revolution firefly
POSTED BY: RedRiver
UPDATED: Saturday, December 20, 2008 06:54
VIEWED: 9986
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As much as I'd love to see this happen, because a Firefly MMORPG could be amazing, I have to agree with the others in saying that you're essentially guaranteed failure at the moment. Your 'eyes are bigger than your stomach' as they say. If you want to try, then try, but just don't get everyone's hopes up, especially your own, because you'll only be all the more disappointed when you fail. If you don't fail? That'll be because you made compromises. Or changes. Or a miracle has occurred. Or you and your team are 20 years older.
Congrats on the ideas and the pitch and the thoughts, but the only way you could get the game you want is if you pitch the idea to a game studio and they help you out, with backing from Fox and Universal.
Perhaps first, if you want to make a huge game, you could make a mod. A TC (Total Modification) for Half-Life 2 could possibly use a lot of your ideas. It may not be multiplayer, but it's more likely to succeed.
In fact, I'd love a Half-Life 2 mod of Firefly. Or any mod of Firefly that isn't for an RTS game.
(Oblivion? Grand Theft Auto? Far Cry 2? I'm not entirely sure which games are moddable or would suit it, coding wise, as I'm not particularly knowledgeable on that subject)
If you make a mod of Firefly, you're likely to give a lot of Browncoats an amazing thing, and you would feel much better about what you've done. It'll still take you ages, and it could be a great experience, and you're more likely to be able to find help, as more people are capable of modding than they are of coding for an MMORPG.
Anyway, the choice is yours, but if you decide to go with a MOD, or you decide to scale down your project, then message me and I'll be most happy to help with any story/dialogue/written side of the project or with any design (menus, posters, textures etc, or level design or whatever)
And now I shall be quiet.
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There is no skill tree, perhaps you did not quite understand, fine. Also do not assume you know what we are and are not capable of. I am not going to sit here and argue with you anymore because it acomplishes nothing. I obviosly cannot convince you, and you are certainly not going to dissuade me from my vision. So lets leave it at that. You can say I am doomed to failure all you want, and in the end you may be right, you may get to say "I told you so" but if this game happens, well then I guess that would be the only way to convince you. As for anyone else, if you want to help or lend some support head over to our site, and join the forum.
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I think this community is big enough to provide this project with more help(extra hands) rather than just negative criticism and reality slaps. I'm sure the ever growin' dev team is well aware of the hurdles they might run into if they truelly commit to this...
it's 'bout time we as community take this MMO thin' seriously instead of hopin' some other company(cough "multi" cough "verse") will.
a good example what a stron' community is capable of is SWG emu project. those of ya who don't know what that is check out their website: swgemu.com
it's remarkable what can be done by ppl in just their free time out of love for somethin' they truelly care 'bout.
if it's a labour of love then nothin' will stop ya.. they've done the impossible and that makes 'em(swg community) mighty!
the future of MMOs is in our hands and not the corporate greed/meat heads that only care 'bout profit and screw their customers over and over ($0e)!
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I agree, and if they do go ahead, I will definitely try to help out. It's just that I'm thinking less people in this community will be able to help if they're making an entire MMORPG. Making that is VERY different to making a Mod. Just as making that is a lot harder than making that SWGemu thing, as that was simply (I say simply, and I mean in relation to making a whole MMORPG, I by no means think it was at ALL easy) analyzing and replicating communication and simulation code.
I'm just saying, would you rather wait years and possibly get an MMORPG, or would you rather wait a while and get a Mod. Not to mention that if a MOD fails, you can always release bits and pieces from it, like menus, models and maps.
RevolutionFirefly I by no means want to tell you what to do or anything, I just want to make sure you've considered everything before you start. Once you begin, the best of luck goes out to you.
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Quote:
Originally posted by RevolutionFirefly:
There is no skill tree, perhaps you did not quite understand, fine.
So, then you don't need to take a basic medic course before you can proceed to the next level of training as you explicitly explained in your vision document, eh? Unlikely. You just think you don't have a tree because you're not doing skills like everybody else. Point of fact, if you need to complete something before you can move on, you have a tree. Deal with it.
Quote:
Originally posted by RevolutionFirefly:
Also do not assume you know what we are and are not capable of. I am not going to sit here and argue with you anymore because it acomplishes nothing. I obviosly cannot convince you, and you are certainly not going to dissuade me from my vision. So lets leave it at that. You can say I am doomed to failure all you want, and in the end you may be right, you may get to say "I told you so" but if this game happens, well then I guess that would be the only way to convince you. As for anyone else, if you want to help or lend some support head over to our site, and join the forum.
I actually know what you're not capable of because I am familiar with the technology required to do it. I am familiar with the time it takes to build such things because I've done stuff like this before. Because, I am a professional programmer.
You on the other hand, aren't familiar with these things. You have an idea that you think you can do. And although I have no doubt that you can design what you want to do in your vision on paper, that is not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is that visions practical implementation.
You're going to have to either ground yourself, or fail. There is no in-between. Because, this isn't the movies where the scrappy underdog with the great idea succeeds in the end. It's reality, where scrappy underdogs get squished unless they see the light.
So, you have a choice. You can either listen to me, someone with greater knowledge, skill and experience, or fail. Pick whichever one you want. Neither will bother me unless you continue to get this community's hopes up for something that hasn't a snowballs chance in hell of succeeding.
----
I am on The Original List (twice). We are The Forsaken and we aim to burn!
