DarkCryo are pressing on with Firefly Universe Online, and there’s now a crowdsourcing effort in place on Indiegogo. They’re looking for two hundred thousand Canadian dollars - that’s nearly exactly the same figure in US dollars, and about €148k.

There’s a video on the Indiegogo page, which has game footage, and also one of the strangest voiceovers I’ve heard in a while - a sort of computer modulated mid-American accent with odd pauses from time to time.

They’ve now moved to a line of “inspired by” Firefly rather than using the IP directly, which will probably float better, but I’m still very sceptical about it getting anywhere. I am, however, impressed by DarkCryo’s tenacity on this.

So go ahead and have a look, contribute if you reckon it’s worthwhile, and we’ll see what happens. I’ll be tracking this for a while yet before I decide whether or not I want to put some money into it.

The internet has been agog at the news that Fox have, miraculously, given DarkCryo the go-ahead for the Firefly Universe Online project. I’m sad - but not particularly surprised - to say it’s not true. Owen Good of Kotaku has investigated, and found that it’s at least connected with The Yes Men, an anti-capitalist activist group.

DarkCryo themselves are denying this, but my hopes are not particularly high. The screenshot they’ve released looks nice, though, if not particularly Firefly-esque.

It looks like Fox finally decided to take notice of Firefly Universe Online, according to Whedonesque. I don’t think anybody’s surprised by that, and it’s a wonder it didn’t happen sooner. They’re currently billing it as the “project formerly known as Firefly Universe Online” - and I suspect it’s only a matter of time before they get smacked for that too.

The Firefly Universe Online game from DarkCryo seems to still exist. I do wonder why this hasn’t disappeared yet; they’ve gone so far as to have illustrations of Mal and River there - computer generated graphics, now, not photographs - and are making heavy use of the brand name. There’s even a Facebook Page, and implications that the game is in an alpha stage. I am not a gambling man, but I reckon poker would be a better bet than this game making it to a commercial release.

Meantime, the Multiverse Foundation is still going along as well. Looking down through the FAQ, though, they seem to be headed in the direction of a generic open-source MMO. I’m not convinced of the likelihood of success there, either, to be honest - what I’m seeing more and more of in successful games is a tight integration of game and setting, and if you’re using a generic engine, that doesn’t work so well. Indeed, that much is clear even in tabletop MMOs - there are very few generic systems in wide use, and a hell of a lot more genre-specific games.

There’s no other motion out there on Firefly, but I’m keeping a close eye. With all the fuss over Kickstarter and similar crowdfunding facilities over the last few months, I think it’s only a matter of time before we see some sort of Firefly game there.

Legendary game designer Notch (of Minecraft fame, and once of Wurm Online) made a throwaway comment about making a Firefly game. Or at least playing in one.

You’d think SOMEONE would take on the licence and make a decent go of it…

So news came through in early January that Multiverse, developers of the Firefly MMO - and the Buffy one as well - had closed down. And the same day, word came that the code had been picked up by the newly formed, volunteer-run Multiverse Foundation. Who, at time of writing, have a website with the first actual non-ironic “under construction” signs I’ve seen since the 90s.

Like the Rogue Firefly MMO - which still has a working website, at least - they don’t have rights to the IP, only the code.

I’m no more convinced by this than by the rogue game, to be honest, but at least it’s SOME news. Let’s hope the Multiverse Foundation is a little better at communications than their predecessors.

It’s been nearly three years since there was any movement on the Firefly MMO. Multiverse seem to have forgotten about it completely. Now, however, there’s movement elsewhere entirely. In the proper Browncoat spirit, there’s an independent MMO being developed, and they’re hoping to get the rights from Fox and Mutant Enemy. This is Firefly Universe Online.

Now, while I’m delighted to see some movement on this, I will be astonished if it actually gets anywhere. The rights have been sold, and not to these people. Multiverse have to defend those rights, and I suspect there are lawyers in motion right now.

Further, there doesn’t seem to be an actual game there yet. There’s a list of fascinating-sounding mechanics on the Experience page, including things like “role-play xp levelling”, and “butterfly effect gameplay”. But there’re no details available.

I’d love this to be real, but right now it looks like even foggier vapourware than the authorised Firefly MMO. I’ll be keeping a close eyes on it, so watch this space.

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.