Some people may wonder, since you have the ability to predict, then it is good to develop directly according to the future you know, why do you have to take a path that you are not familiar with?

In fact, hasn't Zhou Fangyuan always done this?

To be an entity, to be an Internet, to be a media, to be an ecological chain, and to do all kinds of investment...... Most of his actions are actually using his "prescience", and he will not give up such a big advantage.

But!

Don't forget, the prophetic power will always have a past day, and the time of his rebirth will be at the end of 2018, that is, what will happen after entering 2019, he is completely unaware.

And now it's 2006, 12 years before his prophetic abilities expire. These 12 years seem to be continuous, but in fact they are not long, and after 12 years, he is only in his thirties and less than forty years old, is it really that he will retire at that time? If he really wants to retire at that time, he will do it. But what if he doesn't want to retire at that time? The prophetic power is gone, and he doesn't want to retire yet...... The rest is to cross the river by feeling the stones.

So what he is doing now is to cross the river by feeling the stones, and he must make some attempts, learn some things, increase his knowledge, increase his experience, and wait until the day when the prophetic ability really disappears, so that he will not be completely in a hurry.

As for talking about Titans and Overwatch.

Zhou Fangyuan was initially ambivalent.

He knows where Overwatch succeeds and where Overwatch fails, and in contrast, the Titan is a complete failure. If he chooses to watch, maybe he can make a bigger change, and it is not impossible to even send the Overwatch directly to the altar and replace it with a Titan...... He really wasn't sure. But why did you do it in the end? Perhaps, this is an obsession.

As a pure Blizzard fan, he, like many other Blizzard fans, wants to see Titans appear from the bottom of his heart. It's a pity that the world is impermanent, Blizzard in the previous life, in the end, had to give up the Titan, and even the development of the company was greatly affected, and the situation is getting worse, whether the Titan can be restarted in the future, the possibility is lower and lower day by day, until it is completely impossible. But now it's different, now I'm the head of Blizzard, and I have the ability to make decisions, so why not give it a try? If it does...... Wouldn't it be able to fulfill one of his unfulfilled wishes, and at the same time make up for the regrets of countless Blizzard fans?

As for Overwatch, there was really no way, Zhou Fangyuan could only give up on it.

Seriously, it's not that Overwatch isn't good enough, it's even better than you think.

Many people may scoff at it, but in fact, Overwatch has played a great role in inheritance and innovation in the game industry, especially in the FPS game circle.

In the 90s, there was a "classical era" of FPS games, when the mainstream of FPS games was represented by DOOM/Quake produced by id company. Compared to today's mainstream FPS, most of these traditional FPSs use sci-fi themes, with a wide variety of weapons and very fast-paced gameplay. Due to the difficulty of this type of FPS to get started and not friendly to novice players, it is gradually declining, and the market position is replaced by slower-paced and more realistic military-themed FPS.

However, due to the large use of military themes in FPS games led by Call of Duty and Battlefield over the years, many players are tired of it. Some game companies have realized that adapting a classic FPS to suit the tastes of today's gamers is a reliable means of design. 、

Overwatch, in fact, has unknowingly become the latest exploration achievement in the industry on the road to classical FPS improvement.

The core fun of all shooters, or the player's ultimate goal, is two: to kill the enemy (kill) and to complete the goal (victory).

In most cases, the more enemies you kill, the more likely you are to win. The reason why killing is listed separately is because fighting and killing is a human instinct, and it is very easy for players to understand this kind of theme, and the thrill of killing is also an important reason for players to engage in combat. If a shooter doesn't provide that thrill simply and straightforwardly, it may end up spreading only in niche circles, such as shooters like ARMA, which are designed to be realistic.

Classical FPS usually has two main characteristics:

The game is fast-paced, and the player's ability to move, shoot, and jump is greatly enhanced compared to reality.

Players are born with the same weapons and abilities, and players with stronger skills are more likely to gain a greater on-stage advantage.

And this type of FPS game also has two major problems, the first is that it is not friendly enough for novices, the difficulty is too high to get started, and the threshold is too high. The second is the lack of motivation for ordinary players to invest in the long term, that is, the stickiness is not enough.

In terms of operation strategy, classical FPS requires players to keep moving, fight opponents in motion, and obtain weapons and props. This means that compared to the later military FPS, the player's operation intensity is greater and the reaction speed is faster, which is very disadvantageous for newcomers who are new to the game. In addition, if there is a large gap between the two players' game skills, the team with the higher level can often get more items and weapons, thus gaining a greater advantage in the field, thus further widening the gap. As a result, the difference in the competitive level of the two sides in classical FPS is more like Go: if the two players are more than two levels apart, the game is likely to fall into a one-sided situation.

Obviously, such a design can easily make new players abandon the game after being abused, and players who already have a certain amount of experience will lose the motivation to continue working hard and leave after realizing the difference in strength with the masters.

In order to solve this problem, the solution of military FPS is to introduce the design of "configuration", that is, players can choose or buy their own equipment when they are born, and cancel the weapons and items that can be picked up in the scene, so that the possibility of the lagging side continuing to lag behind because they can't pick up powerful weapons. In addition, the military FPS introduces the setting of stamina gauges, and the player's movement speed is similar to that of real life, which reduces the pace of the game to a certain extent and makes it more friendly to players with slower reaction speeds. However, these settings include "auto-regeneration", which essentially encourages a steady, progressive defensive strategy and weakens offensive tactics such as movement warfare and charge.

