Firefly Universe Online reactivates with Fox's 'well wishes'

Is the dream of a Firefly MMO still flying? The folks at DarkCryo Entertainment think so. The unlikely project seemed doomed due to an unauthorized use of the IP, but that may have changed.

DarkCryo posted a notice on the project's Facebook page indicating that Fox has given something of a go-ahead: "With the well wishes of Fox Entertainment Group, we have reactivated the FUO MMORPG Facebook page in preparation for our upcoming Kickstarter campaign. A popular alpha launch may re-awaken licensing consideration, in which case we may then include an expansion pack containing derivative content."

According to the counter on the front page, the crowdsourcing attempt to fund further development will begin in 16 days. Firefly Universe Online was officially (or unofficially, as the case may be) announced back in June of 2011.

Here is Dark Cryo'swebsite.

And we were following this pretty closley Here.

Until it looked like it was finally dead. But this is indeed good news! Thanks for finding this for us!

And for another cool MMO in the works check this out!

kooly

Firefly Universe Online continuation alleged to be a hoax [Updated]
by Eliot Lefebvre (1 day ago)
Culture, MMO industry, News items, Miscellaneous, Crowdfunding

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Did you think that the promise of Firefly Universe Online coming to life seemed a bit too good to be true? Or at least a bit unlikely? Because as it turns out, cynicism might have been the right attitude to take for this particular bit of news. According to Kotaku, the entire announcement that the game had the go-ahead to proceed may have been nothing more than a hoax and we still won't see this particular version of the Firefly MMO project come to fruition, although not for the reason that many people expected.

As Kotaku argues, the hoax was perpetuated by The Yes Men, a strongly anticonsumerist group that apparently thought the best platform for this particular parody was a relatively obscure science fiction show. At this point it's not clear exactly what statement the group was attempting to make, although some sort of spoof on Kickstarter seems the most likely target. Either way, hopes for a Firefly MMO remain unrealized -- and at this point if such a game ever does get approved, we won't believe it's real until it's on the shelf.

[Update: As fans of the franchise point out, FUO representatives have updated their Facebook page with what they allege is a screenshot of the game and an explanation for The Yes Men's involvement. What do you think? Is it a hoax or is it legit?]

Personally I think it is a very legitimate hoax that attempts to clarify the obscurity of the whole issue by underscoring the reality of this particular fantasy...

Having read all of the comments on both our forums and FB below, we need to have a bit of a sit down.

First and foremost, our announcement to delay the funding campaign was meant as delaying ONLY the funding campaign; not FUO development. FUO is being made PERIOD, regardless of what any Reporter says, regardless of what any Troll says, and regardless of whether we have 500 Subscribers or 5,000 Subscribers.

Aside from the fact that this is something we want to play, allow us to emphasize yet once again to our unrelenting commitment here. The number of pitchforks that would be at our homes from our own Investors and Supporters is matched only by the fact that our very own Spouses would be opening the front door for them. Hundreds of man-hours, and tens of thousands of dollars are vested in DarkCryo and FUO. Regardless of funding over the past year, we have never stopped working on her and will never stop working on her. As we have stated before, FUO is a lifetime commitment for the DC Crew. Whether you want her or not, she is here to stay.

When someone commits "fraud" as it was alleged, time is against the accused because eventually the truth always comes to light. Time is on OUR side here, and we don't mind sitting back for an extra week or even month to begin the campaign until Karma makes its rounds, leaving the Perpetrators sitting naked in the desert as it were.

Kotaku.com claim they are currently checking sources, however we are more knowledgeable than Kotaku are about our own contacts, and the replies are not going to come overnight. Certainly DarkCryo has already responded to them, however Jenny of Circa Paleo is on tour most of the time, Mike of The Yes Men barely even has time to respond to our own emails, and Jeremy of Fox Legal has much better things to do with his time than this B.S..

However long that process takes, DarkCryo EXPECTS from Kotaku a full public apology, a retraction of all their slanderous articles, and a Kotaku coffee mug to boot; not to drink, we're going to scan it into the game and have it sitting on the desk of the Alliance. Then we EXPECT all the other game sites to copy/paste the Kotaku apology just as quickly they did when the story was otherwise more colourful. We will give Google spiders time to crawl, the general public time to read, then we launch.

