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'Firefly' to become MMORPG

Published on 8th December 2006 by Ryan Garside

Firefly was a brilliant television series. Will the MMO live up to that?

Multiverse, a company made up of former Netscape employees, was founded in 2004 with the aim of creating a network of Massively Multiplayer Online Games. Two years later and the company has announced a major coups, the rights to make the MMO for the cult hit television series Firefly. They will now be in charge of a project that will bring the Firefly universe to the internet.

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.

22 Comments

Discuss in the forums Reply

Nezodon 8th December 2006, 10:35

I hope this is true, i miss that show, but alot of MMORPG's have a tendency to miss the mark by a long way im hoping it would be the case for this though i will no doubt follow its development and try and get in beta for it.

Springs 8th December 2006, 11:04

yay...!!! the series was great... a little wierd gut great none the less... hope this turns out great and will hopefully follow it best i can... !!!

Go Firefly MMORPG!!!

geek1017 8th December 2006, 11:07

I have never been a fan of any 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.

Speedo 8th December 2006, 11:11

I don't really see Firefly being suited to an MMO, it'd probably end up being a cult game. I would rather they put their money on another series rather than burning money on creating a trash game :(.

Edhi 8th December 2006, 11:46

As I just posted on the Matrix Online forums:

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.

Chuff_72 8th December 2006, 12:13

I guess anything that keeps the franchise "officially" alive and in the public eye is a good thing... could be worse, could have been Firefly: Ultra Pinball Edition.

I doubt it'll come to 360 so my involvement will purely be of a moral support kind.

riggs 8th December 2006, 12:23

Love Firefly, but never been a fan of MMO's - the only good ones just seem to be the same oldy-worldy crap. And I don't consider myself geeky enough to waste hours and hours slaying dwarves and rescuing fair maidens (or whatever the hell it is you do in an MMO).

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 :?

Veles 8th December 2006, 12:27

They're making an MMO but not carrying on the series? WTF?

Bladestorm 8th December 2006, 12:53

I think it will be extraordinarily difficult to pull off an MMO that does the IP justice, people would want ships, meaningfull combat (ie not "kill 20 bandits, kill 30 bandits, kill 40 reavers..) Plus while theres a fair sized system and quite a few planets, most of them aren't that densely populated, such that even a modest number of players would have outnumbered the locals I'd have thought.

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.

Duste 8th December 2006, 14:19

I've never even heard of the series. :o

Veles 8th December 2006, 15:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duste
I've never even heard of the series. :o

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.

Hilariousity 8th December 2006, 15:42

I can't believe that multiverse is going to waste more money on this series. The firefly series as I remember it was a failure. THe movie serenity based off the television series was a failure and now they are going to make a videogame adaption of the series which is bound to be a failure. Of course I could be wrong, we all make mistakes. I once thought that Wow was going to be a failure :o but if the mmorpg fails it will probably be the end of the Firefly universe.

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

geek1017 8th December 2006, 16:06

Yes, the movie wasn't what I would call good.
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.

Redbeaver 8th December 2006, 16:38

never watched the series, but the movie is great :) i can imagine an MMO wit reavers will be wicked, but if its just a re-do of any other MMo, i wont pick it up...

story is there... all thats left now is gameplay and graphic :)

chipduelist 8th December 2006, 17:22

I Love the idea of a MMORPG of Firefly, but since FOX is bankrolling, that means that Joss won't have input, so it will be crap. Period.

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.

13000 8th December 2006, 17:28

Might pick it up and play it. As long as their is no monthly subscription fee..

Lazarus Dark 8th December 2006, 19:41

No, Fox is teh evil. They cancelled firefly before even showing all the episodes that had been made. Firefly and also Dark Angel. They had Joss Whedons most inspired work and they had James Camerons only tv series and they cancelled them. The executive who did this should be drug into the street and shot. I will not support fox "throwing us a bone" with this game. They should sell the rights to scifi channel and let them restart the series.

Firefly is the greatest cancelled show ever. (thats not really meant to be funny.)

Breach 8th December 2006, 19:43

I am excited to hear that Firefly is alive in some form anyway. I just stopped watching Fox anything after they replaced this great (or could have been as far as popularity goes) series with BS cookie cutter (un)reality shows. I do beleive strongly that it could have been the next Star Trek, as actual Star Trek was slowly and painfully killed by Brannon Braga and his cronies.

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.

BioSniper 9th December 2006, 09:47

I have a feeling it would end up being an EVE Online meets Starwars Galaxies mash up.
And what was wrong with the film? I though it was entertaining :/ (Then again I have never actually seen the series)

geek1017 9th December 2006, 10:04

The one thing that the film did right by was the character of River.

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.

speedfreek 9th December 2006, 14:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by geek1017
Rent, borrow, or otherwise see the series NOW. You won't regret it.

Agreed. Good show.

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.

draxar 9th December 2006, 20:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by geek1017
I have never been a fan of any 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.

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.

Quote:

Originally Posted by riggs
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.

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.