News

Blizzard’s Geoff Goodman Discusses Torbjörn Rework

Published

5 years ago

July 20, 2018

Anthony DiMoro

Blizzard’s Geoff Goodman, lead designer on Overwatch,is discussing a rework of Torbjörn and how things are progressing, during an interview with VG247.

“I originally was sort of thinking, ‘Let’s not do anything too massive’,” Goodman tells us, before going on to explain how Torbjörn’s upcoming changes will transform the character in a big way.

“With Torbjörn, the issues we’re trying to solve are that he’s a little overly defensive focused,” Goodman explains. “We need him to be more viable on offense in a non-payload situation. It doesn’t mean he needs to be equal on offense, but we need him at least to not be a troll pick.”

Torbjörn’s power snowballs seem to be the most problematic and he seems ineffective until he set’s down a turret and upgraded it.

“You don’t get to use some of your abilities, your turret’s not as strong, it’s not as much of a threat without your ultimate ready to go,” Goodman said. “It feels like feast or famine with him a lot of time. That’s a thing we’re trying to solve.

“It’s cool when characters have their ultimate and there’s a power spike – being able to use your ultimate at the right time is a big part of the game – but it’s a little too much for him. It does everything, basically.”

The team plans to completely overhaul how Torbjörn’s turrets work.

“Currently, in our internal build, he just tosses it out – not super far, almost like a Tracer Pulse Bomb distance,” Goodman explains. “So you can kind of throw it like that and it deploys itself automatically on level two. It takes a little time to do that but you don’t have to hammer it or anything.

“This plays a lot better on offense – especially because you can run up, throw it in a flank spot and be immediately shooting again and not feel like you have to sit there hammering it. Being able to use that and have an extra threat shooting from the side feels really powerful. We can obviously tune the turret if it ends up being too strong or anything, but that’s the place we’re starting from.”

Molten Core, Torbjörn’s ultimate ability, may not be back as the team is working on a new ultimate when he is re-released.

“We may end up with a completely different ultimate at this point because it ties up too much of his power, but that’s still very much in flux so it’s hard to say,” Goodman says. “First thing we did was try a lot of different takes on Molten Core – maybe we could make it really cheap and take some stuff away from it, we tried it so it only affects the turret and doesn’t give you any buffs, and we tried the reverse so it only affects you.

“We definitely tweaked some of the base ability, so you could reload faster as that was frustrating before – you would run out of ammo in the middle of ulting and you can’t shoot anymore. As of now, I think we’ve decided to move away from Molten Core entirely.”

Currently, there is no specific time table for the rework to take place.

Console

Microsoft Unveils Xbox Developer Sustainability Toolkit

Published

6 days ago

March 22, 2023

Anthony DiMoro

Xbox has officially unveiled the Xbox Developer Sustainability Toolkit which is aimed to help creators reduce energy consumption and measure carbon emissions during game development processes.

The Xbox Developer Sustainability ToolKit includes resources that include:

Power Monitor tools
Certification reports
Power consumption dashboards
Best practices

Ubisoft and 343 Industries were named as early users of the Xbox Developer Sustainability ToolKit with 343 Industries able to reduce energy use by 15% without impacting the player experience at all.

Ubisoft and Xbox are co-developing an energy-efficient eco-mode for users.

You can check out the full report right here.

Business

Epic Games Store Hits $820 Million in Player Spending During 2022

Published

6 days ago

March 22, 2023

Anthony DiMoro

Epic Games has officially released financial data related to it’s growing marketplace on PC, showing that $820 million was spent on the Epic Games Store during the 2022 year, and promised support for third-party subscription services and new ‘content hubs’ to help companies promote their titles.

According to the data:

The numbers

Total users of Epic Games Store PC: 230 million (up 19% year-on-year)
Epic cross-platform accounts: 732 million
Daily active users peak: 34.3 million
Monthly active users: 68 million (up 10%)

Total spending, incl. Epic’s games: $820 million (down 2%)
Spending on third-party games: $355 million (up 18%)
Free games claimed: 700 million
Number of new PC releases: 626
Total library of PC games: 1,548 (up 68%)

Epic Games stated on it’s blog that more PC games launched during the 2022 year than in any year prior.

Fortnite, Grand Theft Auto 5, Rocket League, Genshin Impact, and Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands were among the most popular titles related to player engagement and player spending, and Epic Games looks to deepen their focus in 2023 as they aim to improve the store launcher’s performance.

Epic Games also aims to add support for subscription services from third-party publishers and live service products by the end of the 2023 year, adding that they are also working on ‘content hubs’ which will be separate from product pages and will enable publishers to “share information with users in a robust editorial format.”

Business

California Judge Dismisses Gamers Lawsuit Filed Against Microsoft

Published

6 days ago

March 22, 2023

Anthony DiMoro

A federal judge in San Francisco has ruled that the group of 10 plaintiffs “[lacked] allegations” in their lawsuit filed last year that claimed Microsoft’s ownerships of Activision Blizzard would harm consumers and competition in the video games market, according to a filing shared by Reuters.

While US District Judge Jacqueline Corley dismissed the case, she also gave the plaintiffs 20 days to refine their lawsuit and resubmit it, and the group’s lawyer, Joseph Saveri, said that there are plans to officially submit an amended lawsuit with “additional factual detail” that will address the judge’s concerns.

It marks a victory for Microsoft, but their battles are far from over as they still face a hearing over the Federal Trade Commission’s legal complaint, which is currently slated to take place in August of this year.

Microsoft and Activision Blizzard originally expected the transaction to be complete by June 30, 2023.