The 'Verse Behind Firefly

A Discussion with Ron Meiners, Manager of Developer Relations for Multiverse

---

April 16, 2007

Gather round, Browncoats! Ten Ton Hammer – which has always been your source for unofficial Firefly news and features – took the time at this year’s IMGDC to chat a few moments with Ron Meiners, the director of developer relations at Multiverse. Hopefully all of the Browncoats are already aware of this fact – but for the more casual Firefly fans – Multiverse will be bringing a Firefly MMO to your computer screens sooner rather than later.

Exploring the Other Side of the ‘Verse

Though many of Firefly fans may know of Multiverse through the Firefly MMO announcement, there’s still many that don’t know the other side of Multiverse - the indie developer side of the fresh-faced MMO platform. On their press information, it states that the Multiverse platform “is a highly flexible, comprehensive client-server infrastructure with tools and fully documented sample code and assets.” In layman’s terms, this means that Multiverse is creating a technology that allows individuals to develop, market, and publish MMOs at a very low cost and with maximum efficiency.

“It’s very scalable and extensible, and really turns into a universal client,” Meiners said. “The guys that designed the platform were really interested with what would happen if they made the tools and content available to a massive section of the population. It was – and still is - getting harder and harder to get these sorts of tools to the general populace and Multiverse wants to make that happen.”

With the Multiverse platform, developers have numerous options to help them create the game that their imaginations dreamed up. The team at Multiverse, which includes a large number of ex-Netscape server engineers, is eager to give these indie designers what they need to start up their game and successfully run it as a business. Multiverse’s Developer Marketplace allows the game builders to buy and sell assets – AI scripts, models, and more – while also providing the developer the ability to construct any business model he wishes.

When all is said and done, any games developed on the Multiverse platform will be accessible through the Multiverse Network. An incredibly large title like Firefly may draw folks in, but a user may find a small game like Arden: The World of William Shakespeare. “Grabbing Firefly really brought a lot of attention our way,” Meiners said. “And I think, in the end, it will help the indie developers draw people to their products.”

Between the attention Multiverse generated with the Firefly announcements and the general curiosity of the public, there has been a huge demand for the Multiverse toolset. When we asked Meiners how many downloads they had achieved, he mentioned that it was somewhere in the range of 9500. Even if only one percent of those 9500 downloads brings anything to market that still means gamers will have 95 new MMOs to choose from!

Innovation, Innovation, Innovation

Even at a small conference like IMGDC, innovative titles for the Multiverse engine were already generating talk and Meiners was eager to show off one particular game being developed on the platform. Mermaids, which we mentioned in a pervious article, really captured attention of the conference crowd because the developers have done away with combat, death, and many of the common elements we see in today’s MMO-scape.

Using the Multiverse engine, Celia Pearce – the developer of the title and an assistant professor at Georgia Tech: Ivan Allen College – is exploring whether or not these “traditional” functions are necessary in our next generation of games. As a side note, if you're at all interested in virtual worlds, emergent realities, or some of the deeper aspects of the human condition brought out by the MMO, make sure you check out Celia's blog. It's a fairly insightful inner monologue of the way we play games - or in her most recent topic - how they play us.

Back to the point, as a real researcher in the field of emergent activities in MMOs, Mermaids will allow Celia to look at how people react to this sort of non-combat, non-death experience. It's a win-win situation with her to develop a game like Mermaids, as it gives her a chance to explore various sides of the design process while exploring the way her audience reacts the first time they realize that they can't kill each other. And, in reality, her research wouldn’t have been easily accomplished if not for the Multiverse Platform.

Educational worlds are also a big thing for Multiverse, where virtual environments – like the simulated Martian landscape in Mars Project – are popping up left and right. There’s really nothing that Multiverse will restrict. Even Kelly Rued is working on a sex game for the Multiverse platform.

And the list of innovative, or at least unique, games is ever-growing. Just take this small snapshot of descriptions of upcoming games on the Multiverse website: controlling a crime syndicate, battling with mechanized robots, exploring the imaginary worlds of William Shakespeare, pilot a starship against other players, or explore a dark fantasy world, all of these games will eventually be available on the Multiverse.

 “It’s a transformative experience,” Meiners said as we watched the demo reel for some of the Multiverse products that were being developed. “We’re giving indie designers the tools they need to really start flexing their creativity.”

Show Me the Money!

With nothing paid up front and no forced prerogative to ever purchase anything from the Developer Marketplace, we had to ask the obvious question: How will Multiverse make money?

“We simply share revenue with a title when they bring the game to market. Until then, we don’t charge them anything,” Reiners said. “Everything is very open for the indie developer. We don’t want to force them into anything.”

Finally….Firefly News!

And now for what you’ve all been waiting for, Firefly news! As far as the progression for Firefly is concerned, there isn’t much new to report on. We asked Meiners whether Multiverse had found a developer yet. “No, not yet,” he said. “We’re still talking to people and shopping around.”

Concerning the connections with Fox and getting any of the voice actors for the game, Meiners said that everything was still just being looked at and worked on. He seemed confident that Fox would eventually get back to them, but it would just take time.

From Meiners perspective, the most important thing concerning the entire Firefly development and brining in the property in the first place was grabbing the fans of the series and bringing them to the Multiverse. “We really need these fans and they’re exactly the kind of people that work perfectly with Multiverse,” he said. “They’re eager to band together and not afraid to do something apart from the mainstream and/or the money. These are the kind of people we want in our community.”

---

Ten Ton Hammer is your unofficial source for Firefly MMO news and features!