As Overwatch continues to be played by many and new updates are applied to rebalance the meta and introduce new characters, as well as add content for events, so will bugs also slip in every now and then. Some become known as exploits to allow people to do things they shouldn’t.

A new one has come to light in the last few weeks, in which players found a way to use Mei’s ice wall ability to push players through walls into areas designated as out-of-bounds. Obviously this allowed for hiding players to attack enemies without much danger to themselves, and that sort of ruins the match for everyone. Now Blizzard have located and apparently squashed the bug, and have promised that those found to have been intentionally using the exploit to give themselves an advantage will see punishment.

“This bug was surprisingly tricky for us to track down but we believe we have identified a fix.” wrote game director Jeff Kaplan on the game’s forums. “Our hope is to have it fixed… but there is always the chance that our fix could fail. We’re currently testing to verify the fix. This bug is clearly an exploit and we consider this cheating. Do not attempt to reproduce this bug. We will be taking action against those who abused this exploit… exploiting game mechanics like this comes at a cost to those you are competing against. We take aggressive action against people who abuse game mechanics, hack or cheat. This case is no different.”

Already people are reporting that they’ve found their accounts suspended for having used the exploit, and one Reddit user has reported that they’re on a week long ban for it.

Just as they said when they launched the game and have proved time after time, Blizzard take a hard line on people cheating in their PvP shooter game.

While the majority of things that have come in the Winter Wonderland event for Overwatch have been well received by the community (seriously, the amount of love I’ve seen on Tumblr for Junkrat and Roadhog’s matching sprays is immense), one particular piece has been widely criticised by fans.

While most of the skins like Yeti Winston and Nutcracker Zenyatta have been quite popular, a lot of people are disappointed with Mei’s new skin. In fact, the negative reaction has been so drastic that Overwatch’s director Jeff Kaplan has felt the need to actually apologise for it on the Overwatch forums.

“We don’t have a specific rule for what makes something Legendary or Epic. We just sort of make a gut call based off of what we think is cool.” Kaplan wrote. “Coolness is very subjective, and based off of the community reaction it seems like our gauge was off on this one. Our reasoning for it being Legendary was that we completely redid the visual effects for Cryo-Freeze (we turned the ice block into a snowman).”

For those who haven’t seen the skin, it looks fairly similar to Mei’s ordinary winter coat skin if in Christmassy colours, with added hat and (as Kaplan says in his post) the ice block ability making Mei a snowman instead. Given that skins that are usually given Legendary status (which this one has been) are usually drastic changes from the norm, this is the main bone of contention.

For those disappointed though, Kaplan says that Mei is due to get something awesome in the early part of 2017.

“Apologies that our “cool meter” was off from yours on this one. We’ll try to align better on future content.”

Fans of HiRez Studio’s 3rd person action MOBA SMITE will know that the developer loves to runs sales, in game events and generally just throw things at players. This is partly due to the fact that they want you to spend money on skins. But, when the skins are as generally high quality as the ones HiRez turns out, you can’t really blame them. With the holidays here, HiRez is ratcheting up the in-game goodies even more.  From Saturday Dec 17th at 5 a.m. EST until Tuesday, December 20th at 5 a.m. EST players can earn triple worshippers, experience and favor in SMITE. This makes the weekend the perfect time to work on your mastery levels with Nike and that pesky Fafnir. 

And if that wasn’t enough for you, once Triple Everything Weekend ends on the 20th, the 7 Days of Saturnalia Event will begin. Similar to Triple Everything Weekend, thjis second event will offer Double Everything as well as free gems for completing quests themed around the in game pantheons. From HiRez themselves:

Beginning Tuesday, December 20th until Monday, December 26th, join in the 7 Days of Saturnalia once again! Indulge in free Gems, Pantheon Chest Sales, and double Experience/Worshipers all week long.

Each day, there will be a new Pantheon specific Quest players can participate in that will yield 25 Gems upon completion. That means you can earn up to 175 Gems during Saturnalia! Each Pantheon Quest and Pantheon Chest will be available for 2 days.

Kudos to HiRez for giving players a full ten days of Christmas gifts, especially those who might still be trying to earn some gems and finish off those Odyssey purchases in order to get that sick Anubis Tier 5 skin. Go log in and own some people on the Battleground of the Gods people, HiRez is literally throwing gems at you to do so!

The Elder Scrolls Online is due to get an update similar to Skyrim’s Hearthfire, in that players will soon be able to purchase and fill with items to make their very own dwellings. The update was originally mentioned at E3 this year back in June, and now a rough ETA has been put on it – Feb 2017.

Named Homestead, the update will be free and introduces 40 different homes across the map; all within base zones on launch, none within DLC-only areas. There will be over 2000 items to buy or craft as well for your chosen home, and the dwellings will be styled after the game’s ten playable races. There will be a variety of sizes too from small living spaces such as Inn rooms to huge manors with large outside areas included, and homes will be instanced to save players all rushing for the best plots of land when the feature launch. Fast travel to homes and the ability to invite friends and guild mates will also be available, and all homes are secure from other players who would try and steal furniture and other features from your home.

Bethesda wrote about Homestead: “Unfurnished homes will be available for purchase with either in-game Gold or with Crowns in the Crown Store. Fully furnished homes will be available for purchase through the Crown Store with Crowns. Players will be allowed to preview homes prior to purchase, whether furnished and unfurnished.”

For further information, visit the game’s  official site.