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If you are a fan of Domo, you’ll be happy to know you can have your very own Domo pet in SOEs free-to-play MMORPG, Free Realms.  In addition to the pet, there will be other Domo-centric merchandise available to buy, including backpacks and hats.

SOE has also extended their Lifetime Membership promotion.  It expires tomorrow, but for anyone interested, it’s only $29.99 for a limetime membership, well worth it, since the premium content adds quite a bit to the game.

What’s new over at Sony Online Entertainment’s Free Realms? Not too much, though new items and activities are always a welcome addition to any party. While Free Realms is an MMO geared towards a younger audience, any age level can enjoy what this game has to offer, given the initial interest. I mean, who doesn’t want a monkey?

Yes indeed, monkeys are now available as pets, with some great character models, to boot. Also, a surprisingly docile-looking Sabertooth Tiger mount is being added to the game for your riding pleasure. Further, Rio Cloudjumper, a popular NPC located in Sanctuary, has returned with some daily activities to offer you and your friends. Lastly, some wind socks, a “slop bowl” item, and other updates are being added to the Free Realms Coin Shop. Here is the official post.

…How did I ever make due without a wind sock?…

Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) announced that their title Free Realms will have lifetime memberships available for purchase starting today, July 16th and ending on August 2nd. For this limited time only players can purchase the lifetime membership for $29.95, while existing players who want this deal will have it begin once their current subscription ends.

SOE has also announced the introduction of daily quests into Free Realms to ensure that players will always have something new to look forward to. As these daily quests are done for consecutive days, the rewards will end up getting larger as each day goes by.

For more information you can visit SOE’s website.

SOE recently published a list of the folks from SOE who will be attending SOE FanFaire from August 5th to the 8th in Las Vegas.  The lists includes what looks like almost all of the community managers across the various games, as well as developers on most of their existing titles, although it doesn’t appear like anyone from The Agency MMO is listed.  Perhaps they’ll be a surprise show?

For more details on SOE FanFaire, stay tuned here or check out the official site.

If you live in the Western Hemisphere then it is likely that you just recently heard the term free-to-play (F2P).  Sure, it’s been a part of the gamer lexicon for a years now, but F2P games have taken off recently, due in large part to one of the most successful publishers in the genre, Nexon.  Nexon opened its North American arm by testing the waters with one of the most loved games of Korea, MapleStory.  The trouble is that for many Westerners the genre is stigmatized.  They believe that F2P is acquainted with poor quality, bug ridden titles that are filled with nonsensical characters and brutal grind fests.  Without knowing exactly how the subscription-based Western market would react to a flood of F2P titles Nexon gambled on the micro-transaction model, and never looked back.

Nexon’s initial success with MapleStory (shared by developer and now Nexon subsidiary, Wizet) lead to further North American expansion by way of the MMOFPS Combat Arms, and a second MMORPG called Mabinogi.  The Korean company’s success didn’t slip by the rest of the video game industry.  Since 2005 numerous smaller, often less polished F2P titles have hit the market, only to disappear into obscurity or discontinued altogether.  Few have had the mass market appeal or revenue generating success of MapleStory, but Frogster’s release of Runewaker’s Runes of Magic has thrust the micro-transaction F2P model back into the spotlight.

Runes of Magic, an admitted WoW clone with its own unique twists, has been doing quite well for itself.  Although Frogster hasn’t disclosed any monetary figures, one can infer the title’s success from the amount of buzz it has managed to generate in the mainstream video game press.  Generally speaking MMOG announcements, let alone F2P announcements, don’t make it to the “big leagues” unless the news revolves around a new product, or worse, a devastating proclamation.  Not only does RoM continue to make the news, but it’s slowly gaining a healthy blogging community.  Something that a AAA title like Warhammer Online continues to lose.

Speaking of losing ground, have you heard the news?  Dungeons & Dragons Online is being relaunched as a free-to-play micro-transaction title on August 6 (in North America only).  Not only is the new(ish) model making lots of money for those who embrace it, but it’s saving other titles from being shutdown entirely.  Giving previously overlooked gems like DDO a second lease on life.  Love them or hate them, the F2P genre is here to stay, and only going to get bigger.  And with less risk to the developer up front, gamers of all types should be keeping an eye out for new and unusual niche titles and MMOGs set in completely foreign genres (non-RPG).

