Chapter 1
July 21, 2018
Overwatch: the Asian server.
In the video game Overwatch, almost all Asian players would play on the same server, including China’s huge fanbase. The players would be matched in games where they had similar competitive ranks and time delays.
In one of these games, twelve unranked players were matched against each other in Dorado, a night time map by the sea that was decorated with string lights and piñatas. Dorado’s fast paced background music played to welcome its heroes.
In both teams, none of the players had finished their placement matches. There was no rank icon under their avatar logo. Only after completing their 10 placement matches would their rank be determined.
Although it had already been a week since the second season started, it was currently still the peak of competitive.
At the moment, 12 player IDs were listed on the screen, splitting them into two teams. The Korean characters that made up at least 11 names revealed that most of the players in this match were Korean.
South Korean players were often able to meet other Koreans in games, thus, after verifying that their teammates were also South Korean, they would join the voice channel and start friendly communication
“I won four games. I feel lucky tonight.”
“Same here, we just won our fifth game.” The person who said this confidently selected his role. “I don’t think there’s that many people who started competitive this week…”
“It’s more efficient to start competitive late. After all, people can make adjustments to team comps or strategies, and they can watch live streams to get better before playing.”
“We have a Hanzo.”
In the harmonious and friendly discussion atmosphere, suddenly a complaint was inserted.
Even though the support main who picked Lucio didn’t usually judge his teammates’ character choices, he couldn’t help but remind his teammates, “This person is a McCree main.”
The teammates checked, and sure enough, they did have a Hanzo. The Hanzo’s player ID was Daylight. When they clicked on his career profile, they saw that in the first season of competitive, the hero with the most time used was McCree, while Hanzo can only be regarded as his fourth most used hero.
In the first season, he was able to maintain a high peak of 80, indicating that this person was a low Grandmaster last season and was very skilled at the game.
Unfortunately, that was when he used McCree. Right now he was using Hanzo.
McCree was a western cowboy with a revolver. He was a hitscan hero who could do a lot of damage.
Hanzo, on the other hand, was a handsome Japanese archer with parabolic trajectory for his arrows. He wasn’t a hitscan, so he must predict the enemy’s movements when he shoots.
These were two heroes with completely different aiming and principles. Not that many people can keep a high hit accuracy for both of these heroes concurrently.
In other words, players can only be proficient in one or the other, and Yun Yun’s career profile clearly indicated that he was better at McCree.
Therefore, the atmosphere in the team voice channel grew slightly tense.
Nevertheless, the Hanzo avatar above the player ID “Daylight” did not change, even after the long period for hero selection ended.
“Trust your teammates. If it doesn’t work out, he will probably swap.” The player who stated this chose Reinhardt, a German tank who could put up a big shield to protect his teammates from attacks.
He had long noticed that there had been no trace of Yun Yun in the voice chat channel.
No matter how much they discussed the question of “how can a McCree main play Hanzo?”, the Hanzo still refused to communicate with his team and even acted indifferent to their words.
This was a bad sign. Either the Hanzo player was very tenacious or very confident.
In other circumstances, they would trust Hanzo players. They just didn’t have confidence in Yun Yun who hadn’t practiced Hanzo long enough, yet rashly selected him in the important mode of competitive games.
However, in Overwatch, if you don’t trust your teammates, you will result in a loss, which was much worse than merely not putting faith in a teammate’s skill.
Nonetheless, even with everything discussed in the team voice chat, the Hanzo player remained unfazed.
What they didn’t realize was Yun Yun simply couldn’t understand Korean.
The majority of players communicated in English or they didn’t communicate at all. But when the team has some Korean players, Korean will firmly occupy the voice channel.
The clueless Yun Yun was surrounded by Korean teammates. He could only judge their emotions by their tone of voice since he couldn’t understand them. They possessed neither excitement nor anger and their team comp was reasonable. It appeared that this competitive game would have a smooth start.
“Attack Commences,” the system’s female voice signaled. Hanzo positioned himself in the window of Dorado’s bell tower and fired a sonic arrow at the opposite arch bridge.
The blue sound wave spread throughout the sonic arrow’s target, distinctly showing the defending team gathered on the platform.
Five.
