This week, Sony Online Entertainment hands over the pitchfork with the implementation of farming activities in Free Realms. As a game that caters to an increasingly wide audience with varying age levels, Free Realms makes a genuine effort to combat the specter of tedium that hangs over every massive title. To that end, the game has been quite successful; the official site gives new players an idea of the assortment of activities at their disposal:

Decorate your house, then invite your friends over for a party! Teach your pet a new trick or dress them up in a sweet costume! Battle enemies as you search for lost treasure or duel other players, mine for gold, cook up a meal, or race your car!

With this update, players will receive a free “Wilds Farm” instance, where they can cultivate and customize crops, chase vermin, and – as always –  invite friends to join the fun. As you level your farm up (there are 20 levels), the acreage will increase, along with seeds, tools, items, and quests. However, free players will only be able to reach level 5 before they will need to convert to a paid account. As of right now, the farming feature is completely available to all players — all you need to do is log in! Below is a full list of the features coming with Free Realms’ farming update:

• New Wilds Farm instance for every player
• Use farming tools to keep farms clear of weeds, obstacles, and pests
• Harvest crops in the overworld and convert them to seeds for planting
• Plant, water, and grow a wide variety of crop types and be sure to chase away the critters
• Experiment with the Farm-O-matic machine to create new hybrid crops
• Harvest crops and trade them in the Farmers Market for rewards
• Play mini-games and convert harvested crops into coin
• Visit friends’ farm to earn more coin
• Cool items available in the marketplace to boost farm production

This week, Sony Online Entertainment has ported their successful free-to-play title, Free Realms, to the Playstation Network. With this move, the console gets its very first F2P MMO, coming hot on the heels of SOE’s recently released superhero title, DC Universe: Online. With 17 million registered players, Free Realms is one of the most popular MMORPGs of all time, offering a wide range of activities for all age levels.

John Smedley, President of SOE, shares his thoughts on Free Realms‘ impact on the console, “Our games extend the current lifecycle of the console with the added value offer of bringing tens of thousands of people together, in a game world, to socialize at community events, compete in combat activities and engage in a diversity of gameplay experiences, for years to come.” Jump past the cut for more details on the console experience…

Here are a few key features of Free Realms on the console:

• Fun Now, No Waiting: Free Realms is easy to access! Get in the game quickly and easily from the PlayStation®Store, create a character, and adventure in a fully immersive social game world. Click on the Game Guide to access the Activity Finder, Events Calendar, 3D and 2D minigames, quests, Match Making and more!

• Connect with Friends: Whether one’s meeting up with old friends or finding new ones, Free Realms players can connect, play, quest and adventure together. For group quests and multiplayer battles, players just log in to see what their friends have been up to, select them from your friends list, and join them in game.

• Play Free or Upgrade: At its heart, Free Realms is free-to-play, with more than 800 quests and the ability to take each job through level four. Players who want to break through to the next level can become Members with access to an additional 400 quests and the ability to level all jobs up to 20. Memberships are offered in terms of one month, three months, six months and lifetime (valid for the life of the game). Members and free players can also purchase a variety of items and wearables through micro-transactions.

Free Realms is now available to download on the PlayStation Network for free; with options to purchase one month (US $4.99), three month (US $12.99), six month (US $ 24.50), one year (US $29.99), and lifetime membership (US $34.99).

Sony Online Entertainment today announced that the free to play MMORPG Free Realms will be the first MMORPG to become available on the Playstation Network (PSN).  Free Realms will become available on PSN in North America on March 29th.

“Free Realms continues to break new ground in the gaming industry– it will be the first free-to-play MMO to hit any console, the first family-friendly MMO to hit any console, and the second MMO, after our recent release of DC Universe Online, to hit the PlayStation 3 to date,” said John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment. “As the only online games publisher that creates accessible and diverse gameplay experiences for the full spectrum of gamers, we are committed to burgeoning innovation and growing the MMO genre by leaps and bounds, bringing in players of all ages.”

Free Realms originally launched in 2009 for the PC then later on for the Mac in 2010 and currently boosts nearly 17 million registered players across both platforms.

Sony Online Entertainment, in collaboration with TransGaming, Inc., has released yesterday a Free Realms version for Macintosh Platform. Now, all Mac users can enjoy this new version of the popular family-friendly MMO that has more than 14 million registered players.

It’s good to see some companies care about the Mac gaming community, such an awesome platform deserves more attention from game publishers. Though when we talk about Mac, we always think of a wonderful computer designed for maximum work performance, would be awesome to have all AAA MMOs available for this platform, making the online gaming community even bigger. Would be great to have everyone playing together, no matter from what platform you’re logging in. Free Realms is offering that possibility now.

If you want to give Free Realms a try, simply go to the official website, register and play in your browser.

Congratulations to all Mac users interested in playing Free Realms, now you all can play. See you all in-game.

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?…

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).

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