It’s been ages since we had any news, and now that it arrives, it’s not good. Buried several paragraphs deep in a press release about a Buffy The Vampire Slayer MMO from Multiverse is this line:
In related news, Fox’s plans for the development of the previously announced Firefly MMOG have been delayed, but Fox looks forward to continuing its collaboration with Multiverse on this endeavor.
I’m not impressed. Neither are Joystiq.
Massively’s E3 Bingo posits a 5% chance of news on the Firefly MMO.
Quote:
It’s within the realm of possibility that they [Multiverse] might use this event as an opportunity to announce forward progress on the project, but it’s kind of doubtful.
Stephen Brust (a notable and excellent fantasy author) has written a Firefly novel, titled My Own Kind of Freedom. It’s being distributed under a creative commons license, and you can get it on his site, dreamcafe.com. I’m just about to start reading it; I’ll let you know how it looks.
Of all the people who might publish the Firefly MMO, Google would not have occurred to me. But according to a story on massively.com, they might. Apparently, Multiverse and Google have cut a deal regarding virtual worlds. Even if the big G are not directly involved in the game, some of their infrastructure will probably be used.
There are rumours beginning to circulate about a second Firefly movie. Is there a chance of Serenity 2? On pure numbers, I’d say there’s no chance. But based on the way Firefly keeps on coming back, I’d say it’s definitely possible. We’ll see what happens.
There’s a new book out, called Serenity Found. Among other essays about the Firefly Universe, it contains one by Corey Bridges. I quote:
The Virtual ‘Verse. Multiverse co-founder Corey Bridges (no relation) on how the “Firefly” MMORPG project got started and what would be needed to make it a kick-ass game.
“I think that Browncoats will get behind that - after all, who wouldn’t want to assemble their own crew to undertake missions together, to build a life for themselves around their ship? Or what about other scenarios that are only glimpsed in the show?”
Tired of waiting for progress on the Firefly MMO, Tim Agne has gone to the trouble of creating Miis for the characters in Firefly. They’re pretty accurate!
The Multiverse Client, on which the Firefly MMO will run, has been released. There’s an article on GigaOM portraying it as a competitor for Second Life (not quite accurate, that), and also the official press release. Games called Dark Horizons and Forgotten Legends have launched with it, and two called Force of Arms and LunarQuest are noted as “coming soon”. There’s no mention of Firefly in the Multiverse release, but it’s mentioned in the GigaOM article.
Digital Artist Management have an article up which says that Colony, headed up by Michael Wallis, are engaged in negotiations for a major science fiction license.
Plans are to license a major Hollywood science-fiction IP but, because the talks with the studio are still ongoing, Wallis was unable to confirm the specific property.
Could this be Firefly? The words, “talks with the studio” make me think not, since a dev group would be dealing with Multiverse, not Fox - but it’s a possibility.
Accrding to a post on 3pointD.com, Multiverse, who are to produce the Firefly MMO, have recently secured more than $4 million in funding. That should go a long way towards finding a Firefly development team…
