4 ms·

> Blizzrd hasn't had a significant original release in 10+ years A quick search tells me that Overwatch has 6M players, which seems significant.

• LeSaucy 5y ago
  A note that Jeff Kaplan the director of the title resigned in May. He was heavily involved from its inception and throughout the development of Overwatch 2, and was a huge part of the community.
  • Fordec 5y ago
    As a former Overwatch player, you're right. But my (so far glad to say mostly unfounded) fear is that Jeff "Tigole Bitties" Kaplan was part of the problem we're seeing play out the past few weeks.
    • plorkyeran 5y ago
      So far Kaplan hasn't shown up as even an incidental participant in any of the photos or group chats, and hasn't been named as someone who brushed off requests for help. The Titan team that he lead prior to it turning into OW was by all reports a toxic mess for totally unrelated reasons, though.
    • scrollaway 5y ago
      What were you doing when you were 19 that's any better than calling yourself tigole?
      • Fordec 5y ago
        At 19? Getting an engineering degree and all the hours of work that entailed while avoiding getting roped into MMOs by classmates as if it was Corrupted Blood.
        • scrollaway 5y ago
          We're all very proud of you.
          • Fordec 5y ago
            Your contributions to meaningful, thoughtful discussion a credit to this community and really makes me want to support your Heartstone simulator.
            • scrollaway 5y ago
              So to recap: - you give someone shit for their nickname they adopted as an 18-19 year old kid - you boast about how much of a hard working kid you were (no mention of the less pleasant things I'm pretty sure you did) - your best idea of a comeback to all this was to randomly dig up an abandoned side project of mine from like seven years ago and threaten me not to support it. Take a moment to reevaluate all that.
• milkytron 5y ago
  Haven't played Overwatch myself, but isn't it very similar to the other games that came before it? From a layman's perspective, it seems like a copy of Paladins, TF2, etc. Upon it's release, it didn't seem like something original (at least not to me), but rather something to compete with the unique games other studios had already created.
  • elseweather 5y ago
    That's what Blizzard's always done - they didn't invent RTS games, or MMOs, or collectible card games, or roguelikes, they just refined and productized them. I think it's fair to call Overwatch a huge success if you're counting e.g. Diablo and World of Warcraft in there.
  • aftbit 5y ago
    As a 500hr+ Overwatch player and 1000hr+ TF2 plater, I also thought this at first. While Overwatch was certainly heavily inspired by TF2, it plays considerably differently. Overwatch has six players per team each playing one of 32 different unique heroes. TF2 has 12 players playing one of 9 classes. The abilities feel much more impactful in Overwatch. TF2 was all about supporting your engineer and racing for Uber, while Overwatch is much more about positioning and mechanics (though ult economy matters too). Removing the ammo mechanic entirely was brilliant IMO as well. Anyway, just a few cents from someone who has played a lot of both of those games.
  • smolder 5y ago
    It's a bit like Paladins. It has elements of TF2. Regardless, compared to games in genres like battle royale or real time strategy, or more traditional first person shooter, Overwatch is pretty lonely. I don't want to sound like I'm frothing at the mouth over their product, but I feel that it's well beyond any other first person game in terms of the variety of heroes to play and the huge scope of the balancing act that entails. The 30-some pickable heroes all play like their own game to some extent. 2D top-down MOBA games have huge numbers of heroes and a lot of variety, but I think that's an easier lift to balance in that type of game and with that type of control scheme. Other 3D "hero shooters" opt for less variety between heroes or a smaller number of them, or rely on other gameplay elements to help balance things. I think that the design effort that it took to produce Overwatch is tremendous, and it isn't easily replaced or replicated, though it will be eventually as long as game design keeps on marching forward.
• blibble 5y ago
  there is absolutely no way that Overwatch has 6M active players when I was playing a week ago (not anymore), more or less every single game I was matched against the same 20 or so people after a 8-10 minute wait and it was the same 20 people in month in month out and if someone quit the 6v6 mode while a game was ongoing (leaving it 5v6): the leaver's position wouldn't be filled most of the time