I'll third/fourth/ninth what has been said previously: Firefly was all about the writing. You'd have to find a way to capture the personality of that universe and at the same time make it fun to play.
Not bloody likely.
As others have stated, this smells like a bit of corporate money grubbing, not completely unlike the depressingly bad movie-to-videogame ports that hit consoles alongside the lunchboxes, action figures, glow-in-the-dark decoder rings and poorly-directed porno rip-offs (Star Whores, Lord of the Co** Rings, When Harry F***ed Sally, etc...)
Right done it would be great... But it's a really hard job to get it right, few people could make an good SF game based on a movie, Bioware is the only one i remember ever done it and an MMO is a lot harder than a solo game.
Still, if it feels like Firefly and Serenity, then I'm buying it easy.
We all know a Firefly MMO could be amazing. If they choose to, We all know how a real MMO work. But if the current MMO trend to dump down everything to childish level......then its a very bad idea.
But if they were to make a big complex gameworld and just let us live there, it would be something special.
And what does the writer mean by saying that "anti-heroes" dont work well in a MMO?? Heroes dont work wel in MMOs he must clearly mean?
I would like to see at least 2 stand-alone games produced (plus expansions) prior to even thinking about a Firefly MMO. Look at the success (or failure) of those games, then proceed from there.
I think there are a lot of SciFi IP's out there that 'could work'. Star Trek, Star Wars, Stargate, Dune, Battlestar Galactica, Babylon 5, Farscape, etc.,...
Star Trek... is it gonna happen?
Star Wars... real current state of SWG? 2nd MMO to be released on the IP?
Stargate... one in the pipeline apparently.
Of the rest listed, I would say Dune or Battlestar Galactica would have the next best chance to survive or succeed. Battlestar Galactica due to the tv series (though it's being pulled after this season). Dune had a few mini-series on SciFi several years back that were pretty well-made. Both would need a solid launch story developed and a strong storyline with an opening to the future... one that doesn't pigeon hold or paint dev's into corners.
...
I'll lump StarCraft and Warhammer 40k in here just for good measure. Both of which will probably happen.
...
I think Firefly would have a somewhat small following. They would need to really ramp up the press and hype around hte game by launching another movie or series.
If they could put a group of people on a ship with hidden agendas...goals for each player that are at odds with the rest of the shipmates, AND combine that with a common cause, well...IT'D BE INCREDIBLE.
As a fan and an mmo player, and after seeing the Multiverse development kit myself and what it's capable of, I hope they either can the project or sell it on. I don't think they have the expertise or the resources to pull off a Firefly mmo that would be worthy of the show.
Can't counter an argument with a valid discussion point? Fishermage(aka Fisherprice) recommends you cut and paste: ad hominem
"You will come to the conclusion that the only people crazier than the managers who thought this a good idea are those who put up with it and pay for it." - Salvaje (who paid to play the NGE for 18 months) /golfclap
In 06 firefly was something new to me and many others. It seemed quite unique, However there are many space games and such today. I'm also a fan of the movie.
I'm also agreeing with many who say it might not be as good as it might have been.
I love the show (really anything Joss does is awesome) and I'm an MMOer. I hope no one every makes a Firefly MMO because they'll (regardless of who makes it) will screw it up. And people think the Tolkien fans or the Warhammer fans are anal about their lore? Wait till they start making changes to the Firefly world. The Devs will wish they'd never come near the IP. LOL
To be a naysayer here, I don't think it's a good idea. I'm a huge fan of the series as well as the movie. And quite frankly, though one could argue that world was not so fleshed out as to allow a game to capitalize on adding "new territory", it just doesn't have enough appeal to weather development costs and then to garner the subs. Let Firefly be the successful yet not so "commercially" successful hit that it is.
I loved the series but tend to agree with your statement. It seems any potential developer would have to choose between remaining faithful to the browncoats vision of FireFly or producing a game that would have overall appeal to folks who weren't interested in the series or never saw it on television. In the former case the game would be limited with respect to subject matter, politics, economy etc. In the latter case, there would be so much flexibility that the final product would probably not be reminiscent of the FireFly concept at all. Not sure there would be a good balance that could attract players from both ends of the spectrum. However, it's an interesting prospect in an MMO universe that has far more orc and elves than spaceships.
