Awesome, this is a "verse" that definitely deserves further exploration. I will gladly put on my browncoat one more time.

Definately watch the rest of the season, it was really great and ended too soon. The Firefly universe would actually make for an interesting and unique setting for an MMO, too bad it'll probably end up like the Matrix MMO.

That's a lot of people pointing guns.

FUCK YEAH!

Well let's hope it's actually sci-fi this time and not fantasy in futuristic drag like most of the "sci-fi" MMOs out there.

I always thought Firefly was realy entertaining ,gritty Sci-Fi.

They shouldn't even waste the money developing this MMORPG. First off, going by history, games based on movies/television are sure fire duds Sure, there's some exceptions, but the chances of that occurring are less than winning the lottery.

Second, if an established, and huge, fanbase like the Star Wars one is unable to attract many players to their game, what would make anyone think that Firefly will have any kind of pull?

If they really want to waste their money, they should just hand it over to me. Or, at least, give it to some charity.

Woot, no problem guys. I'm psyched. If they pull it off well, then goodbye WoW!

-nesdude

my friend absolutley loved the show, but ironically enough (or not, I don't really know...) he can't stand the thought of playing online with other people. Still sounds cool though, as long as it's done right.

Sure, there's some exceptions, but the chances of that occurring are less than winning the lottery.

Really? I'd say maybe 1 in 10 movie adaptions are successful. Maybe I should start picking up those lotto tickets.

provided

I loved Firefly and Serenity... but I really can't say I see it mapping well to a MMO type thing very well.

dammit, hit the submit button too early, was thinking it was the login button.

anyways, provided Bioware's MMO doesn't beat it to market, this will be the first MMO I'll sign up for and play. been wanting a good, gritty SF MMO to come out for sometime (besides Eve, I mean, spending hours mining asteroids isn't my idea of fun).

Really? I'd say maybe 1 in 10 movie adaptions are successful. Maybe I should start picking up those lotto tickets.

When I said that games based on established properties are mostly duds, I meant gameplay wise. I'm sure there's many successful crappy games out there (e.g. Spongebob for the kids, and the like), but how many of those games can you say are actually worth playing? That Vin Diesel (Riker something?) game is the only one that comes to mind, at least for me.

I don't know what to think of this. I mean I love the franchise, if you can call it that, but I have a feeling this will be pretty shitty.

Wow. Some quick, enthusiastic support for this (potential) game. I hope they can get their act together and quickly, as this MMO seems like a long time off.

I watched the Firefly series on recommendation from a friend. It wasnt as painful as expected, but it didnt blow me out of the water. A opinion I think will be repeated with this MMO attempt.

I can't decide if this is a good thing or not. One thing is for sure, I absolutely love the show. I would much rather see some more TV/Movies made with that money, to be honest.

:\

I too watched the series after friends recommended it, and I WAS blown out of the water. This series had it all for me. Then Fox raped it and chucked it in the ditch.

Not sure how this one will play out as a game, but the idea was enough to get me and my girlfriend terribly excited.

I absolutely love Firefly, and I think that there's definitely a way that the Firefly verse could be a great setting for an MMO.

But to do this would require some seriously inspired game design. I have yet to play an MMO that I genuinely enjoyed, and it seems that most MMO's have at least one of these critical problems:

-There's almost always a huge emphasis on doing repetitive tasks to progress. In a Firefly MMO, I don't want to find myself farming ceramic-making mud in Canton for 10 hours in order to craft a new ship part, and I especially don't want to purposefully fly out into Reaver territory just because it's good EXP.

-Players have very little effect on the gameworld, have little say in the creation of rules/laws, and pretty much no way of creatively expressing yourself. (There are exceptions, like a Tale in the Desert, but ATitD suffers MASSIVELY from repetitive gameplay) If I want to build a space station or found a settlement on a sparsely-populated planet, and I have the funds to do so, I should be able to.

-Sort of a continuation of my second point, if an MMO even HAS a plot arc, it tends to be controlled almost entirely by the devs. Furthermore, quests are given to you by NPCs. In a Firefly MMO, I'd want crime bosses (actually controlled by fellow players) assigning me smuggling missions, and I want the Alliance (also controlled by REAL PLAYERS) to have genuine reasons to want to try to stop me from smuggling.

-Community contains a huge number of elitist jerks and griefers. Actually, this might fit in pretty well with the Firefly universe... not being able to know who you can trust in terms of business deals/missions assigned, and people who just want to annoy the hell out of other players can make accounts where they're Reavers.

Anyway, enough ranting from me. That's a ton of requirements for a Firefly MMO to be decent. Does it sound ridiculously ambitious and impossible to pull off?

Yes? Well, that's because it IS impossible to pull off (without some groundbreaking game design, at least). And that's why a Firefly MMO will inevitably suck.

