f13.net

Just saw this pop up on Wired News:


Full article here. (http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,72263-0.html?tw=rss.index)

Since SWG and EVE are nothing alike, I don't know what that means. And I'm not insipired by their 'in game' screenshots at http://www.multiverse.net/ (http://www.multiverse.net/).

Edit: for bad typing

One ponders how The Wild West in Space could possibly be worse then the Roman Empire in Space.

Inventive, these game folks are.

It probably means "Sci-Fi, with spaceships."  Kinda like explaining "pork bellies" to Eddie Murphy.

Space has always been about the Wild West.

Space has never been about Romans.

That's one difference.

Oh.  Hell.  Yes.

Lol.

Yup, and they also took off the listing of their previous "reference" game -- Dark and Light. They also took off some of the Chinese games that were using the engine.

Edit: sorry that's wrong, I was confusing them with Big World.

A Firefly MMO is an intellectual properly that could make a pretty good game.

However, that it's being developed a company whose only previous experience has been making low-budget MMOG construction sets does less than inspire.

I dunno.  The fact that they picked a company that works only on game mechanics and doesn't have some artistic 'vision' to satisfy cheers me up considerably.

If you read the company bios it's even bleaker than that.

I hate it when I'm forced to agree with schild in regards to MMOs.

Lol indeed.

Yes, but do they plan on making Reavers a PC race for the "azz-rape" crowd?

...

OMG! This is the perfect MMORPG IP.

Unless Whedon and some of the shows other writers are involved, I don't really see the point.  There's not much about the setting itself that's inherently interesting, I mostly watched the show for the characters.

The article says that they are actually hiring someone else to do the MMO, it's just that it'll be done with their 'toolkit'. So far I'm not impressed with their toolkit, but who knows, maybe someone knows how to make something consumable with it.

Whedon is pretty damn possessive of this IP.  He has hinted at doing more with the 'verse and always states anything can happen.  I seriously doubt he gave up any rights without his direction.

I'm sure it was Fox's doing.

Agree.  Not that interesting a setting.  Alliance(empire) vs. Independents(rebels).  And then go fight reavers.  Eh.

He refuses to do business with Fox due to their treatment of Firefly.  All Fox had rights to was a TV show based on the IP; from what I understand he was (justifiably as it turns out) neurotic about the contract.  Basically Fox had a rights to TV shows based on Firefly, and perhaps a cut of future films.

Wrong way to think about it. Think more Elite/Privateer -- i.e. make your own way in the galaxy as captain of your own (little) ship.

Multiverse confuses me. It's like a DVD authoring facility decided to make a movie.

Which is all well and good and all, but doesn't really require the Firefly IP.

Except that "Wild West" gunfights are cool and if you are going to do a Western in space you might as well try and get the Firefly license.

Ah, but you're forgetting:
The whole wild untamed interstellar frontier angle is one thing that no MMORPG has really managed to capture.  If it was just a matter of making Elite in space, that's been done many-a-time.

The engine seems pretty damn maleable. You can stuff your own game systems in there ya know. Hell, you probably don't even have to use the toolkit.


Here's a thought. Is it possible to make a civ-building MMO that's based on static quests? Would it be fun? Would it defeat the purpose? Personally I think that would make a kick-ass single player game. Not so sure about an MMO.

I think Chris Roberts tried that. He failed, and then disappeared off the face of the earth. His game was recycled into Freelancer.

I hope it generates an absurd amount of fan-hype and then is greeted with total apathy by consumers.  Watching Serenity top every "MOST ANTICIPATED MOVIE OF THE YEAR!11!1!" poll on the intarweb and then die like a dog at the box office was some funny shit.

It was a pretty good flick and tv series though. There's no reason to dislike it because you like Star Wars so much. That's pretty retarded, even by your standards.

Well, since Firefly is just a rip-off - sorry, re-imagining - of Traveller, I get to say w00t!  Sod your Shadowrun MMO, does this mean I get a Traveller Online MMO at last?

And why are you complaining?  There are absolutely, positively no elves or orcs in Firefly.  There are plenty of hookers, though.  I wonder if they'll make *that* a playable class.  It would have a certain strident honesty about what the SWG-entertainer crowd want to do, in any case.

Gosh. Traveller. I never played it, but I remember my older brother had some plain black boxes with "Traveller" typed in red on them. That was like 1985.

I had no idea it was about space cowboys.

