What's up everybody I'm the Mangoos, you were awesome and it's time once again to explain the differences between all these games that are using the same damn assets. I'll also throw ethereal in here since people seem to think it's another pair of zombie when that game is its own thing. Today I'll cover who's making the game, plans in progress for console release, current accessibility, how they're funded, what the objective differences are, and my subjective opinions about each one. The games in question are predecessor, overprime, fault, and ethereal. Some line up front so as not to waste anyone's time, predecessor is the most like the original paragon, overprime has made massive changes that will appeal to players who want something a little faster paced, fault lies somewhere in the middle with some interesting additions to the paragon formula, but no real wild deviations. Ethereal is completely different, uses their own assets, and is in no way affiliated with paragon, whether that's good or bad is up to you. Let's start with predecessor since they still retain the largest community. Predecessor is set to be a prequel to Paragon and is in development by Omeda Studios. They do have plans for an eventual console release, but haven't really shown progress towards that goal. There have been a few weekend long tests of the game, and the most recent was in August which I wasn't able to play hence the older footage here. The game is not currently playable. Omeda is funding the development of Predecessor via outside investments, the first round of which brought in around $2 million dollars. They were also awarded an epic grant. Some notable members of the Omeda team include popular Paragon content creator RGSA, and the godfather of Paragon himself, Steve Superville in an advisory role. While all of these various projects aim to make improvements to the Paragon base, Predecessor has stayed the closest to the original. Omeda has made changes to the item shop map and hero kits, but nothing quite as significant as the other games. Out of all the Paragon successors, Predecessor has been my personal favorite to play. Not saying it'll be the best for you, but it was the best for me. Cueing into a match of Predecessor just felt like coming home. They've done the most to match everything from projectile and movement speed to field of view and you can immediately tell that when playing. My biggest concerns with Omeda Studios is the recent lack of communication with the community, as well as them possibly having to answer to those outside investors when making decisions about the future of the game. Next up is Overprime. Overprime exists completely outside the world of Agora with their own lore and hero names, however they do use the Paragon assets. Overprime is being produced by Team Soul Leaf. Soul Leaf plans to have Overprime on consoles sometime this year and have shown progress with the PS5 dev kit. While older versions of Overprime were available via server matchmaking or peer to peer networking, the most current version of the game has only been accessible via a recent closed beta test. The game is not currently playable on a regular basis. Soul Leaf was acquired by Netmarble who is paying for the production of Overprime. One of the more notable members of Soul Leaf is Rocket Mania, who single-handedly created his own playable version of Paragon mere months after the assets were released and it was called Overthrow. Overprime has deviated the most from the Paragon formula by making major changes to hero kits, removing a tower from the map and implementing a variety of mechanics with the goal of making the game faster and more exciting. I didn't know how I was going to feel about a faster version of Paragon, but the recent closed beta test was fun as all hell. Soul Leaf has shown that with the backing of Netmarble, they can release heroes faster, create incredible new skins, and they even have a completely original hero plan. The changes took some getting used to and there are improvements that could be made, but the overall experience was fantastic. My biggest concern with Overprime is the Netmarble backing. Netmarble is the largest mobile gaming company in South Korea, and we've already seen from the closed beta that there will be loot boxes in the game. I know loot boxes aren't always bad, but I can't help but feel uneasy seeing them. As long as it's all cosmetics, I'll be cool with it, but I swear to God, if items are locked behind loot boxes, I'll lose my shit. And then we have Fault being developed by Strange Matter Studios. I believe this is meant to be a sequel to Paragon. Strange Matter does have plans to release the game on console eventually, but we haven't seen any progress so far. Fault is the only one of these games that is currently playable and early access can be purchased via Steam. Strange Matter is currently crowdfunded through the community and sustained through purchases of early access, premium currency, and Fault Original Skins. Fault's most notable figure is probably Sylphon, a popular Paragon creator known for his deep dives into the math and statistics of Agora. While Fault hasn't gone as wild as Over Prime, they've still changed or added more to the game than predecessor has with kit changes, hero passives, items, and most notably, aspects that you pick as the match starts.  