Free Realms ~ Ref Ruby's Guide to Hoverboards

Oh, hey guys. I’m just chilling on my MOST AWESOME HOVERBOARD EVER!

Yeah, it’s pretty sweet. This is an ATH, or an All-Terrain Hoverboard. Land, water, air… no problem.

Sure, it hovers, and that’s awesome on its own…but guess what? It can also do tricks! Press the space bar while you’re cruising around and you’ll do some sweet moves.

So that right there is double awesome. But we aren’t done yet. Nope, we’re taking it up to TRIPLE AWESOME!!! Try it out on a launch pad to see what your hoverboard can really do.

Jealous yet? Ready to get your own? Just head over to the Rides section of the Station Cash Marketplace, or the Stables outside of Sanctuary to pick one up!
While you’re there, talk to my buddy Durn Cogspinner. He can tell you some pretty cool stuff about where hoverboards came from. Ooh, mysterious…

Yeah…I guess you could say I’m pretty much the master at hoverboards. Like I haven’t really met anyone who matches my skill or anything.





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Free Realms ~ Spooktacular!!

Free Realms Spooktacular update is coming soon. Here is a post by the Free Realms Creative Director Laralyn McWilliams on her blog.

I can’t believe it October already! Time flies when you’re having fun!

October 28th will officially be six months after the launch of Free Realms, and we’re working hard on new features and fun additions for the game. There’s a major, mostly unannounced new minigame coming that I’ll be talking about soon… but right now we’re all excited about our favorite October event: Halloween and the next Free Realms game update, SUPER SPOOKTACULAR!

The Free Realms team loves Halloween, and you can tell just by looking at the game. What other virtual world lets you dress up in fun costumes for so many different jobs? From all-pink ninjas to pixie bananas to the limited edition Fourth of July Uncle Sam suit, you can tell the Free Realms team loves costumes!



We love Halloween so much that team members hand-crafted their own Free Realms themed costumes based on the panda pet costume and robgoblin npcs before the game ever launched!



So, we’re going all out for Halloween, as our first major live event. I don’t want to spoil too many surprises, but the costumes are awesome. Our artists have pulled out all the stops to create some of the most fun Halloween costumes I’ve ever seen in an online game. Here are two of my favorites: the vampire and the witch!

For traditionalists, we also include actual Halloween costumes—the kind you wear when you go trick-or-treating, including masks!



Costumes are just the beginning, though. You’ll find Halloween decorations all across Sacred Grove, along with special quests and even a new themed match three minigame!



Please join us throughout October to celebrate Halloween and the six month anniversary of Free Realms. Thanks for help making our virtual world a great place to call home!

Laralyn McWilliams
Creative Director
Free Realms

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Free Realms ~ Free Item Codes

Today I have found some new Free Codes to redeem in Free Realms. And also, don't forget that Free Realms Comic #2 by Wildstorm has been released and also has a free item code in it to redeem.

EMD73DK - Jagged Scythe (ninja only blade)
MMMDONUT - Heavenly Donut - Matchers Advantage
BERRYCUPCAKE - Berry Cake - Matchers Skill
G3TACPCH - Wild Winger Shin Guards

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Free Realms ~ Goal Time Update !!

Free Realms Game Designer Chris Molina has posted an update concernign the Goal Time Update which will introduce the new soccer job profession to the game...

Well, we’re just about in the final stretch here at Free Realms headquarters, polishing the final touches of the new Soccer Star job and arcade style mini game. It’s been both an insightful and genuinely fun experience contributing to the new game update. As is the case with creating any new game, soccer has gone through an iterative process that began to really take shape in the last couple months. The biggest challenge was creating accessible soccer gameplay using a mouse and keyboard! Typically this control mapping is found on an arcade or a console style controller which forced us to really focus on how to make Free Realms soccer just as intuitive and fun on a PC.



Thankfully we were able to identify a solid control scheme midway through the development process by gathering data from our in house Usability Lab testing. Watching the different groups of kids get hands on with the game gave us immediate feedback on how to make the soccer controls more user friendly. The A.I. (artificial intelligence) balance was achieved by viewing these play sessions as well.



Overall kids in the focus test groups had a blast playing as a Soccer Star once they got a grasp on the functionality, not to mention the punctuating particle effects really pushed the squash and stretch principals for a nice layer of novelty. This also has a suggestive nature to the Stephen Chow – Shaolin Soccer film; fans of that movie will be sure to get a kick out of Free Realms Soccer. I’ll never forget the nine to twelve age group who were yelling in sheer excitement every time they executed a goal or slide tackle! There was hardly a moment of silence throughout that particular session but, it was reassuring to see the fun factor was in fact present at that point in development.



As a designer coming over from the combat team, the soccer quest line was my first quest progression implementation for the over world. This presented many challenges as I had to learn how the flow and dependencies of the tools affected the many aspects of the core game. Whereas the framework in combat is very much self contained in a bubble or instance which doesn’t have an overlapping presence on Free Realms proper. This was one those sink or swim moments, but luckily my development teammates were always on hand to provide support during any moments of uncertainty.



I’m really looking forward to reading and seeing the reactions of players once soccer launches. I actually found myself getting a bit carried away while fixing a bug the other night. The game got so competitive and came down to the wire that I actually yelled at the opposing team “Ha! I Knocked you down and scored! What are you gonna about it, huh?” Enjoy…

Chris Molina
Game Designer
Free Realms


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Free Realms ~ Goal Time Update !!

Free Realms is getting ready to release the highly anticipated Goal Time update which will introduce the new profession for the Soccer Job called Soccer Star which will have 20 levels.

We are getting various tidbits of info on how the job will actually work. Free Realms Game Designer Margaret Krohn has an article on MMORPG.com that explains alot about this new exciting job.

There will be a quest line of tiers that you and your team will progress through and challenge harder and harder teams. Also, throughout the quest line you will have acess to 2 outfits complete with shorts, jersey, cleats, shin guards, and a bandana. Also you can purchase upgrades through the SC Store. Also, you can spend tickets to get some gear in the vaults.

All your stats will come via the gear and shards. So the choice of gear for your position is definately important. So, you may have multiple sets of gear for the various positions you could play, which makes this job more interactive in nature.

The stats come in 5 different powers: kick power (for strikers), footwork (for speed with the ball), speed (for speed without the ball), toughness (for defensive), and tackle power (for defensive). Also there are dodge and charge abilities. Dodging lets you avoid getting tackled and charge will let you kick the ball hard and do some fancy cool kick animations like Tornado Kicks, Headers, etc.

Here are some of the highlights:

Different uniforms will be available, along with upgrades like special effects "snow frosted particles".

Single player vs computer generated players OR guild vs friends.

It will be a top-down view, always looking at opponents goal, backing up to see your goal.

Some moves are: Slide tackle, Tornado kicks and Headers (these will become available as you level up)

Power boost and speed boosts will be on the field for you to run and grab

Each half will be 4 or 5 minutes long

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