Palia, the Day After the Update

Well, I have 2 chickens now, that's it.  And I can pet and feed them once a day.  And "my" ranch isn't one I built on my plot, it's an instanced area prebuilt.  No cows in my yard outside my house.  

The Tailor Tickets I was excited about?  They're for makeup colors, not costumes.  And the daily quests that reward them are broken and disabled for the time being. 

Why am I playing this morning?  Because even after servers went up yesterday afternoon, I couldn't login until it was time for bed.

It's not like I don't have anything to do.  I have a quest log completely full of quests to do, and villagers I haven't maxed friendship with yet, and things, and stuff. Plus, I have an entire zone I haven't set foot in yet, but that's waiting on my quests to be done first, I think...  Maybe I've been off the game too long.  Maybe some more recent starter guides will give me some direction.  But yeah, I'm not as excited as I was.

Palia Hype Again!

Holy shit!  I haven't played Palia in a year.  Even with the launch of the new map in Elderwood, I couldn't bring myself to be interested, but FINALLY they're promising shit I actually wanna play with, THE RANCHING SKILL!  I really really really want Palian chickens and cows!  Ooooh, maybe sheep too, to make more fabric!  EEEEEEEEE!  Plus, what the heck is a Tailor Ticket?  Does this mean we can earn costumes by playing the game?  HELL YES!  I knew I kept this little game installed for a bloody reason.  I'm stoked!  And the next patch is in 2 days! YAYAYAYAYYYYYYY!!!!!

Palia Check-in

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.

Palia Concerns

I'm really worried about Palia.  A lot of people review-bombed them at the Steam launch.  And now they've had 2 rounds of layoffs in 2 months.  That's devastating.  The mini-game they introduced in the Lunar New Year festival was a huge hit.  I really thought they'd be doing better than this.  It really feels like Palia won't survive it's first year.

So, I'm trying to make the most of it while I can, going after a few more achievements, taking lots of screenshots, and... trying not to be depressed.  I owe a lot to Palia.  Playing Palia helped me finally adapt to a control style I've been struggling with for years, controlling the camera with my mouse.  This has opened a lot of other doors for me, like Monster Hunter, and my Time at Portia.  Palia is a good game, and I will benefit from playing it for many years to come.

Palia Launches on Switch, Free Shit

Today was Palia's third or fourth launch day.  First there was the closed beta, then the open beta, then launched on the Epic Games store, and now on the Nintendo Switch.  In my opinion, this is the biggest launch since open beta, because today we welcomed in the Animal Crossing crowd.  Animal Crossing has a huge following on the Nintendo Switch.  Animal Crossing is no longer getting free updates either, so that crowd's been looking for a new game to obsess over.  I think this will be a good opportunity for Palia, if they don't get over-compared to Gameloft's Disney Dreamlight Valley.  Gameloft and Disney have a lot more money to throw around, and they charge a hefty fee for their game, so I hope people will enjoy how largely free Palia is in comparison.

Palia Winterlights Festival, part 2

Much to everyone's surprise, though it makes a lot of logical sense, Singularity 6 pushed their second content patch for December through 2 days after the first one.  I mean, it makes sense, get the work done early so you can take a winter holiday, I get it.  I do hope they hotfix some shit before they go on vacation, but I don't blame them for trying to leave early.  They've been working nonstop since August, with content patches every 2 weeks and new outfits in the cash shop every time too, and hotfixes after every single patch.  They deserve a break.  I just really hope they put out one more hotfix patch before they call it until January.

Palia Winterlights Festival, part 1

I apologize for not making a post about the Halloween stuff in Palia, but it was really just some Jack-o'-lanterns and pay to own costumes, and that's it.  Nothing went down for Thanksgiving either.  But the winter holidays, they're special, and Palia is trying to give them their due.  The intent is definitely there, but the execution needs tweaking.

