General Discussion

Could the Firefly MMO make it Into the Black?

It’s a common thread in the circles many gamers tend to run in; fan finds show, fan loses show, fan starts letter-writing campaign, fan gets feature film.

Okay, that last part may be the exception, but just such a thing happened to a quirky gem of a Joss Whedon project during the last half decade. For those that missed the massive marketing campaign by the television network five years ago (what, there wasn’t one? That must be why I was watching Enterprise at the time; oh the humanity!) Firefly was a masterful character-driven space western. Sure it sounds cheesy, but oh, how it worked on the screen. Watching gunslingers and rogues drive cattle from the cargohold of their battered freighter one week and infiltrate a 26th century hospital to knock over the pharmacy the next is something nobody should go through life without experiencing. The fans immediately took to calling themselves Browncoats after the disgraced Independent forces of the ‘verse. Represented by the central character of Captain Malcolm Reynolds, the Browncoats of the show were defeated and their war for independence lost at the bloody battle of Serenity Valley in the pilot episode.

Read the whole editorial here.

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.

They announced in 2006; I remember that day well. However, I had not heard so much lately...

...and, a game with both a starship (or, in the case of Wheaton's 'Verse, a spaceship in a really *big* system) AND a ground game?

I'm there. So tired of all these xaxtd*mned fantasy games... I'd love to take a gun to every orc, bunny with horns, and talking dog in every 'verse.

(enjoying diplomancy in VSoH... but I'm looking forward to this one, if it hits, and Star Gate: Worlds).

Almost every game that comes out based on a movie IP is a horrible, twisted, greed-infested flop of a game. Let Firefly rest in our memories, and on our DVDs, without taint. I don't want to some greedy know-nothing exec making some shoddy third rate game to ruin the Firefly name.

I loved Firefly the series and the movie. I thought the idea of a Firefly MMO was intriguing when I first learned of it, but I am dubious about its execution, and I also think the silence from Multiverse regarding this MMO is "deafening", as they say -- not a hopeful sign, imo.

It will be interesting to see whether Stargate Worlds can pull off a similar challenge, i.e., translating a popular TV brand name into a successful MMO. The success or failure of Worlds is going to impact STO, Firefly, and any number of other would-be sci-fi MMOs waiting in the wings.

I ironically made a comment about this on air during my MMO news show this past Saturday.  I can't imagine that while working on the generic engine the Multiverse team has the time or energy to properly invest in making a Firefly MMO work out by supporting whoever they farm the IP out to to make it for them.

This is another vote for just letting sleeping dogs lie.

As another fan of the series and movie I agree that making a game that would actually make us proud would be enormously difficult and require very risky design decisions. I just don't see that happening.

Wishful thinking, but has there been any word what Sci-Fi IP Cryptic Studios is developing? I know rumor was Star Trek, but not sure that was ever confirmed. If it turned out to be Firefly, I'd be doing cartwheels for the next few years until it came out.

Would love to see this done. But it would have to be done right and done right the first time.

With the way things have been going in the MMO world as of late, I just dont see that happening.

I agree Firefly should be shelved lest it's memory be ruined by the seeds of greed. It would take a millionaire who felt the same as we all do to invest the money into a project totally devoted to the original vision that was Firefly, a millionaire who was an avid MMO player to know what needs to be in the game to make it pass muster amongst it's harshest critics.

There are ways you can fly your own Firefly freighter in the interim. Mods of Freelancer and the Orbiter simulator have downloads available for you to obtain your own 3D model of your Firefly.

Lancers Reactor for Freelancer mods: http://www.lancersreactor.com/

The Orbiter "A free space sim" also has a devoted following of modders. http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/

If there are more like these two, I would be interested to know, as I got started in 3D model downloading and collecting since Starfleet Command. Atrahasis is still making models 5 years on for SFC. http://www.geocities.com/atrahasis1/index.html

To me, these are almost as fun as miniatures, provided you have the model viewers for each format.

Now, If I could just get one app to display them all in a screen saver....