f13.net

"FreeRealms is fantasy, but it’s whimsical fantasy. It’s not RMT per se, the idea of selling special customizations is key. You can play the game completely free. It’s ad-supported, you can customize your avatar to your heart’s content, then there will sort of be an additional catalogue of items we’ll be selling that will allow people to customize even further."

He particularly noted: "It’s our first experiment in the fantasy space with this concept, what we call the ‘velvet rope’ model. We’re taking our cues from some of the other successful games in the Asian market, titles like Kart Rider. You know, Mario Kart except you buy your power ups? Games designed around that concept can be very successful, without the problems we see in unsupervised RMT. I want to expand the concept of customization into player selling to one another, and creating for one another. FreeRealms is going to be a big push in that direction."

When pushed further on some of the unique aspects for FreeRealms, Smedley explained: "One of the key features of the game is the notion of creating content for other players. We don’t want to evoke the feeling of ‘typical MMO’, we want a ‘crazy place you go to have fun.’ One day you might be on a race track, one day you might be on a soccer field, the next day you might be playing chess … or, you know, you can go fight some trolls."

He continued: "Our big goals with the game are whimsy and accessibility. User-generated content: I want to get it out of the space of buzzwords and into the game. Everybody talks about it, but it’s hard to pin down. I rather give people some lines, and say “color inside these any way you want.” Then you can’t just generate whatever you want, but you have users creating content themed towards our goals."

So how is this going to be possible? "We’re developing fairly robust tools towards that end. How about letting players make their own mini-games? The UI toolset we’re using is called ScaleForm, and our goal is to take UI customization to a level no one has seen before. This is being created right now, as we speak, and one of the goals is modification of the client/server interactions in ways that other players can see. It’s going to be pretty awesome."

While the company’s traditional fantasy and science-fiction games have been aimed at a hard-core male audience, Free Realms is basically aimed at children, especially girls. The game will be free to play in general, but will require paid membership for access to special zones and activities (hence the term “velvet rope”). In terms of microtransactions, players will be able to buy virtual in-game items like pets and clothing à la carte. And there may also be advertising inside the game.

To reach out to girls, Mr. Smedley realized he had to hire more women. The creative director and art director on the game are now women.

“I just can’t explain to a 30-year-old single male why 10-year-old girls like horses,” he said. “We were trying to figure out what pets to put into Free Realms and before, the lead designer was a guy and he definitely wanted things that could fight. And when we got more women on the team, it was like ‘No, no, no. We need puppies and horses in there.’ ”

the lead designer was a guy and he definitely wanted things that could fight. And when we got more women on the team, it was like ‘No, no, no. We need puppies and horses in there.

Good idea, about time a western dev house w/ some money took this game model seriously.  I'm not super thrilled they are going with the kiddy/girl/social/pet/avatar angle, but I'm not surprised and I dont think its a bad idea either.

My first thought was, "It's SOE. You know they'll fuck it up somewhere."

But then I saw IT HAS PUPPIES!

And I knew everything would be all right.

PUPPIES!

(http://arniemarge.tripod.com/arniepups5.jpg)

(http://pulse2.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/11/geocities_logo.png)

Love this game.

(http://af.lygo.com/d/common/logo.gif)

(http://www.teevblogger.com/images/aol_logo0406.jpg)

(http://w.eimg.net/i/nav/earthlink_logo.gif)

Shit. Wicked burn.

I didn't want to have to go nuclear but with the rapid escalation I felt I had no choice.

I'm missing something and I have no idea what it is.

The puppies are cute though, you have to admit.

Actually I did a search for boxer puppies after the big blazin' exclamation by Haem.

Rule 94: Thou shalt not leech images from random site you find on Google, as they can be replaced with goatse at any time.

I'm sorry I missed that now: I love boxers.  As in the dogs.  But according to the wife they drool too much so I have collies instead. They'll have to suffice instead.  Sadly, I was unable to host them on compuserve.

Why wouldn't you just keep your dogs at home with you?

V

You don't have a little girl.

It's very fucking hard for daddy to say, "No."

If he does that, daddy's little girl will probably get caught fellating a CCP dev in 0.0 space instead.

So they are making a game that will appeal to gradeschoolers... that the players can script their own content into... anyone else see a problem with that?

I didn't need SOE to show me pictures of dicks and pussies scrawled on the bathroom wall in middle school.