Category Archives: BluishOblivion Goes Gaming

For all of the gaming and geek culture related posts.

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Overwatch League Community Countdown: Part 2

Normally I don’t spend more than 1 day on the “Gaming” part of my blog. Due to the special event this week in the Overwatch League, it seemed appropriate to spend the week discussing things. Last night was the exciting 1v1 matches. I was excited to see that I went 5 out of 5 on my Ashe 1v1 picks. Surefour and Pine had an interesting match. As much as I like Pine, I had a feeling that Surefour was going to win again. Everything else went exactly how I thought it was, though I was worried for a bit during the Danye/Diya match, where I had pegged Diya as the winner. He did win, by the way. It was pretty intense.

The Ana 1v1 matches were not in my favor, but I still went 8/10 for the night. I really thought Neptuno would be the victor, and he wasn’t. I also had a lot of faith in Zunba, but that also didn’t pan out. Honestly, I though the Ana matches were far more entertaining, maybe it was because at some point they just started sleeping each other for the win. It was cheeky and fun and I loved every second of it.

Tonight’s adventure is the Capture the Flag matches, which I also think will be great. I’m really waiting for the Showmatch on Wednesday because I love watching the OWL talent play. I’m going to have to go for The Away Team because they have most of my favorite talent on there: Soe, Puckett, Mr. X, Emongg. It’s going to be a great match and I love watching them troll each other the entire time. I really hope that this one is live with video because it will be hilarious. Though, I will miss Reinforce carrying everyone. Both figuratively and literally.

The last thing I’d like to discuss today is about the Boston Uprising. This morning, rumors started circling that our beloved Papa Gamsu and his adorable puppers Uni has been traded off to Shanghai Dragons. The Dragons just recently lost their maintain Fearless to health issues. I can see how this would work. The off-tank Geguri is Korean, so having a Korean main tank would be a great asset to Shanghai since the language barrier wouldn’t be an issue. Both of them, already dubbed “GG” by fans, are solid hardworking players that have similar attitudes. This would be an amazing pickup for Shanghai.

At the cost of a huge hit to Boston. What does Boston get out of this deal, besides the heartbreak of losing the face of the Uprising? The morale hit would be huge and he had awesome synergy with NotE. Would we potentially get Diya in return? Diya is a solid player, though he does have the tendency to be a bit streaky. This may not be as much of an issue, considering that we mostly just need a DPS for 2 games while Colourhex is suspended. Honestly, I’m not sure that Diya and Gamsu is a fair trade. Gamsu is the face of the team. He’s Papa Gamsu. He was a leader that Uprising needed and he stepped up and lead the team. Boston will be losing more than just their main tank that we grew to love, we’d be losing the heart of the team. Axxiom is an awesome player, but he has some big shoes to fill to hold up to the standards we have for our main tank in the professional and emotional sense.

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The OWL Community Countdown

This weekend began the countdown for the Overwatch League Season 2. Of the listings, which have changed a few times since released to the public, it activated hype mode for me. My excitement of a fantasy league also happened, though I fear I’m too late and don’t have enough friends interested in OWL to do it this year. Next year, I want in on that. The most exciting events of the schedule were the Talent Showdown and the 2 1v1 matches. Surefour vs. Pine on Ashe? Yes, please.

I wanted to catch the Boston Uprising scrim, but honestly I thought it would be just like watching NFL preseason matches. You don’t watch expecting Brady, Gronk, and Edelman to play the entire time. You watch to get hyped that the football season is coming soon. So when I saw that Gamsu was Hanzo or NotE on Mercy, I got exactly what I expected. What I didn’t expect was the scathing response to the matches.

Of course they didn’t take it seriously. Last year when they offered a preseason, it was treated by the league as a real thing. They had the casters and analysts on stage. The matches took place well before the season happened. If the league didn’t take these seriously, why should the teams? Did I enjoy watching Jayne pull the analyst and commentator role? Yes. Did it look like an Overwatch League production? No, it looked like when he did one of those unofficial competitions. Great to watch, but something that you want to watch for fun.