When he noticed that the enemy team was missing a teammate, he immediately jumped down onto the payload and shot arrows at the enemies who were occupying the high ground.
The enemy team’s flanker should be sneaking around somewhere. Yun Yun could do nothing but be on the look out as he continued attacking.
10 seconds later, his team’s Genji was killed by the enemy team.
“There’s a hacker!” The dead teammate exclaimed angrily after watching the kill cam.
The previously calm voice channel suddenly exploded with outrage; the peace was shattered.
– ELIMINATED ANA –
A satisfying ping sounded; it was the game’s sound effect for kills. Meanwhile, the voice channel was inexplicably noisy, and fast-speaking Koreans were heatedly discussing something.
Were they scolding him? They couldn’t be, after all, he had just eliminated Ana. Hanzo climbed a wall and aimed at an enemy.
Their offensive momentum started off well and the payload progressed unimpeded. He was even able to sneakily crouch around from the arch bridge to the enemy team’s backline. He aimed his arrow and shot at the red framed Lucio.
“Swish~” The sound of Tracer’s recall could be heard from behind him.
After the scatter arrow that had been recently shot killed his target, he promptly turned around to deal with Tracer.
Yun Yun was already well accustomed to this type of 1v1 situation.
Due to her high mobility, it was customary for Tracers to go after enemy supports and squishies. Unfortunately, this situation didn’t always end well for her.
The reason for that is because Tracer only had her meager 150 hp. As long as he had full hp, he could eat a few of her shots, and then—
“Ah!” Hanzo’s death voice line echoed throughout the Dorado night market. He hadn’t survived like he had confidently thought.
He was killed by Tracer even without the help of her teammates.
This was a weird feeling. The arrow that would have definitely been a headshot wasn’t able to be released. A second before he could shoot, he was sent to the spawn room to wait a death penalty of six seconds.
From Tracer’s perspective, the kill cam clearly showed the crosshair firmly sticking to Hanzo’s head unnaturally, while the entire screen followed the Tracer’s sharp movements.
A hacker using aimbot, undoubtedly.
This was not Yun Yun’s first time encountering such a situation, but every similar occurrence still made his blood boil.
FPS games were never lacking in cheaters. Even banning players didn’t seem to help much.
[Team] Daylight: tracer is aimbot
When Yun Yun’s sentence appeared in the team chat, his teammates finally came to the realization that he wasn’t Korean.
[Team] Circle: yes
His teammates in the voice channel started speaking in English for Yun Yun.
They attempted to persuade the foreign Hanzo to swap to McCree. In order to make sure he understood, they repeated “McCree” with strong, heavy accents.
Since he was proficient in speaking, reading, and listening to the names of the 22 heroes in Overwatch, he had quickly discerned what his teammates were trying to express.
After all, these were words he had heard thousands of times.
[Team] Daylight: hanzo ok
With his little known amount of English vocabulary, Yun Yun tried to convey, “My Hanzo skills are pretty good.”
His teammates understood that he was no longer concerned about switching.
Yun Yun’s heart was focused on that hacker.
Tracer was infamous for being a favorite among hackers. She had high maneuverability to dodge attacks plus 40 rounds of bullets, along with extra headshot damage. No one could escape dying by her hands as long as the hacker was aimbotting.
Moreover, her recall ability could be used instantly to leave the battle and return to a safe position.
If Yun Yun wanted to kill her, he must land only headshots.
He either killed her instantly or he would be the one to end up dead.
He clearly understood this, but he wasn’t afraid. He decided to put 100% of his attention into the environment and was ready to respond.
If Tracer was nearby he would focus her, if not, then he’ll kill her teammates.
Because of the existence of the hacker, his teammates automatically gathered around in order to prevent any uncontrollable deaths.
While Hanzo advanced under the protection of Reinhardt’s shield, he suddenly heard the familiar flash that belonged to Tracer.
The unique sound effect had come from behind him. Hanzo turned to aim at where he heard the sound from. Tracer began shooting as Hanzo fired his arrow, then the crisp ping signifying a headshot sounded.
“Ah!” Tracer’s voice line confirmed her death.
“Tracer die! Go!” Yun Yun urged into his mic.
