Showing posts with label Blizzard. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blizzard. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 01, 2016

Overwatched Overwatch


Overwatch, Blizzard’s first foray into the shooter genre, is the best team-based shooter since Team Fortress 2. It is also a brand new intellectual property; a rare and dangerous thing in a world of annual sequels.

Overwatch was not a guaranteed success (even with Blizzard behind it). Gamers don’t need to look any further than EA Bioware and “the game that shall not be named” to know that studios with even the best pedigree can drop a stinker when venturing into a new genre. I say this all up front for the simple fact that no amount of advertising, hype videos, 9.5+ million open beta players, or past history with Blizzard games was going to convince me to care about this game. It was a shooter from an RPG/RTS company.
However, then came the word of mouth via live streams (something I’ve really only recently started enjoying since Guild Wars 2 Heart of Thorns launch), podcasts, and a myriad of Youtube videos. Before long I had overwatched Overwatch to the point where I figured I was better off playing it than watching it. Then I found out the basic game was only $40, came with all the heroes, and had no plans of a League of Legends style monetization scheme. I couldn’t enter my Paypal information fast enough (yes, I use Paypal for purchases).

Like most Blizzard games it takes only a few minutes to realize how much a player is going to enjoy the game. On first load the game drops the player immediately into a tutorial that is quick and efficient at getting the player oriented. After the tutorial the player is given the option to continue to a practice match against the AI or to skip to the real deal. I opted for the real deal.

Before making it to the “real deal” I quietly enjoyed the snappiness of the main menu screen. I was able to quickly jump in and out of settings, the heroes gallery, loot box screen, and other menu options. This minor feature did not go unnoticed by this gamer. After my experiences with the Star Wars Battlefront open beta where the slow-loading menu screens locked up repeatedly and more recently with the work-in-progress Tastee: Lethal Tactics problematic menu it is refreshing to launch a game where the menu just works.

A couple clicks and I was in a game via the quick play option. I noticed that I was dropped into a game already in-progress. Overwatch is very good about refilling empty team slots that open during the middle of a game due to disconnects or rage quitters. Players that end up filling these vacated slots receive a nice experience bonus for finishing out the game.

Feeling overwhelmed by the number of hero choices I settled on Soldier 76 which is the character used during the tutorial. I felt familiar enough with 76’s abilities (sprint, rocket, and machine gun) to have confidence I would be helping and not hurting my team during my first game. Overwatch does not lock players into a single character choice for each game. While in the spawn area players are free to change their hero which results an ebb and flow of team composition throughout the life of the match.

I nabbed a couple quick kills and I was hooked on the game. In a couple minutes the game finished out with our team securing a victory. I noticed a +1500 EXP “first win of the day” bonus and watched as my profile leveled up. I played several games back to back and make quick progress through the levels.

I noticed while leveling up that I was earning loot boxes. I took a break in the action to navigate to the loot box screen. From my DOTA 2, Guild Wars 2, and TF 2 chest experiences I had expected the need for a key to unlock the loot boxes. To my surprise there wasn’t any key requirement in Overwatch. I was allowed to open the loot boxes free of charge. A bunch of voice lines, sprays, and icons popped out as I opened the boxes and after about four loot boxes out popped a new skin for Soldier 76. These small trinkets really don’t intrigue me, but it was a pleasant surprise to land a new skin for a hero I was playing regularly (not to mention that there was an equip now option on the loot box menu saving me from having to click around the hero gallery; another small touch of polish in the menu system that did not go unnoticed by this gamer).

After a couple dozen games I am enthralled by Overwatch. Blizzard has “done it again” so to speak. It’s amazing how Blizzard was able to take on the massive undertaking of a new game genre (for the company) combined with a new intellectual property and be this monumentally successful with it on day one. The open beta hit 9.5+ million players. I can’t even fathom how many players are in at launch. All of this with none of the trappings of the “free 2 play” standbys. Pay once and play; the way games have existed for decades. Count me in.

