My First Ever Cake Party in Palia!

You know how MMOs have dungeons, raids and bosses? Well Palia has cake parties! Normally Palia doesn't really feel like an MMO but cake parties remedy that. 15 people, sometimes even more, get together to tackle the boss of baking cakes! It's the most social activity in Palia and it's heavily encouraged by the developers. There is even a category for it on Palia's official Discord.

Baking a cake is a very complicated process if you are playing solo but it gets super simplified when people get together. One batch of Celebration Cake, which gives 3 cakes, requires 1 blueberry, 4 sweet leaf, 3 apple or blueberry jam, 3 flour, 3 egg, 4 butter and 1 milk. If you do this solo, you have to provide every single ingredient yourself and personally perform every single step. 

Celebration cake has a whopping 15 steps to make. These steps are; mixing the sweet leaves 4 times, preparing the cake batter 3 times, putting all 3 cake batter in an oven and taking them out before they burn, jamming each cake layer one by one and then frosting the entire cake. It's just very convoluted and time consuming to perform alone. Therefore, in a cake party 15 cooking stations are made to accommodate 15 players so that each player can perform one step. 

The best part about cooking in Palia is that you don't have to provide all the ingredients if you are cooking as a group. You supply only what's required from the specific cooking station you operate. However, you still get all the rewards. On top of making a lot of money, cake parties also allow you to chat with a bunch of people, make new friends, visit and see many different home plots and find inspiration to decorate your own. It's such a big win for everyone and the whole event is very wholesome.

Cake parties also feel very inclusive. The baker (oven) position doesn't require any ingredients so it's a fantastic fit for beginners who don't have the endgame ingredients the cake requires. Most of the party hosts I saw try their very best to fill those position with beginners. Today I witnessed a host requesting the players to share their skill levels so they could see how far the participants are into the game. They try to prioritise oven positions for those with low skill so they could get a chance to feel included within the community. 

I recently joined my first ever cake party. It was hosted by the lovely WadeLady, a variety streamer who focuses on cozy games. So not only was it to be my first ever cake party, it was also going to be streamed on Twitch. I was extremely anxious and shaking before it began. Our wonderful host was very welcoming and she made it a very pleasant experience for everyone who participated. Everyone had lots of fun. It was an amazing experience to meet new fellow bakers. 

Since then I joined a lot more cake parties and took on many different roles. Majority of them had such lovely conversations going. It is just people cooking together and chatting about the game. After the party ends everyone applauds and congratulates each other on a job well done and thanks the host for hosting. It really warms your heart.

The best cake party I attended had so many things going wrong. Some got stuck, some burnt cakes, some prepared more than one ingredient, there were disconnects. But in the end none of it mattered because it had the most wholesome bunch of people I have ever met in an online community. Here is a screenshot of how our chat was while we were baking cakes. After the party ended we took a group screenshot together and added each other as friends. Afterwards we did house visits so we could get a look at how everyone decorated their homes. I had the best time in that cake party. I still smile when I think about it. This is what this game is all about. This is what makes this game so special.

Of course not every cake party has to be this amazing. Some are just quite silent and everyone acts like a machine designed to bake cakes. Hell I do that myself sometimes. So far the most "toxic" cake party had someone say "I like you are being social and all but can you focus please?" and in another one someone said "Stop sleeping". That was the "most toxic" cake party I encountered so far. Most of them are just silent and calm but occasionally running into a fantastic group makes the game so much worth playing.

Cake parties will surely be nerfed in the near future. I don't think Singularity 6 intended for this cake to be massed baked at this level and sold for insane profit. However I just hope it won't be a devastating nerf that would make the cake parties redundant. Right now this is the only part of the game where it truly feels like an MMO. This activity should be encouraged, not taken away.