Overwatch

That concept for a playable Link looks awesome, and I love the idea mentioned in the comments of having his Ult be playing the Ocarina of Time, which uses Tracer's Recall move on every other character in the game.

As cool as it could be, I'd say it's next to impossible they'd add a new hero as a console exclusive. Skins though, I could absolutely see. I'm surprised they didn't have them at launch honestly.

Huh. I assumed they did. Oh well, you know what they say you do when you assume... (I do know the Switch port of Diablo III has an assortment of Zelda-themed cosmetics.)

Incidentally, there's another assortment of limited edition cosmetics on the way, these ones tied to the OWL Grand Finals next Sunday; if you have a Twitch account and have linked it to your Battle.net account, you'll get two sprays and a player icon for tuning in for one, two, and three hours. (If the finals are over in less than three hours, they'll keep the stream going for a minimum of three hours.) I am a bit sad that I missed last year's OWL Grand Finals sprays (the ones with D.Va, Reinhardt and Torbjorn and Brigitte and Bastion, Hanzo and Zarya and Sombra and McCree, and Tracer and Emily and Winston and Mei, all of them implied to be watching the OWL Grand Finals), but the sprays this year are kind of cute; one has a tailgate party with Mei, Lucio, Mercy, and Soldier:76 on a payload, while the other features D.Va, Tracer, and Hammond.

And that's it for Overwatch League for 2019; when it returns, the teams will be travelling the world. (More knowledgeable people than I have already speculated on what this may mean where risk of burnout is concerned. Personally, I remain dubious of the scheme's virtues.) Haven't decided if I'll go to my nearest homestands; perhaps, perhaps not.

The Shock may have developed into OWL's version of the Boring Invincible Hero toward the end, but fair play to them, the best team did win. Still not quite sure how Architect managed to get Bastion into the chandelier on Eichenwalde, but I have to imagine countless Bastion players from the very best to the very worst are going to try to emulate him. (As if Bastion wasn't already annoying enough to play against.)

Oh, and the latest PTR patch (1.41) is a biggie; per Blizztrack, Orisa, Sigma, Baptiste, Moira, Doomfist, Sombra, and Symmetra are all getting nerfed, while D.Va, Roadhog, Winston, Mercy, and Tracer are all getting buffed, and Lucio is getting a mixture (how apt for a DJ). On the one hand, this may mean the demise of the double shield Tank meta, but on the other, most of the characters I know how to play are getting nerfed, so...

Okay why in the blazes would you nerf Symmetra out of all?

This is especially baffling considering that their stated intention for this patch is to end the double tank meta, something Symmetra 3.0 was specifically designed for. Meanwhile Hanzo and Widowmaker are untouched.

Seems like people already forgot that GOATS and Brigitte's kit where a reaction to the double sniper meta which was one of the most cancerous metas in Overwatch history.

I wondering, if one were, for some ungodly reason, to ignore character abilities and just shoot people which character would be the most useful and who the most useless? I think:

Useful" Lucio (healing happens on its own) Mercy (assuming that staff counts as main weapon) Widowmaker (if you scope) Ana (if you heal and scope) Mcree, Soldier 76 (since they're so basic) and then Reaper and Hanzo.

Useless: Reinhardt, D.Va and Brigitte (if not allowed to block) Zarya (weak without getting power from shields) Mercy (if gun counts as main) Symmetra and Sombra (heavy reliance on abilities) and Doomfist (I mean, without punches what's the point?)

If someone hasn't created a Workshop mode already that disables everything except the characters' primary abilities, it'd be a good way to test that.

I don’t know, Symmetra is pretty awesome currently in this meta. Her turrets go through barriers and she can use those barriers to gain charge.

Right now the only characters I would change around are Reaper (too much Lifeheal when shooting) and Brigette (very weak healing abilities).

So some things have happened over at Blizzard, namely how they're getting flak for banning a Hearthstone player from Hong Kong for rightfully criticizing China's political side.

In updates relevant to Overwatch and its release on Nintendo Switch...

Normally, you can't get a full refund for digital games from the Nintendo eShop.

But in light of Blizzard's recent behavior of being hurtful jerks that nobody likes, you can get a full refund for the Switch version of Overwatch.

Yeah I've been hearing all about the recent shitstorm. Tbh I assumed that's part of why this thread went dead silent for pretty much this whole time, and I didn't blame anyone for it. Because really, I don't think I can support Blizzard at all after this. I never really spent money in Overwatch outside of initially buying the game, idk if I'll refund it or what.

Although I do admit I am a bit curious how the atmosphere/community of going online will be with the mass exodus happening.

