controversy

TorrentFreak reported that Blizzard has filed a lawsuit against Germany-based cheating company Bossland (a company that Blizzard also sued over World of Warcraft "buddy bots") for an Overwatch cheating tool called "Watchover Tyrant."

"Defendants' sale and distribution of the Bossland Hacks in the United States has caused Blizzard to lose millions or tens of millions of dollars in revenue, and to suffer irreparable damage to its goodwill and reputation," Blizzard said in its complaint.

"Moreover, by releasing 'Overwatch Cheat' just days after the release of Overwatch, Defendants are attempting to destroy or irreparably harm that game before it even has had a chance to fully flourish," it added.

"Defendants not only know that their conduct is unlawful, but they engage in that conduct with the deliberate intent to harm Blizzard and its business," the developer said. "Blizzard is entitled to monetary damages, injunctive and other equitable relief, and punitive damages against Defendants,” the complaint reads."

Get the rest of the story, and read up on the lawsuit over at TorrentFreak.

I guess 'vagina bones' is a term that's been hanging around since 2011-2012. Of course we've got a running Urban Dictionary definition of it as well...

“The crease present where the thigh meets the abdomen in physical fit females. Often enhanced by the pelvic bone.

‘That girl is wearing her pants so low that her vagina bones are showing.'”

Assistant game director Ion Hazzikostas responded to a forum thread about expensive vendor items, and actively tried to dismantle the widespread belief that there exists a feeling of consensus in a world as massive and diversified as WoW's. He wrote:

"If I’d instead posted that we were going to reconsider and massively reduce the prices of the cosmetic items on this vendor, there would be other people feeling like their feedback was ignored.

It’s exceptionally rare that everyone wants the same thing,” he added. “And even then, there is a large silent majority that does not post on forums. If there were actual unanimity regarding a certain issue, we would change our design: For example, early on in Warlords, we changed Group Finder loot from Personal back to Need/Greed until we could iterate on Personal loot further, and the community overwhelmingly told us that was a dumb idea. The change was reverted within 2 days.”

He wrapped up his response by honing in on the value of tailoring different kinds of content to different groups, as opposed to just issuing one 'low common denominator' that lacks any real excitement, for anyone.

“If an awesome mount comes exclusively from PvP, the majority of players who don’t participate in PvP yet desire the mount would prefer that it were otherwise,” Hazzikostas explained. “If our goal were to please a majority, we would likely have to make a version of that mount also available through raiding, and one also available through outdoor questing and reputation, at the very least. But doing that would dilute the reward itself. Ultimately, the approach we take is usually to tailor different content and rewards that can feel special to different groups, rather than trying to come up with a lowest common denominator that isn’t special to anyone.”

Looks like Riot finally swung that Ban Hammer. A statement released by Riot:

"Hey all,

Instant Feedback catches the most unsportsmanlike players in League, but some people go out of their way to continue ruining games for the community. Because of a well-documented history of account bans for verbal abuse, intentional feeding, as well as account sharing/purchasing, evasion of sportsmanship systems, and player harassment, we will not allow Tyler1 to hold a League of Legends account, indefinitely. Any account definitively used by him will be banned immediately upon identification.

We know we’re not perfect, and this dragged on too long, but we want you to know when the rare player comes along who’s a genuine jerk, we’ve still got your back."

World of Warcraft's Executive Producer J. Allen Brack released the following statement via Eurogamer, as a response to the Nostalrius server closure:

"Failure to protect against intellectual property infringement would damage Blizzard's rights. While Blizzard had looked into the possibility of working with unofficial servers, there was not a clear legal path to protect Blizzard’s IP and grant an operating license to a pirate server.We wanted to let you know that we’ve been closely following the Nostalrius discussion and we appreciate your constructive thoughts and suggestions, added Brack. Our silence on this subject definitely doesn’t reflect our level of engagement and passion around this topic. We hear you. Many of us across Blizzard and the WoW Dev team have been passionate players ever since classic WoW. In fact, I personally work at Blizzard because of my love for classic WoW.

