Blizzard apologises, still working on Overwatch 2 launch woes
Updates fans on queues and crashes.
After a rocky launch, Blizzard has updated fans on its progress tackling some of the various issues which have plagued Overwatch 2 over the past 24 hours.
Many fans have been left unable to play for long periods, stuck in queues, left without access to previously-unlocked characters and items, or locked out of the game entirely by the requirement to log-in using their mobile phones.
These issues have been exacerbated by a series of DDOS attacks aimed at the game's servers. And today, following a bruising 24 hours, Blizzard has apologised.
"We want to apologise to our players," Blizzard wrote. "We expected the launch of Overwatch 2 to go smoothly. We hold ourselves to a higher standard and we are working hard to resolve the issues you are experiencing."
On queues, Blizzard said it had been operating two different queues - one for Battle.net, one for the game itself - which is why some users had seen wildly different numbers at different times. This has now been "simplified", Blizzard said, and you should now just have one queue before entering thegame.
Blizzard has issued a server patch to "improve stability" overall, though noted that its "player database is being overloaded" - likely a reference to the game's DDOS attacks, "which cascades and causes a backup in the login system, which eventually leads to some people being dropped out of queues or being unable to log in at all".
The company is continuing to add new servers, but this in turn requires the replication of data - a further strain on the system in the short term. "Once it's done, [it] will greatly improve the experience for players across multiple fronts moving forward," Blizzard noted.
Other issues include problems with incorectly locked heroes and items, and missing items. This was caused by a range of issues, including veteran players being incorrectly given Overwatch 2's First Time User Experience (FTUE) to start.
Other problems here were down to issues with account merging, where some users have not been able to immediately access items from Overwatch in its sequel. This has partly been caused by players not correctly merging accounts - a "partial UI fix" has now been rolled out to aid this - but also generally just due to issues with Blizzard's servers which it has warned will require a longer fix it will deploy next week.
"Tl;dr: You have not lost any items or progress, though some players are logging in and seeing some/all elements missing from their collection," Blizzard wrote.
At the same time, Blizzard has also U-turned on its requirements for many existing Overwatch players to need their mobile phone to log in.