paragon

Official Site: Paragon
Studio: Epic Games
Launch Date: N/A
Genre: MOBA
Business Model: B2P (Paid Early Access)
Platform: PC
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Paragon artist shows off concept art from the doomed MOBA

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Perhaps because the announcement was all the way back in January, but Paragon’s shutdown is scheduled to take place at the end of next week. Epic Games made the decision to pull the plug on the action MOBA due to an unsustainable playerbase and refunded all users any money they had spent on the title.

As the sun begins to set on this title, we can take a moment to ponder what might have been. Artist Dave Rapoza shared some concept art on Twitter that he had developed for the game but had never been turned into actual assets. This gallery of characters ranges from the heroic to the bizarre and gives a taste of the odd sci-fi angle the game as attempting.

“Four years ago I got the opportunity to help flesh out Paragon, the now-cancelled MOBA from Epic Games,” Rapoza wrote. “I was given free reign on the character designs, it was an awesome opportunity, but most of these never made it into the game. Hope you like it!”

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Epic Games releases the Paragon assets for free use in Unreal Engine 4 development

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It’s interesting to learn that the art and animations for Paragon cost Epic Games $12 million, all told. How do we know that? Well… the company is giving them away. Not to anyone, to everyone. All of the characters, skins, environmental art, and so forth are all offered completely free of charge to anyone who wants to use them in any sort of Unreal Engine 4 development project.

For those of you not following along, that means that fans could resurrect Paragon completely for free if they wished to. They could also make a totally new game based on the same characters, or just use some of the assets, or use those assets as a starting point for something completely different. It’s entirely up to each individual user. Because all of the assets are there, and again, they’ve been released to the public for use completely for free for UE4 development.

In short: This is really cool.

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Western gamers start petition to save Paragon while Chinese players await info

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It shouldn’t really need to be said, but Paragon has fans. You may not love it yourself, but there are a lot of fans who are really upset about the shutdown announcement. So the fans have turned to that time-honored tradition in the wake of an unwanted shutdown, a petition for Epic Games to keep the lights on at the bare minimum.

The petition was aiming for 25,000 signatures and as of this writing has almost hit that number, so it’s clear that a lot of people are willing to write in to support the game at least remaining online even if the updates grind to a halt. Of course, petitions to avert shutdowns do not have the most positive track record; nevertheless, if you are sad about the game shuttering, we encourage you to throw your name onto the list.

Don’t think a petition is going to work? You could always join the folks playing on the Tencent-backed Chinese version of the game, which reportedly either isn’t sunsetting – or hasn’t been told yet.

Source: Petition; thanks to Kinya for the tip!

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Epic shutters Paragon over playerbase size woes, declaring it ‘unsustainable’

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When Epic Games admitted last week that Paragon’s playerbase just couldn’t seem to push past its core, many fans all but expected this announcement, and now it’s come.

“It’s with heavy hearts we’ve decided to close down Paragon. We truly appreciate everything you’ve put into Paragon. We received many passionate ideas for where to take the game; the outpouring of thoughtful suggestions is another testament to this incredible community. After careful consideration, and many difficult internal debates, we feel there isn’t a clear path for us to grow Paragon into a MOBA that retains enough players to be sustainable.”

Epic has taken the unusual step of offering refunds to all Paragon players for all purchases on every platform ever. The servers will close on April 26, 2018.

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Paragon is slowing down because the game just isn’t growing

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It’s a good thing that Paragon fans have gotten a detailed and straightforward update on the state of the game and its development future straight from the developers. What may be seen as slightly less good is the context of that update. Put simply, patches and development in general are slowing down because the game just doesn’t seem capable of growing. No matter how many changes are made to the game, its playerbase tends to go back to the same exact size.

This is exacerbated somewhat by the success of Fortnite, which has required additional development staff and has generally served as a major success for the company. That isn’t to say anyone is giving up on Paragon having a future; the development team is working on plans for new approaches to bring players into the game and keep them in the game. For the moment, though, the release cadence is going to slow down a fair bit simply because the game isn’t getting any bigger. Here’s hoping that the team finds the growth trick the game is looking for.

Source: Reddit

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Halloween events across the MMORPG verse, 2017 edition

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Hey, you. Yeah, you, dude leeching candy from the bucket you bought “for the neighborhood kids.” And you, lady still trying to decide between “Princess Leia” and “lazy zombie” for your costume (go Leia, duh). Put all that aside and get into some MMOs instead! Halloween is only one night in real life, but in MMORPGs, it goes on for days or even weeks. Some studios will probably even forget to turn it off! Others will let you run around with a flaming pumpkin head mask for all eternity!

Here’s what we’re looking at this year for Halloween across the MMORPG verse.

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Paragon unveils the newest incarnation of Shadow’s Eve

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Just because a game is all about smashing the stuffing out of your opponents in a fixed arena doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy the Halloween season. Paragon is bringing back its Shadow’s Eve event once more, complete with new Halloween-themed skins for Narbash, Yin, and Wukong. Last year’s skins will also be returning on a weekly basis, so keep your eyes peeled if you wanted a skin last year that you didn’t get for whatever reason.