It wasn't so much that it was about space cowboys, as that you could do that if you wanted.  Traveller was usually about a bunch of folks in a ship, often a small trading ship with a couple of guns on it, getting hired to do various ethically or legally dubious things: smuggle this, save that person etc etc (although some campaigns were very different from these: militaristic, political etc).  The similarities are really rather extensive, though I don't think there's any reason to believe that the tv series was directly inspired by the game.  It's not a Underworld/White Wolf thing.  It's more an overall theme thing.

All I can say to this is that I don't think the Firefly IP is going to be worth what they paid for it.

Especially when the game launches in (and let's be charitable) about 2 years time.

The core of this concept is pretty niche, particularly if they're referencing two nichey game systems (pre-CU SWG and Eve). Anyone can make a game like that sure. But to sell it, first to someone you need money from, and then to people you want playing it, an IP is going to make things much easier.

Firefly was not a mass hit. Doesn't matter what story you believe, whether Fox dropped the ball or it was just a niche concept. Firefly wouldn't be a good IP to move a diku for example. But, take the dedicated-audience IP and wrap a dedicated-audience game concept around it and you could have a winner.

And, I love(d) Firefly. Felt like "The Han Solo years", before Luke, Leia and all that. In a good way.

According to this (http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/12/08/Firefly_to_become_MMORPG) article, it's not Whedon that's involved, but FOX.

Clueless media conglomerate + clueless tool developer + some outsourced development house + IP separated from its creator: sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.

Yeah, what kind of idiot would have a scifi IP with an Emporer and a Senate?

The only thing that makes Firefly awesome is the characters. This will not translate well into an MMO, I fear.

Why not ?  It worked for Star Wars Galaxies.

Yes, because the Romans were the only people ever to have an Emporer and Senate.

You do know that copying is transitive: that if A copies B, and C then copies B, C is still copying A?

That said, the direct inspiration for the Emperor in SW was, Lucas says, not Augustus or his heirs but Ming the Merciless.  Given the godawfulness of the whole (and here I use the word loosely) "plot" of the bits he was responsible for I can well believe that the fat, beardy twat is telling the truth.

it worked for Harry Potter. oh wait.

 :cry:

This is going to be Travesty Online.

It'll be below everyone's radar probably. Except the fans, who'll never be pleased.

But I still retain hope. As long as they line up the right talent to build the actual game and assets.

I'll be in my bunk.

 :-D

Even if Firefly is stuck in niche, it will still work wonderfully as a vehicle to promote Multiverse.net.  Doubly so that the Firefly fanbase is probably overlaps with the market of people interested in making a mmog.

My problem with Multiverse.net is it not an "all in one" solution.  You'd still have to go through a third party to rent a dedicated server to host the thing.  Good for a small independent game shop, still not a solution for a hobbyist to try stuff out before committing to spending a lot of resources.

One of my favourite quotes of all time, and I don't even know why...

Tazel, it's Multiverse, not Metaverse. Though their site is down (probably getting hammered by the folks you were talking about) :)

I never saw Firefly, but I actually thought Serenity was pretty good when I caught it on cable.

"I'm unarmed."
"Good!"  *BANG*

Lawl.

Of course, that doesn't mean I don't enjoy seeing it's slobbering-crazy fans getting reamed.

I'm not a huge science fiction fan but I really enjoyed both the series and the film, unlike Star Wars.  I actually enjoyed SWG more than the films.  What does this mean?  I dunno.

(WUA, your words belie your festive avatard!  You so mean.)

Fox Merchandising goes on a money grab with what sci-fi IP they have. What's next, an X-Files MMOG? Harsh Realm? John Doe?

Fuck, we all know a Firefly MMOG will suck, because it will shatter every dream we might have had of a good MMOG in the universe. I'm not saying a good MMOG couldn't be done with that IP. I'm just saying it WON'T be done well.

Sure his helmet may be festive, but look at him.  He still hasn't found shit, and he's not happy about it.

You know - this could be the first 20 Million subscriber game....

My reasoning will be summed up in one word...Whores.

SL has the most Whores per-capita of any game and it can't even make a profit.

Haemish is right, of course.  It will suck.  The more you like the idea, the more it will suck. 

Yeah, but some of the whores are making money hand over fist.

SL might not be - but I bet the 40-year-old men pretending to be Julia Roberts are.

But the army of men dressed as Julia Roberts aren't enough to get SL to any where near 20 million.

Ya, I know we are just quipping.

Actually, the more money the whores make in SL, the more money Linden Labs will make, since all the money is bought from Linden at some point. They are the ultimate pimp.

