Firefly MMORPG Announced

bishiraver writes "Multiverse has announced that they have gained rights to a Firefly Massively Multiplayer Online Game. Multiverse is a company started by several former Netscape employees, and they have developed an engine/network that works for all of their games. They intend to break into the MMO industry by being an MMO publisher of sorts. By standardizing, they can provide a less expensive alternative to the tens of millions of dollars and several years it takes to currently develop an MMO. They have said they will hire out a studio to build the game for them. Corey Bridgets, Massive's Executive Producer, says: 'If you're doing science fiction, you have to really think it out and create an incredibly rich environment that is compelling in its own right, and worth exploring and going back to week after week. That's what Joss Whedon did with Firefly.'"

But...

Will the music be unrelentingly corny?

Re:But... Just play the game...

Who cares what the mods think? Just keep posting what YOU think. There's nothing less interesting than navigating into a discussion and reading two hundred attempts at reflecting the un-official group consesus of Slashdot. It's interesting to hear intelligent individuals put forth their ideas and test them against counter-argument. Slashdot is supposedly a website that "smart people" read. There's nothing smart about being a sheep or a dictaphone. I quote Captain Picard: "If we're going to be damned, let's be damned for who we really are."

Re:But... Just play the game...

heh yeh, but being modded down for challenging the group-think gets frustrating after a while. one of the things that gets ignored frequently is that everyone is entitled to an opinion, however much you disagree with it.

back to the actual topic: if they do this game right, i think it will kick ass. i loved firefly, and its a great setting for a sci-fi MMO. however, firefly has some rabid fans, and if this games sucks, they will _crucify_ this company for f'ing up firefly..

Re:But...

I actually found the music in firefly to be anything but corny. There are so many elements of so many different musics, and combined in a very creative and original way.

The music really helps to intensify the culture infusion forced on this society. It also blends the old west sound, asian sound, and typical "western music" sound extremely well. There's also a lot of emotion expressed in the music. The Ballad Of Jayne and the show's theme are both, in my opinion prime examples of this.

The instrument combinations are extremely unique, which helps to represent that people were just kind of thrown out into the rim and whatever instruments were around was what they used - atypical sounding or not.

In the several times i've watched the seasons of the show, I've always taken particular note of the music adding greatly to the weight of a scene. So, I respect your right to criticize it, but as an avid musician and music consumer, I have to respectfully disagree with your statement.

Re:But...

Thanks for the intelligent reply. What always got me was that there was a certain lack of subtlety in the music -- it felt to me like it drew too much attention to itself, and pushed the whole "it's the Wild West, it's a fusion of cultures!" trope too far, or at least too into the realm of being obvious and just a shade patronizing. On the other hand, I watched the series around the same time that I found The Wire (easily the best show on TV, imho). That show doesn't use background music at all unless it is part of the fictional environment, and I felt that strategy removed a great deal of the artifice from the proceedings and makes The Wire feel more like a documentary. Given some of Firefly's themes and attempts to be gritty and nuanced, I think something similar might have worked really well on the show. But that's definitely not Joss Whedon, and his vision is also what made Firefly excellent TV.

Re:But...

Since Firefly depicted the vacuum of space as proper silence, the lack of a music soundtrack would have people wondering if the sound cut off on their TV sets. Some music was needed to seamlessly cut from environments with air to those without it.

Re:But...

Wash: Reavers!
Mal: zomg lazerz pewpew

Re:But...

Could have been worse, it could be the theme to Enterprise!

Re:But...

On the contrare, Lucas didn't screw anything up. The exact phrase, "It's the ship that made the Kessel Run in under 12 parsecs." is perfectly valid, even if you're not talking about a measurement of time but rather a measurement of distance. A further explanation of why Han said that (though it really has little to do with Lucas) can be foudn in the books The Paraside Snare, The Hutt Gambit, and Rebel Dawn.

And yes, I am a nerd. I'm aware, thanks.

Re:But...

It was obviously an error, but I did like the cover in the books. If I recall correctly, the books described the Kessel Run as a sort of gravitational obstacle course around one or more black holes. Speed would obviously be a factor, but so would navigating the shortest distance (hence the notability of having accomplished the race in some number of parsecs).

OMG! Firecrack!

