I was surprised at how unwelcoming Free Realms was. Despite having a tutorial, and then dropping you in a small area with lots of job trainers, it seems pretty aimless and meandering at first. Go talk to that guy? Why? What's in it for me? It wasn't until I got a couple levels in a few jobs that I started to understand what the game was about, and it wasn't until I found the mining minigame that I decided I was having fun.

I can see exactly where your coming from Lemmo. I remember feeling something like that when I first started. I think it is because they want to stress the "you can do whatever you want" element of the game. Giving you specific direction might hinder that, or something.

There are only 2 problems that I have with freerealms right now.

1st: The mining/harvesting/artifact minigames are all the exact same. Leveling your miner and chef get EXTREMELY tedious. I mean to the point of slamming my head against a wall.

2nd: The chat. The community is mature and happy, that's not the problem. The problem is the chat itself. The freaking chat filter that blocks virtually EVERYTHING. For instance, I can't say the word "something", because that word contains the word "meth" (so-meth-ing), so it looks like "so####ing" when you say it.

You cannot said "raids", because it has "aids". You cannot say numbers in the form of "1, 2, 3, etc" or "one, two, three". You can't say "got it", because even though it is spaced apart, the 2 words still contain the word "tit", so it will look like "go####".

Aside from those 2 things, freerealms is a pretty sharp casual MMO. This article is a good write up.

I should also point out, you cannot turn off the chat filter. And Yeah, that's right, this community is mature, even with it's target audience, they act more mature than in most MMO's that I've seen.

I agree completely Of course they are similar, They are both targeted a you people who need a 0 effort easy mode approach, theres a big difference between a time filler and a game.

Lemmo is right. Although you can certainly have fun without learning the nuances of the game there are a lot of features that remain a mystery unless you feel compelled to investigate on your own.

The STAR system is one of them. While it may seem pretty straightforward once you learn it, discovering it in the first place shouldn't be the player's responsibility.

I am a Free realms subscriber and play every day (just canceled Warhammer for it) but it has some growing pains.

Pingles: I'd even say the whole shard/accessory/star/gear system is rather concealed. As simple as it is, I still forget to equip the best shards, or check to see if I have new gear, because it's all hidden in submenus, and the fact that some gear isn't just job specific but available for groups of jobs means that I might remember to upgrade one of my jobs, but forget to do it for the others.

I'm still enjoying the game as a whole. It's kick###.