Line #28 VideoGame/FreeRealms


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/free_realms.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:Nine realms, one world- infinite possibilities]]
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4	->'''Anne:''' I'm sure you wouldn't like it - it's a lure for young people. One creates a ''[[NinjaPirateZombieRobot kart racing fairy chef]]'' who, when not [[CuteKitten playing with kittens]], explores mines while building decks for a magical card game. You can also be a wiz-
5	->'''Gabe:''' [[{{Squee}} EEEEE!]]
6	->'''Anne:''' ...ard.
7	-->-- '''Webcomic/PennyArcade''', "[[http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/4/15/ On Weak Points And Massive Damage]]''
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9	''Free Realms'' was an [[AllegedlyFreeGame allegedly free]] MassivelyMultiplayerOnlineRolePlayingGame developed by Creator/SonyOnlineEntertainment and was released in April 2009. Unlike in many other [=MMORPGs=], combat was optional and the game's focus was spread over several other job paths such as kart racing, construction work, soccer and exploration, so there was something for everyone. The game also had its very own online Trading Card Game.
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11	The game was set in the fantasy world of the Sacred Grove, which was divided in to several different regions, each with its own theme. Despite being a whimsical place, there was an ongoing storyline, which hinted that not everything was what it seemed.
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13	Said to be a casual ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'', ''Free Realms'' hit over one million players 18 days after it was launched and by its one-year anniversary had over 10 million players. Sony had since released versions for the Mac and Platform/PlayStation3, but ''Free Realms'' became a {{Defunct Online Video Game\|s}} on March 21st, 2014, SOE citing dropping player numbers and the difficulty of monetizing younger players. However, there is a fan effort to revive the game, dubbed ''[[https://www.frsunrise.com/ FR Sunrise]]'' (from the same group behind ''[[VideoGame/ToontownOnline Toontown Rewritten]]'' and ''VideoGame/FusionFall Retro'').
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15	----
16	!!Tropes used by ''Free Realms'' include:
17	* AbortedArc: When you defeat [[EvilChancellor Geoffrey]] in "The Queen's Last Hope", he mentions that "my master... still pulls the strings... from the shadows..", hinting some ManBehindTheMan was behind his coup attempt. However, this was never followed up upon.
18	* AllegedlyFreeGame - Unless you subscribed, you were unable to advance to level 5 or higher in the Jobs, a wall you could hit in most jobs in just a couple of hours of play if you took it easy. Of course, standard stuff like decent clothing, pets, mounts, also required a subscription and/or buying Sony's "Station Cash." Many quest-givers also refused to let you progress beyond a certain point in their storylines unless you became a member.
19	* AndYourRewardIsClothes - This was the standard reward from many job-related quests, and generally considered a better reward than mere coins. For the combat jobs, the clothing also happens to act as armor.
20	* ArtifactOfDoom: Some later missions and in-game events had Gloam Council artifacts posing a threat to the players- one time, they even managed to infect all of Shrouded Glade!
21	* BeePeople: The Bixie were literally this, looking like a cross between a Pixie and a bee. Complete with HiveCasteSystem, although some of the workers were beginning to rebel...
22	* CollectionSidequest: This game was chock full of them. There were several dozen general collection quests and this didn't include the additional ones for each job path. This trope ran into FakeLongevity at times and since it appeared to be [[LuckBasedMission luck based]], it could get frustrating at times.
23	* CrypticBackgroundReference: There were references throughout the game to lands outside Sacred Grove such as Black Forest, Lavender Coast, Silver Hills and Sunstone Valley, where other races had retreated to after the GreatOffscreenWar. There are even roads which lead to them which have been blocked off. Only Sunstone Valley was opened up before the game was shut down- it was deserts and mesas.
24	* EvilChancellor: Geoffrey to Queen Valerian- he was the one who drove away Princess Lavender and caused her to become Darkthorne, exiled the Chugawugs and nearly started a war between Sanctuary and Briarwood; he poisoned the King and Queen and killed them before the events of the game.