Additionally, it took place less than 1 week before the start of the season. With the meta pretty much already set for the season’s first stage (::cough:: GOATS), teams didn’t want to give anything away with their strats. It’s one thing when the preseason start was in plenty of time for the meta to change, it’s another when the season is days away.

Then Nanzer changed it up, disappointed in the teams for not taking this more seriously. He gave us Mystery Heroes. Honestly, I watched more of the Mystery Heroes scrims than I did the “real ones”. It was fun and lighthearted and I wish they did the Mystery Heroes scrims to begin with. Consider it next year. And let’s be real, if you wanted it to be treated as a real thing maybe the league itself should have treated it like the real thing as they did last year.

The league experts and fans seemed torn on this. I think the outrage is nonsense. The argument that you can’t compare the two preseasons because “You wouldn’t see a QB play linebacker” is nonsense. You still don’t see their A game because it’s not in the team’s best interest from a strategic point of view. I’m more concerned with the new players and seeing what they are capable of. If you want your eSports league to mimic the major sports league, then that is exactly what happened this weekend.

I can’t wait until the Valentine’s Day matchup between NYXL and Uprising. It’s going to be great and I can’t wait for the Overwatch League to start back up again.

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Give Me My Zandalari

I’ve been patient. Since the Zandalari trolls have been introduced as an upcoming race in the then yet-to be expansion Battle for Azeroth, I have been dying to make one. This need only got worse when I saw the boom chicken form that resembled the Arrokoa from Warlords of Draenor, which I wished could become a playable race. Maybe it was those endless hours I’ve spent wiping in ZG. I don’t know. Whatever it was, I needed this in my life.

It was like a promise that will never seem to come. I know it will, but the wait feels like forever. I bought the Battle for Azeroth expansion as soon as pre-orders happened because then you could play the allied races. Except the ones that you really wanted. (Though to be honest I really really wanted to play a Nightborne, as I’ve mentioned so many times before.) What I wanted was the Zandalari and the Dark Iron. Then the next set of allied races came out. Nope. No Zandalari. I did get a really awesome Dark Iron though. She was awesome.

I know I could play the Zandalari on the PTR right now, but what’s the point? It will hopefully be live soon. I worry that I’ll make this race out to be cooler than it actually is, like my longtime obsession with the Pandaren. But they look so cool. Like more awesome looking Trolls. I want to look like the Princess, I think. I don’t know. We’ll see what my options are.

I don’t care if I’m in the minority of most people that I talk to about the game. I enjoy the allied races. I like having options outside of the standard choices. I especially love going through their storylines. My favorite stories have to be the Mag’har, Dark Iron, and Lightforged. In that order. I especially liked the overlap between the Mag’har and the Lightforged. I hope that the Zandalari have cool story that is worthy of their awesome race. I hope that the Kul Tiras have an interesting storyline, but I’m not holding my breath for that. It may be as lackluster as the Highmountain Tauren. I say, keep the allied races coming.

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The Fear of the Uprising

Last year, prior to the inaugural season of the Overwatch League starting, the Boston Uprising was pegged as the underdog. Being a lifelong Boston fan like most other Uprising fans, this wasn’t unfamiliar territory. We have tempered expectations until we see even a flicker of hope, which we cling onto in hopes for victory. (Like in the Super Bowl… against the Rams… Go Pats!) The preseason venture didn’t help Boston’s case: they just didn’t look like a promising team. Still, they were my team and true Boston fans are nothing if not loyal to a fault.

While the 1st Stage wasn’t overly impressive, it wasn’t entirely depressing. They were a team that could hold their own out there. You win some, you lose some. At the end of Stage 2, they had a 4 game winning streak that offered the momentum that they desperately needed. This momentum led them to a historic undefeated season, the only team in the Overwatch League to accomplish this. Despite losing a talented DPS that I won’t mention. They may have fallen in the Stage Finals against NYXL, but it was the principle: they went into the inaugural season as a 10 seed at best, but most people pegged them at the 12th spot. But there they were, putting up a fight for a Stage Championship. This was a place that some people didn’t think would happen, even their fans. They broke records and made history that stage.

