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Blizzard’s bringing its PC games to Steam, starting with Overwatch 2
- kneebonian 3y ago> Blizzard says it will bring “a selection” of its games to Steam, but did not specify which titles beyond Overwatch 2 will make the jump from Battle.net. Listen unless you allow me to buy the original WC3 or SC1 I really don't care, there has been very little blizzard has built lately that is that good. Its actually interesting in a way that Blizzard singlehandedly created 3 new generes of gaming because of how flexible their WC3 editor was. A different company a different time.
- peddling-brink 3y agoI would accept Diablo 2.
- milesvp 3y agoIt used to be a mecca for talent in gaming. Even activision acquiring it didn’t seem to sqaush that lure. I’ve watched numerous talks from their engineers, and the things they came up with to deal with the sheer difficulty of the problem space is utterly fascinating. I can’t imagine the best and brightest still wanting to work there, parent companies never understand what made the place special, else they’d replicate it themselves. MS is going to be further nails in the coffin
- Arrath 3y agoI'd be curious to see some of these talks, which ones do you think were most interesting?
- boneitis 3y agoMoreso text formats, but I highly recommend the entirety of Patrick Wyatt's (major developer on Diablo, StarCraft, Warcraft, Guild Wars) `Code of Honor` blog, where he has written war stories of developing Blizzard's earlier hit games. (It's been a while since he last posted there.) One of the more popular posts: https://www.codeofhonor.com/blog/the-starcraft-path-finding-hack https://www.codeofhonor.com/blog/the-starcraft-path-finding-... Also, it is easy to draw parallels between David Craddock's `Stay Awhile and Listen` book and Masters of Doom. I tried to quickly whip up the Amazon link, but I'm seeing multiple versions and listings... apparently multivolume? When I first encountered it, it was a single book.
- boneitis 3y agoAnd, past discussions here: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=codeofhonor.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=codeofhonor.com
- milesvp 3y agoI really liked their talk about network prediction and server side simulation. Also talked about their entity modeling system https://youtu.be/zrIY0eIyqmI https://youtu.be/zrIY0eIyqmI
- LargeTomato 3y agoThe gaming industry is an unmitigated disaster, an embarrassment, and a stain on software engineering. You have your pick! Sexually harass your colleagues into committing suicide (Blizzard) or get farted on by the CEO (Riot).
- adamrezich 3y agoWarcraft III is no longer officially available in any capacity. if you purchased it and attached it to your Battle.net account, it was replaced with the remastered or reforged or refucked or whatever they called it version, without notice or consent, forever. and it's not even the full version of the rezombified version, it's a gimped version of that, and you have to pay them again to unlock the full version of the replacement product that you never asked for. when they pulled that bullshit stunt I decided I was done with Blizzard, and it's just been a steady decline ever since.
- duskwuff 3y ago> Its actually interesting in a way that Blizzard singlehandedly created 3 new generes of gaming because of how flexible their WC3 editor was. Hmm, what three are you thinking of? Tower defense and MOBA come to mind, but I can't think of the third. (Also, tower defense maps really started with Starcraft -- the game engine limited what developers could do with those maps, but the concept was there.)
- homieg33 3y agoTree tag :p
- bluefirebrand 3y agoThere was a map called Aeon of Strife that was like a proto MOBA for StarCraft as well. Warcraft III map editor just had more tools to really flesh out these concepts
- LegitShady 3y agoNo idea about WC3 but starcraft 1 and broodwar have been free to download for 5 or 6 years? https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/how-to-download-the-original-starcraft-for-free/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/how-to-download-the-orig... Doubt the online/network stuff still works but maybe? I think they're still playing SC1 in korea competitively.
- TheLML 3y agoYou should still be able to play online. Only the new features such as HD graphics and ranked matchmaking are locked behind the SCR purchase.
- ztgasdf 3y agoWatch as they force the B.NET launcher to be used either way. It's just an extra hoop to go through for end users.
- psadauskas 3y agoFrom the polygon article: https://www.polygon.com/23799285/blizzard-pc-games-steam-overwatch-2-release-date https://www.polygon.com/23799285/blizzard-pc-games-steam-ove... > Blizzard says that players on Steam will still need a Battle.net account connected to Overwatch 2 to play the game.
- ztgasdf 3y agoConnected account makes sense but that doesn't necessarily imply the launcher is required too.
- psadauskas 3y agoTrue. The Ubisoft games on Steam launch the UPlay app in the background, so it'll probably be the same.
- predictabl3 3y agoOW2 can already run without Battle.net running, but launching it through Battle.net takes care of auth for you. Presumably they will modify the Steam OW2 client to include the Steam lib and handle auth via Steam. I think it's actually reasonable to have hope that Steam can launch into OW2 without B.net.
- pests 3y agoI'm sure they will just add steam account linking to battle.net and treat it like any other platform.
- doublerabbit 3y agoAs does EA Origin. EA with it then you can't play PvZ Garden Warfare.
- toyg 3y agoIs this a feeble attempt at fighting the UK antitrust case?
- dogma1138 3y agoNo as it has nothing to do with their objections.