A couple wrap up items:

Overwatch has an astounding eSports grass roots campaign already. Blizzard is not new to eSports and it’s obvious they intended for eSport leagues to feature Overwatch as a primetime feature. Yet it is amazing how the eSport community has dived in head first all the way back into the beta periods. Overwatch is an immediately watchable game as a spectator and I look forward to where the scene goes.

Secondly the game runs like a dream. Whether on my four year old desktop gaming rig (AMD CPU and Radeon graphics card) or on my several-years-aging Alienware laptop (Intel CPU and Nvidia mobile graphics card) I’ve experienced zero glitches or performance hitches which is a welcome surprise as I’ve been traveling since the game’s launch and have had to play on my. My only hiccup has been the game not saving my preference to launch in fullscreen (which I think is related to having multiple monitors).

A quick note on the hero Bastion: he is not overpowered. However, I will agree that Bastion is a problem. In my view Bastion is simply not interesting. He is a strong solo character that doesn’t spur any sort of interesting teamplay dynamics. For this reason I think something has to change, not because he wrecks newbs and steals plays of the game from more deserving players, but because he doesn’t fit in the structure of the game in my opinion.
Favorite heroes to play

Zenyatta – I have a mixed history with support characters. Towards the end of my Dark Ages of Camelot career I had gotten comfortable with the Migard Healer class becoming an invaluable player for many solid groups. In Shadowbane I primarily played support hybrids. In World of Warcraft I played shaman but grew to prefer the DPS shaman playstyle instead of healer. In Warhammer Online I took a step into the tank role as an Ironbreaker. In Team Fortress 2 I often found myself playing engineer or medic preferring to stay out of the chaos. All of this history to illustrate that I have a penchant for support roles in games so it should not be a surprise that I fell in line with Zenyatta in Overwatch.

I would classify Zenyatta as a “buffer/debuffer” support class. He is able to apply a passive heal buff on a team mate or a damage-increase debuff on an enemy. The buff only lasts while the target is within line of sight which keeps Zenyatta in balance (in previous iterations the healing buff persisted even outside of line of sight which allowed the Zenyatta player to hide while still providing a strong healing presence on the front line). Additionally Zenyatta is equipped with a strong, yet slow firing and slow traveling, attack. Between the buff/debuff and strong attack it makes for a very enjoyable character to play.

Add onto this Zenyatta’s ultimate ability which turns him invulnerable while healing everyone within the immediate area and it is easy to see how key this support hero is to your average team. I’ve had my most memorable games while playing Zenyatta and teaming up with a tank character.

Junk Rat – This hero is equipped with a grenade launcher, trap, and remote-detonated mine. Junk Rat is geared towards defense, but can be extremely effective during aggressive pushes thanks to his ultimate ability that can clear a room in a heartbeat without putting the player in danger. After executing his wheel of death ultimate the player is warped back to the initiation point and can continue with the push. With practice a Junk Rat player can land direct hits with the grenade launcher for devastating direct damage. Add in the trap and remote-detonated mine and this is a very competitive character.

Junk Rat is also one of the few heroes where I don’t feel like there is a hard counter. If an enemy shows up that can hand Junk Rat his junk a skilled player can adjust their play style to counter. This is not to say Junk Rat is overpowered, but simply well-rounded instead of specifically focused.

I’ve had some amazing “play of the game” moments captured with Junk Rat. In one play I was able to thwart a team push by diving in dropping my trap and mine just in front of the push and detonating as soon as the rush tripped the trap. This activated my ultimate which I was able to quickly pop in the middle of the mayhem and a short hop later detonated for a double kill.

Torbjörn –  The TF2 Engineer reimagined in Overwatch. Torbjörn builds and upgrades turrets and then spends the match chasing spies and snipers… err… I mean Tracers and Widowmakers away from destroying them. Properly placed turrets, just as in TF2, are a lynch pin of defense. And unlike Bastion, Torbjörn brings a host of interesting team dynamics from the ability to provide armor upgrades to his dual purpose ultimate either providing a critical turret boost at a critical moment or allowing the player to unleash massive direct damage OR DO BOTH!

