Free Realms for the PS3 !!

They've always said the PlayStation 3 version was imminent, but they never gave us that official confirmation.

But it's here now: on the anniversary of the day Free Realms launched for the PC, Sony Online Entertainment has announced that their family-friendly MMORPG will be coming to the PS3 and furthermore, they plan to show it off at E3 this year. We'd like to know if PC and PS3 players will be able to go adventuring together on the same servers and of course, we need a launch date for the PS3 version, too. At this point, we could probably guess that Free Realms will be available on Sony's console towards the end of the year, but that's only a guess until we receive the finalized date (and maybe we'll get it in June). If you're unfamiliar, this is a game along the lines of old MMOs like EverQuest, only with a distinctly cartoon-y feel to it; the depth is still there (we think), but it's not as much about bloody battles as it is about a feeling of immersion in a large, colorful, interesting world.


PS3 Version in action for E3 2010

Sony Online Entertainment's free-to-play PC MMO Free Realms is still coming to PlayStation 3, according to the publisher.

Speaking with Kotaku, SOE says the game is still "very much in development," and we'll see it in action for the first time at E3 this year. Free Realms launched a year ago, with some ten million subscribers to date. Not bad -- probably has something to do with how damned cute it is.

I played Free Realms very briefly, but was easily distracted by things like instant messenger, email, Google Reader, and work. I'll probably have better luck on the PS3, where my only distraction will be notifications of people coming online that I never game with.

Is a free-to-play MMO on the PS3 something you're interested in? That whole "free" thing has got to help, eh?

If this appeals to you, stay tuned for more info on the PS3 version. We expect to hear a lot more about it in the coming months.








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Free Realms ~ Explore the Rob Goblin Camp !

North of Sanctuary, on the road between Highroad Junction and Shrouded Glade, you will come across a makeshift Robgoblin campsite. You will be greeted by vendors selling food and potions as well as a traveling show stage where you can laugh at the antics of the juggler. It looks like a place to spend some time and have fun, but don’t be fooled!

The ragtag group of Robgoblins that occupy the camp pretend to be entertainers, but their true purpose is to rob travelers of anything they can get their grubby, little hands on.

Boss Bigguns runs the camp. He is constantly yelling and is usually in a foul mood. He’s probably the shortest Robgoblin in the Realms, but he makes up for it by being the biggest pain. Something has happened recently to make his mood even worse, but he isn’t talking to just anyone about what has him so upset.

Members with at least one combat skill can talk to Fizzlesticks. He’s been with the traveling camp a lot longer than Boss Bigguns, but he’s getting forgetful in his old age. If you can help him get back his spellbook, he will teach you the secrets of being a wizard!

In a cave to the south of the camp is the Robgoblin Trove. This is where the Robgoblins store all of their stolen loot. The Trove is watched over by the wizard Hildegarde and her guards. You’ll have to defeat them all to get any of their loot!

If you want to be a wizard or if you’re looking for some fun, potions, food or chef supplies...or to have your wallet stolen...the Robgoblin camp is a great place to go.





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Free Realms Gold Nerf !!

Free Realms is now starting to follow EverQuest in that they are stealth nerfing things for no reason and not telling the players about it.
The patch update on 6/22 ushered in guilds to the game, much to the cheers of the palyers. But, updated unannounced, was some very sneaky and game changing nerfs that lowered the price of everything the players sold to merchants and lowered the coinage drop rate from mobs. However, the price to buy stuff from the merchants remained the same.

This is not a small change. It is a HUGE nerf. Prices were reduced up to 75% on items sold back to merchants. Any new players are starting with a hinderance in Gold which is required to buy healing and energy potions, trade-skill items, and weapons and armor. So, the gap between newer and older players are going to increase dramatically.

This nerf basically puts the game in an unenjoyable fasion. To go through fights we need to buy heal potions. The price for these before the nerf was fine with the amount of gold the player received. After the nerf, one cannot even afford these to go fight anymore.

