Blizzard warns against using the Lucioball character-changing exploit in Overwatch
You've been warned.
A fun little glitch in Lucioball, the Rocket League-like Overwatch game mode Blizzard released last week, recently came to light: While the game is supposed to be a Lucio-exclusive affair, it's possible to play as other characters who really aren't designed for it. At first, it seemed to happen almost randomly, but some players have apparently figured out how to make it happen intentionally, which has prompted Blizzard to warn of dire consequences for those who do.
“Apologies for this bug. We've attempted to fix it numerous times and have had unrelated issues preventing the fix. We hope to have a fix this week,” Game Director Jeff Kaplan wrote in the Battle.net forums. “In the meantime, we are in discussions with our Customer Support group to start taking action against those deliberately using the bug to play heroes other than Lucio. Please do not exploit this bug. Fair warning.”
Kaplan didn't hint at what sort of unpleasantness might befall those who willfully dick around with the game, but the unspoken “or else” is clear. I would guess that a straight-up ban is unlikely—taking advantage of a bug in a semi-silly game mode like Lucioball is hardly the same as hacking in competitive play, after all—but a ban from that particular mode strikes me as perfectly reasonable. And if history has taught us anything, it's that Blizzard is not shy about dropping the hammer on those who behave badly. Fair warning.
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Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.
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