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Palworld, an ARK-like game described as Pokemon with guns, has seen concurrent player numbers swell into record-breaking territory this week. But according to execs behind the game the team is not celebrating, choosing rather to spend the time preparing for an attack from their most feared enemy: Hbomberguy.

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[-] Annoyed_Crabby 63 points 10 months ago

At press time Pocket Pair says that should Nintendo’s legal team also get involved they have lawyers equal to Nintendo’s but with guns.

Lol

[-] Dirt_Owl@hexbear.net 57 points 10 months ago

I am so tired of hearing about this game.

[-] CoolYori@hexbear.net 28 points 10 months ago

Everyone keeps asking me if I want to play or am going to play. Its like dood the game is like Rust. I fucking hate Rust.

[-] Dirt_Owl@hexbear.net 22 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Something just puts me off about it, I usually love indie monster collecting games, but I just get off vibes from this one.

I think maybe I played too much Ark to enjoy the survival angle, or the humour reminds me too much of the part of the 90s I'd like to forget

[-] CoolYori@hexbear.net 19 points 9 months ago

I'm just not into the type of content that game provides I think. I have been vibing and playing something called INFRA. You play a civil engineer who goes around taking pictures of safety violations while fixing things like water treatment plants along the way. Its done in the source engine so feels super comfy to play for me as its mostly urban exploration based.

[-] Dirt_Owl@hexbear.net 14 points 9 months ago

That sounds nice. I do love me the source engine

[-] Frank@hexbear.net 18 points 9 months ago

*a blur zippps past you at three hundred miles an hour. After a moment you realize it was frank bunnyhopping backwards with sub millisecond precision to exloit an infinite movespeed bug*

[-] beardown@lemm.ee 7 points 9 months ago

the humour reminds me too much of the part of the 90s I'd like to forget

What is this referencing?

[-] Dirt_Owl@hexbear.net 18 points 9 months ago
[-] beardown@lemm.ee 2 points 9 months ago

I don't understand why this is a negative thing, especially considering that hexbear is fundamentally about taking an edgy approach to class issues. And presumably we don't have a problem with that

[-] axont@hexbear.net 13 points 9 months ago

Being edgy is making a game about fun little creatures you can actually enslave and make shoot one another. When we say Warren Buffett is a ghoul who should be buried in a pit, that's not edgy because he probably deserves worse.

[-] kot@hexbear.net 9 points 9 months ago

We're not Marxists because Marx was edgy, we are Marxists because he was correct.

[-] silent_water@hexbear.net 9 points 9 months ago

edge isn't funny. we like laughing at things. grimdark grim grim dark dark is just exhausting.

[-] xj9@hexbear.net 8 points 9 months ago

its ancap pokemon.

[-] keepcarrot@hexbear.net 3 points 9 months ago

I feel obligated to plat because my friends gave me a copy. I have other things to do

[-] Sinistar@hexbear.net 35 points 9 months ago

1 hour into the five hour Palworld video, HBomberguy suddenly appears in a courtroom where he is explaining evidence of various financial crimes to a jury.

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[-] laziestflagellant@hexbear.net 30 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I feel like a hbomberguy video would be kind of redundant when the Palworld developers are pointing directly at the media conglomerate across the room and announcing at the top of their lungs "WE'RE COPYING THIS. WE ARE DIRECTLY RIPPING OFF POKEMON BUT EDGY. WE ARE MAKING POKEMON WITH GUNS. WISHLIST ON STEAM TODAY".

Edit: That being said, if Palworld really did rip geometry from pokemon 3D models (and things are looking pretty bad on that front), they have a lot more to worry about than hbomberguy.

[-] GVAGUY3@hexbear.net 26 points 10 months ago

Everything I hear about this game doesn't sound real

[-] Frank@hexbear.net 21 points 9 months ago

It's not as weird or funny as it sounds. The devs had another survival crafting game that had been stalled for a few years, so they took that and slapped some pokemons in it and released it as a new game in early access. It's just edgy old millenials being edgy.

[-] axont@hexbear.net 3 points 9 months ago

Everything about the game seems generated by AI. "Design a video game that's open world survival crafting"

[-] Outdoor_Catgirl@hexbear.net 2 points 9 months ago

It's like ark, but with pokemon instead of dinosaurs. Not complicated

[-] Lurkerino@hexbear.net 25 points 9 months ago

On one hand I dont like plagiarism, on the other hand nintendo hasnt done anything good with pokemon in the last 10 years, something like this was spected

[-] SpiderFarmer@hexbear.net 9 points 9 months ago

Coromon and Cassette Beasts look great.

[-] DyingOfDeBordom@hexbear.net 24 points 10 months ago

this is a satire website

[-] fox@hexbear.net 24 points 9 months ago

Isn't Ark that game that never left early access, had permanently terrible performance, and released paid dlc while still in EA? Just don't buy EA games

[-] Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 9 months ago

Gotta say, paltopialand plays on max settings at 142FPS (capped) and hasn’t dropped once. Defjjtley better than Ark on that front.