Uhm, have you tried it?  I'm running the Multiverse server software right here, right now.  I could give you the IP address and open port through my router right now if I was stupid enough to want a critique of my Sparse Island of D'eath.  For a hobbyist it's ideal - if I knew anyone with artistic ability, at any rate - it's when you want to scale up from that that the costs start.

You missed the whole point, nevermind.

Ming the Merciless was the shit.

Endie, are you saying otherwise?


Also, Star Wars was about Han Solo and Bubba Fett. There will be no arguments about that.

Oh, don't get me wrong.  Not only do I believe that the Mingster was everything Flash wasn't - successful, smart, straight... - I would also suggest that his policy of testing planets for pluck and then destroying the ones that showed it made Stalin look like a fucking pussy.  Sensible policies for a happier interstellar empire.

But you can't do Ming again.  Everything that was needed, was said.  Clearly Lucas was too busy writing down the bits of Kakushi toride no san akunin that he liked to make up a new and interesting protagonist.

Ironically, the most boring of our party leaders in the UK is called "Ming" Campbell.  Us Scots have the coolest names.

You mentioned Stalin. You are awesome.

Thanks.  :-)


* Inside joke between me and myself. Don't mind me.

[edit]

Also, my brother (the one who played Traveller) is named Ming. He's not Scottish though.

I used to have a parakeet named Stalin.  How cool is that?

Boba Fett was a second-rate villain whose death was played as comedy.

Heh. I guess I don't like him that much after all. Can't even spell his name right.

Hah.  Harsh Realm's plot pretty much is about people in an MMO.  But with terrorism and stuff.  Fuck, the first episode had a UO reference, if I remember rightly.

This is where it pains me how many people rate SW by the movies.

Well, not "pain" per se. More of a "I wish they made movies from what was created for the books" wish.

Seeing the EU in a movie theatre would ROCK. Stackpole has some great SW books out. Did good BattleTech books too, btw.

You people and your EU.   You're the ones that made the prequels suck.

There's plenty of blame to go around for that.

I love how Lucas crapped all over the EU. That was the best part about the prequels. :)

Err, right. What exactly from the EU as it was before Ep 1 actually made it to the prequels? Oh, besides the name "Coruscant".

And I ask because I want to knw if you actually know anything about EU stuff. Not to epeen. Just not to waste everyone's time.

No, LUcas can take the blame for that squarely on his chubby ass.

If he had *half* the imagination/vision that *half* of the EU authors have, SW would be bigger now that it was in the 80's. Especially these days with the CGI possible.

Uh, Lucas created Star Wars didn't he? He must have had some imagination. Else there wouldn't have been any EU or this stupid discussion for that matter.

Yeah, he created space ships that fly like air-borne planes, completely stupid jedi who don't know when they should/could use the force to help themselves out, and who frequently spout idiotic drivel. The IP has gotten to where it is thanks wholly to the personalities of the actors portraying the roles he put in. The movies were good DESPITE Lucas, and the best one was one he didn't even direct. Sorry, my Lucas hate stems from my LucasArts hate, which was earned from the SWG fiasco... which is almost all LA fault, IMHO.

Eh?  So, the setting is complete garbage, and all that makes it work is the actors.  Also, the EU, which uses the same setting but not the actors, is great and wonderful.  I'm not seeing how these statements fit together.

Admittedly, I haven't read much of the EU, but what I have read was some of the worst drek I've seen since Dragonlance, sitting in some wierd null-zone between "Fan fiction" and "soap opera."  Is there some particular series or author I should pick up (not Stackpole, please)?  Any particularly good books to start with?

Also, I haven't heard anything, anywhere, which has linked LucasArts to the NGE, aside from the fact that Sony maybe couldn't run NGE servers and Pre-NGE servers simultaneously because of licensing issues.  If I recall correctly, some SOE code monkey put together a demo, some SOE dev said "Make it so," and the game went live.  Or am I getting my story mixed up?  Those threads are kind of hard to keep straight...

As for Firefly... meh.  Love the series.  The game will almost undoubtedly suck, though.  Done by Whedon, I might almost have a sliver of hope that he'd can it if it looked bad to protect his IP.  Done by Fox, though... unlikely.  We'll see.  If the next press release doesn't mention anything about levels or character classes, I might begin to care.

Sorry I derailed the thread. On topic, I would love to see a Firfly MMO, but someone near the beginning said it right: It's not so much the IP as it was the characters than made it good. The settign isn't so awesome... just a more futuristic Blade Runner maybe? Maybe that's the problem with all MMO's? People like the "Story", as told from the charcaters view, and that does not translate well into a massive setting where everyone wants to be as special as the charcaters they loved. Boba Fett anyone?

