What is going on with Palia? What’s the problem? If you’ve been keeping your eye on this game, or have been playing, you may already know. The problem might not seem like a big thing to some people, but I’d like to address how it affects the community as a whole, and the longevity of the game.
Hi! I’m Wickedy, if you are new here, please know that this is not my usual content. I shared a game I was excited about with my community, but when more info came out about how the business end of things is being handled, I felt the need to share that side too. Again, as long as you are having fun, I’m happy for you. If this is a game you want to try, that’s awesome! You can check out Palia here with my referral code: https://accounts.palia.com/sign-up?referral=91d83dc7-a69c-49cc-933a-5b133cf187d9
To clarify: What is Toxic Positivity? Toxic positivity happens when people believe that negative thoughts about anything should be avoided. Toxic Positivity occurs when encouraging statements are expected to minimize or eliminate painful emotions, creating pressure to be unrealistically optimistic without considering the circumstances of the situation.
What is predatory marketing? Predatory advertising, or predatory marketing, can be largely understood as the practice of manipulating vulnerable persons or populations into unfavorable market transactions through the undisclosed exploitation of these vulnerabilities.
A lot of this video is how I feel about how things are handled. I am not claiming that it is indeed that, but that it feels borderline to me personally.
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Heya friends! I've been reading through all the comments as they come in, and wow! You all have a lot to say! I appreciate all your opinions and have learned a lot more from the comments.
I initially had a very long comment here addressing concerns people have with the devs, with the gameplay and with the shop. Honestly, some very valid points were made on both ends of the discussion and I love a good healthy discussion. Thank you for sharing.
While there are a lot of concerns about the trajectory of the game, the intentions of development team (which has over 150 employees and multimillion dollars in backing), the lack of communication and contradicting statements of some of the dev team, and concerns over conversion rates and coin purchases always leaving you with more than you can spend on items but never enough to get anything else, I'd like to keep in mind that the game at it's core is something that a lot of people put a lot of love and time into.
If you enjoy the game, that's great! That's what games are for! If you enjoy the purchases, that's fine too. I actually do enjoy playing. Though I do know there are faults with the gameplay and how recent changes have caused it to be more of a grinding game than a cozy community building game. As someone who has been with a few "Cozy Game" communities for a very long time, the current way that various different aspects are being handled gives me pause and concern for the future of a game I enjoy and community I would love to be more involved in. A good game I'll play a few times, but a good game with a great COMMUNITY, I'll rave about and stay with for a very long time.
Ya'll are so passionate and I love that. I am not trying to dissuade anyone from playing Palia, I just wanted to share concerns about the future of it and wether of not I want to invest in it. Investment to me is more than money, it's time. I'd like to invest my time in a game that has the healthy, thriving community that lasts, and I hope that this one does.
100% agree
This is still a Beta so they have time to change things. I haven't given up on them, but I find that the recent update made me lose interest and I'm not playing it all that much any more. It wasn't a conscious decision, it just kind of happened after the recent spawn changes. I'll wait and see and maybe pick it back up later but I generally don't like the design decision that makes the game seem cooperative, but is often competitive for resources to the point I don't want to play near others.
Very well said! I definitely don't want to see this game fail, so thank you for addressing this topic 🙂
I would say this is pretty normal. Sure it's a bit pricey for a brand new game but it's a free game. If you want it to stay free and you want them to continue making improvements and expansions etc then a profit has to be made. Just wait for major sales and buy up coins then.
Being F2P, I already see the cat will likely be an item from a quest later after beta. Cosmetics are just that, past this the pricing might be reduced or have weekly deals. If the people leave cause a certain outfit or skin seems too expensive let them, honestly just save maybe a dollar a day and in a month over half the shop is within reach and all the cat skins are up for grabs. And again this game is a BETA, not a full release title so if you spend your money for skins go for it, just saying it might go into P2W territory for this is a ridiculous claim at best.
In a game like this, there needs to be things worthwhile to work towards. Other F2P games still have free cosmetics, pets, and other interesting things to collect and chase. From my experience so far, the only thing worth chasing and working towards are furnishings. This is all well and good, but it's going to run dry sooner rather than later. I think earnable outfits & pets (that are more basic than cash shop alternatives) would go a long way to keep everyone engaged, and give players more goals to work towards. I think another neat addition could be player titles. In most MMO's I play, I really enjoy collecting titles. I just feel as though the personalization aspect of this game is severely lacking as a whole though. Even the character creation feels really bland. I mean the models are good, there just aren't many options to choose from in my opinion. I'm not connected to my character at all really, and that's a huge bummer. I enjoy the game for what it is (for now). But I don't think I'll be playing it 3-4 months from now. Very nice video btw! 😀
I'm falling in love with this game but when I saw the shop I was sssooooo disappointed. The prices are just out of line. The cat at $5 is great but you can't actually buy anything for just $5.
