Then A Couple Of Months Later They Released The 'Honour And Glory' Short:

Just Chilling ♥️

Look at all the pretty pictures I got when OW2 REBOUND hide ui to left of my D-pad and I thought my game was broken for the first 3 seasons 🥰

Cheers Blizzard 😘😘

Can someone tell me why Blizzard thought this was a good idea??

Why is the 2023 anniversary player icon just wilding at the top of the menu, instead of being in chronological order??

Dexter has his priorities straight 👍🏻

I realise I haven't posted in days and I have a perfectly reasonable excuse for that... Baldurs Gate 3 ✨

Push Maps and TS-1

When OW2 came out, it took me a while to adjust to push maps, but over time I got used to them and learned how to play healer well on them. They're now some of my favourite maps to play Mercy on.

BUT what really makes the push maps is obviously TS-1, (I expect a TS-1 pop blizzard!) and his adorable voice lines. Bless his little heart, when the point is being contested for a period of time he'll say something like "conflicting orders" or "please resolve your debate"! He's such an honest to go sweetheart.

A Breakdown of all the Overwatch Anniversary events so far.

I'm in the mood to write lengthy paragraphs examining OW2 today, so let's go for it.

Just to clarify, my first Anniversary event was 2018, so I have just a wee bit of experience playing these events. Unfortunately, I didn't have the pleasant experience of playing the first anniversary event in 2017.

But, it's as good as any place to start, so what exactly did we get in the 2017 anniversary event.

Three new area maps were added, which I'm sure most of you are familiar with. They were Castillo, Black Forest, and Necropolis.

Not only that, but NINE FREE legendary skins were added during the limited time event, that anybody could pick up through loot boxes.

Not just that though, there were over a hundred unlockable items also released during that limited time. Ranging from skins that were lower than legendary, to player icons, to sprays, to voice lines, to emotes, highlight intros, and victory poses.

The 2017 Anniversary event was also the event that introduced dance emotes, which I'm fairly sure you just have to plainly buy no, but don't quote me on that.

WELL

Moving onto 2018

A new death map was released on the 2018 Anniversary event called Petra. Honestly, it blows my mind that Petra came out five years ago now. I remember logging on, and loading up deathmatch and getting lost out of my mind on this new map.

They released 8 legendary skins

and 3 epic skins

Including Lightning Tracer. Man, I remember just how much people hated this skin, claimed it was the ugliest skin ever made.

Personally, I think there are more than a handful that can rival it nowadays.

The 2018 event also introduced being able to buy past event items for all the events, not just anniversary.

Now that I've summarised all the wonderful gifts 2018 gave us, let's hurry on over to 2019.

This year, unfortunately, they did not release any new maps, (that doesn't mean they didn't realise new maps during the year, they just didn't release maps during the anniversary event).

But, they introduced another reel of awesome legendary skins. Except, there was only 6 this year.

Don't get me wrong. I love almost (egg head Pharah is the exception) and I physically screamed when I pulled Academy D. Va.

But, the delice shows when you compare things side by side.

No new map, and 3 fewer legendary skins.

Here are the epic skins as well, nothing special really though what can you say really.

Although, let me put it out there. I am not complaining. I got to play and earn all these skins for free and it was an absolute privilege that I did. I'm just pointing out the differences as the events progress.

2019 was also the first year to introduce legendary loot boxes for logging in. It was free and guaranteed one or more legendary. I'll just put it out there now, I absolutely adored these loot boxes. They were always the highlight of my game time when one came sliding quietly into my loot box tab.

Next up, 2020.

Now, looking at all of these event trailers together, I've released Blizzard made a very particular choice when displaying the legendary skins this year. Notice in the previous years they're usually grouped together and displayed like that? Well, not this year, because there's only 5 new legendary skins.

By displaying each skin induvial and using a highlight intro, it gives the impression there are just as many skins as usual. Very clever Blizzard, I'll give you that.

So far, we've gone from 11 legendary skins in 2017, to 5 in 2020. That number fell dramatically quickly.

2020 was also the first year to introduce the weekly challenges that became ever present in OW1 events.

None of them are really anything special. I remember being fond of the Widow one because of the gold highlights, but I also disliked the Sigma and the McCree ones because their eyes were covered.