I can appreciate the points made above. However, its not an impossible task to mix both playability and sufficient lore immersion to create a good MMO. It's just that not many MMO developers out there have previously shown that they have both the imagination, finance backing and appreciation of their potential audiences in order to accomplish this successfully. Nevertheless, it is certainly possible for a decent MMO to be made based on the flexibility of the Firefly universe. One advantage to producing an MMO based on the Firefly franchise is that there has only been one series and some books and fan lore. Had it been based on lore written in half a dozen films and a magnitude of books, then the situation becomes more and more complex and the chance of accidentally rewritting a particular part of the lore increases dramatically. So there's a little more flexibility with creative licence than with other well-known, well-established lore foundations. On the other hand, such flexibility can also be a disadvantage. For example, if the developers ideas differ to the audiences, then this could create problems in getting a fan base for the MMO off the ground. But these days, actual fans of franchises make up a relatively small percentage of an MMO's subscription total. To pull this off, It would need time, imagination, the expertise and a LOT of research to do it correctly.
Can it be done with Multi-verse?
Having looked at the worlds created with the multiverse toolset, I don't think it would do the Firefly series / film and books justice. I'm not saying that ultra-realistic graphics requiring the very latest technology should be the standard to use. But these days people cannot help themselves and they start to compare one space based / land based MMO with another, regardless of whether the content / lore is even in the same genre. Ignoring subscription numbers for a moment, we all know that certain MMO's raised the bar in terms of quality in every aspect of an MMO. People expect newly released MMO's to reach at least the same level of quality (both graphics and production) to the likes of WoW, Eve, EQ2 etc. I don't think the multiverse toolset can get close to such benchmarks. Let alone surpass them. After all, let's not forget that there's a reason why MMO developers often create their own engines from the ground up. Those that don't (*cough* Vanguard *cough*) find it difficult to produce an efficiently coded game that performs well in every respect, not just graphics wise.
Why now?
One last point which is sticking in my mind: Why was this article written now of all times? What drove the author to publish it at this time? I'm not trying to be a conspiracy theorist. It just seems a little odd to pen such an article 2 years after the original announcement. Although, I suppose it's possible that the release of this article is somehow connected with information contained in certain online sources which hint that perhaps we'll hear something this year about the Firefly MMO (i.e. the multiverse website and wired.com)
As much as I would love a Firefly MMORPG I don't see how it would be much different from SWG. I'd rather see a nice single player Firefly RPG. Hint hint Bioware.
The way I see it, irrespective of the IP the only thing that matters is the game. To say things like "If done right..." or " It will never live up to the series...." dont really hold much water. All that matters is the game itself.
Most of the time all the IP does is give you a greater or smaller starter fan base and little else. I know mmo's are a huge business but when I look at it I always feel they are so far behind other forms of patron supported media. WoW imho tapped into a part of the market which at that time didn't even exist and since then everyone has tried to clone it live off the scraps. This isn't an arguement about revolution or evolution but I think most will agree WoW did little that was revolutionary in game play or mechanics. What they did was perfect all the elements they felt their game needed and released an almost finished product.
But there are other untapped customers out there, I feel that the IP alone gives an advantage with what I feel is at present an untapped market, they dont have reinvent everything, they just need to take all the elements from other games that had it and perfect them, then I feel they would be onto a winner. But tbh the IP will do nothing but stir interest, like having a PR headstart and free advertising, that can never be a bad thing.
Don't get me wrong I'm not bashing the IP, given the chance I would live in Firefly, in all the "what IP would you like to see mmo'ed" polls FF is always my first answer. I can honestly say I could probably write the script for most episodes freom memory (which at my age is no mean feat), but the truth is mmo's are nothing but games and IP will get you to release, then the game stands alone.
----- The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
I'm a big fan of Firefly, but regardless of the state of this IP, an MMO really comes down to whether or not the developers are willing to pull away from the usual systems set up by games like WoW. I'd hate to see Firefly turn into another grind-fest like nearly every other MMO in existence. I honestly don't see the harm in trying, though. It's not my money.
I do think it would be fun to see them implement a swear filter that changes English swear words into Chinese, though. Hahaha!
=========== The Guild is all about making MMORPGs more immersive, and more importantly, more fun! Join us! The Guild.
I love the series and the characters and the idea of the wild west in space... but I don't think it should be an MMO.
It would never be done right I think. It should be done as an RPG where you are your own captain... you would meet some familiar faces but would have to face your own problems with Reavers and Pirates and the Government.
You could level your character to be better in space, or on the ground, or better at guns or swords or diplomacy or such. I think that would be the best way to explore the verse instead of trying to make it an MMO where it would have to be watered down and generic to be enjoyable.
I'd love to see Bioware get ahold of this license and go KOTOR/Jade Empire with it... get Joss on the writing staff and go to town. Now that would be shiny.
