Terra Nova: Free Realms

free realms,SOE,online gaming

Quoted from http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2009/04/free-realms.html:

Terra Nova: Free Realms

- The character class system is pretty cool. (You can belong to lots of different character classes - with a separate level for each - but you can only be acting as one class at any one time. Your clothing, weapons etc. are changed when you switch class).

- It's easy to get into and understand what you're supposed to do, and there are interactive tutorials to introduce you to most of the classes. The only one I've noticed that has a really steep learning curve is the collectable card game, for which you have to understand a ton of game mechanics. (And I imagine that that one class is aimed at players who want a ton of game mechanics).

- I like the way they've managed to integrate a lot of different game genres into the same world. (This is partly what the character classes are about)

Personal dislikes:

- The 3D graphics gives me motion sickness (I couldn't play Doom either). I'd prefer 2.5D isometric.
(Though the minigames for the "Chef" class are 2D. I wonder if they found that the kind of player that wants to play a chef has trouble with 3D?)

- I don't like the art style. Especially not the pixies.

- I prefer games with more storytelling. For most of the quests you just get told some lame reason why you have to either (a) kill mob <x> (b) go and talk to mob <y> (c) collect <n> objects of type <z>. With storylines as lame as this, I can understand why people would skip-read the (already short) text to get to the operative bit that tells you the value of x, y or z.

Things that are really wierd:

- Boomboxes in dungeons. So you can choose which track to play while you're killing mobs. (Why does this remind me of "A Clockwork Orange"?) I'd almost forgive them if it distracted the mobs (Your Ninja sneaks into the Yetis' cave, puts a really loud CD on their stereo, hides in shadows until they come to see what the hell the noise is, and hits them in the back with a shuriken). But I don't think they've implemented it that way.

- In the cooking mini-game, cuts of meat try to escape from you as if they were still alive. I find this far more disturbing than if they'd just made you do some bunny-bashing to get the ingredients. ("Chicken, meet a level 5 Ninja with a katana. Ninja, meet dinner.") Vegetarianism does not seem an option.