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Shawn Layden thinks the Paragon trailer was a "Drop the mic" moment

RexNovis

Banned
Been watching through some of the PSX content and who appears but Mr. crash bandicoot T-shirt himself Shawn Layden. Shortly after sitting down he started talking about the Paragon trailer

ShawnLayden said:
That ending that closer from Epic for Paragon ... We'd actually talked; a typical show I do the opening and I do the closing. But that Paragon video is so powerful I didn't wanna go on after it. You know when that video ended you didn't want me coming up and saying "well thank you for coming. Please enjoy the game." It's like let that thing close it. That's a drop the mic moment. It was fabulous and we're happy that the guys at Epic are gonna bring that to PlayStation 4

Talk about out of touch. Correct me if I'm wrong here but the general reaction to that trailer was that it was one of the weakest moments of the whole show. I was actually kind of impressed with his presentation at PSX. It was the first time he hasn't come across as a corporate robot but clearly there is a severe disconnect between his impressions and the impressions of gamers. Really striggling to see how anyone could genuinely think that Paragon was a "mic drop moment." Maybe it was just a straight up PR comment but it really caught me off guard.

You can listen here @14:25

UPDATE: for those who are unaware THIS is the Paragon trailer he is referring to


TwinPistol whip me if old.
 

JustenP88

I earned 100 Gamerscore™ for collecting 300 widgets and thereby created Trump's America
Homeboy needs to change his shirt.
 

fvng

Member
Ni No Kuni 2 or FF7 was the drop the mic moment. They should have left either of those two for last. It is hard to be excited about a game where they only showed pre rendered cut scenes in a genre with really limited non mainstream appeal
 

OneUh8

Member
Not in my opinion it wasn't. I literally said out loud "that was it?".

Where is Bends game? That is what I thought they would end with.
 
To be fair, Epic Games worked primarily with Xbox last gen. It's actually pretty significant that they've decided to show off their game with Sony.
 

SJRB

Gold Member
Well what else is he supposed to say?

He's hardly in a position to say the game seems boring as fuck and nobody's interested in yet another moba, now is he? Plus it's an Epic Games game, so that accounts for something.
 

CHC

Member
Yeah that's totally out of touch. "Hero Shooter" is just another MOBA-like genre that way too many people are converging on, and that I think a lot of players just aren't that attracted to in the first place, at least not conceptually (though they may become addicted nevertheless).

Well you tend to drop things when you're sleepy.

Beautiful.
 
Sucking up to Epic/PR. But if that's all there was to show, then I don't care how it ended. I mean obviously I'd have liked more announcements, but I don't care about how shows end as long as everything they want to show is shown.
 

Sami+

Member
I mean I guess the numbers show that people like MOBAs but I don't actually see that sentiment anywhere...
 

Falk

that puzzling face
more like a "drop the ball" moment

... Damn.

I mean I guess the numbers show that people like MOBAs but I don't actually see that sentiment anywhere...

The problem with the MOBA craze is people haven't learnt from a couple dozen MMOs trying to take a piece of WoW's market share and generally not performing as well as expected. Everything from Warhammer Online to LOTRO to Aion to TERA to Age of Conan to Wildstar (sorry) every other 'WoW killer' that came out over the span of a decade and had varying amounts of anything from mediocrity to outright fail.

MOBA design itself makes it worse since the games aren't designed as a fire-and-forget retail product. In DotA's case, it was a string of iterative balance and content passes over a decade long, with many core mechanics which the playerbase essentially knows intrinsically yet simply became part of the gameflow due to 'happy accidents' and engine limitations. Everything from last hitting to denying to not autoattacking, to jungling, to pulling spawns at a certain time, to Orbwalking, to a dozen other minor details that are essentially a core part of the game. You can't sit down and design DotA. It doesn't work that way.

Outside of the Big Three (Dota2/LoL/HotS) and a small number of others (Smite, etc) in ten years the MOBA graveyard is going to be far, far larger than the MMO graveyard.
 
Well you tend to drop things when you're sleepy.
1397099716220.gif
 

Ledhead

Member
Ni No Kuni 2 or FF7 was the drop the mic moment. They should have left either of those two for last. It is hard to be excited about a game where they only showed pre rendered cut scenes in a genre with really limited non mainstream appeal

I agree that it didn't exactly blow my mind, but MOBAs are FAR from having limited appeal. Look at the numbers games like League and DOTA pull in. I'd argue it's one of the more mainstream genre
 

RexNovis

Banned
Well what else is he supposed to say?

He's hardly in a position to say the game seems boring as fuck and nobody's interested in yet another moba, now is he?

He brought it up unprompted as his highlight of the show. It's not like he was asked specifically about Paragon or even the ending of the show.
 

Shabad

Member
Crash would have a been a drop the mic moment. God of War too.
Hell Ni No Kuni should have closed that show.

Paragon... no. Just no. Maybe it will be cool, but it's a freaking MOBA, something that isn't really that interesting to console gamers anyway.
 

MrV4ltor

Member
Should've closed with Ni No Kuni 2. Whole pacing of the conference was shit tbh. Too much filler in the middle.
 

Kyari

Member
I said this in a previous thread but:
It's a MOBA, arguably the most popular genre of games currently, on their console, made by a developer that was most famous for their console exclusive franchise on 360 last generation.

It is in fact a big deal.
 

DNAbro

Member
Yeah that's totally out of touch. "Hero Shooter" is just another MOBA-like genre that way too many people are converging on, and that I think a lot of players just aren't that attracted to in the first place, at least not conceptually (though they may become addicted nevertheless).



Beautiful.

I don't think Paragon is trying to be a "hero-shooter" like Overwatch. It's a straight up MOBA in 3D.

I said this in a previous thread but:
It's a MOBA, arguably the most popular genre of games currently, on their console, made by a developer that was most famous for their console exclusive franchise on 360 last generation.

It is in fact a big deal.

If you want to play a MOBA, you are currently playing a MOBA. Just putting it on consoles doesn't mean there is a market for it. And it being Epic means little since Microsoft doesn't own it.
 

tejpis

Neo Member
Highlight of PSX for me. Graphics were so impressive I thought it was a Blur Studio production, turns out it was all done in-engine. The gameplay trailer wowed me even more. I know the game will be tight as hell too, considering these guys made Unreal Tournament and the good Gears of War. I'm feeling it...
 

Navid

Member
Maybe if they showed the gameplay trailer instead it would have finished on a better note.
Yep, I have no issue with them closing on Paragon but that 'cinematic' trailer did nothing for me... even the tiny bit of more gameplay like footage they showed later was more interesting.

Ideally the epic guys should have talked about it more and presented with more gameplay footage (or a demo), but as it was it felt a bit short introductory rather than a closer.
 
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