It has the most established gameplay loop and balanced roster out of all of these successors. Most of the time when you see someone saying the game is horrible, it's someone who played the weekend the game released, and it really was terrible back then. While the game is pretty solid now, Strange Matter has shot themselves in the foot repeatedly by only marketing it when it's at its lowest, which has resulted in low player count, which has spiraled into a variety of other problems with matchmaking and player toxicity. While you can theoretically play it 24-7, in practice, you need to wait for prime hours to queue into a PvP match or just play versus AI. My biggest warning with Fault, though, is to be careful of whose opinions you listen to. I don't trust someone's rating of a game if they only have a few hours played a year and a half ago. Last but not least, we have Aetherial, Clash of Souls, in development by Undying Games. They too have console plans, however, we haven't seen any progress yet, nor do we know which console they'll shoot for first. Aetherial recently started having pre-Affatest weekends, and there's been about one a month ever since November. The game is not currently playable. Aetherial is being crowdsourced via Patreon, and they also capitalized on their character designs to take advantage of the NFT market. Aetherial was never meant to be a Paragon successor, and they don't have any of the Paragon heroes. Everything they have is of their own intellectual property, and the entire game is very different from Paragon with 6v6 gameplay and lanes that exist on separate planes of verticality. I make it no secret that I'm really rooting for Aetherial. The game is just cool as all hell with destructible environments, flying heroes, climbing heroes, and all kinds of new mechanics to play around with. I've had a ton of fun in the pre-Affatest weekends with this game. It does need many improvements before it's alpha-ready like the addition of new myths, some better animations, and effects through the overall graphics, but they nailed the fun factor. My biggest concern with Aetherial is the barrier of entry. Even for experienced mobile players, Aetherial can be a little daunting to learn. We saw with Paragon that many content creators shied away from the game simply because they couldn't understand the card system, and content creators are how you market nowadays. They'll need to come up with one hell of a tutorial if they want this game to succeed. So there you have it folks. While three of these games are dipping from the same asset pool, I've only scratched the surface of what makes them all different. Yes, it would be cool if they would all work together on one project to make something better or faster, but it would also be cool if I could teleport and piss Whiskey. Just because it would be nice doesn't mean it's going to happen, so we'll be forced to choose between these games. I think it's possible one or two of them will go on to great success, but the mobile market is already dwindling and with three of these games using the same heroes, not all of them will survive. I can't tell you which one you'll like best. The only thing I could do is give each one an honest try with an open mind and keep you up to date on the facts as well as offering my opinions to anyone who cares. Like the video if you enjoyed it, sub for more 3rd person mobile content, but for now this is the man goose signing off. You guys, have a good one. Man Goose!


Okay. I'm Jay Fiedel. This is ThinkTech. Welcome to Global Connections on ThinkTech. Our show today is called Global Migrations and Sea Changes in Immigration Law. We're going to talk about how far it goes beyond Trump's ban and the technology telecom and transportation, how they've made a global village for us, in which old boundaries are breaking down. If you want to ask a question or participate in a discussion, you can tweet us at ThinkTech.hi or call us at 437-2014. That's our new number. Our guest for this show is Ned Banda of the University of Denver, Ved Nanda. Sorry. It's Ved Nanda. University of Denver. He's an international expert, an expert in international law, and he's also a columnist for the Denver Post in those things. And he's a writer and thinker and a lifelong learner in the field and in many fields. Any field you've been asked for. So, Ned, welcome to the show. Thank you very much. I'm honored to be here with you. We're honored to have you today, as we were last year.  Same here, yeah. So today, we want to talk about global migration. And I told you before the show about my recollection of a PBS special, which talks about the Rift Valley in East Africa and how the species developed there, and it migrated to the rest of the world and had certain skills as members of the species where you deal with all the challenges of living anywhere from the Antarctic to, well, they don't live in the Antarctic, the Arctic, I would say, to Africa, to every other continent from Europe to Asia. And then, of course, we developed boundaries to protect our tribes, and now we are in a time when those boundaries are breaking down, as a lot of countries are breaking down. A lot of societies are failing, and people want to get away from those societies, so they migrate in hopes of a better life, and that's understandable. But the remaining boundaries, including the boundaries in this country, resist