It's tough to be optimistic about Paragon

According to Epic’s data, the majority of new players do not continue to play past the first month; a significant problem for a multiplayer team experience.

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at http://www.quartertothree.com/fp/2018/01/17/tough-optimistic-paragon/

Rub some Battle Royale on that boo-boo!

It’s too bad because I think Paragon is pretty neat, but I only dip in and out every once in a while and games like this rely on dedicated players not people who only want to dabble.

Whenever I see a news report like this, I’m surprised again that Paragon is already out. Kind of crazy that a game by Epic is out and is so out of public consciousness that I thought it was still in Early access, and yet it’s been out of Early Access for a year, apparently.

It’s weird, but I believe Epic still classifies the open free-to-play version as a beta.

Have they considered relaunching with a sassier version called Renegade?

It’s still in Early Access / beta, but those lines are ridiculously blurred these days.

There’s a lesson to be learned here.

Don’t rip off an established genre, like MOBAs. You’ll never compete with the front-liners like LOL and DOTA2. Even Blizzard failed to do it for Chrissakes.

Instead, rip off an exciting new upcoming genre, like battle royales. You can totally compete with PUBG by going F2P when they charge for the game!

Shameful behavior all around. Direction came from suits. But to Epic’s credit, Fortnite did start out as an innovative title with really cool mechanics, it just failed to find its audience. So they had to pivot to CTRL-C/CTRL-V.

I don’t know that the PvE Fortnite failed to find an audience. It’s still pay only for a game that’s supposed to be F2P. But that game was never going to be 45 million users successful like the Battle Royale mode. That kind of explosion in interest distorts your previous concepts of success.

I wish Fornite PvE is allowed to exist and thrill. Many of us have no interest in something like Battleroyale and Fornite PvE is a unique game.

It still exists. I just doubt they’ll put a lot of resources into developing a title that people don’t want to play.

Epic’s pulling the plug in April.

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.

We didn’t execute well enough to deliver on the promise of Paragon. We have failed you – despite the team’s incredibly hard work – and we’re sorry.

To try to make this right, Epic is offering a full refund to every Paragon player for every purchase on any platform. This refund will come directly from Epic rather than your platform provider.

Hey, I’m going to give them props for refunding everyone. That’s damn fine customer service.

That’s too bad. As I mentioned in the Paragon thread on the forum, the game finally really clicked with me once I delved into some real deck-building.

Then they announced they were pulling resources like 2 days later. Fuck me.

Clearly the right path to take at this juncture is to pivot Paragon into a Hearthstone clone.

One last gasp from Paragon.