Not much else to say really about 2019, the legendries are classics and it was the first anniversary event to use the weekly challenges, but that's it really.

2021 is where I really start to get pissed of at Blizzard.

Remember how I said before that showing of each skin specifically in their highlight intro was a cheap way of making it look like there's more content than there actually is? Well, it get's worse. At least in 2019 they specified that these were new skins.

In 2021, they just roll out the dance cutscene and introduce the new skins without saying they're introducing them, and combining skins from old events into the background. Maybe because it's late when I'm writing this, or maybe because I'm so used to seeing these skins in game, but I had to actually google a list of what skins came out in 2021 because I couldn't figure out the new ones from the old ones.

Anyways, I figured out which are the new ones, and here are your... five skins.

I won't lie. I'm not really a big a fan off... any of these. I suppose Funky Baptiste would be the best, but personally, the quality of the skins declined so dramatically. You can sort of already see it happening in 2019, but I don't think the delice is too noticeable until 2021.

But maybe that's just my personal preference.

These were the weekly challenges, and honestly, I love Tux Hammy. It's just so classically cute. The vibrant Echo is definitly a look too, just maybe not mine.

This is the bit where it gets a bit... trickier.

I'm going to have to make a second post because you can't post more than 30 pictures per post.

hehe

Edgy emo team….

And then there’s mercy

This was painful to complete 🥲

Blizzcon 2023 Omg...

First of all here's the video I watched if you want to go watch it yourself, but I'm just gonna outline what I think are the highlights in this post!

First of all, Blizzard actually serving this Blizzcon like?? Woah there, slow down, are you sure you actually want to deliver what the fanbase wants... you've never done that before but slay.

And secondly, I'm late to this cos your girl put off working on a brief deadline for her degree until the last few days and had to draw like a mad woman. So excuse my late reactions to everything haha

ANYWAYS

THE COMP CHANGES?? LIKE SLAY OMG

Let's be honest, even Blizzard knew the 5 - 15 bracket was shit, and now they're finally getting rid of it, and replacing it with this ->

Like are we actually getting ranked on what we do in the match or is this some kind of amazing dream?

As a hard stuck gold/plat support main with an average of 20k heals a match, this is like some kind of blessing from God.

Plus not to mention the rank reset?? Last time I rank reset, aka made a smurf account that I never used, it was two ranks above my main. I'm going to cry literal tears of joy.

Plus, we're getting these bad boys back ->

She looks a little different but it's ok, we still accept her as the placement matches we know and love.

(I am very sassy today apologies, I have borderline carpool tunnel in my main hand and a backache to slay all backaches so I'm feeling slightly unhinged.)

Then they're also tidying up the competitive challenges tab? Like actually slay!

Like look how clean and sexy she looks like omg. Can't wait to actually understand all that information now that it's feasible to read haha

I'm not as hype about these but they still deserve mentioning ->

Tree guns! Oh wait, I mean Emerald guns. Mb. I think they're just like... meh. Like me and my duo have had long and detailed discussions on how we would improve gold guns. We eventually settled on them progressing in rarity and price. We suggested a gun started at bronze and worked it's way up the ranks like you do in competitive, and each rank would be a thousand more expensive. So obviously Bronze for Bronze, Silver for Silver, Gold for Gold, Platinum with like a purple sheen for Platinum, Diamond with a white and blue reflection for Diamond, then either Ruby or Sapphire for Masters and Grand Masters.

If you hadn't figured it out by my grumbling already in this post, but I'm a digital art student in uni, literally studying concept art, and by gods would my lecturers turn their noses up at the green they chose for this promotional ss.

Personally, I would saturate the colour more, it's much too dark. Sure, up close you can see the colour well, but realistically you want to be able to see the colour in game as well, and the green here is much too dark. I would saturate the colour more, but not too much. There's a thin line between it being a distraction or a flex. Next thing I would do is give it a darker sheen so when it catches certain lights it has a muted sparkle. I say darker so that it doesn't cross the distraction line again, because a lighter sheen would defiantly distract a player.

ANYWAY those are just my thoughts on it as someone studying this stuff at uni :)

I'm not a professional and will never be cos I'm never touching the art industry after this course again lol

Next I just wanna briefly look at the two heroes other than Mauga we got a look at.

