My name is Nick Parkinson (on the forums, you’ll see me as “Glip_the_Gnome”) and I’m the new Producer for Free Realms™. I’ve been at SOE for a while now and most recently worked on the EverQuest^®II team for their past couple of expansions. It’s a great time to be a Free Realms player and I am extremely excited to be joining the team right as the game celebrates its first birthday!

One year ago today, Free Realms officially went live and since then over ten million players have logged in to try their hand as a demo derby driver, brawling with robgoblins, playing a heated soccer match or any number of other fun activities available in game. And the best part is, we’re still continuing to grow and are welcoming more and more new players into our community every day. In addition to the all the birthday fun that went in with last week’s update, we’ll be running special birthday events all day, so log in and join the fun!

Don’t think the party’s over after the birthday celebrations die down though, we have a lot of great stuff lined up for the upcoming summer months. We have new pets, new items, entirely new types of rides (some might say they’re so cool, you won’t be able to keep your feet on the ground!) and a bunch of even bigger surprises in store for everyone this summer. I know the team is eagerly awaiting the time when we can start unveiling some of those bigger surprises, as we really think players are going to be just as excited about them as we are.

Without giving too much away (we don’t want to spoil it!) over the summer players can expect to see lots of new fun items to customize their houses with, cool new ways to show off their houses, new types of pets, fun summer camp inspired events and what is hands-down my absolute most favorite ride…of all time! Its going to be an exciting few months, and myself and the rest of the Free Realms team can’t wait to start releasing all the fun new stuff we’re hard at work on.

That’s it for now, but expect to start seeing these updates on a regular basis and I’ll see you all in game!

Thanks!

-Nick
Glip_the_Gnome

Greetings Realmians!

My name is David Georgeson. I’ve recently returned to SOE as the new Sr. Producer for “Free Realms”. (You’ll see me on the forums occasionally as “Mister_Qixter”.)

I’ve been making games for over 20 years now, and the games I’ve made are widely varied. My early career was mostly action games (including SOE’s own “PlanetSide”), but I spent the last few years at Gaia Online dreaming up and running the team that made “zOMG!”, immersing myself in that crazy, huge community and figuring out new ways to push the virtual world envelope.

Now, I’m leading the charge with the great team that’s already here on Free Realms, helping come up with ways to make your world even cooler and more fun. (And, boy howdy…do we have ideas! Oh yes…so very, very many.)

You may have seen some of the mysterious pictures that “leaked” earlier this week on our forums, twitter and Facebook pages.  And, while we are still trying to figure out who the sneaky mole is, I can announce that “Pirate’s Plunder” is the next 3-D mini-game that will be out later this week! In addition to the launch of this extremely cool game there are also new pirate-oriented clothing and housing items available, new characters around the world, and just generally awesome pirate-ish-ness going on. (You know you need a pirate ship outside your house, right? Yarr!)

But wait! There’s more! Want a tiger pet? Cool. We’ve got that too. Oh! You want improved Pegasus animations AND two more cool variations of the Pegasus Ride? We’ve got those too! (See!?! We listen to your comments on the forums. We really do.)

We’re also scheduled to debut a fun feature for members called “Pet Pals”, which are cute little mini pets that follow you around the world and keep you company. Pet Pals can be bought for coin or Station Cash. (Be sure to check out the Fish. Not to be missed!)

And, believe it or not, Free Realms will hit the one year mark in April! Yup, it’s our first birthday next month, and we’re going to celebrate in style. I’ll wait to unveil the details of that later, but the team has been in a frenzy coming up with a big event to wrap around that momentous day, and we aim to please.

So stay tuned! We’ve got some wild things being planned. Free Realms is going to get a lot crazier (read that as “wildly entertaining”) soon. You’ll see.

Until next time,

David (Mister_Qixter) Georgeson.

A partial list of my game credits (in chronological order):
Pools of Darkness (one of the first AD&D computer games ever made)
Absolute Zero
Mechwarrior II series
Heavy Gear 2
Crusaders of Might & Magic (the Playstation version)
Tribes 2
PlanetSide
Mage Knight: Apocalypse
zOMG!

And now…Free Realms!!!

Although the housing market in real life may not be doing so swell, Free Realms housing is flourishing. With all the hubbub surrounding housing, we couldn’t resist giving our players more tools to fuel their imagination. Does your house resemble a construction zone? For all those players, including myself, who love the blocks, this update allows you to choose from an additional number of new blocks with different shapes and textures. Try your hand at creating a spectacle, but don’t forget to take a few screen shots to share with others!