An idea for a Sci-Fi MMORPG based on Firefly I posted 3 years ago:
I know this will sound a hek of a lot like Firefly for those of you who have seen the show, but I think its version of science fiction makes for a better type game than Star Wars or Star Trek.
I was trying to think of ways to change the cookie-cutter format of MMORPGs. One thought is to have the whole avatar system run like KOTOR did it. Basically each alt you create is a part of your crew. You have a captain(main), and then can create an engineer, a pilot, a mercenary for combat, a doctor, a merchant. Yada yada yada. Basically each alt slot would cost in-game finance to purchase and maintain being that the more alts you have the easier it is to run your ship or if you can't afford a ship yet, just be around to help out.
The alt slots should be limited so that a captain can custom tailor them to his preference of play. Want to be a trader? Choose a couple of merchants to allow you access to ports or help keep the prices down when buying and up when selling. Want to be a "pirate" of sorts? Choose more mercenaries. Want to just play it down the middle? Choose a doctor, engineer, pilot, 1 merchant and so on.
Now here is where the KOTOR and unique part really comes in. When an alt is not being played it is an npc. If you are playing as one of your alts your captain(main) and the rest of the alts are npcs. The tricky part is getting the AI just right. You should be able to play all the time as your captain and still be able to rely on your npc crew.
While playing WoW I got a little bored of my main. I did what everyone does and created an alt with different combat and crafting skills. However I hardly play the alt because I still have things to do with my main and playing my alt doesn't benefit my main in any way. This is where my idea is different. Anytime you log-on as an alt instead of a captain you can control the character just as well as the captain. It still can gain skills, take missions, anything you want it to do. Any other player wouldn't even be able to spot an alt from a captain. Let's say you are playing your mercenary alt today. What you could do is take a shuttle from your main ship where the captain and the rest of the crew is doing whatever NPCs do, and fly off to a dangerous underdeveloped world. Once there you can hire yourself out for a couple of combat oriented jobs to raise your firearm or brawling skills. After a good session you can return to your ship. Now the next time you play as your captain and go on a potentially dangerous mission you know your Mercenary will be able to protect you even better. Same goes for the doctor, pilot, merchant, engineer, or even the captain who will be able to choose any skill tree branches to climb same as the alts. No templates. The crew engineer can also have combat skills though it would not be as efficient in maintaining the ship.
Just a couple of final twists. The alt crew members, unlike the Captain, can all suffer perma death. I don't like the idea of a "1 strike-your out" kind of thing, but more like they get a certain amount of lives before they don't come back. This could be based on their chosen skills. Doctor and engineers and merchants have less lives than mercenaries. Since they would most likely stay with the ship on dangerous missions. This forces players into almost the same concerns as perma-death but just with alts. It also adds to a sense of loss. The only way this would be accepted is if the skills stay in placed and you are allowed to re-create a character with the same skills but a different name and ideally a different look. If you want a different skill-type character to fill the slot(another merc instead of a companion) you can either create a new character from scratch or drop skills manually once the new character is created with the previous skills. Obviously it is hard to prevent players from just recreating the same character with the same custom character design, clothes, and even name... but if they could work out the name block most players would just try something different.
Lastly both the purchase of alts and ships should be major milestones. A player must decide whether or not to spend his first fortune on a ship to help increase his/her profit so that they can start buying alt/crew slots..... or first buy an alt crew slot and then use the help to increase profit to later buy a ship. Both crew members and ships should be money sinks requiring constant money to keep available. When you can't put money into the ship it dies where-ever it is and you must use your shuttle to go to planets or space stations looking for work to get it going again. Crew members who are not paid sit around in their bunks and won't do anything for you. Their log-in slots are also unavailable until they are paid.
Oh.... and the last major detail....I promise. All player-characters are human, and all "Monsters" are human too. I like Firefly's view of the future where no aliens exist though there may be forms of mutants or insane cannibals for fun.
Because it's in the hands of Multiverse, I'm going to have to say it won't happen or it will STRUGGLE all the way to a big disappointing failure... but as a huge fan of Firefly I would love nothing more than to eat those words...
Why do I write, create, fantasize, dream and daydream about other worlds? Because I hate what humanity does with this one.