As a niche game though, for fans, why not?

The EU is like 99% shit.  Yuuzhan Vong anyone?

Yuuzhan Vong.  Hehehe, Chewie is dead.

"How do we make this death memorable and poignant, people?  What would Hemingway have done?"

"We could kill him with a.. a planet!"

Nyuck.  People like this stuff.

And that's just part of the argument.


Star Wars is my favorite setting out of the vastness of Sci-Fi.  If anything I should be an EU-SW fanboy.  I read everything until the 'force null' Yuuzhan Vong crap, so I know plenty of it.

However, saying the devotees are the reason the prequels sucked has nothing to do with the information out there Lucas shit all over. It was people's reaction to it.  They were appalled that such and such story was nulled.  That x theory was screwed-up.  That  Y character didn't get shown.  Instead of realizing that the EU and all the material they'd been reading since the first Thrawn book was just fan-fiction (as had been stated by Lucas, LucasFilm and LucasArts) they had conniptions.

They refused to let the movies stand on their own and evaluate them.  That wasn't good enough, oh no.  Boba Fett was an Ex-Stormtrooper!  He eats Jedi's for lunch!  Vader was the same age as his wife!  He was never a whiny-bitch teenager with an axe to grind! The Emporer was never formally Sith trained, he self-taught!  The movies are blasphemy! Wah wah wah.

I'm not saying the movies are perfect.  Hardly.  They have inconsistencies in their own right that deserve to be picked-apart.  However, the whining from the fan base that developed from 1990-1999 based on fan-fiction more than the movies themselves hasn't helped the movies, at all.  The expectations and understanding of WHO owned the property by that crowd were, frankly, ridiculous anyway.  The fans think they own something that they don't.

In the end I keep one thing in mind.  They're a fable for children.  That's what the series was envisioned as, and they fascinate my kids and my nephews far more than the originals when I make them watch them (the originals).  They're different movies for a different generation.  That generation enjoys them plenty.

Ok, I get ya.

It doesn't bother me that the origins of Boba changed, or how Tarkin's reference to the Force as an "ancient religion" turned into something that was eradicated a mere 15 years prior to the statement being made, or that Qui-Gon was actually Obi-wan's Master. Things change when the originator of an IP isn't interested in others extending that IP.

No, what actually bothers me is that they just weren't that great as movies. They didn't do anything for my beloved franchise because of what they were. 8 year olds of today are very different from when we were watching Episode IV out of the back of our parent's station wagons.

I love the EU stuff, warts and all. I actually liked the concept of the Yuuzhan Vong too. I just felt they stretched the stupid storyline over way too many books. They could have done that in about 6, at most, with one of them being the typical trilogy. The reason I liked them though is because it allowed them to explain Zenoma Sekot, which in turn strung together Qui-Gon to Luke, forcing the latter to recognize there's more to the Force than just black and white. Sure it's all revisionist history, but it's fun anyway.

The only thing that bothers me about EU, which has resulted in me simply skipping some books, is the constant "and here again the Republic has descended into corrupt bickering and complacency".

Oh, and that you can easily tell those sacrosanct elements that'll never really change. The Falcon, Lando, all that. Chewie dying wasn't a surprise. They needed a way to kick the book series off. Now, Anakin (Solo) dying, that I was surprised by.

Yes, because we shouldn't update a movie made in the 1930s. There is nothing new under the sun and whatnot. Vader was a great character and a cultural icon, you'd be lucky to find people who know who Ming is and even more hard-pressed to find people who've seen the original Flash stuff. If Ming were all that were needed, why did the 1980s Flash (ah-aaahhh) bomb? Because Lucas raised the bar for cinematography and superceded the past, same as happens in every genre of entertainment.

The EU stuff I read was trash and I stopped reading it. Some stuff about Han right after he washed out of the Imperial Navy. Could've been decent if the writing weren't so amateurish, it was like reading a D&D novel. I was a rabid SW fan as a kid (7 in 77 and saw it so many times in the theater), but really the only stuff I like is the original trilogy and the two KotOR games (I'm playing the second one right now). I agree with DQ that the later movies just weren't good movies. I didn't even mind Jar-Jar once, but it was indicative of how the humor focus had changed from adult to children. The flying r2 unit and the droid factory scene put in just to have more action in the movie was pretty lame. They were bad movies.

Fuck, we've started insulting the shittacular prequel SW movies in a Firefly thread. ONWARD TO PAGE 100 WE GO!

Begin landing your troops.

I concur. Lol.

