So I have joined FreeRealms. If you want to find me in game, I’m Jhaer Buegren.
Thus far, I’m entertained but disappointed. As many people across the blog-o-sphere have pointed out, the game is fun. Or rather, the games are fun. I put it that way because the individual mini-games in FreeRealms for each of the classes are fun. However, “the game” as a whole, to me, isn’t.
What’s lacking are the social aspects. Finding your friends and getting them on your friend list is far too poorly implemented. Its hard. As of yet, I have none of my friends on my friend list because I haven’t been on at the same time as them, in the same place, so we can do that. With my Xbox360, I can add friends from the webpage. Why can’t I do that here? Also, no one talks. They are far too busy playing mini-games, which says something about the mini-games, but it also makes the game feel like I’m playing next to people rather than playing with people. I quit WoW because all of their social interactions take place in guild/group, auction, or Chuck Norris jokes (not really, but the innane quality of the general chat when it does exist floats around that level). FreeRealms won’t be really appealing to me until that changes. Puzzle Pirates has more social interaction than FreeRealms.
In any event, seeing as how, for now, FreeRealms is not something I’d be willing to put a single dollar into, I’ll be freeloading. I’ll keep posting about what its like to play a game with a velvet rope and RMT when you don’t participate in either. In Puzzle Pirates, I play on a doubloon ocean which allows me to do “everything” for free as long as someone buys doubloons and sells them to me for pieces of eight. So far, FreeRealms doesn’t offer a way I can grind past the monetary restrictions of the game. At least not one I’ve seen. We’ll just have to see how it goes…