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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."
This seems like kind of a flimsy IP to base an MMO on. Aren't there dozens of better choices?
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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.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
shared spaces where 2D and 3D people can interact
So what do the 2D players see when the 3D players jump?
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
... it will ... so it will start ...this will ... once we have ... we're going to have ... all of this will come out in phases ...we're sort of blazing a path ... I'd love to ...
To be honest, DNF has a lower vapourware coefficient.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
We're going to have these shared spaces where 2D and 3D people can interact.
We already have that here on Slashdot whenever an evolution-related story crops up.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
How did this get modded up past the firehose? Buffy, Firefly, and MMOGs have nothing to do with-
Oh, wait.
I'm flattered and everything, but I'm not sure I really lead the sort of life that's all that worth making an MMO about.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Both of those MMOs sound nice. But if you really want my gaming dollars, how about one taking place in the Dr. Horrible universe?
(Every five minutes your in-game chat would have to rhyme, of course.)
JJ
Most MMOs focus on two concepts: a unique combat system and different skills to level. A Buffy MMO sounds interesting enough, until you realize that the developers would have to stray too far from the TV series in order to make it a good game.
First, the combat in the Buffyverse has always been minimal. Buffy explains in painful detail to the vampires why they can't win, and she'll kick their heads in if they try anything. Once an episode, one of them tries somethings. Buffy kicks heads in. End of episode, at least as far as fighting goes.
As for skills, well, there's not much of that in the series, either. Buffy has always been killing vampires. It's what she does. Giles is always the librarian who has read every book on the occult, but still never notices anything wrong until someone points it out first. +3 intellect/+1 cluelessness. But I am getting silly here.
The point is, the game will either conform to the Buffyverse, or the game will distort the Buffyverse to make it work. Either way, it cannot end well.
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.
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.
You mean like Vendetta?
Spacesim genre on PC has been basically dead since the late great FreeSpace 2. Okay, there was Freelancer which was semi-decent, but nothing compared to the old great hits like Tie Fighter, best of Wing Commander, Privateer, Tachyon, Independence War or even all the way back to Elite series.
Do not even start about recent flops like Tarr Chronicles, SpaceForce : Rogue Universe or even the entire X series. Eye candy and insance technical requirements bundled with unworkable control schemes not a playable game make. ( A side note: EVE is not a space sim, not the kind that im talking about here )
Now Firefly universe would be a perfect setting for Privateer-like game. You dont even have to be goddamn revolutionary game designer to pull a triple-A hit on this. Just use the best gameplay elements of the past, make a good story ( hey its not like good sci-fi writers are hard to come by), half decent graphics and playable controls and you have a sure winner on that currently barren field.
Yes, i we know Elite 4 and Infinity ( infinity-universe.com ) will be ready Real Soon Now (TM) but i dont think advances in life prolonging medicine are happening fast enough to tide all us space simmers over until then.
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Hey, come on. On the Internet, we are all 18 year old girls.
A good education is a bit like a STD - it makes you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and gives you a desire to spread it.
Dungeons & Dragons is a 5 dimensional game:
Strength
Dexterity
Constitution
Charisma
Wisdom
Virginia is for lovers. EVE is for griefers.
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...
The Firefly MMO was in private beta but they couldn't seem to figure out why just as you were about to ding level 3 the game would exit abruptly and show you a confusing array of cutscenes from the rest of the content...
I read the script, and I think it would help my character's motivation if he was on fire. -Bender
seriously? Lets make everything an MMO.
Just announced! Slashdot MMO! play any one of 5 classes informative, funny, insightful, interesting, troll!
Epic level cap of +1 to +5! Ability to ignore comments I mean players below level 2!
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.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
And I assure you, it also wasn't the designers' idea to have players start out at level 2, then advance through levels 3, 6, 7, 8, 4, 5, 9, 13, and 1, in that order.
Aimed at whatever Fox executive decided to show Firefly episodes completely out of order.