Yet another big fan of the series and film here, and yet again one who doubts a game would do justice to the license. The series still has so much life in it, though...some cable network needs to realise the post-cult potential and pursue talks with Joss about resurrecting the crew where it belongs: back on TV. So far, 21st century television has been marked by quickly-cancelled network shows that garnered cult followings posthumously and came back in full force. I think the same would go for Firefly.
what is it with firefly why wont the creators let it rest in peace . it was a failed but good american series . theres loads like it that have potential but never get a second season . this got another chance with a movie . which i think was pretty good but again it failed at the box office . can it be an mmo . well yeah but lets face it most sci fi franchises could be developed into an mmo and any one of them could be succesful if there was a talented team developing it . but why would anyone in thier right mind put millions into a twice failed franchise . you may as well flush it down the toilet . firefly is a 14 episode series and a movie thats it . its over its gone let it be and get over it . it was good but not that good.
do you get the feeling joss whedon cant accept he failed on this one . i mean i admire his tenacity because if he did nt have it buffy would nt have ever been into a series after such a mediocre movie but even he must realise the limits of fireflys appeal now . it could limp on in comics and novels to some small degree of success . not mmos . more fool anyone who trys. they ll lose thier shirt .
do you get the feeling joss whedon cant accept he failed on this one .
Attack of the Show did a feature on Firefly almost 2 years ago. The feature was all about how the insane fans refuse to leave the producers/Joss Whedon alone. There were (at the time) over 1000 emails a week asking for the show's return. It was (also at the time) Whedon's decision NOT to revive Firefly for TV even though there is/was no decent sci-fi television to compete with.
IMO, Whedon got tired of the project early because it wasn't Buffy or Angel. It was a completely different direction from those shows and he decided he didn't like it and the fans have to pay. Presently, besides Battlestar Galactica, there is not another sci-fi space show on TV that pops into my head as 'must-see'. I'd love to see Firefly come back to television with Galactica wrapping up this season but I doubt it.
As for a Firefly game? I think a subscription based mmo might be wrong. Something along the likes of mission-based playing (like Guild Wars) could probably work. If not a GW-style game then something massively single player like Enlight Interactive's X-Universe of games would work pretty good and make gamers feel like they were involved in something similar to an MMO.
In Defense of Multiverse of the Developers utilizing Multiverse, I would like to share the following comments.
First off, just as with Firefly, most teams using Multiverse work with Budgets that require Creativity as Whedon would say.
As for the Firefly MMO, what I do know of it that it was to be catered to the Browncoats (Firefly Fans) and not for Mass Market Appeal. So it would be of a Niche Game in that sense.
"The hero of Canton, the man they call 'me'." -Jayne
And what does the writer mean by saying that "anti-heroes" dont work well in a MMO?? Heroes dont work wel in MMOs he must clearly mean?
In mmos everyone wants to be strong and powerful, and therefore a 'hero'.. whereas an anti-hero is more of something that'd have to be role played, or the engine would have to be very shiny indeed to deal with giving the player fun while still making him be a big loser hangin on by a thread.
As for the MMO.. I think it is a good idea. They may not be able to reproduce firefly's specific circomstances as such, but the ship and the show's crew are just 1 story thread of what is going on in the world that you see.. there's plenty of misc events in the shows background, that is almost begging to be mmo'd.
I was watching the premiere a few weeks ago and couldnt help thinking, during the opening after the war segment, where it just showed the town and landing area and all the misc stuff going on.. that'd make a great mmo setting.
Consider:
- western and chinese culture mix, in a space/scifi setting.. lots of interesting story ops and such.. and appeal to the 2 major mmo markets
- open skill system so people can do what they want, if they spend enough time practicing it.. typically precu swg is the suggested preferred way.. who knows
- Large solar system with many habitable planets (which could work like swg's planets, but all in 1 single space zone).. and a solar system which is huge.. very very huge, with many thinks like moons and asteroids and comets and free floating stations and whatever.. would take hours/days to fly from one side to the other, lots of random reaver/pirate/whatever space encounters.. lots of room for content there
- All the planets/moons/etc offer different enviroments for land encounters, and you can have sandbox planets like swg does.. the alliance planets all civilised with related quests, the rimmers more wild west style
- 2 major factions, and of course your outer rim factions would squabble amongst themselves as well as against alliance.. nice pvp possibility, while leaving room for pve types and economists/production managers to operate in a comfort zone
- Alliance territory - like eve's empire space, where the law is nearby and watchful.. for your traditional pve player base
- Outer rim - 0.0 like, free for all pvp with claimable asteroid bases and land areas perhaps, for resources or whatever
- etc
Will it have the same atmosphere as the crew of serenity's story? no. But it would be a very fun world anyway, one which any scifi person could get into. EvE style gameplay mixed with swg's space/planet system, with the skill base that everyone keeps screaming for.. sounds like a winner to me
Comments
Will Joss Whedon be writing the NPC dialogue?
No?
