This is part of a series of posts looking at virtual worlds targeted toward kids.
If your kids watch the same TV channels mine does, then you’ve probably seen the commercials for a new virtual world called Free Realms. My girl certainly saw them and wanted to go check it out, so our series of kid-focused virtual world reviews continues.
Free Realms
Free Realms bills itself as “a fun, whimsical virtual world filled with dynamic gameplay and compelling content for everyone, especially families.” It’s really more of a pure MMOG than any of the other worlds we’ve toured as part of this series. As soon as my girl set up her account (all by herself, except for my need to give her an e-mail to attach to the account) and entered the world, she was met by a character asking her to embark on her first quest. This prevents the “what do I do now” issue that plagues some virtual worlds, but also aligns more firmly with games such as the non-kid-focused World of Warcraft (WoW).
With more than a million people signing up for it in the first week and that number doubled already, it’s on target to be just as popular as WoW, too. In addition to quests, kids can work at a variety of jobs from pet trainer to ninja to miner and others mentioned below. Like most other kid virtual worlds, you can enter and play for free; but, for $4.99/month you can upgrade to get more things like additional job options, and you’ll also pay to purchase items.
The Good
Free Realms automatically limits kids under 13 to “quick chat” - my preferred choice for my youngster because it restricts them to a preprogramed set of words and phrases to communicate. That way you don’t have to worry about them giving out any personal information (but, don’t let that get you off the hook for still having that discussion about what you don’t share online).
Free Realms’ parent controls area also mentions that they intend to implement a feature which will permit you to customize a calendar to set times of day and/or days of the week that your kid will have access to the account online, as well as days and times during which they may play.
The Bad
I’m willing to bet that most of us teach our kids that fighting is wrong, so it’s a little unsettling to see that quests in Free Realms can involve combat and one of the jobs kids can get is called a Brawler. Brawlers are described as being “up for fight anytime with anyone” and they “use hammers, clubs, and powerful kicks to defeat enemies.”
We didn’t run into any Brawlers in our first few visits to Free Realms, but then again, we didn’t run into anyone other than the in-world characters who play parts in the quests. This may or may not be a bad thing, but struck me as odd considering there are supposed to be more than 2 million people in-world now.
The Lessons Learned
I only heard the “rated E for everyone” part of the commercials, but when you really look, you’ll see it is “everyone 10+” and I would reccomend following that age recommendation from the Entertainment Software Rating Board. Even more specifically the rating warns of “crude humor” and “fantasy violence.” We haven’t encountered the humor yet, but as noted above, the violence is definitely there.
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dropped in that image that wouldn’t work for me last night and pushed the review of Free Realms on @ThisMommyGig at [link to post]
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Close to half of the jobs are combat jobs. Fighting is a staple of MMO’s and Free Realms is no exception, given that in some ways it’s a kind of “gateway drug” for the more advanced games like Everquest 2 or World of Warcraft.
Let’s see… Brawler, Warrior, Medic(!), Archer, Ninja, Wizard, and if you want to get technical about it, Demolition Derby Driver. That’s closer to a third, I guess, and four of those are members-only jobs.
However, if fighting is a problem for you, then you might want to consider that it’s a reasonably large chunk of the game. Look on the map. See all of those crossed swords? Those are combat “instances”, or “dungeons” in the parlance of fantasy RPG’s. Likewise, just walking around the world you will run into all kinds of unsavory characters that are willing to fight with your character if you so choose.
You’d have to somehow monitor your child to insure that she never talks to the NPC that unlocks the Brawler or Ninja jobs. Otherwise, you pretty much just have to accept the fact and either forbid her to play or else explain the difference between fantasy violence (which is like watching a movie) and real-life violence.
The problem I’ve had with the combat missions in the game is that in trying to keep the motvations simple, they’ve sometimes made them a big morally questionable, IMO.
Somebody is stealing sheep’s wool? Okay, those are thieves who need to be taught a lesson. Fine.
Some money-grubbing fairy wants me knock-out lobster-creatures and take their gems because she’s “against ugly creatures having pretty things”… Uh… Come again?
As an adult I’m well past the impressionable age, but if I had kids playing the game, I might have some second thoughts about some of the missions like the one listed above.
I guess I’d advise that you don’t pay for a membership and you do your best to avoid having your daughter ever unlock the combat jobs. Might be hard to do, though, and she’d find that a large number of missions in the game are unplayable for a non-combat character. Still, there’s plenty of fun in being a miner or a postman.
Slick Riptide,
Thanks for taking the time to share your more in-depth experience with Free Realms! That additional insight is helpful to our readers who might be deciding whether or not to let their kids try it.
~LPT
Oh, a recommendation - I haven’t read through your site to check how old your daughter is (I’m guessing under ten). If she tries the Card Duelist game in Free Realms and enjoys it, and she also enjoys Harry Potter, then you might have her check out Wizard101. It’s a kid’s game whose premise is that the player is a character who has come through a portal to a school for wizards. The game is all about combat, but the “combat” is played with decks of TCG style cards. It’s one of the games where certain parts of the game are open to free players, and the rest are opened by subscribing or purchasing and spending in-game currency. If you’re sensitive at all about “fighting” then you should probably review it yourself first, just to be on the safe side.
Thanks, RipTide for the candor…will check out these sites you mention as well…Laura knows I’m big on VW following lately too…we’ve been wrapping up some research inside of tween site Elf Island.com recently doing a ‘virtual nutrition’ GoodQuest…finishes off today. It’s been fun playing with the kids ‘in world.’
Here’s some great footage of The Dares performing the Free Realms theme song “It’s Your World!”
http://www.clipser.com/watch_video/1323499
It was also announced the game hit the 3 million user mark in just 7 weeks… great game, and I definitely recommend checking it out!
The game now has over 3 million users in less than 9 weeks!
Oh, my children sign up for these “virtual” things all the time WITHOUT MY PERMISSION! What can I do to stop them?