We explored options for developing classic servers and none could be executed without great difficulty. If we could push a button and all of this would be created, we would. However, there are tremendous operational challenges to integrating classic servers, not to mention the ongoing support of multiple live versions for every aspect of WOW.

Over the years we have talked about a “pristine realm”. In essence that would turn off all leveling acceleration including character transfers, heirloom gear, character boosts, Recruit-A-Friend bonuses, WoW Token, and access to cross realm zones, as well as group finder. We aren’t sure whether this version of a clean slate is something that would appeal to the community and it’s still an open topic of discussion.

In closing, Brack made reference to the 235,000 signatures for the petition to reinstate the server, saying: "They obviously care deeply about the game, and we look forward to more conversations with them in the coming weeks."

What do you make of all this?

In case you could go for a trip down memory lane, we've provided the original video that depicts the final few minutes leading up to the server shutdown:



You can also check out the compilation of screenshots depicting the original massive pilgrimage staged by players in response to the Nostalrius server shutdown, over here.

Much of the fervor surrounding this bubblin' controversy stems from words shared from one of Spain's top players (Greward) via Reddit recently: 

"In Spain there's just 3 actual Bayonetta mains as of now (over 400 people!), and two of them do agree with the ban. We had more bayonetta players (mostly as secondaries) but they dropped her because they felt it was unfair. If bayonetta is banned, they'll probably go back to their old mains. However, since recent tournaments a lot of people are starting to pick her and we're seeing MK 2.0 case, so banning her before everyone mains her is in our opinion the best option.

When just ~7% of votes are against actually banning her (rest is either yes or I dunno) she is toxic. If left allowed, a lot of people would drop out of the tournaments, scene and the game, and thus it's not worth it to have her allowed. This is what I mean as toxic.

Banning bayonetta won't be very detrimental to our community, at worst there is only one or two players who would stop attending. It might be detrimental for competing outside of our country, but that's it.

Most TO agree with the ban and will actually ban her in their own tournaments. However, at the end of the day, each TO will set up rules for his own tournament, so it's not impossible to have more tournaments with Bayonetta allowed, although the tournament might have low attendance.

No other character is banned in Spain or has ever been in the history of Smash. We do restrict Miis to guest, but with any moveset. We did ban Kokonoe on release in BlazBlue though, but that's not smash.
As far as tournament results, Bayo players have made notable upsets (top40ish player beating top10, or top6 destroying everyone), but as she's not played by many people she's not dominating all results."

What do you think should be done?

Or you could just...you know. Not bother.

When one particularly perturbed Overwatch gamer named Fipps basically flipped the f**k out on a forum over the 'over the shoulder' pose (I mean hey, you're entitled to your own opinion..) the game's director made quick moves to say they'll be removing it in his official statement that reads, "We'll replace the pose. We want *everyone* to feel strong and heroic in our community. The last thing we want to do is make someone feel uncomfortable, under-appreciated or misrepresented. Apologies and we'll continue to try to do better.

And now, the pose in its full and unfettered, and highly controversial glory:



Next, a tidbit from the incendiary monolague unleashed by the outraged Fipps on the actual forum:

“What about this pose has anything to do with the character you’re building in tracer? It’s not fun, its not silly, it has nothing to do with being a fast elite killer. It just reduces tracer to another bland female sex symbol.”

“We aren’t looking at a Widowmaker pose here, this isn’t a character who is in part defined by flaunting her sexuality. This pose says to the player base, oh we’ve got all these cool diverse characters, but at any moment we are willing to reduce them to sex symbols to help boost our investment game.”

“I have a young daughter that everyday when I wake up wants to watch the recall trailer again. She knows who tracer is, and as she grows up, she can grow up alongside these characters. What I’m asking is that as you continue to add to the overwatch cast and investment elements, you double down on your commitment to create strong female characters. You’ve been doing a good job so far, but shipping with a tracer pose like this undermines so much of the good you’ve already done.”

What do you think? Are people getting 'butt-hurt' over a badass pose, or what?