Free Realms ~ Goal Time Update !!

Pex has announced over on the Free Realms message boards the Goal Time Update !! Yay !!

Here are the patch notes...




Goal Time is here!
Head to the Soccer field in Snowhill to try out the new quests
Highlights of today's update are listed below...

Marketplace
Check out the Marketplace or Merchants in Sanctuary & Seaside to purchase Style Cards! Use them to change up your eye color, hair color, hair style, face paint & wing patterns!

General
Free Realms introduces Soccer! Start a game with friends or compete against one of the teams waiting to play you at the Soccer field in Snowhill!
Try Player Inspect on players near you – click on someone to see their jobs & levels and what they’re wearing!
Now, when you move towards a quest giver, a merchant, combat gates, collections and more you’ll notice a pop-up asking if you’d like to check it out!
The skies have cleared! Meatballs, fruits and vegetables will no longer fall from the sky. If you have already earned a Spaghetti with Meatballs recipe, you may purchase ingredients from Helga Humbleloaf or the “FFA Reps” for a limited time only.
Many “no sale” items that were earned from quests can now be sold.

Pets
Pet trainers will now receive a coin reward whenever they score “Good” or “Awesome” on all pet tricks




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Free Realms ~ Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

Pex has announced on the Free Realms message boards that the event 'Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs' is coming to an end soon. Here is his message...

I wanted to give everyone a heads up that the Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs quests will be going away on or slightly after September 30th.

I am waiting to see if Helga will remain to give out ingredients or if she is going away as well. I'll let you know as soon as I know.
Pex

So on Sept. 30th, this event will be no more. If you haven's finished it yet, you have a week to do so.

Also, the stealth updates will hopefully end with this announcement...

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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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Free Realms Item Codes !!

Some new Free Realms Item codes to redeem have been found. It has been a while since we reported a free item code, but non-the-less we report them as we get them, and the latest one is pretty cool. It is a red sparkler item to make your character stand out. And also we have a code for a spiffy new stripped shirt. The Red Sparkler can only be redeemed until July 12th midnight. So make sure you click the SC button in your UI redeem this code before it's too late...

FBREDSPARKLER - Red Sparkler
3G9MKT2 - Stripped Shirt







Also Pex came out with an announcement last week about the holiday festivities...

Lot's of great stuff today! The Seaside Summer Splash begins, there are some new Marketplace items and more!

Quests, Collections & New Content:
Sizzlebottom has drawn quite a crowd near the inn at Seaside. To celebrate his booming business, this Robgoblin has decided to kick-off a special holiday called Seaside Summer Splash!

Join in the fun and find these celebrants and take on their challenges:
* Tarisa Teaspoon is trying to host a cooking competition...
* Heddy Heathcliff needs help making more fireworks...
* Shelly Sandishoes lost her stuff to a bunch of kids playing "Treasure Hunter"...
* Grekel is open to a friendly game of cards...
* ...and Sizzlebottom is trading pinwheel fireworks. Check it out!

General
* Several Guild fixes
* A new camera controller has been added. You can turn it on and off from your game options menu.

Marketplace
There are new items added for the Seaside Summer Splash Holiday celebration!
* Uncle Sam Outfit
* Sand Castle
* Hula Outfit
* Ducky Floaty
* Palm Tree Island Shirt

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The Economy of Coin from Pex.

In response to all the recent outrage about the 6/22 coin nerf, Pex found it necessary to make a post about the reasoning behind the nerf to fan down the flames a little bit.
So with out further ado, here is the post over at the Free Realms message boards...


