lack of lore It’s a huge letdown for sure. The only reason overwatch is still alive is cause the fans. If this game had come out in the 90’s like warcraft, starcraft, and diablo it would have been a huge flop. Luckily we live in the internet age and we can see the fan works of millions of people in short stories via fan fiction, artwork, fan made movies, and "cough* lewds.
WE are keeping the overwatch universe alive, not Blizzard. This game might get patches but besides a new hero now then or a map we dont get much “new” content. In the older days patches were still a thing for bug fixes like on starcraft 1, but they had “expansion packs” which piled on new content that keep the games going for a long time. Diablo 2 would not have lasted nearl as long without the “lord of destruction” expansion which added like 200% more content yet only had one more “act” to add on campaign. Same with starcraft and warcraft. They dropped in huge amounts of content.
World of warcraft i hardly played but they do SO MUCH for it the lore got it’s own movies in theaters… though a huge flop cause it came 10 years too late and no one really cares, which is the state that overwatch is headed in…
They have this amzing world they made and they are doing nothing. If the retribution and uprising modes taught me anything its that this game should not have been PvP focused. It needs a campaign badly. It’s going through the crux titanfall went through. They had no campaign but good gameplay but no one cared about the lore and once the PvP flair died they left, and when titanfall 2 came out almost no one even knew it was released and the campaign was so well made i shed some tears at the end.
This game needs a story mode badly or at least some sort of adventure game spin off before it dies completely. After more then 2 years the luster is all but gone and the only thing that keeps me coming back is like 2 - 3 arcades modes that pop in randomly.
If they dont do something soon, by the time Overwatch 2 comes out people really wont give a damn. Hell i’d gladly pay another $40 for an “expansion pack” that focused on PvE just to expand the lore with 0 PvP content added on.
The other games at least got novels (which i loved the starcraft and diablo novels, almost more then games i’d say) and this game seriously needs a 3 part lore expanding novel set if not game content. Hopefully thats why they hired this new writer last week.
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At this point in time you’re worried about lore? 
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anecdotal evidence but I don’t know anyone who plays overwatch for its lore.
it’s a fun addition for hardcore fans, that’s all.
a good game without lore will always be more successful than a bad game with good lore (see call of duty)
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Your example would be good IF you pointed out a speciifc branch of CoD
Modern Warefare had devote fans for over a decade because of lore, the PvP kept things fun for awhile. But now you take Ghost for example, the lore was crap and the PvP.
Good PvP is fine but what if you want to not try and vs other players?
In halo you have co-op campaigns or firefight, Gears of war you have co-op and another mode slipping my mind, almost every successful franchise has some sort of lore. Luckily for blizzard were filling in the blanks, but i dont feel like im playing “heroes” anymore. Soldier and Reaper hate eachother yet were playing them together like they are best buds. The voiceline interactions have lost almost all their meaning.
Warcraft 2 had no “hero” units besides differnet colored units with higher hp in certain missions, but those heroes had a huge impact on the community that warcraft 3 feature them as army choice units in pvp and the custom modes made by fans birthed the MOBA genre entirely. Lore goes well for games and like i used in my examples, even if it’s not a new game or expansion, a couple novels goes a long way. I loved reading the books because when i played the games I felt i knew what was going on in the world now and “why” i was a going to this remote town in tristram to fight monsters for a bunch of backwoods farmers oppressed by a “mad” king.
Alot of diablo is built entirely on lore, from little books you find scattered as you play. Yet all we get are voicelines and gameplay that completely contradicts it.
Main point im saying is, PvP is not for everyone and there nothing we can actually customize like a map editor. Unless your a die-hard comp player, there not a whole lot else for the other people. The gameplay is fun but there no modes to sit and enjoy the game in a non-stressful enviroment. It’s always “play your best or you’ll lose, and if you take it easy your be called a thrower or toxic” yeah theres custom modes too but those custom modes arnt really much. Usually people hop in play your setting play one match or leave in mid match. And if you try to vs “bots” they are so brain dead you cant even call it practice.
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Even when they add lore, it doesn’t mean anything.
Zarya seeks out Sombra, develops as a bit less of a racist and discovers Sombra’s real name. Leads to no actual character development in-game, voiceline interactions, or references it’s just there in comic format with no lead-up. -snore-
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Well, yeah… Agree on that…
Overwatch still is a great and polished game, but from gameplay content itself is pretty abysmal. The addition of Arcade and PvE, Lucioball etc brings freshness to the game; but as everyone knows at this point it has become stale with repeated events.
Overwatch Archives is the only unique event worth discovering, it is however once a year, which may or not likely affected by slow lore.
If there were actual stories to progress with, I think the devs would’ve pumped out more Overwatch actual events/game modes.
–
Anyways… a good/great game without good lore just kills the spirit or reward of playing the game. Just look at at Metal Gear Solid V (2015): superb gameplay experience, but definitely lack of consistent or actual lore! Fans feels empty, and despite the millions of copy/positive reviews…
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exactly its all over the place, these characters have a “unique and interesting history” but we see none of it for the most parts, and on the current days… well Zarya Searching was probably the most despised comic by the community. It did nothing to expand current lore and all it did was kill sombra’s, the no-name hacker has a name, and for some reason 14 year old Alejandra knew her “secret lair” and told zarya.