Stage 4 was a rough one. They finished in 8th. The dive meta was dead thanks to Brigitte and the Uprising just couldn’t keep up, especially since their DPS team centered around an insane Tracer. (Tracer + Brigitte = Instant Tracer Doom.) Still, their solid performance in Stage 3 gave them a spot in the overall Playoffs. They fell to the Fusion, but they did still get a 3rd place finish. That was far more impressive than where the experts placed them in the rankings before the season began.

Now we’re at season 2 and back in an underdog position. It’s no mystery why. The debates about HuK and how he runs his team. The fact that we lost our star DPS Striker to Crusty and the San Francisco Shock. The fact that we no longer had Neko, an insane Zenyatta. The fact that one of our DPS players (Colourhex) is suspended for 2 games for boosting and we only have 1 other DPS signed at this point. (Which may not be all that bad, if GOATS is still the way to go and we have extra tanks and supports to fill in.) Will there be a last minute signing? Is HuK just planning to let things play out with GOATS and hope that they win those 2 matches without an extra DPS player? In HuK we trust?

The February 14th start day is fast approaching and I’m like every other Uprising fan who is looking for some big signing soon. We know it’s not going to be some big name like Mangachu, but there’s still hope right? Either way, 3rd place was a respectable place to be when everyone thought you would be all the way in the 12th spot. I’m just happy to support my team.

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Will This Patch Bring BFA Back to Life?

Tides of Vengeance Part 2 is coming out tomorrow. While a casual like me probably won’t get into a raid until LFR opens up later on (especially since Uldir was boring to me so I only did the first wing before saying “nah”), there are some exciting changes that I can’t wait for. For instance, being one step closer to the Zandalari troll that I so desperately want. This also brings me closer to earning flying in the expansion, something I desperately need to start leveling up those pesky high level alts. Yes, I’m addicted to alts. They are fun and I enjoy the grind more than I ever enjoyed raiding.

BFA does seem like a dead spot. It started off strong with an interesting story, but because of inconveniences and the coolness of new features like island expeditions wear off, it seemed to fizzle out. I liked the story, but there are so many unanswered questions. Will Sylvanas be locked away when Saurfang and the Alliance finally beat her? Will she join forces with Queen Azshara to continually plan out Azeroth’s demise? Will the resurrected Calia Menethil take rightful command over the Forsaken and Lordaeron? It could be interesting to see where these still open story lines go, but they need to make sure the game stays interesting enough for people to stick around for the answers.

This new patch, being touted as “Season 2” seems exciting but it seems like a much needed attempt to bringing this game back to life. This expansion did fizzle and while the Night Warrior new design and story was interesting enough, it was quick and over with. Then you were just left to farm Darkshore for new items that you’ll probably never get. The final question remains then: Will this patch be the one to bring Battle for Azeroth back to life?

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Every Ana is Now Bastet… and Other Things Overwatch

The Bastet Challenge was released and completed by most people already. Which means every Ana is now a Bastet Ana. Makes sense, considering this is (in my opinion) the only cool Ana skin in Overwatch. The short story itself was very well done, even if people are complaining about the fact that Soldier was announced as being a proud member of the LGBT community. I love the fact that this game represents the diversity that exists in the world. Go Overwatch! Plus, this was a backstory I felt like we needed. There is such rich lore in Overwatch that I would start reading novels or watching an Overwatch show. Or movie.

Before getting into the big news in Overwatch, a sincere congrats to Fusion Academy for yet another championship in Contenders. The games were thrilling to watch, and even more hilarious to listen to Bren’s play by play of it. You made me question some of your comps, but I can’t argue with results. Here’s to more Symm in OWL?