Which are obviously Venture ->

Who's a dps who digs underneath the ground and launches out to deal dmg to the enemies.

Personally, I think it's a really innovative idea, and a really nice idea lore wise, but realistically I don't think this is going to play well, and I'm sure we're going to see lots of changes to him before and after he's released.

Also that concept art is just chefs kiss. It's so beautiful, with such clean lines and such an understandable concept. The facial expression is so cute and clean as well, and I already love them just from what I can see.

Oh, they are a they/them as well, so they're slaying.

Then there's 'Space Ranger', which is only a code name, and all we can call her so far ->

Again the beautiful concept art is literally making my drool, the lines are clean, it's understandable, conveys exactly what the artist wants.

I also love the unique UI of having the two guns above. It's also really thrilling to get more of a design perspective, for me at least. Even if I'm not going into the art industry (I'm taking a course to become a teacher after I gradate next year) it's still really exciting to be able to see the processes of it all. Now I can't help but imagine what the rest of the heroes concept art looked like when drawn onto the ss like the image above.

She's also a support by the way, so we support mains are being FED.

Next on my little list that I have here, is the hero mastery updates. Which are all for next year, so 2024.

The first point was that we'd be getting D.va, Lucio, Genji, Echo and Mei maps to master. I've 5 stared all the Mercy courses cos she's one of my mains, and my other is D.va sooooo can't wait to spend 20 hours on that haha.

They've also realised that it being solo can be a bit of an obstacle for groups, so they're adding a tower defence 3v3 vs bots mode. Every season the heroes on the roster for the mode will cycle out, as will the special rewards for completing the game mode every season. Basically, they're trying to make it as replayable every season as possible. Even with the heroes and reward cycles, I still have a sneaking suspicion this is going to end up slightly monotonous.

Here's a ss of the tower defence ->

It's not very clear and that's mb, I forgot to ss until too late lol.

Finally, the last big thing that they discussed was the new game mode 'Clash', plus the re-work of the Hanamura 2cp map for this game mode.

They basically described clash as 5cp, and even with this image it took me a while to get my head around it. Disclaimer, I am dyslexic though lol, so you'll probably get it faster than me.

Basically, (from what I understood from the dev's explanation) all five points will be lined up in a row on the map. When the game starts, team blue will posses 2 points and so will team red. Only point C will be available to cap, and it's a race to see who can claim the point first. Whoever claims the point will then push the enemy teams spawn room back a point, and the next point to claim will be either one to the right/left from the middle. The game ends when one team holds on the points, or the time runs out and whoever holds the most points win. The co-streamer I was watching alongside it said it resembled a tft game mode, but since I've never played tft I can't vouch for that.

I actually really like this idea, and it actually does remind me of 2cp quite a lot. It has a very nostalgic OW feeling just to the description.

Moving on, we have the Hanamura re-work, which is last, but not least.

They've adjusted the map in a way that supposedly makes it feel organic and not just a re-work of Hanamura itself. Basically, they've expanded off the main map, left some noticeable features and vibes to the map, and dropped the previous map into the background. It's a very smart way to evolve a map in all honesty.

This map has been designed specifically for Clash and will be called Hanaoko (sorry if I'm butchering that, they didn't write it down anywhere and only said the name).

Normally, I won't be too bothered to write so much about a new map, but bro this is Hanamura! I adore Hanumura, so, so, so much! I miss 2cp and all those maps so badly. It's nice to see them evolving the concept to incorporate those nostalgic elements for OW1 players.

What also interested me was that they talked more about the Hanamura lore. Naturally, there's a lot of it. With the Shimada brothers, the Hashimoto Shimada fight for dominance, and Kiriko with her Yokai gang. They specifically mentioned more lore for those three groups which got my very excited. They also mentioned, and I feel stupid for not noticing this cos it's obvious once it's pointed out), but all the dragons and tigers on the map are symbolic. They represent the struggle between the Shimada (dragons) and Hashimoto (tigers) clans when they're fighting. Like in this photo ->

So, it's official, we are being well and truly fed this Blizzcon. I can't wait for ranked to actually feel rewarding again.

Here's a random Tracer play from OW1 to finish of the post :)