Though I’m a day late I now have the second part of my demo of Free Realms, the upcoming tween/teen-aimed Massive game from Sony Online Entertainment. Yesterday I had a full writeup of the demo video and Laralyn McWilliams’ running commentary. Today I have brief notes from the Q&A session that followed and (more enlightening, I think) the full audio of that experience in the form of the MMOG Nation Broadcast #6.

Many thanks to Ms. McWilliams and the SOE community team for the chance to see the game; it was actually kind of inspiring. Read on for the notes, or go check out MNB #6.

• The Game is aimed squarely at teens and tweens, both boys and girls. The designers have no plans to favour male or female playstyles over the other – they want everyone to feel comfortable doing whatever they want.
• They feel that it’s going to have a wide appeal though, especially to families – kids who grow up playing this game aren’t going to stand for the BS associated with loot/spawn tables/travel time, etc. They’re going to go right to the fun.
• Three other races (besides Fae and Humans) are planned after launch. From concept art shown during the event, it’s likely one of them is a sort of Minotaur-esque race. Somehow they managed to make them *not* look like Tauren.
• All content updates will be freely available, regardless of subscriber status.
• Housing and Pets are planned to be a part of the launch package.
• Many of the clothing options are actually very modern, absent from fantasy. Players should be free to be the way they want in-game.
• Under-13 kids will only be able to have a game-generated ‘Facebook’ page.
• Even those younger players will be able to form friends list – by making friends with NPCs!
• Players will be able to interact with NPCs in ways ‘never seen before’ in other MMOs – think Webkinz.
• Ideally the community team wants the ability to plug character information into social networking sites and blogs.
• If you’re the top of a leaderboard, a moderator, or a fansite runner, you might have some unique way to display that in-game. Your name might appear in the weekly weekend fireworks display, for example.
• Exploration is a whole additional mechanic system for players – you can play out your Indiana Jones fantasies and be rewarded.
• Free-to-play players may be able to gain access to for-pay content via one-time tickets.
• Subscription content isn’t lost if players step back to free status, those items/content are simply not available while in that state.
• Endless inventory – there will be no restrictions on the number of items you can hold.
• Pets are very customizable, with different tail/ear/body types.
• Crafting is definitely one of the gameplay types they want to support, and you’ll be able to access the crafting mini-games they hope to have available right from the website.