April 16th? What happens for Arena?

#0 - April 3, 2007, 12:05 a.m.

Would be nice if ONE of the half a dozen official sites and pages about pvp and arena answered tihs really, really simple question. There is a ton of confusion so... here are some simple questions.

If you have an answer, please cite a SOURCE (i.e. a blue post) instead of just telling us what "you heard" or "you believe."

What we know:

A. Season 1 ends on April 15th
B. Qualifier rounds of the big Tournament begin immediately after the 15th and lead up to a huge global competition some time in late summer

Questions:

1. Does a new season start on April 16th for general arena play? When does that season end?
2. Will new charters be required on April 16th?

3. If a new season does not start on the 16th, then when do charters expire and when will teams be able to continue regular play for rating/points?
4. When may we expect to see updated Arena gear? Will you get a discount for Gladiator upgrades?

Drysc

#1 - April 3, 2007, 12:26 a.m.

April 15th only marks the cut off date for the first qualifying round for the Arena Tournament, this isn't the date for the end of the in-game season. The actual end of the first in-game season hasn't been set, and will be announced once we're comfortable setting a date that makes sense to what's happening in the game.

Q u o t e:
3. If a new season does not start on the 16th, then when do charters expire and when will teams be able to continue regular play for rating/points?
4. When may we expect to see updated Arena gear? Will you get a discount for Gladiator upgrades?

I'm not aware of any planned gap between seasons, but in the case that it does happen we'll get that information to you beforehand. As far as I'm aware charters don't expire, at the end of the season you keep all of your arena points (just like honor points you don't lose them, and they don't degrade), just the team's actual rating is reset and everything begins all over again.

New arena rewards have the possibility of being added at the end of a season, but they aren't guaranteed. So the soonest you would see some new items would be the next end-of-season date, which hasn't been set. I'm not aware of any discount planned towards purchasing new items that are added; however, prices always have the possibility of being adjusted.

Drysc

#14 - April 3, 2007, 12:51 a.m.

Q u o t e:
so we get the rewards for top 2v2 and 3v3 teams around the 16th since thats when the tournament ends for those two brackets? or do we have to wait for the 5v5 to end...

No, the tournament has nothing to do with the end of the in-game season. They're completely separate events. The tournament is simply using the in-game arena standings to determine the top teams, which will then compete with each other and eventually other regions to crown the top 5v5 arena team in the world. The cut off date where we look at the current standings and pick out the top teams is April 15, this doesn't end the in-game season, it's simply us picking the top teams as of that point to compete elsewhere. The end of the actual in-game season isn't currently set.

Drysc

#16 - April 3, 2007, 1:21 a.m.

Q u o t e:

Does this mean there may only be 2 seasons per year instead of 3?

Our initial estimates before the release of the expansion were that a season would last around three months, and while we would still like to stick to something around that length this first season is likely to be longer as it's the first and we want to ensure that we're not ending it too soon.