When it comes to online games, there is always some troll that sours the gaming experience for all of those around him or her. When it comes to competitive games, this tend to be accentuated even more. For example, online gamers familiar with “GG EZ” will know all to well how annoying that expression is (it is explained below).

Activision Blizzard, who has been in the online-gaming market for quite some time, know all about trolls. As such, they just added a new update to their newest multiplayer shooter, Overwatch, that pokes a bit of fun at these party poopers.

The brand new patch, which has been in public testing for a while now, introduces a bunch of nerfs for overpowered heroes. On the other side of the spectrum, underused heroes got buffed a bit. Hanzo, for instance, now has 30% faster arrows while Mercy can now heal a tiny bit faster. All updates usually tend to go back and forth like this.

What is not a usual occurrence however, are the few tweaks Blizzard made to its messaging system. For instance, a common ‘insult’ to a losing team would be a quick “GG EZ” (Good Game, Easy Win). Winning players, who usually play overpowered heroes, would type that to rub some more salt into the wounds of their opponents. Now however, Blizzard has changed the outcome of that sentence a tiny bit.

The entire list of filtered phrases is not known, but a few examples include:

  • “It’s past my bedtime. Please don’t tell my mommy.”
  • “Well played. I salute you all.”
  • And personal favourite: “I feel very, very small… please hold me…”

This is no doubt a good move by Blizzard, even if it just deters the trolls a tiny bit. With every new filter a company adds, a brand new insult will pop up. This is a sad realisation of online play. However, who knows — perhaps if other companies follow Blizzard’s suit, trolls might go back into the underpasses from whence they came.

[Sources: Kotaku]

Junior Editor at Vamers. From Superman to Ironman; Bill Rizer to Sam Fisher and everything in-between, Edward loves it all. He is a Bachelor of Arts student and English Major specialising in Language and Literature. He is an avid writer and casual social networker with a flare for all things tech related.