Octopus Overlords

Eight loot boxes already. I opened one, but I promised the kids I'd save the rest until they were here.

The prices for the good skins are really high, by the way - 3,000 compared to 1,000 for a regular Legendary.

I like several of the skins a lot (Winston, Zenyatta, Reaper, Torbjorn), but no enough to pay those credits. Hopefully I'll get a few of them in loot boxes. I've received three so far tonight and they didn't contain anything from the even except for a few sprays.

BTW - I played that Mei snowball event and can't stand it. I know I can get a loot box for winning one match, but I don't think I'll ever play it again. That loot box will remain unclaimed.

In my last match we were taking the final point at Hanamura in a random hero game. I was playing Roadhog (whom I hate) and killed two members of their team on the point when our Zarya shot a graviton that sucked in the remaining three enemies. My ultimate came unlocked at the same time and I whole hogged the rest of the team. That was the first time I've had a team kill because of a total synergy between ultimates. It was awesome.

I played one Snowball match. My team won, so I got my box, but I won't be going back. It was awful.

I caved and went back for a snowball fight. We won and I didn't kill a single person. I got three more loot boxes tonight and the only skin I got was Sombra's. It's a good skin, but I just don't like playing Sombra.

McNutt wrote:I caved and went back for a snowball fight. We won and I didn't kill a single person. I got three more loot boxes tonight and the only skin I got was Sombra's. It's a good skin, but I just don't like playing Sombra.

Lost a few games of snowball. Want that box. But man it is painful.

If I die any more times from Junkrat's dying grenades I'm going to delete the game. I should damn well know by now that it's going to happen, so don't run over him as Tracer.

I caved and bought a few loot boxes the other day. It makes no sense considering I purchased the skins I wanted the most, but the allure of opening boxes is strong. It's silly and irrational, but I regret nothing. With the boxes I bought and the boxes I've won through leveling and arcade mode I've been able to acquire all the Christmas skins except for McCree and Roadhog (both of which I'm neutral on) and Winston, which I really want.

I have the much maligned Mei Christmas skin and equipped it just because if I don't use it now I'll never use it. The Santa Torbjorn skin might stay on long after Christmas just because I like the idea of Santa blasting people in the face with a shotgun. I'll never use the Tracer skin. I used the Zenyatta skin once and, while it's well done, it's kind of creepy and it's going back in the closet.

Blackhawk wrote:Eight loot boxes already. I opened one, but I promised the kids I'd save the rest until they were here.

I ended up with 14 by the time the kids got here. We opened them all, taking turns. I ended up with a variety of sprays and voice lines, some poses, emotes, and intros. I finally got a new Lucio intro (whom I play a lot.) I ended up with the holiday skins for:

~Zenyatta (I'll wear it for the holiday, but yeah - it is creepy. I'm going back to the Djinn or Buddhabot after New Year's.)

~Pharah (I like it quite a bit, and it is ice rather than Christmas, so it will stay in rotation.)

~Lucio (I'll use it for the holidays, but will likely retire it after, as it is pretty specifically Christmas themed)

~Zarya (Not bad, it will go in the rotation)

I do want to get my hands on Winston's and Torbjorn's.

I just realized I didn't get Lucio's or Pharah's. I forgot they had new outfits.

Last night I opened a loot box that had three epics and a legendary. I've never had anything that big before.

Legendary
McCree's Riverboat Gambler skin - one of the coolest skins in the game. Too bad I don't play McCree.

Epic
Pharah Christmas skin
Bastion emote
Epic coin pile

Rock on

Nice! I just found the Roadhog islander skin in a box yesterday.

The great thing about Blizzard's design is that the more you unlock, the more currency you get, meaning that you don't have to earn hundreds of boxes looking for that one rare skin you really want. If you get to that point, you can just buy it with currency.

I have about 2,800 saved up right now. I'm trying to decide if I want to spend the 3,000 on Winston's yeti skin. That's a lot of coin. The problem is I pretty much have every skin that I want right now. So even though I'll soon have enough to buy three different legendary skins I can't think of three I would rather use than the ones I'm currently using. Maybe I'll buy a bunch of highlight intros.

Speaking of that, last night I got PoTG as Zenyatta, which I rarely get. We were defending a big push on the last point at Anubis and I used my ultimate to neutralize a Pharah ult and then killed the charging Reinhardt. I only got one kill, but the ult really saved a lot of teammates. I didn't realize that the amount of healing done was ever factored into PoTG, but it was nice for a healer to be recognized.

Wait until the event is over. The holiday skins have been dropping fast, and it would suck to drop 3,000 and then get it on the next box. If it doesn't pop, get it on the last day.

The PotG can factor in a lot of stuff that isn't always obvious. If the Pharah had just activated her ult, that could trigger PotG. If the charging Rein had 'caught' a player, then killing him could activate PotG (as a 'life saver'.)

Hey, make sure you log in today. It looks like everyone gets five free loot boxes as a gift. I pulled two legendaries out of them that I actually like - Santaclad for Torbjorn and Ifrit for Zenyatta.

I'm out of town for a few more days. Hopefully they are waiting when I log in next weekend.

