Let’s talk Free Realms, shall we?

So, the Free Realms NDA dropped last night – I found out just as I had written my last Twitter update for the evening, about to jump into bed. Luckily for me, the urge to play some Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2 on my DS was stronger than staying up and writing about FR. Since then, a few people – such as Tipa and Stargrace – have had time to at least give some initial impressions of what might just turn out to be the MMO-equivalent of Harry Potter and Pokemon rolled into one (sorry, Wizard101).

So, yeah – here’s a screenshot.

I tried to make a character that looked a bit like me – or as I would’ve looked if I lived in a fairy tale, actually had any form of muscles and had the face of a cartoony male photo model. And yeah, ever wore shorts. Which I never do. And I currently have a mustache to go with the goatee, so he doesn’t really look like me at all.

Anyway, I digress. Let’s get down to the impressions instead, shall we?

First of all – the world in Free Realms, supported by the beautiful graphics, is awesome. I love it to bits. The design is great, thought through and consistent. I love the little details and it invites me to explore more of it. Yes, it does borrow, sometimes quite heavily, from World of Warcraft, but with a new sense of…style? Runes of Magic took a lot of inspiration from World of Warcraft as well, but where it failed to find a design language of its own (except for Varanas, which I really love) Free Realms does a much better job.

Free Realms is a MMO filled with mini-games, as most people already know – actually, from what I’ve seen so far, everything is a mini-game. Cooking, harvesting, cart driving…even the combat is a form of mini-game. I haven’t explored that much yet (I’ll get back to why later), but I have never been attacked by a random mob, instead it’s a matter of walking up to a monster and see what kind of combat-based mini-game is associated with it. If you’re used to dodging aggro in any other MMO it might feel a bit weird initially, and it might actually change at later stages in the game – feel free to comment below and correct me if I’m wrong here.

Now, from what I’ve seen, the mini-games will make or break Free Realms. One of the reasons why I haven’t really explored as much as I could have done is that I’m afraid that there will be a character wipe when beta ends. Runes of Magic never did that, launch for that particular game was more or less a patch and off we went, but that’s more of an exception than the norm. There probably will be a wipe at some point, either from closed to open beta or from beta to launch, and I am really worried about replayability. Right now there is one tutorial and one starting area – I’ve already quested and mini-gamed my way through them twice (both my SOE-accounts got flagged for the beta). I can’t really see myself doing it a third time…

With that said, the mini-games can be a lot of fun. The go-kart racing is great fun, even though it is mostly a more primitive version of Mario Kart. The combat is pretty standard so far, but I don’t have that many abilities to choose from yet so that might improve later. Cooking is probably the mini-game I enjoy the least, it did get old pretty fast, even though I can see myself getting hooked trying to finish off my various meals with as many bonus points as possible at some point in the future…

As much as I am enjoying Free Realms now, I do see a few problems with it. Leaving the whole “it’s a game for kids”-issue for now, I wonder if the game ever will actually give an incentive to get organized. Right now there is no guild functionality, it will be added around launch, but will there be a real reason to work together in a guild except for having a private chat channel? I am not talking about raiding here, of course not, I would just like to see what guilds actually can accomplish in a group. It is a MMO, after all.

Which leads me to my second issue – is it MMO enough or does it use too much instancing? Saylah (of Mystic Worlds) comments on this issue on Tipa’s blog entry linked above, saying that she “can’t count this as an MMO anymore than most people do GuildWars”. She also asks if that changes later in the game, which is a valid question related to what I wrote about the combat mini-games earlier. Instanced MMOs make me want to cry, so I’m hoping for a more open world at higher levels.

The final part of the puzzle for me is how the item shop is supposed to work when the game launches. It’s not available now, neither is the membership option. How will that be balanced with the rest of the game? If I don’t become a member, I will lose out on three of the game’s jobs, a bunch of mini-games and some quests. If I don’t spend money at the cash shop I can’t have a permanent pet. Becoming a member or not is all related to the two issues above (paying a monthly sub would mean actually playing enough to warrant a subscription), but if the item shop isn’t handled right I won’t even go near Free Realms again.

As of now, I’m cautiously optimistic. I really like Free Realms and would love to see it evolve – it’s only in closed beta, after all. I want to see my issues resolved in one way or another and I’d love to play it now and again for a long time. It might even be worth finally getting that SOE Station Access, since FR-membership will be included in that package. I’ll get back to Free Realms over and over again, most likely.