No Private Dedicated Servers For Overwatch

[Steven Bogos]

No Private Dedicated Servers For Overwatch

Overwatch won't have traditional dedicated servers, but players will be able create private, custom games.

Dedicated servers are a kind of staple for online shooters, allowing players and ISPs alike to purchase servers and customize them to their hearts content. When Blizzard's new TF2-esque shooter Overwatch [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/overwatch] launches, however, it will be lacking the feature. What it will have is a suite of servers hosted by Blizzard itself, in a similar fashion to Diablo III, meaning that players won't have to deal with the dreaded peer-to-peer server system of *shudder* console shooters.

"Overwatch will run completely on Blizzard servers. With that said, and when we do matchmaking it will be in a Blizzard pool, we are looking at regions and IPs and doing the best to minimise any sort of ping issues," Blizzard's Jeff Kaplan told Kotaku [http://www.kotaku.com.au/2015/09/overwatch-will-have-custom-games-dedicated-servers-and-a-spectator-mode-but-no-private-servers/].

He did clarify that the game would certainly have a sort of private custom game option, allowing friends to play together, as well as muck about with custom settings. "We'll allow you to set up some of those things that traditional dedicated servers allow you to do. Basically give you a safe place to go play a match to play with your friends and not go into the big matchmaking pool, we'll have a setup that will allow for that as well," he said.

Kaplan also confirmed that Overwatch, being a Battle.net game, will completely lack any sort of LAN play function.

While not having private dedicated servers, the option to make custom games does sort of make up for it. The only thing that will be lacking is the community - PC shooters like TF2 and CS: GO often build distinct communities within their dedicated server networks, as you'll usually find yourself playing with the same players if you stick to one server.

Source: Kotaku [http://www.kotaku.com.au/2015/09/overwatch-will-have-custom-games-dedicated-servers-and-a-spectator-mode-but-no-private-servers/]

Permalink

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

And just like that, any interest I had in this game is dead. I'm really sick of Blizzard being such control freaks.

 

[The Wykydtron]

Ok Blizz. I'm still kind of hyped for your pretty interesting take on the FPS genre but boasting LESS features than the mighty ass Team Fortress 2 is fucking weak, especially cutting dedicated servers cuz the more hardcore members of the PC FPS community will take that stuff seriously. You have to bring your A game to even stand a chance at taking a shot at the class and objective based FPS market that is currently being dominated by TF2.

Was Overwatch being F2P ever mentioned by Blizz officially actually? I just assumed that it was because this NOT being free while trying to compete with TF2 would be suicide.

 

[WarpedMind]

"Oh no we can't possibly allow people to run and police their own servers, that might mean that someone could do something we don't like and we can't have that, if there's one thing we've learned it is that making everyone conform to our carebear rules is an absolutely essential aspect of game design. I mean, surely you don't mean to imply that ADULTS actually play video games"

 

[Coreless]

And just like that, any interest I had in this game is dead. I'm really sick of Blizzard being such control freaks.

I with you on that, the second I read the headline my interest went from 10 to 0 just like that.

 

[The Enquirer]

You know Blizzard, gloating about less features in your game and attempting to put a positive spin on it is only going to fool the exact people that, in your eyes, make this a necessary "feature".

 

[Vigormortis]

And just like that, any interest I had in this game is dead. I'm really sick of Blizzard being such control freaks.

I went from "Egh, I'm mildly interested in seeing how this turns out." to "Ha! Guess what we won't be playing at my friends LAN parties."

I mean, really? They sold oodles of copies of Diablo 3, marking it as a runaway success, but even they have to be aware that the two biggest complaints about the game (when it actually worked) were its lack of LAN play and private servers. And yet, they exclude these features from yet another of their upcoming games?

Fuck's sake...

 

[Lightspeaker]

This is so dumb.

I'll still play it a bit but honestly this is just ridiculous. What, exactly, is with this obsession with removing dedicated privately owned servers?

