So yeah, I’ve totally switched sides from dubious to a fan.
The most complex part of Free Realms is reporting your level. I logged off at:
Adventurer Level 2
Blacksmith Level 5
Brawler Level 2
Chef Level 8
Miner Level 6
Pet Trainer Level 8
And level 1 as Card Duelist and both the Cart Racing Careers.
Whew!
And Angela’s were:
Adventurer Level 5
Pet Trainer Level 8
And level 1 as everything else. 🙂
But she has a ton of Treasure Tickets (she’s done a ton of non-job specific quests), and I only have a few. We’re not sure what Treasure Tickets get traded for yet, though.
We both played all evening, though not partied up. I was working on mining/blacksmithing (lots ‘o mini-games) and she was just exploring. Every few minutes she’d chuckle or laugh outright and share something new she’d found. And my experience was the same when I was running around.
The game is funny and cute in a lot of subtle ways, but you really need to tune into your inner child for a lot (but not all) of it.
I’m hoping they’ll add more mini-games eventually. The Jewel Elimination game is used in Harvesting Cooking Ingredients, Mining Ore and Jewels and Blacksmithing (and who knows, maybe more..I haven’t seen everything yet). Some subtle differences in the goals, but the mechanics are all the same. And cooling and smelting are pretty similar conceptually, too.
I’ve heard people complain that Free Realms is grindy, and if you approach it in a typical MMO fashion it sure can be. I’ve found the way to play it is just to follow your feet. Allow yourself to be distracted. Start harvesting veggies for a recipe and get side-tracked by a monster to fight and then notice someone wanting a Card Duel and spot some shinies and chase those and just… play.
My one worry is about longevity. It looks like job levels top out at 20 (just from looking at when skills become available) so it won’t take very long to max out everything. Whether that’ll be a problem or not, I’m not really sure. I wasn’t really doing anything to chase levels tonight. Just running around having fun. The levels were a side-effect, really.
I’m curious to know what Blacksmith is like? And pet trainer? It looked quite cool from what I’d seen? (I am *hide* a level 15 card duelist and level 9 miner)
About treasure tickets… http://werit.blogspot.com/2009/04/treasure-tickets.html 🙂
@Spinks Blacksmith, at least at this early level, uses stuff a miner collects, plus some ingredients from a vendor, to make weapons via the same Gem Removal game that is used in other Jobs. Have you tried Mining? If so, it’s the same kind of thing. Intermixed with the Gems will be Hammers and you have to remove all the Gems under them so the Hammers fall out of the gameboard and into a mold beneath the board. Each Hammer fills the mold a little bit. When its full, the game ends immediately and you get the item.
So far I can only make a couple of things (Brawler and Warrior weapons and I believe a weapon for the Archer and Wizard classes) and they’re pretty weak. Hopefully I’ll get some more recipes soon!
@Werit Thanks for the treasure ticket tips! I think Angela has something like 200 tickets, so sounds like she’s going to need a cart to carry off her winnings. 🙂
No, Angela has something like 350 tickets, LOL.
I see Werit already filled you in on treasure tickets…. I had googled and found his blog post about it already (mucho helpful, thanks Werit!). I turned in about 285 and got some nice items, most of which I couldn’t use yet due to level 🙂 But they will be nice when I get there for sure!
I think I’ve got 38 levels across the different non-member classes, with Miner being the highest at 11. I need to get 100,000 in the tin mining mini game to get the next quest in that line, but I’m not managing to get above about 89k on a good run, so I’m a bit stuck.
Wait, you’re having fun in an MMO? Get back in line and grind, proletariat!