It's a nice review, and mostly mirrors my experience with FR.

I will say that there's one impression of Free Realms that I've had that you didn't mention - that the game is a game-sized testbed.  Sometimes I just get the vibe that this is Sony's trial run of their planned RMT games as much as an effort at a self-contained game.  It feels somewhat like a Beta, not of content, but mechanics and "style" for future games. 

Edited for grade-school typos - bleh

Originally posted by Sanya

Saying it fails at being WOW or EVE is like looking at a beagle and saying, "You don't purr, you don't climb trees, and you are totally unaffected by catnip! You are a failure at being a cat!"

God this is sig worthy!

Thank you for the review. I agree with all of it to. I went in to this expecting some type of cheap clone, but was actually really suprised at how "fun" the game is. It will not appease hard-core gamers but if you are looking for something diffrent and stress free then it does it's job very well.

Originally posted by kingdave2006

I liked Free Realms but I could not tolerate the constant downloads, if you are on anything less than a very fast DSL/Cable connection be ready to stare at the message "Downloading 1mb of 10.5mb" every time you get to a new area or a portion of the map you have yet to approach, you freeze in place usually until enough data is buffered. I began to dread runing anywhere near the black chunks of my map. If they had an actual client I could download instead of the streaming system I would still be playing the game. I searched all over the options and settings for an option to download the files continously instead of on demand but I gave up. I liked the game but the streaming data system drove me and my DSL connection back to games that have a downloadable client.

Not trying to argue with you, but why would anyone that does not have a fast internet connection even bother to play online games?

Anyway nice review, I did enjoy the game a little, but overall I personaly felt it might atract their target audience more then it atracts me. Overall it's a fun type of game.

Some of us from another game are playing and enjoying Free Realms.  We want a place to socialize and have fun, and yes, we are all adults.  We are looking forward to the Guilds - we want a separate chat channel and, ideally, a guild hall. 

That's what we are waiting for - that and the ability to add a friend to your friend list if the friend is not in game - not sure if that's fixed yet.  We like Free Realms for what it is, and think it will work very well for us.

While the review was fairly accurate and well done, there is one comment that is completely incorrect and probably deserves a correction or retractment.

"which is ironic given that accessing the microtransaction stuff requires a membership"

Sorry, but no. The Marketplace does NOT require you to be a member to partake in it. The TAB you were on, which is the first tab the Marketplace open up to, does indeed require membership, but only those items listed in that tab.

If you look at the bottom of the Marketplace window (and it's shown in the full screenshot) there are 8 buttons (tabs) of catagories you can choose from that most of the items in them are membership free. Again, the only items that are member only are the ones listed in that first catagory. When looking at other catagories, those member only items get shuffled into them as well but everything else in the 7 other catagories, are for everyone.

Originally posted by Snowdonia

While the review was fairly accurate and well done, there is one comment that is completely incorrect and probably deserves a correction or retractment.

"which is ironic given that accessing the microtransaction stuff requires a membership"

Sorry, but no. The Marketplace does NOT require you to be a member to partake in it. The TAB you were on, which is the first tab the Marketplace open up to, does indeed require membership, but only those items listed in that tab.

If you look at the bottom of the Marketplace window (and it's shown in the full screenshot) there are 8 buttons (tabs) of catagories you can choose from that most of the items in them are membership free. Again, the only items that are member only are the ones listed in that first catagory. When looking at other catagories, those member only items get shuffled into them as well but everything else in the 7 other catagories, are for everyone.

 

DOH.

Thanks... /blush.

hehe NP. Just didn't want any misconceptions going around about that is all.

As I said though, the rest was pretty spot on and a good write up. ;)

Originally posted by Sanya

This game is not an MMO in the traditional sense of the word. If I had been grading it as one, I'd have given it a lousy score for having no discernable community building, no sense of persistence, and no balance... all things I mentioned in the review.