I just don't think there is enough to do. I am level 100 with all skills over level 10, all but 4 villagers are at tier 4. Here are my problems: there is not enough wildlife diversity to hunt, hunting feels like shooting fish in a barrel, the climbing mechanic is clunky. We need more quests and things to do.
I fully agree with the pricing being outrages as i am in South Africa and the exchange rate is crazy for me to afford buying stuff. I would like to support the devs too as i love the game but I shall just keep playing the free version and not spend money for now.
I agree with this video. But I think the elephant in the room for me are the deliberately odd coin amounts that leave you either too short or too many coins. I prefer paying direct money for cash shop items like FFXIV.
I played this game for about two weeks, but stopped playing as I wasn’t pleased with the cash shop.
This game is a pass for me.
I am going to be so sad, if this issue brings down Palia. Playing the beta helped me relax during a stressful time and I really love it and want to see where this world will take us.
But when I saw those prices in the store, it was alarming to say the least. The prices are simply predatory. They are too much and the added "bonuses" uneven the amount of currency you get. So you end up with leftovers and of course you are not being able to buy anything with those.
Then I was excited to read about the new update bringing in pets. A lot of people asked about that and it seemed like the devs are listening to the community. The cats looked adorable and I looked forward to get my own. Aha. The next minute I hear, that you can only get a pet if you pay a certain amount of money for something in the shop. No quest to get one for free. No choice. Give us your money if you want this new stuff!
I am not surprised that people are furious about this. I am too. This game is so charming and I want to stay in this world. But there is a line.
You hit the nail on the head. Feel the exact same way. Archeage killed me with their crap and got excited about Palia. Then… well I havent played in a few days. I hope something changes.
I totally agree. I also dislike that there seem to be no options for clothing choices from quests or gifts or crafting either. You can either have base clothes or buy a big price tag for different clothes. One of the things that kept me playing DCUO all these years is that you can collect and buy tons of styles and make great outfits with more options every time you play. I like that I can earn some and buy others, and it makes me want to buy some. Neverwinter was the same. I love all the free mounts, but I also asked my mother to buy me a $30 across the account mount for my birthday, because they let us have some as free gifts, some from quests, and some from earning them with coin in game…. and then offered me a $30 leopard that I could give to every character I had. They didn't just say, "Want a mount? You have to buy it. It's expensive.". People will always buy if you make the game fun and affordable. Neverwinter is also a good example of the bad side of that. The bad side is that they sell some race bundles that come with the new type of race and outfits as well as some items to go with it; but they are over $100 each. Nearly no one you see has them, because that is a lot of money to drop so you can play a Moon Elf, instead of a Wood Elf (or Sun Elf or Dark Elf, or….). They do offer some in game content with the bundle but barely any to speak of.
I feel like DCUO has the best structure for what you should be doing if you want to sell enough to stay afloat and also build a community and keep it free at the same time. They just suffer from losing popularity to Marvel and becoming an old game, but there is still a thriving environment.
I hate how non interactive objects are like we cant sleep, sit, lie down etc. What are all the cool furnitures for??????? Seriously? Just decorations???
The other problem imo is that you get bored pretty quick in the game cause there is nothing to do after a while anymore
Call me oldschool – but i prefer games with a one-time price or a monthly fee instead of beeing always afraid to log in one day, beeing forced to buy sth in the shop because it got necessary
Worst part is a lot of Alfa testers told them this and they didn’t take the advice
I think you're all giving up way too quickly on this. Palia literally went into closed beta on the 2nd of August… and then open beta on the 10th. It's literally not been ALIVE long enough to make significant changes. I would wager it doesn't have the player base for statistics either. While I agree that being cautious about premium currency concerns, outright dropping the game in it's first MONTH of BETA seems a little extreme. Palia has the chance to be great, but unless the playerbase talks to the Devs about their concerns, reviews and plays and gives it a chance, then it's never going to happen. Don't bitch to bitch, actually do something constructive. I see a lot of potential in Palia, premium currency aside. I'd think other people would too?
so I'm a whale… but instead of doing big purchases from the start, I start out with a lot of small purchases, and if I've decided that i like the game enough for bigger purchases, i'll do that after some time playing. Palia's outfits are… way overpriced. I kind of want to support the game, but everytime i open the store and see the outfits i'd like to buy i'm thinking about whether i want to drop 30 euros for an outfit that i think is just fine (looks wise). like, it's not blowing me away. i hope they'll be adding outfits that you won't have to buy in bundle; like maybe just a new hairstyle or a shirt, because then i'll probably start spending. for now… those tiny adorable cats are not enough for me to start spending yet.