No, no, no... Put that money into a comic series or something instead! Me, I'm kinda allergic to MMOs, preferring to spend the money I'd spend on their subscription fees on actual new games and other stuff.

As for Firefly itself, sci-fi fans can do much, much worse than invest in the relatively cheap DVD set and movie. It's a gorram shame that it wasn't more popular, because just about everyone I've shown it to have fallen in love with it.

As much as I love Serenity/Firefly, I'm not a big MMO fan. I'd like to see it being successful, but I wont be there. I'll still be watching the DVDs though - Kaylee is so cute.

never seen firefly, but serentity was one of the most enjoyable sci-fi movies ive seen since the original matrix.. maybe i should check out the series

Huge Buffy fan. I haven't even watched all of Firefly yet (borrowed DVDs).

Firefly sure starts slow, it pretty much sucks for about 5 eps. Then the characters start to hold some attraction. But despite the decent characters, the show still isn't working for me.

Perhaps the biggest problem is it plays like a cut-rate live-action Cowboy Bebop. And Cowboy Bebop is much better.

I just want to throw my hat in with all the people who love Firefly, but don't think this will work. It can be pulled off, but they probably won't, and it will fall into the same problems as every other MMORPG out there.

And it certainly won't capture the charm of the show. That was all in Joss Wheden's writing, and I don't see the possibility for writing zippy dialogue for an MMORPG. The verse was interesting, but I don't think it would make for a very good game. Possibly, if they put it during the war, but then it will probably be another World of Warcraft, but just with one race. Reavers I don't see working, the canon makes them insanely scary, and powerful. I don't like the idea of having them kill my avatar, and then raping the coarpse and sowing its skin to its armor. Plus, there isn't very much variation for the character jobs, since, well, could you see being a pilot or a mechanic full time being fun? So then, you've got what, cowboys and theives? Maybe a bounty hunter?

FTW!

I love Firefly but what made it great was the characters and the writing. The show never got far enough along to really flesh out its universe even though the potential was certainly there. I would have absolutely no interest in an MMO.

Make another movie or get the show back on the air but don't waste money on a certain flop of a game.

I love Firefly and Serenity, even started an LA Browncoats chapter, and I'm looking forward to watching this. The problem is it needs a dedicated team and some real big money thrown at it to make it the good MMO it could be. Will it get that? Of course not. Universal made the decision to make Serenity a total viral marketing campaign and see how that turned out? You need money put behind these projects.

Joss is so talented. It's too bad he's had to deal with crap from Hollywood while movies like White Chicks and the Scary Movie series are made.

Well, fuck. I guess there goes my weekends.

Considering how crazy firefly fans are I would say the game would have a reasonable install base right off the bat. Even if it was the worst game ever they would buy it.

Personally I love Serenity and think firefly is an extremly good tv series. However I wouldn't play an mmo of it. The characters are what make the series good, maybe a single player game would be better.

I agree with Yoshi3gg, with a tad less cynicism.

And I think the fact that Browncoats managed to get Serenity made through their mad devotion based on 11 eps and a DVD set makes them more... tenacious than Star Wars fans... who are taken for granted (how long did it take for unedited original trilogy just to have it be the Laserdisc transfer?).

And I don't care how grammatically ugly that last sentence was.

C'mon. This is sheer nonsense. I liked Firefly, I liked Serenity, but as Josh said, it is dead.

Throw some dirt on--and if you want to do a Western In Space, take a hard look at the single player game numbers for Outlaw, Red Dead (which even after a firesale by Capcom--didn't recoup for either they or Take-Two,) or the incredible attempt by a very talented developer by the name of NeverSoft? The ROI was past soft and into crawling back into their hips like a fat-ass Sumo Wrestler.
Reality hurts.
Damned idiotic idea.
At least give the money to Libraries instead of flushing it down the shitter.

"As a (can't believe I'm going to publically admit this) huge Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan, I was never drawn in to the Firefly universe, but maybe I ought to crack open my DVD set and try to make it past episode 3."

For me it's the reverse. Fans didn't cross over much, which is one of the reasons Fox were unimpressed with the ratings (compared to the aforementioned Buffy).

Do yourself a favor and skip to episode 5 "Out of Gas". It's a fantastic episode that really solidifies the series IMO. It also has a great commentary track.

OMFG!

OMFG!

... OMFG!

*fangasm*

I love the show. I own the only season (/cry) and the movie of course. I would rather see the show come back to television than see it turned into a MMO. Unless they do a really good job with it, but let's be realistic. It will probably be a hunk of crap.

As much as I love Firefly, this won't work. At best, this will play like a quirky Eve clone, and at worst? I don't want to think about it.

