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"Palworld is going to be the survival crafting game everyone always wanted" and "people will be shocked" at how big 1.0 is, says Pocketpair publishing lead (www.gamesradar.com)
submitted 7 months ago by to c/games@lemmy.world
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[–] 200 points 7 months ago (45 children)

Not really sure it's for me but I am just happy that it really annoys Nintendo

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  • [–] 24 points 7 months ago (44 children)

    Out ofthe loop here. Why does Nintendo care?

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  • [–] 75 points 7 months ago (5 children)

    Nintendo spent a load of money and resources in a protracted legal battle trying to get the project canned by suing them for everything they could think of. It ended in them forcing Palworld to remove the ball throwing mechanic, because apparently Pokemon has that copyrighted or something.

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  • [+] -61 points 7 months ago* (34 children)

    They plagiarized a bunch of Pokemon and used the publicity generated to bring attention to their game (which admittedly has nothing to do with Pokémon aside from the aforementioned similar-looking monsters).

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  • [–] 92 points 7 months ago (23 children)

    If memory serves, the plagiarism allegations were doctored. Nintendo tried to find whatever they could sue them for, and it wasn't plagiarizing monster designs; it was for things like "riding a captured creature" and "catching creatures by throwing a ball at them". Some aspect of Japanese law allowed for them to make new patents after Palworld came out and then sue them for it retroactively.

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  • [+] -37 points 7 months ago (22 children)

    I'm not talking about what went into court. Most pals are "legally distinct" monsters, but that's what brought the game to public awareness, what started the comparisons with Pokémon, and why Nintendo hated their guts. Monster collectors have existed outside of Pokémon for decades and still do, Nintendo only sued Palworld because they copy-pasted their monsters with a different color palette.

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  • [–] 58 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    What brought the game to court compared to the other monster collectors is that this one made a shit-ton of money, and the other ones didn't, so Nintendo and The Pokemon Company were, for the first time, threatened.

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  • [+] -30 points 7 months ago

    They wouldn't feel threatened by Palworld if it wasn't for the legally distinct™ designs because, at its core, Palworld is a completely different game that only vaguely resembles Pokémon on a very superficial level (the monster themselves).

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  • [–] 27 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Yeah, as someone who has been playing Pokemon since Pokemon Blue, I don't see much of a similarity in the monsters from Palworld, other than them having the same inspirations such as a sheep, a cat, an owl and so on. They are "legally distinct" in the same way that the shotgun in Halo is legally distinct from the shotgun in Doom

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  • [–] 38 points 7 months ago (13 children)

    If it's legally not considered copy-pasting their monsters, why do you feel like you can assert that it is plagiarism? I suppose that's your opinion, and you're entitled to it, but I also think people have a right to call you out on it for saying it as if it's a fact when it is not actually a recognized fact. Plenty of people would dispute that, including myself, and certainly Pocketpair would, and evidence suggests the courts probably would've agreed with them hence it wasn't even worth pursuing legally.

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  • [+] -27 points 7 months ago (12 children)

    You can dispute that Palworld didn't copy-paste Pokémon body parts and palette swap their designs to create their legally distinct clones, but I'd call that bullshit. People only side with PocketPair because they plagiarized Nintendo, which people (rightfully) hates. If it was done to anyone else, nobody would defend them. I can hate Nintendo and still posit that what PocketPair did was shitty and an insult to all the devs who actually take pride in their work and put effort in creating something original.

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  • [–] 27 points 7 months ago (9 children)

    This entire medium is built on iteration. Basically every fantasy thing you ever played was basically a palette swap of Tolkien or someone who copied Tolkien before them. Original D&D had "hobbits" until they were changed into halflings. Palworld is also parody, which thrives on the similarity as it calls pals bastards for breaking out of their capture, or arms them with modern weaponry. Not only that, but "survival game with a riff on Pokemon" is creating something original.

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  • [+] -21 points 7 months ago* (8 children)

    Uh, didn't know Earthsea, Game of Thrones, Wheel of Time were Tolkien clones. And that's the most recognizable ones, I could mention a few dozens fantasy books I've read in the past few years that have nothing to do with Tolkien outside of a very superficial reading. People who say "everything is derivative" are those who don't have enough imagination to create something unique themselves.

    Also, "survival game with a riff on Pokémon" is unique and I've never disputed that, because I'm not an idiot who thinks that Pokémon is the only IP allowed to do the monster collecting thing. "Cinderace but green" is not.

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  • [–] 18 points 7 months ago (5 children)

    Wheel of Time

    Especially the first book of Wheel of Time famously has lots of similarities with LotR.

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  • [+] -7 points 7 months ago* (4 children)

    Yes, and those similarities end in book 1 of 11-and-a-half written by Jordan and were developed in different directions than LotR. Padan Fain is not Gollum but an alternative and equally powered entity to the Dark One, the Two Rivers are not the Shire but the remnant of a powerful empire, Moraine is no Gandalf, Lan is no Aragorn, neither Mat nor Perrin are Sam, and so on.

