Buffy MMO Announced, Firefly MMO Delayed

Zonk brings word that Multiverse, the developer who in 2006 acquired the rights to make a Firefly-based MMO, has announced that a Buffy: The Vampire Slayer MMO is now under development. An interview with Corey Bridges from Multiverse seems to indicate that the Firefly MMO, though delayed, is not dead. He also provides a few details on what the Buffy game will be like. Quoting: "What we're doing with the Buffy game then is releasing it in stages. It will first be a flash-based virtual world, with the full Multiverse server behind it. ... So it will start as a 2D flash-based MMO where you can go on missions and interact with other players. This will extend even once we have the 3D client working, where you can both interact with players using the other point of view. We're going to have these shared spaces where 2D and 3D people can interact. All of this will come out in phases, with staged gameplay coming out. We're sort of blazing a path with this concept, and we're really interested in what this might mean for players of the two versions. ... I'd love to get [a public beta] out to players by the end of the year."

Comments

Buffy?

[SomeJoel]

This seems like kind of a flimsy IP to base an MMO on. Aren't there dozens of better choices?

Re:Buffy?

[PrescriptionWarning]

Vampire: The Masquerade would be a better vampire theme based MMO

Re:Buffy?

[Lemmy Caution]

No, VtM is better structurally as the basis for an MMO. Either the Buffy MMO is going to be a bad MMO, or it's only very, very superficially have anything to do with the Buffy stories.

Re:Buffy?

[PMuse]

The robustness of the IP as a basis for development in a new media is best measured on its audience size to date. Check all that apply. Any dollars spent on one medium will double as a marketing investment for the next.

[x] feature film
[x] soundtrack
[x] TV series
[x] comic book
[x] novelizations
[x] dolls, toys
[x] logo merchandise
[ ] animated series
[x] arcade game
[x] MMORG
[x] collectable card game

In the immortal words of Mel Brooks, "Merchandising, merchandising, where the real money from the movie is made. Spaceballs-the T-shirt, Spaceballs-the Coloring Book, Spaceballs-the Lunch box, Spaceballs-the Breakfast Cereal, Spaceballs-the Flame Thrower."

repeat after me

[jollyreaper]

NO MO' MMO's!

Seriously, I ain't got time for 'em, does anyone else? Just getting through a great single-player game like Oblivion kicks my ass, let alone this multi-player time-sink crap.

Re:repeat after me

[Setherghd]

As in, thirty year old men who behave like thirteen year olds.

Go to 4chan. There's tons of them. You'll see.

Flash?

[cyber-dragon.net]

Does he really expect anyone to play a flash game? Or even pay for it? Might as well make it a facebook app where you "complete offers" to power up your character.

Re:Already is a FireFly MMO

[77Punker]

EVE Online doesn't actually allow players to fly their own ship or do any of the usual space captain things. Combat is pretty much exactly the same as any other MMO.

I prefer to call Eve a "massively multiplayer 3D online chat room".
Something like X3:Reunion except MMO would really be the space game everyone's been waiting for.

So..

[Tsoat]

you know when people are high and they come up with really great ideas like breeding and selling hamsters? This sounds kinda like one of those ideas...

Buffy doesn't make sense for an MMO

[RobinH]

If you play an MMO based on a movie/TV show where there's a very small number of super powerful characters, then everyone wants to play the game as those characters and be super-powerful compared to everyone else. But you can't do that well in an MMO because not everyone can be uber. Obviously everone wants to play as a vampire slayer (or a vampire, I guess) just like in Star Wars Galaxies everyone wanted to play as a Jedi.

I think something like a Harry Potter MMO would make more sense. You start off with little to no powers but earn them at every level, and you can make every character go through the same levelling (i.e. Hogwarts school). It would make more sense that the main character (you) is just like everyone else in the game.

Most American action movies don't really lend themselves well to MMOs because there tends to be a single hero character with clear advantages over everyone else. Hard to model that in an MMO.