- yuppie_scum 3y agoIt’s probably more a way of enticing steam deck users to play their content.
- orclev 3y agoDoes OW2 even run on the SteamDeck? Checking ProtonDB says it's unknown compatibility, but generally competitive PvP games struggle due to their highly intrusive DRM/anti-cheat that wants root kit level access.
- n42 3y agoyes.
- NekkoDroid 3y agoBack when I use to run Linux as my main system OW was one of the games that ran basically without any problems (other than shader compilation at the start) sometimes even better than it did on Windows. Funnily enough there have been a few times that Wine specific problems have been addressed by the BNet team (pre steamdeck) and when Linux players were accidentally banned they have unbanned them iirc in some scenarios.
- adamrezich 3y agoseems more blatantly desperate than anything—Overwatch 2 has been a bit of a disaster. about a decade ago, when Blizzard was in court with Valve over the latter taking the reigns of "DotA", this would've been unthinkable.
- lencastre 3y agoTurn tables
- bob1029 3y agoStarting with OW2 I presume to save its matchmaker system from total collapse. Once queue times get beyond 5-10 minutes, even the most hardcore gamers begin to check out. This can happen very quickly, and much like a power grid failing once its down completely it's probably over for good. Reducing the normal team size from 6->5 was probably also intended, in part, to help with establishing matches more quickly. For me, this kicked off a catastrophic series of design changes that pushed me away from the game completely. As it currently stands, you couldn't pay me less than my current hourly consulting rate to play OW2 (on any platform). That said, I'd consider paying a $10/m premium subscription fee if they brought back OW1 in the exact form it existed in circa 2019 and issued a deep, thoughtful apology regarding their design choices. At the most meta level, the fact that blizzard had to actively kill OW1 to make OW2 even remotely attractive also makes me not ever want to do business with them again.
- codybontecou 3y agoWhat are the key differences between 2019 OW1 and current OW2? From an outside view, they look very similar.
- goosedragons 3y ago6v6 and no role queue (depending on what part of 2019 they mean...). OW2 is a 5v5 game, there is a role queue and you choose to play tank, DPS or healer before finding a match and you're locked into that choice over the course of the match and the number of each role is fixed at 2 DPS, 2 support and 1 tank. In old OW1 you'd just queue and could pick any role at any time so your time could be 6 DPS or 3 DPS, two tanks and a support. And at launch of the game you could even have multiple of the same hero on a team in a match.
- bob1029 3y ago> and no role queue Yes exactly this. A completely open-ended team comp that players dynamically rotate through during a game was the original intention. It was incredibly sophisticated gameplay and theory. I guess it turned out that the average gamer was too much of a dumbass to learn this system, so it had to be watered down into a gameplay style you could copy from mobafire.com
- natas 3y agoPersonally, I would buy 3 copies of Diablo 4 (one per kid) if it's on steam, but not on blizzard.
- sfn42 3y agoHonestly it's a pretty overpriced game. I was disappointed, didn't even finish it. The part they showed in open beta was good, after that it was basically just the same shit for way too long. Enemies all feel the same, quests and events all feel the same, almost literally every minibuss and even some major bosses have this dumb ass mechanic where they summon ads which make them invulnerable, seriously it's the least interesting game mechanic in the world and they overuse it so severely it's honestly a big part of why I didn't finish the game. It's just not fun, let me kill shit. The whole point of ARPGs is to get powerful and kill things fast.
- beebeepka 3y agoThat's great. I am tired of random OS/drivers/Mesa updates breaking the blizzard launcher once in a while. No more lutris, though a HUGE THANK YOU is in order.
- fileoffset 3y agoFuck Blizzard and their always online battle net bullshit. I would rather spend $1000 on Indy games than give Blizzard a single cent.
- holografix 3y agoIf it makes it easier to play in Linux via Proton that’s a win!
- footlose_3815 3y agoAside from the barely-related rants in this thread, you can all calm down because you still need a battle.net account, anyway. It's probably going to be the same garbage as the EA app, and how it's tie-in and perpetual running services need to be running at-all-times in order to play their games.
- NekkoDroid 3y agoOverwatch can run without the BNet launcher. The BNet launcher only takes care of the auth stuff for you, meaning you do need to manually log in if you don't use BNet. But it was confirmed that OW will be launched directly through Steam https://twitter.com/Qwik/status/1681720303389667328 https://twitter.com/Qwik/status/1681720303389667328 (if you need to manually log in with a BNet account after, or just link your account and it auto does that is a different question)
- nobodyandproud 3y agoThe balance and 5v5 and Role Queue. It’s fascinating how closely it parallels the official forums.
- aldanor 3y agoDoes it mean they will appear in GeForce Now and other cloud providers?
- musicale 3y agoI miss the days when Blizzard games (Diablo 3, StarCraft 2, Heroes of the Storm, Hearthstone, WoW...) ran on macOS. Sadly that seems to have ended with Overwatch and Diablo 4 (though it may be possible to play Diablo Immortal on Macs that can run iPad games.) I also miss my macOS Steam library before the 32-bit apocalypse.