    The recolored Cinderace is a recoloured Cinderace, there's no thought process behind it apart from making it legally distinct from its Pokémon counterpart. There's a difference between creating a derivative copy and creating a unique world with some superficial level similarities. Calling WoT a palette-swap of Tolkien or something that copies Tolkien is wrong on so many levels.

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  • [–] 13 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    Do you research anything before posting on the internet? Pokémon Red and Blue are basically a mixup of a lot of different games from back then. Somehow you find it Okay when Pokémon does it, but when someone else does it it’s wrong?

    You‘re kind of wild.

    Just one small example: https://preview.redd.it/pok%C3%A9mon-was-in-the-same-boat-many-years-ago-with-dragon-v0-ag13h0dd95fc1.jpeg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=ac5bf84dd86f9ee4d24a7371ab68cc8897543bc8

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  • [+] -6 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    Why must you assume that I like, care about, or am willing to defend Pokémon in any way? Yes, I know of that same picture that must have been circulating for a decade at this point. Yes, I think that some of those designs are derivative. Yes, I also believe that Palworld's art style is slop with no coherent thought process put into it, and everyone that says otherwise is delusional.

    Palworld was an incoherent blend of (Pokémon-like) cartoonish artstyle and realistic artstyle that doesn't blend in any way. Their preceding game's artstyle was, likewise, suspiciously derivative of Breath of the Wild. This is in no way a judgement on the game's quality or how it plays like, nor an endorsement of Nintendo's IP, which I care very little about. It's just me using my functioning pair of eyes, which anyone could do if they weren't blinded by fanboyism or hatred for Nintendo.

    And say what you want about that picture, but at least Pokémon, even in the very first gen, had a consistent artstyle. Palworld was straight up an asset flip. If the game is good and fun, great! Their artstyle is still slop, and it would be great if people stopped being so defensive of it, especially in an era where AI plagiarism is being normalised so much.

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  • [–] 7 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    I‘m one of the biggest Pokémon fanboys there is on this planet. I don’t plan on defending or hating on them. They delivered slop since they went big on switch, even the 3DS was questionable. Palworld was something that finally looked like it forced them to increase their quality and seeing the trailers for Winds and Waves it finally looks like they did.

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  • [+] -6 points 7 months ago

    I don't want to dispute anything you said, but it doesn't disprove my point, either.

    Palworld may or may not have forced Pokemon to be better. Their artstyle is still Unreal Engine asset-flip slop.

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  • [–] 10 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 child)

    Fuck off with this. If Palworld ripped off Pokemon, then Pokemon ripped off Dragon Quest

    Quit licking corpo boots

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  • [–] -4 points 7 months ago

    Quit rewarding creative bankruptcy.

    Nintendo sucks. Pokémon can fall off a cliff for all I care. Palworld is a tired asset flip.

    There are tons of unique monster collectors out there that try to do their own thing without stealing other people's work. Again, if they pulled that shit with anything else, it wouldn't fly. You collectively decide it's ok because Nintendo bad.

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  • [–] 10 points 7 months ago

    Yeah I love Pokemon and everything, but this kind of Nintendo apologism is gross. They don't have a copyright on dog monster or derpy dragon. These are all based on animals and yokai, so obviously there will be similarities. But the idea that there was plagiarism/re-used assets was complete fabrication from the start. If you want to see an ACTUAL ripoff, watch the trailer for Palworld then watch the Pickmon trailer. I'm certain this game indeed plagiarized Mammorest at least, and the game design is identical.

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  • [–] 39 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Actually they're suing because of these alleged infringement of these weirdly general patents:

    1. throwing an item at a character in a field triggering a combat state.
    2. capturing creatures in the wild, rather than in a battle setting.
    3. riding creatures in an open world and transitioning between those creatures.
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  • [–] 29 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    Nintendo alleges that they plagiarized their assets.

    The thing is, there was a solid argument to be made that some of the meshes for certain Pals were too similar to that of some Pokémon models to be a coincidence, but Nintendo didn't bring any of that up in the lawsuit. They opted to go for the much more flimsy "riding a character" and "summoning a character by throwing a ball/sphere".

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  • [–] 14 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    And, somehow, fucking won. They forced Palworld to remove the ball throwing mechanic.

    It's fucking stupid.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    And, somehow, fucking won.

    No, they haven't won a single patent case yet. And there's still ball throwing in the game, but only for captures. The summoning via ball throwing was removed so that Nintendo couldn't file an injuction against Pocketpair to stop their sales during the case.

    If Pocketpair wins the court cases, they can undo the removals.

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  • [–] 14 points 7 months ago

    Honestly pokemon has kinda sucked for a long time now and they deserve the ass kicking they got from pal world. We don't need game freak anymore...they can't be bothered to make a good game.

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    • [–] 46 points 7 months ago

    I hope so. I played the game last year and everything felt a bit lackluster and janky. It's a pretty fun game, but I hope 1.0 adds that polish it needs.

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    [–] 36 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    I was planning on starting a new world once 1.0 drops and was worried how big this update will be. This gives me some confidence. I really like what they have done so far and can‘t wait to see how they‘ll wrap it up.

