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Serenity/Firefly mmo: sanbox or theme park?
joocheese
Member Posts: 845
I was sitting in my living room thinking to myself what would make a great mmorpg. As my wife and I were watching an episode (the message) from Firefly I realized that the world of Serenity/Firefly would make a great mmorpg. Question is, would/should it be a sandbox or theme park mmo?
Any thoughts?
Comments
Anything got to do with space should be a sandbox. The setting of the movie/tv series screams sandbox. So much to do, so much to explore...but...
As we all know, movies to games port (and vice versa) are prone to failure...well except SWG but its dead already.
Yea it would probably work best as a sand box. For sure. Or well......less them park like anyways.
Furthermore, I dont know how well that would translate to an mmo. I suppose it could. I love Firefly and the movie Serenity....well....obviously as my avatar shows. With some good imagination and hard work I could see it as an mmorpg, but I also see it as being very easy to mess up.
A sandbox, most successful MMOs aren't story driven with the player being the "gifted one". They have a base story but it doesn't involve the player directly.
I tend to agree with you, about the movies to game and vice versa. As for SWG, since it is dead, it would be safe to assume that it did fail; as you rightly pointed out (though not sure why you said "except").
I do see Serenity/Firefly as a sandbox mmo; if done correctly and most importantly, faithfully, I think it would have lots of potential. I image it somewhat like EVE, with some SWG in it, but when it would come to interacting in the terraformed planets, I would see it more like Archeage (not fantasy, but in gameplay)
What would you call a Serenity/Firefly mmorpg? Serenity Online (SO) / Firefly Online (FO)?
with the Unification War over, how would you split the factions, if factions at all?
I like the idea of a mix. Some zones are pure frontier, all about exploration and making what you can of an unknown situation. Then other zones being story and event driven.
When all has been said and done, more will have been said than done.
Well you know.....Id probably set the thing during the war. You might even have a chance of running into the real Malcom Reynolds out on the field ya know?
Course that might be too much, and turn the thing into a goofy FPS or something.
So if it was set after, I might have as many as three factions or at least three types. Alliance, Browncoats (who are smugglers, rogues, etc), and then maybe a grey faction that plays both sides. Lets say Mercenaries. I guess. *shrugs*
What about the Reavers? playable faction or npc faction for the purposes of pve?
I think 3 factions would be very possible. Maybe instead of being after the war it could be before the war: Alliance vs Independence (smugglers, rogues, mercernaries) vs Reavers.
lol... what about FTOR (Firefly the old Republic) or STOR (Serenity the old Republic) haha
factions is a bad idea, i think a developer already tried something like that, it was a total fail imo, they even tried to implement it with reavers as playable faction, which was a ludicrous joke at best, probably they hadnt any real knowledge of the series, reavers would however make a good NPC threat, as would the 'alliance' in terms of an 'enforcement' it would easily be possible to have factions dozens of them in fact, that didnt involve having the alliance or reavers as being one of them, the Firefly 'universe' was open ended enough for that, for instance, even the companions themselves could be considered a 'faction' the smugglers etc just part of an underworld faction, you could easily have 'noble' factions too, mercenaries, bounty hunters.. and then there were the 'shepherds' a religious faction perhaps ?
*donks self on head* Reavers....of course. How could I forget that.
Sure I agree. Of course, playing as a reaver might be kind of odd, but if we're talking about a more sand box type game here they'd probably work beautifully. Raiding outposts and being the horrible creatures that they are could always be exciting.
I guess that would make the Browncoats aka Independence the folks kind of stuck in the middle maybe. Id like to see a massive war break out between the Reavers and the Alliance while the good old browncoats just try to scratch out a living amongst all the chaos.
But sure thats a great suggestion. I like it no matter how its done.
I said "except" because for a while, it was quite successful until NGE that is.
I mentioned to you in another thread that I had no clue why sandboxers werent trying to get a sandbox Firefly MMO produced. Rather than flaming games that dont cater to their style, it would be a more worthwhile use of ones time IMO.
Terraforming planets is basically building cities. A faction starts from scratch(like old frontier), and over time becomes more modernized. NPC reavers could raid planets for food, giving loss of available NPCs on planets which failed to defend. This could go both for Alliance, and alternate/Brown coat faction. If they wanted to get deep with PVP, you could add Badger type crime rings.
A plethora of ships could be made available for folks to build.
To me, it sure seems like the lore lends itself a lot better to a sandbpox environment than making another Uncle Owen wars game. Instead sandboxers flame TOR, knowing full well they arent getting SWG2, rather than worrying about something that could theroretically happen. Or even some other IP for that matter.
Which is why MMORPG.com is such a negative site. Folks prefer to bitch daily over games they dont enjoy, rather than focusing on ones that they do, or could enjoy.
But then again, that is just my opinion.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
An IP does not make a good game, only a good marketting campaign.
I've been rewatching Firefly myself, on netflix. After I get to the end of the series I'll do like I always do and watch serenity. Really like that show.
Every time I watch It I always end up thinking of EVE with more of a wild west setting, and the ability to swich ship control on the smaller vessels over to manual control.
http://fireflyuniverseonline.com/
It's in the works..
Indeed.
Firefly was a great series, but what made it great was the personal interactions between the crew. It was a human story first, and the action was mostly a backdrop.
In an MMO, the action becomes the centrepiece, so it's a game set in the Firefly universe, but it could never capture the magic of the series.
Both Eve and Firefly appear to have been heavily influenced by the Traveller pencil and paper game.
A lot of the basic game mechanics in Eve are straight out of that game while Firefly's basic plot and variable-tech setting is exactly the premise of a type-A trader, complete with characters who act like they were rolled up straight out of Traveller's character generation system.
What is good about Firefly is the writing and witty banter between characters. Thats is just not something you can translate into an MMO. Sorry. (And if you tried Themepark would be the only way.)
I love Firefly, but I dont see an MMO in it.
Thats until Fox sees it. They, by own admission, dont hold any rights.
That project it soooo dead once Fox ses it.
And it's supposed to release in 6 months? I wonder if they're hoping that the game will be good enough that Fox will either support them, or just not sue the crap out of them.