Forget it, then.
I'll third/fourth/ninth what has been said previously: Firefly was all about the writing. You'd have to find a way to capture the personality of that universe and at the same time make it fun to play.
Not bloody likely.
As others have stated, this smells like a bit of corporate money grubbing, not completely unlike the depressingly bad movie-to-videogame ports that hit consoles alongside the lunchboxes, action figures, glow-in-the-dark decoder rings and poorly-directed porno rip-offs (Star Whores, Lord of the Co** Rings, When Harry F***ed Sally, etc...)
Right done it would be great... But it's a really hard job to get it right, few people could make an good SF game based on a movie, Bioware is the only one i remember ever done it and an MMO is a lot harder than a solo game.
Still, if it feels like Firefly and Serenity, then I'm buying it easy.
We all know a Firefly MMO could be amazing. If they choose to, We all know how a real MMO work. But if the current MMO trend to dump down everything to childish level......then its a very bad idea.
But if they were to make a big complex gameworld and just let us live there, it would be something special.
And what does the writer mean by saying that "anti-heroes" dont work well in a MMO?? Heroes dont work wel in MMOs he must clearly mean?
I would like to see at least 2 stand-alone games produced (plus expansions) prior to even thinking about a Firefly MMO. Look at the success (or failure) of those games, then proceed from there.
I think there are a lot of SciFi IP's out there that 'could work'. Star Trek, Star Wars, Stargate, Dune, Battlestar Galactica, Babylon 5, Farscape, etc.,...
Star Trek... is it gonna happen?
Star Wars... real current state of SWG? 2nd MMO to be released on the IP?
Stargate... one in the pipeline apparently.
Of the rest listed, I would say Dune or Battlestar Galactica would have the next best chance to survive or succeed. Battlestar Galactica due to the tv series (though it's being pulled after this season). Dune had a few mini-series on SciFi several years back that were pretty well-made. Both would need a solid launch story developed and a strong storyline with an opening to the future... one that doesn't pigeon hold or paint dev's into corners.
...
I'll lump StarCraft and Warhammer 40k in here just for good measure. Both of which will probably happen.
...
I think Firefly would have a somewhat small following. They would need to really ramp up the press and hype around hte game by launching another movie or series.
I think the setting has a lot of promise as a sand box game much like SWG. A survivale mmo with more focus on open PVP.
If they could put a group of people on a ship with hidden agendas...goals for each player that are at odds with the rest of the shipmates, AND combine that with a common cause, well...IT'D BE INCREDIBLE.
As a fan and an mmo player, and after seeing the Multiverse development kit myself and what it's capable of, I hope they either can the project or sell it on. I don't think they have the expertise or the resources to pull off a Firefly mmo that would be worthy of the show.
Can't counter an argument with a valid discussion point? Fishermage(aka Fisherprice) recommends you cut and paste: ad hominem
"You will come to the conclusion that the only people crazier than the managers who thought this a good idea are those who put up with it and pay for it." - Salvaje (who paid to play the NGE for 18 months) /golfclap
In 06 firefly was something new to me and many others. It seemed quite unique, However there are many space games and such today. I'm also a fan of the movie.
I'm also agreeing with many who say it might not be as good as it might have been.
I love the show (really anything Joss does is awesome) and I'm an MMOer. I hope no one every makes a Firefly MMO because they'll (regardless of who makes it) will screw it up.
And people think the Tolkien fans or the Warhammer fans are anal about their lore? Wait till they start making changes to the Firefly world. The Devs will wish they'd never come near the IP. LOL
I loved the series but tend to agree with your statement. It seems any potential developer would have to choose between remaining faithful to the browncoats vision of FireFly or producing a game that would have overall appeal to folks who weren't interested in the series or never saw it on television. In the former case the game would be limited with respect to subject matter, politics, economy etc. In the latter case, there would be so much flexibility that the final product would probably not be reminiscent of the FireFly concept at all. Not sure there would be a good balance that could attract players from both ends of the spectrum. However, it's an interesting prospect in an MMO universe that has far more orc and elves than spaceships.
Can it be done?
