arislyn played Free Realms

I spent most of my time running around doing all the Halloween quests. Heh! I loved that entire line. It started out so innocently, just going trick or treating...and ended up with me accidentally unleashing horror upon the land. Ooops!

In other Free Realms news, they recently posted a blog listing all the new things that will be coming to the game and I am psyched! I'm loving what I am reading. For the full blog report, you can go here: http://freerealms.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/november-december-updates/

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However, here's the short list of additions to come:

Housing
Yeah! Okay, yes. I know that housing is a generally a useless feature but I can't help enjoying it. I love creating my own space in the MMO world. It's just another way for me to waste my time and in-game currency. :P

More Pet Types
Right now, they only have cats and dogs. More variety = good.

More Action in Combat
Sweet baby jeebus...yes! I love Free Realms but...let's face it....the combat is "meh." We just don't have enough skills and variety, right now. So, this is definitely a fantastic thing.

More Mini-Games
Fishing & dye-making. Sweet! Again, more variety = good.

Holidays and Events
I loved the Halloween events and it makes me happy to know that they are going to continue doing cool stuff like this for other holidays.

Streamlined UI with More User Options
I don't think I need to comment on this.
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Now, there are a couple of things that I'm not too keen on.

Job Sampling
Basically, they're going to make all jobs free up until level 5. Then, they will all be designated as members only (except for adventurer and card duelist, which will always be free to level 20.)

Personally, I think that kind of stinks and may end up hurting them more than helping. By having a good chunk of the jobs free, they were insuring that players stayed with the game. This would keep people there who might well spend money on other things from the item mall. By making all jobs members only, you're making it so that you have to subscribe to play....and then having an item mall on top of that. Ehhhhhh.....no. No. I actually think that may drive people away.

Now, it's not going to drive the current player base away because everyone who had characters before Nov. 1st will be grandfathered in so that all the jobs that are currently free remain free to level 20. It's just going to put a major dent in the new players joining, in my opinion.

Dyes
On the one hand, I'm psyched about the new dye-making mini-game. On the other hand, it kind of stinks for the old timers who ran out of levels to gain and quests to do and, thus, turned to collecting the rare colored item drops. They had to farm their butts off for these items and, suddenly, all their work is for naught as people can simply dye what they have to look like what used to be a rare item.

Easier Shopping and Selling
They will be adding a button to the main screen that will let you access all vendors across the realm. One the one hand, hooray for easier shopping! On the other hand, it kind of makes having the vendors even be there obsolete. Why visit the towns at all if you can just get what you want from anywhere?