Henroid

Overwatch - That time Blizzard made a non-Diablocraft game.

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I feel so put off by everything Blizzard makes nowadays. It's like their endless iteration and playtesting strips the games of their soul and make them resemble cynical iOS games more than games you remember for more than just their addictiveness. I'm sure it'll be fun and people will play it, but it'll probably feel like something from a fun factory. Or maybe I just haven't gotten over Diablo III.

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[The SHOUTCAST video]

 

Holy hell, it's been announced for a day and they already have a match with commentary? What's up, eSports?

 

Watching those character videos made me think that with only four skills for each character, they've clearly tried to make the game as accessible as possible for new people to jump in. They must be bringing this to consoles.

 

 

Ha ha ha, "only" four skills per character, I dunno, that still seems like anyone who's not super dedicated would be able to get a really solid handle on one, maybe two chars.

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…I feel they lean too heavily on stereotypes.…

 

Agreed. Either fix the other characters or give the "Tracer" a top hat, monacle, cup of tea, and an aggressive sense of imperialistic self-importance.

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And I'm also stoked about DOTA style abilities because it'll be the first FPS since Counter-Strike to play around with a match based persistence system.

Enemy Territory had one, it was a fun game too. The other Splash Damage games probably do too, but I haven't played them.

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Just as Hermie said it´s nice that they included a bit of diversity in the game, but I actually groaned when Hanzo started speaking. I actually saw the cinematic before I knew there was a game attached so I got pretty excited thinking that Blizzard was making a kid´s movie. Alas...

 

I think the character design is ok. It´s not breath taking, but it´s pretty. I know this is likely to be one of the least interesting topics but I can´t help but wonder what the UI/menu systems will look like. It´s got to be dripping with that Blizzard polish. I doubt I´ll play it for a multitude of reasons but it´ll probably do really well just due to the fact it has Blizzard written on it. 

 

Also, I wonder if that same person from last week´s cast thinks that the fact it´s called Overwatch will have an effect on Firewatch. 

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I actually saw the cinematic before I knew there was a game attached so I got pretty excited thinking that Blizzard was making a kid´s movie. Alas...

People have been waiting for Blizzard to make a film for years - lord know the cinematic team are the only ones at Blizzard who know how storytelling works anymore. The cinematics team seem disinclined to make a film, though.

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The trailer was very impressive, and I haven't seen any actual gameplay videos, but I have a question about the character animation in the trailer. Is there a school where people go an learn how to animate CG kids? Every little expression and movement of that little rascal felt pulled from somewhere, but I can't place it. Is there a repository of "excited kid shoots finger pistols" animations somewhere, or a popular how-to series of instructional videos? It's driving me insane; I feel like I've seen this exact stuff somewhere else before, like some sort of CGI character animation deja vu.

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I think the 2013 version of Maya has a Hollywood Animated Acting plug in so you can just turn on different expressions easily.

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I'm reasonably keen for this but I'd go for an animated tv show of it far more readily.

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Animation is pretty incestuous. For western animation, there are pretty much only three successful feature length animation studios today: Pixar, DreamWorks, and Blue Sky. Of those three, two are based out of California, which is true of a lot of VFX and animation studios who work on other shorter length and mixed media projects projects like Blur. A good portion of the best animation schools are also based out of California like CalArts, USC, and CMU, while top tier animation schools which aren't from California, like Sheridan, are heavily staffed by former animators from the big three.

 

A lot of this intermingling dates back to the golden age of animation and Disney's Nine Old Men which are still some of the strongest influences in animation today. Studios like Warner Bros. Cartoons and MGM were started by former Disney animators and when those studios started closing through the 50s and 60s, Disney remained as one of the last places that trained in full animation. A decade later, when animators like Brad Bird and John Lasseter were educated, there were only a handful of young animators being trained and educated in the art worldwide.

 

Famously, many of today's most prominent animators are from a group of friends who all learned animation together in room A113 at CalArts in the 1970s. John Lasseter, Tim Burton, Brad Bird, Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter, Glen Keane, Henry Selick, Genndy Tartakovsky, Rob Minkoff, John Musker, Brenda Chapman, and Kirk Wise all learned animation together. Even today, when you look at all english animated features made in the past two decades, the overwhelming majority were directed by CalArts graduates  many from that same 1970s group.

 

So when you look at Blizzard, which is yet another studio based out of California, it's not particularly surprising that their work shows a great deal of commonality with other animated works.

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Goggles on, butt embiggened. I guess female characters are hard to animate after all.