Today Sony announced that over 2 million unique users have registered to their new free2play MMORPG Free Realms. Of those users, 75% are under the age of 17, 46% under 13 and 1/3 are female gamers. To be honest I thought Free Realms was going to be a flop. I didn’t actually play it, but I obviously severely underestimated the draw it would have on young people. Two million unique registered players in less then one month is huge to say the least.

While I’m sure a good portion of those 2 million accounts are not active, this is obviously a great start for Sony’s new MMORPG. If users continue to sign up at a record pace, we just might see a slew of kiddie MMORPGs in development within the near future.  You can signup at http://www.freerealms.com

On August 15 last year, I wrote about a game SOE had just demoed at its annual FanFaire. Called Free Realms, the game was promoted as a free MMO for 9-14 year olds, where they could engage in any manner of activities, from adventuring and fighting (typical MMO activity), to cooking and playing with pets (reasonably common MMO activity), to driving go-karts and playing soccer (rare MMO activity). Oh, and did I mention the free part? It intrigued us all — and it was made by SOE, no less.

At the time I said the demo looked quite amazing and it struck me that a lot of people, adult gamers included, could make great use of the environment as a place where they could all meet, either to game with each other or to social network, especially if they were friends who are otherwise playing different games to one another.

And you know what? Despite some comments I will make in a moment, I think that might just come true. This is a very polished gameworld to be able to engage in for free and I think it will appeal to both sexes; and probably even more to female gamers.

It sounds like I must have been playing Free Realms recently to make that sort of call and, yes, I have been. A little while ago, I made a bearded avatar I called “George Imperialsaga” (I used the in-game name generator to come up with that), and due to his likeness to a certain bearded director of space fantasy movies, petitioned that his real name should be George Lucas which, bizarrely, SOE approved. So if you’ve seen George Lucas running around in-game lately, yes, that was me. Guilty as charged.

So what’s the game like? Well, at the risk of disappointing people, it’s like every other MMO out there. You run around a game world; you do quests; you can talk to people; you can explore; etc, etc. Surprisingly, based on everything I had thought it would be, I found it to be very grindy. Very, very grindy, actually. While it’s a cool concept that one character can be multiple professions and, in turn, it’s very easy to unlock the first level of each profession for your character, like ninja, postman, medic, blacksmith, warrior, treasure hunter, wizard, kart driver, chef, brawler and explorer (phew, and that’s not even all of them), it actually takes quite a bit of running around and “doing stuff” to get to level two. I haven’t even gone beyond level two as I set about playing the opening level of as many professions as possible, but if the game follows regular MMO conventions and makes level three harder to achieve than level two… well, it’s a good thing the game’s free, as kids might need to spend years leveling in it.

Of course, the company line would be that the game’s not about leveling, but rather the fun experiences you can have along the way but, I’m not really sure about that. Seeing other players with cooler equipment, I felt this played out like any other MMO and I wanted to level my guy up so I could be like the cool kids, more than anything else.

All in all, Free Realms looks and feels like an overly cutesy, yet still grindy, version of WoW with perhaps a dash of sandbox insofar as being able to go anywhere and do anything with the same character, rather than re-rolling, re-speccing or having multiple characters. And you know what? Despite my personal aversion to grinding, I think the kids might like it. This is definitely one MMO to download (a surprisingly small download, too), and have a play with, especially if you have young children or even younger brothers and sisters or nieces and nephews coming around to your house. Try it.

Free Realms launches Tuesday, April 28.

Tonight, SOE demoed its new Free Realms game at the FanFaire. You can get a quick sense of the game via its brief Wikipedia entry. Call me a silly old sentimental gamer who should know better, but it looks quite amazing and strikes me that a lot of people, adult gamers included, could make great use of the environment as a place where they can all meet, either to game with each other (in-game soccer and “Mario Kart” style games look like fun), or just engage in social networking, especially if they are friends who are otherwise playing different games to one another.

Why? Because the game client is free and is only a very small download (according to tonight’s demo) to get running, as well as running on just about any old PC, so most gamers out there would, in theory, have very easy access to it. I believe it will be subsidised with “extra content” costing a $4.99/month subscription, as well as micropayments available in-game for certain items, but none of that is essential to accessing a lot of its basic content in the first place.

I’m going to watch this very closely, actually. Although it’s promoted at the 9-14 age group, there is a lot of fun stuff in there; similar to how the Sims can be enjoyed by a wide variety of people. Infact, it’s funny I should actually say that because, from the demo, the game came across as part (original) Star Wars Galaxies, part Sims, and part something else very rare in gaming today… a game where you can just have fun from the start. Amazing. Creativity is still alive today.