Palworld reaches 1 million concurrent players on steam and becomes the first hit of 2024

I'm waiting for PALWorld 2, NTSC
- PALWorld 2: Revenge of SCART

*concurrent :D
- oh damn, I didn't notice. Thanks

Definitely considering this one, it looks like Pokémon flavoured Ark. Ark is incredible but also hot garbage and player experience hostile (micro raptors? Ichtheyornis? Pegomastix? The fuck outta here) not to mention the insane bugs that are just completely ignored for years.. Something similar from a different studio is pretty appealing
- It's also totally BotW. Like the whole start of the game is almost a direct rip off of BotW's intro.
  
  I need to play it before Nintendo sues them
  
  Parody homage.
  
  I got Elden Ring from it, as well. Especially the Erdtree.
- Maybe not the game for you if your hatred of ark comes from bugs lol. This game is fun but very jank and buggy which makes arks mechanics look like a masterpiece in comparison and I’m no ark fan.
  
  Okay so "very" may be a bit too forceful of a word. There are bugs, though they are fairly mild to medium at worst. The most common ones are pathing issues on base, the rare humanoid enemy getting stuck under ground, and some hitbox-related problems that are easily circumvented. The biggest issue which the devs are aware of is multiplayer save game corruption and they've released a guide on backing up saves as a temporary bandaid. In all, this is a rather impressive release and should improve rapidly. MUCH worse games with heavier budgets have been released in the last year alone.
  
  You'd have a point, if the comparison wasn't between a decade plus old game and one that released in the last week, as early access. ARK is genuinely one of the single worst experiences to try and get into, and has multi year long bugs that haven't been touched.
  I haven't bought Palworld, but you can actually launch the game, and join your friends in a few minutes tops. I have attempted to play with friends on ARK. Repeatedly. I have yet to actually do so, even after self hosting my own server on a couple occasions. IMO, this makes ARK as a title and game to play, completely worthless.
  
  Seems friendlier than ark though. Ark will just bug out and remove your favourite creature from existence permanently. Or just kill you and every creature you own by having terribly balancing. I've fallen through the world in palworld but it just pops you out at your homebase with your gear and your pals.

I typically don't download games in preview, but I've found quite a bit of depth and cozy fun here. There's some weirdness and definite room for improvement, but I can recommend it.
It's basically Pokemon in a survival world, but both your character and the Pals level up which is interesting, and the tech tree had some significant depth to it
- Have you caught a person yet?
  
  I tried this last night, i felt very guilty! To make myself feel better I then club penguins to death.
  
  holy shit brb
  
  I just did not 10 minutes ago on a whim with a giga ball. Pretty useless character honestly. But fun that you can play him from a ball.
  
  I did not do that! Gonna have to try now!

Is it any good, though?
- The building mechanics are pretty bare. And the monster pathfinding/automation could use work.
  Otherwise, it's enjoyable.
- I’d say too frustrating. And the zelda / pokemon clone fun only gets you so far.
- It's really good, they got rid of the tediousness that usually comes from survival games by letting pals take care of the repetitive tasks for you.
  It also has some really fun and dumb ideas.
- Yeah, I'm like 18 hours in. Adjust the settings before you go in to make it be the Zelda/Pokemon/COD clone you prefer and have fun exploring and letting fake pokemon do your work for you. Interesting bits of mysterious storyline so far too.
- Most fun I’ve had in possibly decades

I'm waiting for the reveal that all assets have been AI generated.
- Now that you mention it: The monsters kind of feel that way. The lacking art direction supports that feeling, too.
- There are already people claiming this, but I have yet to see any actual proof of claim. Unfortunately the court of public opinion has already started to turn even without actual proof. Got to love a good witch hunt.
  
  I have yet to see any evidence. Just that the CEO is a crypto/AI enthusiast. Not that it was used in the game.
  It really just looks like someone tried to make a better Pokemon game.
  Not the sort of game that appeals to me, but I'm glad people are having fun.
- I mean half of them are obvious merges of Pokémon with assets copied one for one in some cases. Really wouldn't be surprised at all of they used an AI for this
- I would not care if they were.

Is it really that good? It feels like a meme to me
- The trailer reminded me of that other game craftopia that really didn't click with me. Pulled up the trailer for that and wouldn't you know it, same developer. Craftopia still isn't out of early access and sits at a comfortable 57% (recent) steam user rating. So I doubt I'll get palworld.
  
  FWIW, I tried to like Craftopia and it didn't click, but I'm really enjoying Palworld. If you enjoy Pokemon you should be able to get your money's worth.
  
  That's probably because it's the same devs and appears to be largely a copy of craftopia with Pokemon mechanics swapped in
- It's weird. I would say it feels very unpolished, yet at the same time, it works way better than I would have thought for an early access monster collector. It totally feels like a meme, but it's actually quite fun at the same time. I don't think I'll play it forever, but it's definitely my addiction this week. I only downloaded it because a friend suggested it, it has Pokemon elements, and it's included in game pass so I had nothing to lose, but I've already put probably 15 hours into it this weekend.
  
  I keep hearing "pokemon elements" is there actually the move selection, level system and typing strategy that went into Pokemon? Cause as fun as monster collecting is, if the combat lacks depth idk how long the game will last.
  
