games made with agile teams and with passions are probably good, regardless of when they were made. i’m young but growing up i only had access to really old computers and saw that most of the stuff that was made back in the day was just garbage shovelware. it was hard not to get buried in them.
most triple A developers today are far more skilled in both writing and optimizing the code however when the management is forcing you to work long hours you’re gonna make more mistakes and with tight deadlines, if you’re doing testing and bug fixing after developing the entire game then it’s going to be the first thing that’s getting cut.
that being said i wish they really did something about the massive size games take on disk. my screen is 1080p, my hardware can barely handle your game on low in 1080p so everything is gonna get downscaled regardless and despite how hard you wanna ignore it data caps are still here, why am i forced to get all assets and textures in 4k 8k? make it optional goddamit.
AAA games are turning into luxury/super cars. At the top end, they’re just not made for average consumers anymore where you need money for infrastructure to even drive the thing. But then you also have plenty of Indie/AA studios creating games that surpass AAA from 10-15 years ago with much smaller teams cause tools and skills make it feasible. Of course there’s also the starcrafts and the counterstrikes that are over 20 years old and will never die, the Toyota Camrys and Honda Civics of games, they just get perpetually refreshed
I see stuff like this and I don’t blame developers/coders for all the shit that’s happening. If you objectively look at gameplay and such, most games are actually pretty decent on their own. The graphics are usually really nice and the story is adequate, if not quite good, the controls are sensible and responsive…
A lot of the major complaints about modern games isn’t necessarily what the devs are making, it’s more about what the garbage company demands is done as part of the whole thing. Online only single player is entirely about control, keeping you from pirating the game (or at least trying to) plus supplying on you and serving you ads and such… Bad releases are because stuff gets pushed out the door before it’s ready because the company needs more numbers for their profit reports, so things that haven’t been given enough time and need more work get pushed onto paying customers. Day one patches are normal because between the time they seed the game to distributors like valve and Microsoft and stuff, and the time the game unlocks for launch day, stuff is still being actively worked on and fixed.
The large game studios have turned the whole thing into a meat grinder to just pump money out of their customers as much as possible and as often as possible, and they’ve basically ruined a lot of the simple expectations for game releases, like having a game that works and that performs adequately and doesn’t crash or need huge extras (like updates) to work on day 1…
Developers themselves aren’t the problem. Studios are the problem and they keep consolidating into a horrible mass of consumer hostile policies.
I hate this conflation of “Developer” with every other role in modern game development.
If you think the new Porsche looks shit, do you blame the Mecanical engineer who designed the brake mechanism?
If your new manga body pillow gives you a rash, do you blame the graphic designer of the manga?
There is not a single thing listed in the meme above that is actually the fault of the actual developers working on the game. Don’t even need to talk about the first picture.
game size is studio management related. They want to stuff as much (repetitive, boring) content into the game as possible. Plus a multiplayer mode no one asked for.
Optimizations don’t happen because the CEO decides to take the sales money of the game this quarter, and not next, and ships an unfinished product.
Always online is ALWAYS a management decision.
It’s a shit joke, it’s wrong because it blames the wrong people, and its also just dumb.
It’s clearly got more potential than it’s currently using right now, game is fun but will almost certainly be better in 3-6 months. No shame in waiting for a finished product, either.
i mean they’ve sold like a million copies, i don’t think they’re going to be hurting for cash any time soon, just pirate it and maybe buy it later if you feel a desire to.
I watched the trailer and read the steam description. I don’t like how it treats and lets you treat the pals. My 8yo was very excited to see a pokemon clone game, and asked me to stop the trailer 30 seconds in because of them beating up the pals and using them as slaves.
Then don’t play it. Also, your last sentence literally describes Pokemon. Wild animals beating the crap out of each other and enslaved by post war child army.
