Blizzard wants to patent the 'Game Game' feature. d & # 39; Overwatch

The Play of the Game feature of Overwatch is sometimes a little messy, but overall it is a very popular feature. Players get the credit of being a hero among the heroes, and perhaps even more important than everyone else testifies to their powerful actions too. In fact, it is such an important part of the experience that Blizzard wants to patent it.

The patent application was filed at the end of the year 2016, crediting Keith Miron, lead programmer of the gameplay, and Geoff Goodman, designer, as an inventor, but he has not become public only earlier this month. The summary describes the system as marking the events of a match "according to a plurality of corresponding criteria [to] a plurality of games of game categories, "which include things like High Score, Life Saver, Sharpshooter, and Shutdown. One of these categories is selected by the server, magic happens, and boom, it's the game of the game for someone.

The ranking is very detailed in its descriptions of the systems and also in the situation that it covers, although there is also a good margin of maneuver. Consider this description of the Sharpshooter rating category:

"The category" sniper "focuses on games that are awesome because of a hard-to-execute shot. In some embodiments, the factors considered to mark the category & # "Elite shooter" are as follows: the player doing the shooting and / or the shooting of the player is in the air, the relative elevations of the player and the enemy, he There were close objects that could have blocked the shot if the gap was relatively small, the enemy was hit (for example, shots to the head), the time between the opponent arriving in line and shooting being done, the speed of the enemy being drawn, etc. In some embodiments, some characters or types of events may be weighted from others in the category "shooter" for some factors: for example, a sniper character usually has an extremely long reach and therefore the distance factor can be weighed less heavily when determining the score of a sniper. . In addition, some factors may be weighted higher than others because of the drastic increase in the difficulty of the shots, such as shots where the player, the enemy or both are in the l & # 39; # 39; air. In addition, some characters may have abilities that allow them to float in the air and "rain righteousness from above" for relatively long periods of time, and these characters may receive a lower score for the factor related to To be in the air. "

The deposit also puts a point of honor to differentiate game play from other similar systems superficially. For example, some games may record and replay the last kill of a game, but there is no guarantee that it will be a significant kill, much like the goal winner of a hockey game is not necessarily the last goal scored.

"There may have been an earlier situation in the game where a player managed to survive and emerged victorious even though he was severely outnumbered," the claim says. "Capturing only the last kill would not show such cases that would be considered much more impressive than a single kill that ended the game."

The patent application has not yet been approved, and I do not know at all if that is the case. But the application itself makes a very interesting reading, especially if you have an interest in how it actually works.

Speaking of Overwatch, Blizzard has rolled out a massive update today that is remaking Symmetra, making big changes to the Horizon Lunar Colony map, and adding new social features to Endorsements and Looking For Group. Get caught up with all this here.

Thank you, Engadget.