GSL Code S goes through both a dual-tournament group stage and a single-elimination bracket stage with a group selection in there, so there should preferably be a way to accommodate this. Some events, such as some Red Bull events with their "lives" system, might go through an unconventional format entirely. It's a great feature for most conventional tournaments, but it would be nice to accommodate more formats.
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Forza 2/3 i cant remember which used to do something like this. Automatically tournies were set up and you competed either through setting a time trial and then racing in a bracket. I really really enjoyed it as you could see in advance what was coming up and you could try for it. Downside was the full list didnt turn up some sometimes u would just be racing with you and one other guy, but hey the automation and idea was there
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On August 28 2014 04:29 CutTheEnemy wrote:
I think you're overestimating how much Blizzard cares about this game. Adding a tournament system costs money.
i don't understand these statements. blizzard worked with the gameheart guy to improve the UI pretty much solely because of community outcry about how great his work was and how they wanted it implemented into the game. what sense does it make for them to not care about their brand and their product? companies don't get rich by just totally not giving a shit
i always get called a "blizz fanboy" for defending them, but i don't even care about blizzard as a company nor do i have any affection for them, i'm just being logical. they might think this particular feature isn't worth the effort, and that would suck for fans but it wouldn't mean "bli$$ doesn't care they just want ur esports dollars thanks david kim"
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I'm just blown away. This looks incredibly awesome. Well done Sir.
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Looks pretty slick
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I do think the prize pool system with Blizz taking a cut of the profits should be incentive for them to consider this!
Like you'd have to pay $55 for a $50 prize pool, with a fixed price and/or percentage being displayed as the Blizzard cut. And for running the tournaments, Blizzard could throw in some other bonuses to encourage people to run paid tournaments thru them.
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EPT
