THE BIG DAMN VIDEOGAME by ShranYoshikawa

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

THE BIG DAMN VIDEOGAME

POSTED BY: SHRANYOSHIKAWA
UPDATED: Tuesday, March 25, 2008 04:15
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Tuesday, March 25, 2008 3:12 AM

Firefly: The Big Damn Videogame
It exists. I’m not kidding. But first some background before the reprocessed protein cake…
While I and many fans were excited by the prospect of an online Firefly MMORPG, the game has yet to manifest itself officially. The article in the Jane Esperson book, “Serenity Found” written by the CEO (or something) of Multiverse, the company who scored the game rights, was undeniably filled with such hope and fond love for the show that any Flan/ game fan would salivate at the prospect. In actual fact, as of early 2008, the Multiverse has only generated eight readily accessible SIMs and NONE of them resemble Firefly in the least. While Fox had given the company the legal rights to develop the game, I do not know if Joss himself had ever given his crucial blessing. Any Firefly / Serenity product, especially of this magnitude, would be doomed to fail in the long run if Joss did not approve of its content, regardless of who owns the rights. According to the article, the Multiverse was to be designed by a team of programmers and would be a monthly subscription of somewhere in the vicinity of $40. You would fly their ships, visit their planet SIMs, buy their goods, and play their game landscape according to their rules. Sounds mighty shiny, but it seems unlikely to manifest itself unless we get another (fingers crossed) BDM. Also, considering we haven’t heard nary a peep from them on this subject since the article in “Serenity Found.”
Enter Firefly: The Big Damn Videogame as played on Secondlife (SL for short). Created by Linden Labs, SL is a videogame like none other. Much like Firefly, SL is difficult to describe in a few words, so I will hit only upon the differences between SL and the Multiverse. First and most importantly, Firefly SIMs on SL actually exist! Lots of them in fact including fan produced interpretations of Persephone, Londinium, Jaynestown and Miranda, and Flan towns of Washtown (the crappy little town where Wash is the hero), Blackburne Downport, and Kaylee’s Crossing (with more on the way). Here is the most important difference between the two games: A team of paid programmers did not construct the full scale, walk thru Firefly ship in Washtown. Fans did. Every pixel crafted and textured with love. Fans created all the other SIMs as well. Let me please restate that slowly… fans have created the virtual ’Verse. They were not under contract or chosen or asked. We were not given permission or Joss’ blessing. We wanted a Firefly videogame and we made it using Secondlife as our engine. There was no official “ok” from Fox or Universal or Joss. We did it on own own because we wanted it. This is “fan-fic” at its technological and interactive epoch. And while in the world of fan-fic, nothing is considered canon, it is much the same on SL. We know we are Independents and we are gorram proud of it. It took a lot of guts, creativity, and considerable financial commitment for those first Browncoats in Washtown to forge a Firefly based SIM not knowing what the future of it would be. Their goal was not to make money and sell subscriptions. The goal was simple: You can’t take the sky from me. Fans OWN Firefly on SL. Fans design, create and populate it. Fans pay for it with their hard earned money. Secondlife is free to play, however it is the gamers themselves who own and pay for the land. The subject of game economics is complicated, so, RTGM (read the gorram manual) for more details. Secondlife is not without its problems however. The open ended, open source nature of the game which is its biggest strength is also its greatest weakness and well worth a caution to newbies. The ability to create any world you wish is applied to every land owner in the game and hence, there is a considerable amount of go-se, bad pornography, and Star Wars junk littering the landscape. This is the price of freedom. The rest of SL seems to be of little consequence to the FF gamers. SL is our engine. And while certain “other” parts of this engine resemble a Capassin-38, OUR parts are bright and shiny, and most importantly, it is reliable and constantly upgrading. We protect our sky. We protect our own. Intruders and troublemakers beware. We have done the impossible.
When in-game, search in “place” and “groups” for Firefly/ Serenity to find the goods. And oh yes, if you are looking for “Halo” quality graphics and game play, you are barking up the wrong catalyzer. This is more social networking than shoot-em-up.
Stay shiny. Keep flying.

If you are truly interested in learning more about this, please check out…
www.secondlife.com game info
www.myspace.com/fireflybigdamnvideogame some pictures
www.cortexnewsservice.com RPG blog

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Tuesday, March 25, 2008 3:13 AM

SHRANYOSHIKAWA

I misspelled Jane Espenson's name. Sorry 'bout that.

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Tuesday, March 25, 2008 4:15 AM

WASHNWEAR

Quote:
Originally posted by ShranYoshikawa:
I misspelled Jane Espenson's name. Sorry 'bout that.

Kudos, congrats, and thanks for the post! Looks like my days of ignoring Second Life are certainly coming to a middle...

It was like that when we got here!

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