I can appreciate the points made above. However, its not an impossible task to mix both playability and sufficient lore immersion to create a good MMO. It's just that not many MMO developers out there have previously shown that they have both the imagination, finance backing and appreciation of their potential audiences in order to accomplish this successfully. Nevertheless, it is certainly possible for a decent MMO to be made based on the flexibility of the Firefly universe. One advantage to producing an MMO based on the Firefly franchise is that there has only been one series and some books and fan lore. Had it been based on lore written in half a dozen films and a magnitude of books, then the situation becomes more and more complex and the chance of accidentally rewritting a particular part of the lore increases dramatically. So there's a little more flexibility with creative licence than with other well-known, well-established lore foundations. On the other hand, such flexibility can also be a disadvantage. For example, if the developers ideas differ to the audiences, then this could create problems in getting a fan base for the MMO off the ground. But these days, actual fans of franchises make up a relatively small percentage of an MMO's subscription total. To pull this off, It would need time, imagination, the expertise and a LOT of research to do it correctly.
Can it be done with Multi-verse?
Having looked at the worlds created with the multiverse toolset, I don't think it would do the Firefly series / film and books justice. I'm not saying that ultra-realistic graphics requiring the very latest technology should be the standard to use. But these days people cannot help themselves and they start to compare one space based / land based MMO with another, regardless of whether the content / lore is even in the same genre. Ignoring subscription numbers for a moment, we all know that certain MMO's raised the bar in terms of quality in every aspect of an MMO. People expect newly released MMO's to reach at least the same level of quality (both graphics and production) to the likes of WoW, Eve, EQ2 etc. I don't think the multiverse toolset can get close to such benchmarks. Let alone surpass them. After all, let's not forget that there's a reason why MMO developers often create their own engines from the ground up. Those that don't (*cough* Vanguard *cough*) find it difficult to produce an efficiently coded game that performs well in every respect, not just graphics wise.
Why now?
One last point which is sticking in my mind: Why was this article written now of all times? What drove the author to publish it at this time? I'm not trying to be a conspiracy theorist. It just seems a little odd to pen such an article 2 years after the original announcement. Although, I suppose it's possible that the release of this article is somehow connected with information contained in certain online sources which hint that perhaps we'll hear something this year about the Firefly MMO (i.e. the multiverse website and wired.com)
Top 10 Most Misused Words in MMO's
As much as I would love a Firefly MMORPG I don't see how it would be much different from SWG. I'd rather see a nice single player Firefly RPG. Hint hint Bioware.
Why naysay this?
Why can't we just say "Lets give it a chance?"
Why should WE defeat the project?
Just support it, for crying outloud.
There's nothing to lose! Be happy, be hopeful that a great game may emerge.
There's no harm in being positive about something!
The way I see it, irrespective of the IP the only thing that matters is the game. To say things like "If done right..." or " It will never live up to the series...." dont really hold much water. All that matters is the game itself.
Most of the time all the IP does is give you a greater or smaller starter fan base and little else. I know mmo's are a huge business but when I look at it I always feel they are so far behind other forms of patron supported media. WoW imho tapped into a part of the market which at that time didn't even exist and since then everyone has tried to clone it live off the scraps. This isn't an arguement about revolution or evolution but I think most will agree WoW did little that was revolutionary in game play or mechanics. What they did was perfect all the elements they felt their game needed and released an almost finished product.
But there are other untapped customers out there, I feel that the IP alone gives an advantage with what I feel is at present an untapped market, they dont have reinvent everything, they just need to take all the elements from other games that had it and perfect them, then I feel they would be onto a winner. But tbh the IP will do nothing but stir interest, like having a PR headstart and free advertising, that can never be a bad thing.
Don't get me wrong I'm not bashing the IP, given the chance I would live in Firefly, in all the "what IP would you like to see mmo'ed" polls FF is always my first answer. I can honestly say I could probably write the script for most episodes freom memory (which at my age is no mean feat), but the truth is mmo's are nothing but games and IP will get you to release, then the game stands alone.
-----
The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
I'm a big fan of Firefly, but regardless of the state of this IP, an MMO really comes down to whether or not the developers are willing to pull away from the usual systems set up by games like WoW. I'd hate to see Firefly turn into another grind-fest like nearly every other MMO in existence. I honestly don't see the harm in trying, though. It's not my money.
I do think it would be fun to see them implement a swear filter that changes English swear words into Chinese, though. Hahaha!
===========
The Guild is all about making MMORPGs more immersive, and more importantly, more fun! Join us!
The Guild.
I love the series and the characters and the idea of the wild west in space... but I don't think it should be an MMO.
It would never be done right I think. It should be done as an RPG where you are your own captain... you would meet some familiar faces but would have to face your own problems with Reavers and Pirates and the Government.
You could level your character to be better in space, or on the ground, or better at guns or swords or diplomacy or such. I think that would be the best way to explore the verse instead of trying to make it an MMO where it would have to be watered down and generic to be enjoyable.
I'd love to see Bioware get ahold of this license and go KOTOR/Jade Empire with it... get Joss on the writing staff and go to town. Now that would be shiny.
