Firefly MMORPG

POSTED BY: Shishakli
UPDATED: Saturday, April 9, 2011 03:10
VIEWED: 16767
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SHISHAKLI

Tuesday, January 12, 2010 4:10 PM

I know I know... This has been discussed to death, and I also know there is 0.000001% chance of a Firefly MMORPG happening. But that's not why I'm posting. So please don't hate me and please don't respond to this post on face value alone. Thank you :D

It occured to me about 15 minutes ago that the Firefly universe could be exactly what I'm looking for in a MMORPG.

I was remembering playing a game (I think it was starwars galaxies) that let you gather/mine/harvest materials to make parts to make items of differing quality. I really enjoyed that dynamic, because it meant you could hunt around for better quality resources to make better quality parts, and there was an investment/payoff feel to the whole thing that was engaging and fun!

Then there is the element of exploration that worked well in SWG. It didn't have much of a practical effect as much as a "wow this is really pretty" typepayback.

So then, the firefly universe has the best of all the pioneering genres. It has the new/exciting/exploration element of Sci-fi, with the adapt/inovate/survive element of a western. To me, the firefly universe was very "Star trek TNG meets Dr Quinn medicine woman".

Conceivably, the MMORPG could start with a single colony ship landing on a flat and players from there are tasked to explore the surrounds and gather/build in order to make outposts and explore further, and eventually a ship port and space craft to explore more moons... "unlocking" new areas as you go.

Eventually the game would become space trading based for those who want to play that and resource farming for those who want to do that and manufacturing etc etc. Smuggling, piracy, reavers. A lot of practical game content and mechanics available without much expectation of being able to fly the Millenium falcon or be a Jedi etc etc.

And that was about the full extent of the idea ;)

ZEEK

Tuesday, January 12, 2010 4:43 PM

Dude the Firefly MMORPG has been dead for a long time. Sorry to burst your bubble.

Sorry had to do it. :-P Yeah a MMO based on Firefly probably could be fun, but there's just too many MMOs out there these days. I'm sure you can find one that has the elements you're looking for. It just might not be the exact setting you want.

PHYRELIGHT

Tuesday, January 12, 2010 6:42 PM

That would be a great starting point for a game, but after a couple of months that can get old quick.

A friend of mine who works as a salesman in the video game industry explained to me exactly why the Firefly MMO died. In order to keep an MMO up and running 24/7 and be successful, you need money. Lots and lots of money. Probably more than most people have ever seen.

First of all, you need to take a huge portion of that cashy money and pay lots of developers design the virtual 'verse and all the elements, actions, quests, characters, etc. (aka-game content). This can take a few years to complete.

Then, you need to set up hundreds (verging on thousands) of servers to support the millions of players worldwide necessary to support the game in order to make a return without having to charge more than $30 dollars per month in subscription.

Then, you need to pay moderators to support live customer service on a 24/7 basis in many different countries to support the different languages worldwide.

After that, you need the developers to make the next level of content so you won't lose any players once they have completed the content.

After my salesman friend explained this to me, he said that a first person shooter game would be the best way to launch this gigantic endeavor. Personally, I'm just hoping that an FPS can be developed after a series of books can be released.

　／l、
（ﾟ､｡７ -- I can haz cheezburger?
　l、 ~ヽ
　じしf_, )ノ

CANADIAN

Saturday, February 5, 2011 6:22 AM

I can appreciate this thread has been dead for over a year, although not the topic itself, at least not in google's eyes and the eyes of fans on several forums.

The Firefly mmo, while I agree your friend is correct about most titles that never make it to market, had never lived. From my understanding, Multiverse acquisition of this license was not for production, but a political gain at the time. Its a long, boring story.

I want to bump this discussion to pose a question to everyone. What if a professional game development company came along and developed an interactive title based on the Firefly franchise, reelased under GPL (meaning an unofficial title), would we the fans support it? Or would we only support official licensed lore?

Thoughts?

FREMDFIRMA

Saturday, February 5, 2011 7:01 AM

Try Freelancer Discovery.
http://discoveryfl.com/

I don't play it online, but there's plenty of servers available, last I checked - make sure of the house rules though.

And as of the older version I play, one of the ships you can buy/fly is a Firefly Class Transport, only mine has pretty good shields and a set of transport guns on it which'll make you into mincemeat if you try me.. and I won't even change course to do it.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

MICJWELCH

Tuesday, February 8, 2011 12:29 PM

There is someone working on a Firefly inspired game at http://bordermoons.webs.com/

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

BYTEMITE

Tuesday, February 8, 2011 4:45 PM

Dreamlarp! And me. :)

Although I'm sloooo. We need more artists...

ZEEK

Tuesday, February 8, 2011 5:01 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by canadian:
What if a professional game development company came along and developed an interactive title based on the Firefly franchise, reelased under GPL (meaning an unofficial title), would we the fans support it? Or would we only support official licensed lore?

Thoughts?

I don't like MMOs. So, I wouldn't play it myself, but not because it's unofficial. I'd definitely be all over an unofficial Firefly game if it was a genre I enjoyed.

For instance I think it would be awesome if they went for a Kings Quest, Space Quest, Monkey Island type of game. It kind of helps that fans recently released an unofficial Kings Quest game. It has voice acting and everything. The graphics are far from cutting edge, but it's still a fun game if you like that type of game. Which I do

Firefly could totally work in an exploration type game like that IMO.

DOCTOROSSI

Tuesday, February 8, 2011 11:41 PM

Quote:
I don't like MMOs. So, I wouldn't play it myself, but not because it's unofficial. I'd definitely be all over an unofficial Firefly game if it was a genre I enjoyed.

I'm with you. I'd love to see something show up on iOS, but I have zero time for MMOs of any stripe.

HAKEN

Wednesday, February 9, 2011 2:59 AM

I was tinkering over the weekend and revived an old project for the site. Not sure if anyone would be interested, but would be interested in exchanging ideas with Game Masters of paper-n-pencil RPGs.

What I currently have are a few pages for FFF.NET 2.0 that'll allow GM to create locations and encounters with the info stored in the database. I'm working on navigation now where it'll link the locations together.

What I envision is that there will be a Game Master screen and Player Screen and somehow the GM will use all this stored info to run a game. No more cut and paste into a forum thread perhaps. Anyway, still pretty rough, but I'll try get something up soon so potential GM can mess with it a bit.

Any input would be appreciated though since I'm not exactly sure what I'm making. It's been years since I played D&D and interactive fiction games.

http://about.me/haken

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