She's overweight, which is a non-typical body type in gaming. A response to the complaint that all the girls were unrealistically proportioned.
Even assuming that Mei is overweight (which I don't agree - she doesn't look overweight to me), what's your source that she was specifically designed in response to your claimed criticisms?
Functionally still guns. Point and shoot. Whether that by staff, or fist, or whatever.
No, I'm referring to characters like Reinhardt, Doomfist, Brigitte, etc. Their weapons can't realistically be called guns, and if you're relying on their projectile abilities, you're doing it wrong. Many heroes in the game rely on melee attacks.
Unless the game-type on that map reflected it, or handled specifically optional objectives. Remember OW originally allowed people to pick whomever they wanted at will, so if you needed a mercy for a thing you could swap whenever you need it. IMO it would add dynamic's to the game and create interesting metas as to whether it's worth going for bonuses on a given map or not. could vary by game type within the same map.
You're looking at it from how the game is now, not imagining how it could work with some tweaks and creativity.
Yes, I know that Overwatch originally allowed duplicate heroes among a team, it's still a terrible idea. If this was a scenario, sure, but I don't want to be forced to play as certain heroes on certain maps as a regular occurrence.
You've presented everything thus far as something bad, so if the game wasn't suffering, what, exactly, what was the problem?
Sexual diversity doesn't bother me where it counts. I don't care that Ellie is gay, because it's part of the story contained within the game and part of her arch as a person. There are no character archs in the actual game of OW. So I feel that by adding that context outside of the game felt obligatory and it wasn't needed because people were already freely shipping characters based on their own preferences. By leaving that part of the character unknown, it allows each player to plug the characters in as they desire, if they desire.
i dont think sexual things should even be a part of any game were romance isn't an option or part of the story personally. Just leave it out of the game entirely if it isn't relevant. However if you have relationships in a game, then no LBGT wild if you want. I don't care.
-None of the content outside the game is obligatory. You could play Overwatch and never once have any idea what the context is.
-People are going to ship characters based on their own preferences regardless, this isn't much of an argument for stating that characters should be free of romantic entanglements. And very little is present in the game itself.
There's also the question as to whether this is confined to sexuality or not. If it is, then why? if not, then actually consider the implications - you'd have a game where there's no context to character or setting. You'd have a bunch of randos fighting each other for reasons that are never explained. This isn't just an Overwatch thing, this is a contextual thing, period.
Since it's already been used as an example, I'll use Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. Imagine if Street Fighter existed without any character having any form of backstory. On the other hand, consider Mortal Kombat, which even if it was never directly relevant to the games (least the early ones), imagine how much would be lost if Mortal Kombat lost all context. You're replacing the lore of the titular Mortal Kombat tournament with "bunch of randos are fighting each other for some reason."
Maybe the latter appeals to you more, but do you honestly think MK would have had as much impact as it had if there was no context given for it? And this isn't even really me projecting, the decision to give Mortal Kombat accompanying lore dates back to the very first game, even if said lore is barely present in the game itself.
I bring it up because that's the hotbutton outcry most of the time. These demands for diversity weren't a problem until recently, and I've gone over many many times as to why the suppose "lack of diversity in gaming" has always been bullshit.
That included you trying to rationalize why Ada was wearing a red dress in rural Spain, IIRC.
Sexuality specifically is something that is easily omitted because most of the time it's irrelevant. I use the argument of "is Mario gay?" Who cares? It doesn't matter if he is or isn't. But because Nintendo never addresses it, Mario can be whatever sexuality you want.
Mario and Peach are pretty much a confirmed couple, so the question of "is Mario gay?" is an emphatic "no." This isn't really the best example. And again, you're reverting back to sexuality as the be-all and end-all of character backstories that should be omitted. Why not omit Mario's original backstory of being a plumber from Brooklyn? It's never directly relevant to the games, do you have the same problem with that? Or, alternatively, take Sonic? Sonic's confirmed to have been born on Christmas Island, even if that fact has never been mentioned in the games, should Sega have left that piece of lore blank? The lore of Westside Island, even if it never featured in the game itself? Should Angel Island have been left a blank slate in STH3?
This isn't really a question of Overwatch anymore, it's a question of lore and gameplay. If you want to argue that lore should never feature unless it relates directly to plot and/or gameplay, well, sure, you can make that argument if you want, I just completely disagree with it.
The same way you might fill in back story for a DnD character or whomever you are playing in Skyrim. You can only go so far with your actions in game, but you can make up whatever backstory you want.
I disagree that established characters are the same as roleplaying characters, and there's a reason why established characters will always win out over blank slates (for me). What's the backstory of the Dragonborn in Skyrim? I don't know. If your answer is "make it up," then that isn't a compelling answer. There's certain cases in RPGs where blank slates can't be avoided (e.g. MMOs), but in general, a fleshed out character is always better than a blank slate. Heck, even someone like Commander Shepard is better than the Dragonborn since while customizable, he/she is still given a defined backstory (of the player's choice) and personality (again, player-determinant).