I said this in another comment, but the concept itself is different from the execution though. She watches pokemon, and they regularly talk about respecting the pokemon and treating them with respect. Anybody who treats pokemon as an object without love is shown in a bad light; even team rocket is shown to have great love for their Meowth that they are willing to walk away from Meowth when they think Meowth would have a better life elsewhere. On palworld steam description, they literally say pals can be treated any way you want because they thankfully don’t have any human rights issues. Kids don’t think of the bigger picture, or the deeper meaning beyond what they actually see. I’m not saying the game is bad. I’m just saying I don’t like the game for how it is, and it’s definitely not a kids game where as pokemon can be.
I mean if they really respected the pokemon they’d leave them in the wild instead of beating the shit out of them and then grooming them to do their bidding. Oh yeah, cool this guy treats his slaves better than that guy. Lol!
Yeah like I said in another comment, the game is not a kids game, and that is fine. However, the game looks cute and charming, and very like pokemon, which makes it very attractive for kids, and makes me concerned for any kid who likes playing this game.
The concern over children liking Palworld is akin to all those unfounded concerns about shooter games “causing” violence.
Humans, even small children, are VERY capable to separate fiction from reality. There’s no problem at all about a kid wanting to play a game about catching animals and using them to build your base.
That might actually be true up to a certain age. She was really into Powerpuff girls when she was 5, and I had to switch it to something else because she was aggressive a lot. It was like a switch turned off a week after I stopped ppg. Anecdotal, but yeah some things are not suitable for some ages.
After seeing a few videos about it, it’s a pass for me. Pretty plainly a soulless legally distinct mishmash of random design elements with nothing to bring to the table creatively
If this was a soulless cash grab, it wouldn’t be half as optimized as it is now. I climbed a peak, and could see the other side of the map without any frame drops. AAA titles still struggle to do that.
It is bootleg Pokemon, but it’s also a well made game.
Like yeah someone with relatively okay skill could duplicate a famous painting, but we wouldn’t make them famous for it. Art is about making interesting choices.
I’m having terrible seeing it, but if you’re happy that’s great. I barely have time for the games I’m excited about from three years ago, so who am I to criticise?
the optimization is weird because yeah you can see far as hell and it looks good enough, but at the same time my entirely decent GPU can’t run it in 1080p on lowest settings
i just wish they’d implemented the resolution setting to only apply to the game world, it’s kind of idiotic to have it affect the UI as well…
Nah. It’s the Vampire Survivors of the “catch em all” genre. I thought it looked like ass in the videos - and it does! - but when you have your own hands on the controller it’s a different experience. Again, like VS, it lands in a sweet spot re: progression, expansion, new interactions, etc.
I tell people “it’s the least polished game I’ve ever played for 20+ hours”.
Yeah because taking your pets to an arena-style fight to “fainting” is also a great model for the kids lmao
Pokémon’s dog fighting aside, Palworld has a certain cynicism that imo takes it out of the realm of a kids game. The game allows you to capture humans and then has a little blurb about how it’s “inhumane” to do so. There’s a niche for an “adult” monster capture game that Palworld is filling. I’m curious about how the game will continue to develop in early access. They have a lot of funding & hype, let’s see if they can see it through to a full release (or wallow in development like so many other Early Access survival games).
The concept itself is different from the execution though. She watches pokemon, and they regularly talk about respecting the pokemon and treating them with respect. Anybody who treats pokemon as an object without love is shown in a bad light; even team rocket is shown to have great love for their Meowth that they are willing to walk away from Meowth when they think Meowth would have a better life elsewhere. On palworld steam description, they literally say pals can be treated any way you want because they thankfully don’t have any human rights issues. Kids don’t think of the bigger picture, deeper meaning beyond what they actually see. The game is not a kids game, and that is fine. However, the game looks cute and charming, and very like pokemon, which makes me concerned for any kid who likes playing this game.
I think you’re a great parent who interrogates the media that your child is consuming!