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  • [–] 5 points 7 months ago

    Same, I played a ton at launch but haven't kept up with any updates aside from the initial raids. All memes aside it's genuinely a solid game, so I'm looking forward to seeing what they've done with it.

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    • [–] 11 points 7 months ago (12 children)

    Is it steam deck compatible? Like controls wise?

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  • [–] -3 points 7 months ago (8 children)

    I don't know

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  • [–] 4 points 7 months ago (7 children)

    Hey! Turns out I already have it through family share! I'll check back in however long it takes to download.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (6 children)

    I'd like to be more enlightened.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (5 children)

    About palword or the family share?

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (4 children)

    Both.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    Palworld plays well on the steam deck. But I'm irl friends with a fairly popular twitch streamer who put me in his group. I have a ton of steam games from being an early adopter of humble bundle, I was pretty proud of my 666 game count. But I got a hundred some odd newer games from the share. And we can play online at the same time which is pretty dope.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    That's impressive.

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    [–] 11 points 7 months ago (12 children)

    There's another game that mashed Pokémon and Palworld called Pickmon i think, still in early access but they are copying both games shamelessly.

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  • [–] 7 points 7 months ago* (8 children)

    There's Pokopia. An actual Nintendo made game that just came out. My BF got it recently, and it's basically Pokemon+Minecraft+Animal Crossing+Palworld's automation using the Pokemon.

    It's super good and I want it now. 😳

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  • [–] 11 points 7 months ago (4 children)

    It's just mostly just a reskin of Dragon Quest Builders. Pokopia is Builders 3.

    They used an animal crossing menu UI. Removed the combat. Added pokemon. Exact same story and mechanics.

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  • [–] 4 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    In a way, yes, but it's significantly better at what it kept from builders 2. DQB2 slows down to a crawl about 50 builds in, and can't manage a tenth of that active NPC amount in an area.

    It's also designed to give you a lot more freedom. Instead of most story objectives being imposed blueprints and a tiny active building site, you're dropped into large areas with lots of broken architecture and empty wilderness spaces, and what you do with it is your decision.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (1 child)

    How is that "in a way"? What you described is a normal video game iteration process, but also on new hardware (and probably an engine change). DQB2 and Pokopia were both done Omega Force (the folks who make all the Warrior games), with Takuto Edagawa as the director.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago*

    "In a way" because to me the game's focus is different enough that, even if they do have a lot of mechanics in common, it doesn't feel like "Builders 3" to me.

    Like, you know, The Wonderful 101 is not Okami 2.

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    • [–] 10 points 7 months ago

    Oh, I thought these headlines were from the past and this was roasting Pocketpair for saying that

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    [–] 18 points 7 months ago

    Less tell more show.

    There are loads of technical issues with Palworld that put me off from buying it.

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    [–] 21 points 7 months ago

    Hey, I doubt it! Still totally on board to spite nintendo tho

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    [–] 7 points 7 months ago* (4 children)

    I was thinking about buying this game on a sale.

    Can anybody tell me how the game compares to its first release? The game peaked at 2 million consecutive players, that's a lot!

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  • [–] 13 points 7 months ago

    I last played it a couple of months ago. It's significantly more fleshed out than the initial release, which seemed pretty empty and boring by comparison. Crafting isn't really my thing but they make it relatively easy and not as annoying as many other games. Overall it's worth checking out. I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would

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  • [+] 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (1 child)

    Abiotic factor does not have automation lol

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago

    A big factor with Palworld is building up your automation with good base design and Pal management. You assign them to build, sew seeds, water, harvest, transport, mine, chop trees, manufacure items, power generators, etc. As you progress, the systems you maintain get more complicated but provide better services/items/convenience. Exploring is a lot of fun, with Pals you can ride, traversal mechanics like the hookshot, and gliding. Plus all the usual open world mechanics like enemy bases to clear, warp points to unlock, powerful world bosses hanging around, dungeons, and resources to seek out. I've sunk probably 200 hours in it with friends.

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    [–] 7 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    Pokemon meets Minecraft now?

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    [–] 7 points 7 months ago

    If they can give the environments a stronger, more "toon" art direction, and fix the player character's chopped looks, no one will be able to pull me off this game!!!

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    [–] 17 points 7 months ago

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    [–] 4 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    Any updates on the legal side of things? Didn't Nintendo officially open up a lawsuit not too long ago?

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  • [–] 11 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Nintendo mostly lost. They did have to make some minor game updates, glider pals no longer appear when gliding, and you can't throw a captured pal's sphere on summon.

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    • [–] 6 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    Just play Abiotic Factor.

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  • [–] 7 points 7 months ago* (2 children)

    Abiotic Factor is not a bad game, but holy shit is that such a different game.

    Thats like if someone was craving chicken noodle soup and you said "just have chili".

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  • [–] -1 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    I get what you’re saying, it is a different vibe. I just think Abiotic Factor is so well done that it kind of goes beyond a straight comparison. It’s like comparing instant ramen to a really well-made bowl from a restaurant. Same idea, but the experience is on a completely different level.

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