Palworld continues being an absolutely ridiculous success for developer Pocketpair, as they've announced it's hit 19 million players in less than two weeks.
Going by their post on X (formerly Twitter) they sold 12 million copies on Steam, and saw 7 million players on Xbox where it's available on Game Pass (people can buy it too). Technically, this means it's actually grown a lot faster than even the latest Pokémon games Scarlet and Violet that took 7 weeks to hit 18.2 million units. Not a particularly fair comparison though, I will admit, with Palworld being available across multiple platforms.
Palworld is rated Steam Deck Playable by Valve as it has issues with small text, needing to bring up the keyboard manually, manual graphics configuration is required and some features may not be accessible via controller. It's rated Platinum on ProtonDB too, and I can confirm it works really nicely on Desktop Linux with Kubuntu 23.10.
A new patch was also just released today, click in below for the patch notes:
Patch notes, click me
▼Major Fixes
・Fixed an issue where the game would crash under certain conditions
・Fixed an issue where if another player's pal/base pal had HP 30% or less, it could be captured by using a sphere.
・Fixed an issue where enemy pals would get stuck in walls due to charge attacks.
・Implemented the first fix for an issue where the game would always crash and save data would be corrupted when the guild's total number of pals captured reached around 7000.
*The game no longer crashes even if the total number of captured objects exceeds 7000.
However, save data that has already been in this state (in the case of a server, the server's world data) prior to this update will still be unable to load.
We are continuing to work on fixing this issue permanently.
▼Key Configuration
・Added support for mouse side keys and numeric keypad in keyboard key configuration.
*Further improvements are currently planned, such as support for interact key configuration.
▼Player Issues
・Fixed an issue where players on dedicated servers and co-op (online) were receiving damage twice.
・Specifications have been changed so that you can move at extremely low speed even when you have exceeded the weight limit.
・Players will no longer pass through walls when dismounting.
・Fixed an issue where capture power strengthened by Lifmunk Effigies was reset when using memory reset drugs.
・Fixed an issue where armor could be equipped in the wrong slot.
・Adjusted camera positions of several Pals to make it easier to see when mounted.
▼Base Issues
・Specifications have been changed so that Pals who are manually assigned to a breeding farm will not become hungry and their manual assignments will not be removed.
・The key to lift Pals has been changed from F → V (Pad: X → Y) in order to prevent accidents.
・Reduced the speed and range of fire spreading on wooden buildings.
・Fixed an issue where manual work assignments could not be set at all under certain circumstances.
・Fixed an issue where extremely high-level Relaxaurus would attack the base during raids.
・Added several measures to prevent base Pals from getting stuck.
・Fixed an issue where Pals would get stuck while transporting items and would drop them on the spot.
・Fixed an issue where Pals at the base would continue to cut down trees that were already cut.
・Fixed an issue where Pals at the base were on the verge of death due to unexplained falling damage.
・Fixed an issue where Pals at the base would float under some conditions.
・Fixed an issue where if a farm was built on the second floor or above, work pals would be unable to move on the floors below.
▼Other
・Corrected incorrect text
・Measures have been added to prevent cheating and stealing other players' Pals.
・Many other minor fixes such as the addition of a UI key guide.
You can buy it on Steam.
That said, I'm sure they actually calculated this controversy and aimed to have it explode between disgruntled Game Freak fans and Nintendo fanboys to attract more users. Negative marketing is still marketing and whatnot.
Quoting: DrakkerI've never been a fan of Pokemon and monster catching games in general, I find that they are just grind, grind and more grind. The battles are boring and have very little strategy involved.Actually if you look on the details, Pokémon has a lot of strategy inside. It doesn't matter if you just play single player against NPCs but if you play Online, the details matter a lot. It's typical Nintendo, very easy to play for casual players, but very hard to master. Smash Bros is another example of such a game.
Besides that, I played lots of Pokemon and also bought Palworld. IMHO besides the monster catching and the design of the monsters there's not many similarities between those two games. Palworld is just a very nice combination of different games and to me a lot of fun. I would be very surprised if a lawsuit against Palworld would be successful.
But it's also rightfully still Early Access, there's lots of bugs. I die like one time per hour because I'm just stuck somewhere inside the dirt or in between stones or something.
I still suspect, that the game uses the Mesa Intel Graphics instead of the NVIDIA card, although I start the game with
prime-run %command%
I also read somewhere, that Wine/Proton automatically configures the NVIDIA graphics.
Does anybody know, what I'm doing wrong here?
Quoting: EssojeThat said, I'm sure they actually calculated this controversy and aimed to have it explode between disgruntled Game Freak fans and Nintendo fanboys to attract more users. Negative marketing is still marketing and whatnot."No publicity is bad publicity"
Last edited by Botonoski on 2 February 2024 at 1:53 am UTC
Quoting: Botonoskithe core gameplay doesn't seem to have changed a lickI'm a vocal Nintendo and Game Freak hater in general because of this. They rest on their laurels way too often, shoot fans and modders in the leg for even trying to use their IP in fun ways, and then take literal decades to do something barely good with their IPs. It doesn't help their case that Nintendo fanboys will jump in defense of the multi-million-dollar corporation either.
Anyway, Palworld good, Pokémon bad.
FYI Nintendo has been VERY hostile towards social media marketing. I think latest I heard is they want a %50 cut in profits from streamers who dare play their IP. (could be wrong, but they certainly have a bad rap for going after anyone who makes videos of their games)
Nintendo needs to realize that their core fans that grew up with their games are 30-50 now and releasing things that make a modern day 10yo yawn and go play more Minecraft isn't going to cut it in the long term. Nostalgia can only carry something so long.
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