Hey there, everyone.
My apologies for the delay in getting back to you on this topic. We know that the sell-back prices and coin drop rates in battles is on a lot of people's minds.
The very basic answer to 'why' we made these changes is that the coin drops coupled with high sell-back prices were generating far more coin in the game than ever anticipated. On our side of the spreadsheet there was just a huge amount of coin in the world. A lot of it wasn't getting spent, just piling up and reducing the value. Free Realms doesn't have a lot of coin 'sinks' to remove this cash from the game. Pet upkeep and health potions are probably the most popular, but in the long run, those are fairly minor compared to the amount of in-game cash that can be earned.
The cuts made recently were drastic, but something we felt was needed to stem the flow of coin into the game and reduce the effect it would have on the economy. Changes are often needed when it comes to in-game economies and we will increase or reduce sell and drop rates as needed.
Someone (I think it was Stefferweffer) asked about how new players will be able to afford post-20 armor and weapons for each character. Excellent question. We will keep an eye on the numbers and see if we need to correct them in the opposite direction. We will also keep going through items and upkeep costs and tweak those as needed. Reducing the flow of coin into the game was just one step. We will take everything into account and find a good balance.
The biggest issue with these changes was lack of communication. We didn't accurately (or at all) detail out the changes that were being added to the game. We won't always explain why we do things, but something like this should at least be announced either in the update notes or on the forums. For those of you coming from some of our other titles, you're used to very, very long update notes. We don't intend to list every change (positive or negative) in our update notes, but big-ticket items like this should definately be included and that was our mistake for not doing so.

As always, we welcome your feedback, but remember to keep it constructive, polite and on-topic.


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Free Realms News

Well it is a slow day for Free Realms News. So, instead I'll post some pictures I have taken in-game of the Community Manager Pex, and also a really cool pict of an Battle Axe on fire and cool Battle Armor.







Here is a cool picture of Pex dancing to the Dares when they had their E3 concert in Snow Hill.





Here is a really cool particle effect on a Battle Axe and Ninja Battle Armor.


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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 hosts The Dares Concert

So I went to the concert in Free realms that was supposed to be a live stream of the The Dares performing It's Your world. Instead what we got was a pre recorded animation of the dares performing to their MP3. The first time they came on stage the song ended half way through, then 15 min later they came back on and the full song played fine. I guess Sony made it seem like it was supposed to be a LIVE stream of the song The Dares were performing. Not a pre recorded MP3 of the song.

As posted on Sony's site:
Rock out with The Dares and experience the music of Free Realms in a live streaming concert on the …

So, as expected alot of folks were pissed and started to spam chat bubbles BIG time. That kind of sucked, but hey, when ya get 100's of people online in a space like this and then don't deliver, I guess you can expect that. And, on the Sony Forums people are pretty pised off. And rightfully so. Anyways, here are some of the screens I took and I'll have a video to upload of it all later as well...




And with this huge turn out as seen in the images above, The Dares set a guinness record for the most online for a concert?? Honestly I'm not sure what the actual record is, but they got one :)



Pictures taken by Hammerfel from Twitter @ E3

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Free Realms Game Update

Pex announced a game update last night with some minor changes. Mostly to subscription based palyers.

Members Only - Quests and In World Minigames

TCG :
If you've reunited the cardie crew, Sam Potts has a new challenge for you!
Seaside :
Slinky thinks he's got a cute for the hiccups. Want to help him test it out?
If you can catch him, Wernald needs help by his house.
Durango Zoo :
Zannia Sugarzing is offering a sweet reward for anyone willing to help her out.
Snowhill :
Jonathon Forkpath is looking for the next hero to take up his place as "Protector of Snowhill"
Wugachug :
Wootmoot is looking for those with musical talent for additional help! (Special Members Only quest at the end of the quest line.)
General :
Miscellaneous bug fixes and improvements.

Personally, I'd like to know what the miscellaneous bug fixes and improvements are. What is it they are tweaking? Does it effect game play? Anyways, this is the update for today. On a side note, I think they should give more rewards for the card game when we beat the quests. Throw up like 10 cards and let the player choose 2 or 3 of them. This does 2 things...it allows players to build their own deck faster to immerse them more in the CCG and it makes it so everyone will not have the same rewards, thus the same exact deck. People will still purchase virtual packs, but for those of us who don't it allows us to get more into the CCG with building our own custom deck.