that. And we as a species, if you will, we have to cope with those changes. Those are very important changes in the development of humanity. What are we going to do? Because we are in, as you put it, a crisis of migration. And the first question I put to you is, was it always thus, or are we at a special time now then? We are in a special time, because there always have been refugees and the people who want to leave their own place for various reasons. Obviously, some of them leave because there are economic opportunities abroad. Some of them leave because there is a pull from the countries who seek these kind of people who can come and work for them. And so that pull and push factors are there. And the push factors at the present time, unfortunately, in the last few years, have become absolutely critical. This is a persecution. These are people who are running from civil war. There is a torture, terrorism, violation of human rights. And then, unfortunately, in the last few years, because of this climate change and environmental degradation, there are countries where at the present time people have been suffering from drought for years and years, and they are trying to leave. Just in one year, the number is for 2015, there are 244 million people who are on the move internationally. And that has been gradually increasing. And then the number of refugees at the present time is as of 2017, January, 21 million people. Think about those people who are vulnerable children, women, older people, leave their home, don't know if they are ever going to go back and don't know where they are going. You remember the days when out of Vietnam, those rickety boats, people went.  They were in trouble. And they went from country to country. And today what has happened is that unfortunately, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, at the present time you can see Eritrea. There are plenty of countries, Libya at the present time, is probably as you talked about crisis. Crisis is that in the Mediterranean, just this year alone, in the first half, more than 1000 people have drowned. There are smugglers who put so many people on a boat that the boat cannot possibly take them down. And many of them drown. So 2000 people drowned just simply in the Mediterranean, going from Libya to Italy. And Italy is under enormous pressure because it cannot accommodate all those people. It's asking Spain. It's asking France, why don't you open your doors? And countries in Europe are not opening the doors. So in Europe at the present time, it's a very, very critical time for these migrants. Well, you say at this time, but the factors you describe aren't going to go away anytime soon. And I propose, I mean, I suggest to you the possibility that we are on a continuum that is going to get worse and worse. Am I right? That's right. Last September in New York, there was a summit on refugees and migrants. And there is a New York declaration on those refugees and migrants. And that declaration said that we'll receive these refugees, we'll receive these migrants. Countries pledged, but then they don't fulfill that promise. Because at the present time, burden sharing is not being done. Think about Syria. Out of Syria, there are people in Turkey. They are in Lebanon. They are in Jordan. They are all over that area. And then Syria at the present time, millions of people have left their homes. They are either internally displaced or they are refugees. And children, unaccompanied children at the present time, there are millions that are on the move. So this crisis, you're absolutely right, is not going to go away until there is international cooperation and that there is an effort in order to see, you were talking about failed states before we started this conversation. So there has been an effort, there has to be an effort that these countries that are failing at the present time, somehow they are helping in order to have some stability. And there is at the present time an effort internationally that there is some kind of a plan of action under which there is a global compact, but that global compact at the present time is not happening. Because many European countries feel that they are under so much pressure that they are not able to cope with it. Netherlands, Austria. Austria has right now said it is going to send its own military and police to keep its borders totally clear of anyone coming in. They are not going to let anyone come from Italy. And as you probably know, it's not simply Hungary, it's not simply Poland, it's not simply Czechoslovakia. But many countries, they have built walls around them in a way because they are barbed wires and they don't want to get the refugees. What's interesting is, you said this is all within a period of two or three years. And when it started, my recollection, it was okay in Europe and Germany was taking unlimited numbers of refugees. And France is the same. And a lot of those countries, they had no borders to begin with. The borders have been down for many years. You can cross all through Europe, at least the EU, and there's really no border. There has been no border security. But now the migrants have come and two things have happened in the last two or three years.  