We didn’t stop there! Our new addition of interior and exterior decorations is sure to get any housing hound’s heart pounding. We’re letting you choose your own wall papers, roofs, floors, and ceilings!  Choose from a variety of options or get them all. It’s your world! Make your house a place to remember and a fun place for your friends to visit.

While player housing has been quite the topic in Sacred Grove, we also have a fairly large amount of pets that need adoptive homes as well. Free Realms is sure to have a pet for everyone. If you haven’t found one you like yet, maybe this update will have the pet for you.  Have you always wanted your own pet hippo? Do you like playing with spiders and beetles? How about an owl that knows math? Ever tried your hand at caring for a duckbill or a tiger? What about extinct pets?  I know I’m going to get myself a raptor and a t-rex or two for sure!

And, what better way to celebrate your new found friends than with a holiday party? Throughout February, the Festival of Hearts is being held in the ever-loving land of Merry Vale. Venture into the town with an open heart and bring some friends, because under all the beautiful decorations there is an interesting story to be told that may need a bit of mending. Spend time uncovering the secrets of the Festival of Hearts and enjoy the many treats along the way.

This isn’t all the February update has to offer, so keep your eyes and ears open and I’ll be seeing you in Merry Vale!

Cheers,

M. Margaret A. Krohn
Free Realms Game Designer
Sony Online Entertainment

HOLIDAYS

Snow Days is coming to Free Realms! Come play in the snow and tag your little sister (or big brother) with a snowball!  Celebrate the Holidays by wearing a Snow Globe Hat, and ring in the new year with special 2010 glasses. There are more than 30 other holiday items that will also be available!  And, get into the spirit- adorn your house with all new holiday decorations!

A decorated Snowhill and special holiday outfit were featured the very first time we ever showed a live build of Free Realms, and we’ve been looking forward to the winter holidays ever since!

Also, if you liked the Witch, Rag Doll, Mummy and Frankenstein costumes from Halloween, you’ll LOVE the costumes we created for the winter holidays!

PLAYER HOUSING

Everyone gets a free apartment, and Members get a free apartment AND a free house!  You can buy lots of fun house items, including a dance floor and a head shrinking cauldron! You can build all sorts of fun shapes and structures with building blocks, like a stairway.  Walk up those stairs you built and put chickens on your roof!

PETS

Soon you can have a white dragon, a pink spotted unicorn, and a black pony for pets.  Dinasaurs are available too…we thought the original T-Rex looked a little too… friendly, so he’s toughened up!

And, YES, it’s true… even dinosaurs and unicorns poop…although we added a bit of Free Realms flair to those animations… J

COMBAT

The new combat system has over-the-top attacks and super attacks!

All the weapons in the game will auto-magically be replaced with even better, cooler versions that include different special attacks and abilities for each weapon.  All of the battles in Free Realms were revised for the new combat system, to be full of monsters, frantic and fun!

ITEMS

After December update goes live, the most powerful items in the game can only be earned by playing minigames!  And, when you start a minigame, you’ll be able to see up-front what you can win playing it!

The new Coin Shop has tons of things to buy, including clothes, weapons, and even items for your house! Many items you purchase for Station Cash or coins let you customize the color at the time of purchase!

GENERAL

Starting with the combat jobs, every job has its own special run and jump… including the way you jump on the new launch pads!

We’ve also done a lot of work on the game UI (user interface), which we’re showing for the first time in this blog! The new UI includes MORE OPTIONS to customize the game the way you want to play!

In the new fishing minigame, you can catch a Baconfish, or the even more elusive Plattypus!

The December update isn’t just new content—it fixes many bugs too!

These features just scratch the surface of all of the great content, fixes, items, and features in the big December update. Keep watching the news… the update is just around the corner!

Laralyn McWilliams

Creative Director

FreeRealms

HOUSING

You asked for it, and you’re getting it: housing is coming to Free Realms!

With Free Realms player housing you’ll be able to pick from several house models (after taking a home tour, of course!) and decorate both the interior and your yard. There will be a lot of different furnishings available, including some fun and interactive party items like dance floors. Even better, your pets can be out in your yard and house, exploring and playing together!