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Free Realms Update notes

Free Realms performed an update on all their servers last night and added more quest givers for Members and put in optimization fixes for Video Cards. Hopefully they fix they slide show lag in high popualted areas. It really sloooows the game down for me...


Our latest update has a ton of new stuff. Here are the highlights:

* There are new members only combat, non-combat and collection quests added across the world (see below for details).
* Bristlewood now has its own warpstone
* Added in several new in-world minigames to Seaside
* Pets will stay happy, clean and fed for longer and will also find collection and mining nodes more often
* We've continued to optimize video card performance to allow lower end cards to have higher frames per second in game

Members Only Quests have been added to the following areas:

Merry Vale:
* Ronnie Britesmile is not allowed to play until he finishes his chores. He might give you something cool if you give him a hand!
* If you've already found Mugwopp for Blorple at the Greenwood Camp, he'll have a new task for you.
Briarwood:
* Recruit Agga afraid of getting lost in the hedge maze. Help him piece together a map.
Farnum's Farm:
* Rucks, the farmhand, has thrown down the gauntlet and has a series of challenges for skilled harvesters. Dare you take him on?
Pixie Nursery:
* Blazing Star and Flax thought that if they put a collar on their pet fish, no one would take it from the pond, but it's gone now! Help them find out what happened.
Wuagachug:
* Tugaboom would like a brave fighter to help him solve the rebelling Bixie problem.
Shrouded Glade:
* Cella Cedernook found a baby penguin and need help caring for it. "*Squeel!* It's so cute!"Meanwhile, Emil Jadefish and friend had a little boating accident. They could really use a hand!Tald Daybreaker's friend is lost up in Misty Mountains. Are you brave enough to rescue him?
Sanctuary:
* Auralie wants to invite the queen to her next party, but is too shy to ask. Can you help her deliver the invitation?Feldman wants to be a famous journalist, but need help gathering more information for a story he's working on.
Blackspore Swamp:
* Sirdo "Squirrel Chaser" is embarrassed about his nickname. Would you be willing to help him out so he can overcome his bad reputation?
Seaside:
* Rainchaser has more challenges for you.
* Kendall, the lifeguard, needs someone quick to help him out.
* Mr. Mudd is sickened by the trash on the beach, but has a fun way of cleaning it up.

New combat quests:
If you're a member see if you can help out the following people:
* Spruce Waynehammer's pet, Robin, keeps getting lost in the Bat Caves.
* Susy Cloudrunner by the Briar Patch has a big bear problem.
* Yuri Petaldancer by the rebelling Bixie Hive wants to taste what royal honey is like.
* Blari wants to cure the sickly saplings in Bristlewood Glade, but isn't strong enough to fight off the creatures there.
* Vasher claims he'd like to recover some old explorer bones from Cracked Claw Caverns so he can give them a proper burial.* Buttercup Webbywand's spider was kidnapped by trolls in Grexan's Camp.
* Help Puck Petalpucker near Misty Mountain ace his science project.
* Johnny has an idea for you to try out at the Mushroom Cavern.
* Jimmy Squarefeet's snowman friend has been kidnapped! Seek him out in Snowy Canyon.
* Jenny Greenteeth wants to plant some friendly plants in Treeleaf's Retreat.

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Free Realms Party ~ Brenlo and Pex Picts :)

Friday May 15th, 2009 at 8pm EST was the 1 mil. subscriber party. I jumped in and danced with Pex, Brenlo, and some others and took a lot of pictures. They had a boombox blaring some tunes and everyone was dancing and having FUN !!


One all servers the party was in Snowhill under the large Xmas Tree. I logged into multiple servers and they were all packed. I must say, Sony has really made this game alot of fun by going the extra mile for the community. Throwing parties like this really shows they are caring about this game and the players. For now .... hehe.

Here are some pictures I took of the party and Brenlo in his spiffy outfit...



The hotdog outfit is defiantely groovy. I want one !!




And here are some more pictures on Server 3 of the all the players dancing with Brenlo and Pex.







And here is a cool video of the party shot by a player...

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