Hey guys this game sucks and Blizzard is a disguesting company. Why do all my favorite things have to be ruined by stupid assholes?
Overwatch 2; The Electric Boogaloo
- Thread starter FakeSympathy
- Start date
Fair enough, but I still have my suspicions. Besides, you forget that Bobby "Devil Horns" Kotick is still in charge and not in jail for all of the other heinous shit. Scummy and highly illegal are the same difference when it comes to Activision for me.
You bet your ass some of them will find a way around that too. Australia not so much as you just informed, but in America and most other places, hackers have probably found more than enough ways around that.
Because the assholes in charge were put in and left there by other assholes in charge, and those looking to climb the corporate ladder any they can. While you have sycophant fans defending and denying every shady and illegal actions, because they won't get their precious waifus/husbandos. Those same fans harassing others for having any type of criticism, real or not, giving death and rape threats. They want their games that badly? They deserve them and the hell Overwatch 2 is in. They wanted their monkey's paw, and they better enjoy it.
The only thing that got me invested in Overwatch is trying to unlock costumes that turned the heroes into characters from other Blizzard games like Widowmaker as Nova from Starcraft.
But Blizzard decided to FOMO some costumes that happens to be those kind of costumes I want and I could not get them anymore.
But Blizzard decided to FOMO some costumes that happens to be those kind of costumes I want and I could not get them anymore.
As a long time hater of skins, it's kinda impressive how much worse some of the default OW2 skins are than the OW1 ones. There are definitely some improvements, but IMO ones like Bastion are huge downgrades. The new designs seem to trend towards making them look sleeker and more futuristic, which seems hella redundant when the original designs were already sleek and futuristic... I guess that's what happens when you can barely justify calling your game a sequel.
Two comments that stood out to me:
After having a handful of jobs, I've realized that many businesses truly are held together by just a few people who understand the bigger picture and actually work hard to get there. I think Blizzard has lost a lot of those people.
Given the ridiculous number of gaming failures since the pandemic, I think it's become quite clear that so many studios are not what they used to be. As an industrial engineer graduate, I can't help criticize these studios for not adhering to the most basic measures to ensure continuity among their workforce. As a gamer though, I understand that many times certain individuals are what made some games special. Games as art and all that. Hopefully after some time, the industry can somewhat stabilize. We ended the last generation on quite a bang (well, if you were a PS/Nintendo/PC player lol), it's sad to see gaming in such a state.
Can I just point out the irony of a company known for sexual harassment cases promoting diversity and equality through their heroes. Maybe get more heroes in your workspace first, the message would feel slightly more genuine, Bobby.
Heh. Even back then it was hard not to see a lot of Overwatch's marketing as commodified diversity. Makes you wonder, were there people who had to fight past dipshits who steal breast milk just to get these diverse characters into the game? Or was everything just a cynical marketing push from said dipshits who probably found pretending to be woke hilarious?
There's a reason they had to use a fucking chart to approximate diversity. They wouldn't know it if it bit them on their default white male asses.
Games like Overwatch always have an easy run at being diverse. Same with most fighting games. The narrative - if it exists - is simple and seldom tied to nation states. Fighters use the tournament ladder; the ultimate martial meritocracy where might and skill alone bring victory. Overwatch is just repurposing the JLA/Avengers and a few others I’m forgetting, setup where a group of individuals of immense individual skill or power band together to fight evil, in Overwatch’s case very conveniently a terrorist organisation in the vein of Spectre or COBRA or the Legion of Doom.
So you want a big varied roster so you just throw in people from all over the world; although fighting games have the advantage in that games can be used as a showcase for the martial arts of the character’s country of origin.
It’s easy diversity, most certainly welcome in the sense that everyone is gonna have at least one character who on the surface seems like them but plenty of others to fall in love with if they do choose.
So yeah, it’s easy diversity win points but honestly not doing it in such games is just leaving character design opportunities on the table.
I wasn't so much referring to ethnicities/nationalities, which as you said, is common sense for a hero shooter. More of the very popular decision to reveal characters' sexualities years after release in certain comics. Or body diversity, with Zarya and Mei not conforming to female beauty standards. Not that these are bad things on their own, but coming from a company like Blizzard? Always felt like cold calculated choices. Even more so now that we know all the messy things behind the scenes.
