For the people who "gave up on lore"

General Discussion
1

I’m a bit confused, I’ve read many people’s posts about giving up on the lore because of Hammond or because of the lack of lore, and before I share my opinion I would like to point out I agree regarding the lack of lore.*

However, what perplexes me is the expectation of the players, especially the ones who claim they have bought the game for the lore/story/plot.

Overwatch is an Online-Only First-Person-Shooter, with that in mind I question your expectations about a fleshed out story? At no point was I personally fooled that this game would be focused on storytelling, what made you think it would?

Literally the only way they can convey more than a voice line or a paragraph about the story is through cinematics and comics, is that not evidence enough that this game is simply not built for storytelling?

Overwatch has no singleplayer, it’s built for PvP or Co-op PvE, there are no Quests, NPCs and any meaningful way to tell a fleshed out story.

One of my favorite stories in the game ( Genji & Hanzo ) is literally a paragraph of plot, yes, plot, because it lacks the fundamentals of a finished work such as dialogue, we are still speculating about the reason for Hanzo to go through with killing him.

Was it an accident? Was it an unfair strike in Genji’s back as hinted by the Hanamura map? Was Hanzo angry at Genji for abandoning him in his hour of need and committed a crime of passion? Was he threatened in anyway by the other Shimadas?

Without an answer to questions such as these it is hard for the fans to know about Hanzo’s motivation. True, there are people who would rather have a story with free room for theories and so on, however when it comes to characters’ motivation I think you shouldn’t approach it in such a way because it will turn a character into a blank slate, a simple plot device.

Last but not least, a hamster as a hero is ridiculous, but what’s more ridiculous is how people claim Overwatch is based on “science” which is demonstrably not true.

And we come back to the expectations again, so we have a game with a cowboy in the future, a guy that shoots dragons from arrows ( while using a bow in the future ), a dude that can punch so hard he can launch himself in the air, a dude in black who can turn into smoke, a purple lady and a thicc scientist who made a freeze gun capable of creating gigantic pillars of ice from thin air, created from a hair dryer.

How does any of the above tell a person “Take the story and the game seriously, this is realistic, dark and gritty. A hamster in a wrecking ball is out of place here”.

How does any of the above tell a person “This is based on science”?

So yeah, that confuses me.

12 Likes
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Hammond is an episode of lets make a Cool design throw an hamster on it because why not, recycle a character trope of another character removing anything special about them

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I did not deny that. Hammond fits into the tone and mood of a futuristic society experimenting with animals. Winston already adds to this tone and mood.

And how is a hamster not fit for experimenting? Rabbits, hamsters, rats and so on are being experimented on even today, admittedly for different reasons.

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Every hero in Overwatch is a trope.

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the recyled the backstories of majority of heroes, the I though they died they didn’t has shown up atleast 4 times

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How? They are both genetically engineered animals, one of them just happens to be small and pudgy, while being unable to talk.

Besides it’s not like it’s the first time done in fiction, we have Rocket Raccoon, Teemo and many other examples of the tiny furry creature archetype.

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as i said it in another post, if you accept a silly hamster that his backstory is trash to introduced as a TANK in fps game that does have dark and deep characters like reaper and widowmaker then ok. but don’t ask then to pay attention to lore or story of ow. because you just fill heroes with anything even ridiculous no-sense meme characters. its fine now to add talon cockroaches and LesMuertos lizards to the game… and that’s it you destroyed the lore (not the game btw, as hard fanboys doesn’t seem to understand the difference).
and why they made a hamster is a TANK, if they deeply want to add such silly memes to the game… so why not make him support may be, having a job that suits ppl imagination. but when you make a cute hamster a tank that blows up the whole story integrity. so now, tough junkers have a cute hamster as their CHAMPION!.
this turning the story into cartoonish loony toons silly style

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How can we give up on lore if there never was any lore to begin with?

Now with the whole Hammond “Hamsterveil” situation, yeah it seems just a touch absurd. They pulled a Last Jedi on us and completely subverted our expectations. But the gameplay seems interesting enough, so I’ll give it a break.

Thing is, this game relies on the uniqueness and diversity of its cast. Without it, we’d just have yet another run of the mill FPS. The characters are what the game revolves around, and this is what many fans want to know more about (why are they this way, what are their motivations, etc.).

This game already has a severe lack of content (permanent or not locked behind a temporary RNG paywall), so people are gonna be grasping at anything they can get their hands on. And because the lore is virtually non-existent (somehow characters from release have less lore now), yeah, people are going to be a bit pissed. This game was crafted with unique heroes and backstories in mind to form a complete package. If the focus was shifted away from the heroes, then yeah, lore could be put on hold I suppose. But look at the big budget, movie-esque cinematic shorts, and tell me at least one point lore wasn’t a big part of the game.

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Dark and deep characters like Reaper and Widowmaker?

Reaper is literally a parody of bad guys, he is a textbook cartoonish, mustache-twirling villain. He is not dark, nor serious.

Widowmaker, yeah, I’d admit you have a point here, brainwashing soldiers is a pretty heavy theme, but the story here encompasses more than Widow and Reaper, not all 28 heroes need to be brainwashed or comically evil you know.

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reaper is cartoonish!, I don’t get it, but if reaper is cartoonish, you wont put him with spongebob though?!

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Well, it seems to me people cannot understand writing at a basic level. The story in Overwatch encompasses individual heroes from all across the Earth ( and Moon ) so I fail to see how one would think all of the heroes must share tone.

I personally would see it as detrimental if everyone was dark, gritty and brooding.

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The lore team is incompetent so it doesn’t matter

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Maybe not in Spongebob specifically, but the brooding part of his character is often used in comedies to bounce off of other characters.

Just look at the anniversary Baking a Cake stop-motion video, Reaper is serious, angry and brooding in it, but because Tracer exploits that we laugh at him, he can be funny in the right context.

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no, I understand writing and storytelling… I studied them also… you just cant put a chicken as lord Sauron in lotr, just because middle earth has unrealistic fantasy approach. theres a limit between action fantasy and comic cartoonish fantasy.

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its a cute genetically modified genius hamster in a battle ball mech.

they are doing just fine.

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Yes they do, demonstrably so. Superman inherently has a different tone than Batman, both due to character traits and story.

If the character is upbeat and wacky like Tracer, that is a tone.

If the character is grim and brooding like Reaper, that is a tone, opposite to Tracer.

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The stream of Cinematics in the game’s early life ycle the comics coming out on a bi-weekly basis for the first month or two of the game and the fact it’s blizzard making this game the same people who threw us the detailed and intricate lore of the Warcraft and Diablo franchises
I wanted to see what they’d do with earth but clearly blizz didn’t transfer any of their writers or something

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Diablo 3 doesn’t have intricate lore. World of Warcraft has intricate lore and tons of it, because it’s an MMO, it’s built for storytelling.

Overwatch is not meant for storytelling, did you expect them to produce those cinematics on a constant basis? Even with them, the story is barely there.

Like I said in the original post, nothing about Overwatch as a game hints that it would contain a lot of or intricate lore.

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But Overwatch at it’s core is more so a series of short stories and the tone of those stories is dependant on teh character, not unlike say a Justice League or avengers style story where you’d get different tones in the same show if an episode focuses more on batman then superman

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TF2 has alot of lore and it’s basically overwatch