I have to admit though, honestly, the only reason I play Torbjörn is when I am stuck on a bad team and am sick of the backline getting cut up by highly-mobile characters. A turret placed just behind the frontline can do wonders for keeping harassing offensive players out of the backline.



Thursday, August 04, 2011

"Activision Ruined You"

Clearly this man is not a fan of Blizzard's plans for Diablo III.



But I bet anyone $5 and that day old burger wrapper in my car that Blizzard is thinking:

Tuesday, August 02, 2011

My real thoughts on Diablo III's RMT and DRM

Blizzard has certainly stirred the pot with the announcements for Diablo 3. For those of you out of the loop, read this and this.

Real money trade (RMT) auction house

I have the same problem with Blizzard doing this as I had with SOE doing RMT auction houses: it brings in to question the developer’s motives. When the developer isn’t dipping their hand into the pot there is a barrier of plausible deniability. As soon as the developer takes a cut of the RMT-action, questions are raised like will they make changes based directly on activity in the RMT auction house? How liable are they if the value of an in game item changes due to a patch? There are a lot of questions unlikely to be answered by Blizzard on this topic.

One benefit to Blizzard sanctioning the RMT is that it brings the practice into a safe environment for those players willing to partake. The RMT is going to happen whether Blizzard allows it or not, just as it did in Diablo II, so it is better they manage it. It also allows the power-gamers (aka core gamers) to profit off their excess of play time which can be a motivating factor to keep playing the game. The only question is how effective Blizzard is at curtailing bots and other illegitimate farming methods that would undercut the market.

Blizzard has done a good job defending it’s decision to go the RMT route, but I do have a serious bone to pick with one of their quotes. Rob Pardo said:
"What’s the difference between a player that plays the game a lot and a gold farmer? They’re really doing the same activity. If you are doing an activity where all you’re trying to do is generate items for the auction house, you’re not making someone else's game experience poorer. If anything you’re making the game better, because you’re generating items for the auction house that people want to purchase.”
The first part is naive and I sincerely hope Blizzard realizes the sweatshop-like nature of most gold farming operations. Gold farmer is a term applied to those who are forced (by circumstances) to make a living by farming gold. Gold farmers are NOT players.

There is a little truth to the second part of the quote. Diablo III is not a traditional MMO. This is NOT World of Warcraft where certain zones are nigh-unplayable due to the infestation of gold farmers. Multi-player and single-player will be played in 100% instanced maps and only with those people the player chooses to play with, so the game-play effects of farming are eliminated.

To note: hardcore-mode characters will NOT be allowed to use RMT since it features permadeath.

Digital rights management (DRM) / NO offline play

Diablo III does require a "constant" Internet connection for Battle.net authentication to play the game. There is no offline play, even if a player previously authenticated.  Here is Blizzard’s justification:
“We thought about this quite a bit,” says executive producer Rob Pardo. “One of the things that we felt was really important was that if you did play offline, if we allowed for that experience, you’d start a character, you’d get him all the way to level 20 or level 30 or level 40 or what have you, and then at that point you might decide to want to venture onto Battle.net. But you’d have to start a character from scratch, because there’d be no way for us to guarantee no cheats were involved, if we let you play on the client and then take that character online.”

“Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t play a game by yourself – of course you can. You can go into and start any game that you want, you’ll just be connected to the Battle.net servers, and we can authenticate your character.”
This is a legitimate defense and with the RMT auction-house, a requirement. I support this and I’ll make the comparison to my experience with Borderlands (aka Diablo with guns). I stopped playing Borderlands (PC) online because of the rampant cheaters who hacked their characters offline. Borderlands co-op was, in my opinion, unplayable due to the cheaters.  I would have loved to see Borderlands online play secured in some fashion.

The leading part of the statement fits the Blizzard style as well.  Blizzard has always striven to remove confusing barriers to entry for their games.  While the average reader of this blog would not be confused about online vs. offline characters, I can see the viewpoint with the type of person that would be willing to quit over it.


Conclusion

The lack of offline play is a bit disheartening, but Blizzard’s justification does have merit. It will provide a better end-user experience for those looking to play multi-player, which Blizzard seems to be the most focused on.

