It's all Palia this and Palia that -- Meanwhile the world burns

Well last night's gaming session was strange. It started out with finally getting to try Palia like all the cool kids since my Beta invite finally went through. 

The question mark is cracking me up. It's like "really?" You want to be called that?

Once I was in, I had that nice feeling of comfort wash over me, like I was back in Free Realms again, but I wasn't. No that was just hopeful dreaming and a slightly reminiscent art style speaking to me.

Super charming art style, right?

I did manage to find a few NPCs, talk to them, chop down some trees, pickaxe some rock, and build the housing basics: a crafting station, a storage box, and a tent. It was very chill and after a long spurt of Diablo 4, it felt nice to do something anti-killing.

Those don't look like mining clothes, but I'm going with it.

After that I logged off and made the family some dinner since the chicken I put out had finished thawing. Man, it's almost too hot outside for grilling, but it was later in the night and at least I was in the shade. 

There was a weird burning smell in the air beyond the grill, and at first I thought . . . am I smelling the fire from Cedar Park area all the way over here? It's been so hot and dry and windy here in central Texas that I'm surprised there aren't MORE fires. With that fire close to home and the fires in Hawaii and elsewhere, It just feels like the world is on fire.

Gotta check the National Incident Map just to see what's up.

Speaking of the world being on fire, after dinner the game was down for maintenance, so I went through and read an article on MassivelyOP about Palia.  The article at Massively is titled First Impressions: Palia is missing the depth MMO life-skillers are hoping for. It was a compare and contrast article between the housing and side activities in most MMOs to Palia and pointed out that Palia lacked a lot of features MMO players have come to expect. In the comments, one poster raised their knife and stabbed 16 bullet pointed times with a detailed list of missing features and lack-luster systems (after some padding about this being a beta from a smaller studio of course).

Honestly, the blood bath just made me want to log on to Palia and enjoy what was there instead of what was missing. I had to sympathize with the developers. Is it truly impossible for people to just enjoy something for what it is? Do we have to line up a 3-year-long feature creep list on smaller companies like that? It's a little crazy that people expect this small group of happy looking developers to perform at the same level with a giant company like Amazon and their game New World. We can't walk into a mom and pop store and expect it to be Costco.

The Smiling Crew at Singularity Six

On the other hand, look, the fact that people cared enough to type about your game in an oversaturated market is amazing. Right? I wonder what caused this new tsunami of attention? It must be the twinge of nostalgia and the right type of game experience people are looking for, but ultimately missing what made them fall in love with the casual MMO in the first place. They smell greatness, but the flavor makes them pine for something more savory and the portion was just too small.

Don't worry, Singularity Six! I'm sure your upcoming schedule of features is amazing. No need to stop forward progress to create a dye system and allow players to sit in chairs. Y'all got this. Now if you're done being down for maintenance, I'll hop back in and play a bit more in between killing stuff in Diablo 4.

Happy Dueling!