Suing Kotaku for deformation has been suggested multiple times, however we are for the moment giving Kotaku the benefit of the doubt; a courtesy which was not bestowed upon us.

i got that off their facebook page FUO

You know, I'm really not sure about this thing. Not the whole "is it for real" deal, but assuming it IS for real whether or not it should be.

I don't really see the series as something that lends itself to an MMO. The show was about a crew of transport ship doing some smuggling, doing some hauling, and hiding some fugitives from the authorities. I really doubt each captain/ship will come with it's very own River Tamm, so all that's out in terms of plot lines. I doubt they can keep the whole hauling/transport thing interesting long-term in an MMO either.

I could be wrong, but with a firefly MMO I'd really fear that they'd just make a generic MMO and dress it up in firefly costumes. So you'd get to run around in browncoats but really all you'd be doing is running around clicking 15 of these, collecting 20 of those, ect. It'd end feeling as about authentically "firefly" as new romulus feels authentically "star trek."

The gameplay trailer they had on thier website had the game looking alot like BSGO. Besides playing an independent (Browncoat) you could play as a Reaver, a Fed, the Blue suns and a few others. They also looked like they had some aspects from Eve running.

In fact here is that trailer!


I'm hoping now that they have permission and time on thier hands that the trailer you just saw will never happen. I'm more curious than excited about this game at this point.

One way it might work is if they designed it from the start so that player interaction and player-generated content were an essential part of the game. I'm speaking as a fan of Underlight here.

If you haven't run across Underlight, it's a true role-play MMORPG, pretty simple as far as the software goes, but what makes it special is that it has no NPCs except for the rank and file of the monsters (which are currently not working anyway, AGAIN). You interact with other players' characters, and with a few characters played by development team members (those are usually seldom seen but important to whatever's currently passing for a plot). The storylines are mainly determined by the players' actions, with occasional interference from the Underlight team - they usually have some kind of (suspected) villain for instance, who only pops up now and then, a lot like Captain Walker in Steel River, leaving the players to work up plots against him/her/it. All a bit like Steel River and co. only it's a MMORPG - I'd never have been able to keep my end up in that if I hadn't had some practice from Underlight.

Obviously you couldn't run a larger game quite like that - Underlight has less than 100 active players - but if the Firefly game could be wired to support any part of that at all, I think it'd suit it just right. Like Verbena says, collecting 10 "Dynamite Sticks" in one game feels a lot like collecting 10 "Energy Crystals" in another, so long as it's just to please the software - but if it's part of half a dozen Browncoat players' own plot to blow up an outpost run by an Alliance player guild, that might be different. You'd be surprised how few people leave Underlight and stay gone...

One fun idea might be to have a "police file" section in a character profile, where you could put down what if anything the Alliance have on you ("wanted dead or alive"...), and that could be viewed by Alliance players that met you. Maybe have an extra-classified section known only to Blue Sun spies. That way, if you wanted to play a River Tam character, you could do that, for any reason you could dream up, run the gauntlet of every passing spook who felt like taking a crack at you, all without bothering the software at all.

Watch that trailer again with THAT in mind. I'd play it, and I haven't actually even seen Firefly.

Aw Man, I really want to play that.

meaning what I said, or the (hypothetical) game in general?
Has anything more been heard about it, anyway? Just interested.

The website has gone dark. There is no news about FUO at all. So I don't know if its been re-canceled or what. I'll keep my ear to the ground and let you all know if any more news rolls this way.

Looking at a few interviews from earlier this year, it looks as if they actually did have in mind something like that - open-ended play with mechanisms for doing pretty much what the heck you want to, when you want to. Would be good to see another game like that. After all, that's what you innocently think of when you first hear about MMORPGs, isn't it - a virtual world where you can play your own adventures?
Anything been heard at all? Just for interest.

I was just on Dark Cryo's website there has been no activity whatsoever from them. I don't even know for sure if the company still exists. But I can't find any mention of FUO not even in the archives.