Other comics have been decent but Zarya Searching well… let’s not hire those writers again.
This comic format doesnt do alot. Comics did well in the past cause they put out “weekly” issues. 1 comic a week, and 50 issues later you have the x-men universe. The pace overwatch goes in 1 every 4-8 months. Doesnt do anything. They need to make a huge effort. I learned more about mccree, reaper, genji, and moira in Retribution then i did for any of the other characters and i got a better appreciation for them. Expand that to a 12 mission campaign and you have a recipe for some solid lore and story building, plus it’ll give me something to other then try and shoot at a genji who made to diamond using a touchpad cause thats all he plays/
PS. Stole that last line 
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[quote=“GhostPants-129378, post:4, topic:187008, full:true”]Main point im saying is, PvP is not for everyone and there nothing we can actually customize like a map editor. Unless your a die-hard comp player, there not a whole lot else for the other people. The gameplay is fun but there no modes to sit and enjoy the game in a non-stressful enviroment. It’s always “play your best or you’ll lose, and if you take it easy your be called a thrower or toxic” yeah theres custom modes too but those custom modes arnt really much. Usually people hop in play your setting play one match or leave in mid match. And if you try to vs “bots” they are so brain dead you cant even call it practice.
[/quote]
it’s weird that you play a pvp game and complain that you don’t like pvp
like
going to burger king and complain that you don’t like hamburgers
try the practice range if you don’t like stressful environments
otherwise play one of the thousand pve shooters on the market
didn’t really read your opening memoirs, call of duty is just an example of a successful game with no/little lore. lore is what turns a good game into an amazing game, but it can’t turn a bad game into a good game.
This.
I don’t know what the Story Department is taking the approach with… it ain’t working… Not in this 2 years.
There is no Substance, no grit, no character development or whatever, zero arcs. Most of the story so far has taken the method of Background exposition–where the characters come from, etc…
I have to give credit to the comic/story artist as they somewhat actually give a thing or two. Cinematic department is alright, but the worst is probably the in-game interactions (which is lessening by the year).
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So what your saying is rather then ask the dev to deliver on their promise for a deep and interesting story, i should just quit overwatch like other millions already have till theres nothing but a few thousand left like the other games?
They did a good job “setting up” the story, but now nothing substantial 2 years later? Retribution was alot of fun, why does it have to be once a year for 2-3 weeks? why not put a devoted team into making 10 more missions and put a campaign option? Not like they dont have the money for it, and if they sold it as an expansion dlc more $$ for them more content for us. Couldnt hurt, it could only help. Your solution of me quitting is the only thing that could hurt the game in the long run.
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It’s not only the lack of lore that will kill overwatch, it’s also their perfect balance (aka one year to balance Mercy and still she is not), the paywall cosmetics, the original events, etc 
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No, what I’m saying is that while lack of lore might kill the game for you personally, it won’t kill the game for the hundreds of thousands who play the game simply because it’s a fun shooter.
Which is a reply to your thread title. I honestly couldn’t care less about how you personally feel because your thread title presumes the opinion of the entire playerbase, so your individual opinion is irrelevant to your own premise (because your opinion is factually not representative of the entire playerbase).
Change the title and premise to ‘I personally think Blizzard should deliver on their promise to add deep and meaningful lore’ and you won’t hear a thing from me.
tl;dr
stop being a drama baby, game will be fine without lore
edit:
this was also my last reply to the thread since you don’t strike me as a particularly intelligent person, I made my point
I dont play overwatch for the Lore. I genuinely don’t think anyone does.
But the reason people ADORE different characters for reasons outside of mechanics is because of the Lore, and the selling point of overwatch is based on the adoration of those characters. Have you seen how this forum reacts to Reinhardt mains? And how Reinhardt mains generally act on here? Theyre gotdamn jovial and boisterous, bombastic and up-lifting around nearly everything surrounding discussion of reinhardt (save for the mechanical bugs, but again thats MECHANICS) and the reason for that is because he’s EXACTLY like that in character.
People treat Torb like a joke and its great fun, he’s literally a swedish dwarf man with a crab claw hand an a cat with a jetpack? How is that not hilarious?
Genji is a calm and composed cyborg ninja who is SUPPOSED to have at one point been a play-boy yakuza who WASNT into the whole crime family thing? He literally spouts anime nonsense in voicelines (I am not saying him speaking japanese is ‘anime’ but you have to admit theres some anime nonsense in his lines) but we hardly see any of that inner struggle in game or that dorkiness out of game?
Zenyatta is probably the best example of a character that has gotten a LOT of mechanical IN game lore delivered who isnt a flagship character (see. TRACER). We know Zenyatta is so chill, like chill that he aint even above playing jokes, he has an emote thats all like ‘yooooo inner pea- NYEA NYEA NYEA’ and thats awesome!