I think they should had a palcat for free and different skins in shop. In dreamlight Valley you can unlock a lot of pet completely free and some that you can just buy from the shop. And Dreamlight pets don't follow you has a stalker but they walked around you makes different moves, sometimes they run, sometimes they walk and they add different stuff for pets in the updates, like a house, so you can place the pets you buy in your valley, because you can bring with you just one pet so the other pets don't have to stay in your inventory.
Nailed it
dang this is a good review you can tell you know your stuff about games and gaming in general
THIS GAME IS NOTHING MORE THAN A RUNNING SIMULATOR………………SUCKS!!!.. tells ya to do this.. YA CAN'T… HARVEST THIS…. CAN"T HORRIBLE GAME!
There's a TLDR at the bottom if you want it, my ASD really has me rambling.
Maybe it's because of Apex, OW2, Valorant, F76, FFXIV, and a ton of smaller MMOs, but I think compared to a lot of shops, theirs is one of the least egregious for an online game. Is it expensive? Yes, but they don't punish you for not buying the bundles up front like most games do. Most games, you either buy the bundle or pay full price for everything in it separately. Palia let's you buy a set of swatches and buy the other styles in the set at the same discount as the bundle, something I don't think I have ever seen a game actually allow. Usually if you buy one thing in a bundle and change your mind later and want more, you are out way more money. Most games also make shop things temporary to incentivize paying so you don't miss your chance (taking advantage of FOMO impulse purchases) and this game has said their shop is not going to rotate like that. So like, yes it's expensive, but I don't really see it as predatory by a long stretch (the base game outfits are amazing and there are loads of them in a bunch of swatches) but it does a lot more things right than it does wrong in comparison to all the games I have played with cosmetic shops. I do wish you could craft new clothes too though, that would be a nice addition.
Do I see it becoming pay to win? Not really. Like you said, the game isn't really a game you "win" anyways. The joy of the game is the community aspect which, from what I have seen while playing, is super strong and there's multiple things they have to help encourage that. Between cooking/fishing with people being more effective than alone, to shared drops on mining, trees, foraging, animals, and bugs, to the request system. People call out flow trees, palium, ancient sernuks etc. all the time and will form gathering parties and communities around gathering and cooking as well. That (and decorating that comes from gathering things) are a pretty big chunk of the game and not really something I could see even being possible to become "pay-to-win". There are loads of games that have cosmetic shops and don't have anything pay-to-win. Honestly, the only outlier that comes to mind is F76, but almost no one who knows Bethesda was shocked when they backed down from their promise of no pay-to-win since they have a history of being predatory/greedy.
On a side note, pets are not considered "gameplay" in most online games because they function as cosmetics in almost any game where they are purchasable. They are basically animated cosmetic items that can't be interacted with and don't provide any additional stuff to do. They are just as cosmetic as a hat or a coat. You don't pet them, care for them, have them help you hunt, form in game bonds with them, or get any buffs from having them vs. not. I will say however, if they made it so you could start doing stuff with them, that would definitely cross into gameplay territory, but as of now, they are purely cosmetic, so it isn't misleading to say they "don't add gameplay".
TLDR; I think for a cosmetic shop, they do so much right that other games don't. While expensive, many of it's cosmetics are cheaper than a lot of MMOs and other online games (especially small ones in my experience), it's not pay-to-win or barring gameplay behind it (and I don't see it becoming that way personally), they don't punish you by locking out bundles if you buy one of the items, and they aren't doing what almost all modern cosmetic shops do by abusing FOMO impulse purchases with a rotating store. While they may become predatory down the line, I don't really see anything that is too egregious or is a harbinger of the end times for Palia. I think skepticism has it's place (my GAD lives for skepticism), but I feel like enjoying the game for what it is right now is way healthier than asking "what ifs".
Does everything get wiped after the beta is over? or do we keep everything?