In case you have been busy, or just forgot, last night was the global launch of Blizzards first FPS Overwatch. With the launch came the answer to the long left in the air question of “but how will Blizzard make any money if its not free to play with microtransactions?” We finally know how much each of those sweet, sweet loot boxes is going to cost if you want to skip the grinding and just get right to the games rarest items.
2 Loot Boxes: $1.99/£1.59
5 Loot Boxes: $4.99/£3.99
11 Loot Boxes: $9.99/£7.99
24 Loot Boxes: $19.99/£15.99
50 Loot Boxes: $39.99/£31.99
What do you think? Personally I think its right in that sweet spot of not too expensive, but also giving you enough that you will come back for more. YouTube is already filling up with people opening 100 crates, or 50 crates, and just like CS:GO boxes, as long as Blizzard keeps releasing skins, or other new content, this monetization strategy could keep the game profitable for years to come. The game has hundreds of unlockables, from voice lines, to sprays, to skins, and it would take a non paying player hundreds of games to unlock all of them, if you just cant wait, it seems like 40USD (the same as the base price of the game) will get you pretty deep in to the games unlocks.
That’s the time that the servers go live and Overwatch officially changes the landscape of team based first person shooters.
If the ticking of the clock is driving you insane, I recommend burning time reading the official Overwatch comics and watching their animated shorts. If you missed the beta or are looking for some tips, we’ve complied a list that will help ensure you enter the world of Overwatch with guns blazing:
Counter Pick – One of the key features of Overwatch is the ability to change heroes in the middle of a match. This allows you to adapt to the enemy team and pick counters to anyone who is being particularly tricky to deal with. Pharah raining on your parade? Snap to Soldier 76 or McCree and clip her wings. Bastion going for seige-mode? Turn him into a pile of scrap with Tracer, Reaper or Genji.
Did you know he used to have a shield, too? Bastion has already caused many broken keyboards, so make sure you counter him when he tries to mow your team down!
“Objectivewatch” – Overwatch is an objective based team game. You can get all of the kills in the match and still lose the game, so try not to get too distracted chasing down kills. Blizzard worked in a lot of benefit for helping the objective and not just badges! If you’re guiding a payload, note that it heals you and will increase its speed for each person standing near it (maxing out at 3 players).
Love Support, Kill Support – Healers in Overwatch are your best friend… unless they are on the enemy team, then they should be one of your top targets. A good support can make the enemy team feel unkillable, so make sure they are taken out!
Mercy can heal her teammates or give them a massive damage boost!
Move as a Team – While matches have a limited time, it’s okay to wait and group up before charging back into the battle. While an assassin character might need to run off and cut down an annoying sniper on their own, for the most part, you will get the most benefit of staying together, as each hero compliments and fills in the gaps that others leave. Not to mention, running in one by one is a good way to spend the whole match dead!
Play as a Team – Work on picking a well-balanced team that compliments each other well. Note that your ideal team composition on offense will likely be different than your ideal composition on defense, so switch around to fill in the gaps. Also work on playing your role in the team. While it might be really fun to charge into the enemy team as Reinhardt and get some good swings in, don’t charge off while you’re providing valuable defense to your squishier teammates and let them get slaughtered when their shield unexpectedly runs off.
Just avoid Winston if he is out of peanut butter.
Shoot Traps – Lots of heroes leave nasty little presents on the ground (and walls) for the opposing team. While you might be able to walk around them, you or your teammate might not be so nimble on your next pass, so light them up! Plus, you get kill credits for nuking them!
Enable Your Killfeed – In the options under gameplay, you can enable the killfeed, which will allow you to see who is killing whom in real time during your match. This will give you additional insight into what is happening, so you know who is alive, who isn’t, and who is mowing down their opponents.
Overwatch killfeed, courtesy of Gosu Gamers.
BE NICE – It’s a team game. If you are a jerk and toxic to your team, everyone will play worse. Mistakes happen and you’re in this together, so be nice!