The reason Firefly is like Traveller is the reason that both are like A. Bertram Chandler. It's an imagining of space adventures as frontiering, with obvious homage paid to adventure fiction set in older frontiers, including 'wild west' novels and, more importantly, naval fiction. A Traveller MMORPG will likely happen when somebody can convince Mark Miller that they can carry it off - he's said in the past that he's interested in the idea. However, Miller may be even harder to convince than schild.

Like I said, I'll be in my bunk.

There's not much to discuss about the Firefly mmo, why wouldn't it drift off-topic? Don't make me call Darth Vader ;)

What particularly pisses me off about the EU is this desire to suddenly tie prequel shit into the EU books, even though at this point these books are taking place decades after even the original movies.  Am I really supposed to buy that R2D2 has been carrying around a recording of Anakin choking his wife for like sixty years or something?

Okay, I coulnd't resist the continuing derail... WUA is so right it's not funny. I get SO fucking sick and tired of every fucking book/.movie being all about the same core charcaters. Ugh!! Now they are doing it to the game... no more "Your" adventure begins, but "A pre-made clone of a movie character" adventure begins. God, the lame asses. Thats partly why the EU books were almost all great. Yeah, we had to deal with the same old asses, but we also got Kyp, the kids, Vong, Tahiri, Pellelon, etc....

We'll have to nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

WUA, you know far too much about the EU for someone who hates it so much.  :-o

I like Star Wars rather a lot, and I think SW and Empire are both great films.

but..

The way I've thought of it for quite a long time is that one of Lucas' greatest strokes of luck was managing to surround himself with some incredibly talented artists and designers, and one hell of a composer (before Williams started recycling himself into a vortex). Let's face it, Lucas had some good concepts and turned out a good film with the original film, but the iconic imagery of the Stormtroopers or Vader didn't come from his design pen, no matter how much he and his underlings want to spout that "it's always been planned this way" tripe.

Boba Fett hasn't been viewed as the ultimate cool badass for 25 years because he did anything particularly cool. In the film(s) he didn't fucking do anything besides stand around and then fall down a hole. It's because Ralph McQuarrie and, erm, that other guy came up with such a good armour design. (based primarily off ancient Greek Helmet designs). That's certainly not Lucas' doing.

As for the EU, excepting KOTOR 1, and maybe JK: Jedi Outcast, I give the whole thing a bit fat "Meh". Badly written and drawn comics and books with all the bad cliche' and self-referential cannibalisation of the films but none of the actors' charm? KOTOR 2 might be ok as well, but I'll wait another 2 years till Gizka finish repairing it to the best of their ability before playing it.



As for Firefly, I've never actually seen it or Serenity, but I do hear they're worth watching. Will probably watch them over summer when I'm off work in a couple of weeks. (And that new BSG people keep telling me about.) Certainly the idea of a Space Frontiers/Elite MMOG Done Right appeals to me. But then, so does Car Wars/Mad Max 2 Done Right, and so did Star Wars Done Right, for that matter...

Isn't EVE supposed to be kind of that Elite MMOG though? Though I guess it's more of a spaceships game and not a "flying around in my spaceship with my buddies" game..

Part of it is me occasionally buying a book and trying to like it.  Part of it is me picking books up in the store and reading enough to decide I won't like them.  And a lot of it is just me hanging around on Star Wars nerdforums and hearing things.  Like the other day, I just wrapped up a debate on whether Anakin circa the last movie could whip Vader circa Empire, should he/they somehow end up fighting themselves.  Which is an extraordinarily geeky waste of time, but I don't want to hear about it from a forum that has a digital pen & paper RPG section.

Anyway, where was I?  Yeah, I have a few EU books laying around.  But a very few, considering what a Star Wars fanboy I am, and how many years I've had to acquire them.  The original Thrawn trilogy was cool, but you could shitcan all the rest and I wouldn't mind much.

Eve mimics the space trading element of Elite better than it does anything else. Otherwise, it's a point 'n' click rpg in space. Don't expect traditional space combat.

[edit]

Frankly, I'm afraid to say anything bad about Eve. I don't have time for the flaming that would follow.  8-)

There was a decent SW documentary on a couple weeks ago and I was amazed at how much that single artist shaped SW. Yet nobody knows his name, it's all that fat bastard Lucas, who imo hasn't done anything decent since his Jabbaness spat out Empire.

Eve: I wish it had X-Wing vs TIE Fighter or Wing Commander style flying :(

I don't want to flame anyone  :-P but just wanted to point out it's not really point-n-click "rpg" combat. If you've played one of the Star Trek games where you command the Enterprise and you fly around in 3rd person perspective (targeting with your individual lasers and managing your shields, etc) you'll know more along the lines of what it's like.