Finally, a MMORPG that I might be interested in playing. Quick! Burn my credit cards before I become addicted!

Re:OMG! Firecrack!

I loved Firefly. I liked Serenity. But I have serious doubts I'm going to be able to be interested in an MMORPG like this. I don't hate MMORPGs, in fact I love them (although I do define them as an online, multiplayer game where there is an evolving storyline). I originally played Armageddon [armageddon.org] and loved it. I have since tried the Matrix Online [sony.com] which supposedly had an evolving story and it was completely boring. Absolutely no enjoyment factor whatsoever (thankfully I tried it with a free account).

But that doesn't mean graphical MMORPGs must suck. One that is great will be Myst Online: Uru Live. [mystonline.com] I say that with such certainty because we already got a taste of the evolving storyline with the original beta in 2002 - 2004, a detailed account of which can be found here in an in-character manner. [theurulives.com] You can also find a film documentary in several parts here. [thegreattree.com]

The big difference between Uru Live and the Matrix Online was that Uru realized you don't need to go around killing people. They also realised that when you first enter an area it can be very confusing and daunting, and so Cyan Worlds limits it by limiting what you can access at first both because areas aren't open to players, but also because areas need a puzzle to be solved before you can go to the next area. This was a problem I had with the Matrix Online as I was allowed to roam free as I liked in a very large area. Although the maps did help alleviate this, I found they actually did too much and took away the challenge in finding out what to do next and so the only challenge was killing people or stopping someone from getting killed. It became very repetitive, which is something Uru Live realises and avoids. Instead each puzzle is unique and there is no leveling so there is no repetitive gameplay (although there are things you can do more then once such as Ahyoheek). [theurulives.com]

However the big differences between Uru Live and Matrix Online was that the Matrix Online felt like it was completely empty of other players. I logged on and I saw no other players around. Perhaps I was simply in the wrong area. However Uru Live does away with that problem by having an introduction that explains where you can go if you want to play alone or where you can go if you want to find other players. It also has only a couple of places you can go to at the start one of which has players. The Uru Live beta has nowhere near the amount of players that Matrix Online does (it is after all a beta that has limitations on who can play) and yet it felt like it was the more heavily populated. I remember when I first logged onto Uru in 2003 I very quickly not only found another person, but I found a character being played by someone. [theurulives.com]

Unfortunately this MMORPG Firefly sounds more like Matrix Online then Myst Online: Uru Live.

I am trying a new one

Instead of my usual MMORPG haunts, I am trying RealLife: The outside world (tm).

Mom says there are bad people out there, and they can hurt me. But my friend Bill says that there are real girls at the mall that I can talk to.

I am going to try it. Call 911 if I don't come back.

Re:I am trying a new one

Some things to remember:

• When buying from a merchant, don't repeatedly poke them if they do not immediately turn your way. They don't multi-task as well.
• When buying from a merchant at the counter, do not hop up and down on the counter in impatience. The guards don't like that.
• Don't jump off of balconies in an attempt to shorten run distance.
• While the world is decidedly carebear, permadeath is enforced, so take heed.
• Heal spells cost incredible amounts of cash.
• DO NOT strafe around people while talking to them in impatience.
• The guards have no sense of humor when it comes to a little PVP.
• Griefing can get you beaten silly.
• Beggars are still hated.
• Girls in the real world have a built in knock-back system if you try to oggle their polygons too closely.
• Some of them also have a pet called "a Muscle-Bound Boyfriend" that you need to watch out for.
• Unlike some worlds, stuff laying on the ground or on shelves is not to be taken willy-nilly. Such a thing could lead to being flagged a thief by the guards.
• Small animals you might meet are not there for newbies.
• The lack of portals and transport spells sucks(!). Lobby for a patch.
• Do not use /shout, such as: (SHOUTING): "can i get loc of girlz plz thx?!?!?!"
• Earning money in that game is a pain, but comes with a charisma modifier.
• Your avatar needs daily maintenance, such as a bath, or suffer a charisma penalty.
• It's FREE!!!! But... cannot be uninstalled without crashing the system.

All I could think of for the moment.

Re:OMG! Firecrack!

Playing on a free account biases your opinion towards not liking the game.

Then what is the purpose of a free trial account?

Re:OMG! Firecrack!

