Overwatch Kicks Off Its "Summer Games" Promotion

[Steven Bogos]

Overwatch Kicks Off Its "Summer Games" Promotion

Get some summer Olympics-themed Overwatch skins and loot from now until August 22.

Celebrate the Rio Olympics Overwatch style over the next few weeks, with the commencement of the game's first major in-game event: Summer Games 2016. As part of the event, players can earn special seasonal loot boxes containing over 100 Olympics-themed items, and hit the field with your friends in the latest brawl: Lucioball!

Starting today until August 22, any new loot boxes you earn or purchase will contain at least one item from the Summer Games 2016 collection. Items include the usual sprays, emotes, victory poses, highlight intros, player icons and skins. Here's a preview of some of them:



One important caveat: you won't be able to purchase these special Summer Games 2016 items via the in-game credit system. That means the only way to get them is to "roll the dice" by buying loot boxes.

Additionally, the new brawl mode, Lucioball, is a "futuristic spin on soccer," placing players in fast-paced, 3v3 matches where everyone is Lucio. In this special brawl, Lucio's abilities have been slightly tweaked. His primary fire has been replaced with a melee attack, allowing him to punch the ball, his Crossfade effects only himself, and his ultimate ability, Sound Barrier, will attract the ball to his position.

At the end of the four minute round, the team that scored the most goals wins.

Read more about the event on the official Overwatch blog [https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/blog/20216482]. This is the first seasonal event for the game, but Blizzard is planning on having more in the future.

Source: Blizzard [https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/blog/20216482]


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[Aeshi]

One important caveat: you won't be able to purchase these special Summer Games 2016 items via the in-game credit system. That means the only way to get them is to "roll the dice" by buying loot boxes.

And the amount of salt on the Overwatch forums over that fact has to be seen to be believed.

 

[saluraropicrusa]

One important caveat: you won't be able to purchase these special Summer Games 2016 items via the in-game credit system. That means the only way to get them is to "roll the dice" by buying loot boxes.

And the amount of salt on the Overwatch forums over that fact has to be seen to be believed.

i for one am above my recommended daily intake of sodium over it.

i like a lot of the new stuff, but the problems with how they're distributing it are plenty: yes, loot boxes can be earned free and just by playing the game, but there are around 100 new items. you get a guaranteed one new item per loot box. you're able to get dupes. there are sprays and player icons alongside the voice lines, victory poses, highlight intros, emotes and skins. if there's something specific you want, good luck getting it in the three weeks weeks we have for this event if you're not willing to spend money--and even if you are willing to dole out cash, RNG won't always be on your side.

it's not the worst implementation of the items, but it could be way better. i don't even think we needed to be able to buy them with the in-game currency; just having a loot box exclusively for the items, or not allowing dupes, or weighing higher value items more heavily would have solved the issue. or having another way to earn loot boxes/the items besides level ups.

i consider myself very lucky that i was level 99 when the event started because if i didn't have the reset for levels i wouldn't be nearly as willing to actually put the time in to get anything. i don't want to feel obligated to play a game i love because i have a time limit to get some cool goodies in a fun event. which it is, lucioball is awesome and i love some of the stuff they added (i thoroughly enjoy that McCree skin (and laughed heartily when i first saw it), but i really do wish we got more skins that weren't recolors, like Wrestle Grandpa or Tennis Junkrat, or even Speedo Roadhog).

i just really hope they don't use this same system for whatever they decide to do for halloween. that would suck.

ok, rant over.

 

[SirSullymore]

I really like that the items are tough to get and only available for a limited time. The legendary loot feels so much less legendary when everyone has most of them. Looking forward to more seasonal shenanigans.

 

[RJ 17]

-No Tennis Star Mercy.
-No Diving Ace Roadhog.

 

[RaikuFA]

One important caveat: you won't be able to purchase these special Summer Games 2016 items via the in-game credit system. That means the only way to get them is to "roll the dice" by buying loot boxes.

And the amount of salt on the Overwatch forums over that fact has to be seen to be believed.

I kinda see where some people would be unhappy with it. If this was a holiday event there's be much less salt because it comes every year, but with this we don't know if they're gonna release it again for the next summer games or if it's only for the Rio games which I guarantee will never happen again with all the controversy around it.

 

[Erttheking]

One important caveat: you won't be able to purchase these special Summer Games 2016 items via the in-game credit system. That means the only way to get them is to "roll the dice" by buying loot boxes.

https://cdn.meme.am/instances/58408017.jpg

It's a shame, because those skins do look pretty cool. Particularly Meccree. I mean Jesus, that's about as American as you can get. It looks like a character that would be in that canceled Vampire Hunter D comic, American Wasteland

 

[Worgen]

Why are the overwatch people standing on the stadium from Rocket League?

 

[RJ 17]

Why are the overwatch people standing on the stadium from Rocket League?

Because that's what the new Brawl - Lucioball - is. 3v3, all Lucios. Left-Click = Melee to punch the ball, Right-Click = melee-ranged sound-blast that...well...blasts the ball. His ultimate is now an AoE pull that sucks the ball directly to you (though it's path can be interrupted).

That said, though, people have already found a way to cheese it: once you get your ult, just stand in the enemy's goal. When the ball get's close, pop your ult and it sucks the ball right into the goal.

