Opinion: Palia - What They Say, What They Deliver - A Look At Monetization

mmorpg.com:

It’s been a great few years for cozy games, games where you settle in, build relationships and home, farm, fish, and create a life you’d enjoy. While most of these are single-player games or have a basic multiplayer element, a cozy MMO just opened up its beta, albeit with mixed success: Palia.

Made by Singularity 6, a team made up of Activision Blizzard and Riot vets, Palia aims to bring a cozy, community-driven MMO to players. They’ve promised not to monetize through tricks and to make sure the community is a ‘cozy, welcoming, and friendly’ place. On top of that, there’s a hope that this is something like Glitch 2.0, or a Stardew Valley MMO, because that’s along the lines of what the trailers seem to offer.

As someone who played Glitch, has poured far too many hours into Stardew, and has been in the closed beta for Palia I can say that some of the bones are in place for what they’re promising… but definitely not all. 

The first place where Palia nails its vision is with the NPCs themselves. Each NPC feels like they belong in the world, with clear and distinct personalities of their own. This is an NPC community that the players are joining, which lines up with the story Singularity 6 is trying to tell.

While Palia excels at establishing its NPC village, it does lack in allowing players to create their own community. There’s no local chat, just global, private, and community (Palia’s name for guilds/clans.) If you want to say “Hi” while fishing next to someone, it gets blasted out to the entire shard of around 25 people. 

On the plus side, if you’re fishing next to someone, you get a buff, and if you mine a rock/chop a tree/cook a meal with other players,  you both get the resources. There is potential here.

So far,