 What's up everybody I'm the Mangus you are awesome and today we're going to tackle a very common question being asked, what's the difference between core and predecessor? By extension I'll also cover why I don't think it's a good idea at this point for them to merge. If you don't know there are two companies called Metabuff and Omega Studios creating direct successors of the Paragon using the free assets. So if they're both making basically the same shit then what's the difference? I'm going to try my best to explain. I'll give you the bottom line up front and not waste your time. If you want Paragon back but think that it needed some massive improvements and could use elements of more successful MOBAs then core is probably the one for you. If you're looking for the old legacy feel with a few tweaks predecessor is probably the one you want. Please be aware that nothing I say is the official stance of either company this is all just the opinion of one man Goose that has been closely tracking both studios from the beginning. I did ask both Metabuff animated this question however as you could probably well imagine that went over like a fart in church neither one of them wanted to touch that shit with a 10 foot pole and for good reason you can't answer this question without pissing off fans of both games. No matter how tactful I am in this video core fans are going to think I'm taking a shit on Metabuff all predecessor fans are going to think I'm dumping all over Omega making this video probably isn't the smartest thing I've ever done. I kind of feel like I'm walking into a shitstorm or in a toilet paper tuxedo but let's get to it anyway. There are several small differences like map design hero kits and item systems but what I mainly want to address is the difference between their development philosophies as that is what will affect everything going forward. We aren't even at the tip of the iceberg with either game and things will change a lot as they progress but their base design process won't. The main contrasts between the companies that I see is that Metabuff relies on proven data and statistics from other mobas when creating core while Omega relies on feeling an instinct when creating predecessor. That isn't to say that Metabuff is an emotionless automaton that doesn't attempt to bring the feel of paragon back nor does it mean that Omega is fumbling blindly without using any data. They both use data and the memory of paragon when making their games but I think Metabuff leans more towards the data while Omega leads more towards the feels. Metabuff has applied statistics from throughout the mobile world to things like map creation hero kits and item systems that are bringing back paragon but using influences from games like Dota, League of Legends and Smite to improve upon the game. Metabuff tends to get their community feedback via surveys that can be easily compiled into, you guessed it, data. Omega Studios relies more on how Paragon felt and uses the old legacy design as a template for predecessor. You can often watch Smokey creating the game in his streams and see that he relies on the community along with his balance team to make decisions about how the camera should react when casting an ability or how large an area an ability should cover. You can also see from Fringe's streams, Fringe's Omega's level designer, that he relied on the legacy map model to create the map while adding his own flare here and there. Now let's talk about some of the more superficial differences. Since I was already talking about the maps, let's go with that first. Metabuff created a map for core that takes inspiration from Paragon but was designed using the standard lane measurements and rotation times from other MOBAs. They also included elements of lull and the remnant buff and placement of the buffs along the river are very reminiscent of what you would expect to see in a common top-down MOBA. While the design is far more legacy than it is monolith, the aesthetic is more monolith than legacy. Then you have the predecessor map that is almost a copy of the legacy map. There are elements of monolith thrown in like the jungle jump pad and the monolith style towers, but they went with a decidedly more legacy feel. From experience, I know that running through the predecessor map did indeed bring back that old Paragon feeling. Onto the item system, while the proposed item system outlined in Metabuff's proof of concept probably won't make it to live, it at least shows us that they will be learning from more successful MOBAs and will use a standard item shop with all the equipment being available to everyone and it looks like the items will be upgradeable kind of like almost every other MOBA. Good decision on their part, Paragon's card system was a huge turn off for many MOBA veterans that tried the game out. Predecessor Kandid did the same thing, but they made their items look like cards to give it a more Paragon feel. As Socap said, the card is really just an item that you drew a box around. Again, much of what we know about the proposed hero design for Core came from the proof of concept and much of that will be discarded. But we do know that they want to once again bring in proven elements of other games to Paragon's heroes in order to improve the experience. A minute's approach is to bring the heroes back in line with what they were in Legacy and keeping those kits about how they were with some minor tweaks here and there. So as you can see, the overall design philosophy is present in many of the decisions made for both games. This is the reason why I don't think they should merge. If there was a merger to happen, it should have happened like 10 or 11 months ago. At this point, the two companies have a very clear and very different goals. If they tried to merge now, there would be like endless arguments about how the map should be designed, what the UI should look like, how hero kits should be changed. They'll probably even argue about how the game should be programmed from the ground up. If a merge were to happen now, the end result would be an infinitely delayed alpha. This is a bit of a rough topic to tackle, but I'm kind of glad I did and I hope my perspective helped you guys out when you're looking at both games. But for now, this is the mangoos setting off. You guys have a good one. Mangoos.