It is common for players in these games to resort to crouching or sniping when they should be attacking, and these negative strategies are a negative feedback to teammates and enemies, which makes the game less enjoyable to some extent.

Another feature of FPS games is that the objective of these games is usually very simple, and the progression of each game is repeated. For the average player who is not trying to get a better position in the competitive competition, there is a lack of motivation to invest in the long term. To solve this problem, FPS such as COD and Battlefield have added some RPG elements: characters can unlock more weapons and equipment accessories by leveling up, and players can gain long-term gaming motivation by unlocking equipment and getting better accessories.

However, the problem caused by this premise is that new players are inherently at a disadvantage when facing old players due to the lack of game experience and equipment accumulation, which actually further widens the gap between new and old players. While weapon pairings provide some strategy and depth, they also add to the complexity of the game and don't significantly enhance the fun of the core gameplay.

Overwatch is different.

In his previous life, Zhou Fangyuan watched an interview show, and the developers of Overwatch once mentioned in the program that encouraging players to rely on teamwork to achieve the final victory is the main design idea of Overwatch.

In order to solve the problem of unclear game objectives for players and make players better coordinated, Overwatch has made some key improvements:

For example, limit the game size to 6v6.

Blizzard's game size is limited to 6v6, which is considered by taking into account a variety of factors such as map size, game mode, average player configuration, and team class matching. Enabling each individual player to play a greater role in the team is an important consideration than in other games. If this design goal cannot be achieved, then the design idea of teamwork will obviously not be achieved. Let's imagine that if the game size is 3v3 or 4v4, the abnormal or abnormal performance of one player in the team will have too much influence on the final outcome of the game, and the small number of people will also affect the integrity of the team.

If the game scale is further expanded to 8v8 and 10v10, too many people in the team will cause the problem of "three monks have no water to eat", so that players cannot focus on the game goal. In addition, it will also add complexity to the decision-making process of team allocation, resulting in difficult trade-offs.

Introduce the concept of team roles to make players more aware of what their characters should do.

Once you've decided on the size of the game, the next step is to give players more clarity about where they stand and what they do on the team. Overwatch has four different team characters: assault, defense, reload, and support, each of which has abilities that match its team positioning, and the game also gives sufficient hints in the character selection interface to encourage players to choose the characters that are missing from the team. This is more beginner-friendly than Team Fortress, and players who have played MOBA games can quickly understand. However, Overwatch's onboarding phase doesn't provide in-depth explanations of team roles, lacking guidance on tackling several different game modes, and new players need to figure out what their characters are supposed to do in a game for a while.

Removed equipment settings and fixed the skills and attack methods of each character.

The design decision to remove the equipment system ostensibly limits the player's freedom and reduces the depth of the game, but it actually outweighs the disadvantages. First of all, it reduces the player's decision-making pressure, and the mutual restraint between the characters allows the player's decision-making to follow the idea of "choosing the right character at the right time to achieve the goal", rather than distracting the player's attention from the character's own equipment matching. Secondly, players can focus more on improving their game by mastering the character's own attacks and skills. If a player can master more characters, then his overall strength will be stronger. These design ideas, in essence, are in the same vein as the design ideas of MOBA-type arena game heroes, which is also Blizzard's strength.

It's clear that one of the design ideas that runs through these improvements is to keep players clear about where they stand on the team and what their current goals are, and to choose the right character to achieve them.

The whole design idea of Overwatch is to encourage players to fight as a team. In the character section, it combines the class system of Team Fortress with the skill design of MOBA games, and in the shooting section, it is based on classic FPS such as DOOM/Quake, which retains its core fun and lowers the barrier to entry for players. The character's powerful ultimate skills allow players to save the team when used correctly, giving them the chance to show off their "best of the game". The intuitive goal and fast-paced gameplay further enhance the core fun of the game, which is the fundamental reason why many players say they "can't stop".

Overwatch combines the Class Fortress class system with the skill design of MOBA-like games, and combines them with the shooting fun of FPS games. However, it doesn't deal with the relationship between individual play and team wins, and there is still room for further improvement in game modes and player onboarding. Overwatch inherits the core fun of classic FPS like DOOM/Quake in the shooting section, and lowers the barrier to entry for players based on them, and achieves excellent results. Overwatch is undoubtedly one of the important symbols of the contemporary revival of classical FPS.

Of course, some people will say, "Oh, the Overwatch you said is so good and so good, why did it end up cold?"

Is it cool?

In fact, Overwatch is not cool, before Zhou Fangyuan's rebirth, the number of Overwatch players in China is indeed a record low, and every time a large-scale event is needed to warm up slightly, but after the event, the number of players will decline again, giving people a feeling that the game is over. But in fact, abroad, Overwatch has been doing well. Blizzard even constantly wants to prepare for Overwatch's league and international tournaments, of course, for the sake of the company's development and the development of the game, but the premise is that there must be a group of loyal players.

As for why it is tepid in China, to be honest, this is another topic, and it is a very, very big topic, and it is not something that can be said in two or three sentences. And as long as you say it, you will inevitably offend people, so I still don't mention it. Just to be clear, even if there are many shortcomings, but the performance of Overwatch is still good on a global scale. And it has played a great role in the inheritance and development of FPS games in the "classical era".

......

There's a lot of gossip......

After determining the development process of Titan, Zhou Fangyuan, under the leadership of Mike, left the Blizzard headquarters and walked towards the studio more than ten kilometers away from the headquarters.

There, the post-production work of the second part of the Warcraft movie has come to an end.