Nothing was more exhilarating than killing the hacker. Despite the fact that they were still doubtful about Yun Yun’s Hanzo, his teammates immediately responded to his command and pushed forward.
Yun Yun’s level of English was enough to help him complete simple communication. His teammates rushed into the enemy’s defense after receiving the signal to push.
The defending team who had already lost their strongest teammate couldn’t resist the attacking opponents. Their Genji slashed through the enemy heroes and Hanzo’s arrows cleared their backline.
The enemy Ana stood somewhat behind, trying to snipe heals to her teammates. In the end, she couldn’t heal them because all of a sudden she died.
It was Hanzo’s arrow that sniped her.
“Naisu!” The channel was filled with his Korean teammates’ praise, and their morale gradually rose, replacing the irritation brought on by the hacker.
The fact that the enemy team lacked an Ana was tantamount to losing the push, and the first checkpoint was easily surpassed by the attacking team.
A good start is half the success. His teammates finally had faith that their Hanzo would take care of the aimbotting Tracer, so their worries were suppressed. The team chat became active once again, and even the Koreans who didn’t know any English still conversed in the channel.
Frankly, Yun Yun didn’t care about the topics they were discussing, he just wanted to win the game.
He continually sent the system reminder “My ultimate (Dragonstrike) is ready” and soon received a response from the Zarya player.
The system voice announced, “My ultimate (Graviton Surge) is charging” and he noted that Zarya’s ult was only at 60%.
The best tactic was using Zarya’s ultimate, which pushes all the enemies into a gravity ball, then unleashing Dragonstrike to kill them all.
This idea was perfect, but unfortunately, Zarya’s ultimate charge was low.
As early as when the first point was captured, Hanzo’s ultimate had already been available.
But now it seems that he would have to wait.
The map was quiet. In addition to his teammates sending the “hello” voice line, he could also faintly hear footsteps from the rear.
They were very light, but he recognized the unique footsteps.
He turned around to look at one of the corners and shot a sonic arrow to sketch out the slim figure behind the wall.
“Tracer is behind.” Yun Yun affirmed in English.
He watched as Genji swiftly turned and jumped off the payload to pursue Tracer’s red shadow. Hanzo beat him to it though, having shot his scatter arrow into the narrow roadway.
Tracer was once again killed.
In the peaceful match chat, someone from the enemy team sent a sentence on the game channel.
Since it was written in Korean, Yun Yun didn’t bother with it and focused his attention on the defending team that were gathered together on the second floor.
On the other hand, the Korean sentence caused his teammates to be uneasy.
As the two sides kept sending dialogue to each other, it was evident that the defending team weren’t completely focused, so it must’ve been an important matter to discuss.
The match chat was filled with lines and lines of Korean, and the voice channel was also occupied with passionate debate. He let them quarrel and continued his killing rampage.
He approached the Ana who was positioned in the corner again and killed her from behind.
The ping from the elimination sound effect had not yet dissipated when a teammate said in accented English, “Hanzo, Tracer said that you are hacking.”
He aimed at the resurrected Tracer, and when he heard this sentence, he continued pushing the payload along the red line after getting another elimination.
He was particularly sensitive to hacks, aimbots, cheaters, and other English words that represented hackers. He had definitely understood the question.
After returning behind his Reinhardt’s defensive barrier, he minimized the Overwatch client.
There was an open notebook app on his computer desktop, which listed numerous prepared English sentences along with the translation.
He copied the first sentence and swiftly pasted it in the match chat.
Enter.
[Match] Daylight: What I hate most are hackers.
This kind of thing can ruin a player’s most basic experience of a game.
Translator Notes:
if you see any errors please tell me! also, if you don’t understand a game slang, comment and I’ll add it to this vocab list.
i’m not sure if Yun Yun is the best translation for 郧昀, if not, correct me.
Vocabulary
flanking=secretly going around to the enemies backline and trying to kill the weak heroes
main=someone’s main hero that they play
pick=a kill
push=going in aggressively
hitscan=shooting without time delay
dps=damage per second, another name to call attack heroes
hp=health points
squishies=heroes that are easy to kill and cling around tanks
kill cam=a replay of the player’s death from the enemy’s prospective
Chapter 1
July 21, 2018
Overwatch: the Asian server.