I suspect that 'mass exodus' is a touch generous. More like nothing much was happening for Overwatch between the end of the OWL season and the start of yesterday's Halloween event.

Yeah, makes sense. Guess I kinda just got that vibe from how many posts I saw of diehard fans of Blizzard's works were dropping their games.

The only things that upsets me is that TF 2 fans like to gloat their game is better because of this.

Way to kick a fanbase when they are down.

Maybe I'm more cynical than I realized, but I'm genuinely surprised people expected a corporate entity like Activision Blizzard to take a controversial political stance.

Same tbh.

Nah, what they're disgusted by is that Activision Blizzard was very quick to ban the player in a way that suggests outright pandering to the CCP.

There's the usual corporate wishy-washy bullshit and then there's what Activision Blizzard did.

And as others have noted, Activision Blizzard wasn't avoiding a controversial political stance at all with their actions. Their actions signaled one: supporting the CCP.

Edited by M84 on Oct 16th 2019 at 10:24:32 PM

Oops

Edited by Zeromaeus on Oct 16th 2019 at 10:35:23 AM

The controversial stance would be the one standing against the established power. Morality rarely plays into corporate decision making.

And if Activision Blizzard was a Chinese company that'd be a reasonable stance to take.

The issue here is that Activision Blizzard is an American based company that isn't actually beholden to the CCP.

Other USA based corporations who do business in mainland China also make lots of compromises to do business there. But most of them know better than to cross a line that suggests outright pandering.

If Blizzard's goal was simply to avoid getting on the CCP's bad side, they'd have waited for the CCP to actually complain about the player first before banning him. And even then, they'd have stalled on the request. But that's not what happened. What happened was that Blizzard banned the player almost immediately without any actual requests from the CCP to do so.

This isn't normal behavior, even for corporations.

Edited by M84 on Oct 16th 2019 at 10:37:01 PM

They are unwilling to majorly ban or punish players for blatant homophobia or racism but this is what brought down the hammer at the speed of God.

Its rather insulting really. The only thing they care about is sucking China's green dick.

Yeah, it's been brought up before that Activision Blizzard was far more prompt to punish a player for this than it has been in the past for hate speech.

As for the Switch issue...while Blizzard cancelled the launch event, I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo "pressured" them to do so. You can't expect an image conscious Japanese company to be happy with a partner willing to pander to mainland China.

Edited by M84 on Oct 16th 2019 at 10:41:01 PM

It's notable that upper management Blizzard fucked up so bad that

1)The devs staged a strike at one of the offices

2)Politicians have taken notice of the whole incident internationally and Blizzard is currently in hot water with authorities

Edited by Wispy on Oct 16th 2019 at 8:19:03 AM

This even led to a rare case of bipartisan condemnation in the USA — a Democratic Senator and a Republican Senator have both separately called out Activision Blizzard.

The first point is significant since it's apparently a symptom of a problem that has been brewing at Activision Blizzard for a while now. There's a growing disconnect between Activision Blizzard's upper management and the other employees. It seems to have gotten much worse much faster since the co-founder Mike Morhaime stepped down from his position as CEO.

Going back to Nintendo...them offering full refunds is telling. They are so pissed off by this that they're willing to make an exception to their SOP which will cost them more money.

Edited by M84 on Oct 16th 2019 at 11:34:04 PM

Devil's advocacy speaking for a second: Business is business, and business does not care about ethics or morality. China is a massive market for Blizzard especially - for example, here's the earnings for the 2016 Warcraft movie in non-US countries. See the sole outlier? Blizzard isn't going to learn anything from this fiasco unless they then suffer something to the tune of at least two thirds of their WoW subs and constant MTX or lootbox sale from non-China demographics suddenly vanishing.

It's also pretty pointless if the boycotts come from people who have never bought a Blizzard product and would not have bought one anyway no matter what - I see it being brought in places like Reddit, and honestly it's starting to feel like there's muddling or dilution between people actually concerned about all this and those who are just craving their easy 10 minutes of fame or 10000 internet points by posting things like smashed/burned Blizzard game cases (i.e. something that will not affect Blizz's earnings in anyway - they already have the money from those purchases anyway).

Well...duh? Fan Hater mentality, etc.. It's just all the more convenient when Blizzard is now Satan's gaming company, apparently worse than EA. Oh, and of course there's this for Paladins.

Edited by DarkDestruction on Oct 16th 2019 at 10:42:25 PM

I might could get into Paladins, but purchasable characters makes me wary. I don't know that they intentionally make it pay to win, but it's pretty much impossible for all characters in a game like this to be 100% balanced.