Firefly MMO

Manus Celer Dei · Post by **Manus Celer Dei** » 2006-12-07 07:01pm

Like Capt. Mal Reynolds stumbling in after a bar fight, the short-lived but much beloved sci-fi series Firefly will soon make an unexpected return, not as a TV show, but as a massively multiplayer online game.

Now that's shiny.

Multiverse, maker of a free MMO-creation platform, plans to announce Friday morning that it's struck a deal with Fox Licensing to turn the show into an MMORPG in the fashion of Star Wars Galaxies or Eve Online.

The "Browncoats," as Firefly's most devoted fans are known, have been campaigning to bring the show back almost since the moment it was canceled in late 2002. Now they'll get their wish, albeit in a new form.

"We see virtual worlds as an extraordinarily promising new entertainment medium," said Adam Kline, Fox Licensing's vice president of media enterprises in an e-mail. "We believe Multiverse can deliver an experience that will remain true to the original series, while enabling a whole new level of personal involvement for fans."

Canceled in the United States after only 11 episodes, Firefly has become the Star Trek of 21st-century sci-fi fandom: a show that seemed to remake the genre even as it stayed faithful to the conventions of "hard" science fiction, like engine room problems and menacing hordes lurking on the edge of known space.

What made the show special was the wry, often self-deprecating humor of its characters, from the captain with the checkered past to the unwittingly sexy engineer, the dull hunk of a mercenary with a girl's name, and the mysterious young woman passenger with special gifts.

The online version will move away from those central characters -- after all, there's only one Mal Reynolds. In an MMORPG, "everybody has to have their own story," says Multiverse co-founder and executive producer Corey Bridges.

"Television series can be really good properties to turn into MMOs, because when you make a TV series, not only do you need great characters, but you need to create a full, rich, compelling place," Bridges says. "If you're doing science fiction, you have to really think it out and create an incredibly rich environment that is compelling in its own right, and worth exploring and going back to week after week. That's what Joss Whedon did with Firefly."

The universe of Firefly and its spinoff film, Serenity, featured everything from Old West-style towns to futuristic urban environments, gritty spaceships and pastoral retreats -- freedom fighters, oppressive government agents, smugglers, outlaws, mercenaries, trader, townsfolk, futuristic geishas and a race of corrupted humans known as the Reavers.

Bringing those environments and character types to life as an online game will be a challenge: Multiverse is not a game developer, but rather a platform provider whose product is still in beta. Instead of making the game itself, the company will hire a development team that will craft the virtual galaxy using Multiverse tools.

"We want to find someone who wants to do something unique and fun and interesting, not just a re-skin of World of Warcraft or Star Wars Galaxies," Bridges says.

Because the underlying technology is already in place, "I feel confident that we'll see something the public can play sometime in 2008," he adds.

Founded by several early Netscape employees, Multiverse hopes to do for virtual worlds what Netscape did for web pages: provide a universal browser that lets users access any world built on the Multiverse platform using the same client software.

Already, some 7,000 development teams have registered for the Multiverse beta, according to Bridges, and more than 150 are making MMOs and non-game virtual worlds on a full-time basis. The tools are provided for free, with Multiverse taking a cut of revenue only if developers charge for their games, or for virtual items available within their worlds.

Landing Firefly on the Multiverse platform would seem to be a sure-fire promotional move. But satisfying the show's committed fans will not be easy. Online communities like FireflyFans.net, the show's premier fan site, have generated an endless stream of fan fiction, art, blogs, pod casts, meet-ups and even a fan-produced documentary, Done the Impossible, which briefly broke into the top 1,000 in DVD sales on Amazon.com.

The announcement comes just in time for this weekend's second annual gathering of Firefly fans at the Hilton hotel in Burbank, California. The "Flanvention" has already sold out, with 500 prepaid attendees signed up.

Bridges shrugs off the pressure; he just wants to make "something worthy of the show," he says. "This all springs from the genius that is Joss Whedon. It's rewarding beyond words to be able to hopefully be a footnote in the history of Firefly."

This could either be a very big :D or an equally big D:

HSRTG · Post by **HSRTG** » 2006-12-07 07:05pm

If they do it like EVE online it ought to do well. Anything else is an instant *LOSE*.

Darth Mordius · Post by **Darth Mordius** » 2006-12-07 07:09pm

I'm glad they're staying away from the series' characters. I've heard horror stories about star wars galaxies. *shudder*

Stofsk · Post by **Stofsk** » 2006-12-07 07:11pm

Wait til people start clamouring to be River. "I wanna have powers!!!"

Yeah, bravo. Be the most uninteresting character on the entire fucking show.