25	* FantasyCharacterClasses: The combat jobs were Archer, Brawler, [[TheMedic Medic]], {{Ninja}}, Warrior, and Wizard.
26	%%* FetchQuest: In long quest chains this invariably came up at some point. In fact, these "[=FedEx=]" quests are probably why the Postman job even existed.
27	* FishingMinigame: There was an entire job path devoted to this and the FishingForSole dilemma was mostly averted.
28	* FrothyMugsOfWater: It's Sarsaparilla, damn it! Despite there being a festival which sounded and looked like Oktoberfest at the village where it is brewed.
29	* FurAgainstFang: During the Halloween event. But because this was a family-friendly game, the vamps and weres duked it out in dance-offs.
30	* GardenOfEvil: Thistlerow was your average highly dangerous [[TheMaze hedge maze]] complete with giant thorns and plant monsters.
31	* GhibliHills: Most of the current world map was made up of this and it is called the Wilds.
32	* GottaCatchThemAll: There were a ''lot'' of collections to fill. This was also the way you level up the Adventurer job (especially when collecting tokens for exploring out-of-the-way portions of the map).
33	* GoingPostal: An unusual inversion- instead of mailmen shooting everybody, there were a group of semi-anarchists who wanted to destroy Sacred Grove's postal system for unclear reasons (which also edged them into the territory of TerroristsWithoutACause).
34	* GreatOffscreenWar: The story of "The Great Unbinding" was told at the Memorial Caverns in Sanctuary- and it's a doozy. [[GoldenAge Once, Sacred Grove was ruled over the by the Gleam Council, which kept the peace.]] But some members were not happy with the direction of things, so [[EvilCounterpart they split off and formed a secret rival consortium, the Gloam Council]]. The Gloam managed to build a magical object of immense power, which let them perform ''the Binding''- where [[MindControl everyone's magic would come under their control]] and [[HiveMind the Gloam could control everyone]]. [[NoSell But a few heroes of the era weren't affected]], and [[HeroicSacrifice they banded together to destroy the artifact]]. But the artifact's destruction- the ''Unbinding''- caused a massive WorldWreckingWave known as the ''Cataclysm'', so [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere many of the races retreated to other lands]]. After the Unbinding and Cataclysm, the pixie race had retreated to underground caves, thinking there was no life above anymore- until Changelings entered the caves. A druidess queen named Ayani then dared to venture aboveground, and [[AfterTheEnd found the land desolate]]. Saddened at the loss of everything she remembered, she cried and cried, only for her tears to start a WorldHealingWave- and the other pixies helped to bring life back to the ground. And when Ayani passed on, she left behind the Heartseed- a massive seed left in the Lake of Tears, which in turn formed the mighty World Tree that served as the Pixie's Royal Palace.
35	%%* TheHighQueen: Queen Valerian.
36	%%* HubCity: Sanctuary.
37	%%* JobSystem
38	* MinusWorld: If you knew what you were doing, you could get past the barriers to places like Lavender Coast pretty easily. There was mostly just flat land out there, but you could occasionally find weird things like the edge of Seaside's ocean, which abruptly ends.
39	%%* NinjaPirateZombieRobot: Read that page quote again.
40	%%* OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame: Of the mining variety.
41	* OurOgresAreHungrier: Chugawugs. Originally their race acted as guards for the Pixie royal family, but when the prior King and Queen were murdered they were exiled and individually decided to follow their own paths.
42	* PortalNetwork: Objects dubbed ''Warpstones'' were sort of a cross between this and a WarpWhistle- all the major areas, and some minor ones, had these floating somewhere nearby; when you clicked on one that would save it on your map, and you could use it to instantaneously transport to another Warpstone, typically one near wherever you needed to go (this could save time on a mission, or if you were just really impatient).
43	%%* PuzzleGame: Most of the minigames were of this type.