The aesthetic of Palworld feeds that cynicism; it’s charming and colorful and awfully brutal. Parents should be aware of the game’s content and the game should probably get a Teen rating (at least in the US; not sure how PEGI does their rating).
But at the same time, the human enemies are ones locking pals in literal cages who you can free. And none of the pals actually die when you are out fighting them in the world, they just pass out with Xs over their eyes. (Just don’t unlock the butcher knife)
Really the game lets you treat pals however you want, from never using them for work and doing everything yourself, to full on brutal working conditions. Choice is yours.
They talk about treating them with respect… then trap them in poke balls and let them out to fight each other for bragging rights and entertainment. The people of the Pokémon world are the highest of hypocrites and that’s one of the main lessons that should be taken from that show
This seems like biblical levels of silly. Treating a slave creature well before you hawk it into the arena to fight for you feels a little morally nebulous.
It’s a fun game, and laughing about the pals is totally part of it. The penguins special move is getting blasted out of a bazooka, and immediately passing out. It’s hilarious, but if you think about it, it’s really not much different from Ash Catchem tossing his pokemon into cage fighting rings. Palworld is honest about it, and injects humor that clearly makes you feel uncomfortable.
Other people reply by how Pokemons are being in captive is a bad thing, and even though it’s logical, I know what the Pokemon anime is. Like most anime, it teaches children kind and nice stuff, and the captive thing is ignored likely because it can’t be applied in real world. No need to doubt - Pokemon is not bad for your child.
Palworld just allows too much freedom when compared to that. You either have to be an established person to understand what you’re doing or play with your parents so they explain what your actions mean.
and if understand the game right one of the “bad guy” groups you fight thinks this is fucked up and wants to kill you because you make pals fight
you’re kind of explicitly playing as the bad guy, and considering the stuff the game has you do you’re basically a cartoon villain in a massive lair filled with grunts who are just sort of there and go on lunch breaks between shifts of building death rays
That’s what pokemon is though. It’s cock fighting and animal slavery. I knew that as a teen when I played the original games and watched the original show. And pokemon Manga is even more violent.
I haven’t played the game yet. Not sure if I will. But I’ve seen some gameplay, and, honestly, it bothers me too, and not just because beating up Pokemon feels bad. My main problem is that it could have been done in a better way that would make me feel less bad lol
The pals should be dangerous! Even the basic starter ones!
I play a Pokemon TTRPG where you can beat up Pokemon with your bare hands if you want. The difference is, they’re not helpless. A trainer without any investment in their personal combat skills is roughly a suitable match for a low level Ratata. Even in the video games, there’s a reason Professor Birch got cornered by a couple Zigzagoon. It’s the same reason you’re not allowed in the long grass without a Pokemon.
Pokemon are magical monsters that can just straight up kill you. There’s a big difference between fighting something like that, on basically equal footing, and punching a helpless stuffed animal.
It’s definitely not a kid game. The descriptions of the pals tells how some of them are used for torture, sex, drugs, religion all sorts of wild shit. I really hope they keep that up to because imo the game is better for it.
Pokemon always was a dog fighting economy. Growing up with it never thought about how dark it was but we old now.
Fun seeing an absurd matured version of monster catching dog fighting economy.
Idk if it’ll be living up to hype a year from now, but for now pretty fun. Also love seeing game freak miss out on all this money. You dummies have known people wanted something like this for decades!
It was about beetle fighting. One of the core sources of inspiration is based on how groups of kids(in Japan) go into the woods to find the biggest beetle they could, bring them back and have them fight.
It definitely takes the “Pokémon are slaves” thing and runs with it. You can kill and eat the pals. Some of them are very “human”. You basically stop short of actually whipping them, though I’m sure they’d add that in.
Edit: maybe I’ll clarify, the Syndicate is a group against the mistreatment of pals. You can capture them and force them to work for you. The player is very much the bad guy here.
