2D MMO for Firefly in the works.

POSTED BY: dreamlarp
UPDATED: Saturday, July 17, 2010 07:18
VIEWED: 10756
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DREAMLARP

Saturday, July 3, 2010 4:30 PM

Terraforma: The Border Moons
http://bordermoons.webs.com/index.htm

I am Just starting to put together a 2D MMO game where players can roleplay out life in Joss Whedon's Firefly/Serenity like Universe.
Firefly had a great overall theme and the episodes were "hilarious". The whole concept is just perfect for a mmo.
Besides there are so many in the various Firefly fan communities that have been waiting for the official game since 2005. This will give them something to chew on till all the huha gets settled.
The FF fan community is more social than just grind/quest oriented. I can see city wide rever invasions being a big hit. The monsters are simple since they are all humans. Revers, space pirates and brigands. Quests are mainly heists, protections and smuggling. Most of the border moons are old school western or oriental. Lots of gun slinging.
I would love to make this gave isometric.

Almost all of these features are in the scripts section of the website. I do need some of them tailored for this game. I would like to pick the time and sprite set and have these scripts put in before all the mapping.

I am in the planning stages and I could use some help with some things.
Sprites for western and oriental char's and buildings.
Some firefly like ships. All isometric if possible.
The engine I am using is the Eclips 2D mmo maker http://www.freemmorpgmaker.com/index.php Its a VB6 based engine so is anyone has skill in VB6 I could use your help.

FEATURES D-Done X-Not Done I-In Progress

X Player housing. Ship/planets.
X Skill sets, mining, farming, fishing,lumberjacking, mechanic, pilot,
X Maps
X Quest system. Quest logs also
X Crew/Guild system.
X GUI/Graphics.
X Skill menu's
X Mounts horses/vehicles
X Containers Bags/boxes/chests.
X Player shops
X Achievement system
X Crafting system
X Invasions system.
X Raid system

Player housing. Ship/planets.
I need players to be able to have a house on one of the planets only and one ship. The problem with ships is that I don’t know how to give each player a ship without making a separate map for each player.

Skill sets, mining, farming, fishing, lumberjacking, mechanic, pilot,
I would like them to be able to pick only one profession such as miner/farmer. If the player picks pilot or mechanic they can not pick miner or fishing ect..
However all players will be able to pilot their ship in a basic fashion like auto pilot to the next planet. But only pilots can maneuver in space to do things like space mining.

Maps
Every planet will have a space port that is exactly the same. I’m not sure how to copy a map in EE yet. Each planet or zone like space/ space station or planet should start with the port and have like 50-100 maps between space port numbers. Exp Osiris space port map#1 Zues space port map# 50.

Quest system. Quest logs also
Most will be clear an area/kill so much mobs, protect the homestead, escort the farmers, smuggle these items ect.. However I would like many several parts quests and a couple of raids. All players will have to clear the area around the house, farm, ranch before they can buy it from the magistrate. I will also like to have class/profession quests to advance.

Crew/Guild system.
The guild system will be for the crews of larger ships. Players can get together and trade all their single player ships for a guild ship. Or trade in their houses for a guild house/worlord’s/priates hideout.

GUI/Graphics.
I just need GUI’s and a few items like rocket launchers, most isometric if I can find any. I will probably use a lot of Riener’s ect.

Skill menu's
I’m planning to use spells like class abilities and weapons like rocket launchers ect.
I will need passive skill system for pilot/miner.

Mounts horses/vehicles
I would like horses and four wheelers or other ground vehicles.

Containers Bags/boxes/chests.
I would like bags for extra inventory space and also crates, boxes and chats for ships and houses.

Player shops
I would like the player to be able to set up his own shop and stoc

BYTEMITE

Saturday, July 3, 2010 8:32 PM

Mechanics could also be useful for some on-job activities, like deactivating security systems, shutting off power or video monitoring, and etc.

Might I recommend you look into altering some of the old Fallout character sprites? There might be a few other games that could be useful, also.

For the ships, you could just have a dock area in the major towns with all the kinds of ships available for purchase in the game, this could double as where people go to open up various crew/"guild hall" related menus.

You could then have pilots be able to reach different options from these same menus.