The first thing that should be discussed is the XL2 academy team deciding to get rid of their roster in favor of “Hometown Ladder Players”. Players like Mangachu were pushed aside in this move. Something I’m partial happy about, as a fan of the Uprising who desperately needs another flex DPS to join our team. Was this move a way to make them appear to be more of a “local team” to represent NY? Or was it a budget thing that just made them look good for PR? Though, honestly, it seem to do more to hurt their PR, not help it. Everyone is making fun of this move, rightfully so. It really seems like a silly play without a lot of reward to it. It makes them seem like they don’t care about the Path to Pro or even acquiring their academy players. With SBB and Pine, it’s easy to see why they just want to keep the solid players that they have.

The next topic of discussion is the PTR changes in Overwatch. The D.Va matrix nerf may be a nerf, but it just means that you have to get better at using it. You can no longer just hit it whenever you want. It’ll be an adjustment but it’s hard to say definitively if this is a nerf yet. I say this as a D.Va main. The Brigitte nerf seems like it would be more effective at slowing her down, something that she desperately needed. Especially if you went against 2 Brigs in Mystery heroes. Or more. It’s scary. The real talk of the town is the Reaper changes, something edgelords felt like needed to happen for a long time. They gave him a boost that may have been way more powerful than it should have been. Will they tweak it? Probably not. But all of these changes do have interesting implications as we head up to the next season of Overwatch League. Will we see more Reaper and less GOATS? I guess we’ll see.

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Overwatch Discussion: Hero Bans, “Ellie”, and More

The holidays are over, which means I’m back to the Monday gaming posts. For today, it seemed most fitting to discuss some of the latest topics in Overwatch right now. I won’t talk about GOATS. Not really, though it may come up naturally in the conversation about Hero Bans. But GOATS is a tired subject and the only GOAT I want to talk about is Brady before he fades away into retirement somewhere. So, let’s get into this.

The first topic is all about Hero Bans for Overwatch League Season 2. The supporters of this feel as though it can offer more diversity in games, making them more interesting for both players and viewers. People against them worry that bans like no Rein or D.Va will be put into place all the time, which can hurt teams. Where do I stand on it? I’m honestly indifferent to it. There has always been a meta in place. There have always been players who play whatever they want without caring about any meta. Hero Bans will only prevent certain GOATS comps, not get rid of this meta. Metas come and go. Who knows what will happen after the next balance patch? Only Jeff knows. Well, I mean I guess his entire development team knows too… but, you know. Hero Bans could be fun during All-Star Weekend, but otherwise I’m not entirely sure the league should worry about doing this just yet.

Then, there is the whole “Ellie” thing. In case you haven’t heard, Second Wind attracted a lot of attention for signing an relatively unknown female player known as “Ellie”. Seemingly as quickly as she was announced, she resigned due to “toxicity” among players. This lead to an uproar about women in games, a topic I have discussed a few times on here including my own quitting comp due to harassment over being a girl. Rumors started popping up about whether or not this was a real girl, as some things seemed odd about her. (Things such as delayed coms in chat, avoiding public attention…etc.) It turns out she wasn’t who Second Wind thought she was, allegedly a “social experiment” by another unknown player Punisher.

What was this social experiment? No one knows. But what this really does is make things look even worse for girls in gaming, not help us. There are those who think that girl gamers are loving playing the victim, that we are making excuses for our bad play. It’s real; and it sucks. All this does is make it a topic of conversation again for people to ignore and mock. It’s an awful situation to watch unfold and I doubt we’ll ever get any real answers about what went down here.

We are over a month out of Overwatch League Season 2, so let’s start looking forward to this. What are you most looking forward to? Do you think hero bans should exist in OWL? Which team has your support? Here, I’m all about Boston Uprising, with my side support of London Spitfire. (Seriously, Fury is just too amazing.)

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Does “Tides of Vengeance” Do Enough?

There may be some storyline spoilers. You have been warned.