For the RMT auction house it’s all a question of perspective. Characters fat on RMT purchases will be allowed online just like any other player and some gamers will view RMT as cheating. A few years ago, RMT was salt rubbed into the wounds of online gamer’s everywhere. However, in today’s world of the free to play revolution, the “paying to win” mentality is not as frowned upon. There are still those that are aggravated by RMT, but that crowd is dwindling as the market adjusts. 

I really think we need to go back to Tobold’s thoughts about EVE’s debacle where he supported CCP (EVE’s developer):
...when the CEO of CCP recently commented the uproar of the EVE community on a similar issue with "I can tell you that this is one of the moments where we look at what our players do and less of what they say", he was completely right...
There is a furor online about these announcements and due to this some gamers will NOT buy the game.  Blizzard is going to be watching what player’s do, not what they say, and I suspect most of the complainers will be buying the game anyways. Summed up best by:



If you disagree with the road Diablo III is taking, DO NOT BUY THE GAME. 

Personally, it’s not on Steam, so I’m unlikely to buy it.  I really despise having to have more than one digital distribution platform.

Monday, August 01, 2011

Shut up about Diablo III and Blizzard

My initial thoughts on the whole Diablo III uproar are the same as my thoughts on the EA/Origin/Star Wars: The Old Republic madness:


I realize this is very shallow commentary, but I've found the simplest explanation is usually right. As gamers when we look back and we ask ourselves why Blizzard would introduce two of the most unfathomable things in PC gaming, always-on online DRM and real money trade (aka RMT), we can make a simple reply: because gamer's voted with their wallets and bought Diablo III. In fact, gamer's will probably scoop it up faster than my toddler scoops up TV remotes left on the living room table.

Friday, July 09, 2010

Blizzard caves, no more Real ID on forums

Blizzard has caved on the idea of having players post using their real life names on the Blizzard forums.  Details are laid out in a posting by Blizzard's CEO, Mark Morhaime.
I'd like to take some time to speak with all of you regarding our desire to make the Blizzard forums a better place for players to discuss our games. We've been constantly monitoring the feedback you've given us, as well as internally discussing your concerns about the use of real names on our forums. As a result of those discussions, we've decided at this time that real names will not be required for posting on official Blizzard forums.
Bad ideas are bad mmmm k?

Monday, July 05, 2010

World of Warcraft going Free 2 Play?

Is it possible that we may see a free 2 play World of Warcraft at some point in the future? That is the question being pondered in a piece over at PC Gamer:
The rise of the free-to-play western MMO hasn’t gone unnoticed at Blizzard, developers of World of Warcraft, the dominant western subscription MMO. Speaking to PC Gamer at their studios in Irvine, California, World of Warcraft’s lead designer, Tom Chilton, explained that “at some point, it may not make sense for us to have a subscription fee.”
We all know that WoW was a game changer as far as MMOGs were concerned and with every expansion or change it continues to be one. If WoW was to make the switch to free 2 play, it would become something even greater than a game changer. It's legendary status would be cemented and the genre changed forever.

With that said, I don't see it happening anytime soon and when and if it does, it will be long after WoW has peaked and the money train has moved on to another Activision Blizzard title.

Monday, June 14, 2010

Battle.net 2.0 vs a Rock, there's something to learn here

I claim no credit for this image.

















Normally, I wouldn't poke fun at Blizzard because they have a fairly flawless track record as a game developer.  However, the world is changing and Blizzard with it.  Every company is locking their games into "platforms" and it's starting to get a bit silly.  Oh, and I can sympathize with the gamers that long for the days where LAN support was one of Blizzard's standard features.

The bullet points in the picture are agreeable to my persuasion as well.  As a gaming community, we seem to be losing a lot in favor of Facebook and Twitter integration.  Game developers appear to be looking at the new social media as a replacement for what has worked great for years. 

Actually replacement is a strong word, as what we're really getting is "integration with and instead of X".  However, we're still being tied to the developer's own platform rather than offloading entirely to the social media maven of choice.  It's one thing to offer "Facebook Connect" in place of a developers own account system; it's another thing entirely to integrate a game into Facebook status updates.