 

oomyzMS.jpg

 

 

edit: top of new page, i'll put big image in spoiler tags.

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The little kid from the trailer was basically Dash from The Incredibles: from his character to the way he moves. I actually wasn't terribly impressed by the cinematic, it's just another dime a dozen 'Hollywood 3D animated film' thing without anything going on to set it apart. But then I've grown very weary of most animated features nowadays. Pixar hasn't enthused me for years, Dreamworks keeps churning out animal movies, Disney does some things which I haven't seen but are apparently good... that's why I was so excited for The Boxtrolls, at least there's nothing like it.

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Thanks, singlespace, that explains my reaction to the animation.

 

Have they said anything about whether the 12 announced characters is all there'll be, or could they possibly be going for a DOTA thing?

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No problem. I think they said that there would be more characters at some point, but didn't really elabourate. Also, no information on how the game will be priced, whether it'll just be one price tag, or free with purchasable aesthetics, or per a character, etc.

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There's definitely more characters. Here's one of the images released, that has Mecha John Marsten, Raiden From Metal Gear Rising, and Enemy From Borderlands:

 

overwatch_lineup_by_arnistotle-d85rxf2.j

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And yet no women who aren't a Size 1. Katana Robot looks cool though.

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After watching those character videos, I think I've decided I like almost everything about this. It looks fun with loads of varied play styles, even completely different traversal mechanics (flying, rocket jumping, AssCreed wall-climbing) and I actually really like the art style now. I'm not sure I agree that it's at all generic. It's got loads of nice little touches. Most of the characters look great.

 

Only things I definitely don't like is the voice acting and the fact that they have four female characters that almost look identical in body build. I wouldn't *mind* Widowmaker if the other females didn't essentially look exactly the same body type-wise..

 

Look at this guy and that FISH behind him. Love it!

 

fxC8wcL.png

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I played this game about 5 times at Blizzcon.  It's very very fun...I think the cap on 6 players per team is smart and differentiates the game from TF2 in a very good way.  Not sure what different modes will be out at release but 6v6 + the map design kept the game feel over the top like TF2 but also made it feel like teamwork actually mattered in a competitive sense.  There's no doubt that people will try to make this an esports game when the beta hits - long term viability is hard to predict.

 

Another striking aspect about the game is that you choose characters to play, not classes.  You could technically classify at least 3 characters as "engineer like" but they all have a different spin on their abilities that feels super unique.  The synergy between all the characters is well thought out and it's easy to see how skillsets all fit together to achieve certain strategies.

 

The game looks AMAZING when you are playing it, there are really small details in each map and in the character animations that really bring the world to life as you inhabit it.  For those of you who don't know already - this game is pretty much a repurposed version of their MMO Titan, and it's clear that years of work has gone into developing the assets of the game.

 

This game is a blast to play - it definitely has DNA from TF2 but the multiplayer design of the game shapes it into a competitive experience to really rewards teamwork and strategy, and it seems like the maps were balanced for 6v6 sessions so I hope it stays that way at least for the beta.  I don't doubt it'll be a new staple multiplayer game for a lot of people. 

 

The archer is definitely the most boring character in both design and gameplay imo, all my friends left feedback asking he be changed.  

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I don't like the implication that TF2's design doesn't reward teamwork or strategy. Twice you said "like TF2 but also makes teamwork matter"! Maybe you didn't mean to do that, I don't know.

 

As with any game, it just depends on what level you're playing at!

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TF2 is also 6v6

 

I'm pretty sure TF2 went up to at least 8v8 without server modifications.

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It's currently 12v12 as default, and players drop in and out at random unless you specifically organise with people. So, to be fair, the chaotic nature of public servers makes it hard to really implement teamwork. I don't think the game design beyond that server system and team size is at fault though, competitive TF2 is super team focused.

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Default servers are 12v12. Server mods go up to 16v16. 6v6 was the competitive scene. There was also 9v9 highlander competitive scene, one of each class, but I don't think it was ever as big as the 6v6 scene.

 

...Not that any TF2 competitive scene was ever anything worth watching.

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I thought the competitive scene for TF2 was really fun for a while, though I personally haven't played the game in years. I still watch some ESEA pugs every now and then though. Did Valve say what their intended number of players was when designing the game? I know you can play with more but just based on the maps I always felt like it was intended to be 6v6 in the same way that Counter Strike is meant to be 5v5, but that could just be the result of the community leaning towards maps that play best as 6v6 giving me a biased impression.

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