Have you ever felt the urge to finish a match in Overwatch and chat with another team? Well, if you do, there's a good chance you'll yell at them or generally say something hurtful. Now Blizzard wants to encourage us to be civil, but in a different way than we expected.
In a new Director's Take blog post, game director Alec Dawson outlines what we can expect from the new and improved Season 2 of Overwatch. In it, he said the developers will only test full lobby voice chat after the match ends. This means the two teams can properly talk to each other for a while, hopefully encouraging a bit more humanity and civility.
Next season, you'll be able to talk to your Overwatch opponents via voice chat, but only briefly.
“Season 2 has a bonus experimental addition: you will have the option to participate in lobby voice chat (i.e. with opposing teams) during the Play of the Game reveal,” the blog post reads. “This is entirely optional and we encourage everyone to remember that voice chat is monitored for safety.”
Well, that's one way of telling us to behave ourselves. Now that the match is over, it is clear that the usual rules still apply. In fact, since this is an experimental feature, you can expect the moderation team to listen and check everyone's actions.
“We want Overwatch to feel alive, and sometimes there can be a deeper connection through voice than through text,” explains Dawson. “It creates something more powerful when you actually hear ‘good game’ from someone who has given you a real challenge, rather than just saying ‘gg’ in chat. Fun, light banter and a real connection are the best ways for us to celebrate a match.”
In fact, many players are responsible and will use text chat to quickly drop a gg or even a ggwp if we're feeling extra friendly. Anyone who tries to delete something like gg ez will get hit by an auto-tune tool that will make them say stupid things. But people will find ways around this and instead use the post-game window to say they carried it or target someone on the other team.
I think the logic is that we need to hear someone's voice, and if we know they can hear us, it might change the way we talk to them. If you're getting along well with your partner, it may be easier to compliment them on how they played over voice chat rather than typing something out. Voice chat essentially breaks the ice a bit.
The obvious concern here is that voice chat can already be quite detrimental during the match itself. Of course, you're just there talking to your team, and as you get into the thick of it, tensions will run high. However, tensions are still quite high immediately after the game. Especially if you lose. I think only time will tell if players can be trusted with this.
- released
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May 24, 2016
- ESRB
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T for Teen: Blood, tobacco use, violence (online interaction not rated)
- engine
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ownership
- multiplayer
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online multiplayer
- cross platform play
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ps5, xbox, pc
- cross save
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yes
