MMO of the Moment: Free Realms

I have developed an interesting love/hate relationship with Sony Online Entertainment's Free Realms. The game is nothing but puree du MMO at nearly its finest. I tend to describe it thusly: it's Guild Wars, but... you know, for kids... with a bit of Puzzle Pirates thrown in. Those two comparisons particularly stick out in mind to describe the game, but there's bits and pieces that I've recognized from all over the MMO spectrum, including from my stints playing Disney's ToonTown and the more recent Cartoon Network's FusionFall. [1] Then there's a little bit of Mario Kart, the Petz series, and even a collectible card game for good measure. It's hard to find a more vasty collection of "kid-crack" games under one massively-multiplayer roof.

To be perfectly honest, I've spent most of play experience in a sort of "perpetual deja vu". Just about every game mechanic is borrowed from somewhere else. However, the game is executed admirably well. There certainly is a high degree of polish to the art and visual style. I've encountered more than my share of bugs, but I'm sure that most of them have been combinations of growing pains (two million registered players in a month is certainly strong growth, even if probably only a fraction of that is yet monetized) and what seem NAT traversal issues, which I have some small bit of control over. [2]

Allow me to use my earlier main referents to frame the remainder of my discussion: I think the game compares very favorably to Guild Wars. I've pointed out before that I'm not a huge fan of Diablo-style RPGs, and still have yet to complete even the original Guild Wars campaign, but I fell in love with ...