I mean at least the games will still be apparently run on dedicated servers and its not P2P (with all the fun of the host dropping on that) but still...some people like to have their own servers.

 

[ron1n]

So hang on, I get theyre running their own servers, but have they confirmed the game will work via matchmaking only or will it have a server browser too? I'm assuming it's the former.

 

[sonicneedslovetoo]

Thank you very much for your time Blizzard Entertainment don't call us, we'll call you, the check is decidedly not in the mail. May Activision absorb you completely and fire all the staff, as there is a non-zero chance that Activision would actually listen to people however small.

 

[Airon]

Well.

This game is dead out the gates for me. Remember the last time an FPS, namely Call Of Duty MW2 did away with dedicated servers ? It's multiplayer and surrounding mod community just skipped it and Call Of Duty multiplayer kinda passed away.

There are enough alternatives to make me care not one dingos kidney now about this game any longer. Looked interesting.

Nobody trusts major companies to keep servers running. Nobody.

 

[Bobular]

Was looking forward to playing this at some point, but this makes me a bit more wary.

I refused to buy COD after they got rid of dedicated servers, never bought a COD game since (That boycott clearly worked...). On the other hand the FPS I play most though at the moment is Titan Fall, which doesn't have dedicated servers and i enjoy that for the ability to get into a game quickly, play a few matches and leave.

On the other other hand I have many fond memory of playing TF2 on dedicated servers that I used to frequent. When I was unemployed I spent ages on the same server, with the same people, having some really good fun. We would do all sorts of random things, like have entire games using just melee weapons or the time we all went spy so you couldn't trust anyone. You can't get that sort of thing without dedicated servers, I was kind of hoping Overwatch would be more like that.

 

[yellost]

Sounds like a proper recipe for a good error 37 all over again...
I'll go get the popcorn to enjoy the incoming news...

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I don't fully understand what any of this entails. Nothing good, I gather.

 

[XenoScifi]

Dedicated servers was the reason I played CS:S so long, because I found a community server with people I enjoyed playing with for years.

Game queues are watering down Blizzard games. D3, Hearthstone and HoTs have no sense of community, and that takes a huge chunk of fun from the games. It's to me what takes that level from just being invested in time and money to be invested emotionally as well.

 

[Scy Anide]

This actually might completely kill Overwatch for me. I still play Counterstrike because of the communities on the servers I play on. That's the only reason I still play any online games, Blizzard games included. I don't give a damn about matchmaking; I don't want to play with random stranger #1234 who I'm never going to see again. I want to be able to play with people I know AND people I don't know yet, at the same time. I want to play with John for the millionth time and hear his daughter, Emma, in the background and realize that she's started learning how to talk and that I started playing with John before she was born because we've both been playing the same game for years. Why would you take communities away from players? Isn't that what keeps people coming back to the games? Isn't that a large part of why WoW still exists almost 11 years later?

And what about mods? Are the Blizzard dedicated servers going to have those? Counterstrike still holds my interest because, in addition to all the normal FPS stuff, it also has zombie mod, gungame, and even warcraft mods.

 

[Makabriel]

InB4 Blizzard hate.... ah shoot.

Even before clicking the link I could guess what the comments would be like.

 

[gact]

so if I play this game my ping is going to be a constant 200+, that just kills the game for anyone living in south america and far from west europe.

 

[SlumlordThanatos]

I went from "Egh, I'm mildly interested in seeing how this turns out." to "Ha! Guess what we won't be playing at my friends LAN parties."

I mean, really? They sold oodles of copies of Diablo 3, marking it as a runaway success, but even they have to be aware that the two biggest complaints about the game (when it actually worked) were its lack of LAN play and private servers. And yet, they exclude these features from yet another of their upcoming games?

Fuck's sake...

Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

This is a new IP, without the name recognition that Diablo came with. They need to get this right if they don't want another failure along the lines of HotS. Hearthstone can only make up so much of the difference.