But the game isn't trying to be a traditional MMO. It's trying to be its own unholy mixture of an MMO, Club Penguin, MSN Game Zone, Pogo, and more. And it succeeds very well at those things.

Saying it fails at being WOW or EVE is like looking at a beagle and saying, "You don't purr, you don't climb trees, and you are totally unaffected by catnip! You are a failure at being a cat!"

I wanted to make the review a full look at the game, so anyone booting it up would know exactly what they were getting into.

Thanks for all the pretty words, guys :)

Well you said it yourself. No discernable  community building, no sense of persistence.. Those are cornerstones for MMORPGs and this game may very well be a good GAME but it is not a good MMORPG, since it is not even an MMORPG. And that is the name of the site, is it not?

Maybe it would be more suitable to not review the game at all instead of giving it a bad score. But I do come to this site to learn about new MMORPGs, not some weird hybrid mix for 8 year olds. And this is just one example of poor reviews this site has done. Many times in many reviews, or first peaks, they fail to mention anything about PvP and such so my reaction is not targetted just towards this review but reviews on MMORPG.COM that I don't feel give a good view for standard MMORPG players.

As for your beagle example. If I go to a site which is about cats and then I see reviews about dogs then that would be quite weird would it not?

Originally posted by Yamota

Originally posted by Sanya

This game is not an MMO in the traditional sense of the word. If I had been grading it as one, I'd have given it a lousy score for having no discernable community building, no sense of persistence, and no balance... all things I mentioned in the review.

But the game isn't trying to be a traditional MMO. It's trying to be its own unholy mixture of an MMO, Club Penguin, MSN Game Zone, Pogo, and more. And it succeeds very well at those things.

Saying it fails at being WOW or EVE is like looking at a beagle and saying, "You don't purr, you don't climb trees, and you are totally unaffected by catnip! You are a failure at being a cat!"

I wanted to make the review a full look at the game, so anyone booting it up would know exactly what they were getting into.

Thanks for all the pretty words, guys :)

 

Well you said it yourself. No discernable  community building, no sense of persistence.. Those are cornerstones for MMORPGs and this game may very well be a good GAME but it is not a good MMORPG, since it is not even an MMORPG. And that is the name of the site, is it not?

Maybe it would be more suitable to not review the game at all instead of giving it a bad score. But I do come to this site to learn about new MMORPGs, not some weird hybrid mix for 8 year olds. And this is just one example of poor reviews this site has done. Many times in many reviews, or first peaks, they fail to mention anything about PvP and such so my reaction is not targetted just towards this review but reviews on MMORPG.COM that I don't feel give a good view for standard MMORPG players.

As for your beagle example. If I go to a site which is about cats and then I see reviews about dogs then that would be quite weird would it not?

Funny that in fact the game offers more MMO playstyles then current crop of limited MMO are delivering.

Anyway this game does fit this website perfectly, else we could scrap about 40% of games that call themselfs MMORPG but also are not really MMORPG in the way I see it, but hey I just know that not every game might be THAT game for me, doesn´t mean others might not be intrested in it.

Originally posted by Yamota

As for your beagle example. If I go to a site which is about cats and then I see reviews about dogs then that would be quite weird would it not?

Housepets. Cats being further down in the semantics.

If you get bored with this game than it is truly a mmorpg..It follows with the 100s of mmorpg bored games allready..Buy if the youngs kids love it..Why should the mid teens/adults really care?

ill guess the mmo content will come later.

maybe it will be neccesary to group to achive something higher?