And to add insult to injury, tickets received were also nerfed. They made tickets almost non existant. The vault rewards were an added bonus for completing different mini games, thus making playing them at least somewhat rewardable for your time. Now, with tickets rewarded nerfed, why would I waste my time doing these things?

Why would I go do an instance when the potions costs me more then I receive in rewards?
Why would I be a smithy when the item I make sells for LESS then the items I have to buy to make them??

Honestly, this breaks a game that was once fun and rewarding for the time invested into it. Sony wanted to make a game that was fun to log in for a few hours and still feel like you advanced your character without having to GRIND. They had this game before the 6/22 patch. Now they have steaming pile. Sony. Do you know people who play this game do not want to Grind...Do you know what that word means? Do you understand Risk vs. Reward?!?

Devs. WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO?? Was this nerf intentional? Many on the boards think it is a mistake. It is that huge of a nerf, that players are thinking it is a joke or a mistake. If it is not, then you really do not know your game and what it is that makes a game enjoyable as a casual experience.
I suggest you take a hard look at these nerfs and change them back. Or, that 3 million registered record, will be 3 million customers LOST. Another new record for Free Realms !!

Sony, listen to your players who are in an uproar over this...If you have trouble finding the thread, I'll point it out for you here...UPROAR THREAD!!

The Sony Fanfaire is this weekend. I encourage anyone going to ask the Devs about this nerf and illicit their views on this and the reasoning for it.




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Free Realms Item Codes

Today over at FreeRealmsInsider they posted new directions to receive by email a Free Realms item code to claim on your account in the Station Store. Basically you go to the website HardCoreGamer and enter in some contact info and they will email you an exclusive in game item code.


Every code will be for a 1 time use and is for the same item, but different codes for each person who signs up.

Basically, it is a way for them to capture your email address and add you to a newsletter mailing list, which, I imagine, you can then opt out of once you receive it.

The item you receive is the Hot-To-Trot-Tots which make your feet on fire!! Pretty cool!!




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Free Realms Guilds Update !!

Posted by Pex over at the Free Realms Message Board is the Patch Notes for the latest update...

We've got a lot of great stuff today! In addition to the normal bug fixes and behind the scenes updates we have Guilds and more. Here are the update notes for today:



Mysterious incidents are happening across the land. Help out any of these people, and jump in the middle of the adventure:

*A Royal Courier is in trouble in Greenwood Forest.
*Impress Sal Monella at Blackspore, and see where the next adventure takes you.
*Henry Farnum has trouble with the local hooligans
*If you rescue Starshine's child, she will have another task for a hero like you.
*Help Sorin out near the Bat Caves, and see where he'll send you to, or
*Complete Ceard Bauchlog's task for further instructions.
(If you have already helped them out, return to them for another task!)

Quests & Collections & New Content
Guilds! Gather your friends and be one of the first to start a guild! Talk to players in your guild using /gu

Pets
Watch how your Pets react to wandering encounters differently based on their disposition

Marketplace
When viewing Pets in the Marketplace you'll be able to read about their personality before you purchase them

Check out the new tool tips in the Claim Window of the Marketplace.


Also, Pex was kind enough to post a help page FAQ about how to set up a guild and various other guild commands and funtions complete with screenshots.

To set up a guild, you need to be at least 15 in 1 of your jobs, guild names will need approval, you need only yourself to set up a guild (most games require 10+ people to sign a petition to create a guild), and guilds are free to create. So, I can guarantee we are going to see TONS of guild created. Hopefully the guild creation server will not blow up int he first 24-48 hours :)

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Free Realms re-cap

It's a slow day for news in Free Realms, so I will just do a recap of what we can expect coming...


Let's see, tonight we have a 90 min patch with no notes as to what it will be updating.

In July we have the racing jobs being finally implemented so we can reach level 20.
Along with that patch in July, we may see the prestige classes going in to progress our current jobs that are maxed out.
August is slated to see new jobs such as the soccer profession and pro-driver which will unlock new racing tracks and cars.
At some unknown point (fall perhaps?) we will see the game ported to PS3 .
And finally houses, garages to work on your car, and guilds are being implemented in the near future as well.