And it hits the newspaper. And the other is among them, or arguably among them, I'm not sure if these have been proven on a demographic basis. But among them, these people believe there's a lot of terrorism. People, terrorists sneaking in with the ordinary people and then doing terroristic acts. And this has scared all these countries because the acts have visited violence in their countries. And gee whiz, the right emerges, the conservatives emerge, sort of a World War II kind of thing. They emerge and they want to stop the migrants. And they are the ones who put pressure on the governments to stop the migrants. It becomes a political issue. And so we have processes that have reduced the amount of migrants and barred the amount of migrants in the past two or three years. If those processes had not existed, if there hadn't been physical affronts to the women in those countries, if there had not been terrorism in those countries, I think the spigot would be open wide right now. So how do you fix that in order to avoid the rise of the conservatives and the reactionaries who want to bar migrants? Fortunately, as you know, elections in France and elections in Austria and they gave an indication and the Netherlands that these extreme right people that had said that they are going to completely close their borders, they have not succeeded. But at the same time, presently that danger is there. You remember as you recall in Brussels, in Belgium it happened, in France it happened, in many countries Denmark it happened. And so people are afraid and they are not willing to let people come in because they don't know if those who are coming in include also terrorists who under the guise of being a refugee or a migrant have come in in order simply to challenge that country's culture, that country's political setting and that's the kind of thing that has been happening around the world. Yeah, it has. So breaking it down, unpacking it a little, if I wanted to open the spigot again, if I wanted to have less reaction to migrants, then one is I would have them behave better. And I'm not sure how you do that because they come from a different culture, the young men are unemployed, they get in trouble on the one side. The other side is the terrorists, which is also, they have nothing better to do so they do violence. And I wonder if you would agree with me that if we, it's a question, if we remove these negative phenomena, then Europe will be in better shape in order to tilt back again to the more liberal look at things. I know along with that there is one more difficulty that as people come in, their economies at times cannot absorb all of them. Yeah, sure.  Because when you come in and you compete with me and you are going to be willing to accept lower wages, I'm not willing to do that because that keeps me where I am or even further down. So there are all kinds of difficulties at the present time. But the United Nations has made an effort, many countries in Europe have made an effort. It is at the present time a desire to have a global compact as I said. And the difficulty with all that is that unless you take care of Afghanistan, unless you take care of Iraq, unless you take care of Yemen, unless you take care of Syria, with all these conflicts brewing and people as you rightly said being discriminated, they are rape, they are smuggling, there are even children that are being recruited in order to become child soldiers. And that is happening in many parts of the world. So there is difficulty with smugglers who are taking all this situation, bad as it is, to their own advantage. And so that is where at the present time the problem lies. So I don't know how we can solve the problem until we can create some kind of an order. And in order to create an order, you'll have to see for example in Syria, Russia on the one hand along with Iran and the United States on the other hand along with Saudi Arabia and all the other countries. So how do you find the answer? Today, Putin and Trump have met and they are probably thinking about there is a kind of a rumor at the present time or maybe there is a leak, they talked about it and there is a possibility that they might have a ceasefire. Assad on the other hand after having made some in-road in those places where the rebels had taken hold of the territory wants to move on and then you have trouble because there are Kurds and Turkey doesn't like them. They are at the present time in Raqqa, in Mosul and trying along with the United States to take those cities. Turkey doesn't want them because they are afraid of their own Kurds in Turkey.  So the difficulty, geopolitical considerations that we were talking about earlier there at the present time pretty acute in not permitting this migrant crisis to be resolved. Well, that's not a pretty picture, Bed. No, it's not. Let's take a short break. I think I'm getting a headache on both sides of my head from this pessimistic possibility. On the other hand, when we come back, I'd like to talk to you about the solutions. The solutions in terms of our country, a group of large countries, you know, the leaders of the world and try to identify steps that they could take in order to improve this geopolitically and in the humanitarian view of it. We'll be right back with Ved Nanda. Educate and power and inspire all women. We are live here every other Thursday at 4 p.m. and we welcome you to join us here at Sister Power. Aloha and thank you. We all play a role in keeping our community safe. Every day we move