Why Darren’s not drinking kool aid

Hudson says:

August 22, 2008 at 12:44 pm

Why as in why bother with a walkthrough or just didnt see the need? I liked it it was nice and concise. Good stuff

Tipa says:

August 22, 2008 at 12:52 pm

I know you’re in love with mono-word posts lately, but for those of us who can’t a) view gamer sites at work and b) can’t watch videos from work in any case, could you be a little more descriptive of what would be found if one were able to follow the link, and why it’s noteworthy?

Lately, I dunno. Maybe you should can the blog and just use Twitter?

Darren says:

August 22, 2008 at 1:08 pm

Are you grumpy today Tipa?

I’ll change it just for you.

Jalann says:

August 22, 2008 at 2:30 pm

That’s impressive.

I seem to remember a few years ago when SOE called WoW’s graphics too cartoony. They were lauding their “realistic” graphics of EQ2. Now it seems they have a good Dev Team working on this and a very good product. I’m surprised this is SoE.

Jalann says:

August 22, 2008 at 2:41 pm

Hey who’s narrating this?

Darren says:

August 22, 2008 at 2:45 pm

@ Jalann: I’m guessing that’s Laralyn McWilliams, the Lead Designer

Aaron says:

August 22, 2008 at 2:55 pm

So basically: if Dr. Seuss made an MMO.

Genda says:

August 22, 2008 at 3:01 pm

I think you’ve just chosen a different flavor of Kool Aid.

Hope you like it as much as I like mine.

Tipa says:

August 22, 2008 at 3:04 pm

If that’s Free Realms on the link, I had a good long look at it at Fan Faire. It’s more like what if Chuck Jones made an MMO.

Looks kinda grindy; you have to farm stars to upgrade each profession individually. You can have a LOT of professions, so that’s a lot of star farming…

Hudson says:

August 22, 2008 at 3:16 pm

Ok got ya NOW it makes sense. That first title kinda threw me off. But yay Laralyn McWilliams, pretty sexy voice

wilhelm2451 says:

August 22, 2008 at 3:17 pm

“…we’ve made delivering the mail interesting and fun.”

This makes me want to cry, since what they showed while making that statement struck me as neither interesting nor fun. Am I a bad person? Am I a hater?

Also I’ll second Tipa’s request for more information about your linkage. For all we knew, you could be sending us to a site protesting how Kraft Foods is poisoning our children with colorful, sugar-laden drinks.

(And, completely on a tangent, once, in college, I made a Kool-aid reference in a public speaking class that was being taught by a professor named Jim Jones. I had never seen 20 people do a spit-take at once. It was amazing.)

Genda says:

August 22, 2008 at 3:25 pm

@Wilhelm-

That’s funny right there.

Hudson says:

August 22, 2008 at 4:04 pm

HA HA

Nice.

Jalann says:

August 22, 2008 at 4:06 pm

Interesting this last weekend I had to explain what the phrase “drinking the Kool Aid” meant to my wife, brother-in-law and his wife.

brent says:

August 22, 2008 at 4:41 pm

Jalann, how did you explain it to them… in my minds eye I see ….

(shimmershimmer)

“So, Koolaid drinking. Picture this, there are they two gamers, let’s call them Heartless and Brent… and then we have these two different video game companies. Now imagine if H and B liked different things …”

(shimmershimmer)

That would be awesome.

TheRemedy says:

August 22, 2008 at 6:27 pm

When are we gonna stop apologizing for these games and say it’s not okay to have combat that can be accomplished with one hand? Free Realms: Yet another mmo where you can take a nap while fighting! I’m not asking for Ninja Gaiden or Devil May Cry combat depth, especially in a children’s game, but will any developer ever make a game that takes actual skill to play well?

Jalann says:

August 22, 2008 at 7:59 pm

I told them the whole story of Jim Jones. My mother-in-law was there to fill in the gaps. I was 3 to 4 years old one it happened. It’s strange that I should remember it. My parents were driving me home from a restaurant when the news came over the radio. As a child, I remember asking my parents what cyanide was, what suicide was and what was so bad about Kool Aid.

No, I don’t remember their answers. I just remember them looking at each other during the radio report and me asking them questions.

llich says:

August 23, 2008 at 3:19 am

But it has ninjas !!!!111

If that’s the future of MMOs, i’ll going to raid the local candy shop, that would be more interesting and FUN(tm)…

Sara Pickell says:

August 23, 2008 at 5:11 am

Part way through that walkthrough I felt myself completely blown away.

It’s not about whether their design has all the right answers, it’s that during their design process they asked the right questions.

syncaine says:

August 23, 2008 at 2:38 pm

Not coolaid indeed. Crazy people drink coolaid and believe. You must be getting paid richly to actually sit through that video and still retain any interest at all.

They featured mail delivery as something to look forward to. The ‘fetch x’ quest design now has a full class built exclusively for it, with an AWESOME run faster ability, how great… Guess they never played LoTRO and did the Shire mail delivery quest, complete with hobbits that you must avoid like the dogs. Problem is, in LoTRO it was thankfully only one quest, not an entire ‘feature’ to look forward to, or to promote in a video. It’s like SOE saw the ‘chicken play’ think LoTRO did, and said ‘Ok, lets design something even more worthless than that, and then toss in a ninja’.

Being burned out on MMOs is one thing, everyone needs a break, but to peddle this as the future…?

Sente says:

August 23, 2008 at 5:19 pm

That video did not make me interested in playing the game.

But I am also pretty sure I am neither the target audience for the game, nor the target audience for the presentation.

The mail delivery was probably easier for them to demo and they did certainly did not show that much of the different play styles they mentioned. It seems more that they showed how some features from other MMOs looked like in Free Realms rather than trying to make the game stand out as a different take on things. Remains to be seen, but I thought the game was more interesting from what she said rather than what she showed.

Solidstate says:

August 23, 2008 at 5:29 pm

For a free MMO , it’s a very nice… for 12 year-olds.

Lots of mini-games inside? All combat is instanced? Mobs that get little stars around their head when you beat the them? Heck even some 12 year olds I know would get tired of such a game quickly. FreeRealms will obviously have a lot of nice little games/features, but by choosing to spread out their focus, by necessity they will not have enough depth any specific area to satisfy a grown-up who wants a bit more sophistication from his/her MMO. How many abilities did that ninja have? 4? How many gear options?

I see nothing exceptional or truly innovative. The ability to switch your class instantly (and without any in-game currency penalty) is just a design decision – the opposite of what WoW devs chose, but that doesn’t make it innovative. The inclusion of mini-games is a detriment IMHO to a serious MMO, not something helpful. For that matter, it’s also a waste of dev time – WoW (and any other game with a programmable API) allows many mini-games to be programmed (as indeed they have) by fans. I didn’t see the video till the end, so if they talked about the crafting mini-game and if it’s any good, that perhaps is an exception to the rule – a good crafting system can be a lot of fun.

Darren, if you truly believe FR is innovative or the way MMOs will look like in the future, I’m sorry to say, I personally believe in that case you’re drinking something considerably stronger than Koolaid ;p

Ethic says:

August 23, 2008 at 10:47 pm

I liked a lot of their ideas and goals, but the implementation left me much less enthusiastic. It should be popular, but not sure how much fun it will be. Worth checking out anyway.

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