To be honest there isn't a market left...Any one who is really after a good space game is already playing EVE Online [eve-online.com] and I know from people I come across there is already a huge Firefly fanbase in the game. Hell every member of my squad is an out right addict of Firefly.

So the question is how do these people think they can get the depth and sophistication of EVE to draw people away from characters they've already put at least a year into developing. My answer is that I doubt they can for a very long time; EVE is very complex and very well thought out plus by the time this mob have a game out EVE will probably have the FPS areas added. I really can't see myself moving away from it for a simple name branding of Firefly on another game.

Because it did so well.

First off, I love Firefly, I thought it was fantastic, and near criminal in being killed in it's infancy. That said, it died for a reason. it didn't generate enough interest.

It has an almost cult following these days, and those will be the ones playing it. Depending on the marketing for this (and I doubt there will be much), it may survive for a year or so before being scrapped.

Earth & Beyond was a great MMO, unfortunately, little to no marketing, and just a sort of "Die Hard" fan-base to live on. It just wasn't enough. I suspect this will play out similarly. Historically though, Sci-Fi ish MMOs don't tend to do very well.

Well, not compared to their Medieval-esque counterparts anyway.

Re:Because it did so well.

That's my point though. Star Wars has a MASSIVELY HUGE fan-base that literally spans the globe. And it just "Did OK". There wasn't much in it initially to really REALLY grab people, and keep them. Consider it's main competitor of the time was Everquest, which I had the misfortune of playing an absurd amount of.

Seemed like it wasn't just me that played it, and thought "Huh, this is kinda lame. Think I'll stick with EQ."

Though some of my friends that kept playing it off and on when they got bored have informed me that it's gotten significantly better, though still doesn't enjoy near the following of successful MMOs.

Re:Because it did so well.

300,000 x 10 = $3,000,000 (before expenses). 30,000,000 * 10 = $300,000,000 (before expenses). Which is better again? Especially since your 30,000,000 is likely to include people who might become die hard fans. Plus, having just casual fans means they'll hit your server less often which will lower operating costs for you. Even if they all leave after a year, you'd still be far better off than have the 300,000 die hard fans for 10 years. With the money you make off the 30,000,000 casual fans you can invest in the next 1 year fad to continue the huge profits-and because nobody plays your old game any more you can reuse the equipment from the previous game.

Re:Because it did so well.

Blah, that's a screenshot from a tech demo. The technology being demonstrated is the network engine, not the graphics. Multiverse intends to contract a studio to make the actual game using their middleware.

Heh. I.e., the wrong part altogether?

Let me say that whoever thinks that the network engine is the most expensive part of a MMO is either a snake oil vendor, or genuinely deluded. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that it's trivial, but it pales in comparison with other money sinks and bug oportunities. E.g.,

- The sheer quantity of content there. Compare the surface of WoW, including instances, to, say, NWN2. And NWN2 was a long one. A SP game is meant to be played for 10 hours, maybe even 50 hours in some cases (e.g., NWN2), while a MMO is meant to be played for 6 months on the average. (That's about how long it takes for an average player to get bored anyway and quit. Mind you, like with all averages, some quit after a week, some stay for 6 years.) So you actually have to have content for all that time. Even if it gets more time sinks at the end, you have to, you know, still keep people there and excited by the time they get to the endgame grind, or they won't be goaded into it.

And while sheer terrain surface can be algorithmically generated, the next parts can't:

- Quests and scripting. A world which is just populated with hordes of respawning monsters to kill repeatedly, just doesn't cut it any more. You may find your 10,000 player niche that way, but you'll never be the next WoW. The aspect that the world is essentially a static one is a turn-off. It takes much work and scripting to get the player to suspend disbelief and believe "yay, I saved the elven girl" just as he watches the next group member standing in line to deliver the same cure again.

Ok, so it's not that bad, but you want the quests to be _interesting_, and _believable_, and make the players feel like they've discovered a bit of the story or background or whatever. Copy and paste, mass-produced quests... well, ask Sony how well that worked for EQ2.

- Balance. It's not just for Blizzard any more, folks. In a SP game it's less problem if everyone plays the Godmode class, though even there it _will_ piss off everyone who picked the Pussy class and can't even get to an enemy before being nuked. But in MP a game where everyone plays the same class is boring. Doubly so if it has PvP.

