Hi-Rez F2P Shooter Paladins Takes Steam by Storm

[Steven Bogos]

Hi-Rez F2P Shooter Paladins Takes Steam by Storm

The shooter from the developer of Smite has been downloaded almost 800,000 times.

SteamSpy [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/paladin?os=%20paladin], it has been downloaded an impressive 788,324 times, and has had a peak of 38,439 concurrent players. Steam reviews for the game are very positive, with overall rating of 84% based on 10,065 reviews.

The game is being described as "Overwatch for poor people," due to it's striking similarity to Blizzard's hero shooter. It utilizes a similar formula: players pick from a pool of "champions" with a suite of special abilities, then face off in a 5v5 arena setting, and a similar artstyle.

Speaking to IGN [http://www.ign.com/articles/2016/09/20/paladins-developer-responds-to-overwatch-comparisons], Hi-Rez's COO Todd Harris asserted that Overwatch "was not the inspiration for Paladins" and that characters in the game who appear to mimic Overwatch heroes "were available and playable in the Paladins beta long before similar character abilities were shown in Overwatch."

Whether you think Paladins is an Overwatch clone or not, it's no doubt that the developer of Smite and Tribes has another success on their hands.

Source: IB Times [http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/overwatch-clone-paladins-takes-steam-by-storm-over-750k-downloads-1582934]

Permalink

 

[OldNewNewOld]

I guess it doesn't look bad. But with what Hi-Rez kept doing with Tribes: Ascend, I don't feel like investing time and possibly money in a game that they will ruin after a while and then abandon.
I will decide whether to give it a try or not tomorrow after I wake up. That is, if my shitty PC can handle it to begin with.

EDIT:
So I downloaded it and I have to say, the game is pretty boring. There are 0 interesting free character in the game, one of the locked seems to be insanely powerful compared to the rest. Skills are uninspiring. Basically deal x damage and possible heal for y amount. And a kind of dodge. That's it.
Oh yeah, there are shields. For which I'm not sure if they work since I've killed and been killed through shields. I would rather just go back to playing a good team shooter like Team Fortress 2.

Also the menu is insanely bad. Like, you don't know what the fuck you're selecting kind of bad. Why is there no tooltip when I hover over skills? Or heroes? Why is there no back button in most stuff, so instead of using the mouse that I used to enter a menu, I have to press ESC to leave?

 

[gigastar]

I found this video on the subject yesterday. Use your own judgement.

 

[Hawki]

So after blowing a lot of hot air about being or not being an Overwatch clone, they started moving turbines and turned the valve? Well, good for them. The game doesn't have hi-rezoulution graphics, but may smite those who only prefer realistic graphics. No, I'm not accusing the developers of having a global agenda, just that hero shooters are the name of the game right now. Such is the realm we live in, with so many champions vying for the same space.

 

[Denamic]

I really don't mind games copying one another. More games is more good, and hey, they might pull it off better than the original. But this game is so blatant about it that it's embarrassing. This is almost Zynga levels of ripoff.

 

[klaynexas3]

I guess it doesn't look bad. But with what Hi-Rez kept doing with Tribes: Ascend, I don't feel like investing time and possibly money in a game that they will ruin after a while and then abandon.
I will decide whether to give it a try or not tomorrow after I wake up. That is, if my shitty PC can handle it to begin with.

I had a similar experience with Hi-Rez except with Global Agenda, their first game, which was surprisingly their most original. Smite I played a bit and the simple change of camera angle and character control made the game much different from League while still hitting a lot of the same notes. Honestly, the company themselves aren't the most original of developers, but they make good games, if only they didn't then decide to break the game and then abandon it for their next project.

 

[Revolutionary]

Too bad the connections are a vomit turd sandwich if you don't live in the US.

 

[DemomanHusband]

Good lord, I guess I stayed up too late. I actually typed out a few paragraphs about this thing as if I was sending a letter to the Paladins dev team itself.

Spoiler

Having played a bit of it myself, I'm not really sure what to feel. It's got the potential to be fun in bursts; maps are small, characters die quickly, playable characters certainly have some ideas that are fresh but a majority feel majorly retooled to match Overwatch in hopes of drawing the "my computer can't run Overwatch on low settings/I can't afford Overwatch right now" crowd. They can bluster all they want about their ideas being just as original as Blizzard's or whatever but it's so painfully obvious that trying to offer leeway on this point is just embarrassing.