"We don't fear the reaper"
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@BigRichard:
If you want to help out a mod, there's one that has been going on for years now. On top of that, they are in need of the skills that you've listed. You can find there forums here:
http://s4.invisionfree.com/GunRunner/index.php?act=idx
If you need any motivation, they are nearing completion as well. Or at least that what they said a while back. So, please help if you can. It'd be nice to have at least one project completely for this community.
----
I am on The Original List (twice). We are The Forsaken and we aim to burn!
"We don't fear the reaper"
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@RedRiver:
That project is 4 years old and has a number of legal protections that any FF/S project doesn't have. Not to mention that they actually have an active fan base that is willing to help with coding to finances.
Point of fact, what protects them is:
1) The clients license not restricting usage to just SOE's servers.
2) Reverse engineering being legal within the confines of a "clean room" environment (US laws, other countries are more sensible)
3) Lucas Arts not caring about it as long as they don't profit off it.
So, Sony can't touch them because they aren't actually using any of there copyrighted material. And Lucas Arts just doesn't care.
On the other hand, the FF/S community has over litigious Fox and Universal. Or has everyone forgot the t-shirt fiasco against 11thhour? And this project would be building everything from scratch. Not to mention that thinking that there will be lots of people on this project is incredibly naive given that every project like this has started and stopped shortly thereafter for reasons including failure of support by the community, lack of interest, etc.
Sorry, but reality doesn't match what you're saying RedRiver.
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I am on The Original List (twice). We are The Forsaken and we aim to burn!
"We don't fear the reaper"
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@BigRichard:
It's not really waiting years though. Waiting a couple years is what would have to be done for a mod. Those take a couple years. MMOGs take about 5 years for professionals with budgets to make. So, for non-professionals making one in ones free time would take... longer. Much longer.
As I've said, that is the reality of the situation. And, as I've said, I've thought about this at length and know of a way to do it. It just wouldn't be a modern MMOG. In fact, I doubt it'd be played. Which makes making it a high risk given the amount of time and energy I'd have to put into it. In other words, it's just not worth it.
But, there's the money aspect (i.e. just try to take money from someone without Fox/Universal getting there panties in a bunch) and the time aspect and the lack of support aspect, and the...
And I can cite examples for each. It's sad to think of it this way, but its the way it works. Deluding oneself away from that will only lead to bad things.
----
I am on The Original List (twice). We are The Forsaken and we aim to burn!
"We don't fear the reaper"
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Thanks SigmaNunki, I'll let them know that I'm willing to help.
And yeah, an MMORPG would take ages, by years I didn't really mean 2-3, i meant around 10+...
and if you don't mind me asking, what's your way of doing it? Just out of interest, or if you don't feel like making it public, PM me about it, as I'd love to know.
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Quote:
Originally posted by BigRichard:
Thanks SigmaNunki, I'll let them know that I'm willing to help.
And yeah, an MMORPG would take ages, by years I didn't really mean 2-3, i meant around 10+...
Good good, to both
Quote:
Originally posted by BigRichard:
and if you don't mind me asking, what's your way of doing it? Just out of interest, or if you don't feel like making it public, PM me about it, as I'd love to know.
I've posted publicly about this elsewhere so I'm not not inclined to not post about it here. Hm, did I get the not's right? Bah.
Essentially, I looked at what causes modern MMOGs to be infeasible for "low income" fan projects. I came to the conclusion that the major reasons were a continuous environment (i.e. constant updates), high detail art work, and significant server resources.
So, to solve the above, I decided to take it to a discrete environment (e.g. Final Fantasy 1), which results in a lower requirement for art work and significantly reduces processing requirements for the server not to mention lower bandwidth requirements as well. Just one change and a lot of the difficulty and problems go away. I even came up with a way to get around massive server costs that didn't include donations or money exchanging hands. Though that still required community involvement. Which I've learned from experience isn't a good assumption.
But, unfortunately, that won't look shiny beside any game that has been made in the past decade or so, and won't play like them either. Hell, I even thought of tossing out the graphics entirely and just making an on-line ASCII game called ASCIIFly. Like anyone would play that, eh?
I also thought of how the game would run and I did come up with a development path. But, I'm not willing to talk about that one.
In other words, I reduced the client/server model to one that was feasible to do in a reasonable time frame and one that wasn't unreasonably difficult to do. Also, one that would be able to reasonably run on a "low end" server to make things able to be practically run. Still though, it's a lot of work, with a lot of support necessary from the community.
Since I came up with the above, I've thought of a couple ways that combat could be done, etc. But, none of that is really designed yet. Though part of the client/server stuff is written out. Though there will be a play between client/server stuff and how the game mechanics are done. So, not entirely finished, but the basic structure is in place for a practical, but "old school" version of a FF/S MMOG. And one that Fox/Universal could be ridiculed for shutting down if they did that.
"You thought THAT would compete with what you're doing!!!"
At any rate, like I said, lots of support would be necessary to get that project done. Even with its "low" requirements. And that's not something that I'm willing do without a good level of assurance that the community will be willing and able to provide support when needed.
Don't get me wrong. It's something that I'd like to do, and I'd probably have a lot of fun doing it. But, I've started projects before, and motivation gets thin after a while of no-one even commenting on progress updates. As in, I don't want to waste my time on something no-one is interested in.
I hope that answers your question.
----
I am on The Original List (twice). We are The Forsaken and we aim to burn!
"We don't fear the reaper"
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