MMORPG.com's Carolyn Koh writes this report on the progress of SOE's upcoming kid's MMO Free Realms.

Free Realms, SoE’s entry to the children’s MMORPG market is less than six months to launch, the already great looking game looks even far more polished than it had when I last saw it at E3 in July and shortly after, at the SoE FanFaire in August of 2008. Targeted toward children between nine and fifteen, the game has already been rated by the ESRB at E 10+ for comic mischief. Not E for everyone? I was curious to know why. “What can I say?” asked Laralyn McWilliams in response. “It’s a fighting game as much as a pet game, so there’s cartoon violence and our dogs lift a leg and pee.” Well, there’s that! Parental controls and menu chat for the younger children? Check. PC and PS3? Awesome! Free to play? Check. Exploration, fighting, mini-games, crafting, pet system, travel portal system and housing? Check. Skill-based, multi-career-path options? Check. Whoa… all this for a kid’s game? Yes. Kid or adult, good game-play trumps all.

Read the Free Realms Progress Report

I saw Free Realms at Fan Faire and was extremely surprised.  As a 39 year old man, I went into the presentation with confidence that the game was something that would have zero interest for me.  But after watching what they were doing, I kept thinking more and more that it looked like fun.

My best friend (who's a few years younger than me) came away with the same feeling.  As a father, he's really looking forward to being able to play this game with his family.

I am unsure how much long-term interest the game would hold for someone like me.  But I am absolutely going to be checking it out when it launches.  And since it's free, who cares if it proves to be something that I only dabble with once in a blue moon?

As somebody who owns a ps3 and never uses it, a free to play mmorpg for it might actually get some of my interest despite me being 22 now. Anyone have any other links for this game?

If you check out http://www.freerealms.com there is a link for media of the game at the top of the page with some vids.

Sorry to dash your hopes, but this is another SOE game with RMT, expect to pay through the nose for everything.  It won't be as attractive once you start playing it.

Sorry to point out yer obvious ignorance, but SOE has only recently added RMT for two of it's games. The items available are fluff items, (House pets, appearance armor with no stats).

The LON cardcame is a completely optional and seperate facet of the game with fluff item rewards and nothing more. Any item from LON has a superior version in actual game loot aside from novelty.

I'm tired of people joining the lets bash Company X bandwagon with no firsthand experience themselves. And if yer still butthurt about SWG; QQ some more and find a new game.

Originally posted by Arioc

Sorry to point out yer obvious ignorance, but SOE has only recently added RMT for two of it's games. The items available are fluff items, (House pets, appearance armor with no stats).

The LON cardcame is a completely optional and seperate facet of the game with fluff item rewards and nothing more. Any item from LON has a superior version in actual game loot aside from novelty.

I'm tired of people joining the lets bash Company X bandwagon with no firsthand experience themselves. And if yer still butthurt about SWG; QQ some more and find a new game.

Sorry to point out your obvious ignorance my friend, but....

They already started with full fledged RMT with Station Exchange Servers long ago.

And a lot of the latest items from LoN Loot cards aren't all that fluffy anymore either!

Let's see some months ahead from now when they start adding real stuff on the Cash Shop.

Let's see who will QQ then huh  As they are already talking about doing it.

The Smed's goal is monthly subscription games with full RMT cash shops on top of it.

They are going to use the F2P model on top of the P2P model for maximum profit.

Good for them.... but no thanks for me! Never going to support that kind of greed!

Nevermind, not going to feed the trolls.

Silly SOE haters aside my seven year old and I are in beta.....I'm pretty confident this will be the childrens WoW...look for many many family accounts on this one.

My God there are a Lot of Soe hateing trolls in the world..

And as a 30 year old man Im looking forward to trying it out :p

Hay its free, cant go wrong with that

Damn this looks promosing im going to try it out as soon as i get the chance to it.

Is it me or does the way they build the game remind me more and more of UO for children if it is, i would play it even though im a lof older than the 15years that they say the game is upto.

so far thumps up for this, its going to be very interesting.

I think this is a good move from SOE.

What has more power over a parent than a child? The parent might cave in over a request for a new non combat pet or fluff (non game breaking items) - or even these fluff items can be used as some form of incentive from a parent for the child to do well in school? 

