Firefly MMORPG by Shishakli

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Firefly MMORPG

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POSTED BY: SHISHAKLI
UPDATED: Friday, April 8, 2011 17:10
SHORT URL: http://goo.gl/iMhRt
VIEWED: 15259
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Tuesday, January 12, 2010 6:10 AM

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 ;)

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Tuesday, January 12, 2010 6:43 AM

ZEEK

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.

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Tuesday, January 12, 2010 8:42 AM

PHYRELIGHT

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?
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　じしf_, )ノ

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Friday, February 4, 2011 8:22 PM

CANADIAN

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?

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Friday, February 4, 2011 9:01 PM

FREMDFIRMA

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.

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Tuesday, February 8, 2011 2:29 AM

MICJWELCH

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

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

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Tuesday, February 8, 2011 6:45 AM

BYTEMITE

Dreamlarp! And me. :)

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

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Tuesday, February 8, 2011 7:01 AM

ZEEK

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.

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Tuesday, February 8, 2011 1:41 PM

DOCTOROSSI

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.

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Tuesday, February 8, 2011 4:59 PM

HAKEN

Likes to mess with stuffs.

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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Friday, February 11, 2011 2:29 PM

CANADIAN

Ya and this one http://fireflyuniverseonline.com. Didnt kno there was a kings quest remake. Sierra didnt give them a CND? Shiny.

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Friday, February 11, 2011 2:30 PM

CANADIAN

Ya and this one http://fireflyuniverseonline.com. Didnt kno there was a kings quest remake. Sierra didnt give them a CND? Shiny.

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Friday, February 11, 2011 3:08 PM

HAKEN

Likes to mess with stuffs.

How do I get on http://fireflyuniverseonline.com? Or is it down because of FOX Legal?

http://about.me/haken

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Friday, February 11, 2011 3:14 PM

CANADIAN

No clue. Someone leaked the url on another forum.

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Tuesday, April 5, 2011 8:52 AM

CANADIAN

Ah looks like its finally been opened up.

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Tuesday, April 5, 2011 9:40 AM

BYTEMITE

Interesting, they have 3D modelers. And the modeling looks pretty good all considering.

They're currently trying to negotiate with the movers and shakers. The website is just a placeholder in case they get it.

The features page is a little sparse, though. Good to hear that it's really the Firefly verse with it's factions, and 5 star systems, but what I usually want to see are player classes and gameplay mechanics.

Still, something to keep an eye on. :)

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Tuesday, April 5, 2011 2:38 PM

INVADERCHAT

Well that looks cool, but how on earth do they intend to avoid being shut down?

I get the feeling this is going to be one of those things that makes more and more awesome developments and then gets closed once it gains enough attention :(

*EDIT*

Quote:
Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
They're currently trying to negotiate with the movers and shakers. The website is just a placeholder in case they get it.

Oh! Jolly good. How's that gonna work though, didn't they shut the first one down?
What are they going to do, get the rights to make it and do it entirely themselves? :O

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Tuesday, April 5, 2011 3:35 PM

BYTEMITE

Sounds like...

It may not be likely, but on the other hand, Qmx managed to secure a deal to merchandise fan produced stuff. Probably because to Universal and Fox the possibility of actual profit from fanproduced stuff looks like peanuts, and so long as each side got their little percentage and rights acknowledged on paper they were happy.

The reason the last one failed is because they were a known game house, with a real chance of profits, but only working with one of the sides of the equations. The other side found out, nearly cease and desisted, and then everything broke down from there.

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Wednesday, April 6, 2011 4:40 PM

BROWNCOAT1

May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one.

Now that is definitely interesting. Hopefully they can stay open, get it up and running, and get people interested. I know I am curious and would give it a try.

__________________________________________
Holding the line since December '02!

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http://76thbattalion.homestead.com/index.html

http://76thbattalion.proboards.com

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Friday, April 8, 2011 12:47 PM

HARDCOPY

Fireflyuniverseonline looks great, I am curious, is that a current project?

I tried myself to do the whole space trading thing a while back but... it just wasn't fun. :) I started to add stuff but it just didn't click for me. Ahhh well, people still log in now and again. You can mess with it at http://verse.scifilog.com It's been running since December 2007.

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Friday, April 8, 2011 4:54 PM

CANADIAN

Hey hardcopy,

Had a peek at your online game, looks like you put alot of thought into it. Its a mixed blessing I imagine, if it were super popular Fox woulda sent you a wave log ago. I thing Haken mentioned above that he wanted to resurrect his own ff brower game as well. Its almost as if we need one of these games to go completely underground so as to be able to stay online. The catch22 then is that no one would know about it to join! =/

Personally I would die to play a firefly multiplayer with other ff fans. *waits patiently*

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Friday, April 8, 2011 5:10 PM

MYOWNKNIGHT

I agree with Canadian. can't wait, sounds Shinyyyyyyyy.
(if it ever happens.) I did notice that the research part of FFF is pretty scarce, And if there's anyway for Haken to open it so anyone can add content, (like wiki) I would be more than happy to devote a couple of hours of my time to transcribing info from wiki and other sources. (which would be helpfu to any folk who need to referance fact for stories, and if a MMORPG or just a ORPG started on FFF.)

~Ji~. www.riversdiary.tumblr.com

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