I think what'll really set this apart from Overwatch (for the worse) is the lack of real atmosphere behind it. Now I know, it's F2P, this wasn't designed to be a "come for the gameplay, stay for the lore/fandom" kind of game, but come on.

For example, the training mode places you on a claustrophobic Jungle map that is a capture point objective that segues into a payload objective. However, there are no sights to see along the way. Sure, you can cut through some Ruins or turn a quick corner that brings you past a ledge that looks off into the nondescript distance, but there are no touches of fun little detail or worldbuilding. I guess Hi-rez doesn't really do worldbuilding anymore.

The worst part about all this is that I kind of want to play more, and I kind of wish I could recommend it. It's solid, there's something charming at its core, although I don't know what sort of charming it is quite yet; Either "awkward kid who's trying his best to act like he's cool" charming or "watching a short person stack two milk crates to reach a glass jar that will inevitably fall on their face and break" charming. Time will tell.

I can think of two things that might salvage this admittedly dull start for the game, though. 1) Proper worldbuilding that includes proper map design. 2) Swooping in on features Overwatch has yet to take a crack at. Give the playerbase a horde mode of sorts with some cartoonish reasoning behind its existence. Hi-rez can do excuse plots pretty well, if their Smite lore is any indication.

tl;dr I'm on the fence about this new addition to the "Hero Shooter" genre.

 

[Wrex Brogan]

...See, on one hand, I'm interested since it is a free Overwatch, a game I'm interested in but can in no way, shape or form afford right now.

But on the other hand, this is also done by Hi-Rez, and I'm still bitter with them over the shit-show that was their handling of Tribes: Ascend.

So... I'm at a solid 'maybe' on checking this thing out - I just can't shake the feeling that six months down the track it'll be abandoned as hell with any community concerns being thoroughly ignored.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I see it as an Overwatch demo. I'll play it for a while and if I like it I'll buy Overwatch.

And remember how Tribes Ascend started out as a big deal and everyone thought that it would get a lifetime of support from the developers? There was a lot of hype around it at the time. And look at it now. It's a dead game.
Hi-Rez makes good games, sure. But they're far from being a good company. They can't seem to commit to a project fully.

 

[Hawki]

Hi-rez can do excuse plots pretty well, if their Smite lore is any indication.

Smite has lore?

No, that's not snark, genuinely curious. I'm aware that each god has a backstory given (lifted from their mythologies), and a comic series was done at some point, but, granted, I've never played Smite, but I've never been able to pick up on any actual worldbuilding.

 

[RealRT]

Can we throw this under the bus and get Nosgoth back instead?
I really, really miss Nosgoth.

 

[Zhukov]

Okay, this has been bugging me for a while.

I really don't mind games copying one another. More games is more good, and hey, they might pull it off better than the original. But this game is so blatant about it that it's embarrassing. This is almost Zynga levels of ripoff.

I found this video on the subject yesterday. Use your own judgement.

Paladins was in beta a long time before Overwatch was launched. I'm a bit fuzzy on the dates since I was only half paying attention and it never occurred to me to make the comparison, but I'm pretty sure it was in development before Overwatch was even announced.

Believe it or not, many of the character similarities are coincidental. Although I'm sure people at Hi-Rez were shitting themselves each time Blizzard detailed a new character.

Oh, and this is coming from someone who likes and plays Overwatch and has no intention of touching Paladins. (Although I did play a ton of Smite.)

Smite has lore?

All the gods are having a war.

The end.

That's Smite's lore.

Not joking. It's not a lore type of game, not should it be really. Like you said, the gods each have a backstory which is just a cliff notes version of their actual mythology but there's no unifying plot or history or anything.

 

[Hawki]

All the gods are having a war.

The end.

That's Smite's lore.

Not joking. It's not a lore type of game, not should it be really. Like you said, the gods each have a backstory which is just a cliff notes version of their actual mythology but there's no unifying plot or history or anything.

And they couldn't even provide cliff notes for Paladins.