I had 6 winter boxes waiting for me today, and I hadn't played in weeks. Hopefully they're still there for you when you get back.

I logged on last night and had 5 boxes ready to open. U S A!

I had two legendary drops. One was a duplicate skin and one was a coin chest.

I've been enjoying Reinhardt a hell of a lot lately. When he's on, he's the most fun character to me by a long shot. I love setting up bad guys for a hammer beatdown. That is the most satisfying kill in the game. I still have a lot to learn though. There's something in my DNA that makes me want to kill turrets and with D.Va I just fly up there and blow them up. With Reinhardt I tried to charge a turret yesterday and discovered they don't move or explode when charged. I think it did some damage to it because I was able to kill it with my axe.

Pharah is my current favorite. Just hovering over the battle chain firing rockets. It's perfect for me. Doesn't require alot of skill, but can be a game changer.

Still lots of Junkrat on defense, Pharah when she's suitable, Lucio for healing, and D.Va when I need to tank. I do fiddle more with the other characters than I used to, and can play most of them competently (except Zarya - I can never get her to click.) I keep trying to get away from D.Va, but always end up pulling her out when the team is getting stomped.

The problem I'm experiencing now is feeling pressure to only pick certain characters. Lately I've been playing mostly Reinhardt and Lucio. I'll join a team and if we don't have one or both of those guys I feel I need to pick one even though I really want to play Mei or Tracer. My teams have much better success when I pick Reinhardt or Lucio to fill an obvious hole. But sometimes I just want to light people up as Tracer or shut everybody down as Mei. I think I'm going to start playing No Limits in arcade mode now just so I don't feel guilty. I did that today and had a blast as Tracer. I didn't die once and we won 2/2.

Last night I was playing Gibraltar as Lucio and pushed a Sombra with my soundwave. It was on the path right at the beginning where it curves to go down. She flew about 50 feet and sailed off the cliff. It was beautiful. I try it again against a Reaper in the exact same spot and he only moved back about 5 feet. I have no idea why the soundwave push seems to be wildly inconsistent. I did chase down a D.Va and finish her off. As soon as she was popping out I did a soundwave and pushed both her and her mech off the cliff. Damn that's a satisfying way to kill someone.

The No Limits experiment did not go well. On most of my games people try to steer the entire team into picking the same character. "Hey, McNutt, we're all playing Symmetra. Please switch."

The next game I jumped in I immediately picked Winston. This was taken as the signal to all play Winston.

No thanks.

No Limits is for when you need a laugh. It isn't for a thought out approach. If you take it as an occasional lark, then it can be fun, the kind of game you can lose while laughing.

I got this for Christmas and played exactly one match. No idea why I have not played it more. I'm pretty good at and loveTF2, I should be all over this. Granted I got a ton of new games and am hellbent on finishing up a RPG for a change so maybe it's just lack of gametime. It 'seems' very intimating even though I should know better. Should I stop worrying about class paralysis and just dive in and start shooting? Any quick and dirty newb tips?

morlac wrote:I got this for Christmas and played exactly one match. No idea why I have not played it more. I'm pretty good at and loveTF2, I should be all over this. Granted I got a ton of new games and am hellbent on finishing up a RPG for a change so maybe it's just lack of gametime. It 'seems' very intimating even though I should know better. Should I stop worrying about class paralysis and just dive in and start shooting? Any quick and dirty newb tips?

Pick two or three characters from different categories that look fun, try them out in the practice range (in training mode), and just play. It is very objective based. There is no real 'kill count' or 'KDR' board to worry about. What really matters is completing the objective as a team. Stick together, work together, and have fun.

Blackhawk wrote: Pick two or three characters from different categories that look fun, try them out in the practice range (in training mode), and just play. It is very objective based. There is no real 'kill count' or 'KDR' board to worry about. What really matters is completing the objective as a team. Stick together, work together, and have fun.

That is why I know i will love this. Working from home today, I should squeeze in a few games....don't tell the boss.

I just got the game for Christmas, got around to installing it just recently and I love it so far. Sombra has to be one of my favorites.

"Everything can be hacked.... and everyone."

Sombra is a character I think I would really like if I spent time playing her. I've played against good Sombra's and they have rocked me. Especially when I play as Tracer, who should always win a head-to-head battle with Sombra. Instead the Sombra will see me, hack me, then engage. By the time I see what's going on I try to blink and can't. This throws my game off enough that Sombra wins.

Zarya is another I want to get better at. She can be a total monster, just not in my hands at the moment.

Last night I played the new capture the flag arcade game and let's just say thank God I finally won a match so I could claim my loot box and never play that again. It's not a terrible format, I just really don't like it.

So far I've received the new skins for Mercy, Junkrat and Reinhardt. I don't like the Mercy skin enough to change from the Valkyrie skin. The Junkrat skin is nice and better than any of his legendary skins, which I don't like at all, so I'm using that one. The new Reinhardt skin looks pretty cool and I'm using it for now.

