I have been looking forward to a social MMO since… I dunno… since 2009’s Gatheryn came and went. There were a bunch of social MMOs back then — Neo-Steam, Free Realms, of course, Second Life, a bunch more. None really had the impact of a World of Warcraft or even an EverQuest, both games which were just as open to socializing, but also had dungeons and raids to pass the time between dinner parties.
Free Realms, in particular, I miss. Like Gatheryn (which won’t really mean anything because I doubt few ever actually played it), Free Realms was a collection of minigames that were based off popular arcade games and casual PC/Mobile games. They would have racing games, hunting games, match 3 games. You’d put on, say, miner’s clothing, find a mining lode, and then play a minigame. You could then use what you mined to purchase certain things — new outfits (which often meant new jobs), better outfits, goodies, pets, and so on.
There were even dungeons, if you had adventurer’s clothes on. They had a stage where bands could play (pre-recorded, but you could dance to it). Lots of different places to go. It was pretty cool.
Palia is similar in a lot of ways. You changed outfits to change classes in Free Realms; in Palia, you change tools. Equip an axe, you gain experience in Foraging for every tree, bush, or old wrecked barrel you salvage. Equip a pickaxe, and you gain experience in Mining when you teach a lesson to that rock over there that looked at you funny. Equip a hoe, and you gain experience when you garden. Fishing rod, fishing. Bow, hunting. Smoke bomb, insect catching. You get the idea.
Where Free Realms was pretty open-ended, Palia has the traditional MMO quest trappings. The early game (which is all I have played to this point) is structured as a tutorial that ends with you having cleared a plot of land and built and decorated a house there. Housing is instanced in Palia, but you can visit the houses of friends at the entrance of the housing area if you’ve been given permission.
Finishing that house will require me buying the blueprints for a sawmill and making lots of planks with it, and then buying another crafting station to make bricks for the chimney. I didn’t get to that tonight, but I will.
Again, I am very much at the beginning of Palia, but here’s what I assume the gameplay loop will look like. Through exploration, you gather more and more exotic resources, and can build more and more elaborate buildings. You can buy additional deeds to expand your plot to fill all of the instanced housing area, with many buildings, animals (well, at least bugs) roaming around, decorative plants and so on. We know there will be caves with treasure to find, and activities best done with many people. There’s never a downside to working with others; everyone always gets equal rewards.
The basic lore is… in the far, far future, humanity is a memory and purple skinned, pointy-eared people have taken over. You have been created by a goddess and sent back to Earth to, presumably, show the modern day people what the ancients look like. They don’t think much of you yet, but they’ll like you better when they get to know you.
In the meantime, they are eager to show you the basics of all the skills. It’ll be up to you to keep checking up on them, now and again, and if you can’t help them with something, you can at least chat them up and be all neighborly.
As you build up trust, they will let you into their private lives, give you gifts, and maybe even develop feelings for you. (The devs have been coy on whether romance will ever be an option between player and NPCs).
I have only spent a couple of hours in game and it is way too early to be passing any sort of judgement on it. I’m sure things will get more exciting once the game goes live (in closed beta at the moment) and communities — Palia’s guilds — begin to form, and we unlock the group and community content.
But right now, just a couple hours in, it reminds me most of EverQuest 2’s crafting. You go outside and mine, gather, fish and hunt, then do some crafting. EQ2 only allowed each character one crafting class, but they were separate classes, and you could get specific quests for each class, an idea built upon and expanded in Final Fantasy XIV.
Part of the joy of crafting, for me, in other games, is making stuff that I can put to use in dungeons and stuff. I do like gathering and crafting, but I don’t see it as an end in itself; I want to be working to a goal. What that larger goal is in Palia, I have yet to find out.
This is NOT a review of Palia. I definitely haven’t played enough of it to see anything but the barest fraction of what they have to offer. This is just a first impression. And I like what I see enough to come back for more.
I was down at some docks in the game yesterday, and they looked rather decrepit, which got me wondering if there’ll ever be a “community project” a la Elite Dangerous, where everyone chips in to unlock some mutually beneficial content.