in and out of each other's busy lives. It's easy to take for granted all the little moments that make up our everyday. Some are good, others not so much. But that's life. It's when something doesn't seem quite right. That it's time to pay attention. Because only you know what's not supposed to be in your everyday. So protect your everyday. If you see something suspicious, say something to local authorities. Okay, we're talking to Ved Nanda of the University of Denver. He's an international affairs and international law professor there and he's got many courses all on the international level and we are so interested in talking to him about today the migrant problem, which is huge. So I mentioned during the break that there have been people suggesting that the three large powers in the world today, if they got together, and that is the U.S. and Russia and China, they all have their barbed wire type problems. But if they got together and they actually addressed these problems together, we would have the greater likelihood of solving achieve political problems in failed states and finding humanitarian solution. Do you agree? I do, but I think the question really is about that if. That's a very big if. Because as you rightly said, they've got their own very, very important as they consider it interests. And their own interests are such that they clash. And when they clash in this booming, buzzing, confusing kind of world that you and I are talking about, it becomes even more critical. For example, take simply Syria. In Syria at the present time, the United States and Russia, they are both involved. Russia on the side of Assad and the United States trying to see that ISIS is defeated. And then then we talked about Turkey and Kurds. And then you think about Afghanistan, you think about Iraq, you think about Yemen. In Yemen, we are involved along with Saudi Arabia. On the other hand is Iran involved. And Russia is there with Iran. So I think the point simply would be that it's very difficult to bring these countries together. But you had a very good point that there is at least one common interest that they might find. And that common interest at the present time has been ISIS. Although China is not involved, but Russia is interested. The U.S. is interested. Many Middle Eastern countries are interested in trying to see that ISIS as such, the so-called Islamic State, it is defeated. And the point simply is that once it's defeated in terms of territory, the movement is not going to be defeated. They are still going to be as guerrillas. They are still going to be as people who are rebels and cutting people's throats and going around suicide bombers. That is going to continue. So you're right if they could get together. And if they could get together at the United Nations. But in the Security Council just the other day, when the United States asked that Russia and China agree with it on taking action against North Korea, they couldn't agree even on that. And North Korea is a major problem for everybody. They want it to be denuclearized, but then they can't agree upon it. So I think how to bring these countries together is something that you should do. Thank you, Ben. I'll be thinking about that day and night. Well, I do feel that if you could get some kind of agreement, some kind of consensus among those three large powers, then you could rebuild failed states. Maybe you'd have to be authoritarian about it. You'd have to go in there and act like the United Nations perhaps would like to act, but never does, to take strong steps and make peace. Without that, you can never rebuild failed countries. I think I agree with you. But along with that, I'll probably put European Union and I would put Merkel there. Because at the present time, for the free world, the one person who speaks really with a great deal of authority and great deal of clarity and I think reliability at the present time, it's Merkel. Yeah. And so she's very, very good because from Brexit on to again our own president, when she doesn't agree, she's very blunt. And the other day she said, we can't rely upon the United States anymore. European Union has got to stand on its own and take care of its own problems. She's emerging as a global leader. She is. You're absolutely right. These countries could get together along with the European Union. And then I think they could probably find a way out. Although they can't find at the present time, Taliban, then in Syria, ISIS, that has got a major problem. And then you mentioned earlier about North Korea, that becomes a major problem. How to get them together is going to be a difficult task. But I think the point that you're making is absolutely right. That unless there is international cooperation and unless major powers can agree upon finding some way to help the failed states to have some stability, to find some kind of answer that these people who are fleeing for their life and being persecuted, and especially those who are vulnerable, think about all those children, children who can't go to school, children whose childhood is all at the present time lost. And they are not going to be a great deal of asset to any society that they are in. They're not going to be productive citizens. And after a point of age, I don't know what that point is, you know already that never can be productive citizens. And they'd be a burden