Although to come back to your point, here's somewhat of a hot take: I don't think Overwatch is diverse enough from a ethnicity/nationality standpoint. At least, not after having 35 fricking heroes. You'd think the roster would represent almost every corner of the globe by now. But in my opinion at least, there's only a handful of characters who come from unique or interesting backgrounds. In terms of character design, Overwatch blows Valorant out of the water by a mile, but the latter makes an effort to showcase a new culture each time an agent is released.
Look, even setting aside the truly outrageous shit - what is happening with that these days? - that was going on under the reign of Blizzard's most popular and well regarded artistic leadership team, it would largely be nothing other than a cold consideration. Because Blizzard contains more than one person, which means its incapable of artistic vision.
Well that's probably a fair assessment.
Lazy by what standards?
Like compare this from Halo 1 to Halo 2
Or Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare (2007) to Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 (2009)
Or Bad Company 1 to Bad Company 2
Or Rainbow Six Vegas 1 to Vegas 2?
I guess MW to MW2? His main points are
- The core gameplay is still there
- Some hero reworks doesn't make sense
- $20 of legendary skin
- The predatory business model
- Some features were outright removed
I mean, we could just stick in the same Activision (at the time) camp and use Destiny to Destiny 2.
COD and the Fifa/MAdden/etc has always been its own (incredibly large) niche though. You could grab 100 people off a street or office, and half of the ones who own a game console would have those games... and only those games. They don't care about the limited valuee standpoint because that 160/yr basically boils down to a mid-tier entertainment subscription
Overwatch has definitely sat more within the "gamer" space, where the audience engages with a lot more other projects as well by comparison.
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Overwatch has always screamed as a virtue signaling ploy from Blizzard honestly. Because it's a nothing burger of a game with no diversity in gameplay ideas whatsoever. They sold the game on the diversity and virtue of the cast, which then led to a bunch of porn, and they still have nothing going for the property in terms of the gameplay ideas.
I've already left my thoughts on the "what are you playing?" thread (two posts worth), so this is more a response to the stuff that's posted here. Since this started off as a score, the TL, DR version of what I wrote is that if you want a score, OW2 gets 4/5 if you haven't played the original, 3/5 if you have.
(Edit: I adjusted the scores to be out of 5 rather than 10 - if you want them in 10, the ratio is better described as 7/8 out of 10 if you're a newbie, 6/7 out of 10 if you aren't.)
It's true Battleborn had a campaign, but it was lacklustre. Also, gameplay-wise, I don't think Battleborn and Overwatch really belong in the same discussion. Overwatch is a hero shooter, Battleborn was some kind of FPS/MOBA hybrid that didn't do either of those things particuarly well.
Also, on an even more subjective level, I mostly found Battleborn's setting boring, which is ironic, because usually I'm a sucker for anything approaching sci-fi or fantasy, but nup, couldn't even manage that. Characters were boring, plot was boring, writing was...fairly humurous, at times, but that's about it.
I know games are subjective, but Battleborn's singleplayer was lacklustre, IMO. Every mission was "start at point A, fight your way to point Z, fight boss at point Z, rinse and repeat." The only thing that was mildly interesting conceptually was Rendain at the very end, but that's about it.
www.pcgamer.com
That's false. They never used the chart. The chart was developed by King, but it was never used by Team 4.
This isn't a defence of the chart itself (the entire idea is idiotic), but let's be clear who did, and didn't use it.
The most (in)famous case was Tracer being "revealed" to be gay (in the sense that it triggered off as many homophobes as you'd expect), and no-one's ever been able to explain how it's a "reveal." It's not at the start or end of the comic, it's not at the end of the comic, the sexuality of the characters is in no way relevant to their characteization, it's not in any way relevant to the plot, you could replace Emily with "Emile," and not change a single line of dialogue. And yes, before anyone says anything, twats similarly acted angrily when it was "revealed" that Reaper had a wife, with people crying salty tears that he could no longer be shipped with Morrison.
Overwatch: 33 heroes, originating from 22 countries (23 if you include the moon)
Valorant: 21 agents, originating from 17 countries
In both cases, every continent has at least one hero from it, so "every corner of the globe" has already been covered.
Also, while I'm much less familiar with Valorant than Overwatch, isn't literally every agent in Valorant part of the titular Valorant Protocol, with all of them being miltiary/ex-military? In terms of background, Overwatch seems to have far more variety since you get a wider range of professions, backgrounds, etc.