Wow, thats alot of stuff in the works for the next few months. And this is just the stuff that we know of. I imagine there are also some unannounced goodies we can expect as well.
Whether you like this game or not, we can all agree that SOE is definately pouring alot of resources into Free Realms, which is a good thing, as it is progressing the genre we so know and love.
I think that this experiment with F2P and mini-transactions is a good one to 'test' the waters to see how successful it can be vs. the subscription based model. The only thing that is worrying me, and I'm waiting to see how it plays out, is the temptation to put the powerful items and gear in the mini-transaction catagory. This could seriously undermine the integrity of the game as any shmoe with some extra $$ can purchase their way to uber.






And now, because of the lack of news and because The SOE Fan Faire is coming in July, I thought I'd post a nice comparison of the live EQ Firona Vie and the painted one on the box art.



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Free Realms E3 Update

This years E3 has seen alot of new games and announcements from major players in the gaming market. However, not too much has come out regarding Free Realms except a few snippets of info that we mostly already knew of, but was essentially reconfirmed. Which I guess is better then nothing. So without further ado, I bring you a compilation of the things we can expect to be seeing changed in the near future of our beloved game :)

*Soccer - Finally all those soccer fields will be used when this new job is implemented instead of being the empty pixels that they currently are.
*New Job Progression - Most games today go the route of new levels and AA's to keep players interested in logging in and grinding. I'm sure this is not out of Free Realms future. But for now, instead of getting higher levels for the current jobs we have, we get more jobs to level up to the current levels we have.
*Racing Beyond LV 1 :) - I'm glad to see this is going in as currently racing is fun, but without progression, it's pointless.
*Player Housing - I guess it's ok. But for me is just fluff unless they add something really really cool, like a Monopoly game where I can win other people houses, rent them out, make tons of cash, and open a Resort casino on an island :) The Landlord profession anyone?
*PS3 Compatibility - Cross server compatible is always a good thing for a game that is growing in leaps and bounds. And I think certain jobs would be perfect for the PS3. (word on the street is possibly this fall)
*Login Page Notes - I was always a huge fan of login page notes. I guess this goes back to my EQ days. Now if they just add server population back again :)

Also, we need some more FREE Codes !! It's been like forever since a free code has been found.

And for your reading enjoyment I found a booklet that Sony put out back in April regarding gaming and how it is beneficial for kids to play video games. Also there are some very very interesting facts in it. Example, video gaming is an 18 billion dollar bussiness. That's right BILLION !!
(also it has a picture of Smed at the end)

http://www.soe.com/docs/LTKG_Booklet.pdf

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Free Realms : The Dares : Guinness Book

With the concert at E3 and in the Free Realms game at Snowhill on all servers, The Dares and Sony Free Realms enter into the Guinness Book of World Records for the first ever simultaneous live and real world concert. (I think this has been done before in Second Life.) But, none-the-less, they are now in the Guinness. Cheers !! Here is a photo and some of the videos I promised yesterday of the performance both in game and live on the floor at E3.









I must say, these boys have to be psyched! Word has it they are huge fans of EQII and to be able to have their song as the theme to Free Realms and then being invited to play at E3? WOW !! And on such a huge stage (virtually) with all the press it has received? I know I would be on top of the world if I were them. Congrats to The Dares !! They deserve it 100%!

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Free Realms ~ The Dares Party is under way !!

The Dares Free Realms party is under way on server 1. It is craaazy and there at least 100 toons there. Lots of fun and dancing. Everyone getting ready for the concert in 3 more hours :)

Here are some of the pre party pictures I've taken on server 1.









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Free Realms concert - The Dares !!

Free Realms announced with their 2 mil milestone that The Dares will be performing their hot hit song "It's Your world" at E3 and in real time simultaneously they will perform in game on the stage at Snowhill !! How cool is that ?!?! I think this is a first time ever for something like this to be done in a game.

Official posting : The Dares in Free Realms
Where : Snowhill stage
When : Tuesday June 2nd at 4pm Pacific / 7pm EST

Sony also posted a video of the behind the scenes recording of the song for the game.

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