But I do agree that in-cockpit flight combat is fun - it'd be cool if EVE provided a hybrid later on (ie: 3rd person for big ships and 1st person for fighters).

Yeah, that's what I'm talkin' 'bout! :)

The Stormtrooper guy (and TIE Pilot, which he made on a whim and Lucas shit himself and asked for a bunch of them) is Andrew Ainsworth. His website is here http://www.sdsprops.com/home.html in case you feel a need to purchase a full set of life size Stormtrooper armour. (Helmet is enough for me).

The artist who I was trying to think of was the Boba Fett is Joe Johnston, who was a key designer on that character along with McQuarrie.

I have to say though, that bits of Attack of the Clones were well done, and I liked Revenge of the Sith more than Return of the Jedi and it's When Ewoks Attack. Again though, charismatic actors help a lot (McGregor, Diarmid, Lee, Morrison), even when they're delivering horribly stilted dialogue...

/agree.

One thing I was disappointed with is the stated fight that took place between Mace Windu and Greivous in the Ep 3 book that didn't actually take place, nor was ever referenced, in the movie. That's an example of an editing-room cut that fundamentally changed something I thought a key aspect of the story. How could the baddest-ass lightsaber wielder in the entire IP (created his own style and really couldn't be beat directly) not fight what the Cartoon Network series established as the baddest-ass lightsaber fighting enemy?

The thing I thought the novelization did get right was just how cool (as in cool as a person, calm and collected as a fighter) Obi Wan was. He's probably my favorite SW character, besides either Rendar or Palleon.

Because George Lucas wanted him to die like a punk bitch apparently.

You sure they weren't referencing the fight from the end of the Clone Wars cartoon?  Y'know, the entire reason Greivous was coughing the whole time he was onscreen and NOBODY outside of fanbois knew why.

Greivous is walking into his ship. Mace shows up late. Greivous turns around, Mace crushes his armor around his "lungs", I guess. Greivous falls back into the ship and the ship takes off. Queue the Greivous-introduction sequence in Ep 3.

When Mace was talking to Obi-Wan in the Ep 3 novelization, he was explaining to the latter why his fighting style (the default Jedi lightsaber fighting style) would actually put Obi-Wan at an advantage. This is because the Jedi who needed to invent their own style (ala Mace's Vaapad) did so to cover a natural disadvantage they have (his primal instincts always just under the surface). This being a specific style meant Greivous could learn and adapt. By contrast, the default Jedi style is sort of a styleless-style, constantly re-adapting, maybe analagous to Bruce Lee's style versus someone who someone who studied and mastered, say, Ishin-ru Karate. During this conversation, he specifically mentioned "when I fought Greivous". I'm going by memory here since I don't have the book with me. But crushing someone's ribcage from 60 yards away isn't really a fight to me.

I wanted to see a fight  :-D

I wondered why he kept coughing. That bothered me and my girlfriend, why put something in a movie and never explain it? Maybe it'll be explained in the 2023 release of the special version of the holodisc director's cut.

I just thought he was an asthmatic or something.

Oh and that Lucas was a fucking Jabba-sized tool.

That was the one I went with.

Yeah, him and Vader. You go up against the Jedi, they give you asthma.

Bastards.

Well, I admit -- seeing a Rifter and a Dom cybering in a remote corner of Jita is something you can never, ever, EVER forget.

Ah right.  I don't own them and only saw the last one once, so I'd forgotten.


Exactly why I hated that they did it.  It really sucked unless you followed the whole pre-marketing scheme.  Hell they could have even explained it in the title scroll and people would't have just thought "WTF is the badguy sick?"


But then you wouldn't need to buy the Cartoon Network series.

The Cartoon Network series comes bundled.  It only triples the price.

The two seasons of the cartoon were a hell of a lot better than the movies.

Yes.

Get The Fuck Out Of Here.

Err, good one.

If you're bitching about Rendar, I liked him because he was pre-domesticated Han Solo.

I liked the Cartoon Network Star Wars stuff too.  Sure, a four-armed cyborg might clash with your childhood memories of episode 4-6, but I've got admit it's pretty cool.