44	* RacingMiniGame: A pretty impressive minigame which had two separate job classes, Demo Derby Driver and Kart Driver.
45	* RandomlyDrops: You didn't even need to fight anything; you would just find the occasional Robgoblin Junkpile scattered across the landscape.
46	* RebelliousPrincess: Princess Lavender, who was falsely blamed for the murder of her parents, the previous King and Queen; she retreated with half the Heartseed to Briarwood, forming a duplicate Royal Palace and took the name of ''Darkthorne''.
47	* {{RPGs Equal Combat}}: An aversion; combat classes only made up about a third of the jobs and didn't factor into the large amount of non-job-related content.
48	* SchizoTech: Distinctly fantasy medieval things alongside such stuff as racing karts and stereos.
49	* SceneryPorn: A lot of the in-game area was just rolling meadows and hills, and it all looked ''awesome''.
50	* ScoobyDooHoax: In the camping area. When caught, the perpetrator even finished with "And I'd have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for [[YouMeddlingKids You Meddling Campers!]]"
51	* ShoutOut:
52	** The rainbow unicorn mount looked very [[VideoGame/RobotUnicornAttack familiar]].
53	** Boombox items made everyone in a certain radius dance. The "Realms Roll" boombox made all the dancers look... [[JustForFun/{{Rickroll}} familiar]]... and the Halloween "Chiller" boombox had [[Music/MichaelJackson its own recognizable dance steps]]. Then there's a (presumably Christmas-themed, we don't have confirmation) boombox that makes EverybodyDoTheEndlessLoop - [[WesternAnimation/ACharlieBrownChristmas you know the one]].
54	** In the Snowhill mines there was [[Franchise/{{Batman}} a wealthy dwarf named Spruce Waynehammer, who had lost his pet dog Robin in a cave full of bats.]] (This was likely because the same company was busy debuting ''VideoGame/DCUniverseOnline'' at the same time.)
55	* SigilSpam: The "tree" icon (representing the World Tree, the seat of power for the pixies, located in the heart of Sanctuary) could be found all over the place- as the icon on the Windows taskbar, to the Daily Wheel, to even an in-game cafe (which kinda evoked Starbucks).
56	* SpiritualSuccessor: ''[[WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars Star Wars: Clone Wars]] Adventures'', also by Sony, borrowed a lot from ''Free Realms''. It also went in reverse, with the ''Clone Wars Adventures'' game "Card Commander" being adapted for ''Free Realms'' as "Treasure War".
57	* SurprisinglyCreepyMoment: Merry Vale, the 24-hour party place where everyone has fun! [[spoiler:...too much fun to notice that their kids are getting abducted]].
58	* SwissArmyTears: The Pixie Queen Ayani caused plants to grow, and rivers and lakes to form, when she cried.
59	* SlippySlideyIceWorld: Snowhill, which was a more snowy and less slippy version.
60	* TheLostWoods: Both Briarwood and to a lesser extent Blackspore Swamp qualified.
61	* TravelCool: The rides. Some of the available ones:
62	** CoolHorse: Including unicorns, pegasi, and {{Hellish Horse}}s.
63	** HorseOfADifferentColor: T-rexes, dragons, and tigers.
64	** HoverBoard
65	* TwentyBearAsses: Partially averted in combat quests; quest givers either said "kill X monsters to drive them off" or they'll ask for an item, but it'd have a 100% drop rate. Played annoyingly straight when questers wanted you to harvest some food; you could have dozens of starnuts but they'd want ''fresh'' ingredients so you'll have to get more.
66	* VirtualPet: Started with dogs and cats; by the end it included dragons, various dinosaurs, penguins, spiders, miniature tigers, living bits of cake...
67	%%* YouNoTakeCandle: The Forest Trolls followed this trope dead straight.
68	* WingedHumanoid: The Pixies, though they couldn't fly very high, they could [[MidairBobbing hover]] in place.
69	%%* WizardingSchool: The Shrouded Glade.
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Context VideoGame / FreeRealms