Unfinished: Paragon 03/31/2016

Can someone do the voodoo that they've been doing in the comments to give me a working link, please?

Edit: I'm a big boy and figured it out myself, here is the link to the HD version:

http://v.giantbomb.com/2016/04/01/vf_paragon_uf_03312016_4000.mp4

Date was wrong in link. HD version is broken, player wont work if it autos to it or is manually selected. Replace the /03/31/ with /04/01/ and it works. I put the link below for those interested with premium access, YouTube for those without.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiSnW0-rsYg

HD: http://v.giantbomb.com/2016/04/01/vf_paragon_uf_03312016_4000.mp4

Hope that helps.

@sado: Brilliant, many thanks duder :D

That deck.

Brad, forever bad at video games on camera.

@sado: Good man!

This is a pretty good game. It's just a little sparse on features (obviously it's very early access.) I do like playing it quite a bit.

As far as I know, the only way to play it on PS4 right now is to buy one of the founder's pack. You can download it for free but you are not able to play it unless you pay for one of those packs.

Just a heads up.

That was some high level Brad at games when he mentioned having to be aware of your surroundings, immediately ignoring his own advice, and then him getting ganked almost immediately.

@vhdblood said:

on camera

Never liked that you can have the same character on both teams, always preferred dota's banning and drafting

I dunno why people type in chat, never leads to anything good ever. It's only useful when you forget what day it is and don't wanna alt-tab to check, usually other people know what day it is and can let you know.

A moba? Well, I'm certainly not gonna Paragonna play that! :D

HD download seems broken, High works.

Player doesn't work on streaming.

I'm only in a few minutes but I just like this as a video game. I don't play MOBA but this looks like a beautiful VIDEO GAME. Kind of excited to try it out. Why is it so big of a deal to keep focusing on what genre is something lol who cares its a moba ... im a video gamer. I grew up on FPS but these days I play the division and black desert online and rise of the tomb raider and witcher 3. just a slew of different games! I still think assassins creed syndicate was one of my GOTY of 2015 but graphically this looks so slick I might have to play it even if I dont like MOBAS ><

is there a beta or something I can get access to?

@darkjohnny477: Those cheeky bastards. You are correct. I just downloaded it in order to try it out and sure enough you can't actually play without purchasing a Founders Pack. Cheapest one is 19.99 CDN

Brad Shoemaker presents: Paragon, a tale of creeps.

HD streaming doesn't start. Also, since when was progressive premium?

It would be hilarious for the other people who were playing with him here to see this video ... and fight about his comments in the chat...

This seems kinda' cool. I'd actually consider coughing up the 20 bucks necessary to gain access if I wasn't so sure I'd drop the thing like a red-hot brick the moment Overwatch unlocks.

Edit Edit: I imagine they will go F2P proper once the game is "ready" to be presented to the public as hiding behind a paywall rather than including a rotation/micro-transaction system would be tantamount to suicide in the current market with all 'em established MOBAs out there.

Man this is long. I zoned out for a while and read Twitter and when I looked back there was still 20 minutes left. What remains is the length of a full match of Heroes! You could fit 2 Heroes matches in the time it takes to do this and there'd be a lot more teamfighting and intrigue.

It seems really weird to me that they would go out of their way to copy Dota 2's elements of jungles, creeps and last hitting. I know it's part of the genre, but there has to be more ways to make a moba.

I would still be playing this game... if it didn't have the card system.

Wait, there's progression elements wherein a hero you play for the first time will not be nearly as good as your main even if they were perfectly balanced? Wow. I forget how shit other MOBAs are sometimes, I heard League had a similar thing in like Runes or something. Glad Blizzard didn't go down that road, it's a shit road to go down.

@themasterds said:

HotS already has something similar. You don't have all of your skill upgrades unlocked until you reach a certain character level, IIRC. Also, you can't use the heroes in HotS at all unless they are in the free rotation or you've bought them with whatever they call the points in HotS.

Dota 2 is the only Lords Management game I know of with monetization that doesn't have an effect on the actual gameplay... and, thus, the only one I can tolerate.

I've never seen a single game of any moba played where people weren't obnoxious in chat, is that just like a meme now or do these games just attract awful people?

For some reason watching this made me think a Dynasty Warriors MOBA would probably actually be pretty rad.

Killing thousands of creeps, powering your character up mid battle, playing the Yellow Turban Rebellion in a 5 on 5 match... and I can only imagine how awesome Lu Bu's ult would be.

@chrisharris: Yeah I wish they handled that better. I really like the core concept and combat, But the card system is kinda bad.

Is anyone else not able to get this video to play? Tried multiple players and quality settings and it doesn't start.

