00:04Welcome everybody to another developer update. I'm Jeff from the Overwatch team.
00:09Really excited about today's developer update because we're going to talk about a feature that we mentioned at Blizzcon and
00:16we're finally introducing to you guys.
00:18And that feature is the server browser. So to start, not everybody knows what a server browser is.
00:24A lot of you who played shooters back in the 90s and early 2000s know exactly what a server browser
00:31is, but it's a really cool feature where people can run custom versions of the game and then other people
00:38can find that game in a public list and then join it.
00:42So we are adding a server browser that's going to list all of the custom games running in your region
00:49and what region means is if you have your region set to Americas or Asia or Europe, you will see
00:58all of the custom games that are set to public in that region.
01:02And there's all sorts of sorting and filtering options to help you find exactly what kind of game you're looking
01:10for.
01:10So if you know ahead of time that you want to play a certain mode only or if you really
01:16want to find a certain map because that's what you want to play on right now, you can search the
01:21server browser for that particular map and get right to it.
01:24We have a really cool filter option that lets you filter directly for things like maps or heroes that are
01:30enabled and disabled or we've added a type in box where you can type in exactly what you're looking for.
01:40You might just say payload or escort or you want to find Ilios and all of those things work and
01:47it will show you exactly what custom games match those particular options you're looking for.
01:53So we think that's going to be a really great way for players to find different types of games that
01:59they wouldn't normally find elsewhere.
02:02Now you might be wondering why do we add this feature, like what does this bring to Overwatch that doesn't
02:08already exist?
02:09We recognize that the majority of our players like to play the game through quick play and competitive and then
02:16a lot of our players engage with the arcade as well and the different modes that are running in the
02:22arcade.
02:22But there's a lot of times where players want to try different things and play the games in different ways
02:29and it's not really viable for us to put up a matchmaking system where we could feed everybody into everybody's
02:37different possible custom game.
02:39So for that reason we need to give you a way to look at the different custom games that are
02:44out there and decide for yourself, you know, do I want to partake in it or not?
02:50Now speaking of custom game, you guys have seen this feature before but we're doing huge updates to custom game
02:57and bringing tons of new functionality to the feature.
03:00Right off the bat, one of the most exciting things about the new custom game feature is you can now
03:06gain experience while in a custom game.
03:10So that will be really cool. For those of you who only want to scrim with your friends in purely
03:16competitive mode, you're now gaining EXP and earning loot boxes through the custom game feature which should be really cool
03:24for you.
03:24The other thing that we're adding, really big announcement, Year of the Rooster event was fantastic. People have responded so
03:33positively to Capture the Rooster that we are adding CTF as a game mode that you will be able to
03:40enable in custom game.
03:44And we are adding nine additional maps in addition to the three Capture the Rooster maps, we're going to add
03:52nine additional maps that are conversions from our other control maps.
03:58So they're all there for you to play around on. We've been having a ton of fun playing on these.
04:03But beyond that, what Custom Game has added is tons of new options for you to play around with.
04:10So I'll use Capture the Flag as an example. We've been reading a lot of the feedback, listening to a
04:16lot of the feedback on Capture the Flag, and we've heard things like,
04:20Well, you should require my team to have the flag if we're going to capture the enemy's flag. We now
04:27enable this as an option. You can set it if you think that the game mode should work that way.
04:32Or people have vastly differing opinions on whether or not the flag should have a pickup time. Some say it
04:39should be longer, some say it should be shorter. It's up to you now.
04:43You can set it to whatever you want it to be. If you want it to be instant, that's awesome.
04:47If you want it to set it to longer than we have it, you can do that as well.
04:51We've also added a dropdown that lets you select whether or not hero abilities work. So maybe all heroes' abilities
05:01work like they do currently in the mode by default.
05:04Or if you'd prefer, you can make it so no hero abilities work in the mode. Or even different, another
05:10option that we've given you is you can make it so the flag is dropped if mobility or immunity abilities
05:18are used.
05:19So all sorts of different examples of things that you can do. You can change the flag return time. You
05:25can change the match time if you want. You can change how many flags are required.
05:31And this doesn't just apply to CTF. You can go into the payload maps and change the payload speed if
05:38you think it should be faster or slower. You can change the capture speed on control points if you want.
05:44In the control mode, you can even go in and decide what rate does capture percentage accrue at. So if
05:52you want that to be faster or slower. You can decide what heroes you want in the maps.
05:57If you think, you know, tracer's a problem in escort maps, you can turn her off if you want. There's
06:04so many options available to you. Even more so than just turning a simple hero off, you can now go
06:13into each individual hero abilities and turn them on or off and adjust their cooldowns if you want.
06:21So one of the things that's really fun that we've been having a blast with is setting Widowmaker's cooldown on
06:29our grapple hook as low as it can possibly go.
06:31So you can pretty much Spider-Man your way through the map with Widowmaker if you want. And once you
06:36get a bunch of Widowmakers doing this, it's really fun.
06:39The creativity is really limitless in what you can do. We've added options where you can set things on a
06:47per team basis. So let me give you a quick example of something you might want to try there.
06:52You could set it so a custom game that you put up and is available to the public has one
06:59team with a single Roadhog with triple his normal health against a team of six other players at lower health.
07:08So you can call it like a boss fight or something like that. Wherever your creativity takes you, we're trying
07:14to give you as many options as possible to play around and come up with fun different ways to play
07:21Overwatch.
07:21Now, every setting that you could wildly imagine is probably not there in the first version. Already as we're putting
07:30this feature onto the public test realm, we already have some ideas of other features that we'd like to add
07:38and other options we'd like to add.
07:39So what's exciting to us is as this feature is out there, knowing that this is a base or a
07:46foundation that we can grow further customization and further new fun options and new fun ways to play Overwatch.
07:55So we'll really be looking not only at your requests for like what options you think would be fun and
08:00what you want to see added to custom game and to the server browser, but also all the different things
08:08that you're doing, we want to watch and see, you know, wow, everybody's running capture the flag with these certain
08:15settings.
08:16And it seems to be even more popular than our version of capture the flag. We're going to be paying
08:22attention to that and looking to adjust what we're doing based on what's popular with you guys.
08:28So it's going to be a really fun feature. I think it's a really great start to a great feature
08:35that's going to grow over time. We really look forward to hearing what you guys have to say about it.
08:41And we'll be right there on the PTR with you testing it and we'll be there playing the game with
08:46you guys when it goes live. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do and we look forward
08:52to what you have to say. Take care.