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2006-12-07 07:23pm

HSRTG wrote:If they do it like EVE online it ought to do well. Anything else is an instant *LOSE*.

I hope they change the scope of the game somewhat, Eve never made me feel like I was actually doing anything for anyone other than myself. While a lot of people enjoy that, and should be encouraged to become corporate leaders or planetary governors or such, I would like something a bit more bread-and-circuses to do in my spare time. I'm much more of a Jayne guy myself, and flying around doing mining or trade runs while waiting for my skills to slowly mature would make me strangle myself with my lovingly knitted hat long before I had a chance to renew my subscription.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2006-12-07 07:45pm

Stofsk wrote:Wait til people start clamouring to be River. "I wanna have powers!!!"

Yeah, bravo. Be the character Joss Whedon wanted to fuck the most.

fixed

Netko · Post by **Netko** » 2006-12-07 08:02pm

Would have much prefered something in the vain of IW2 with much more of, say, the Privateer games thrown in, rather then yet another semi-generic MMORPG. The physics model is there from the series, or at least nobody should find it unbelievable. Maybe have Freelancer like sequences on the planets.

Hell, I'd even settle for a pure Freelancer Firefly game.

But no, they go yet again to the MMORPG money printing presses.

Dorsk 81 · Post by **Dorsk 81** » 2006-12-07 08:30pm

Hmm, what's with the sudden influx of Sci-Fi show based MMOs lately? Stargate: Worlds, the Star Trek MMO, now Firely. You'd think people would be a bit cautious after the complete and utter FUCK UP SOE made of Star Wars Galaxies.

I'll remain pessimistic and assume they'll all be steaming piles of shit until I hear otherwise.

HSRTG · Post by **HSRTG** » 2006-12-07 09:02pm

Covenant wrote:*snip*

Sorry, I should have been clearer. I hope they moderate the game like EVE's folks do, and create a similarly open rule base to allow for unsavory shit to happen. Like the GHSC bit with that huge corp.

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2006-12-07 09:30pm

HSRTG wrote:
Covenant wrote:*snip*
Sorry, I should have been clearer. I hope they moderate the game like EVE's folks do, and create a similarly open rule base to allow for unsavory shit to happen. Like the GHSC bit with that huge corp.

Oooh! Yes, yes indeed! I actually know that guy, as I'm sure a bunch of us do from the PA boards. That stuff always sounded awesome, which is why I was so frustrated that I just couldn't get into Eve. There's some lack of visceral feedback that keeps me from enjoying the game the way I'd like to, but Firefly is so much about the spirit of being a crew. I'd love to be the gun nut on someone's ship without having the responsibility of doing the mining myself.

Stofsk · Post by **Stofsk** » 2006-12-07 09:39pm

Uraniun235 wrote:
Stofsk wrote:Wait til people start clamouring to be River. "I wanna have powers!!!"

Yeah, bravo. Be the character Joss Whedon wanted to fuck the most.
fixed

There's only so much of 'crazy girl' I can stand. She is easily the least interesting Firefly character, which doesn't seem possible with all the cool stuff you could do with psionics.

Besides, Inara and Kaylee are easily more desirable - could have something to do with that whole 'not crazy' thing they have.

DrMckay · Post by **DrMckay** » 2006-12-07 11:34pm

I have never been into RPG's Perhaps I will give it a go. The ships alone will be worth it.

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2006-12-07 11:38pm

DrMckay wrote:I have never been into RPG's Perhaps I will give it a go. The ships alone will be worth it.

Explain, aside from Serenity(Move) we've seen very little in the way to ship to ship combat, heck and they were using a bloody Flak38 in ship to ship combat.

On the other hand, using WWII vintage props in a space battle was highly amusing.

loomer · Post by **loomer** » 2006-12-07 11:59pm

They need to turn this into EVE Online, with elements of planetary exploration/combat. Go into a bar to find a job, get jumped by a Browncoat (Or depending on if you're a Browncoat, a Unionist.), bar fight.

Jaepheth · Post by **Jaepheth** » 2006-12-08 12:11am

Here's hoping they use the Silkroad Online business model...

Hey, I can dream...

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2006-12-08 12:34am

I'm hoping it's NOT just Eve with walkaround. Eve is just too bland--space has such an unsympathetic feel to it, and it's really hard to identify with your character, or someone else's character. Space Combat in Firefly was brutal, often avoided, and rare. I think it'd be incredibly silly for a game based on a show that spent 90 percent of it's time dealing with ground combat and using the ship as a vehicle to make it all about ship combat with foot travel as a secondthought.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-12-08 12:55am

You want to 'identify' with characters in an MMO? Walking-statline characters? Are you playing the same MMOs?