I agree with you guys in principle, though the biggest buff you're going to get on a character with maxed mastery (+10% match XP) doesn't seem completely game-breaking. It's a fairly benign tradeoff for making all the heroes free, but yeah, any imbalance in a game with such dense competitive mechanics is a bummer by default. Dota is the one true game etc. etc.

There are also people with just stacked decks that are super rough on new players.

@brad:

Talent Gating was actually removed from Heroes in December. It's not at all a thing anymore. Even before that it went away at level account level 30 or something so you'd not have to deal with it once you played a decent amount. Gold is what you earn through quests, playing games and leveling heroes.

Worth noting Heroes has changed a lot last week. It has 2 bans in Hero League now, and anyone can play Hero League provided they have 14 heroes available (including the 10 in the free rotation) and up to level 5. Also death reports, an ARAM map for custom games, hotkey stuff and 5 huge reworks went in last week. Big stuff.

So is this game the reason why Paragon had to change its name to Jumpdrive?

You'd think Brad would actually have gotten better at Mobas since playing all that Dota.

Watching you keep buying new equipment cards and not applying any upgrades instead was a bit frustrating. :P

@drewbert you can hide in dota. Some heroes have abilities that give thmselves or allies some sort of invisibility, and there are items with the same effect. Also you can turn a group of nearby allies invisible to create surprise attacks.

This game looks fine but having cards as microtransactions raises flags. Imagine not being able to buy blink dagger or drums. Suddenly you can't play 40% of the heroes in an optimal fashion. I guess that having all the heroes available is at least something though.

i wish the abilities were wilder. There doesnt seem to be a black hole / earthslam equivalent to provide that oomph to spectators.

@pxabstraction: I had to click the download link to get it to play. Just recently been having multiple issues like that one new videos on the site but not all of them.

There is no way to play this for free right now...

The term "Lords Management" will never not be funny to me.

@planetfunksquad: I think an animal crossing spin off would be hilarious. Giving the heroes gifts they like, dress em up in pretty clothes and make sure they surround themselves with heroes they can stand.

So what's with the videos not working? Has anyone addressed it anywhere?

You would think people would understand how hard it is to explain a game while playing it actually is.

I was showing a friend Clash Royal last night, a game not nearly complex as a MOBA, and I got smoked while trying to explain the game to him.

Yeah, video's not working for me. Refuses to start..

This game continues to look pretty interesting! Something about catching a MOBA on the ground floor while it's still growing (hero roster, mechanics, etc) is alluring to me. Without the isometric viewpoint, map awareness seems like it might be something I would need to rethink, but I'm liking the overall style of it.

As a previous Dota 2 player I was highly resistant to the mere idea of Blizzard's MOBA, but I ended up becoming a TOTAL POD PERSON for Heroes of the Storm last year. While I personally love the complexity of Dota 2, barely any of my close friends were interested in it enough to invest the time needed to play/understand it and even those that did lost interest really fast for various reasons (insane time commitment, arcane design, hating the shop etc). All of those friends and more (myself included) got turned on to Heroes around it's launch last year and it has become the game for us. It's feels like it's growing a ton and it's constantly receiving new characters and more and more of that classic Blizzard polish.

I still enjoy many things about Dota2 and lament my falling off from it (although it did feel quite weird to me after they ported it to Source 2, was that just me? I haven't really investigated that matter.), but the fact that I can play Heroes with a large rotating group of my close friends pretty much seals the deal.

Man I gotta say something weirdly negative and nonsensically off brand to show I'm no shill...hmm

E.T. the Extra Terrestrial looks like if you were to throw a stretch armstrong doll, california raisin mask and a sports illustrated football phone into a Brundle telepod, waited 2-3 weeks for full transformation, and then microwaved the resultant composite being for about 25 seconds on high.

I would suggest playing Smite on your console if this looks appealing to you. A much more fun and intuitive game that is actually free to play at the moment.

If you're trying to download the HD version, copy the video URL and change the 03/31 to 04/01. There was a similar problem with yesterday's Playdate video.

Wow I was under the impression I could play this at the end of the quick look only to find after reading the comments and going to the site that I need 20 dollars at the very least. They also say you can only buy skins but it is pretty clear you can PAY TO WIN since having to play ANY game LESS makes you have to invest LESS time making you LESS LIKELY to burn out on any given game its stupid to want you to play the game more before you get the benefits of someone who can pay the difference to buy their way for the new abilities that allow you to level faster (lol? this is locked behind a pay wall OR A time wall? FFS)

I wish the game community could collectively tell developers to blow it out their ass and stop charging us for things that should be included with games.