In the video game Overwatch, almost all Asian players would play on the same server, including China’s huge fanbase. The players would be matched in games where they had similar competitive ranks and time delays.
In one of these games, twelve unranked players were matched against each other in Dorado, a night time map by the sea that was decorated with string lights and piñatas. Dorado’s fast paced background music played to welcome its heroes.
In both teams, none of the players had finished their placement matches. There was no rank icon under their avatar logo. Only after completing their 10 placement matches would their rank be determined.
Although it had already been a week since the second season started, it was currently still the peak of competitive.
At the moment, 12 player IDs were listed on the screen, splitting them into two teams. The Korean characters that made up at least 11 names revealed that most of the players in this match were Korean.
South Korean players were often able to meet other Koreans in games, thus, after verifying that their teammates were also South Korean, they would join the voice channel and start friendly communication
“I won four games. I feel lucky tonight.”
“Same here, we just won our fifth game.” The person who said this confidently selected his role. “I don’t think there’s that many people who started competitive this week…”
“It’s more efficient to start competitive late. After all, people can make adjustments to team comps or strategies, and they can watch live streams to get better before playing.”
“We have a Hanzo.”
In the harmonious and friendly discussion atmosphere, suddenly a complaint was inserted.
Even though the support main who picked Lucio didn’t usually judge his teammates’ character choices, he couldn’t help but remind his teammates, “This person is a McCree main.”
The teammates checked, and sure enough, they did have a Hanzo. The Hanzo’s player ID was Daylight. When they clicked on his career profile, they saw that in the first season of competitive, the hero with the most time used was McCree, while Hanzo can only be regarded as his fourth most used hero.
In the first season, he was able to maintain a high peak of 80, indicating that this person was a low Grandmaster last season and was very skilled at the game.
Unfortunately, that was when he used McCree. Right now he was using Hanzo.
McCree was a western cowboy with a revolver. He was a hitscan hero who could do a lot of damage.
Hanzo, on the other hand, was a handsome Japanese archer with parabolic trajectory for his arrows. He wasn’t a hitscan, so he must predict the enemy’s movements when he shoots.
These were two heroes with completely different aiming and principles. Not that many people can keep a high hit accuracy for both of these heroes concurrently.
In other words, players can only be proficient in one or the other, and Yun Yun’s career profile clearly indicated that he was better at McCree.
Therefore, the atmosphere in the team voice channel grew slightly tense.
Nevertheless, the Hanzo avatar above the player ID “Daylight” did not change, even after the long period for hero selection ended.
“Trust your teammates. If it doesn’t work out, he will probably swap.” The player who stated this chose Reinhardt, a German tank who could put up a big shield to protect his teammates from attacks.
He had long noticed that there had been no trace of Yun Yun in the voice chat channel.
No matter how much they discussed the question of “how can a McCree main play Hanzo?”, the Hanzo still refused to communicate with his team and even acted indifferent to their words.
This was a bad sign. Either the Hanzo player was very tenacious or very confident.
In other circumstances, they would trust Hanzo players. They just didn’t have confidence in Yun Yun who hadn’t practiced Hanzo long enough, yet rashly selected him in the important mode of competitive games.
However, in Overwatch, if you don’t trust your teammates, you will result in a loss, which was much worse than merely not putting faith in a teammate’s skill.
Nonetheless, even with everything discussed in the team voice chat, the Hanzo player remained unfazed.
What they didn’t realize was Yun Yun simply couldn’t understand Korean.
The majority of players communicated in English or they didn’t communicate at all. But when the team has some Korean players, Korean will firmly occupy the voice channel.
The clueless Yun Yun was surrounded by Korean teammates. He could only judge their emotions by their tone of voice since he couldn’t understand them. They possessed neither excitement nor anger and their team comp was reasonable. It appeared that this competitive game would have a smooth start.
“Attack Commences,” the system’s female voice signaled. Hanzo positioned himself in the window of Dorado’s bell tower and fired a sonic arrow at the opposite arch bridge.
The blue sound wave spread throughout the sonic arrow’s target, distinctly showing the defending team gathered on the platform.
Five.