on all of us somehow. I think two things are needed. One is that some countries like Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, the ones who are at the present time taking care of refugees, they need to be helped. Because Jordan at the present time is just simply unable to cope with it. Lebanon is unable to cope with it because what happens is that in their own societies then they have got trouble because they have got difficulty. And if their own societies crack, then obviously you've got more field states. They've become a field state also. So that takes me to one thing you said a minute ago, is that Merkel has rightly said that some of Europe, she cannot rely, for example, on the United States, and she cannot rely on the UK anymore. Post-Brexit, the UK is a different animal. But focusing on the United States for a minute, we have Trump who rides in the populist movement and the isolationist movement wants to build walls, doesn't want to allow any migrants in, all very negative things. And they are completely, they fail to recognize the global process you and I have been talking about. But theoretically, another president or if he finds enlightenment one day, one bright sunny Monday morning, what would the United States, by itself now, because assuming we cannot reach consensus with the other large powers, what can the United States do to help ameliorate this problem globally? I think the United States as a leader, if it's willing to take the leadership, then it can bring other countries together. The problem simply at the present time is that the United States is not continuing to want to be a world leader. Whether it's trade, whether it's climate change, whether it's at the present time refugees and migration, because as you probably know when Trump said that he's not going to permit from these six Muslim countries for 90 days anyone to come into this country, then all these many courts obviously did not agree with him. But anyway, that's a different story. But the point is that the US as a leader has the ability because of its credibility, because of its reliability at the present time in the world arena and because it's a major power. Militarily nobody can challenge us. Economically at the present time still we are almost at the very top. So the US alone can also permit people because you know he has cut down the number of refugees to 50% of what we did last year. And so if we also continue to be that kind of leader, then others looking at our own example would follow us. But at the same time we take the leadership, then as you rightly said we can bring other countries together. At least all European countries are with us. Many of the Asian countries, Japan is with us, India is with us. So I think we can probably have a coalition of willing countries that can help to resolve this problem. Yes, and that would be the most noble, moral thing the country can do consistent with its grand history of accepting these huddled masses yearning to be free, accepting global leadership, taking responsibility with great wealth, with great economy, with great military force, comes great responsibility. We can do that and I think we would have an effect even if we could not get Russia and China specifically on board our mission. But so the question then is that we have Trump and the likelihood is that he's not going to wake up on a given Monday morning and be enlightened. That's probably the case. I don't think they make a medicine that would help him. Wishful thinking on my part, but I hope he can do that. But my last question is let's assume the federal government never wakes up on this, at least during his administration. What, if anything, can the states do? What can the states do? What can the people do in this country to help rediscover that kind of moral leadership? At least start it up. What can we do? Let me just mention to you what has happened. In Europe at the present time, countries are unwilling to even do the rescue job, search and rescue, and that has been done by NGOs all over Europe. So they take care of the vacuum. Yeah, fill the vacuum. So civil society can do a whole lot. But in this country, if you look at climate change, at the present time it's the states, it is cities, it is NGOs, it's companies that are taking the lead and they can take the lead. You remember here in many cities, they are sanctuary cities. There are states that have said that we are not going to permit our own police forces, cities, in order to go along with ICE in order to have people deported. So a whole lot can be done in this country because of separation of powers, because of our own institutional structure, because of again, Federation and states and cities have got their own power. They can do a whole lot in this country because you are absolutely right. The entire thing at the present time, international problems, they are not going to be solved by governments alone. It's going to be the civil society that's going to play a much more important role than ever before. And we have to be mindful of that and participate in that. Absolutely. And think tech has to cover that, right? Nobody else can do that. Thank you, Ben. Thank you. I enjoyed this conversation as much as the last time I wanted to do it again. I appreciate that and I'm honored to be with you. I've enjoyed it very much. Thank you, Ben. Aloha. Aloha. Mahalo.