OVERWRUP

Blizzard’s unlock system in Overwatch has its first victim: me. Why? Let me tell you a story.
I started playing Overwatch during the open beta. Wasn’t really hyped about it or anything, just thought I give it a go. I loved it. The basic gameplay was just great, I didn’t give a fuck about the unlock system, because it would be wiped by the end anyway and the characters were varied and fun (for the most part. Some do have issues, especially if you are on their receiving end, but that’s a story for another time.)

I was happy to preorder the game, after all, I just played what would be the final version and I deemed it worthy.

Then the game came out and to no one’s surprise, it was still fun. I didn’t give a fuck about the unlock system, because we are only talking about skins and I would surely get those that I wanted sooner rather than later.

About 15 levels later, which means 15 unlock boxes later, I still didn’t have a single skin or highlight intro I cared about. Now the game was still fun, but for me, it became less about playing a quick round of shooting bad’uns and more about unlocking another box of loot so I could finally get those sweet, sweet skins.

With every box and every shitty spray tag that was in it, my enjoyment faded. Around level 23, I only played until my first win of the day, because bonus XP and now that I’m close to level 25, I basically stopped.

I know that in theory I would still enjoy the act of shooting bad’uns. I know that in theory I would still engage in the act of shooting bad’uns, if there were never any unlocks to begin with. But I stopped playing for the sake of play and started playing for the sake of a fancy Symmetra, which never came.

There is this really interesting talk about intrinsic and extrinsic motivations from Chris Hecker, go listen to it. It explains in detail why Blizzard fucked up and why I now have to unlearn what the game teached me. The cynic in me is sure that Blizzard is completely aware of this and banks on people with addictive personalities to start spending money on loot boxes.
(And no, buying loot boxes is not a fix, neither would be any other option that includes spending extra money, you despicable, capitalism defending liberals)

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Anyway, what’s everyone playing over the weekend.

Billy: I'll be playing Overwatch and Grim Dawn with my wife over the weekend, and I'm also going to be playing some Saints Row: Gat Out Of Hell

Greywolfe: king's quest 6 is gone! replacing it with quest for glory 3. simon the sorcerer is gone! replacing that with loom [which is part of the game club - if you haven't gotten on board, you should totally join us!] - chronicle is gone! i'm currently trying "a blind legend" in it's stead and...whoo boy. overwhelming game is overwhelming :)

Cody: Gonna be continuing Loom with the Game club! Also some more Overwatch, Dota, and Rocksmith.

Scroolose: I'm also going to continue with Loom for Gameclub. And I started Stick of Truth. Aside from that I'll be installing a fuel pump in my Mom's car. And as is the way my luck goes, on the way home today my truck's harmonic balancer blew apart, so I'll be ordering and hopefully installing a new one asap. No driving until then.

George:

Loom, which is awesome.
Doom, The World Ends With You and
now, Pokemon Go!

Thomas: work, so I can afford those fucking loot boxes. And maybe take a look at how they did the F2P model in Evolve (not that I ever enjoyed the game in the first place)

Andrew: Loom, if I can swing it. My honey-do list is growing exponentially.

11 comments

  1. Avatar
    Tim Chesson says:

    This weekend started the same way the past couple of nights have ended: taking another run at Lord Gwyn and the end of Dark Souls 1. He’s brutal, but eventually I’ll fight the perfect fight and finish that game, then I’m taking a From Software break for a while.

    Since it’s a double points weekend in Battlefront, I’ll be playing the Bespin content and reaching for the new level cap. Also, I grabbed Rocket League on the X1 to play with two of my friends on there and we had a lot of fun earlier tonight. Before the weekend is out, I’m hoping we can all get into a match of Red Dead Redemption, and Halo Firefight.

    • Scrooloose
      Scrooloose says:

      Yeah I remember the final boss being pretty tough in DS1. He can close distance pretty fast as I recall and dodging was difficult. I’ve been thinking more and more about getting back into Rocket League. I just can’t stand the leavers match after match.

      • Avatar
        Tim Chesson says:

        I played Rocket League a bit on the PS4, but I have two friends who play avidly on the X1 so that’s why I picked it up there. I was hoping Sony and Microsoft would find a way to enable cross play soon, but I really would be surprised for that to ever happen. Rocket League is so much more fun when playing with friends so I went ahead and caved.

    • Avatar
      brokedownsystem says:

      He’s supposedly easy if you can parry consistently. Something I’ve never been able to do outside of Bloodborne. It’s practically a non-existent mechanic to me (though it shouldn’t be).

      If you haven’t already beaten him, I recall that the strategy is similar to Smough and Ornstein…hide behind columns and strike him when he completes his 4-5 swing attack (I forget how many times he swings exactly, the count is critical).

      • Avatar
        Tim Chesson says:

        I tried several times this weekend, no luck. I did assign myself a quest to craft a +10 Fire Zwiehander, which I’ve found does nice damage against him. And I started using that same tactic, keeping rocks and pillars between myself and him. Using a black knight shield and the Flame Stoneplate ring, I’ve managed to stay alive longer than a few seconds. Now it’s just a matter of practice. I’m no good at parrying either. I’ve tried against other enemies, but I haven’t practiced using it against Gwyn that much.

        • Avatar
          brokedownsystem says:

          I cheesed Gwyn so hard through the columns, if I recall correctly. XD I was getting a little bit Dark Souls-ed out at that point. The series has a way of getting me worn out that I kind of dgaf by the end.

          • Avatar
            Tim Chesson says:

            After playing Bloodborne for 80+ hours then directly into DS1 for 94 hours, I was seriously close to getting burned out. But I finally defeated him on Tuesday and have barely been able to stop thinking about the game since. Captured most of the battle on my Xbox DVR and watched it several times as well. It really feels like an accomplishment to have beaten Dark Souls after hearing about it’s reputation for so many years. I’ll definitely be playing DS2 and 3 before long.

          • Avatar
            brokedownsystem says:

            great job! Please post a video for this glorious battle!

            I wish I had recorded my last Bloodborne fight. It wasn’t elegant, but it was really fun…I think the error was that I wasn’t logged into the PSN at the time (this’s before they did the update where one can appear as offline) and so the ps4 hadn’t recorded anything.

          • Scrooloose
            Scrooloose says:

            Yep. Good ol’ patence and cirlcing, waiting for the right moment. That’s how it’s done. Lots of folks all want it to be done and over in moments and they don’t realize that Dark Souls isn’t about rushing forward all the time.

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