Have Fun – It’s a game, enjoy it! Play at six Solider 76s and yell out “Call of Duty!!” every time you attack, see what happens when you put five Mercy’s on a McCree, go bananas with an all Winston team. Don’t be afraid to mess around here and there to see what strange team combinations can do!
After all, how seriously can you take this abomination?
Blizzard is back with another animated short to flesh out their world of Overwatch. This one features Genji and Hanzo with a bit of their backstory and just enough combat to keep it interesting. Take a look also at the attention paid to detail on the map, each bit of damage shows up on the in game Hanamura map and its that attention to detail and the quality of animation that really make this short the best we have yet seen.
I still actively play World of Warcraft. No, I don’t mean that I just log into my garrison a few times a week to collect gold and send out followers.
I love pets, but that’s not why I log on. There are many more I have to farm, but don’t have the energy to put into hunting them down.
I love exploring the beautiful worlds, but that’s not why I log on. I’ve seen almost every inch of every map.
I love interesting quest lines, but that’s now why I log on. I just don’t have the motivation needed to finish Lore Master.
I love being an insanely geared druid, slaughtering enemies and fighting for top dps, but that’s not why I log on. I’ve stopped caring as much about that.
My main character in World of Warcraft, a feral druid named Riku.
So why do I log on?
My guild.
I log on every Wednesday to raid Heroic Hellfire Citadel, even though my druid has, for the most part, best in slot gear. Even my legendary ring is maxed out at 795. This is the state that most of my guildmates are in: all with great gear, all know every fight, and we slaughter every boss without much thought.
Yet, every Wednesday a group of people come together, yes, to raid, but also to laugh and talk and banter.
I’ve been in the guild for nine years, yet I still feel like a newer member. Scalebane has held strong since before the release of World of Warcraft and is the oldest active guild on our server. They are my second family and I enjoy every single game I play with them, but World of Warcraft is the one that we all play together.
All of them know my name is “Renee”, but I am still called “Riku”, because that’s my name in this family of mine. Durkk, Tullen, Estara, Rel, Riin, Kinan, Raun, Frakir, Cyria, Perse, Sumerr, Nite, and more. These are names of the people in my family, even when Frakir is fondly called “Fucker”. Sure, I know they are Joe, Dan, Katrina, etc, but that’s not their name to me.
People are often startled when they hear I am still raiding and even more surprised when they see the strength of the bonds in the guild. This wasn’t always the reaction, though, because guilds meant more to everyone in the past. I remember when I could tell a lot about a person just by their guild, because it said a lot about the people they hang out with and what they enjoy doing. Nowadays, even the great raiding guilds are falling to the side, even Paragon has disbanded.
World of Warcraft is an amazing MMORPG. The content is expansive and high quality, but people consume it so fast that only the end game and random grinding/farming prizes are left to entertain. Thus, with all MMOs, a main draw is that you are playing with other people; people you can befriend; people you can grief.
Blizzard has done a great job of creating content, events and areas that help form connections between people, but that has been reduced greatly by group finding tools. They make the content easier to play, but greatly lessen the connections to the people you are playing with.
You no longer battle outside of raids, running from the graveyard back into the instance. Or recruit people in town to adventure out to the closest dungeon. Or banter outside of the battleground while waiting for the next one to begin.
Looking for Raid, Looking for Group, Dungeon Finder, battleground queues — all of these tools make the content faster and easier to access, but greatly reduce the need to interact with other people, especially in ways that encourage camaraderie. They make World of Warcraft easier to consume, they make it less intimidating for people who are shy, but they also prevent people from forming the connections that keep drawing them back to the game long after they’ve had their fill of content.
People who play through these tools do not have to be nice to the people they are playing with, they do not have to learn the fights or even their own class, and no one is motivated to teach them, because no one they play with is likely to group with them again. Due to this, people are much more likely to be toxic or simply give up on a group or someone that is not doing well. You have more players getting angry, more people being yelled at, and new players being so confused about boss fights that Blizzard implemented their own guides to fights in game. Though I’m still not sure anyone reads them.