MORE PET TYPES AND EASIER PET PLAY

Speaking of pets, we’ve had lots of great requests and suggestions for more pets, and we listened! Soon, you should be able to own exciting new pets like a Pegasus, a T-Rex, a miniature pony and yes… a dragon!

We also listened when players told us that interacting with and teaching their pets was too complicated. As a part of releasing these new pets and making pet tricks easier, we’re changing the pet trainer job into a series of pet trainer trophies. Now you’ll earn trophies by asking your pet to do tricks, without having to switch to the pet trainer job first. Your pet will also do the trick right away, so you don’t have to perform the trick over and over to get the result you want. The final pet trainer trophy will have a great reward: an exclusive version of one of the new pet types! Don’t worry—players who have already progressed through the pet trainer job will have the trophies automatically completed based on their current pet trainer level, and if you have a level 20 pet trainer, you’ll log in and get your new pet right away!

SAMPLE ALL JOBS

Right now, you have to be a member to play many jobs in the game, like Wizard and Blacksmith. You asked if we could find a way to let you sample those jobs to see if you like them. In November we’re set to update Free Realms with a new job structure that lets you play any job in the game to level 5 for free! Once you hit level 5, the job will be designated as Members Only. This lets free players try out every job in the game! As a thank you to our original and loyal players, each character created before November 1st will still have all of the free jobs playable for free, just like it is today. So if you’ve got a level 18 Ninja and you’ve been working on those last few levels, no worries—that character will still have Ninja available for free, all the way to level 20.  Remember though, if you delete that character, you’ll lose the special access to any such free jobs!

Adventurer and Card Duelist jobs are going to continue to be free to play jobs all the way up to level twenty (20) for all characters, regardless of the date they were created.

EASIER SHOPPING AND SELLING

There are a ton of merchants all over the world of Free Realms, and it can be really hard to find just the right outfit. We’re adding a Coin Shop to Free Realms, launched from the same button that opens the Marketplace. You’ll be able to browse almost all of the items available for coins, and buy them just as easily as you can shop with Station Cash! We also listened to your requests and we are working on an auction house that will let you sell your items to other players. The Coin Shop is scheduled to be available by the end of this year, and the auction house is set to be live in early 2010.

ITEM DYES

Starting in December, you’ll be able to choose a color for items you purchase from the Coin Shop or from the Marketplace! In early 2010, you’ll also be able to make and purchase dyes to change the colors of items you own! This includes clothes, armor and even furniture for your house!

MORE ACTION IN COMBAT

A large percentage of Free Realms players are fighting monsters every day, and they requested more exciting combat. We’ve been working hard on a new combat system that gives you more abilities, more action, and cooler weapons! Every combat job should receive a slew of awesome new weapons, and, in the upcoming weeks, each job will get its abilities right from the weapons! Like playing a wizard with fire spells? Pick a fire wand… or choose an ice wand if that suits your style. We’re giving you great new traits (passive abilities that boost your character’s power), and we’re also releasing lots of great new armor options. Behind the scenes, we’re tweaking monsters so you can fight more of them at once, adding an additional level of difficulty, making it more fun and rewarding to group up with your friends, and even letting you play your special attacks as emotes in the main world!

STREAMLINED UI WITH MORE USER OPTIONS

There are so many different things to do in Free Realms that all the buttons and gizmos and gadgets can get confusing! We’ve listened to your feedback, and we’re changing the User Interface (UI) in two key ways: we’re streamlining central elements like the game dock at the bottom of the screen and the atlas, and we’re adding more user options to let you customize your experience. Don’t want to get trade and friends requests? Toggle them off! Want to open your friends list? Click the Friends icon on the game dock! These new features should be available in late December.

MORE MINIGAMES AND MORE FUN

We have a great new minigame—and one of the top player requests—coming to Free Realms. Get ready for FISHING!

You’ll be able to hang out with your friends, pick your fishing rod, and catch some really funny fish in the waters of Free Realms.

We also have a new 2D minigame incoming in early 2010 that lets you make dyes for clothes and furniture.

We’re even making changes that will let you level ALL of your jobs more quickly and easily just by playing the minigames. Like the daily wheel you can spin to win free prizes? Each minigame will have its own reward wheel you get to spin! You can earn potions and even clothing items right from the reward wheel without having to do quests!