Worse yet, in SP you can give the player a known mix of party NPCs, so you can know what abilities combine with what other NPCs ability. In MP you can have (and _should_ have, because otherwise again it's uninteresting) all sorts of possibilities to combine the abilities of any two classes. Is there some uber combination you've never foreseen?

Are there some items which are horribly unbalanced? E.g., if, say, you give players an ice sword which applies a slow effect, what happens when 5 players with ice swords hack at the same NPC? Does it stack, effectively being able to freeze someone solid for as long as you wish? Does it stack with other slowing abilities, like a mage's Slow spell? If not, do your items make a class completely obsolete as the same spells and effects are available from items? Does it stack with, say, applying an ice oil to that sword? What is the trade-off if I use that sword, compared to another?

Basically, balance is more work than most companies realize or are willing to put in their game. But it makes a hell of a lot of difference.

- Support. If your whole game's premise and repeated business incentive is that it's a persistent world, and people should get attached to their possessions and character, then you'll have to deal with whatever unfair stuff happens to their character or their equipment. Don't underestimate the costs of that, because few things piss a player off at your game than falling in some hole and the understaffed support not answering for a week. And it's not only because of getting attached to that, but while in SP you'd just curse and reload a previous save, in a MMO you don't even have reload.

- General code quality. E.g., did you make sure that the game glitches don't double your support requests? E.g., if in a SP game it's possible to duplicatee items or money, well, (A) it doesn't affect anyone e

Re:Because it did so well.

Lord_Dweomer wrote:

With games like WoW and SW:G and CoH and GW etc, does ANYBODY think these guys can succeed with a mass-produced MMORPG engine?

Three of the games you named make up less than 3% of the mmorpg market combined. World of Warcraft and Lineage I/II are the only signifigant forces. (source MMOGChart.COM [mmogchart.com])

So yea, there's plenty of room for more competition and plenty of low marketshare games to cannibalize. Whether it can happen with Firefly, I can't say. Someone can and will, though.

~Rebecca

Not even a game announcement yet

Multiverse seems to be like all the other freeware engines out there, homemade. And this isn't even a real game announcement, just a sort of open invitation for someone to come along and develop a MMORPG for them.

Until they actually announce a studio willing to develop it and sign the final licensing contracts this is not news. A vague wish to hire someone else to develop a firefly game (which they don't even own the concept of), for their homebrew freeware engine is not a frontpage slashdot story (unless the crappy homebrew engine happens to run on linux).

Re:Because it did so well.

If you were to believe what people say /now/, the show must have had more viewers than any other show in history, and that just isn't true.

Oddly, another of Joss Whedon's shows brought up this very issue:

Spike: If every vampire who said he was at the crucifixion was actually there, it would have been like Woodstock. I was actually at Woodstock. That was a weird gig. I fed off a flower person and spent the next six hours watching my hand move.

I saw a 15-minute clip of the pilot episode at a convention. It must have been the wrong 15 minutes, because it left me with no interest in watching the show when it aired. A year or two down the line, I got talked into watching it on DVD. It took a couple of episodes, but I was hooked. Soon I wanted to get my own copy of the DVDs. This happened all over the place, hence the post-broadcast fan buildup and successful DVD sales.

What's interesting is that the fan base that drove the Firefly DVD sales didn't translate to Serenity movie tickets. It did OK, but wasn't the massive success people were expecting. But I recall hearing somewhere that Serenity also did fairly well on DVD.

Re:Because it did so well.

[Firefly had] successful DVD sales. [...] Serenity also did fairly well on DVD.
Well, that can only mean one thing. The game better be released on DVD.

TV Execs and SF.

It seems to me that TV executives just don't "get" science fiction. Star Trek was killed after three years. Farscape's "to be continued" almost never was. Firefly gets canned just as people are getting into it. And to top it off, they fill the SF airwaves with wrestling (wrestling? wrestling? Sheesh, reruns of Mork and Mindy, or Space 1999, or even The Starlost would have been better).

Hey TV Execs, we SF fans will watch re-runs just as faithfully as mundanes watch new shows. Remember that "Star Trek" show that you wanted to cancel? Ten feature length films, five spin-off series, shelvesful of books, $$$ that almost slipped through your fingers. So, go ahead, run the old Doctor Who episodes in prime time and just watch the numbers. How about feeding NASA-TV footage, or the Jetsons, or Thunderbirds, or the Prisoner, or Planet of the Apes, or...