I know it's a minor gripe, but I can't help it, Overwatch has kind of spoiled me, and I don't even play the game. While I'd hardly call its lore "deep" per se, and it isn't nearly as large as StarCraft/Warcraft/Diablo, I can still appreciate that there's a fleshed out universe that I can invest myself in if I want to. Paladins' lore is...um...there's a realm, and paladins fight, and there's the slight implication that it's post-societal collapse, hence the hodge-podge of magic and technology? That's honestly all I can infer - heck, they don't even have character blurbs.

 

[LostCrusader]

Don't have any reason to try it since I already have overwatch.

Also add me to the list of people pissed about how they dumped tribes to make a LoL clone.

 

[Zhukov]

All the gods are having a war.

The end.

That's Smite's lore.

Not joking. It's not a lore type of game, not should it be really. Like you said, the gods each have a backstory which is just a cliff notes version of their actual mythology but there's no unifying plot or history or anything.

And they couldn't even provide cliff notes for Paladins.

I know it's a minor gripe, but I can't help it, Overwatch has kind of spoiled me, and I don't even play the game. While I'd hardly call its lore "deep" per se, and it isn't nearly as large as StarCraft/Warcraft/Diablo, I can still appreciate that there's a fleshed out universe that I can invest myself in if I want to.

I don't quite share your stance.

I love me some lore (hell, I can recite the history of the Mass Effect universe from memory) but I feel it's a bit wasted on MOBAs, arena shooters and the like. The scenarios they involve with all their inherent 'gameyness' defy coherent storytelling and any story specifically created to justify them is going to be a contrived mess (see League of Legends, whose developers eventually nuked the lore and declared it all non-canon).

That said, I don't mind if developers do include it for whatever reason and I'll still enjoy it for its own sake. I can can a tiny bit choked up by this [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV9CzxZrhdU] (shut up) then hop into an Overwatch match, pick Ana and snipe Pharah out of the sky with poison darts all day long without getting my knickers in a knot over the inconsistency.

Sometimes I see lore in such games that I wish had been put to better use. I would love to see some League of Legends characters in an ActionRPG type game. Like The Kindred [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsf2cJf2Y-k] (skip to 3:00 or so) or Leona and Diana. I would play the shit out of something like this [https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2015/01/16/eclipse].

 

[Rednog]

I'm genuinely surprised it is getting such a positive response.
I genuinely like Hi-Rez, I played a ton of Tribes and Smite. But this game feels so incredibly unpolished and really janky for a shooter, even with my sensitivity cranked all the way down the aiming feels so spammy.

The time to death is atrociously short. The various roles are poorly defined as damn near each character contains a ton of damaging abilities. If you thought Battleborn's lineup of characters was a little random wait till you see Paladin's menagerie of misfits.
And good lord of the maps uninspired. Basically a single lane with minor pocket rooms.

I'm curious to see how fast the falloff is for this game.

 

[Worgen]

...See, on one hand, I'm interested since it is a free Overwatch, a game I'm interested in but can in no way, shape or form afford right now.

But on the other hand, this is also done by Hi-Rez, and I'm still bitter with them over the shit-show that was their handling of Tribes: Ascend.

So... I'm at a solid 'maybe' on checking this thing out - I just can't shake the feeling that six months down the track it'll be abandoned as hell with any community concerns being thoroughly ignored.

The mistake was trying to make tribes free to play, its not the kind of game where that really works. Plus, they were inexperienced. They really figured out free to play with Smite. They did that fantastic. It is disappointing that at this point they have pretty much just abandoned it. But right now Smite is paying the bills, I don't think Tribes is.

 

[RJ 17]

I found this video on the subject yesterday. Use your own judgement.

I had assumed that it was very similar to Overwatch after seeing this Penny-Arcade comic:

But good lord...after that video, I'm pretty sure "rip-off of Overwatch" is a completely fair statement.

 

[Denamic]

Paladins was in beta a long time before Overwatch was launched. I'm a bit fuzzy on the dates since I was only half paying attention and it never occurred to me to make the comparison, but I'm pretty sure it was in development before Overwatch was even announced.

Let's assume it was in development since before 2014, so what? Overwatch has been in beta since late 2015, and we knew details about it months before that. What possible excuse can you come up with to not make changes to differentiate yourself even slightly in over 2 years of development? Some characters are straight up carbon copies, and others are way too similar to be coincidence.