With the speed at which news comes out in the gaming industry we sometimes miss important or news worthy things. Some of these things we want to talk about in a way that is both easy for you guys and allows us to get all the facts together as some of these stories develop quickly. Sometimes we also just cover topics that we find interesting and want to discuss.

Two Thousand Complaints in Overwatch doesn’t get you permanently banned

Alright so this is an interesting revelation coming out of a Blizzard forum post that was created about 17 days ago regarding someone claiming they got banned from quick play. Now normally this isn’t really something to talk about or even to spend more than ten seconds  thinking about. These types of threads show up all the time for games all the time, people complaining they got banned or claiming their innocence that they did nothing wrong and were banned unfairly. I’ve read a large number of these myself and normally a developer never answers let alone the is matter looked into further. However in this case Jeff Kaplan the game director and the face of Overwatch in terms of development dairies responded to this particular thread. You can read his response below:

Jeff says that the account in question has 2,247 complaints filed against it. He also says this is the one of the worst accounts Blizzard has seen. The account has been silenced for 9216 hours and that equates to 1 year of being unable to communicate with others in game.

Wiggin’s thoughts on the subject:  So initially when I read this I was pretty un phased by it to be honest.  Only after reading a few comments and making sure Jeff had not added any other comments later in the thread did it dawn on me and others that after 2,247 complaints this specific player isn’t permanently banned. If what Jeff says is correct regarding this player being one with one of the highest number of complaints leveled against him, where does Overwatch draw the line on permanent bans? I think the answer is twofold, money and not wanting to set a precedent.  The first being that if you’re still able to play the game and login the you’re still able to buy loot box’s. This means that even though you may not be able to communicate with others Blizzard still has a potential to make money off of you the player with loot box’s.

The second part is that if they say at X number of complaints you’re going to be permanently banned they put themselves in quite hard spot with regards to having a hard and fast rule. Since the report system can be rigged and you could have friends or others give someone a ton of complaints in hopes of pushing that account over the number requirement to get them banned. So I understand in the scheme of things why there is not a line drawn as far to as X complaints get you banned however I do think something more than just muting someone should be done for someone who clearly is trolling and intentionally ruining other peoples experience. I think that if Overwatch had a “bad apples queue” system in place where if you have shown you’re  a troll or unkind to others then you should be put in a queue with others that way they won’t bother the general Overwatch public.

Bethesda’s Creation Club is Live

So on the 28th of August 2017 the Creation Club Bethesda had shown off at E3 has gone live into the world for Fallout 4.  The Creation club allows PC, Xbox1 and PS4 to purchase Creation Club Credits and then you can buy items that have been put into the Creation Club. These items appear to be for the most part simple reskins and seemingly basic mods that you can purchase with the fake currency you can get via Steam or other system marketplaces.  It seems each credit is worth about one cent. Items range in price from 50 to 500 credits.

Wiggin’s thoughts on the subject:  So Bethesda claimed this wasn’t paid mods but it clearly feels like it. Some of these items are clearly found on NexusMods.com with slight color changes. Yet another thing Bethesda claimed was that all the content was going to have to be new content and could not be recycled from presumably NexusMods.com. Yet here we are on release time with power armor you can clearly find on NexusMods.com showing up on the Creation Club for sale. Here is photographic proof of this.

Hellfire Power Armor Big, beautiful and utterly terrifying, the ultra-protective Hellfire Power Armor is the perfect way to bring the fight to the enemy… and end it quickly. Creation obtained through quest

Hellfire X-03 Power Armor by DogtoothCG Unoctium from NexusMods.com

So at the end of the day Bethesda is here yet again trying to sell consumers on paid mods. Apparently the first time wasn’t a big enough of a shit storm so they are here to try again. I find it appalling that they value their customers so little as to try to sell them things that you can get for free from other places. I guess that really is my biggest issue with this whole thing is that it treats their customers like idiots. I’m not even against getting paid for  your work but maybe start with a new game that doesn’t have years and years of free content already created for it and attempt to resell it people that already have it.  It all feels very slimy and underhanded. I can only cross my fingers and hope that this Creation Club also fails so that this type of practice doesn’t become the norm.

Middle-earth: Shadow of War – Mike “Forthog” Forgey DLC

This starts out sad and then goes into completely disgraceful and insulting to just about anyone territory. Mike Forgey lost his battle with glioblastoma in March of 2016 and he was the Executive Producer of Shadow of Mordor. The team at Monolith Productions wanted to memorialize him in their upcoming game Middle-earth: Shadow of War as a DLC character named Forthog Orcslayer. At the time of writing this WB Games will donate to the Forgey family $3.50 from every purchase of the DLC.  However in print under it says ” WB Games will donate to the Forgey family $3.50 from every purchase of the Forthog Orcslayer made from any 1 of the 50 United States or D.C. (but, excluding purchases made from AL, HI, IL, MA, MS and SC) through December 31, 2019. Void where prohibited by law. Your purchase is not tax deductible.”

Wiggin’s thoughts on the subject:  As you can see above that only pruchases made inside the United States and only 44 States that are subject to WB Games up holding their pledge to the Forgey family. I find this utterly insulting and disgraceful to the memory of a man. They need to figure out a way to allow everyone’s purchase from the DLC to go to the Forgey family. There are more than just the USA and other people in the world I’m sure would like to support the Forgey family by purchasing the DLC. At the moment any purchases outside the US go straight into WB Game’s pocket. It really puts the whole “generosity” of WB Games into question when there are essentially making money off the memory of a man. I can only hope that WB Games quickly figures out a solution to this because it really rubs me the wrong way and they already have a ton of bad press against them. If you would like to donate directly to the Forgey family, they have a YouCaring page setup.