When he noticed that the enemy team was missing a teammate, he immediately jumped down onto the payload and shot arrows at the enemies who were occupying the high ground.
The enemy team’s flanker should be sneaking around somewhere. Yun Yun could do nothing but be on the look out as he continued attacking.
10 seconds later, his team’s Genji was killed by the enemy team.
“There’s a hacker!” The dead teammate exclaimed angrily after watching the kill cam.
The previously calm voice channel suddenly exploded with outrage; the peace was shattered.
– ELIMINATED ANA –
A satisfying ping sounded; it was the game’s sound effect for kills. Meanwhile, the voice channel was inexplicably noisy, and fast-speaking Koreans were heatedly discussing something.
Were they scolding him? They couldn’t be, after all, he had just eliminated Ana. Hanzo climbed a wall and aimed at an enemy.
Their offensive momentum started off well and the payload progressed unimpeded. He was even able to sneakily crouch around from the arch bridge to the enemy team’s backline. He aimed his arrow and shot at the red framed Lucio.
“Swish~” The sound of Tracer’s recall could be heard from behind him.
After the scatter arrow that had been recently shot killed his target, he promptly turned around to deal with Tracer.
Yun Yun was already well accustomed to this type of 1v1 situation.
Due to her high mobility, it was customary for Tracers to go after enemy supports and squishies. Unfortunately, this situation didn’t always end well for her.
The reason for that is because Tracer only had her meager 150 hp. As long as he had full hp, he could eat a few of her shots, and then—
“Ah!” Hanzo’s death voice line echoed throughout the Dorado night market. He hadn’t survived like he had confidently thought.
He was killed by Tracer even without the help of her teammates.
This was a weird feeling. The arrow that would have definitely been a headshot wasn’t able to be released. A second before he could shoot, he was sent to the spawn room to wait a death penalty of six seconds.
From Tracer’s perspective, the kill cam clearly showed the crosshair firmly sticking to Hanzo’s head unnaturally, while the entire screen followed the Tracer’s sharp movements.
A hacker using aimbot, undoubtedly.
This was not Yun Yun’s first time encountering such a situation, but every similar occurrence still made his blood boil.
FPS games were never lacking in cheaters. Even banning players didn’t seem to help much.
[Team] Daylight: tracer is aimbot
When Yun Yun’s sentence appeared in the team chat, his teammates finally came to the realization that he wasn’t Korean.
[Team] Circle: yes
His teammates in the voice channel started speaking in English for Yun Yun.
They attempted to persuade the foreign Hanzo to swap to McCree. In order to make sure he understood, they repeated “McCree” with strong, heavy accents.
Since he was proficient in speaking, reading, and listening to the names of the 22 heroes in Overwatch, he had quickly discerned what his teammates were trying to express.
After all, these were words he had heard thousands of times.
[Team] Daylight: hanzo ok
With his little known amount of English vocabulary, Yun Yun tried to convey, “My Hanzo skills are pretty good.”
His teammates understood that he was no longer concerned about switching.
Yun Yun’s heart was focused on that hacker.
Tracer was infamous for being a favorite among hackers. She had high maneuverability to dodge attacks plus 40 rounds of bullets, along with extra headshot damage. No one could escape dying by her hands as long as the hacker was aimbotting.
Moreover, her recall ability could be used instantly to leave the battle and return to a safe position.
If Yun Yun wanted to kill her, he must land only headshots.
He either killed her instantly or he would be the one to end up dead.
He clearly understood this, but he wasn’t afraid. He decided to put 100% of his attention into the environment and was ready to respond.
If Tracer was nearby he would focus her, if not, then he’ll kill her teammates.
Because of the existence of the hacker, his teammates automatically gathered around in order to prevent any uncontrollable deaths.
While Hanzo advanced under the protection of Reinhardt’s shield, he suddenly heard the familiar flash that belonged to Tracer.
The unique sound effect had come from behind him. Hanzo turned to aim at where he heard the sound from. Tracer began shooting as Hanzo fired his arrow, then the crisp ping signifying a headshot sounded.
“Ah!” Tracer’s voice line confirmed her death.
“Tracer die! Go!” Yun Yun urged into his mic.