This is all assuming it will do well. From what i've seen so far, eye candy wise i could see it appealing to the younger crowd.

I will be trying this game too as it sounds quite cool.

Again i think this is a good move from SOE.

Originally posted by Ekibiogami

My God there are a Lot of Soe hateing trolls in the world..

And as a 30 year old man Im looking forward to trying it out :p

Hay its free, cant go wrong with that

It has nothing to do with SOE haters. We know what the F2P model is.

And if you think it's free, then you are naive my friend. SOE is no charity organisation and they don't spend millions on developing this, so you can play for free.

They give your kid the minimum amount of content and minimum amount of features and stuff.

So your kid will finish the content in, lets say, within a month.

Then your kid, addicted to the game, will start nagging you there is nothing more to do in the game, but if daddy waves his precious creditcard for him, then daddy can buy more content and stuff for him, so he can continue playing.

And then my friend.... then you will see how expensive venture this is going to become for you.

And that it will be a lot cheaper to let your son play a normal P2P subsription based only MMORPG like WoW instead (wich comes with full fledged parental controls as well (profanity filters, time limits, etc)...only shame hardly any parent bothers to use them).

That is all... no SOE hate... just a reality check on the so called F2P model. 

Oh the irony that a MMORPG that claims to be targeting 9-15 year old children seems to have more promise, feature-wise, than most of the recent or past MMORPGs.

The choices seem abundant so I will be looking into the game, as well.

edit:  on the subject of RMT; while I am not a fan of RMT, I would certainly rather give my money to the game that I am enjoying in hopes for more ingame in return than an internet company that sells ingame items (including gold) with no other interest in the game than selling its wares and not giving something back to the game

awesome!!!

I'm actually thinking about getting this when it comes out and play it with my 8 year old sis, since I moved to the other part of the world, so I could both spend a bit of time online with her. Sounds rather nice in my book.

Originally posted by Arioc

Sorry to point out yer obvious ignorance, but SOE has only recently added RMT for two of it's games. The items available are fluff items, (House pets, appearance armor with no stats).

The LON cardcame is a completely optional and seperate facet of the game with fluff item rewards and nothing more. Any item from LON has a superior version in actual game loot aside from novelty.

I'm tired of people joining the lets bash Company X bandwagon with no firsthand experience themselves. And if yer still butthurt about SWG; QQ some more and find a new game.

Sorry the only ignorant one here is you if you think that is all that will be offered in RMT.  SOE is just getting started, you just watch when the game is released.

And sorry items in EQ and EQ2 are not just fluff items there are a slew of items to speed leveling and that, most certainly, is not fluff.

The only trolls here are those that use the word 'hater".  There is no such thing.  Critics should surfice, if you would take some time to learn the English language.

This game looks like a little gem!

Honestly why cant any devloper stuido use the same recipe but for an adult audience?

Like many have said here, it may not keep me interested for months, but i will certainly try it.

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Originally posted by Arioc

Sorry to point out yer obvious ignorance, but SOE has only recently added RMT for two of it's games. The items available are fluff items, (House pets, appearance armor with no stats).

The LON cardcame is a completely optional and seperate facet of the game with fluff item rewards and nothing more. Any item from LON has a superior version in actual game loot aside from novelty.

I'm tired of people joining the lets bash Company X bandwagon with no firsthand experience themselves. And if yer still butthurt about SWG; QQ some more and find a new game.

Sorry the only ignorant one here is you if you think that is all that will be offered in RMT.  SOE is just getting started, you just watch when the game is released.

And sorry items in EQ and EQ2 are not just fluff items there are a slew of items to speed leveling and that, most certainly, is not fluff.

The only trolls here are those that use the word 'hater".  There is no such thing.  Critics should surfice, if you would take some time to learn the English language.

u dont realy understand who cares if they sell xp or aa potions that is still a fluff item cause it doesnt overpower someone. u 2 trolls need to learn to get your facts straight.. just  cuase soe mesed up swg doesnt mean that everytime they put a game out u need to bash it.

I really can care less about the item shops...if all they offer is fluff items or exp pots then so what. And it might work in SOE's favor with this game as well... Parents can use it as incentive for their kids. Get good grades? sure you can have this special house pet...do your chores,so on.