Roadhog has a bunch of lines and decals on his character model that implies he’s a vegetarian? He’s literally super cool with hyper violence and murder and yet he adores the squishy friend Pachimaru and paints his gotdamn nails black? We’ve gotten a cinematic AND a comic with Roadhog and I still don’t really understand his character?
Like they’ve done SO much with these characters to give them such a strong base to play with and don’t do enough with it! That christmas comic was REALLY great! Why the heck aren’t they putting more money into stories to come out every two weeks? Do you know how many comic artists I know? It isn’t difficult to do these things with the kinds of money they have to throw at the problem, it should be the least expensive thing for them to do to develop for this game.
Oh also, everyone says Junkrat is adorable besides the fact he’s a gross bug-eyed weirdo? Dad 76? Again, they set up such a great foundation. Do more with it.
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lol so hostile all of a sudden 
The game is a fun shooter, so fun in fact the PvE modes do well and they could use alot more. 2 years later though there is a considerable loss in players, but not enough to call it dead by any means. But at the rate they are going there’s not gonna be alot left in a year or two. I love the PvP but at some point i dont want want to play pvp, so unfortunately i have to quit this GREAT SHOOTER game and play something else, that’s not good. Anytime a player stops playing a game thats bad cause one day they’ll find something else and the wont come back.
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didnt bother reading this brick wall of a post since it trails off, but there are a lot of people who play it or were initially invested due to the lore.
I’m one of them, just because you don’t care doesn’t mean it’s justified in being forgotten.
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You aimed that at the wrong person lol.
cliff-notes version: He’s saying alot of people joined into the game for the “character” lore.
I myself only watched it on youtube till i saw sombra come out and I was draw in by her lore “THAT i want to play the the mysterious hacker/assassin who plays the pawn to slay the kings” then her lore and character has gone nothing but down hill since. I still love her and though i never got really good the constant nerfing over the past year has made her too hard to use without strategy in PvP to where i had to drop her entirely. But in Retribution and Uprising (all heroes) she was my go to pick. I could play on the hardest difficulties as Sombra and have a blast without getting msges like “please swap, your throwing, noob sombra”
Alot of zen mains are like, yeah i know all about zen, then you ask them whats his main purpose in the story and they go “umm… he’s genjis teacher, and the iris, and…stuff” they crave alot of lore for him too and he’s being ignored. Alot of our character are, we all have a favorite character either for their appeal or their game mechanics, but I think we all want to know more about, where they came from (for the ones we dont know), what are they doing now, and why are they a “hero.” From where im standing at this point just about anyone can hero, brigitte for instance just hung around at the bar with one took a two week crash course, got some armor and “boom, i’m a hero” where as other had to fight an apocalyptic war. She needs more story on what she’s doing “now” before i call her a hero. At least hammond won the junker queens mech fights and he’s a “champion”
Well, we wouldn’t want Overwatch to turn into a game only game, if you know what I’m saying. As I said, balance, game modes, and lore is a trio that makes a game worthwhile…
I mean the demographics of Overwatch players aren’t hardcore FPS fans to the teeth… If it were the game would be fine like CS:GO is fine with zero lore.
Anyways, as people have said… I remembered on 2016/2017 the Developers actually said that they did promise upon rich story etc… Wouldn’t want that promise to be out of touch…
I hope there’s a hint or something on Gamescom 2018 at 20-21 August. Cramping things like the rumored 30 minute Cinematic on Blizzconn would be nice, as the time actually makes room for a decent story arc, but nonetheless it’s on November 2018.
Which… I’m pretty sure everyone in the forums will still be mad for 2-3 months of no lore/cinematic if they took it that way. September and October 2018 would be an interesting turning point of Overwatch, as people ask what the heck is going on.
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So, there’s a huge flaw being assumed by most people, and that is the assumption that most people who play this game are only in it for the gameplay and not in it for the lore.
That is not true in even the slightest sense. While some people might be in it just to have a good gameplay experience, most people who I have ran into and talked to both at work and out in public are extremely attached to characters based off of their lore. Blizzard does a great job at story telling, they can just be kind of slow at some points. With that being said, people like myself who actually don’t normally play online multiplayer games were brought in to this game based on the lore. Games like TF2 (which have some “lore” I guess, but not really) never interested me because there was absolutely zero attachment to either the characters or the environments. If it weren’t for the lore behind the characters, I wouldn’t have ever been attracted to this game in the first place, and Blizzard knows that there are many others out there just like myself who are very emotionally invested into these characters and stories.
With that said, they just hired on a new writer, so that means they’re trying their best to get something out sooner or later.
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I would not call Overwatch’s lore fandom “hardcore” in the least. Many of them don’t even touch the game, they just post on Tumblr and deviantArt.
(Maybe that’s the intent of the lore bottleneck, to drive off the pervy fanfiction weirdos that will never pay a red cent for the game proper.)
It’s something only hardcore players like us care about. Casuals couldn’t care less and they outnumber us by an insane amount.