The player is the bad guy because of a mechanic that exists but isn’t encouraged? There are plenty of games that allow the player character to commit awful crimes. You only play as the bad guy if you’re playing as the bad guy.
That’s the way I see it. Show me a slave owner who just kinda let their slaves wander around without any kind of restraints, and let them do whatever they want
The electric Pokemon were forced to work at the power plant in the first season of the anime. Pokemon have always been slaves. I totally get not liking the presentation, though. It’s far more grotesque and not abstracted away.
Considering how the steam page reads, it’s like a full blown parody by simply pointing out what Pokemon’s world must be like through the eyes of an adult.
Pals can be used to fight, or they can be made to work on farms or factories. You can even sell them or eat them!
Put an army of Pals on the job. Don’t worry; there are no labor laws for Pals.
Letting Pals do the work is the key to automation. Build a factory, place a Pal in it, and they’ll keep working as long as they’re fed—until they’re dead, that is.
Endangered Pals live in wildlife sanctuaries. Sneak in and capture rare Pals to get rich quick! It’s not a crime if you don’t get caught, after all.
The game is still in early access and has plans to officially support mods. Either the devs will make a “PG” setting or someone will mod it to be more child friendly.
they basically just looked at the recent popular games and yoinked the good bits, which entirely unsurprisingly results in a fun game when executed decently
like honestly palworld feels like something that should be used as an example in game design courses: this is what it looks like when you just set out to make a successful game, without any particular vision. Resist the whisperings of satan telling you to add microtransactions and charge 60 bucks for it, and people will eat that shit up
and like, that decision has probably earned them way more money than they would ever have seen otherwise, along with the sustainability to KEEP earning hideous amounts of dosh for a good long while
As someone who spent tens, maybe hundreds of hours on ark… It’s so much more fun than ark. I have some good memories from that game, but it’s so not worth logging in every single day to feed the dinosaurs
It’s Ark, but with all the terrible mechanics and blatant playtime stretching removed. The longest anything takes in Palworld with default settings is hatching a large egg, which is entirely passive and caps at 2 hours on Normal (according to the settings page, but I’ve yet to see a hatch timer longer than 30 minutes), and even that can be greatly sped up by matching the egg’s preferred climate with a heater or cooler next to the incubator. Most things that require player intervention take minutes at most. After Ark’s “this basic task takes hours, you have to be there for the whole process, and any mistake means you might as well start over”, this game is a breath of fresh air.
Definitely room for growth though, especially on the automation and AI side of things. Even in its current state it’s still one of the best survival games I’ve played in years. Between it and Enshrouded, 2024 has already spoiled me.
I played Ark, got a random disease that apparently can only be healed with items from a high level area and didn’t go away on death. So my options were: play with the disease for the foreseeable future or restart from scratch and lose days of progress.
Huh? Early access games have been a thing for at least the past 5 years solid, no question. At this point it’s just a standard. It’s rare to find a game come out that isn’t early release. The trend isn’t going away because there will always be a line of morons to buy the game full of bugs and people lap it up.
It can help some indie studios out with continued development, so I think it’s fine as long as they continue to refine the game and put out timely updates. Some games even feel finished already even if they technically aren’t.
They definitely needed the cash flow to keep going. I think the other part of their early access, aside from public testing, is they needed a target. It feels like they had an idea for a game but didn’t know how to flesh out the game. Just like Minecraft, the community will heavily influence the dev. That community feedback before a full release is a good thing and it will make Pal’mon an iconic game if the devs can deliver.
Early Access has its place, we’re far better off with it existing than it not. I do still feel it needs to be an opt in thing for you to be able to see on Steam though
It just always feels like you lose so much of the cultural zeitgeist when the game goes full release.
Slime Rancher. Eventually Valheim. 30XX. My Time At… it’s like a tepid glass of water rather than hitting that nice ice cold cube glass like you’re trying to get in my pants.