As it already been said, this game has an amazing flow... the art style makes it feel real,but its obviesly not.

i can play the minigames for days and not get tierd! the jobs are amusing, and for overall i really have alot of fun in this game >3 

I played Freerealms in Beta and it still has major bugs. Everytime I take a new toon out of the tutorial and into the accual game world I crash within seconds. Sony Online is the worst game makers and has the worst and laziest Devs in the business. SOE ruins every game they touch. Thats why a simple shallow game like WoW can beat the pants off of a game like EQ1 that has soo much more  content then any other game on the market but because SOE is in control the only reason to play EQ1 is if you allready have a max lvl toon. Any way just like all the other SOE games this one is a big bomb and deserves to be forgotton like so many other SOE games like EQ1, the matrix online, Vanguard just to name a few. And with SOE's track record of producing buggy suck fest of games we are garanteed DC univers online will be a piece of junk. Anyway the only thing good about Free Realms is the fact that it is free to play.

Great review.

I will say that it depresses me a little bit that this game is successful.  Sony's had a hard-on for RMT for awhile now, and if this catches on, it won't be long before the rest of the market follows.

Ah well.  Guess there's older games for those of us feeling left in the dust of progress.

Originally posted by Yamota

Well you said it yourself. No discernable  community building, no sense of persistence.. Those are cornerstones for MMORPGs and this game may very well be a good GAME but it is not a good MMORPG, since it is not even an MMORPG. And that is the name of the site, is it not?

Maybe it would be more suitable to not review the game at all instead of giving it a bad score. But I do come to this site to learn about new MMORPGs, not some weird hybrid mix for 8 year olds. And this is just one example of poor reviews this site has done. Many times in many reviews, or first peaks, they fail to mention anything about PvP and such so my reaction is not targetted just towards this review but reviews on MMORPG.COM that I don't feel give a good view for standard MMORPG players.

As for your beagle example. If I go to a site which is about cats and then I see reviews about dogs then that would be quite weird would it not?

There is a standardized set of criteria that a game must meet to qualify as an MMO. An MMO is simply defined as a game in which many players can simultaneously interact in a persistant world. Like it or not, Free Realms is an MMO.

The game might not have any discernable community building but the game DOES allow for it. This could be a side-effect of the "for kids" aspect of FR - I know many parents who don't allow their young children to talk to strangers online. And while it doesn't give the feeling of a persistant world, it IS a persistant world.

I've only played the game here and there over the last few weeks.. I decided to scale back my playing after my first "What do you mean it's 3am?!?" moment. Personally I felt the review was dead-on, though I can't comment on the Member Only content since I haven't subscribed yet. I found it to be a fun little time-filler. Especially great when I'm trying to wind-down for the night. It doesn't hurt that I'm a sucker for collections....

I found that this is a great way to start young children out on the MMORPG front without much risk to the child of being confronted by unfriendlies. It also provides in game parental controls with is another feature i like as a parent. I've played it myself so i know what to expect when my daughter is playing, and though it is repeatitive, it's rather addicting. There is plenty of missions and games to play for those who choose not to pay which is another wonderful feature.

I played FreeRealms and I think that the review is spot on - for the audience the game was intended for, children and their parents.

I know, I know, many adults enjoy the mini-games, and hey, I like them too. My point is aimed at all those self-proclaimed "hardcore gamerz" who just don't get it.

Not all games NEED, or should, appeal to all audiences.

I liked the beagle analogy, fairly apt. These guys that put down games outside of their favorite genre are the same ones who hate "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" because there was "no gunfire, car chases or bare boobs!"

They just don't get it.

Same folks that don't get that high school matters for piss once you're done with it - same with rankings in MMORPGs.

I don't bother to think about the idiots in high school and I never bother checking ladders or leaderboards. Why? Next month I could care less.

This game, FreeRealms, is NOT trying to be the netboiz next big thing. They are not trying to be a clone of WoW or GW, or any of the so-called "popular" games. I'm glad they're not.

Keep up the conversation about the future though, because I think, and hope, that this is where they're all going.

Nice to get the kiddos their level of game to learn in so they demand different as they grow up, and quite possibly, will develop different, and highly engaging as a career choice.

Now then, if they would only fix that unfortunate Delete button on the Profile. ;-)

Great game with a great review.