Blizzard’s subscriber numbers dropped to their lowest numbers and Blizzard has stopped reporting them all together. While people have blamed slow releases of content for scaring people off, I think that Garrisons removing town interactions and looking for group tools reducing the need to work closely with other players are what is causing subscribers to drop like flies.
Is there a good solution? It’s hard to say. Hopefully Class Halls will not be as lonesome as Garrisons, there will be more content that requires working together, and Dalaran will once again regain it’s glory, druids humping pigs and all.
One of the joys of playing games still in development is the discovery of bugs and other glitches that have amusing results. Sometimes these even make it out of the betas and into the released games themselves, like the flying horse of Skyrim. This latest glitch is one that I hope to see continue to live on.
During the Overwatch stress test this last weekend, one of the members of my guild discovered a glitch in Overwatch that allowed you to force a texture on another character’s model. Some of the results are quite humorous while others border terrifying.
My personal favorite is Soldier 76 gracefully poised in Tracer’s new “Over the Shoulder” pose.
Isn’t he so spunky?
Of course, it’s the horrifying Mei-Winston combination that has won over hearts. Just check out that tongue!
Blizzard’s marketing blitz for their upcoming team shooter Overwatch with the release of a brand new 6 minute self contained animated short. This time things focus on the French assassin Widowmaker, as she moves in for the kill on a VIP in Kings Row. It’s really cool to see Blizzard using the in-game levels as the setting for their animated shorts. Does Widowmaker get the kill? You’ll have to keep watching until the end to find out!
This short’s narration opens with the chilling “When I was little I had a fear of spiders…”, just how do the arachnids factor into Widowmaker’s character development?
Overwatch’s last animated short, , was an Xbox exclusive so it was only fitting that “Alive” debuted on PlayStation’s official YouTube channel.
Overwatch will be available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Windows PC on May 29th and has an open beta earlier in May.
A recent post on the Overwatch forums has sparked a controversy over how one of Overwatch‘s star characters, Tracer, is represented in the game. The thread started as a complain from a player who claimed that Tracer’s “Over the Shoulder” pose was too sexualized for the character and is in opposition to Tracer’s spunky personality. They claim this sexualization of Tracer reduces her depth as a strong female character to “another bland female sex symbol”.
As many of our readers know, I am very outspoken for proper representation and consideration for women in games. I completely agree that sexualization of Tracer’s character would be bad for her character and for Overwatch overall.
Here’s where I disagree with the complaint: I don’t think that it’s a sexual pose.
Blizzard announced this morning that they are partnering with Scholastic to create a new series of children’s books based on World of Warcraft.
The series, titled World of Warcraft: Traveler, will follow Aramar Thorne, the 12 year old son of the great explorer, Captain Greydon Thorne. Due to a series of unfortunate events, Aram finds himself far from home, only equipped with his father’s magical compass and his sketchbook to help him on his way. His unlikely companion for his adventures is the second mate of his father’s ship, Makasa, who is a tough, teenage girl.
Xbox just released on their channel a never before seen short film of the upcoming team-based shooter from Blizzard, Overwatch. The short stars two of the playable heroes, Winston and Reaver.
The short animated film is set in Winston’s lab and delves into his past, showing where he got his start as a young ape. It also brings a bit more clarity to why the heroes of Overwatch are active again.
This is the first of four expected Overwatch shorts.
Overwatch is coming to PC, PS4 and Xbox One May 24th.
No you did not die. You read that correctly. 16-year-old Diablo 2 is being patched by its developer Blizzard. 5 years after its last patch, and over 3 years after its sequel, Diablo 2 is set to get a new patch 1.14. Old games sometimes get patches from their developers, but like the recent Nethack update, this one is quite a surprise.