This is why the 'diversity game' is so silly to play, because you can pick whatever criteria you want and conclude which piece of media is more diverse. I mean, Paladins has more species diversity than both games combined, if that's the criteria you choose to measure with.
First, I have no idea what you mean by "virtue signalling ploy," but it reminds me of people accusing Blizzard of "pushing the gay agenda," so make of that what you will.
Second, no diversity of gameplay ideas? Seriously? I really don't know what to make of that, every hero has their own playstyle, and tactics used in one mode aren't going to cut it in another (e.g. compare Push with Capture). How much of Overwatch have you played? Because the only thing comparable to Overwatch that I've played is Paladins.
Third, where did they "sell the game on diversity?" I assume you have a source. Because otherwise, that's a subjective judgement, and I never felt it. Most of the diversity comments came from idiots decrying "forced diversity."
Fourth, even if point three is true, you're making the case that diversity leads to porn? What? First of all, Rule 34. Second of all, there's really no clear link between sexual content in an IP and sexual content in fandom - compare humanxyautja pairings in fandom to the actual IP, for instance, or sexualization in Sonic the Hedgehog to fanfiction despite the dearth of intimacy in the IP itself. Third of all, by extension, how many of the characters in Overwatch could be called sexualized? Compare Tracer to, say, Skye from Paladins - both play similar gameplay roles, but in terms of design, only one of them is sexualized.
(Edit: I adjusted the scores to be out of 5 rather than 10 - if you want them in 10, the ratio is better described as 7/8 out of 10 if you're a newbie, 6/7 out of 10 if you aren't.)
I really don't think this is a fair criticism, it was established well-ahead of time that the campaign wouldn't be included at launch and would be released sequentially. However one might feel about the decision, it's a decision that was established well in advance.
I completely disagree. While I've said many times that OW1 should be available to play in some form, in part for the original 6v6 composition, I think 5v5 works much better overall. The matches are faster, there's fewer stalemates (e.g. shield overlap), and all the tanks are still viable.
This isn't really a counterpoint, but TBH, I haven't encountered any toxicity so far. Then again, I barely encounter any toxicity in online games, period, bar League of Legends, so maybe I'm just lucky?
I know some of the maps went through bug fixing at release (e.g. Numbani), to my knowledge, they're all back in.
Such as?
It's true Battleborn had a campaign, but it was lacklustre. Also, gameplay-wise, I don't think Battleborn and Overwatch really belong in the same discussion. Overwatch is a hero shooter, Battleborn was some kind of FPS/MOBA hybrid that didn't do either of those things particuarly well.
Also, on an even more subjective level, I mostly found Battleborn's setting boring, which is ironic, because usually I'm a sucker for anything approaching sci-fi or fantasy, but nup, couldn't even manage that. Characters were boring, plot was boring, writing was...fairly humurous, at times, but that's about it.
Sorry, what?
I know games are subjective, but Battleborn's singleplayer was lacklustre, IMO. Every mission was "start at point A, fight your way to point Z, fight boss at point Z, rinse and repeat." The only thing that was mildly interesting conceptually was Rendain at the very end, but that's about it.
How much have you played?
Overwatch creators explain they didn't use King's 'creepy' diversity charts
"This has been such a punch to the gut for us."
www.pcgamer.com
That's false. They never used the chart. The chart was developed by King, but it was never used by Team 4.
This isn't a defence of the chart itself (the entire idea is idiotic), but let's be clear who did, and didn't use it.
Okay, this isn't directed to you personally, but I'm so sick of this idea, that characters' sexualities have been "revealed."
The most (in)famous case was Tracer being "revealed" to be gay (in the sense that it triggered off as many homophobes as you'd expect), and no-one's ever been able to explain how it's a "reveal." It's not at the start or end of the comic, it's not at the end of the comic, the sexuality of the characters is in no way relevant to their characteization, it's not in any way relevant to the plot, you could replace Emily with "Emile," and not change a single line of dialogue. And yes, before anyone says anything, twats similarly acted angrily when it was "revealed" that Reaper had a wife, with people crying salty tears that he could no longer be shipped with Morrison.
