FreeRealms Beta Opens?

Posted on November 7, 2008 by Scott Jennings| 23 Comments

Certainly looks that way…

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  • Octopaganini

    You think they would have learned with Sovereign, but Smed soldiers on, throwing million after million at the lowest common denominator and still getting nothing back. Anything creative or bold they ever might have had has dried up, rotted out, and blown away in the winds of change. Keep chasing that casual dragon…maybe Oxygen has another founder you can add to your board, too.

  • http://ramblings.rebelutionstudios.com JoBildo

    It looks like something my niece and cousin will adore, and I’ll gladly play it with them. Hell, I’d even play it casually myself. It is free, right? *shrug*

  • Pandanapper

    I signed up to see if my god children would like it. The only thing that ticks me off is that someone too the handle Pandanapper! So if there is any PvP in this place that person will suffer!

  • Naladini

    My kids have been really excited about this one since the first couple of trailers made their way onto the net, and I’ve got a pretty solid vibe on it as well. This seems like a really positive direction for them to be headed in, eliminating a lot of the “ugly parts” from traditional MMO’s while giving a good mass-market pricepoint.

    The other stuff in their pipeline (Agency/DCO) shows they aren’t going entirely soft with their design direction. ;)

  • http://www.cesspit.net/ Abalieno

    Wow…

    I thought Warhammer had plagiarized most of WoW’s world art, but some parts of what I’ve seen in the trailer, like some textures, seem ripped right out of the client.

    A game entirely without personality, I’m curious to see how commercially viable it will be. It seems a patchwork that is good at nothing.

  • yunk

    I thought Warhammer had plagiarized most of WoW’s world art

    AGGHHHH my eyes! noooooo it just won’t die no matter how much we try to teach people warhammer came first

    brain hurts …

    people don’t know any gaming history….

    must fix with alchol…

  • Demonix

    Purge the heretic! Burn the unclean!

    FOR THE EMPEROR!

  • Random Poster

    “AGGHHHH my eyes! noooooo it just won’t die no matter how much we try to teach people warhammer came first

    brain hurts …

    people don’t know any gaming history….

    must fix with alchol…”

    Eh he said WoW’s world art, and the art in WoW came out before Warhammer online.

    Now if he had said something like “I thought Warhammer had plagiarized most of Warcrafts (starting)lore,” Then you could have that reaction.

  • http://www.thisisnotacommunity.org D-0ne

    Just say, no.

    The problem with concentrating minors and the Internet is Pedophiles. Combine that with SOE’s gross incompetence and ta-da instant horrific problems.

    Remember, I told you so.

  • Dartwick

    Voice chat is like anti-pedophile medicine.

  • Raelyf

    What is free realms?

    “Free realms is an attitude.”

    OH! NOW I get it.

  • Pandanapper

    @Abalieno

    They are probably using the exact same engine as WoW as well. I’m sure Blizzard could make a ton of money if they licensed their stuff out. Think about the Unreal engine. You see it in a lot of games now and some up and coming MMOs are using it as well, not to mention Gears of War 1&2.

  • Sleepy

    It looks cute, and vibrant, and like a lot of hard work went into it, I wish them luck.

    These days (or has it ever been this way), it’s not only money, but time — maybe I’m special but I look at this and all I feel is exhausted at the prospect of levelling up thru YAMMO (Yet Another MMO) — and I suspect I’m not alone.

    Well, we’ll see, I truly hope I’m wrong! The kids will decide.

  • Jediblues

    He was talking about Warhammer art, which Warhammer Online makes use of. WoW, and Warcraft in general, bears a lot of resemblence to Warhammer tabletop and the fantasy roleplaying game’s art style, which clearly preceeded anything warcraft.

  • Random Poster

    “He was talking about Warhammer art, which Warhammer Online makes use of. WoW, and Warcraft in general, bears a lot of resemblence to Warhammer tabletop and the fantasy roleplaying game’s art style, which clearly preceeded anything warcraft.”

    Until the Warcraft games there was no world art, you knew what the races and some of the gear looked like but had no clue whatsoever what the “world” looked like.

    So yes Races can look similar but lets be realistic here, how many different ways can one draw an elf, or orc or dwarf? If you want to get technical they all plagiarized Tolkein’s interpretation.

    Get over it

  • Ruby

    “how many different ways can one draw an elf, or orc or dwarf?”

    Are you seriously suggesting that illustrations of Tolkein’s work resembles anything Warhammer?

    There are tons of different ways to stylize fantasy races. There are tons of different visions of fantasy races.

    Just google image troll or orc and you will see such a wide array of different styles and concepts. You are grasping at straws.

  • dartwick

    The way most graphics software operates it tend to encourage similar animation in action games. Im not saying games have to look the same, but if you dont go for the hyper realism look its very easy to end up looking similar to other games.

  • Merkwurdigliebe

    Second Life killer, or Ultima 9 killer?

  • Sheepherder

    @Clueless People

    “World art” refers to art which the world consists of. This means ground textures, texture mapping effects, structural prefabs (including trees and rocks), water placement, procedurally generated decals, and terrain height mapping (probably some other stuff, but that’s the basics).

    WE DON’T CARE ABOUT YOUR TABLETOP GAME BEING “ORIGINAL”, GET OVER IT.

  • Merkwurdigliebe

    Well, call me crazy be it looks more fun than Lively.

  • Tony H.

    People seem to think that the original Warhammer table top game only consisted of some rules, back story and a bunch of miniatures. Guess, what, They had world art too! A lot of the world was laid out, stylized, described, painted and drawn well before Warcraft was even a glimmer in the eye of Blizzard founders.

    That being said, I actually don’t think Warhammer and Warcraft look alike at all. Warhammer does match the look of the original table top in terms of character models and setting wise. Warcraft looks more modern cartoon fantasy. Like it came from Disney, not Games Workshop.

    At least, that’s how I look at it. And Free Realms looks like it draws from the same inspiration. Disney inspired. Looks a lot like Fable too, actually.

  • Random Poster

    @21

    Personally I don’t think the WoW world looks much like the world of Warhammer art wise. Thanks to the way Warcraft was created and the heavy borrowing of lore that Blizzard use it makes people associate it with the Warhammer world which makes them think the art is more Warhammerish than it actually is. Warhammer has always had a heavy Gothic undertone in its art much more so than Warcraft ever had and WoW is even further from it than the original Warcraft games.

  • Toktuk

    “The problem with concentrating minors and the Internet is Pedophiles. Combine that with SOE’s gross incompetence and ta-da instant horrific problems.”

    My 7 year old has been playing Wizard101 for about a month and their chat/forum system pretty much eliminates any risk of something like happening. If you read the parental FAQ at http://www.freerealms.com/forParents.vm, it sounds like their system is identical to Wizard101′s. If that’s the case, I wouldn’t have a problem letting my children play FreeRealms either.