  Shame it’s not my kind of game, plus $20 on steam
- Honest opinion: Gameplay mechanics are really interesting, visuals are quite good. If you ever wanted a "pokemon but without keeping it kids friendly" game, this might scratch that itch just fine.
  I didn't got deep into this game, but it has a noticable lack of direction. The game doesn't tell you what to do aside from the basic base building; but I like it.
  Oh also, it's quite buggy in this state and crashed occasionally; so you might want to give it a few more updates before buying if you dislike that.
- Moistcritical has a brief playthrough on his YouTube channel if you want to check out what the game looks like.
- It will probably depend on how you feel about open world survival crafters to begin with.

I'm very wary of early access, they always change too much and it's like I own a different game by the time it gets released. IF it gets released.
- It's funny you mention this because I actually love early access games because I like seeing the game change and evolve over time.
  
  To each their own
- I feel like I've already gotten my money's worth with how much I've played the current version. If they somehow pull a cubeworld and make it worse, I'm sure the community would love to source an old and good version.

Unheard of. Csgo is actually not in 1st place??
- should come back to the top after a few days. A few releases are able to become the most played game on steam, it's a very impressive feat.

PALworld, but what about SECAMworld did PAL win?

can you imagine this happening on egs
- Epic will try to buy them and take it off Steam. Calling it now.
  
  It's on gamepass so that'd be a much bigger proposition.

What happened to battlebit?
- Devs started making changes that killed a lot of fun to, presumably, appeal more to CoD players. Some of the balancing decisions also made a lot of the guns a bit less exciting to use and made most of them essentially the same thing. The two most popular classes (medic and sniper) have been nerfed to oblivion. It feels like they are trying really hard to curate a very specific experience, and that seems to have burned out a lot of people or driven others away.
  Personally, I think they should have leaned harder in the direction of more realism and rewarding creativity.
  
  Sniper and Medic are the peak COD classes though. Assault rifles/SMGs with infinite self-heal or sitting somewhere back one-shoting people.
  I felt the game move away more from COD since not everyone is running Medic with Vector. Also Sniper and Medic are still the most popular classes, so they were certainly not nerved into oblivion.
- Wym? It's still there populated with plenty of servers.
- idk

For somebody specifically interested in the online competitive format of Pokemon - is there anything of the sort in Palworld? The last game that kind of scratched that itch for me was the Digimon Cybersleuth series.
- No, at this time it is mostly a PvE experience. It is a lot more comparable to Ark thank Pokémon.
  
  Pokémon art for the pals, Ark style gameplay

I tried it on Xbox SX and it crashes every few minutes. It's really not even playable currently.
- Xbox and PC Gamepass launched with an older version of the game than Steam waiting for MS to approve the update.
  It just got patched this afternoon, I imagine it runs better now. Although, I had only minimal problems launching and playing the game from PC Gamepass this weekend.

Huh and this isn't even free and it's still in early access.
Also from the steam page: "Don't worry; there are no labor laws for Pals." Ew. Not even the fact there are no labour laws, as it is expected from primitive game, but the fact some gross brain decided to specifically mention it as a perk of the game.
"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." - no seriously, fuck them.
- You must be fun at parties.
- Jesus Christ I hope you're vegan. If you're upset about a silly joke considering the diagetic implications of monster collector/automation games: what we do to beings that have actual feelings should be a real concern for you.
  
  Pokémon spends a lot of time—a silly amount of time, really—explaining how the fighting you're doing against other trainers isn't a bad thing, it's not cruel. It's more like sport. They like doing it. You bond with them over it. Everyone faints, no one dies. And when you're fighting Team Rocket, well, that's just a good cause. Something your Pokémon believe in just as much as you do.
  So the lore goes, anyway. A bit naive, but sincere and earnest. Good values.
  This very funny Palworld description is saying it's okay to treat them like slaves.
  Like, they might not want to work on your cabin for you, but actually, there is no labor board to stop you from forcing them to. Do you think that keeping slaves is funny? Like, no other context, just: I have slaves, that is funny to me.
  If the writer of this laugh out loud, very funny steam description doesn't mean it that way, they should change the joke. As a high-school graduate, you should be able to pick up subtext like this. It's very simple.
  Sorry for the bold, I just wanted to make sure you saw me insulting you.
  Keep in mind, I've never played this game: I have no opinions. Are they treated like slaves? Would you care to enlighten us?

Im using connect on android and filtered out this palword mess
But its still showing up, can any other connect user see this help me out for a moment? Would be much appreciated
- Did you misspell it "palword" in the filter?
  (This sounds like I'm being snarky but I swear I'm just trying to help haha)
  
  thanks for actually trying to help instead of mindlessly using the little funny internet number for some reason, that i did, i was checking it multiple times yesterday but never noticed it

Not on Linux, Mac, or PS5. No thanks.
- not on linux? Isn't it steam deck playable?
  
  Works perfectly on a steam deck.
  UI text is just a little small, and there is no UI scaling option in the settings yet.
  If you plan to rename characters I'd suggest an external keyboard for now, since the on-screen one covers up the typing box
  
  It's less common now with the steam deck and proton so mature, but a lot of people used to refuse to play games that don't have native Linux support
- I am literally playing it on Linux right now lmao
- Lemmy moment
- Runs perfectly on Linux actually