DREAMLARP

Sunday, July 4, 2010 3:54 AM

I was thinking of doing all those things you said. I have space dock on each planet were you can Buy ships and also enter your ship inside.
The doc and mec are going to have jobs during off ship play. I.E. the dock makes para gas and doubles as crowd control. the mec can throw emp's to stop robots.... I am still looking for a graphix guy to help with sprites, GUI's and tiles. I have planned and wrote out most of the game. I also spent some time getting to know the engine and finding the scripts for these features. I still need a developement team to help me with this game. The VB6 scripter is probably the first team member I will need. I will post updates of the team and game progress.
Keep flying peeps.

MICJWELCH

Sunday, July 4, 2010 8:13 PM

I'd suggest heading over to http://fireflyprops.net/ and seeing if anyone there would be willing to contribute some artwork. Those guys are very good.

Keep us updated. I think it's probably obvious, but you'll have a lot of people willing to play once it gets up and going.

"Always be yourself. Unless You suck." - Joss Whedon

BYTEMITE

Monday, July 5, 2010 5:16 AM

Hmm, another thing you could maybe do is go check out some of the other Firefly games being made, someone might be doing something similar, and they might be farther along.

If you do try to continue to making your own, all you need at first for people to play is a starter town and a simple map for PvP. Then you can add more as you make it.

DREAMLARP

Friday, July 9, 2010 7:09 PM

I am comming along with this project. I have only a few features left to add to the game engine before I start mapping.

I have looked for other firefly based games and all have stopped production. And the only graphics one thats not a mud was a nwn mod.

I still need a good graphics person to help with sprites and items. But I have a great isometric tile set for the game already. I am missing the sprites and items sheet with guns, lots of guns.
Most sprites are 32x64 and items 32x32.

I have seen some good fallout rips but none that are bmp. And none for player mobs.

I will keep you guys posted as the features get done and I make progress on the game.

BYTEMITE

Friday, July 9, 2010 7:29 PM

Does this help?

It's a viewer for various file formats sprites can come in.

http://www.duckandcover.cx/tactics/modtools/redviewer.ace

If that doesn't work, the frm2gif program here apparently will take an input file and convert it to a gif, which you could then open in mspaint and save as a bmp.

http://members.fortunecity.com/noid84/utils.html

I notice a lot of Fallout stuff comes in something called a frame file, you might be able to use this to rip the frames and save as bmps, and some there cobble together into a sprite sheet?

Here's a bunch of Fallout frame packs.

http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/dload.php?action=category&cat_id=53

I've actually done some spriting in the past, modifying character sprites to give them their own style and also improve aesthetic quality, like face and clothing. I'm afraid I have a lot of stuff going on though, otherwise I'd happily try to help you add some multi-cultural accents and colour to this. Maybe in later versions, after you get this main version running?

I'm pretty crap for landscapes though... Not so great at making sprites from nothing, usually need a base to work from.

BYTEMITE

Friday, July 9, 2010 7:51 PM

I also found this really nice sprite sheet for Max Payne, you might be able to use it, might not. I'm not really sure how big the frame file sprites look in comparison. Size disparity not good!

You're makin' me really wanna help, you know, I like spriting, just, so busy... ._.

http://www.spriters-resource.com/gameboy_advance/maxpayne/sheet/9600

Tell you what, I'm writing this story right now, if I could get the next freakin' chapter done, I could try to work on this some weekends... But it's going to be tricky.

JTHEI

Sunday, July 11, 2010 7:33 PM

Just came across this thread and I'm extremely interested. I've worked as a graphic designer for a little over a decade and I'm about 2/3 of the way through a second undergrad degree in Video Game design. That being said, I may be able to help out with your project in some way (never done sprites but I don't think it would be a huge challenge).

As it turns out, I'm about a week away from three solid weeks off of work - so I will have some time on my hands really soon. I'll watch this thread.

DREAMLARP

Sunday, July 11, 2010 9:24 PM

Thank you all so much. Sorry it took so long I have been working on the engine features. I wanna give the players lots of shiny features.

The engine is comming a long great. and I am happy that jthei came by and joined the team. The features may take only a few more dayz. Then its all graphix and mapping. It wont be that long folks.
No power in the verse can stop us now....

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