I’m in the minority. I actually enjoy Battle for Azeroth. I like the prequel novel and the other stories that have set the stage for the new expansion, making me excited to see how the story goes. Does Sylvanas win? Will Saurfang take control of the Horde? Will Zappyboi end up as the new warchief? (Let’s be honest, they’ve done crazier things with the storyline so why not continue to fulfill everyone’s love for some random character in a cinematic who then becomes one of the heroes of the expansion?) Will we see (spoiler alert) a holy undead Calia reunited with her daughter? (Ok, so this may not have been confirmed officially yet.. but this is probably the case.) There is still so much story left to tell. This may not be my favorite expansion, but it is far from my least favorite. (Anyone who watches my stream knows just how much I complain about leveling in Warlords of Draenor.)

“Tides of Vengeance” is the first real big patch we have seen for Battle for Azeroth. It promised excitement. Some went in hesitant, since they felt so disappointed with the new expansion. Due to a busy schedule that tends to come around holiday season, I haven’t played too much of it to be a good judge. I really want to check out the new island expeditions, which I probably will check out later. But I did experience enough to say that I’m still pleased with the expansion. I’m someone who likes the grind. In fact, I suspect most people who played at a hardcore level back in Vanilla were originally hooked because of the grind. It was work. Yes, I had to grind up Zandalari Empire rep if I wanted to play that Zandalari troll I have only been talking about forever. Yes, I did that even after the gruesome grind to get my Dark Iron (which I immediately leveled up to 110.) To me, there are 1000 things to do. I have mounts I still need from this expansion and others. I have toons that still need their class mounts. I have things I can do to keep me occupied. Plus, you need that sub for WoW Classic anyways.

I liked the Battle for Darkshore. I liked the Alliance scenario with the Night Warrior transformation Tyrande went through. First of all, I applaud this expansion for finally bringing back Badass Jaina and Tyrande instead of the whinier versions in the last couple of expansions. (“Oooh my beloved. Where are youuu….?!”) I think this does exactly what people wanted: Take a group of people, who were once believed to be peaceful pacifists, commit mass genocide against them and show why everyone feared them to begin with. The Humans aren’t going to be the heroes of the Alliance in this expansion. The Little Lion King won’t lead them to victory; the vengeance in Tyrande’s and Malfurion’s hearts will. Plus, my Night Elf gets this really beautiful appearance as seen in the featured image. (Isn’t it great though?) I like the invasions because they offer a quick way to get gear for alts and people like me who haven’t spent a lot of time in raids. I like this patch.

I’m torn about what I’m most excited about as this expansion comes to a close. At first before I even saw the stunning images of the “Tides of Vengeance”, I was most excited about Calia potentially facing off against Sylvanas and becoming the new leader of the Forsaken. (Stranger things have happened.) Then I wanted to see her go the way of Garrosh, with Saurfang becoming the leader of the Horde. Now, I want to watch Tyrande as she makes the world burn in starfire while she avenges her people and her home.

Did “Tides of Vengeance” do enough? There’s still more left to go, but I’m personally very pleased with it. It might not fix all of the problems that people have had but I think it makes up for a lot of that. There’s still more patches to go and this game is always evolving. That’s why we still play it though.

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OWL Season 2: Changes and Predictions

The main point people seem to agree on? London, NYXL, and Fusion is expected to come out on top. The experts have their power rankings and information ready to go, despite the facts that teams are still not 100% locked in. Speaking of an entertainment point, they wanted to strike while the iron was still hot. From a journalistic point of view? Completely irresponsible to come up with power rankings for the first week. There are still so many factors to consider, such as what the meta is actually going to be when the Season 2 starts or the final roster moves. This will take a brief look into my thoughts on changes and predictions for the season.

The first thing to mention are the changes that have already been leaked ages ago. Teams are playing fewer games (just over half the games they played last season), the playoffs will have more breaks in between, and the All-Star Weekend will fall mid-season as it does in most other sports. Nate Nanzer said his goal was to make the Overwatch League more like the traditional sports out there, which he is accomplishing controversy and all. Controversy brings publicity and publicity brings viewers… right? (What controversy? Boosting, team dramas, talks of unions, etc.) The changes seem great from a viewer’s perspective, but I’m not sure it will reduce the stress on the players. We’ll see about that one. Also, we’ll see Reinforce again? Here’s to hoping because losing him was such a mistake.

