It's been a hot minute since I talked about Palia. Back in May, after 2 waves of layoffs, the future looked uncertain for the cozy MMO. Fortunately, good things have happened to the game in the meantime. For starters, they were acquired by Daybreak, a company that seems to specialize in keeping smaller community MMOs afloat, such as Lord of the Rings Online, and Everquest. This has brought a lot of stability and confidence to Palia. It's not all going to disappear as I'd feared. They're even hiring again! I hope they reached out to the people they let go first and foremost, but I don't have that kind of information.
They've rolled out a ton of new premium cosmetics to restore their coffers and add more variety to players. They've added tons of pets. There were only cats for the longest time, but now we have plant foxes, owl-bunnies, baby dragons and robot pugs. Now there are also several different tool skin sets to choose from if you're sick of looking at the same tools. The most impressive cosmetic I've seen available is the ability to change your entire home lot landscape from forest, to mountains, to beach-side.
They haven't just been working on the premium shop though. The game itself is getting new features every month, including my personal favorite, Home Tours. You can go check out other people's houses (if they submit them for the week) and see how other people decorate. Maybe steal some ideas for your own house! In that same patch, we got jukeboxes, but they are very large and only play one song each, so I'm not excited about those. What I really like about recent additions is nameplates to customize how your screen name appears over your head and in party mode. There have also been quality of life additions like the ability to keyword search through your inventory! Since all our inventories are massive now, this is a huge deal. There's also a new feature that lets you save and quick change outfits, although it's a little broken and won't save my favorite glasses...
With this week's patch, they've finally brought back Maji Night Market, and from now on, it'll run one week each month, like the Darkmoon Faire in World of Warcraft. The new balloon popping mini game is lots of fun and came out really well balanced for their first run! Chapaa Chase is back too, and it's about the same as last time. Catching chapaas is a little competitive, but it could be and has been worse.
There's even more stuff expected in the future. They've previewed a new map coming early next year, a dark forest called Elderwood. A trading system is also in the works, which will mean the game will finally have an economy. That scares me a little, because it means gold-selling could become a thing.
All in all, I think Palia's future is a lot more secure than it was 4 months ago. And I'm relieved it is.
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