It’s worse because this particular company has a habit of doing a bunch of unfinished games. Palworld, Craftopia and Never grave are all by the same company. They’re all also unfinished.
Pocketpair is also 100% not an indie company as the head of Pocketpair is already a Businessman who owns an exchange for cryptocurrency
It won’t. Pokemon is such a guaranteed money maker they won’t sway far off the path and this is ESPECIALLY true when you look at Japan where they have entire cities made around the stuff. Pokemon outside of Japan is nothing when compared to what it is over there. Palworld was also released outside of a pokemon release so it isn’t going to really effect their sales either. Gamefreak and Nintendo are probably gonna have issues with how it certainly pulls inspiration from a new titles.
With all that said I really enjoy palworld it’s loads of fun and I usually hate survival games.
I’m absolutely loving it. I was expecting a total shit post of a game but there is actual depth to this. And for a game this early into early access it’s running amazingly. The only real bugs I’ve run into so far is occasionally my worker pals get stuck and start to starve so I have to throw them into the box and then take them back out real quick. In the end though that happens like three or four times in several hours?
I just started playing last night. I got raided ans my entire base got burned down. I could not figure out any way to stop it from spreading. Why would i spend any effort on building an awesome base if one fucking fire will burn the whole thing to the ground without me being able to do anything but watch it all fall apart?
Im really hoping its a bug because its going to nope out a lot of people when it happens to them.
If you ever had a sibling overwrite a save file you had put dozens to hundreds of hours into you know what im talking about (sorry bro, i still feel bad a about accidently saving over your 90 hours on ff9)
Honestly I had the exact same thing happen to me but once you get just a tiny bit further it’s no longer a problem. You’ll have enough pals running around to take care of the raid all by themselves even if you don’t help.
But yeah at the same time that was a tad bit bullshit
Thanks for letting me know it is a temporary problem. I had 6 pals fighting when it happened and they killed everyone but it was fire pals and one thing being on fire spread to the whole base. Just was like this is a dumb game design. Probably is a way to deal with it, and it is still early access so presumably it will get addressed or it was just something i missed.
the raids are definitely something i’d polish if i were them, it’s rather arbitrary and not really fun in any way.
i like the idea of having a reason to build defenses, and the risk of losing stuff, but it’s rather wack to start by flinging gravel at you and then at some point start dropping meteors, neither are particularly engaging and with the swarm of pals you’ll have after just a short while there’s not really much you yourself can do to affect things other than build walls…
i think it’d work better if it sent a mini-boss and some normal pals, so you could either focus on the miniboss or pick off the small ones.
Not to mention that if one of your pals can send the raiders flying away, they won’t try to pathfind their way back. I’ve managed to fend off some very annoying “deadly pals” raids with a couple of reptyros. After some minutes, the raiders will start fleeing and despawn.
The base diameter is very small, too, so making something like a maze or something like a kill corridor requires a lot of pre-planning
I’ve mostly ignired raids. So far my guild and I have lost a total of “3 signposts” to raids over the course of a week. Just have piles of pals in base that aren’t completely incapacitated and they fend off the raids more or less by themselves.
I have about 40 hours into the game. My friend about the same. He knows three people with 20+. I have read several forum posts and watched reviews on this game. In a handful of instances the fire is mentioned. It’s a rare occurrence started by a Pal being on fire or using fire very close to your building. You can stop this by scrapping a section not on fire and by keeping anything that requires fire away from buildings. That said, I spent a day roasting an egg next to a furnace inside my wooden hut and nothing happened.
Also, it’s early access.
And one situation create bad does not a game make. Or something. :D - Anyway, gather stone and build your shit outta stone. Looks decent too.
Pals with watering ability will put out fires, if they’re not busy fighting. If you have stashed repair kits, handiwork pals will also grab them and fix your stuff.
I do have to ask, why did you make a wooden base when stone doesn’t take that long to unlock?
startrek.website
Najstarsze