HOLIDAYS AND EVENTS

We had so much fun with Halloween that we’re doing it again! As soon as we finished all those spooky costumes and events, we started on the winter holiday celebration! We’ll have fun outfits, new items, and even new party places where you and your friends can celebrate in style. Keep an eye on the Free Realms forums for announcements of new items, weekly parties and contests.

Whew! As you can see, the team has been hard at work on your requests. Even though this is a long list, it’s really just the tip of the iceberg. We’re really excited about the amount of feedback we’ve been getting from players, so keep it coming! It’s your world, and we want to build what YOU want to do!

Laralyn McWilliams

Creative Director, Free Realms

October 28^th will officially be six months after the launch of Free Realms, and we’re working hard on new features and fun additions for the game. There’s a major, mostly unannounced new minigame coming that I’ll be talking about soon… but right now we’re all excited about our favorite October event: Halloween and the next Free Realms game update, SUPER SPOOKTACULAR!

The Free Realms team loves Halloween, and you can tell just by looking at the game. What other virtual world lets you dress up in fun costumes for so many different jobs? From all-pink ninjas to pixie bananas to the limited edition Fourth of July Uncle Sam suit, you can tell the Free Realms team loves costumes!

We love Halloween so much that team members hand-crafted their own Free Realms themed costumes based on the panda pet costume and robgoblin npcs before the game ever launched!

So, we’re going all out for Halloween, as our first major live event. I don’t want to spoil too many surprises, but the costumes are awesome. Our artists have pulled out all the stops to create some of the most fun Halloween costumes I’ve ever seen in an online game. Here are two of my favorites: the vampire and the witch!

For traditionalists, we also include actual Halloween costumes—the kind you wear when you go trick-or-treating, including masks!

Costumes are just the beginning, though. You’ll find Halloween decorations all across Sacred Grove, along with special quests and even a new themed match three minigame!

Please join us throughout October to celebrate Halloween and the six month anniversary of Free Realms. Thanks for help making our virtual world a great place to call home!

Laralyn McWilliams
Creative Director
Free Realms

There are two of us writing these official blog posts:

Andy Sites, Sr. Producer for Free Realms…

and

I’m Laralyn McWilliams, Creative Director for Free Realms. As Creative Director, I lead the design team and set our goals for how you play Free Realms, and the different activities you can perform in the game. My favorite Free Realms job is a tie between Miner and Card Duelist.

This week, we’d like to talk about two exciting updates coming for Free Realms: one you may have heard about, and the other we’re announcing for the first time!

First off, the Free Realms team is putting the finishing touches on the soccer minigame.

Soccer in Free Realms is a fun, fast-paced action minigame you can play solo or with a team of players. Two teams of six players each can pick their uniforms and take to the fields.

Like all Free Realms minigames, the soccer controls are easy to learn. You can run, kick, slide-tackle, pass or call for a pass, dodge and juke.

You can play soccer for leaderboard status or bragging rights, but you can also level up with the new Soccer Star job! Earn new shoes, jerseys and other items by playing quests, and level up by playing against game characters in fun scenarios.

Creating these quests and scenarios is one of the most important—and most challenging—parts of designing Free Realms. We have to come up with ways to make leveling up by playing soccer just as fun and rewarding as leveling up by fighting monsters or by racing karts. The core of that process is coming up with the objectives. Objectives are the goals you have when you play the minigame. For example, objectives for combat include things like, “Defeat the boss” and “Find the lost puppy,” while objectives for mining would include “Unlock 10 locked tiles” or “Create a chain of 15 or more tiles.”

For soccer, the goals focus around things that help you play the game and have fun, because the heart of soccer is in the action itself. So for soccer, we have fun objectives like “Slide-tackle the boss” and “Don’t let the ball get stolen.” Soccer is close to release, so look for more information about it in the next few weeks!

Another great feature coming for our multiplayer games is the matchmaking system. This will completely replace the current lobbies, letting you choose a multiplayer game to join from anywhere in the world. You won’t have to go to the gate to start the game, and it will match you with games from players anywhere on the server. Even better, you can continue to play while you wait for the game to start!

The new matchmaking system will make it faster and easier to find other players for multiplayer games. Watch for it to go live in the next few weeks, along with soccer.

Look for more information about game updates in this blog! We have lots of great features coming up this year—including housing—so stay tuned!

Thanks for reading the blog and for playing Free Realms. We’ll see you in the game!