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'Firefly' to become MMORPG
Author: Ryan GarsidePublished: 8th December 2006
Firefly was a brilliant television series. Will the MMO live up to that?
The irony is that the company who canned the television series (to the anger of many) is now commissioning the MMO. Adam Kline, FOX spokesperson told Wired News:
"We see virtual worlds as an extraordinarily promising new entertainment medium. 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."
It’s a bitter-sweet pill for Firefly fans, who will no doubt relish the prospect of jumping into a universe full of Reavers, traders, mercenaries, futuristic geishas and a whole range of bizarre and imaginative locations they know and love from the series. On the other hand they may feel slightly angered by the fact that this all but ends any hope of there ever being a second Firefly series, with Wheadon (Firefly director) stating he would never work with FOX again. If the MMO is a success then FOX will not let go of the franchise lightly.
The game won't be based around the characters that you know from the movie/series. Instead you will build your own characters, probably in a similar vein to how Star Wars Empires worked, and plop them into the universe. The initial aim is to try and create something distinct from World of Warcraft. However, whether this MMO will be any different to the: choose character, take on quest, level up, then repeat ad infinitum, remains to be seen.
Firefly has a dedicated internet following with sites like FireflyFans.net producing fan fiction and Firefly News. There is even a site dedicated to getting a second Firefly 2 series commissioned. No doubt a fruitless quest.
Would you be up for a Firefly MMO? Let us know in the forums.
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Comments (22)Stats: 0.124 seconds
Go Firefly MMORPG!!!
I love Firefly, but I doubt that this game could do it justice.
The show has so much depth to its characters that would be impossible imho to recreate for every player character.
Not sure what to think. If it's all done right, it could be awesome fun. On the other hand, I'm worried that it could go the way of MxO - specialised fans but not a massive player base - and thus be underfunded.
I'm also not sure about sharing the multiverse with Browncoats, coz they freak me out a little - I LOVE Firefly, but I'm nowhere near as fanatical as some of them seem to be on the fansites.
Be interesting to see how it goes either way.
I doubt it'll come to 360 so my involvement will purely be of a moral support kind.
Firefly may be different, but it'll still follow the same old MMO concept. No doubt you'll do better working as a team, which means playing the game at certain times (to meet up with team-mates). This is the part I don't like. I just wanna be able to play as-and-when...which is why I never got on with Animal Crossing - having to turn the game on at least once every frikkin' day put me right off.
Maybe I'm not hardcore enough. Maybe I'm getting old, who knows :?
I would say I'm a fan of firefly, though haven't joined any websites or fan clubs as such, still going to remain very sceptical of this.
You're missing out, it's fantastic.
The film Serenity is based on it, but Serenity is a awful pile of natural fertiliser where they killed off some of the best characters.
At these sites are some general information on how the movie serenity did at the box offices including production costs and actual box office take in
http://www.scalzi.com/whatever/003763.html
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=serenity.htm
I liken seeing it to seeing SW episode III; too high of expectations going into it.
But you're a blasphemer if you say that the series wasn't awesome.
It had a crappy time slot, crappy schedule, and lots of other production problems stemming from the morons at FOX.
It got canceled because of the ineptitude of FOX, not the lack of fans.
Look at the sales of the DVDs and compare that to the film's income.
I got hooked by a friend and I have since converted most of my friends into Firefly fans.
story is there... all thats left now is gameplay and graphic :)
Besides folks, FOX is the co that screwed Firefly over! Do you REALLY want to add to their bottom line? Not me, No Way, No how.
Comeon Browncoats, show your support of Joss and Firefly and your irritation towards Fox for what they did to it, don't play this one.
Firefly is the greatest cancelled show ever. (thats not really meant to be funny.)
Never liked MMORPGs, but I would take a look at this one. How they can compete with things like WOW, Everquest etc is the real question. They will have to really distinguish themselves.
And what was wrong with the film? I though it was entertaining :/ (Then again I have never actually seen the series)
Kaylee wasn't the same, I thought she was too thin. They tried to incorporate a lot of the themes from the show such as the Kaylee/Simon relationship but not as well as the show did.
Overall plot was good, it just seemed like a really long episode of the show that killed off too many characters and just left the Browncoat audience unsatisfied.
Again, it might be down to high expectations though.
Rent, borrow, or otherwise see the series NOW. You won't regret it.
I see it going two ways and leaning to the first way, it majorly blows and no one will play it. Or it is a good game done right, which I doubt will happen, and it will have a decent run. I think the first one will happen because someone sees how much money wow is ripping off people and thinks that a mmo is a turn key venture, they put just enough effort into it to get it going and sit back and let it die while they wonder why no one is coming.
It (I'd imagine) wouldn't be trying to recreate the depths of the main characters of the show, because they'd only be one of them in all the universe, most players won't interact with them much even if they put them in. What they'd be trying to do would be to recreate the depth of the setting they are in, and that's certainly doable.
The one thing I feel is that it should be like EVE in that death has high cost.
Y'see, I primarily play WoW solo. Sure I've done some dungeon runs, and occasionally I party with my housemates. But most of the time I'm just wandering around on my own. Sure you do somewhat better with backup, but you can do just fine without.