Free Realms (PS3, PC)

[patsu]

FreeRealms Impressions

Being a MMO skeptic, I am always interested in why people play them. R2 co-op is a little like MMO (Large environment, many players, and the bosses take too long to kill, damn it). But it has short turnaround time, so it's perfectly okay for me.

Over at FreeRealms, SOE seems to be focusing on mini-game collection:
http://www.ps3fanboy.com/2008/10/20/ps3-fanboy-impressions-freerealms/

I have a kid who loves nickjr.com, so I can understand how the mini-games and the free-ness might appeal to families. But at the same time, I know parents (like my wife) who shunt gaming because it is perceived as bad (or distracting) for kids.

I hope FreeRealm can address this issue, otherwise it's not going to get any play time from my family. The Wonder Pets, Dora mini-games are "fine" because my wife thinks they teach my kid useful stuff.

 

[DJ12]

The price is right for this to be my first ever try at an MMORPG (not counting the FF11 demo on the 360 as I only played that for about 5 seconds after getting annoyed at all the crap you had to do to get it running in the first place)

 

[patsu]

Ha ha... they should be free and focused here (more like Google, less like Yahoo). Otherwise, it may not be able to retent users over a long time (That's just my gut feel right now).

 

[patsu]

More info about Free Realms...

Part 1:
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/44255.html

Part 2:
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/44257.html

 

[whome0]

I want a fairy warrior character to HOME and hover aroud the central park.

 

[Nano]

I like the look of this game. Very youthful, but looks fun and appears there's lots of little things to do, and there are some incredibly rich worlds as the first GT vid shows in particular.

As for graphics, well the game is supposed to be ultra-lite as well as scale back to PCs from the start of the century. With the visual direction they've used I'm impressed, and that's from a guy who is into high end graphics. But that's just my opinion.

 

[2real4tv]

Crossplay between PC and PS3?

 

[tha_con]

Is this game for sure coming to PS3? It looks like World of Warcraft Lite (which I absolutely love).

 

[DrJay24]

Is this game for sure coming to PS3? It looks like World of Warcraft Lite (which I absolutely love).

I think they are just starting the beta with the PC, but it's a PS3 game also.

 

[Nano]

Crossplay between PC and PS3?

Unfortunately I haven't heard a single suggestion of this let alone confirmation, maybe they're assessing the technicalities.

 

[patsu]

Free Realm holding up well so far:
http://www.joystiq.com/2009/06/13/free-realms-hits-3-million-players-ps3-version-still-in-develo/

Free Realms has passed the 3 million unique users mark.

Was pretty skeptical about it earlier on. Judging from the trailer, it looks and plays much better than Club Penguin.

 

[obonicus]

Apparently they have 500k new users every week. And who said that selling crack cocaine to kids wasn't a wise business decision?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Except they're not selling it - it's free. The question going forward is how much money will Sony be able to generate through microtransactions? Also this isn't on PS3 yet, making it a little misplaced to be talking about it here!

 

[obonicus]

Except they're not selling it - it's free. The question going forward is how much money will Sony be able to generate through microtransactions? Also this isn't on PS3 yet, making it a little misplaced to be talking about it here!

Well, that's how you hook them in: first dose is free.

 

[RenegadeRocks]

I am in too from the beta phase itself ! Its a very light and cheerful game. Very nice if u r feeling down or bored, just hop in there, and you are bound to have a smile on ur face !

I have stayed away from any transactions though. As a game it is very simplistic, but as a world, it is very very beautiful !

 

[patsu]

It depends on the kid. We paid for a subscription service when it's educational and he has fun playing/learning. That way we have some of our (free) time back.

For teens, I'll tell you when my kid grows up. >_<

In this case, I wonder what happens if I subscribe to the PC side. Can I play on a PS3 also, even if the users on both platforms may not interact with each other.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

How is this going to be distributed on PS3? Download, or sold as a disk?

 

[tirminyl]

How is this going to be distributed on PS3? Download, or sold as a disk?

The last I read, it will be a free PSN download:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/free-realms-to-launch-in-early-april

There will be additional content exclusive to the PS3 version to make up for this delay. While the PC version streams from a launch website - the initial 25MB download taking around a minute on your average broadband connection - the PS3 version will be available as a free download on the PlayStation Network.

They don't know if there will be cross platform play either, I hope so.

 

[RenegadeRocks]

How is this going to be distributed on PS3? Download, or sold as a disk?

There are no discs anywhere. There's a small download at the start while u r setting up your character. After that everything is streaming !

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Cool. My next question then is how do they communicate to the PS3 populace that this is available? While I go into the PSN store every THursday or Friday to see what's new, I know poeple who never visit it. PS3 still lacks a meaningful notification system (I presume everyone switches off that butt-ugly news feed!).