Activision-Blizzard’s long-awaited Overwatch 2 has not had the best of launches due to an unrelenting DDoS attack on the company’s servers and some players of the original Overwatch game’s content has not been transferred over yet. The company has said in a message that “no player data has been wiped or lost” so you can rest assured your progress and unlocks from the original game will eventually transfer over. Blizzard also said that anyone who has played the original Overwatch since 9th June, 2021 will not have to provide a phone number to play from tomorrow, 7th October. The request of a phone number was stated as a way to stop and wipeout player cheating or abuse. Here’s a roundup of what’s been said by the Overwatch 2 development team.
SMS Protect
- Blizzard has removed phone number requirements for a majority of existing Overwatch players.
- Any Overwatch player with a connected Battle.net account, which includes all players who have played since June 9, 2021, will not have to provide a phone number to play.
- Blizzard expects this change to go live on Friday, October 7 and will update players once it is in effect.
Queue Times and Connectivity Issues
- Blizzard is working on patching servers to improve stability and increase login reliability. They have addressed some issues and are in the process of addressing others, but players should still expect to see queues in the short-term.
- Much more detailed information on the forum post.
Missing Player Items/Data
- Approximately half of reported Missing Item cases are a result of players having not yet completed their account merge, instructions for which are here. In the other half of reported cases for this issue, things are just taking longer than expected for items from the original Overwatch to transfer and populate in Overwatch 2.
- Blizzard is exploring multiple fixes on this, further detailed in the forum post.
- However, most importantly, in all cases, no player data has been wiped or lost.
Incorrectly Locked Heroes and Items for Existing Players
- Relogging into the game will resolve this issue in most cases.
DDoS Attacks
- On the day of launch, the above issues were exacerbated by DDoS attacks—while they did not directly cause any of these issues, they made the working environment to solve these issues more challenging.
- Blizzard has not suffered any further attacks.
Source: Blizzard
That’s great they removed the phone number requirements for players who played the Original Overwatch since June 9th 2021, i thought maybe they would just make it so any phone number or phone plan would be acceptable “if that would even be possible” im sure this will make alot of players happy who previously couldn’t play at the official launch.
Finally
Honestly, this feels like a step in the right direction. Requiring a phone number locked out a lot of legitimate players, especially those who just wanted to jump in and enjoy the game without extra barriers. Blizzard clearly underestimated how frustrating that requirement would be for long-time fans. Removing it for the majority of existing players seems like a reasonable compromise and should help bring some people back who were put off at launch.
Situations like this also highlight a bigger issue across Blizzard games in general: players want fewer obstacles between them and the content they enjoy. Whether it’s account requirements, long grinds, or time-gated systems, convenience matters more now than ever. That’s one reason why many WoW players turn to external services when time is limited. For example, some players use https://wowvendor.com/shop/wow-gold/ wow gold to stay focused on raids, PvP, or social play instead of endless farming.
At the end of the day, accessibility and respecting player time are what keep communities healthy. Hopefully Blizzard keeps moving in this direction across all their games.