This could work.

The show never really clicked with me (I think it was because it took the idea of a "space Western" a little too far) but the universe is perfect for an MMORPG, because there's a wealth of options for character classes.

Re:This could work.

"...because there's a wealth of options for character classes."

And in true Fox tradition, you start at level 20. When you make 25, you drop back to do levels 5 though 10, then 32 to 37, then back to 11 to pick up your first skill bonus. After playing levels 42-47, 13-18, and 26-31 you finish up with levels 48-59. When you qualify for 60, your character gets dropped back into the tutorial and you choose which class you want to be.

I predict....

this might live as long as nethack.

  Oh, wait...

  snarkth

Sign me up. Right now.

I'll happily give you guys money just to float in an empty space that will soon be filled with Joss Whedon goodness. Here's a crazy idea, how about getting him to write the story arc?

wow...

omg win....something to get me off wow, it's getting old. hopefully gameplay is as nice as the story line.

One word...

Shiny!

This may be the first online life-sucking game I subscribe to.

Can't wait for this!

I am going to start playing as a level 1 Kaylee...

MMOGs are hard to get right

I'm a fan of Firefly. I predict this MMOG is lame.

A cost-saving MMOG framework just doesn't seem likely to equal "fun".

comics

i would much rather see comic books or novels that a fucking MMO -
the show was so good b/c of its writing, it was the well that stories were told.
there is just no way this can translate to a video game - less so for a fucking MMO

BAH!

Advancing the Story, Exploring the Characters

I've been lusting after new Firefly content for a long time, but I have to admit that a MMORPG is not exactly the culmination of my homes and dreams. There are so many dangling threads in the Firefly universe (Book, Blue Sun, etc.) that I'd give extremities to see explored/resolved. I just don't think that this kind of gaming experience is going to be able to give that kind of satisfaction. Not that the Firefly universe isn't interesting to explore on its own, but what made Firefly special was its extremely strong characters, and I don't see an MMORPG being able to advance the characters.

Pew Pew

Hopefully they've learned better then to use contradicting props and noises. Powder firearms that fire bullets and make "Pew Pew" noises? I know a couple people that didn't like the series for that reason alone.

Inara

Inara character would probably for sure making the most gold/credits.. oh.. Inara.. can't wait to see you in the realm..

Standardizing

Firefly's universe would make an excellent MMO, but there is one line here which worries me:

By standardizing, they can provide a less expensive alternative to the tens of millions of dollars and several years it takes to currently develop an MMO.

I dunno, but when I think 'standardizing' I think 'making everything the same'. Generic. It's a good thing for some things (like data formats), but MMOs are already widely criticized already for often being the exact same mechanics with a different wrapper over the top. Surely 'standardizing' that would make this even worse?

Finally!

A game that specifically supports the Chinese gold farmers native language!

Still May Not Happen

Before anyone freaks out (in a good way), Multiverse [multiverse.net] has yet to ship a product. MMOGs take a lot of time, and a lot of money to produce. While I'm cautiously optimistic about this announcement, it's going to be a while before Serenity flies again.

platform

Multiverse is making a platform for mmos, not a specific "firefly universe". they have merely obtained the rights to make one if they should so choose, but it is certainly not Multiverse's primary concern here.
The Firefly aspect is just a promotional stunt, It is bound to be terrible

Three weeks after it goes live

there will be 21,113 level 60 Inara characters, and everyone else will still be at level 5.

Never underestimate the stamina, wherewithal, and sheer terrifying focus of horny nerds.

Failed Show, Failed Movie...

...Failed MMORPG?

This franchise has yet to succeed in the media it has been developed.

Make a small fortune in the game industry!

1) Start with a large fortune
2) Develop an MMO

Basement dwellers unite!

Come on guys the sun is shining it's a beautiful day out..... on second thought I just watched the news. Never mind.

Random thought

Just throwing something out there for all you scoffers. Sure you may no like the game enough to buy it. But if it does succeed, it may well gather enough of a following (on top of the already cult like following) to merit another movie, or better yet, a second season. Just something to think about before you bash the brains out of this idea.