For starters, Jina gives you a tree, and a quest to get ornaments from every villager except Zeki, he's got his own separate thing.  You light a candle with each villager, hear their hopes and dreams, even the dog, Tau.  You only have to talk to 8 for quest completion, but for maximum tree ornaments, talk to every bloody villager.  When I was done, I had a stack of candles, a stack of gold balls, a stack of wooden ornaments, and a stack of gold bells.  I also had a new candelabra for the dining table.  None of these candles can be lit, strangely enough.  Every other candle in the game can be lit, but not these new ones.

Palia's First Big Character Customization Update!

Beards are here!  Everyone rejoice!  Also, they added half a dozen paler skintones, so I no longer have that Beta Tan most people picked at launch.  New eye colors look fantastic!  I love these new glasses.  There's a bunch of new hairstyles too, but I'll prolly stick to my favorite pigtails.  They seem to have tripled the number of face shapes, but this one I've been using is till the chubbiest, so it stays.

Face shape, skin tone, eye color, and body type are only changeable once a week, but hair, makeup, beards, can all be changed like clothes, as often as you want.  I understand why they put the week long cool down on changing your face, it might be a drag on the servers otherwise.  People need to commit to something.

I'm thrilled!  Is the character creator perfect?  No, because I still can't be chubby, but these are all steps in the right direction.

Palia's First Event! Maji Night Market

We're about 2 weeks into Palia's first event, the Maji Night Market.  I'm not gonna lie, I was a little unhappy with it the first week, but the second week made an excellent comeback.

The first week wasn't all bad.  There were quests to do with very valuable rewards.  You get your first collectible plush by completing the 3 part quest chain.  There's a quest from Kenli to attend the market, a quest from Kenyatta to stir up trouble, and a quest from Eshe to fix it.  In the end, I had some food, some gold, and my first plush.

Collecting plushes is the biggest long term feature of the festival.  You can buy a couple with gold, gain one from completing the quests, and earn the rest by participating in the only minigame at the festival, called the Chapaa Chase.  When midnight strikes, the chapaas get loose from the petting zoo and run wild everywhere.  The minigame is to chase them, catch them, and put them back in the pen.  The first week, the only scoring you could do was 10 tickets per chapaa captured, and there weren't very many chapaas to go around.  So, the fastest players got all the chapaas, and everyone else was empty handed and upset.  Fortunately, they made some modifications the second week to save this event from disaster.

Palia Closed Beta Review

I've had the pleasure of getting into Palia's closed beta yesterday, and I played it all day yesterday and all morning today.  I'm delighted and can't get enough!  This game gives me all the happy chemicals to my brain!

The character creator is a good start, but needs work.  The palest skin tone is very tan.  So my player character is a bit orange for my liking.  Also, there are no freckles to be had.  On the bright side, there's an excellent set of pigtails and a basic set of glasses on offer from the very beginning.  For outfits, there are a bunch of mix and match tops and bottoms, and a couple dresses, all available to you free of charge.  You can change your outfit whenever you like from the tailor's shop or your wardrobe once you craft one on your housing lot.\

The controls are easy to get used to.  WASD to move, mouse controls camera, F for most interactable objects.  If you don't like those controls, you can map them to other keys.  There's no controller support yet, but they are promising to add it in the near future.

New Cozy MMO, Palia Hype

Palia is a new cozy MMO that looks like it was MADE for me.  There's minimal danger, and maximum puttering around.  I love to putter!  My husband probably won't play this with me, but that's okay.  Maybe I'll get my other friends to play, or make some new friends.  It is currently in closed beta, so I haven't tried it yet, but it will be in open beta in 2 days, as long as there are no delays.  MMO launches are rocky, and beta means it's unfinished, which I take very seriously.  Still, I'm super hyped.

The game will be free to play, with paid cosmetics only.  That's a really good way to monetize a game.  No pay to win, just some fancy outfits to keep the money coming in.  I'm on board with that.

There are 8 skills to level up, cooking, hunting, bug catching, gardening, foraging, fishing, furniture making, and mining.  There are so far 23 villagers to befriend, 9 of which are romanceable.  So far, I only plan to romance the fishing robot, but if one of the other bachelor/bachelorettes catches my eye, I'm open to change my mind.  As mentioned before, there are purchasable outfits, but there's also a large number of free ones that come with the game.  I'm really looking forward to playing with them.