Straight from Blizzard “This update focuses on system glitches introduced by modern operating systems, in related news, you can finally retire those old Mac PowerPCs. Included with the update is a shiny new installer for OSX.” additionally the post mentions cheating “We’ve also begun working to improve our cheat-detection and hack-prevention capabilities. There’s still work to be done, but we’re making improvements every day” as for why they are patching “There is still a large Diablo II community around the world, and we thank you for continuing to play and slay with us. This journey starts by making Diablo II run on modern platforms, but it does not end there.”
So your getting OS bug patches, an update for the MAC launcher and maybe some anti-cheat stuff later on. Thats pretty awesome for a 16 year old game. The game must have a much more vibrant community than I realized, which is pretty awesome! Good job blizzard. I guess there is a cow level after all.
Do you like it when developers patch games that are older than dirt? tell us on Facebook or Twitter!
According to a series of full page and mobile advertisements that accidentally went live on IGN.com over the past few hours, Blizzard’s upcoming team based First Person Shooter Overwatch will release on PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 on May 24th 2016. Not only will the game come out in just a little over two months but Blizzard will reportedly host an open beta stress test with customers who pre-ordered the game gaining early access starting on May 3rd.
Our staff got the chance to play during one of Blizzard’s rare Closed Beta Test Weekends and honestly I absolutely fell in love with the game. Since the beta took a brief hiatus throughout most of December and a bit of January the Overwatch development team have added a number of skins, decals and other goodies through progression based unlocks.
Weren’t lucky enough to get into the beta? Mark May 24th on your calendar, Soldier!
If you’ve been avidly awaiting an invite to the closed Overwatch beta on PC and are based in Asia then prepare to spam your F5 keys rapidly. Blizzard took to twitter yesterday to let potential players know that they have flagged accounts for the first beta wave since Overwatch’s December hiatus for accounts based in the Asia region.
Some players have asked if Australia was considered part of the Asia region. According to the official @PlayOverwatch twitter account our Aussie friends are actually considered part of the Americas region.
You can check your beta status by logging into the battle.net account management page. If you see something like the below image then you’re in!
Also here is the original tweet from Blizzard:
[BETA] A wave of accounts from our opt-in pool have been flagged for Closed Beta. This wave targeted players from our Asia gameplay region.
‘Twas the night before Overwatch, when all ‘cross the globe,
Every gamer was waiting, donned in their soft robes,
Their headphones were hung by their PCs with care,
In hopes that Overwatch soon would be there.
The gamers were nestled all snug in each chair,
While visions of Tracer blinked ’round without care.
The beta was returning, just ‘few hours away
To bring joy and fast battles back to their day.
Blizzard’s upcoming objective based team shooter Overwatch will return to closed beta on February 9th according to a post on the developer’s official blog. The Overwatch beta began late last October and continued until right before Christmas, the devs took the game offline for an extended period to put the finishing touches on new maps, make a number of balance changes and the highly anticipated new persistent progression system.
And a variety of Private Game updates, including full A.I. matches
Players who already had access to the closed beta will gain access to this second phase of testing. It is not known if previous Stress Test Weekend members will get a shot at beta phase 2 but Blizzard did stress that they will be looking into adding more players as testing continues.
We don’t have any details on what this new game mode or two new maps will be, I guess we will all find out together in just six days time.
Hearthstone lead designer Ben Brode has taken to youtube to announce a new format for Hearthstone. The format is called Standard, and will encompass all card sets released in the most recent two years. At the start of each year, card sets older than two years will rotate out of the game as the first expansion of the year gets added. Cards from the basic and expert sets are excepted from this rotation and will stay in Standard forever. Since these shifts will be an annual thing, Blizzard is tying them to what it calls “The Hearthstone Zodiac”, dubbing this first year of standard “The year of the Kraken”. Players will still be able to play in a format with all cards available, which was the only format available up until this point. This format has now been redubbed “Wild”. Check out the announcement video below the jump.Read More