Nothing was more exhilarating than killing the hacker. Despite the fact that they were still doubtful about Yun Yun’s Hanzo, his teammates immediately responded to his command and pushed forward.
Yun Yun’s level of English was enough to help him complete simple communication. His teammates rushed into the enemy’s defense after receiving the signal to push.
The defending team who had already lost their strongest teammate couldn’t resist the attacking opponents. Their Genji slashed through the enemy heroes and Hanzo’s arrows cleared their backline.
The enemy Ana stood somewhat behind, trying to snipe heals to her teammates. In the end, she couldn’t heal them because all of a sudden she died.
It was Hanzo’s arrow that sniped her.
“Naisu!” The channel was filled with his Korean teammates’ praise, and their morale gradually rose, replacing the irritation brought on by the hacker.
The fact that the enemy team lacked an Ana was tantamount to losing the push, and the first checkpoint was easily surpassed by the attacking team.
A good start is half the success. His teammates finally had faith that their Hanzo would take care of the aimbotting Tracer, so their worries were suppressed. The team chat became active once again, and even the Koreans who didn’t know any English still conversed in the channel.
Frankly, Yun Yun didn’t care about the topics they were discussing, he just wanted to win the game.
He continually sent the system reminder “My ultimate (Dragonstrike) is ready” and soon received a response from the Zarya player.
The system voice announced, “My ultimate (Graviton Surge) is charging” and he noted that Zarya’s ult was only at 60%.
The best tactic was using Zarya’s ultimate, which pushes all the enemies into a gravity ball, then unleashing Dragonstrike to kill them all.
This idea was perfect, but unfortunately, Zarya’s ultimate charge was low.
As early as when the first point was captured, Hanzo’s ultimate had already been available.
But now it seems that he would have to wait.
The map was quiet. In addition to his teammates sending the “hello” voice line, he could also faintly hear footsteps from the rear.
They were very light, but he recognized the unique footsteps.
He turned around to look at one of the corners and shot a sonic arrow to sketch out the slim figure behind the wall.
“Tracer is behind.” Yun Yun affirmed in English.
He watched as Genji swiftly turned and jumped off the payload to pursue Tracer’s red shadow. Hanzo beat him to it though, having shot his scatter arrow into the narrow roadway.
Tracer was once again killed.
In the peaceful match chat, someone from the enemy team sent a sentence on the game channel.
Since it was written in Korean, Yun Yun didn’t bother with it and focused his attention on the defending team that were gathered together on the second floor.
On the other hand, the Korean sentence caused his teammates to be uneasy.
As the two sides kept sending dialogue to each other, it was evident that the defending team weren’t completely focused, so it must’ve been an important matter to discuss.
The match chat was filled with lines and lines of Korean, and the voice channel was also occupied with passionate debate. He let them quarrel and continued his killing rampage.
He approached the Ana who was positioned in the corner again and killed her from behind.
The ping from the elimination sound effect had not yet dissipated when a teammate said in accented English, “Hanzo, Tracer said that you are hacking.”
He aimed at the resurrected Tracer, and when he heard this sentence, he continued pushing the payload along the red line after getting another elimination.
He was particularly sensitive to hacks, aimbots, cheaters, and other English words that represented hackers. He had definitely understood the question.
After returning behind his Reinhardt’s defensive barrier, he minimized the Overwatch client.
There was an open notebook app on his computer desktop, which listed numerous prepared English sentences along with the translation.
He copied the first sentence and swiftly pasted it in the match chat.
Enter.
[Match] Daylight: What I hate most are hackers.
This kind of thing can ruin a player’s most basic experience of a game.
Translator Notes:
if you see any errors please tell me! also, if you don’t understand a game slang, comment and I’ll add it to this vocab list.
i’m not sure if Yun Yun is the best translation for 郧昀, if not, correct me.
Vocabulary
flanking=secretly going around to the enemies backline and trying to kill the weak heroes
main=someone’s main hero that they play
pick=a kill
push=going in aggressively
hitscan=shooting without time delay
dps=damage per second, another name to call attack heroes
hp=health points
squishies=heroes that are easy to kill and cling around tanks
kill cam=a replay of the player’s death from the enemy’s prospective
