Free Realms membership detailed

By Oli Welsh Published 13 March, 2009

What's not so free-to-play.

Sony Online Entertainment has revealed the benefits of the optional subscription to its free-to-play family MMO, Free Realms.

The USD 4.99 a month charge - European pricing unconfirmed - will grant access to five exclusive jobs (or character classes), three character slots (free players only have one), leaderboard rankings, and hundreds of extra items and quests.

The members-only jobs include the Archer, Ninja, Medic and Weaponsmith. Wizard, Chef, Postman and Racecar Driver will all be free to all players, according to the Free Realms site.

Free Realms is due to go into open beta on PC next month, with a PS3 version later in the year, and it's looking slick as oil. More info on our Free Realms gamepage.

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About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (20) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • superjag86 #1 3 years ago

    Let's the currency-conversion-guessing game start!

  • Eraysor #2 3 years ago

    "Archer, Ninja, Medic and Weaponsmith. Wizard, Chef, Postman and Racecar Driver"

    Well I give them credit for thinking outside the box.

  • DFawkes #3 3 years ago

    Racecar Driver class? Sign me up for a sub, I'm in!

    I'm still not sure how this will go, given it's target audience, but I'd imagine it'll be alright, if a little generic. Except for having a Racecar Driver class, which is genius.

  • MyPointIs #4 3 years ago

    No surprises there.

    'Free' was the top euphemism of the twentieth century. Alongside with 'Peace'.

  • Kenshin001 #5 3 years ago

    Isn't this the game for pedophiles?

  • sneetch #6 3 years ago

    Postman eh? Well, at least they're being honest about the nature of their quests. :)

    I think I ended half the quests in WoW by saying "can you sign here, and here, and thank you for using FedAxe".

  • ZuluHero #7 3 years ago

    @DFawkes

    Racecar driver is free, so you don't need to sub for it. Which makes it doubly appealing! :)

    Im kind of interested to see how this actually works out, it sounds mad on paper...
    Edited by 1 at 13/03/09 @ 11:02

  • Widge #8 3 years ago

    poison edged envelopes of death?

  • penhalion #9 3 years ago

    @Sneetch

    You've pretty much summed up my experience of WOW quest system. I stopped playing after about the 10th such quest and got back to my real life. The way some WOW players describe the game you have to wonder whether Blizzard have been including free bags of crack with each box.

    As for free realms. It sounds ok as it's entirely without the level grinding and has suitably out of the box quests to appeal to the casual players. A MMORPG shouldn't take over someone's life. WoW players scare the frak out of me sometimes!

  • ZuluHero #10 3 years ago

    poison edged envelopes of death?

    That would give one doozy of a paper cut ;)

  • DFawkes #11 3 years ago

    Racecar driver is free! I didn't read the full stop in the middle of that sentence properly. This is sounding alright to me.

  • Rash' #12 3 years ago

    family friendly MMO? Cha-ching!!!

  • Entity #13 3 years ago

    $4.99 a month for the Americans = £5 a month for us gullible (they think) Brits.

  • reelbigkris #14 3 years ago

    Im worried about the target audience for this... i have not necesarily got into the MMORPG scene yet hope to play DC universe if it gets released. i plan on playing this because i belive its made by the same guys, SOE... why cant the medic class be free? since playign tf2 I play a medic in every class based game :p... i can imagine everyone will be race car driver

  • Kikizosan #15 3 years ago

    I'm interested to see what happens with this game, but if they knew they were going to have a members' version of the game, why did they call it FREE Realms? Sure, you'll probably get a load of stuff for free, but not everything. Maybe I'm reading into it too much, but it feels a little sneaky.

  • reelbigkris #16 3 years ago

    they are still taking aplications for the Beta... register at http://www.freerealms.com< /a>

  • stevetuck #17 3 years ago

    i guess sony gave up on playstation home? :S

  • iokthemonkey #18 3 years ago

    It would be ace if you get to be a Postman like Postman Plod ("He's a miserable bastard";) and nick everybody's mail and stuff.

  • Silvervein #19 3 years ago

    I wonder how many people will play as a postman, and then go postal on unsuspecting populace. I can just see the news headlines: Postal style masscacre in not-so-free realms! Postman driven mad by delivery quests still at large!

  • ArchMarduk #20 3 years ago

    family-friendly mmo ... ? ok .... nothing comes into my mind when saying those words .... what does family-friendly term refers to ?