Firefly Online

[Talon]

Hi, everyone.

Came to my attention recently.

Firefly Online (Single-Player with social components?) game Official Site.

Based on an article I saw, it has the original cast members for voices.

In case anyone was interested, I thought I'd mention it.

[Gith]

Cool. I take it this is currently in development? Any idea when this will be available?

[Talon]

Yes, in development.
They had a date they couldn't meet so they are now taking the traditional "when it is ready" stance.

And that's pretty much all I've been able to work out.

I just don't have the inclination or patience to sift through their site to find details beyond what I've found already. I'm still not clear on what the game actually is.

Cynic that I am, they may be thinking if it has "Firefly" stamped on it people will just buy it.

It wasn't even on my radar until yesterday and apparently has been in development for years. So wanted to spread the word. But I don't think I'll be tracking it, personally.

[PinkRose]

Here's the wikipedia entry.
It's coming out for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and iPad.
I'm already not impressed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefly_Online

[Gith]

Android and iPad? I'm out.

[Alirrin]

I can't imagine what kind of game would work equally well on PC/Mac and Android/iOS.  :-/

[Talon]

I can't imagine what kind of game would work equally well on PC/Mac and Android/iOS.  :-/

Surely no one promises "equally well" when doing cross-platforming. I know most games on the old X-Box that were also on PC have the PC version suffer dodgy controls so the X-Box can keep up (and got simplified puzzles as well). And the PC gets better graphics as a trade-off.

I wasn't aware of the iPad/Android thing. Apologies for even bringing this out of the shadows of evil whence is came but I did want the knowledge to be available if anyone was interested.


That said, on reflection...

I personally think this was an idea that hasn't been thought through. For starters, I am amazed it wasn't shot in the head by copyright legal teams. Just because they don't want it usually means that someone else still can't use the name without costs. Evil Cynic in me says FOX is waiting for it to succeed (unlikely) and then cause a fuss and get a cut or take control.

The knee-jerk reaction is probably "FIREFLY!". But if you take away the nostalgia from TEN YEARS ago and the grudge the target audience has been holding on to about it being cancelled, you can't get excited for this.

Yes it was a good SHOW. Yes it made a good movie reboot. But that's a very different animal than a game.

It's time to move on.

Honestly, objectively, the universe is not particularly good or fleshed-out. The characters of the SHOW were great and so was the storytelling but all of that was written by great writers, including the creator, Joss Whedon. He will not be involved in the game. I presume the other writers also won't be.

Yes, the voicing will be done by the cast, apparently, but without great writing that will be hollow. It seems to be that players will be joining in for someone's own fanfic ride with a bit of illusion of interaction.

Those are pretty serious points for a game universe to be lacking. Especially when you combine it with an existing fanbase with very high expectations and a rabid sense of loyalty. I seriously suspect this is a dangerous place to go and will be a major failure: Not worth Saga's time.

I'm not even sure that players will actually be able to see one another or directly interact beyond what I envision to be menu-driven trading and mission-giving.

I don't know the development team, perhaps they will be very talented writers and developers of a world and story but, it's not theirs and it's not Joss'. The only thing this game will have going for it is its name and relying on THAT is actually going to be its curse.

Despite my harsh opinion, I applaud any creative endeavour and wish the team and the game the best of luck. I am just extremely confident it isn't for me. Or most of us, I believe.

[tanare]

they're finally starting to add in a bit more game features/background (atm all that's up is the cortex which has a simple "go on trade route- earn points and game cards, be able to turn the points into shiny when the game goes live." thing up).

i'll still give it a shot mostly because I like the idea of running missions because your ship's so worn out you can't afford to fix it and get it off planet just yet. or run a version of the "out of gas" episode if you're not paying attention. the companion system seems a bit more involved than TOR- companions can turn on you, get jealous of each other if you tend to favor one over them, you can fire them- but then that makes them available for another player to hire. this week they started talking about the different companies/factions you could end up with

details are just starting to come in now, usually one update a week on the latest stuff they're doing- no sign of a beta date yet. I've been getting most of my info here  https://www.facebook.com/FireflyOnlineGame