While playing stupid games wins stupid prizes, I actually ran the numbers:
Overwatch: 33 heroes, originating from 22 countries (23 if you include the moon)
Valorant: 21 agents, originating from 17 countries
In both cases, every continent has at least one hero from it, so "every corner of the globe" has already been covered.
Also, while I'm much less familiar with Valorant than Overwatch, isn't literally every agent in Valorant part of the titular Valorant Protocol, with all of them being miltiary/ex-military? In terms of background, Overwatch seems to have far more variety since you get a wider range of professions, backgrounds, etc.
This is why the 'diversity game' is so silly to play, because you can pick whatever criteria you want and conclude which piece of media is more diverse. I mean, Paladins has more species diversity than both games combined, if that's the criteria you choose to measure with.
Okay, everyone's entitled to their own opinion, and how people percieve media is going to differ, but seriously?
First, I have no idea what you mean by "virtue signalling ploy," but it reminds me of people accusing Blizzard of "pushing the gay agenda," so make of that what you will.
Second, no diversity of gameplay ideas? Seriously? I really don't know what to make of that, every hero has their own playstyle, and tactics used in one mode aren't going to cut it in another (e.g. compare Push with Capture). How much of Overwatch have you played? Because the only thing comparable to Overwatch that I've played is Paladins.
Third, where did they "sell the game on diversity?" I assume you have a source. Because otherwise, that's a subjective judgement, and I never felt it. Most of the diversity comments came from idiots decrying "forced diversity."
Fourth, even if point three is true, you're making the case that diversity leads to porn? What? First of all, Rule 34. Second of all, there's really no clear link between sexual content in an IP and sexual content in fandom - compare humanxyautja pairings in fandom to the actual IP, for instance, or sexualization in Sonic the Hedgehog to fanfiction despite the dearth of intimacy in the IP itself. Third of all, by extension, how many of the characters in Overwatch could be called sexualized? Compare Tracer to, say, Skye from Paladins - both play similar gameplay roles, but in terms of design, only one of them is sexualized.
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Well this is what i remember...
1. Around the time this game was gettin announced Bliz was getting a bunch of shit about how all their characters fell into the stereotypical "hot chick" and "hero" body type and archetype. They couldn't be accused of White-male overload because well....Orcs and shit, but nevertheless they were getting some pushback about all the people being to...i dunno...hot i guess. Then OW was announced and that critique below up even further because painting a hot chick blueish doesn't make her not a hot chick. So Blizz started pumping out female characters that broke the stereotype, and even then they got flak for it. Remember when they reveal Zara the buff Russian lady who wasn't a stereotypical "hot chick" but people just moved the goal post saying she was a Russian Stereotype instead? Okay then you got chubby bunny Mei, an then the Elderly Lady, and the buff but not as buff Bridget, then a robot centaur thing. They tried everything to make their cast as appealing to these people as possible. So that's what I mean by that.
2. I'm not talking about the character's themselves, I'm talking about the objectives and the gameplay modes themselves. Guard the slow moving payload, and defend/capture the point. Oh my goodness breaking new ground Blizzard. Sure the heroes were sort of unique but not really. Each person has a limited use special move or thing they do, but all of them point gun and go bang bang. Instead why not have maps that certain heroes can activate special things for their team. Maybe Mercy can activate med kit terminals on the map to spawn more health for her team. Maybe Torbjorn can repair the payload cart to increase it's movement speed. There are a shitload of things they could have done and could STILL do to make Overwatch feel different. But they didn't, it's TF2 with more character classes sort of.
3. Honestly i think the forced diversity thing mostly just came from everytime someone complained about a character or the lack of a specfic type of character, they would respond by making a character that at least sort of fit to solve those complaints. The racial diversity didn't bother me. The random sexual diversity did because a lot of it would come out of nowhere like when 76 was revealed to be gay in some comic or something. But I am against sexualizing characters for games and stories in which their relationship preference is meaningless. There is no story in OW, only lore and there is no reason to randomly pick a couple of people to be LBGT when it doesn't fit into in-game content. And my reasoning for this is that by not TELLING the audience whether someone is gay, straight, trans, whatever, you allow the player to put that into the character themselves. Unless you need them to be something for a narrative in game, let the players put that bit into the characters themselves because it allows for more attachment to their favorites imo. And since everyone can do it, everyone is happy, in theory.
