Overwatch

[raisinbman]

Overwatch was really interesting in that the free weekend completely sold me. I jumped in, tried a number of things, but eventually rotated to Genji and racked up the POTGs. But as I’m guessing MMR adjusted to my level, those came less and less, which parellels my enthusiasm for the game, I’d say. I’m not much for FPSes, and there’s no real reason for that, but I’ve been married to fighting games for a while, but before that all my friends ended up getting rid of their Xboxes due to red rings of death, so halo was out of the question. So though I wasn’t a complete stranger to FPSes, I actually have more of an urge to knife people in the back than to snipe them from a football field’s length. I actually did play TF2 previously to this, but the experience in The Orange Box is a much much more muted and sterile experience than the one on PC, combined with wrestling for internet capacity and TV time, I didn’t take too it that much. But I think one of Overwatch’s biggest strengths is it’s an FPS where you don’t need to shoot, or even be good at shooting. This became more and more apparent as the DLC was introduced. I won’t be the first one to say they found their main or specific playstyle in a certain character, but that’s the thing about Blizzard – their iteration of established concepts is(was? RIP WCIII reforged) second to none. The game’s aesthetics are great, and until Moira was introduced, everything you did, or saw in first person was actually what was happening. So I played, and played, and played. And then we saw patches – Jeff Kaplan was there to explain whether he was softening the blow or explaining a character rework. This kept me in a mindset that the devs cared. Especially after getting off SFV in which we went from a beta to a launch which only seemed to result in nerfs and no quality of life improvements to be seen for I don’t know for how long, it was a breath of fresh air. I tried again and again and played more and more, but if you know about MMR, you know how hard it can be to get better. And a big issue was players who couldn’t adapt. Blizzard tried again and again to make sure people queued properly because people wouldn’t stop choosing damage. An industry standard was set long ago that matchmaking should do the work for you from league to even Blizzard’s own WOW, we already know people can’t do what’s best for them in terms of matchmaking. But really, this fact in itself has pushed me away from MOBAs and overwatch, now I look for experiences where the fault or fame is my own entirely. Unfortunately, they took away ‘avoid this player’ because they implemented it incorrectly in the first place. But Jeff was still there, and still making changes. Cheesing the timer at the end with Tracer, picking the same characters, etc. Changes came, and I thought they were for the better. I wanted to believe Mercy wasn’t OP, but in scouring the internet, someone pointed out to me how much of the DNA of overwatch is based around a Reinhardt team comp. And so, if you must have Reinhardt, that decreases your ability to innovate elsewhere. I started to see the 0s and 1s behind Overwatch, but I still wanted to play. Still wanted to believe. But then Roadhog was nerfed. Roadhog could KO a character after hooking them. This is a time honored maneuver in various video games, but for some reason, he was no longer allowed to do it. This left him doing…not much really, unless you happen to be in an arena where you can hook someone who can’t recover from a fall death. Meanwhile, Doomfist is perfectly acceptable as a 1 hit kill character. I couldn’t come to terms with it. Whether Pudge in DOTA 2, or the dozens of dozens fighting game characters, this “hook” is to make sure you’re not out of position. Especially with resurrection mechanics, healing, and running from spawn being so easy, was it really that horrible for Roadhog to eliminate ONE person if he earned it?

Anyway, I spent entire holidays trying to rank up. Nights turned into mornings, yet my rank didn’t change. I distinctly remember going from a point of trying to win to ‘just trying to kill Mercy’. THAT became the game for me. I filled in. I TRIED to communicate. Why is the DPS Hanzo? Widow is an insta-loss. Why hasn’t Mercy died yet? Why is their Reinhardt on fire? All these questions, very rarely were they answered appropriately.

But with all these questions came realizations – they say it’s fine if you squad up with friends, but I’ve seen the posts ‘eh, game’s kinda boring I made plat but I’m done’. And I can’t even get out of SILVER reliably. If Maximillian d00d can go to ranked and reliably win, why can’t I? And then it was either DBFZ or Injustice 2 that hit, and I never looked back. Mostly. But I DEFINITELY didn’t look back once their Blitzchung nonsense started up. Also WCIII: Reforged is a travesty. What happened to Blizzard, Cane and Rinse!?!?!?!?

Also, I have no idea if this was changed, but in ranked, if someone drops, you HAVE to stay in the game despite it being IMPOSSIBLE to win when you’re outnumbered. I totally admit this is possible in, say, DOTA – where the game shifts certain things around in order to facilitate that, but it’s hard enough winning a 6v6 in overwatch, I’ve always seen a dropped player or a non-contributing player as 5v7, really.