I tried playing against bots the other day and was surprised that my team was full of players at level 200 and above. I don't know if you've played bots, but it's really hard to die and they never get to the first checkpoint on any level. It was fun for a bit because I finally killed four people with a Tracer bomb. That NEVER happens against real players. But the fun got old pretty quickly.

I've been playing no limits a bit and have found that multiple Symetras on a team can ruin your day. She is a VERY powerful hero. I played her in a regular game and that shield generator can be a game changer.

I still suck at Zarya.

I've finally put some work into Zarya and I freakin' love her. When you hear her say "Maximum charge" people are going to die. I just ran at a Bastion that plopped down in front of the point, shielded myself while that dumbass brought me to full charge and cut through him like butter. Bring it, baby!

And face it, hearing your teammate say "Fire at will" makes you smile, doesn't it?

I played my first game as Mercy last night. We were defending on Volskaya and I had picked Tracer. Our only healer was Lucio and we had a Soldier and Pharah already so I switched to Mercy just to give it a shot. I died when I walked into a Reinhardt charge and that was the only death our team suffered the entire game. One death. They were never able to take the first point and it was glorious. Alternating between healing and damage boost was nice and it was a lot more fun (and hectic) than I had imagined. Of course things can only go downhill now, but for the first time I'm excited to play Mercy tonight.

My top five heroes to play:
Zarya
Tracer
Mei
Lucio
Zenyatta

Too early to tell on Mercy and Reinhardt is peeking into the top 5.

.
... How to end your professional esports career

Most pros’ careers end in injury, deteriorating mechanical skill, or just when their interest in competing runs dry. Toronto Esports’ Matt “Dellor” Vaughn opted for a different end: A very long, very public stream of racial slurs during an Overwatch game.

Vaughn, a 28-year-old adult, was playing a ranked match in Overwatch. His opponent’s Widowmaker was making a few too many accurate shots, and Vaugn took umbrage. His response was to yell the N-word into his microphone using the game’s voice chat system, as the rest of his team listened on.

Below is the video (via PVP Live), though be warned, he really goes on for a while, literally repeating the N-word for just shy of 30 seconds with a few adjectives near the end, and the audio can get a bit loud.

YouTube <-- only click if you need help pronouncing the subject word (NSFW)

What Vaughn seemingly didn’t realize was that he was streaming to his Twitch followers, one of which was quick to capture and upload the rant in its entirety. Toronto Esports responded by releasing Vaughn:

“Toronto Esports is an organization built on inclusivity, and we have always had a zero- tolerance policy for any forms of discrimination,” said President Ryan Pallett. “Immediately upon learning of the incident, the player was interviewed, admitted to the offence, and was notified that his contract with the organization was being terminated”

In classic esports fashion, Vaughn gave his version of events on TwitLonger, where he both expressed remorse—“I fucked up and deserve to be dropped from Toronto Esports”—while also seeming to miss the point. His laundry list of excuses for why he repeatedly said the N-word—he was tired, his internet was lagging, the Widowmaker was cheating, he was angry—leads to his point: He is not racist, just upset, and so he said the most offensive thing that came into his mind.

His Twitch channel has already been shut down for terms of service violations. (When reached for comment, a spokesperson for Twitch stated they do not comment on TOS violations.)

from: kotaku.com

That was really weird. I'm not sure what they guy was thinking when he started that. It reminded me of Michael Richards yelling at that heckler and you could see him suddenly realize what he had done.

Anyone else notice the Halloween cultist skin for Zenyata? One day this skin will be mine, and I love playing Zenyata....

Anybody still playing this? I had gone on a kick where I played a lot of crazy custom games, but have gone back to playing mostly Quick Play. I REALLY want to get better at Winston. The other day I had a game where we defended King's Row and I never died as Winston with 24 kills. I even got PoTG which I rarely get as him. Damn that was fun.

I've also started to enjoy Moira. I haven't figured her out at all though and need a lot of practice. I think one of the keys is to figure out spots to bounce her orbs to maximize the ricochet potential.

This game has impressed me with its lasting appeal. I like the game just as much now as I did a year ago.

I play every few weeks and max out loot boxes, then come back later. It's a testament to Blizzard that my 8 year old can play without being scared.

I play for a few days every few weeks, then wander off. That's actually pretty good for a multiplayer shooter, which I usually abandon after a couple of months.

I am loving Moira. Last night I had a personal best 38 kills on a single map (Junkertown) with Moira of all people. She's not the best healer and I've had a few games where I was the only healer and had teammates requesting healing and I was all out of juice. It's weird being the healer and not being able to heal. However, if you combine her with any other healer it can be a devastating combo.

My favorite heroes change periodically. Now I seem to play almost exclusively, Moira, Winston or Reinhardt. The good thing about them is that I can always pick one and it won't hurt the team comp as they are welcome in any map/team comp.

Moira is pretty fun. Throwing her ball of darkness/healing into a group is pretty sweet especially when you can get it to bounce around in a small space.

I am still having a great time with Reaper, D.Va, Reinhardt and Zenyata. I'm able to play a pretty well as Zenya or Sombra, too. My 8 year old enjoys playing alongside me.

What kind of character does an 8yo like to play?