Overwatch Beta is Now Live

[Steven Bogos]

Overwatch Beta is Now Live

Were you one of the lucky few to get into Blizzard's extremely limited Overwatch closed beta?

As streaming the game right now [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.883552-Overwatch-Beta-Starts-This-Month] via Twitch, so you can at least sort-of-but-not-really feel like you're a part of the beta too.

"Account flagging for the Closed Beta is currently in progress and will be completed be in waves," explained Blizzard. "Please note that this process may take up to 12 hours. If your account has been flagged for the Closed Beta, an 'Overwatch Beta' license will appear under YOUR GAME ACCOUNTS in Account Management [https://us.battle.net/login/en/?ref=https://us.battle.net/account/management/&app=bam&cr=true]."

For some more info on the beta, it's currently only open to players with accounts in the Americas and European regions, although it will open up to the Asia region at a later date. Also, while the primary objective of the closed beta is to gather specific feedback on gameplay, thus leading to a rather small sample size, Blizzard will be occasionally hosting "open" stress-test weekends, so keep an eye out for those.

Did you get into the beta? We haven't (yet) but as soon as we do, we'll start working on some impressions for you.

Source: Blizzard [http://us.battle.net/overwatch/en/blog/19932055/]

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[Steven Bogos]

Hoping this goes well, even if I'm not a part of it. I could never get into TF2 because of all the established meta stuff so I'm hoping that Overwatch would allow me to get in on the ground floor on a similar type of game.

IMO that's probably for the best. TF2 was best when it was simple: 9 classes, each with a very distinct loadout and combat role. When unlocks started to come around, it was okay... but at some point it went completely off the rails and we ended up with sword wielding demo-men, bow and arrow snipers, and the stupidest, craziest cosmetic items that completely broke the style. Now it is, for lack of a better word, shit, and a clusterfuck.

 

[Steven Bogos]

You know what that reminds me of? Modern Warfare 2. I was in high school when it came out and everybody in high school was getting it and since Modern Warfare was good I thought why the hell not? There's a lot of problems with its multiplayer, but really the most fun I had in that was Barebones mode. Its like any other game mode but just without killstreaks. The game was infinitely more enjoyable that way, and the folks from high school I played online with (mostly casuals) seemed to feel the same way, given they they would ask for it more often, lament the lack of Barebones Domination/Demolition and curse and scream infinitely less. There's a lot of games that thrive on their bells and whistles but it seems shooters generally aren't those sorts of games.

Not wanting to be a "kids these days" sort of old coot but back in the good old days of Quake and Unreal tournament, all we needed were nine different weapons. Shooters have always been about being fast and simple, something which seems to have been lost over the yars

 

[Li Mu]

Not wanting to be a "kids these days" sort of old coot but back in the good old days of Quake and Unreal tournament, all we needed were nine different weapons. Shooters have always been about being fast and simple, something which seems to have been lost over the yars

I have to say that I jumped into TF2 late and had no issue adapting. I really don't see the problem with all the silly hats, bows and arrows and demo men with swords. I just shoot them dead.

But I do agree with you about Quake and UT. I used to skip college with my friends and go play games of CS, UT and Quake3 in our local LAN cafe. Those were the days!

 

[Harlemura]

Assuming everyone that's getting access has already got it, I didn't get in. Which kinda sucks, but since it's such a limited beta I can't be surprised.
Hopefully later on they'll offer some kind of pre-order deal like Heroes of the Storm had, where you can pay for beta access and get a couple of extras thrown in. I've been looking forward to Overwatch since the BlizzCon trailer, so I'd happily fork out the cash to get my grubby mitts on it as soon as possible.

 

[Pinky's Brain]

The whole "twitch only" beta thing is bad for us. The betas were always mostly a PR routine but it still provided some unfiltered input to the developers. Now it's just a bunch of sycophants desperate not to be bumped off a gravy train.