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of consolidation to a central "hub" that can be tied into.  That is why I am more of a fan of Facebook Connect than I am of Facebook itself.  I like creating one account and being able to use it on tons of different websites.  Just as I like having a Steam account and having that account integrated directly into a game via Steamworks.

Battle.net 2.0 is great for gamers that will stick to Blizzard games and I suspect there is enough of them to make it a success.  However, Battle.net 2.0 is NOT that much different than a 40,000 year old rock when the games are removed.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

The Exodus of Infinity Ward

Infinity Ward creates blockbuster game. Activision fires IW executives to avoid paying them. The ex-IW executives formed Respawn Entertainment and then signed with EA. Now, more of IW's staff leaves, likely heading to Respawn. Caught up? Good, because now its time for a history lesson with Uncle Heartless_.

Blizzard North was originally an independent company. It was established in 1993 under the name Condor, founded by Max Schaefer, Erich Schaefer, and David Brevik. The company was purchased and renamed by Blizzard about six months before the release of their hit PC game, Diablo, in 1996. Diablo proved to be incredibly successful, and their 2000 sequel, Diablo II, was even more successful.

On June 30, 2003, several key employees left Blizzard North to form the new companies Flagship Studios (8 moved here) and Castaway Entertainment (9 moved here). The Blizzard North exodus continued on with around 30 employees leaving the company in total.

Flagship Studios was founded by Bill Roper along with Max Schaefer, Erich Schaefer, and David Brevik, the original developers of Diablo and former high level Blizzard North executives.

Castaway Entertainment is based in Redwood City, California. The company signed a publishing agreement with Electronic Arts in March 2004, but has yet to produce any products.

For everyone thinking Infinity Ward is doomed and Respawn Ent. is the next coming of game development Jesus, I ask what company you would put money into today: Blizzard or Flagship Studios or Castaway Entertainment?  It takes more than a few developers to make a game and good corporate culture doesn't disappear over night.  We're not talking about Shigeru Miyamoto or Will Wright here.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

It’s not Battle.net, it’s me

I was less than thrilled to hear about the new Battle.net. I commented on other blogs that this new Battle.net was five years too late. I don’t want every new game to launch with its own developer tie-in service. I want simplicity; consolidation. For me that was Steam. Sadly, Blizzard has shown no move towards Valve’s digital distribution platform and as Blizzard has always been a heavy box sales driven company, it’s a pipe dream. I don’t like the idea of Blizzard’s new toy, but it’s me that’s at fault, not the new Battle.net.

I can’t accept that I have to maintain an EA, Steam, Games for Windows Live, NCSoft, SOE Station, Galanet, Gamespy, Rockstar, Battle.net, and God knows what else account. Whatever happened to launching a game.exe, typing in a display name, and hitting play? Where the hell is the OpenID or Facebook Connect of PC games? Even my cherished Steam platform is becoming a hindrance as the majority of games I play do not integrate with my Steam login for multiplayer or friends tracking, meaning for the majority of games I own via Steam I am logging in twice to play (thank God for the invention of the auto login features).

Battle.net will be successful and heralded as an industry standard. It is a Blizzard product after all. However, I don’t like the trend of every publisher/developer having their own separate platform trying to lock me into or out of their games. Hopefully my complaint has been noted and quickly dismissed somewhere within this crazy landscape of what we call PC gaming.

The New Battle.net

With the "eye in the sky" opinion out the way, lets get to the new Battle.net.  Ars Technica has a preview. It appears to have the usual Blizzard polish and is probably ready to go live now, but I suspect we won't see it until Starcraft 2 hits the shelves.

Nothing from the article is groundbreaking. The new Battle.net features streamlined matchmaking for Blizzard games with integrated social networking. It is what most expected and the Blizzard polish will seal the deal.

Conclude

I almost kind of wish it was opened to more than just Blizzard games, but as a long time Steam (and Steamworks) observer, I understand that even giving access away to a digital platform for free doesn't mean any of the larger developers will pay it any attention.  After all, that would be crazy. They can just make their own flavor!