Any hope of unofficial community servers for Overwatch after the shutdown?

[xdarkmario]

So, as you know overwatch servers are shutting down on oct 2nd. Do you think anyone will be able to make a unofficial community replacement? I dont have high hopes as the security for blizzard games are pretty tough and is mostly online orientated.

 

[KitChan]

I would be all for a community server which undoes some of the bad hero patches.

 

[LainaGabranth]

I won't say it's impossible, but we have a couple of things to consider here. In the case of WoW, a lot of its assets, even server code, was leaked outright, letting anyone take a crack at it if they wish. Hell I've even hosted my own server. Overwatch is different, you'd need to get stuff to carry progression and matchmaking at a minimum, could maybe reverse engineer that to do private lobby shit sort of like some old games do with GameRanger, but if that's the route they do, kiss matchmaking and balance goodbye.

Secondly, loot boxes and the like. Assuming all skins aren't all unlocked from the start (which you'll probably need back end emulation to do as well) you'd need to manage all that shit as well.

All of this being done entirely from scratch, without any idea of how the back servers work. This isn't even getting into any infighting that may occur if different people have different ideas on what is most important to preserve or how to do it.

Which brings me to the most sobering, hardest pill to swallow of all of this: Overwatch 2 will come out 48 hours after the servers are gone, and the game is free to play. This is going to deter 99% of people who would be interested in preserving Overwatch 1 and the legal teams at Blizzard will deter half of the remaining 1%, with the rest operating from foreign countries that don't give a fuck about authoritarian piece of shit laws like DMCA.

In conclusion:
Possible? Yes.
Expected whatsoever? Not at all.

 

[xdarkmario]

I won't say it's impossible, but we have a couple of things to consider here. In the case of WoW, a lot of its assets, even server code, was leaked outright, letting anyone take a crack at it if they wish. Hell I've even hosted my own server. Overwatch is different, you'd need to get stuff to carry progression and matchmaking at a minimum, could maybe reverse engineer that to do private lobby shit sort of like some old games do with GameRanger, but if that's the route they do, kiss matchmaking and balance goodbye.

Secondly, loot boxes and the like. Assuming all skins aren't all unlocked from the start (which you'll probably need back end emulation to do as well) you'd need to manage all that shit as well.

All of this being done entirely from scratch, without any idea of how the back servers work. This isn't even getting into any infighting that may occur if different people have different ideas on what is most important to preserve or how to do it.

Which brings me to the most sobering, hardest pill to swallow of all of this: Overwatch 2 will come out 48 hours after the servers are gone, and the game is free to play. This is going to deter 99% of people who would be interested in preserving Overwatch 1 and the legal teams at Blizzard will deter half of the remaining 1%, with the rest operating from foreign countries that don't give a fuck about authoritarian piece of shit laws like DMCA.

In conclusion:
Possible? Yes.
Expected whatsoever? Not at all.

comp stuff i dont imagine that being maintained but at least quick play or custom games for sure.

 

[LainaGabranth]

comp stuff i dont imagine that being maintained but at least quick play or custom games for sure.

Custom games are your best bet, expect it to be playable with no skins whatsoever, and all hosted through external programs.