I’ve been revisiting anno 2205, infamously the ugly duckling of the Anno series of RTS games. I don’t mind so much the fact that it’s different, lacks customisation and random map generation - I’m bothered because the game is so slow to progress through on challenge settings, and it feels like a game designed just to artificially waste your time; in other anno games, you can always pull tricks to dig yourself out of economic crisis - selling off assets and surplus goods, completing quests for other parties, or taking loans. 2205 is very very confined in terms of what you can do to financially recover in the early game and forces you into a lot of military events.
Accidentally stumbled upon Overwatch when a streamer that I follow played it a bit on stream while experimenting with other games.
It scratched an itch. I hadn’t played competitive FPS in ages. All friends were either ignoring that genre or were playing games where a death kicked you out of the match basically (no respawn). That meant that you’d end up spectating a lot or waiting in queue if you played with them. Also the concept of a hero shooter and those abilities looked fun.
I sunk hundreds of hours in it, even got some proficiency in the workshop when that was released. I drifted more and more into custom games and ignored the ladder but still had fun.
Then there was a content drought. They were preparing for OW2 and neglecting the current game. It felt more and more like a chore. I played less and less. Then OW2 came out as a forced upgrade - you couldn’t play the original anymore, there was aggressive monetization, 5v5 instead of 6v6 and most of my used synergies as a tank player wouldn’t work anymore. I encountered way more toxic players than before (probably partly because of the influx of new players). Either the workshop and custom games were gone, or they were hardly played - I can’t remember. Then I quit for good and haven’t looked back.
I skipped overwatch. I was hyped when it was announced and thought it would be f2p to compete with TF2.
The price tag was a bit too hefty for my linking so I decided to wait a bit, figuring it would get f2p eventually.
Only when it did they managed to trash the game at the same time, so I just never bothered. Instead playing TF2 on the remaining active servers.
Overwatch was BIG in my circle of friends when it came out, and many of my friends’ first team-based shooter.
I had been playing TF2 and was deep into the characters and lore, and got a few of them to try it, but it sadly never really stuck. Overwatch just became the default shooter everyone was playing, and that didn’t really change. I still play it with them, and I actually enjoyed the Stadium mode, since it brought something fresh to the game. Some recent updates (Jetpack Cat) are clawing away at that enjoyment, though…
I got a few people to try out Deadlock, which has big problems, but I feel is a lot better than OW. I’m not really into MOBAs, so I honestly hope i can convince some people to give TF2 a shot again.