I noticed that, too!!! I wonder if there will be different servers or something where the village and surrounding environs can grow in unique ways.
Did either of you play Horizons, maybe later called Istaria or something? That had community projects too, and that was pretty interesting. I remember in particular soon after launch there was a big island that no one could get to until the community banded together to build a bridge to it.
Of course the downside was, if you joined the game 6 months later, that bridge was already built so you’d never get to experience that bit.
Palia sounds like a nice chill time…
I never played it — it was too different from what was promised to get me to switch from EQ — but I do remember that. EverQuest 2 also had community projects to build griffon towers early on.
Oh right!! I’d forgotten those!!
Do you know if there’s a way to buy-in to the Palia closed beta? Normally I’d just wait but I have a 4-day weekend that I just started. Figured I could pre-order the collectors edition or something and get in but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Everything seems to imply that it’s too late to get into the closed beta; you’ll have to wait for open beta. Can you buy this game? I kinda assumed it was F2P, especially since it already has a cash shop.
Looks like it will be able to be on the Switch, dunno if it is free there or not.
EQ2 has had a series of community projects over the years, almost ll related to transport. I’ve helped restore several Combine teleport spires and I think we may have done a druid circle once. The last one I remember were the big statues to celebrate one of the anniversaries – the fifteenth, i think. Those were a lot of fun.
Also I beta-tested Horizons, found it barely playable and extremely unfinished. I wouldn’t have bought it but one of our friends in EQ at the time was determined to move there when it went live so Mrs Bhagpuss and I did buy the game and tried to play with him. I think we lasted about two or three weeks. We went back to EQ and as far as I can recall we didn’t see him again, although I could be wrong. People were often leaving EQ and going to other games, then coming back a few months later. It was a long time ago and I forget who they all were now.
I’ve played Istaria a few times. It’s a lot better than I remember Horizons being.
Well, that was supposed to be in the reply thread but never mind. This was going to be a separate comment so just imagine it’s not connected!
Wow! Gatheryn! Never thought I’d hear that name again. Another game I played in some form of beta. It was very content-lite as I remember. Not much to do. I seem to recall it was marketed as a steam-punk mmorpg which is why I tried it but I can’t recall it had much to do with the genre. When I played I barely saw another player. I’m not sure I remember it launching.
I don’t miss that one but boy, do I miss Neo-Steam! I loved that game although I never got far in it. I Back in the EQ days I always had a “wind-down” game to play after an evening EQ session to chill out before bed, what with EQ often being so intense, and Neo-Steam was one of them. I never really thought of it as a social game, though. Did it have any extra tools or features for socializing compared to a regular mmorpg of the day?
Free Realms I also played regularly. I’ll play it again if that bloody emu ever gets going. Have you heard anything new from them? I’ve been in the Discord for years and I check the website monthly but nothing ever happens. They post details of how well they’re getting on behind closed doors but there’s never a word about letting anyone else play.
A bunch of us were so excited for Gathryn … right until we got into the game and saw that it was a bunch of object search puzzles and that was pretty much it. Hard bounce. We’d had such high hopes. It was definitely intended to be a social MMO.
I think I was thinking of another game, because I looked at Neo Steam and that isn’t what I remember.
The Free Realms devs released a new video a few days ago, so I guess stuff is still happening. The when, though, I’d love to know.
I got my beta invite today so will have to actually try it before I open my mouth further. Have been less than impressed with the twitch streams I’ve watched but we’ll see!
Grats! Well, I am assuming the first few hours in closed beta will not be the same as a hundred hours in with an active community. But I don’t think the streamers are making it seem different than it is — the early hours are gathering and crafting. The videos the devs have put out imply much more coming.
I guess my main hitch is the 25 player per map model. Is that the real model for the game? I was hoping/expecting a full on open world game vs instanced islands.
I had no idea each server was so small. That doesn’t sound great. We’ll see how it plays out, I guess.