 

[Worgen]

Why are the overwatch people standing on the stadium from Rocket League?

Because that's what the new Brawl - Lucioball - is. 3v3, all Lucios. Left-Click = Melee to punch the ball, Right-Click = melee-ranged sound-blast that...well...blasts the ball. His ultimate is now an AoE pull that sucks the ball directly to you (though it's path can be interrupted).

That said, though, people have already found a way to cheese it: once you get your ult, just stand in the enemy's goal. When the ball get's close, pop your ult and it sucks the ball right into the goal.

I'm just waiting for the overwatch peeps to be hit by cars.

 

[RJ 17]

Why are the overwatch people standing on the stadium from Rocket League?

Because that's what the new Brawl - Lucioball - is. 3v3, all Lucios. Left-Click = Melee to punch the ball, Right-Click = melee-ranged sound-blast that...well...blasts the ball. His ultimate is now an AoE pull that sucks the ball directly to you (though it's path can be interrupted).

That said, though, people have already found a way to cheese it: once you get your ult, just stand in the enemy's goal. When the ball get's close, pop your ult and it sucks the ball right into the goal.

I'm just waiting for the overwatch peeps to be hit by cars.

That'd certainly be an interesting - and entertaining - new game mechanic.

 

[RedDeadFred]

While the whole not being able to buy the skins you want with the in game currency is a pretty big middle finger, at least they're probably going to bring it back every year.

They say they want the skins to be extra rare, but of course you can still give them money to buy as many boxes as you want. I'm sense a double standard here. I bet people weren't buying enough loot boxes before since you can earn them at a pretty reasonable rate.

The only reason I'm not a lot more salty is that the skins really aren't all that great IMO. At least, they're not good enough to replace my favourites on their respective characters.

 

[Aeshi]

Because that's what the new Brawl - Lucioball - is. 3v3, all Lucios. Left-Click = Melee to punch the ball, Right-Click = melee-ranged sound-blast that...well...blasts the ball. His ultimate is now an AoE pull that sucks the ball directly to you (though it's path can be interrupted).

That said, though, people have already found a way to cheese it: once you get your ult, just stand in the enemy's goal. When the ball get's close, pop your ult and it sucks the ball right into the goal.

There's also apparently a rather amusing bug that lets you occasionally pick a non-Lucio hero and start killing of the opposing team.

 

[RedDeadFred]

While the whole not being able to buy the skins you want with the in game currency is a pretty big middle finger, at least they're probably going to bring it back every year.

But the summer Olympics are every 4 years :|

True, but in a recent developer update, they explained that they were careful to only refer to the event as summer games. Not Olympics. They didn't guarantee that it would return, but they said it was definitely a possibility. It's a seasonal event that happens to be Olympic themed because of the timing.

 

[Frankster]

Some sods have been blowing away up to 500 dollars in loot crates just to get all the skins, or 100s of dollars chasing after one particular skin (japan genji and usa mcree are the hot favorites it seems) according to reddit.

What I don't understand is why these same whales then go to reddit and complain when they are making this such a very profitable venture for Blizz, why would they they change their practice when people are willing to spend the big bucks?

Anyways the mercy skin isn't anything special imo, and not interested in skins for other characters, but wouldn't say no to a few new emotes if lady luck is so inclined.

 

[SlumlordThanatos]

Jeff Kaplan made the horrible, horrible mistake of replying and not telling the community what they wanted to hear. It basically boiled down to "If you take out the people complaining about loot boxes, it's been a smashing success so far!" and "Wait and see, it's been out for a day".

Well, any chance of this whole thing blowing over just vanished.

 

[RJ 17]

While the whole not being able to buy the skins you want with the in game currency is a pretty big middle finger, at least they're probably going to bring it back every year.

But the summer Olympics are every 4 years :|

True, but in a recent developer update, they explained that they were careful to only refer to the event as summer games. Not Olympics. They didn't guarantee that it would return, but they said it was definitely a possibility. It's a seasonal event that happens to be Olympic themed because of the timing.

If so, I hope they add new set of legendary skins the next time around, that way I can keep my dream of Badminton Mercy alive. :3

 

[bjj hero]

I like the idea of limited time rares. It makes any skin you do drop on with that much more special. More so if they never repeated the event.

I like the idea of themed limited events. It would get sweeter as time goes on as different people dropped on different super rares that are now unavailable.

I guess the complainers see it differently.

 

[SlumlordThanatos]

I like the idea of limited time rares. It makes any skin you do drop on with that much more special. More so if they never repeated the event.

I like the idea of themed limited events. It would get sweeter as time goes on as different people dropped on different super rares that are now unavailable.

I guess the complainers see it differently.

Well, it is different when money is involved.

Take the holiday mounts in WoW, for example. You only had a couple of weeks or so to get lucky...but you couldn't buy extra chances to get them like what Overwatch is trying to do.

In WoW, you see someone with a holiday mount and think, "Man, that guy got lucky! Maybe next year I'll get a Headless Horseman's Mount during the event!"

In Overwatch, you see someone with a summer skin and you'll think, "I bet that guy dropped $120 on loot boxes and probably didn't even get the one he wanted. That's shitty, and I'm not gonna let it happen to me".

Basically, being forced to pay for a better chance at getting the cosmetics you want is leaving a sour taste in people's mouths, and understandably so.