overwatch 2 a few hours after launch

Critics love it, players hate it!

Damn, I knew OW2 was kinda bad but it went down hill and into the sewers. Also very sad but realistic timeline.

And don't forget

Make a character based on your very molesting head of design Merely rename him as soon as the public finds out

Not to mention selling the sequel on the promise of Co-op then cancelling that feature long after launch and killing the 1st game so players couldn't simply continue to play the game they purchased already.

Your post looks weird in a browser. It could use some new lines.

This is good for Linux users. Valve has been fantastic for supporting games on Linux since the Steam Deck and Blizz has never had proper Linux support. Now Linux users can ditch Lutris, Bottles, or WINE if they want to just simplify and use Steam, which does have a native Linux build.

I think it's more just getting ready the MS deal to finalise as MS have commited to make sure all their stuff is available on Steam. Wouldn't surprise me if we see Diablo 4 soon too.

For most games it's not viable to stay exclusive away from steam forever. I feel like most alternative platforms are going this way with temporary exclusivity because it's still more profitable than being on steam from release.

A few months with a 100% revenue share with less sales down to 30% will always beat 30% forever, especially when that 2nd launch brings a massive wave of sales because Steam also likes to market bringing big releases to it's platform

Sometimes it does work great. I imagine Apex Legends would be dying or dead of it hadn't moved to Steam. The increased playerbase was a huge boon to the game

Baldur's Gate 3 does this and I'd hardly say that applies lol

Yeah well I'm willing to guess that a good chunk of those players moved from battle.net to steam for convenience.

And even so, Overwatch 2 has barely half the active players that tf2 does, as I'm writing this, and tf2 is how old?

Overwatch 2 went down the drain and now we have some rough numbers to give us an idea of the situation.

Also keep in mind they announced it at the same exact time that they wanted people to stop talking about them and Taiwan. And all the sexual harassment at Blizzard.

They had no details about it at the time. They just wanted something the mainstream press could run instead. And tanked a game to keep it from cementing on their face. Idiots.

Last I heard Overwatch basically didn't have lore. For the entirety of the lifespan of "Overwatch 1" (though overwatch 2 isn't even actually a sequel) the timeline never advanced past the trailer cinematic from launch. All of the "lore" was just character backstory comics and backstory hints from their interactions in the spawn area of each match.

The gameplay really has nothing to do with the lore, but the lore never struck me as very optimistic. The premise of Overwatch is that once upon a time there was a team of superheroes who went around being superheroes and protecting people from the evil supervillains and stuff like that. But anyway, their superhero team collapsed and for a while it's just been a shitty world where the supervillains do whatever they want. Now the superhero team is reforming with some new members. The end.

Idk how that could possibly be seen as optimistic personally lol

In summary: (spoilers ahead)

AI created -> AI becomes monk, this is good AI -> bad AI also created, controlled by single mastermind AI -> bad AI kill humans -> Overwatch created -> good AI sacrifices herself to free other AI from bad AI mind control, thus becoming AI Jesus -> AI now have free will. Some become good, some stay bad. -> optimistic because AI Jesus saved humanity from being killed and now Overwatch is winning the war against bad AI

That's about it.

From my understanding, the game is about killing each other lol

Yea, this will always be the problem when trying to create a story around this format of gameplay. You definitely have to ignore the fact that lore enemies can team up because the comp needs it.

The optimistic tone comes across in the character writing, world design, and music. Little in the game is dour or depressing. Instead the focus is on the details that make the locations or characters unique and interesting. There's a lot of language and cultural representation.

Also, barring the secondary deathmatch game made, OW is technically about doing non-kill objectives, it just so happens that killing your opponents is the best way to complete the objectives.

It's funny because on the scoreboard, traditional "Kills" are labelled "Eliminations", but they still keep tradition for multikills i.e. the announcer will say double kill and not something double elim

All the maps and locations represent the respective nations most optimistic future of how they could look, chefk out any of the maps and youll get what i mean

I think there was a robot war but then superheroes appeared and invented mega science and solved most of the world's problems even though sometimes they still have to fight robots and supervillains. It's basically the DC comic universe (which is a lot more optimistic than the cinematic one lmao).

Based on the videos I’ve watched, the lore is just D.Va and Pharah making out with each other on the beach

It's been out for a bit, but they just launched it on Steam as well. Was formerly just via Battle.net.

Launch on Steam

It died many years ago, and it should have been a signed death certificate moment to see one of the main people behind the original two Diablo games, one that had gotten vocally critical of the bullshit at Blizzard and had left to start the Torchlight series, received a "fuck that loser"

EDIT: The early company wasn't that wholesome chungus either; the systemic sexism was there basically from the start, especially with the "listing the only female employee as the dog roaming the office"

This is one of the reasons why I don't really want to buy the new Diablo game even though my friends are playing it and it sounds like it's gotten good reviews. checks metacritic, critics score 86, user score currently at 2.0 Yeah figures lol

Im embarrassed it took me until Diablo 4's 1.1.0 patch to finally figure this out, but here we are.

ActiBlizz fans that are still there and still paying are about as deeply invested as Star Citizen backers at this point.

Your bullet points are messed up and are a wall of text. To fix it, put a space between the dash and the text

matchmaking sucks, you either rolled or get rolled no inbetween (i felt ow1 had better games overall)

I think matchmaking is only a little worse, but it feels a lot worse because OW2 is simultaneously more transparent and less transparent in the worst ways.