Just to Star Warsify the thread further...  Apparently there's some blah looking PSP/DS game coming out where you run around trying to steal the Death Star plans Leia was on the run with at the beginning of the original movie.  They have a weird little number-crunching "game" up to promote it, where you have to design your own Death Star to certain specifications while keeping within a budget.

http://www.deathstardesigner.com/

Here's the Purple Pimp Star, complete with rad spoiler:

http://www.deathstardesigner.com/station/20556

Doh, I forgot to post about the Death Star Designer.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=DeOM9L-yoZE

My designs keep going over buget and getting the "rebels may destroy it during construction" warning as their only real weakness.  God damned Emperor can try guarding this one, and not deliberately leaving it unguarded to draw an attack.  :-D

http://www.deathstardesigner.com/station/22519

What the MMO is about really means next to nothing about the finished product.  It's who is making it and who is funding it.

It does mean a lot if it's built off of an IP. Generic MMOs don't really need to worry too much about core fans because they get to invent lore all themselves. But building from an IP means appealing to someone who likes that IP. It also means you used that IP as a way to justify making the game in the first place, which means you convinced someone it could carry a certain financial equity.

As a result, what the game is about is important, because the IP you are building against is the reason you're building at all.

I agree with that, more or less.  DDO and LotRO are good examples of that.  They draw in fans who would otherwise likely not participate.  Still though, if the funding company rushes it, or the developing company hamfists it - it has far more impact than the IP does, in my opinion.

I completely agree. To me, an IP can attract a player, but it's the game play that keeps them.

That's ultimately what WoW got right and SWG got wrong.

I agree.

My wife is an MMO hater because the MMO takes my attention from her.  She has tried a few MMOs usually to level 11 or 12, once to 19: DAoC (level 11), SWG(1 month dancing), EQ2(level 3), Warcraft (level 19), and Guildwars (level 14 and still playing once a month).

She tried DAoC because I was immersed in it, but the gameplay was very grindy and as she would put it "is there anything else to do but to kill things? I dont like killing things?", to which I could only say... "um... but killing is fun! Think of it as defeating". Which of course went nowhere.  She also never was able to grasp the UI and movement, and she was always a complete liability everywhere she went.  She blames this on my being a user of Dvorak keyboards, but in my opinion, a button is a button.

She tried SWG because she wanted to play in Star Wars.  She liked the dancing, but said there was no way she was going to pay $15 a month for it.  She wanted her money back for the box.  Good example of IP pulling in, and game experience walking away.

She tried EQ2 because she liked my gnome in beta (Im a genuine frothing gnome hater).  She hated the game in a big way.  Played a few hours and never talked about it again.

She tried Warcraft because I was playing it, and said it was much easier.  She liked the movement and UI and felt she could play it without hating the experience.  So she played a few different characters, I think 3 or 4 total each to around level 12 and one to 19 - but got bored in the end I think.  Probably the best example of not playing for IP but remaining for game experience.

And guildwars she plays now and then, just because it is something we can do together.  It is a good experience as the zones do not repop, so you can get up and make dinner or whatever and not die.


Now she talks about trying MEO, which is interesting.  It will be like SWG where it is the IP that pulls her in to buy a ticket.  Yet it is going to be the gameplay that determines whether or not she stays.  It's good odds she won't, but if the game is friendly enough to a newcomer with a huge learning curve, that plays slowly and cautiously - and takes a lot of breaks... it'll be a big sell.


So she is really a good example of what you are talking about, I think.  Gets pulled in by IP, but remains or not on gameplay.


I suppose it is because I am a veteran MMO player that I now choose where to divest my time based upon company history.

I choose based on whether I'm having fun and the rewards are attainable on my own schedule. It's one reason I talk up WoW BGs. I've already made my first real mainhand upgrade. I did it faster than I would have in six MC sessions, and without the need to sit at my computer for any more than 20-60 minute sessions, going AFK when I need to and focusing on battles that resolve fairly quickly (WSG and AB, though I much prefer AV when I know I have the time for it).

Back in the day I could put in 5-6 hour sessions and more on weekends. But life changes for everyone and we bend as a result.

She'll probably like LoTRO if she liked WoW to stick around for it for a bit.

Yes, I'm reposting Massively.com links on very old, very forgotten things.

Multiverse is officially dead as a company, meaning that the Buffy Online and Firefly Online titles it was working on are gone too. (http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/01/02/multiverse-shuts-down-firefly-buffy-mmos-officially-dead/)

No surprises, really, and I'm sure that someone will be along shortly to dig the IP out of the trash for at least one of these games and give it another shot.

James Cameron's Multiverse died because they wouldnt share their "screen2game" technology.  As simple as that really.  Most of the folk I saw in their forums typically posted "uhhh, so when do we get the sdk for this?"  And got no reply.  So if they'd have opened up the tech. and slightly monetized their engine it would've been worth it... even with HeroEngine now free. 