4. OW character designs as a whole as some of the best designed characters in gaming history. The fact that OW porn has been some of the most created R34 content out of any other video game series in fucking history just shows you how great the character designs are, which only serves to highlight my last point in #3. Because even though 76 is a gay man according to cannon, that dude has slayed all the pussy in the game. And he should because that's what the creators wanted to do, they attached themselves to 76 and any number of the other characters so by keeping the sexual politics away from the game entirely you let people make the characters whatever they want. All the girls have been futas just as much as they've been straight, and that's totally cool.
But that's my view on it. Whatever.
OW2 I didn't play that much because I log in and it's the same fucking game, but with a bunch of broken balancing issues. Roadhog's hook has been changed like 3 times since launch and it's still fucked up. They rushed this out the door, for reasons I don't understand except maybe to try and reignite OW news for a while, but the single player shit is a year away, or never coming at all imo, and otherwise they've taken a free flowing game and only served to make it restrictive but also couldn't be bothered to think up different game modes for the maps, even removing a few old maps for no reason. It's a fucking mess.
All of that is reaching. But to be specific:
-Let's take the "hot chick" and "hero body type" as being true, the designs for Overwatch's initial roster go back to Titan (e.g. Tracer is inspired by the Jumper class), so the timing doesn't make sense.
-I have no idea what you mean by "hot chick blueish," who are you referring to?
-Yes, Zarya's a Russian stereotype, many of the characters are stereotypes, no idea what you mean by "Chubby Bunny Mei," unless there's some skin I missed.
-Okay, so let's take it as the case that the cast is trying to appeal to as many people as possible. Yes? And? How is that a problem? And if it is, how has the game or narrative suffered for it? Why is it inherently problematic for games like Overwatch (or Valorant, or R6: Siege, or...) to have a roster from across the globe when it makes sense in the context?
-Many heroes don't carry guns at all.
-Having certain heroes required for certain maps is a terrible idea - it would limit the hero pool, cause balance issues, etc.
-Overwatch already DOES feel different. Seriously, when it came out, what actually played like it apart from Paladins? Because I've got to say, it's not TF2. My personal dislike of TF2 aside, while you can cite some common DNA (and the developers have cited TF2 as an inspiration), I really disagree that they play that much alike. The modes, sure, but TF2 is closer to a class-based shooter, with a small selection of classes with a reasonable amount of flexibility, while Overwatch has a large amount of niche classes (or heroes, technically).
-Who, specifically, was introduced in the roster to account for complaints? And even if we assume that's the case, how did the game suffer for it?
-Right, so racial diversity doesn't bother you (why should racial diversity bother anyone in a setting like this is a question I'll leave you to answer), but sexual diversity does...
-I'd be able to take the complaints about "sexual politics" more seriously if people were more consistent with them. If you're so upset with gay characters, why aren't you similarly upset with straight characters? Why is Tracer having a girlfriend so terrible, while Widowmaker having a husband absolutely acceptable?
I mean, I know what the answer is with a lot of people, but feel free to explain the difference.
-By extension, let's say I agreed with you about the notion that because the game lacks singleplayer, the characters should be blank slates (for the record, I don't agree at all, and this goes for every IP in existence - even if a game lacks singleplayer, a fleshed out setting does wonders for emotional investment). Fine. Okay. Let's throw you a bone and say that your stance is that none of the characters should have any backstory so players should imagine those backstories as whatever. Why, then, do some elements bother you more? Because when you cite examples of character backstories, you only seem to bring up sexuality. Why are some character traits more objectionable than others?
Again, I can imagine the reason, but if you want to explain the difference, the ball's in your court.
-I'm still not seeing your point. People will imagine characters as they want. Okay, and? How is that an argument against fleshing characters out? People in fandom can imagine characters how they want (sometimes more tastfully than others), that doesn't retroactively change how the character actually functions.
-Again with the phrase "sexual politics." I assume you're extending that criteria to the hetrosexual characters as well?
-What's wrong with Roadhog's hook? And how's it been changed?
-What's actually been removed? Because while it's true that Assault maps were removed from Quick Play and Ranked (to my dislike), they're still playable in Custom games.
-Push is a new game mode, and there's a new one coming out.
-I actually agree that OW2 was rushed, and I strongly suspect something went wrong in development, but that doesn't change the above.