I think steamrolls happen at the same rate in either game, but in OW2 the detailed scoreboard makes it much more apparent when a steamroll is happening, since you can compare stats across both teams. OW1 just had personal stats, the vague medal system, and no enemy stats, so the only way to tell you were getting rolled is if you lost multiple team fights in a row.

On the other hand, not being able to see anyone's rank makes it much easier to blame losses on matchmaking. Also, the MMR system was a little fucky on launch with new players being placed higher than they should.

Tanks, which i main became such a chore, or just completely rolled due to skill differences

Yeah, tanking has less depth to it, since there's only one. Tanks basically have two choices - stand in the front and try to be a meat shield while your team gets a pick, or dive the backline and hopefully secure a pick before the rest of your team falls over. Either way, there's a lot of pressure on the tank to do the right thing, and a lot of pressure on the team to keep the tank alive.

Healers became too easy to pick off/couldnt do much to protect themselfs

I strongly disagree with this (except if we're talking about Lifeweaver). All of the supports have enough tools to at least escape a 1v1 situation against most DPS characters, if not win it. They all either have movement, CC/knockback abilities, raw damage output, or usually some combination (or all) of those. Being able to regen health out of combat also makes supports less reliant on health packs or self heals, which helps survivability as well.

The change from 6v6 to 5v5 was one of the worst changes for me, it made it rely on individual performance way too much... one pick and your teams fucked

I've noticed the opposite, that is actually easier to turn a 4v5 or even a 3v5 with a single well used ult, where in the original you'd have to use at least two ults to burn through two tanks' HP.

IDK, at the end of the day I enjoy both games gameplay wise, but they are very different experiences, so I understand why people have preferences towards one or the other.

about 6 years before, when the actual good version of the game first launched

Same. Blizz games are the only things missing on my steam deck. It just much better than having to do jank workarounds or having to deal with their launchers.

it says overwhelmingly negative now

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD.

If I had to guess it's the microtransactions designed to squeeze every cent from their players. This game has an insane cost and it's not just cosmetics. They lock characters behind microtransactions. I bought overwatch one, they ended it, and have me Overwatch 2: athe Money Grab!

Full disclaimer: I fell off Overwatch years ago, so this is just stuff I've picked up reading general game news, so I'm sure others will be more in-tune with what's up but here's an overview, at least:

So first off OW2 as a thing was always kind of bizarre. When it was a battle(dot)net exclusive, it was free if you owned 1, and straight-up automatically replaced OW1 in your library. It behaved like an update would for any other game, and that's because it kinda just was a big update to the game. Naturally there's some back and forth about if the gameplay changes are good or not, but the big issue is monetization.

So, when OW1 came out, they explicitly said that all content updates (basically things other than skins) would be free, including new characters, maps, etc. However, since OW2 was a "new" game, there was no risk of legal issues around false advertising if they were to start charging for new characters, which is exactly what they did. New characters now had to be unlocked via the battle pass (or purchased individually, I assume) in order to be playable, which obviously rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. (I vaguely remember this maybe being walked back to some degree after backlash, but I'm not sure one way or the other).

And all of this comes as Activision/Blizzard is going through a genuinely horrific series of scandals around workplace conditions. Like, there's genuinely too much to list here but famously, one of the OW characters was renamed since he was originally named after an employee who turned out to be a huge sexual abuser. There's report after report coming out on an almost daily basis, and it's abundantly clear that management (including infamous shitbag CEO Bobby Kotik) are intentionally trying to cover things up. Genuinely mind-boggling. At this point, it also becomes abundantly clear that ActiBlizz management is using OW as a distraction from the negative press they're getting, regularly announcing new updates or "progressive" (big air quotes due to the extreme cynical corporate nature) character details within hours of major scandals breaking.

So you've got all that on top of the usual toxicity that tends to form around competitive games if left unchecked. It's kind of a mess.

They were going to do some pve bullshit and that was literally the only justification they had for making overwatch 2 to begin with instead of just expanding on overwatch 1 and then they were like "yeah we're not doing that pve thing" so yea

TF2 has 90k at the moment as well, just for reference

One of the highest up voted negative reviews at the end claims he is gonna play 2000 more hours.

This is temper tantrum shit. Well, some of it.

A lot of it reminds me of this:

When will Blizzard fans learn

I mean, they play products released by Blizzard/Activision, so I doubt much learning will take place. Especially after all the decades of Activision being complete tools to their customers.

The second that merger was announced I peaced out. I knew what was coming after having witnessed what became of COD.

#7 Top Seller on Steam

Gamer's RAGE©

No context out of character arena pvp between ostensibly "heroic" characters that are mostly supposed to be on the same team forever and ever. EPIC BLIZZARD STORYTELLING is more exciting when it's hyped and waited for than actually delivered.

Shit game getting shit reviews. That's literally the system doing its job.

I’ve played around 1000h of OW2 alone and I’ve since given up on the game and would give it an honestly negative review.

It’s a shadow of its former self, unbalanced, full of toxic players, and full of predatory MTX and pay to win unless you grind obscene amounts (it was not having a battle pass that made me quit, having run out of the coins I’d earned and been given for stupidly preordering OW2 - the time sink to get a single skin is ridiculous).

1/3 games you have to deal with other players being racist, homophonic, antisemitic, and just generally abusive. This was so much less of an issue in OW1 I can only assume the influx of free players paired with brain drain at Blizzard has caused this and there’s no sign of improvement.

All new releases get scores that don’t reflect what people actually think of the game.

That being said, mostly negative does seem to line up with what people think of the game from what I’ve heard…