Free Realms (PS3, PC)

[Arwin]

PS3's MMO's have been a complete flop. Prior to this generation we had talk of all this persistant worlds like The Agency and Free Realms and whatever NCSoft were going to produce, all made possible thanks to PS3's yadayada, and it hasn't happened. Yet another example of why it's good never to buy on faith and instead wait to see the goods on the table!

Absolutely! That said, DC Universe is out now, and it even charted in the UK ... Looks like Free Realsm in February, and Final Fantasy XIV was coming too but (probably for the better) has been delayed because of criticism of the PC version. Just about my only prediction for this year that I made last December was that 2011 would be the year of the console RPGs. That's not to say they'd be a success, mind, they can still easily flop - but pretty sure we'd see a bunch of them, and that prediction is coming out pretty early in the year from the looks of things.

Very curious to see if Free Realms supports Move.

 

[patsu]

Hmm… can PS3 gamers play with PC/Mac gamers here ? Or are they restricted to play on certain servers ?

What about DC Universe Online ?

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Absolutely! That said, DC Universe is out now, and it even charted in the UK ... Looks like Free Realsm in February, and Final Fantasy XIV was coming too but (probably for the better) has been delayed because of criticism of the PC version. Just about my only prediction for this year that I made last December was that 2011 would be the year of the console RPGs. That's not to say they'd be a success, mind, they can still easily flop - but pretty sure we'd see a bunch of them, and that prediction is coming out pretty early in the year from the looks of things.

Very curious to see if Free Realms supports Move.

Free Realms even on PC is pretty well optimized for console controller input. I can't recall anything that made particular use of the mouse that couldn't be done as well if not better with a console controller. Picking a teleport location on a map might be marginally faster.

Then again, while I'm one of those 10 million accounts, I haven't touched the game in over a year so maybe there's something I'm forgetting that would benefit a lot from mouse/move support.

Pet training. That's one thing that could benefit, but I think they removed that from the game or changed to be easier to use with a console controller. Not the class, just the way you train pets. The original way you trained pets would have been quite well suited to the Move now that I think about it. The screen would basically show a figure you had to draw. The closer you were able to follow along and if you did it in the alloted time, your pet had a chance to correctly interpret what you wanted it to do and thus gain EXP for that trick. Do it enough times to fill the Trick xp bar and the pet would learn it. Unfortunately, I think they've changed that to something more console controller friendly.

Regards,
SB

 

[patsu]

That 10 million registered user count is outdated. It was the April 2010 figure.

They issued a June update with 12 million registered users. If you check Google, Free Realm seems to acquire about 1 million new registrations a month since early 2010.

Would be interesting to see how much they can milk from the base with the free-to-play model.

EDIT: In comparison, Playstation Home has 17 million registered users over about 3 years, but is said to be profitable with game + virtual items sales and advertising.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Would be interesting to see how much they can milk from the base with the free-to-play model.

Quite a bit as long as they can maintain interested. At the time I was playing it and trying it out, I'd run into multiple people that had spent between 50-150 USD in a month or two. Then again that's also balanced by people that won't pay anything and people that pay some amount in between.

There's another one I played where one guy I ran into was spending almost 500 USD a month to play a F2P MMO. Seeing that, 15 USD a month MMO's suddenly seemed incredibly cheap. One of the things I've run into with a lot of F2P MMO's, especially if there's any sort of competition in them (most have PvP of some sort), is a lot of anger from people that don't spend much or don't spend anything, against the developers for fostering a Pay for benefits model.

I wouldn't be surprised if in a few years there's significant gamer backlash to F2P if it becomes more mainstream.

Regards,
SB

 

[RenegadeRocks]

Anger starts brewing when the game is almost unplayable after a few minutes unless you pay some money. Otherwise you are relegated to replaying the same mission till you die to get a few coins to progress. That really irritates as they could simply tell us that we can experience the world for free and pay if we really want to play, kind of like a demo with no time limits of staying in the world. But, instead they use the words that it is "Free to play" and hence the anger when you find out after downloading gigs n gigs of data that it actually isn't ! I have been disappointed that way in a lot of Iphone games.

Free Realms doesn't suffer from that problem, as when I used to play last year, I was very much enjoying myself and playing games all over without paying a penny. I was tempted to get a pet to follow me around as I used to play as an explorer often, but then I realised I'll have to buy pet food regularly to feed him and I didn't ! But , I think , thats a nice way of asking for money as it doesn't hinder the game but does expand it for those who wish to and that too in a way which is appealing to them.

EDIT: Would be great to have some friends on my friend list in Free Realms! Maybe, that way I might come back to the charming world of Free Realms. My account is the same as here : RenegadeRocks .....................add me if anyone plays these days !

 

[patsu]

FreeRealm is small compared to PlayFish:
http://www.engagedigital.com/2011/01/18/playfish-announces-55m-mau/

Electronic Arts-owned social developer Playfish has announced that it serves a total audience of 55 million monthly active users, a group of people larger than the population of England (but not the entire UK). Playfish serves 37.7 million MAU on Facebook according to AppData, so the additional 17.3 million users are coming from other platforms like MySpace. Players worldwide have installed Playfish games over 340 million times, which equates to at least one Playfish game for every person in the United States.

...

 

[JPT]

Patsu finally you can play it on your PS3 to

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011...medium=social&utm_campaign=free_realms_031111

 

[patsu]

Not yet ! ^_^

So, mark it down on your calendar. March 29, 2011. Free Realms. PS3.

Is Sony mad ? I have this feeling that we are getting too many games already, and it's only March. Are they planning to port all these to NGP asap ?

I shall give it a test drive nonetheless (Free ~).

 

[RenegadeRocks]

So, finally it is coming to the ps3 ! Yay!

Ha......but my internet connection has got shifted to my work place now, so no online for me these days !

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Has anyone tried this yet?

 

[deathindustrial]

Takes a long time to startup plus a lot of loading screens along the way (not terribly optimized). Only played the fishing mini game but that was literally press x to cast, fish bites, press x once to to reel in. No aiming or anything like that. Also a very glitchy camera that makes platform areas hard to deal with. Seemed pretty much like your standard shovelware using the "it is for children" excuse to explain away a poor interface and lack of artistic direction.

But hey, it's free to play.

Cheers

 

[patsu]

How big is it ? I will try it probably the week after. Will be going down to LA this weekend.

 

[minimoke]

I can't find this on the EU PSN store, has it been announced for EU territories yet?

 

[patsu]

I read that EU version is supposed to release (1 month) after the US launch. Could be wrong though.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

This game highlights why MMOs are generally a poop idea IMO. I had a moment to spare and felt like playing some Tower Defense which this game has as minigames. Start the game and am confronted with a 1 GB download, creeping along at a very slow pace. When your games are no longer your own to play when you want to, they aren't worth having.

 

[RenegadeRocks]

Well, the reason I gave up on it on my PC was that every area was downloaded everytime i visited it. it did not keep it on my HDD. On my 512kbps connection, that means hell ! I wish they had an option of full install of the game world assets, so that I could atleast roam around seamlessly. i love th world they have created but I am unable to play.