Established characters are the same way, sometimes not knowing EVERYTHING about them allows the player to invest their own ideas into a character and thus creating a deeper connection to that character in an enjoyable way. Does that make sense?
So similarly, with established characters. Knowing "everything" about a character isn't really a line one can draw, since a character's lore will be added to over time, but no, I don't agree blank slates are better than fleshed-out characters. There's a place for blank slate individuals in multiplayer FPS modes, a hero shooter isn't one of them.
At launch Roadhog's hook was broken in that it was on too low of a cooldown with too long of a stun so if you got hit, you died. Then they made the cooldown longer but the fucking hook would go through walls. Then they lowered the stun to the point where if roadhog got you, you would be recovered before the animation finished and could blast roadhog dead. I don't know if they fixed that yet.
I'll take your word for it on the Roadhog stuff, I've never encountered any of those glitches.
Watching diversity being peddled as an "important" part of these games (over the years we've got OW, LoL, R6, Apex, and Valorant) one should also understand that this is but a fraction of all the stuff put into these games' flair that is totally irrelevant to the core gaming demographic. Nowadays these big companies reach out and compete for more demos in the hopes they'll buy their product. Writing sexuality into the lore, no matter what direction it's swinging, is one of those moves reaching out. Extensive lore in general is too. The funniest example is Ubisoft and R6 with that female-led framing story cinematic, because it's so far removed from the players that play R6:Siege.
Except the people who make the fuss about "diversity" are more often than not the fans, whether they're decrying "forced diversity" or celebrating it.
Also, "writing sexuality into the lore is branching out." Really? Because having characters with romantic entanglements didn't begin in these games.
And yeah, there's politics in there too, but it's because the shotcallers in those companies have decided it's good for their bottom line. Like, you can't have a Pride event in your game unless you have an openly gay character.
Which of these games has had a pride event?
They can continue having fun with a free shitty game. They made a choice. I'll be somewhere else playing real good games.
en.wikipedia.org
The fact that these companies need a diversity consultant just shows how artificial it really is. They are getting handed these check-boxes and making sure they tick those boxes. But back in the day television, movies, games, books, comics, whatever all of it had to rely on talent to be good and popular. Diversity is important, but that's a thing that's solved by good writing, not be checking boxes. Every piece of media that forces diversity and propaganda in the forefront of the product fails. People hate that shit.
Make good characters, and diversity will be automatic.
Yeah, all of that reads as code as "there's too much variety."
Fine. Let's assume all of what you said is true, and the focus was just on "making good characters." How, specifically, would the games be different?
For the most part, the diversity has been superficial too which isn't really diversity. What is the relevance to having a trans character in Apex, what's the in-game reason? It's cool that they have a trans character, but does being trans affect the experience the character or player have within the game? No. Shooty bang bang, kill other team to get a chicken dinner. That's it. It's meaningless representation because it's got no consequence for existing within the game world. You could have labeled any of the characters in Apex as trans and it would mean the same thing. The problem with diversity in these hero shooters is that they treat it like a costume and it's not really part of the character because there isn't really a character. Every character shares the same experiences within the game. If that makes sense.
Again, every time you come to complain about "forced diversity," it's always, ALWAYS based on character sexuality. First it was with LGBT characters, now it's with trans characters.
And no, I completely disagree. The game gains everything, and loses nothing by having fleshed out characters.
Frankly, I find this view entirely alien, because this is a practice that goes back decades (story being optional to gameplay), yet it's now being treated as a problem.
Then you have the problem with trying to explain too much within the lore. You want to flesh out the world that's fine, a good world build imagination. But you don't want to spell out every aspect of your characters unless it's needed directly for the story you're trying to tell. It's better to leave some gaps in a character's build in order for the reader, viewer, player to attach pieces of themselves to. This is how people relate to characters better imo.
Except that clearly isn't the case, because the more the characters are fleshed out, the more popular they are.
Compare League of Legends and Dota 2, or Overwatch with Paladins, for instance. The former is much more popualr than the latter, and in both former cases, there's more more lore and character detail.
You say that but when I played Apex, I couldn't tell what fucking character anybody was. If they had red names i shot them, end of story. The character mattered none.
I played Ow much the same way. Kill the red people and maybe stand by a cart or point or some shit while you do it.
Red people? You mean the Talon troopers?
So, according to you, Overwatch would have been better if we weren't fighting against Talon, but "red people" with no backstory or lore whatsoever?
Yeah, okay, imagine travelling back to the 1980s, telling Games Workshop to produce their armies, but provide no lore whatsoever for any of them because it isn't relevant to gameplay. If you honestly think Warhammer (any branch) would as popular now with a dearth of context, then I don't know what to tell you.
When there is no walks of life and the characters are just there, because. Then your inclusion means nothing.
The Legends DO come from different walks of life. Off the top of my head, Mirage is a mercenary, Wraith is a trained killer, Horizon is a scientist, Mad Maggie is a rebel, etc. For God's sake, I've never been played Apex Legends, have only written a single oneshot for it, and read the comic series, and even I know this.
Again, you can claim that things would have been better if there was a dearth of context, but that doesn't check out.
