Honestly I would give them some cred for this one. It’s insignificant, but at least they tried a little bit. People will Smurf regardless that is part of gaming. Try to improve, all you can do and also thi team is still very team dependent. So you can shut down a Smurf if you work together. Unless they are genji ofc, that hero is stupid, gives 10+ skill and better gaming chair include when you pick him.
Baddie? What are you 12?
Why are you acting like I’m Blizzard? Far from it. I’ve been criticizing the game for years. Clearly Blizzard took inventory and noticed ALL Of those groups you mentioned didn’t matter. Or at least until June 21 2021.
Remember Blizzard has all of the data we don’t. How many were “actual smurfs” vs “imaginary smurfs.” How many accounts were hackers, bots, throwers, etc. They know it all. So if there REALLY weren’t a single smurf in Overwatch 1, why did Blizzard bother with this? It seems to reason that they could easily just leave it fully F2P and anyone can join right? Wouldn’t that benefit them? Clearly not as they do not want that happening.
What does their new date cutoff tell me? That around June 2021 is when the playerbase really dipped and any account after this date is irrelevant and were mostly smurf accounts.
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Great news. Now I can use my smurf accounts once the servers work.
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Everyone who had an account connected to ow1 will be able to play it seems, June 9th was just when they started requiring battlenet, that’s why they mention it
It’s only a small portion of the old players. I myself have been playing since season 1. I’ve only ever had 1 account. I’ve never been warned, or so much as an exp reduction for leaving games. I don’t have a working cell phone.
But if 1% of players smurfs and plays 10 games a day. That player can come into contact with 9 other players per round, and reach as many as 90 players to have games ruined for up to 90 players by themselves. It only takes a small amount of smurfs to cause problems. Is it really right to punish everyone who isn’t a bad actor to try and stop a small handful of hyper terribleness?
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Guess what, I smurf. Where was I complaining about smurfing? Your reading comprehension is not that good - have you been hit in the head recently?
The amount of seething in your comment is actually hilarious
Well that solves the problem for some not all.
Now allow metro/cricket.
Now allow alternative means of authetication.
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Dude, they are already ramrodding non-functional things. You can’t even log into Overwatch.
These baby steps are an absolute joke
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…Reread my comment. At no point did I say “you are complaining about smurfs, so stop.” I literally said “I see people ignoring the smurf and then blaming the smurf”. Did I say you were in the matches with me doing that?
My second sentence even says “the people who do this” which obviously means I’m not talking about you, because if I was, I’d say “YOU are a screaming toddler”. Why whine about reading comprehension after you misunderstood my comment?
This isn’t an argument or a defense, you know. Its a sign that you have no way to defend your position, so you have to comment on imaginary seething. Isn’t that called “coping”? Call it seething, but I like to go hard in my comments. If that makes you laugh, then we’re both having a good time.
I spent money on the game and now I’m demanding a refund. This is a bait and switch for those of us who were under the belief that we were being sold a game with anti-smurfing built in. I will charge back my card and have my account nuked, I don’t even care. Total bait and switch. No, don’t spend time writing to me all the reasons this was unfair to people. I don’t care.
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I’m getting 7 accounts back 
I wouldn’t dare spend time explaining to someone, who in all honesty is likely a child, why people being unable to play a game they rightfully own due to some phone number nonsense is a bad thing. Are you even capable of understanding why?
Do you know why people say “its better to let the guilty to free than to punish innocents”? Do you?
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Thank you Blizz for going back on the phone requirement for logging in for existing players, at least. It was completely unjust to lock out people who have been playing for years over a phone plan.
It still sucks for potential new players, I guess, but there was no way to justify locking out existing players. I don’t care about smurfs (which, even playing for years on console where you could always make unlimited free accounts, I never have found to be a rampant problem), but I do care about not blocking people from a game depending on what phone plan they use.
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I’m very happy to hear this news!
It wont give me the option to add my EU phone number on my 15+ year old US account.
It only shows +1 country code and nothing else.
Thanks to blizzard for removing this feature.
Keeping my fingers crossed that when I try to play this Friday that it is all rock and roll!
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This entire bandwagon that everyone is jumping on is basically as good as a content creator drama story where every teen takes one side of the take because it gains momentum. That does not mean it’s right. No, I’m 36 years old and have played over 4000 hours of OW1. I literally only bought the game because of the anti-smurf measures that were put in place.
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No. Its not. One is a content creator looking for clout, the other is “Holy cow, I’ve been playing Overwatch for literal years, and now I can’t because my phone number Ive had for literal years just doesn’t work for no reason. Now I’m locked out of the game that I own (and I do own it, don’t try that EULA nonsense).”.
Are you really, sincerely incapable of understanding the difference?
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would have preferred they still make you link the account to a phone number just removed the limit of one account per phone number for existing customers so when you do a ban hit on older accounts you get them all.
They already do not ban smurfs. It’s not a bannable offense. It 100% should be. It’s an epidemic in games now. It makes playing them unfulfilling which is why I’ve pivoted to a lot of single player games. I was hopeful that one of my favorite games was actually going to follow through on their promise. They did not.
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Guys, you do know there are ways to change numbers, yes? If smurfs were ready to pay for new game copies, they will find a way to pay for a new number. There are options. There are services that get accepted already, where you can change your phone easily and it is accepted by Blizzard, unlike my phone number)
Sorry my english is not really good.
It says “played since June 9th 2021” and my last playtime of OW is Febuary 2022 does that mean I still need SMS protect?