I had an issue with the power rankings. Granted it was the first week and the Boston Uprising is up against NYXL, but they have beaten them before. Granted, we had Striker (my heart is breaking still), but that doesn’t mean it was impossible. Just improbable. We beat them twice last season and they fell far earlier in the Playoffs than they really should have. Fusion was good, but NYXL wasn’t their normal selves that game. Even a giant has a bad day, and this team is capable of loss. I say this as both an Uprising fan and someone who loves Pine and SBB. The Uprising didn’t even find themselves in the top 10 of the power rankings. Shanghai Dragons, a team that when a full 0-40, was ranked higher than they were. The fix is in. (Not really, but still.)

That’s something that I think will fuel the Uprising this year as much as it did last year. The underdog story should have died last year. But here they are again and I have confidence in this new group, especially with the budding blasé/Gamsu bromance that we fans love to watch. I’m confident in the team and the rest of their fans should be too. Also, London could very well go for the repeat and as they are my second favorite team I wouldn’t be so sad about it. It’s all too early to tell how things will shape up. We’ll have to address this closer to the season when the teams have really finalized their rosters.

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What Blizzard Does Right

When scouring the deep dark places of the internet, otherwise known as reddit (yes, I have finally grown an appreciation for this god-awful app. I like memes.), I was trying to figure out what to write about for today’s gaming article. To be fair, my reddit reading is typically limited to the r/90DayFiance, r/BostonUprising, r/wow and r/CompetitiveOverwatch subreddits though I do find myself on various other ones like r/nottheonion, r/ThisIsUs, and r/GilmoreGirls. Don’t judge. I have a variety of tastes.

Back to the original point. I read through r/CompetitveOverwatch and I considered writing another congratulations to Monte and Susie Kim while berating the culture for how she thought she couldn’t be openly happy with the public because they’d dismiss her many talents and accomplishments. Because women can’t do anything without men. But there was enough of that and they should just be allowed to be happy in private or in public. That wasn’t blog worthy for my needs. I considered talking about the new team reveals, but people seemed to have forgotten that Washington DC and Vancouver even had teams so that didn’t seem too important.

Then I traveled to the r/wow and finally something interested me enough to write about it. A debate about the state of Blizzard. How they just take something that was already there and made it better. That they weren’t innovators, they were “make-betterers”. That’s a valid point. They didn’t do anything that was absolutely original or new. They just did it better. To dismiss that is the same as simply dismissing any of Apple’s products because they aren’t innovative. They aren’t. Though the difference is that Apple products just aren’t better than the other options available. Blizzard is, at this point. Name an MMORPG that is better than WoW. Overwatch is becoming a top eSports game and is considered to be one of the top FPS games. So what if they are remastering Warcraft III? That’s something the fans wanted. Who cares if they are redoing Vanilla WoW? The fans have been begging for it. They could have charged for the game, and people probably still would have bought it. But they didn’t charge us despite the fact this could have been a decent cash cow for them.

Because at the end of the day, that’s what Blizzard does right. They value their fans. The issue is that people expect them to please everyone, and that’s not realistic at all. But they try their best to make the majority of their fans happy. Blizzcon is a testament to this. So many fans couldn’t afford the trip or get tickets in time, so they gave us a digital ticket that does just enough to make us still feel like part of this massive community of fans. Chris Metzen and Mike Morhaime proved their appreciation for fans every time that they walked on stage at Blizzcon or walked around the floor where they happily listened to their fans. Mike always gave the best and teary-eyed speeches as he opened up Blizzcon, something that will be missed. (Please don’t ever stop). I never once questioned whether or not they valued their fans, which is why I’m absolutely a Blizzard fangirl. That’s what they did right. That’s what they continue to do right.