Remember what happened with WoW's RP stuff?

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2006-12-08 01:14am

Stark wrote:You want to 'identify' with characters in an MMO?

LOL Second Life.

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2006-12-08 01:14am

Stark wrote:You want to 'identify' with characters in an MMO? Walking-statline characters? Are you playing the same MMOs?

Remember what happened with WoW's RP stuff?

Not really, I never renewed my subscription!

But yeah, I would like to identify! I don't play MMOs very often because I find them so transparently just a time-sink. W.A.R. looks good to me because it's a PVP fest on paper, and that's got a lot of potential, since I love PVP. Eve has great PVP but it's so expensive to do so it's so incredibly rare. That would suit firefly just fine, but I really want more of an adrenaline rush from a game than that. They feel like Progress Quest to me.

I don't need there to be real roleplay, but Eve was just one step too far out of character for me, and I just never felt immersed at all. So any interest I would have had in developing my role in the community was lost, and I think that's a shame. It's not like they HAVE to cater to me and my silly desire for characterization, but it'd be nice.

--edit. I did like, uh... Guild Wars. That was fun, since it was fo' free and had lots of really goofy versus modes. WoW was fun, but once I hit 60 and all there was left to do was PvP on my own or raid, I got bored. One can only battle for control of Tarren Mill so many times... I got it when the game came out, and left before Battlegrounds, if that gives you and idea of my attention span for mindless grinds. I'm all for loss in PvP, but I'm not for a slow pickup.

HSRTG · Post by **HSRTG** » 2006-12-08 01:29am

Covenant wrote:Space Combat in Firefly was brutal, often avoided, and rare.

Which is precisely why the developers will make it hard and long, often required, and common.

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2006-12-08 01:52am

HSRTG wrote:
Covenant wrote:Space Combat in Firefly was brutal, often avoided, and rare.
Which is precisely why the developers will make it hard and long, often required, and common.

Something about that... it... it sounds less appealing than it used to...

But if it's difficult and not easy to successfully pull off without a hitch then I can see it as more of a slugfest than a rouge-gank, and that'd be fun. You just didn't often see people jumping other people in combat besides Reavers. Hell, the Serenity wasn't even armed, was it? Besides the ersatz buttbomb, that is. You'd need to change things quite a bit.

Post by **weemadando** » 2006-12-08 01:58am

Nooooo!

The "Serenity" RPG was a masterpiece, beautiful game design, simple mechanics and wonderfully laid out rules.

This is going to be a piece of shit. That's my prediction.

Captain Cyran · Post by **Captain Cyran** » 2006-12-08 02:10am

weemadando wrote:Nooooo!

The "Serenity" RPG was a masterpiece, beautiful game design, simple mechanics and wonderfully laid out rules.

This is going to be a piece of shit. That's my prediction.

While I will agree that this is gonna be a piece of shit. I do not hold the same acolades of the Serenity RPG. There were lots of parts that were broken (Mean Left Hook for example, hell, damage in general) dice rolls were a bit screwy. Had a lot of wonderful ideas, but they could have been played out a lot better than they were.

HSRTG · Post by **HSRTG** » 2006-12-08 02:14am

Covenant wrote:I can see it as more of a slugfest than a rouge-gank

Which is precisely what Firefly-verse combat isn't. It's short, fast, and often decided by who fires first. Looking at the combat in Serenity (The only DVD I have easily in hand), it's one to two missiles/shots per kill. Serenity herself was disabled with a single shot, and the Reaver ship that she destroyed was in maybe three. I don't even want to think about what that Alliance ship with the dual huge lasers did to its target.

What will happen, if they implement space combat, will be slugfests. Their basically what current games do for space combat*. I detest slugfests, except in games that are specifically for them (Nexus: The Jupiter Incident comes to mind). I anticipate some crap like electrical shields being able to shield your hull before you take damage, and railguns that take 20-30 shots to wound. In short, genericness.

I'm sorry for any bad images I put in your head BTW.

*I-War (and sequels) notwithstanding

Article wrote:"We believe Multiverse can deliver an experience that will remain true to the original series, while enabling a whole new level of personal involvement for fans."

Translation: We're going to ignore anything we feel like in order to make something that's only superficially Firefly. There'll be just enough Fireflyness to make fanboys purchase it.

Post by **weemadando** » 2006-12-08 02:15am

I truly adore the way that everything in the game has the same stats. Makes life simple.

The whole game is truly an excellent "entry level" game for new RPGers and a great simple and fun game (not even in the Firefly universe most of the time) to play.