Players can also obtain special Shadow’s Eve chests after matches, obtain new banners, and purchase a nice big bundle of holiday goodies starting on October 24th. The event itself is running now and will continue on through November 1st, so you’ve got plenty of time to make as many seasonal puns mid-match as you could want over the remainder of the month.

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Paragon players rage over ‘pay-to-win’ monetization changes and loot crates

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No exaggeration: The Paragon subreddit is in absolute uproar over the MOBA’s newest monetization tactic. The board is currently covered with dozens of threads angry over the game’s new buyable packs as dedicated players express rage over what they’re saying amounts to pay-to-win, mobile platform strategies – a moneygrab.

The most expensive pack, the Diamond pack at $150, does include a ton of stuff. But what it doesn’t include is a guarantee that the loot crates tucked inside it will actually grant all the unlocks, meaning you could shell out a ton of money and still be outta luck.

Redditors are also speculating on the decision-making process itself, pointing out that the game’s former director, Steve Superville, who left Epic after 15 years with the company last spring, was adamant that the studio would never sell cards and heroes, that they’d be earnable only through gameplay.

“Vote with your wallets,” one Redditor urges players. “This game cannot thrive with a P2W platform, and the best way to prove this is to NOT BUY THE PACKS.”

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Paragon introduces the upcoming ranged hero Drongo

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Up until now, players who loved Paragon but really needed to play a character who looked like a cut extra from Mad Max: Fury Road have been entirely out of luck. Mercifully, the new character Drongo finally shores up that gap. Now you can lob destruction at your foes from a distance while screaming, “Oh what a day! What a lovely day!” over voice chat until you get permanently banned from the server.

There are worse reasons to get a permanent ban.

The videos below cover both Drongo’s initial reveal (in case you were wondering if you could get sufficient Mad Max homages during a gameplay reveal) and his gameplay mechanics, since he’s available to play now. To the surprise of no one, the dude is out of his mind, but he still has plenty of dangerous and unsafe techniques to hurt others, so you won’t really care too much about his mental state. Or you could just watch Mad Max again, that’s fine too.

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Paragon introduces its new character, Zinx

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The lack of humanoid cat-people in certain games is a failing that urgently needs to be addressed by developers, so it’s a good thing that Paragon is adding Zinx to the mix. It’s also a good thing that Paragon decided to introduce Zinx with a trailer to remind you of old grindhouse trailers, even if you mostly remember those from archives and references to the originals.

What can Zinx actually do? Well, wreck people, obviously. This is a MOBA; she’s not going to be showing up because she’s a mathematical whiz unless that translates to shooting people. But you can check out the trailer for her just below, so you can draw your own conclusions about whether or not she’s the anthropomorphic feline you’ve been waiting for; she’ll be available on July 18th.

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Paragon walks through the mechanics of its upcoming character Revenant

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What do you know about Paragon’s upcoming new hero, Revenant? If you were asked that before watching the video down below, it might just be that he looks like a combination of characters owned by some other company, or maybe it’s that he probably has a hard time showing off his ID to buy drinks when his face is just two glowing eyes under a hat. Afterwards… well, you might still think all of that, but you’ll also know how he plays mechanically.

Revenant’s whole schtick is isolating and breaking down single targets, from his random spread of bullets working best against an isolated target (so more of the bullets will target one enemy) to his ultimate ability, which drags a target into the nether realm for a one-on-one duel. Thus, you want to build up his damage and focus on making him into a formidable takedown engine. Check out the full video below for all of the details you need, unless the details you need involve biologically improbably reproduction between characters from other games. Ahem.

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Paragon introduces its newest hero, Revenant

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Bear with us for a moment, here. You know there’s a game out right now that has a whole lot of characters but is allergic to any actual story, so most of what fans do is ship one character with another character. So what happens when Obnoxious Shotgun Edgelord and Just An Actual Cowboy Straight-Up In The Game hook up and manage to somehow have a love child? Well, Paragon has answered that question with its new ranged carry character, Revenant.

Don’t believe us? It sounds kind of unbelievable. Here, check out the reveal trailer just below in which you see a cowboy-hat-wearing specter of death with a shotgun revolver stomp around and shoot things. Seriously. If you’ve got some fanfics on deck about how such a thing would be possible… well, please don’t send them to us. We’re fine with leaving that as a biological mystery.

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Betawatch: The Repopulation is back in the saddle again (March 17, 2017)

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It has been an odd and not altogether happy ride for The Repopulation, but the good news is that the game is back into a playable state. It’s also the exact same game from when it got shut down, so if you were expecting some huge changes, you will be somewhat disappointed. And, you know, there’s the whole change in ownership that’s left a bad taste in many people’s mouths. Still, it’s online!

Other beta stuff also happened this week as it turns out. Which is good and hopefully will be less depressing. Let’s see.

Some of that still found a way to be sort of a downer, huh? Well, you can check out the full list of games in testing below, perhaps that will bring you more joy. As always, let us know if something hopped test phases in the comments! We’re trying to get rid of all the cash shops that take your money in supposed beta tests, but they’re remarkably resilient. Some of us suspect there’s a hive.

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