[-] BynarsAreOk@hexbear.net 22 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Ok maybe I missed the entire joke here but what? This isn't funny. Are they missing the point of his plagiarism video entirely for a joke article or what? If anything he would more likely make a Coffeezilla style video after Nintendo if they go after this stupid game.

[-] sawne128@hexbear.net 18 points 9 months ago

I have heard that Hard-Drive fired all their good writers like last year.

[-] Great_Leader_Is_Dead@hexbear.net 14 points 9 months ago

It been downhill since Phil Jamesson stopped doing "gamer president"

[-] Mokey@hexbear.net 18 points 9 months ago

The worst thing about Palworld is that the monster designs are solid but the game itself seems to be just commentary on Pokemon ☠️

[-] kot@hexbear.net 8 points 9 months ago

But the designs are just reskinned pokemon for the most part. The sheep pal is just wooloo, and the elk is xerneas with a paintover.

[-] Mokey@hexbear.net 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Yeah also we have gyarados at home

I think where im at is there isnt a pokemon that isnt already made, pokemon itself already mostly has dud pokemon designs but if you can make something that parallels enough its acceptable to me

[-] kot@hexbear.net 7 points 9 months ago

But it actually is possible to make a monster-collecting game with original designs though. Just look at monster rancher, none of the monsters from that game look like pokemon. It had a very distinct style.

I think pokemon has just monopolized this genre for far too long, which makes it harder for people making this sort of game to imagine something different.

[-] DayOfDoom@hexbear.net 6 points 9 months ago

A monster game with designs like the angels in NGE would be really cool. Get weird with the narrative.

[-] Dirt_Owl@hexbear.net 6 points 9 months ago

Cassette Beasts has this

[-] frogbellyratbone_@hexbear.net 18 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

i missed the plagiarism joke. i thought it was about the devs crypto/NFT bullshit

i've played a fair bit of the game. it's fun and worth pirating to try. no way in hell is it worth 30$.

also the edgy stuff isn't really a big part of the game. just marketing. so far i've only found 2 pals that shoot guns out of the 50 or so i've discovered

[-] AOCapitulator@hexbear.net 11 points 9 months ago

Ive been havin fun with it Im surprised to see how negative these comments are

[-] Dirt_Owl@hexbear.net 12 points 9 months ago

If you like it, don't let us ruin your fun. Everyone has different tastes.

[-] DayOfDoom@hexbear.net 7 points 9 months ago

Please let me ruin your fun. It's the only effect on this world I'm capable of. Otherwise I'm just a ghost poster.

[-] lemann@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 9 months ago

Same, it kimd of feels like most have fell for the marketing and not actually played/done their own research. There's no mention of the multiplayer save disassociation bug, or any of the other few well known issues among palworld players right now - which are the main things I would expect to be highlighted in a negative thread about the game...

The main criticisms seem to be the game being "edgy" and "dark"... but it's honestly only as edgy and as dark as you make it. Admittedly this has put off a number of people who would otherwise have probably enjoyed the game just fine. It's not easy to come across the dark parts of the game, and even if you do, lets say for example you successfully catch a human, the game will warn you about it being forbidden, and you can't even teach them new skills. In other circumstances you will get a wanted level, and the in game "mercenaries" will hunt and kill you.

I personally have been playing for hours and its a ton of fun - a lot of the mechanics have been well thought through and there's a surprising level of depth - some of the playthroughs i've seen haven't even scratched the surface of what is possible. IMO pocketpair pretty much gave players exactly what was promised, and then a whole lot more. A few of us have been waiting on this game since 2021, and are very happy with what was delivered

The same way Maxis sat on SimCity for years, and got rugpulled by Paradox's CS, honestly seems inevitable for companies like Gamefreak/Pokemon who have sat on their franchise for years without trying/improving things at all. If you don't listen to your fans they will not wait forever for a real, open world alternative without sudden battle environment switching, actual animations and expressions, and complete freedom of movement during battles. The only thing Palworld has in common with Pokemon really is just the monsters and the process of catching them... everything else is completely different, and that's good.

[-] AOCapitulator@hexbear.net 6 points 9 months ago

Yeah if this game was "edgy" the pals would be punched full of bullet holes and lying in gorey pools of blood or exploding like fo3. Its not edgy, really, at all. Its just got guns in it??

[-] Smeagolicious@hexbear.net 3 points 9 months ago

Leaning into the forced labor and slavery part is what I think is edgy. It's an opinion, can't tell someone what's too edgy for them lol

[-] AOCapitulator@hexbear.net 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Having played many hours, the game isn't like that at all just the marketing, I haven't really seen more emphasis on it being slavery or forced labor than any other game where you control creatures

Not trying to tell anyone what's too much for them, just mean to share my experience

[-] ElChapoDeChapo@hexbear.net 2 points 9 months ago

Yeah they made the first trailer a bit dark and edgy but that was just to generate controversy to get people talking about it, which clearly worked extremely well

Every comment I read about the actual game being edgy just has me like wtf-am-i-reading

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[-] Smeagolicious@hexbear.net 3 points 9 months ago

If you have fun with the game it’s fair! I just have to agree with some people here that the vibes are a little too off for me to enjoy. A lil too edgy for me sadly.

this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2024
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