Set in a whimsical fantasy world that is more Shrek than Dungeons and Dragons, FreeRealms intends to be a casual MMO for a mainstream audience. the 3D environments look colorful and kid-friendly, with gnome-like characters in bright, sunny forests. You won’t need a credit card to get started and the title streams 30 seconds after downloading a small application. with the hardcore audience already busy with everything from World of Warcraft to Lord of the Rings Online, FreeRealms will offer “quests” along the lines of board games and competitive minigames.

At a press event last month, the developers explained that if players come across a couple of go-kart buggies on a track, they can hop in and race each other. A ball lying in the middle of a virtual field can lead to a full-on game of soccer. Or when you walk into a bar, a NPC can challenge you to a game of chess. All these minigames will be free as long as players endure an unspecified amount of in-game advertising.

FreeRealms has magic and inventory systems, but no class distinctions, so it seems a little light on depth at this point. Perhaps this will lead to more five-minute sessions instead of the huge time sinks found in conventional MMOs. the game promises a lot of NPCs offering a range of minigames, but hopefully they’ll stick with suggestions and leave the sales pitches out of the conversations.

The success of this new ad-based model will likely depend on how annoying the ads become, and whether they are too distracting to allow the feeling of immersion fantasy MMOs are known for. There will also be an ad-free plan for paying customers and optional microtransaction fees for some in-game items and areas. It’s hard to say how well this model will be executed at this point, but FreeRealms will be in beta later this year, with a full release planned for 2008.

FreeRealms

GAMERS competing against rivals around the globe in online multiplayer games have a new force protecting them – teams of virtual detectives.

While some companies cause havoc with email spam and viruses, a new type of spam company is targeting the huge worlds of massively multiplayer online video games, or MMOs, like World of Warcraft.

In-game characters controlled by individuals working for spam companies infiltrate these virtual worlds and bombard players with unsolicited ads for items for sale like swords and playable characters.

This type of activity is forbidden by all game publishers within their player rules of conduct.

Now Sony Online Entertainment, which oversees MMO games like EverQuest, Star Wars Galaxies and Free Realms, is flexing its muscle.

Sony has created the Norathian Underground Gnome Investigation Team or NUGIT, which refers to the fantasy world of Norath in Everquest.

The nine-member team focuses on in-game fraud, working like detectives as they police Sony’s game worlds in search of spammers and try to uncover their operations.

“People get very frustrated when they see spam. It’s the equivalent of junk mail and you’re getting this in-game and it’s very frustrating,” said Sony Online Entertainment president John Smedley.

To date, Sony has closed 295,000 subscription accounts across its MMO games as a result of NUGIT’s patrols.

Brad Wilcox, director of customer support SOE and manager of NUGIT, said these “farming” organisations were very organized.

Where there’s a demand…

Companies hire players to log online and build up in-game characters and accrue virtual items and gold by performing mundane activities.

These items are transported via “mules” to “runners”, who sell these items to players for cash through third-party sites.

Players looking to upgrade to better characters or access more powerful weapons can buy these items directly, saving themselves hours of playing the game to get these upgrades.

Game publishers don’t like third-party companies making money off their in-game world – and many legitimate players don’t like dealing with these interruptions to gameplay.

“Once a player reports a spammer or farmer to NUGIT, we watch the individual account and track other accounts of the mules and runners associated with the organisation,” said mr Wilcox.

“Rather than closing down one account, we’ll follow the individual and end up banning as many as 100 to 200 accounts based off one tip.”

Mr Smedley estimates the worldwide take of farmed virtual items is a $US2 billion ($2.38 billion) a year industry via these third-party companies.

“A lot of them are offshore. It’s very difficult to stop somebody that’s in another country, particularly one where the laws aren’t friendly to the US and it can be very challenging,” he said.

Sony does offer an alternative to its players, letting them convert real cash into virtual cash to purchase in-game items from the publisher legally and safely.

Since MMO game publishers rely on monthly subscription fees from players, ensuring they keep enjoying the game is key – but this does open up cash opportunities for farmers.

“As long as players want in-game items so much that they’re willing to spend real-world money on them, this is going to be a problem,” said Chris Baker, video game editor at Wired magazine.

Virtual detectives stalk EverQuest spammers Online Review, Cheats …