The original series was one of the best things to ever grace a television, but as it has been said, it was all in the characters. The cast and Joss Whedon's uncharacteristically good writing (I'm not a Buffy fan, and I can't stand Angel) made that show great.

I was one of the few (sad) fans of both Buffy and Firefly/Serenity. I thought they were both incredibly well done shows. I just don't see how they could capture the firefly universe in an MMPORG - it was the writing, acting, and eclectic characters that made the show great. That is all going to be stripped out of any sort of massive online play. Seems kind of dull you can be a an outcast human, reaver, or alliance.

Firefly is a great show (and Serenity is a good movie), and we owe much to it and Battlestar for bringing us into this sci-fi renaissance we're in.

Still, I can't help but feel the law of diminishing returns here. If someone wants more Firefly content, they're gonna have to do one of two things: make more money off of each item sold or spend less. I don't see an MMO being the greatest idea, but at least then that hardcore fanbase can pour money into the IP on a regular basis.

It WOULD make an excellent Freelancer/Privateer type game though. A mix of on-foot gunslinging, free roaming adventure and so on? Yes!

Serenity (and obviously Firefly) has made a lot of money through DVD sales, so the 38.8 million might be a bit misleading.

I want to be hopeful about this MMO... but it will probably suck.

Here's my problem with this: Unless this MMO can give me Joss Whedon dialog, I fear it won't really deliver the experience. Half of the charm of {any} Whedon show is the witty banter... I can't imagine how that could ever translate to an MMO

If your going to be flying around is space in a third person prespective, then there will be no sound. How fun is that?

Man I hated Firefly and I am half in love with Jewel Staite and never missed an episode of Angel (though I found Buffy overwrought).

I don't know if I'm a typical fan of Whedon but I simply cannot get into Firefly and I've watched the Sci-Fi episodes when those were on. It's just not the kind of sci-fi I enjoy and I'm ideologically opposed to the heroes--I'm rooting for the Alliance.

So maybe if you got a chance to play as them... eh it's not worth it.

"I'm rooting for the Alliance."

So I take it you liked the Emperor in Star Wars?

Firefly was easily the second best SciFi series ever made, IMHO. It really did fail as a direct result of FOX's piss-poor scheduling more than anything else. It had an excellent plot, fantastic characters, a talented cast, superlative writing and direction (except for that episode where they tried to save the hookers, that was pretty mediocre), just really, really bad timing.

It's too bad it didn't start on SciFi like Battlestar Galactica, I really think it could have been as good as BSG in the long haul. Now it has to settle for second best, sadly.

Meh. Both to the show and the possibility of an MMO. Never saw the movie because I was so un-anythinged by the show. I didn't like it. I didn't hate it. I'd just find myself tuning it out completely, but not being irritated enough by it to change the channel. So I say again: Meh.

Don't bury the thing before it ever sees the light of day (or any solid pre-production)!

Believe it or not, people in the industry actually read these things, along with forums, and it only takes the wrong person in executive pants to see this shit and can a project because they don't know any better.

Here's my challenge:

Instead of bitching about how everything sucks and no one does anything cool, try being constructive and creative. These comment sections should be filled to the fucking brim with crazy dev and gameplay ideas that might actually inspire devs/pubs to make the fucking games you supposedly want! You need to represent the kind of changes and creative thinking that you want to see in the industry in order to make them happen.

You know what we need? A Terminator MMO. Terminator is far cooler than Firefly.

As to how it would work...uh...I'll get back to you on that.

Finally, a chance to put my incomplete Chinese language learning to good use. All the incoherent phrases I created during my study will fit right in the Firefly universe.

Seriously, though, I can't think of a good hook the series could introduce to the MMO universe.

"As a (can't believe I'm going to publically admit this) huge Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan, I was never drawn in to the Firefly universe, but maybe I ought to crack open my DVD set and try to make it past episode 3."

This is fucking blasphemy to a firefly fan.

Sign me up!

WoW, feh -- the Firefly 'verse, I'm in.

I don't know if this has been said yet, but knowing (and loving) Firefly, at first the idea had appeal to me whatsoever.

Then I remembered Freelancer.

If they can pull it off in a way that's like Freelancer, it could be a winner.

Gotta watch "Train Robbery" (I think that was the title). Best f*ing teaser intro, ever...

I fail to see how they could attract the kind of audience you'd need to sustain an MMO, but color me interested.

At least they have realistic views fro the get-go: they do need something special to make it work, a WOW clone in space is not going to cut it.

Oh man, I am so hot for Firefly. But I've never really liked MMO. Still, I'm into anything that will make this show never die. I miss it so :(

Perhaps the biggest problem is it plays like a cut-rate live-action Cowboy Bebop. And Cowboy Bebop is much better.

I have one word to say: indeed.