I didn’t end up following development, but it was pointed out to me posthumously after being criticized that early female characters were all the same silloutte and very beautiful, they started rolling out characters like Varya. Of course, they can’t just instantly make changes like that to accomodate stuff like that, but it’s interesting nonetheless. On the same note, a podcast I was listening to pointed out how Overwatch really went out of its way to do representation and LGBT things, while Apex had it without such a weird rollout. We were told a main overwatcher was gay, then they just suddenly gave us Tracer, and eventually it came to light S76 was also, or at least he’s willing to date men. I’m not saying anything definitively, but with stuff like Lucio’s VA not even being brazilian(or able to speak the language), the two aussie reps not even being remotely so, and Tracer’s accent being seethrough to anyone who actually hears the dialect on a regular basis, it makes me wonder a bit.

On the esports and competitve side, OW has struggled to be watchable, despite pouring a small country’s worth into creating a league and the game itself. In OW 2, they’re adding a new mode called ‘push’ which I think may try addressing this - while it can be hard to tell who’s winning for non-players in the current iterations of OW, a giant MacGuffin(think of it like a football) representing the team’s progress will certainly be much more viewable.

As for Cane and Rinse, even though OW2 is coming out, it’s basically an expansion for the single player, while the multiplayer will be uprezzed and stay equivalent., so I don’t know if the seal of approval will ever be able to be put on this game.

Looking at Ksub's retirement letter, alot of that resonated with me as well.

[Flabyo]

A lot of the VAs in Overwatch are the right nationality, especially the Egyptians.

And for how bad Tracer’s cockney accent is... her VA is actually British. Likely was told to over emphasise it, the performances are not subtle for any of the cast.

The VA performance that’s bothering me most at the moment is Rampart in Apex. She’s meant to be British Asian, and the accent is spot in for it, but the lines are nowhere *near* how someone actually British would speak.

[Alex79]

Anyone know if there's much of a community on Switch for this? I noticed it had a free weekend and thought about downloading it, but had heard mention that it was pretty dead?

[ReprobateGamer]

A lot of the VAs in Overwatch are the right nationality, especially the Egyptians.

And for how bad Tracer’s cockney accent is... her VA is actually British. Likely was told to over emphasise it, the performances are not subtle for any of the cast.

The VA performance that’s bothering me most at the moment is Rampart in Apex. She’s meant to be British Asian, and the accent is spot in for it, but the lines are nowhere *near* how someone actually British would speak.

Rampart is voiced by Anjeli Bhimani (who also is the VA for Symmetra in Overwatch - there is an interesting little article here on just this thing:
https://www.thesixthaxis.com/2020/08/18 ... 0Legends.

[Flabyo]

She’s also the VA for the villain in Indivisible and is amazing at it. As the article says, the problems with Rampart are not on the VA.

Simple example, one of Ramparts lines when you queue up is ‘Waiting, nothings better than waiting, except bloody everything else’.

If you aren’t british, that sounds british.

But the ‘bloody’ is in the wrong place. We’d say “every bloody thing else”. So it feels off to me.

[ReprobateGamer]

It's the old difference in knowing the language, and knowing the usage of the language ...

[raisinbman]

A lot of the VAs in Overwatch are the right nationality, especially the Egyptians.

And for how bad Tracer’s cockney accent is... her VA is actually British. Likely was told to over emphasise it, the performances are not subtle for any of the cast.

The VA performance that’s bothering me most at the moment is Rampart in Apex. She’s meant to be British Asian, and the accent is spot in for it, but the lines are nowhere *near* how someone actually British would speak.

Yeah, I know OW is better than most games on this sort of thing, but in listening to some gaming pundits over the years just thought the whole thing was interesting. This was also right around the time games were being audited for models and VAs being more representative rather than having Phil Lamarr voice everything.

I ended up thinking reaper was black, but turns out he's hispanic, but we don't really get any hint of that outside of some costuming or if you've dove deep into the lore. That's partly on my bias, but yeah.

Anyone know if there's much of a community on Switch for this? I noticed it had a free weekend and thought about downloading it, but had heard mention that it was pretty dead?

I can't speak definitively on this, but considering OW2 and 1 are the same game, there'll probably be an audience, or at least will be renewed upon its release. Considering the switch's online (in)capabilities, probably swings more casual. Nintendo's rumored Switch upgrade also poses a question in that regard

[RinseWashRepeat]

So what's the community like for this on Cane and Rinse?

If any of you lot are still playing and you're on PS4 - throw me an invite - my tag's RinseWashrepeat.