Just imagine being able to rip 3d art assets from your favorite films/shows with minimal work.  Granted, the engine itself wasnt that great.

Necroing stuff for the sake of it:

Official Firefly Online title under development... for mobile devices. Due out 2014 (http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/07/18/firefly-online-coming-to-mobile-devices-in-2014/).

The fan-developed Firefly Universe Online project - the one that had the "blessing" of Fox - has apparently stopped development at some point before this announcement, like the majority of fan-based projects do.

As you were.

Any information at all about this?

Project Web site (https://keepflying.com/)

Updated as of May 22, 2014. So still going on apparently.

I guess that's technically a correct answer, Captain Obvious  :oh_i_see:

There's almost no info on their site and it's due out this summer. This close to release and we're still getting concept art releases? So many red flags on this project.

My response to all this as someone who loved Firefly/Serenity is that yes, apparently Fox can take the sky from me  :heartbreak:

New update today:

(https://keepflying.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/FFO-Character-Female-concept-57-1024x449.jpg)

That does not look cool. Concept art basically always looks cool even for bad games.

Is it because they included a dumpy looking chick with the hot ones? :grin:

jeezus people. At least ponzi's other story (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=22591.0) is funded. This one is more vapor than the thread about it.

wat

New Trailer "If I were a captain" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8y98otfH9X8) With special surprise.

Also, announcement at SDCC is that all the former cast of the show will be doing voice over work..

Did i see turn based combat?

It sure looked like it. Also looked really rough and choppy.

Let's see what happens in Beta. For now, throwing Fillion in there for the Fan Squee was a good marketing move. It got a small smile out of me.

This is most definitely in the "Keeping a cautious eye on but am now so jaded by MMORPGs that my hopes are basically nil" standard f13 category.

 :ye_gods:

Oh no. That's just looks so bad. Ugh.

I duno, that looks like it could be fun. It's different.

That's what i thought too, at least it's not another generic mmo.

Maybe i can stop going back to EVE......I just want my damn spaceships.

I registered, they were offering a nifty ship for registering. Its probably a giant piece of crap, but I wanted it anyways. I figure if I could waste money on ESO then I might as well throw some money at something like this when it releases.

Mobile port back to computer. Scale investment to the size of the audience. Watch this gets kicked to the curb if Firefly ever becomes a thing again. Otherwise, this is the game we deserve.

Great so that means that it'll be f2p, but will kick you in the dick with the in-game store.

I am touched by your sunny optimism.

I don't mind the graphics that much, to be honest: I've played a lot of dreary games that look gorgeous.  It's not a million miles from the Shadowrun graphics that, in the single player game, are just fine.  Not that far from NWN's first (re)incarnation come to that.

Jewel Staite (https://twitter.com/JewelStaite/status/502882441410134016/photo/1)

OK, that's kinda cool.

WTF is this?
http://store.steampowered.com/app/343750/ (http://store.steampowered.com/app/343750/)

Firefly Online Cortex
A "companion app" to a product which does not exist yet.  You download it, log in, and they show you advertisements for the game.  By watching them, you get points which convert to currency if the game ever exists.  You can also give them money through this app, if you want.

I just... I don't even fucking know anymore.  Can I just sell a paypal deposit button on Steam?  Just like "Hey, everyone, money, deposit it here, you can compete to see who can donate the most money, here's a JPG of Alan Moore or something, I don't know, whatever, have fun."  Holy fuck.

If you stay away from the microtrans past the initial $5 "donation" it's not a bad app.  Minimally, you get to learn about the 'verse (running click-to missions) while building up cards (screen-capped from show) and brownie points you can use for the game when it releases.   The missions are timed and increase in difficulty, so eventually you'll need to know your way around.

It's no different than the people who drop RMT for a game before it releases to secure in-game shwag.  Only this time, there's at least an app involved instead of well...  nothing. 

Paying 5 dollars to earn stuff for a game that does not exist yet makes it a bad app by default.

So say you for literally every MMO ever produced practically, whether f2p or otherwise?  They all have some kind of pre-release transaction base.  Also, there's a difference between "exist" and "release."  This game exists, it releases in a few months.  Something like Star Citizen?  Can't really say it even exists yet...  and we see what's happening monetarily with that game.

Anyways, the game runs on BP.  The app earns BP + shwag.  It's a nice app actually (akin to a companion app for a show or movie).  So I fail to see the negative.  It's orders of magnitude better than a simple webstore that says "gimme money" for this ingame t-shirt.  Plus it gets me all fired up on firefly again.