An idea for a Sci-Fi MMORPG based on Firefly I posted 3 years ago:
I know this will sound a hek of a lot like Firefly for those of you who have seen the show, but I think its version of science fiction makes for a better type game than Star Wars or Star Trek.
I was trying to think of ways to change the cookie-cutter format of MMORPGs. One thought is to have the whole avatar system run like KOTOR did it. Basically each alt you create is a part of your crew. You have a captain(main), and then can create an engineer, a pilot, a mercenary for combat, a doctor, a merchant. Yada yada yada. Basically each alt slot would cost in-game finance to purchase and maintain being that the more alts you have the easier it is to run your ship or if you can't afford a ship yet, just be around to help out.
The alt slots should be limited so that a captain can custom tailor them to his preference of play. Want to be a trader? Choose a couple of merchants to allow you access to ports or help keep the prices down when buying and up when selling. Want to be a "pirate" of sorts? Choose more mercenaries. Want to just play it down the middle? Choose a doctor, engineer, pilot, 1 merchant and so on.
Now here is where the KOTOR and unique part really comes in. When an alt is not being played it is an npc. If you are playing as one of your alts your captain(main) and the rest of the alts are npcs. The tricky part is getting the AI just right. You should be able to play all the time as your captain and still be able to rely on your npc crew.
While playing WoW I got a little bored of my main. I did what everyone does and created an alt with different combat and crafting skills. However I hardly play the alt because I still have things to do with my main and playing my alt doesn't benefit my main in any way. This is where my idea is different. Anytime you log-on as an alt instead of a captain you can control the character just as well as the captain. It still can gain skills, take missions, anything you want it to do. Any other player wouldn't even be able to spot an alt from a captain. Let's say you are playing your mercenary alt today. What you could do is take a shuttle from your main ship where the captain and the rest of the crew is doing whatever NPCs do, and fly off to a dangerous underdeveloped world. Once there you can hire yourself out for a couple of combat oriented jobs to raise your firearm or brawling skills. After a good session you can return to your ship. Now the next time you play as your captain and go on a potentially dangerous mission you know your Mercenary will be able to protect you even better. Same goes for the doctor, pilot, merchant, engineer, or even the captain who will be able to choose any skill tree branches to climb same as the alts. No templates. The crew engineer can also have combat skills though it would not be as efficient in maintaining the ship.
Just a couple of final twists. The alt crew members, unlike the Captain, can all suffer perma death. I don't like the idea of a "1 strike-your out" kind of thing, but more like they get a certain amount of lives before they don't come back. This could be based on their chosen skills. Doctor and engineers and merchants have less lives than mercenaries. Since they would most likely stay with the ship on dangerous missions. This forces players into almost the same concerns as perma-death but just with alts. It also adds to a sense of loss. The only way this would be accepted is if the skills stay in placed and you are allowed to re-create a character with the same skills but a different name and ideally a different look. If you want a different skill-type character to fill the slot(another merc instead of a companion) you can either create a new character from scratch or drop skills manually once the new character is created with the previous skills. Obviously it is hard to prevent players from just recreating the same character with the same custom character design, clothes, and even name... but if they could work out the name block most players would just try something different.
Lastly both the purchase of alts and ships should be major milestones. A player must decide whether or not to spend his first fortune on a ship to help increase his/her profit so that they can start buying alt/crew slots..... or first buy an alt crew slot and then use the help to increase profit to later buy a ship. Both crew members and ships should be money sinks requiring constant money to keep available. When you can't put money into the ship it dies where-ever it is and you must use your shuttle to go to planets or space stations looking for work to get it going again. Crew members who are not paid sit around in their bunks and won't do anything for you. Their log-in slots are also unavailable until they are paid.
Oh.... and the last major detail....I promise. All player-characters are human, and all "Monsters" are human too. I like Firefly's view of the future where no aliens exist though there may be forms of mutants or insane cannibals for fun.
Because it's in the hands of Multiverse, I'm going to have to say it won't happen or it will STRUGGLE all the way to a big disappointing failure... but as a huge fan of Firefly I would love nothing more than to eat those words...
BOYCOTTING EA / ORIGIN going forward.
