Last time I struggled to not start spilling opinions about Wizard101 (and wasn't entirely successful) so it's a relief to finally reach my conclusion!

So here we go. I have to say that Wizard101 is easily the most impressive kid-orientated virtual world that I've played in my (admittedly short) time investigating them, and it's no surprise. Most virtual worlds are browser/flash based, and that can't compete with the simplistic (but well designed) 3D graphics seen in Wizard101.

It doesn't need a recent PC to run though I'm sure as a client download it is costing itself a few accounts here and there, but might not even need them. As a very impressive 3D MMORPG designed for Western kids from the ground up that's also free-to-play (dare I say this, but a lot of Asian MMOs still seem to be losing something in translation when they come across) it's no wonder the world is so packed. Every time I've played the world has been swarming with players.

The interesting thing is that in a social/community orientated MMO that would be fantastic, and I'd be really excited. The MMOs I've played that were social/community orientated -- Dizzywood, that sort of thing -- are enriched by other players who are excited to meet you, talk with each other…

But in Wizard101 there is absolutely none of that. I'll make no secret that recently I've been playing Warhammer Online, another world that I recently read criticism of being a "lonely" world, but there (admittedly a world very much for adults) I was, thanks to innovations including public quests -- having a brilliant old time fighting alongside other players to get things done -- with a lot of chatter about how do do the next quest or beat the next bad guy. Wizard101 is in comparison an entirely silent world, full of players all acting to solve their next quest on their own.

The "traditional" way to fix this from MMO makers is to make the end-game content far too hard for any player to beat on their own, or just unnecessarily grindy. I haven't seen anything close to 10% of Wizard101's content so perhaps later the quests are clever enough to make players engage with each other, but to the point where I've played it really isn't.

Perhaps it's simply a case of the restrictive chat system. As is so often the case with child-orientated MMOs, your natural method of speech is to select from set phrases, unless you get permission from an adult. Except, in this case, you not only have to get permission from an adult but pay for a subscription too.

Despite this complaint, Wizard101 is very, very playable. I could waste hours just levelling up my wizard and purchasing him the latest gear/spells, and even if the game does use the comic sans font for nearly everything (yuck!) it does have a lot of crossover potential for more than just kids to play it.

Wizard101 is successful at being an MMORPG, and it looks likely to be a very successful endeavour for KingsIsle Entertainment. It's probably the perfect example of how free-to-play can work, actually -- the core game is so fun from the get go I imagine most players want to pay for it just to unlock the extra possibilities on offer.

I'm not sure there's that much to learn from Wizard101's example -- other than to launch with a very polished product with a lot of content -- but that probably won't stop me from dipping in every now and again.