Yet another big fan of the series and film here, and yet again one who doubts a game would do justice to the license. The series still has so much life in it, though...some cable network needs to realise the post-cult potential and pursue talks with Joss about resurrecting the crew where it belongs: back on TV. So far, 21st century television has been marked by quickly-cancelled network shows that garnered cult followings posthumously and came back in full force. I think the same would go for Firefly.
what is it with firefly why wont the creators let it rest in peace . it was a failed but good american series . theres loads like it that have potential but never get a second season . this got another chance with a movie . which i think was pretty good but again it failed at the box office . can it be an mmo . well yeah but lets face it most sci fi franchises could be developed into an mmo and any one of them could be succesful if there was a talented team developing it . but why would anyone in thier right mind put millions into a twice failed franchise . you may as well flush it down the toilet . firefly is a 14 episode series and a movie thats it . its over its gone let it be and get over it . it was good but not that good.
do you get the feeling joss whedon cant accept he failed on this one . i mean i admire his tenacity because if he did nt have it buffy would nt have ever been into a series after such a mediocre movie but even he must realise the limits of fireflys appeal now . it could limp on in comics and novels to some small degree of success . not mmos . more fool anyone who trys. they ll lose thier shirt .
Attack of the Show did a feature on Firefly almost 2 years ago. The feature was all about how the insane fans refuse to leave the producers/Joss Whedon alone. There were (at the time) over 1000 emails a week asking for the show's return. It was (also at the time) Whedon's decision NOT to revive Firefly for TV even though there is/was no decent sci-fi television to compete with.
IMO, Whedon got tired of the project early because it wasn't Buffy or Angel. It was a completely different direction from those shows and he decided he didn't like it and the fans have to pay. Presently, besides Battlestar Galactica, there is not another sci-fi space show on TV that pops into my head as 'must-see'. I'd love to see Firefly come back to television with Galactica wrapping up this season but I doubt it.
As for a Firefly game? I think a subscription based mmo might be wrong. Something along the likes of mission-based playing (like Guild Wars) could probably work. If not a GW-style game then something massively single player like Enlight Interactive's X-Universe of games would work pretty good and make gamers feel like they were involved in something similar to an MMO.
[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/28371832@N02/2648951313/[/url]
In Defense of Multiverse of the Developers utilizing Multiverse, I would like to share the following comments.
First off, just as with Firefly, most teams using Multiverse work with Budgets that require Creativity as Whedon would say.
As for the Firefly MMO, what I do know of it that it was to be catered to the Browncoats (Firefly Fans) and not for Mass Market Appeal. So it would be of a Niche Game in that sense.
"The hero of Canton, the man they call 'me'." -Jayne
Sign off,
Hamilton
Don't think it would cut it as an MMO, however, as a SP game it would be fine.
In mmos everyone wants to be strong and powerful, and therefore a 'hero'.. whereas an anti-hero is more of something that'd have to be role played, or the engine would have to be very shiny indeed to deal with giving the player fun while still making him be a big loser hangin on by a thread.
As for the MMO.. I think it is a good idea. They may not be able to reproduce firefly's specific circomstances as such, but the ship and the show's crew are just 1 story thread of what is going on in the world that you see.. there's plenty of misc events in the shows background, that is almost begging to be mmo'd.
I was watching the premiere a few weeks ago and couldnt help thinking, during the opening after the war segment, where it just showed the town and landing area and all the misc stuff going on.. that'd make a great mmo setting.
Consider:
- western and chinese culture mix, in a space/scifi setting.. lots of interesting story ops and such.. and appeal to the 2 major mmo markets
- open skill system so people can do what they want, if they spend enough time practicing it.. typically precu swg is the suggested preferred way.. who knows
- Large solar system with many habitable planets (which could work like swg's planets, but all in 1 single space zone).. and a solar system which is huge.. very very huge, with many thinks like moons and asteroids and comets and free floating stations and whatever.. would take hours/days to fly from one side to the other, lots of random reaver/pirate/whatever space encounters.. lots of room for content there
- All the planets/moons/etc offer different enviroments for land encounters, and you can have sandbox planets like swg does.. the alliance planets all civilised with related quests, the rimmers more wild west style
- 2 major factions, and of course your outer rim factions would squabble amongst themselves as well as against alliance.. nice pvp possibility, while leaving room for pve types and economists/production managers to operate in a comfort zone
- Alliance territory - like eve's empire space, where the law is nearby and watchful.. for your traditional pve player base
- Outer rim - 0.0 like, free for all pvp with claimable asteroid bases and land areas perhaps, for resources or whatever
- etc
Will it have the same atmosphere as the crew of serenity's story? no. But it would be a very fun world anyway, one which any scifi person could get into. EvE style gameplay mixed with swg's space/planet system, with the skill base that everyone keeps screaming for.. sounds like a winner to me
If the game ever gets made, I'd propably buy it. While they are on it, I'll be in my bunk.