By Kieron Gillen on August 16th, 2010 at 10:31 am.
Catching up with some news from the back end of last week! The previously covered Battlestar Galactica Online revealed that Dean Stockwell (A character from Battlestar Galactica), Callum Keith Rennie (Another character from Battlestar Galactica) Tricia Helfer (A third character from Battlestar Galactica), Grace Park (Someone else from Battlestar Galactica), Aaron Douglas (Battlestar Galactica), Katee Sackhof (Who you know from Battlestar Galactica), Edward James Olmos (Yet another Battlestar Galactica character) and James Bamber (Jace & His Wheeled Warriors*) are “do”ing their roles in the forthcoming browser-based MMO (powered by Unity). Go over to Bleeding Cool for more grabs of the cast in game-o-vision or see the (not in game) trailer beneath the cut…
*Actually, Battlestar Galactica.
16/08/2010 at 10:48 Choca says:
Battlestar would make a kickass Wing Commander clone but a MMO ? Meh.
16/08/2010 at 11:03 Bobsy says:
What the nice gentleman said. There’s no cause for this to be an MMO. Of course, they’re a proven earner, so I’m sure the Syphillis Channel are pretty eager.
16/08/2010 at 11:18 westyfield says:
Yeah, an MMO seems like the wrong direction to go for something like this. An RPG in the style of Mass Effect would be good, plenty of scope for character interaction there. In an MMO – not so much.
16/08/2010 at 12:35 jalf says:
16/08/2010 at 16:25 DrGonzo says:
Meh, MMO doesn’t mean what it did before.
This could well be Wing Commander with a persistent character and ship in multiplayer. Therefore it’s an MMO.
16/08/2010 at 17:25 Xercies says:
Battlestar galactica could be a weird kind of The Ship like multiplayer kind of thing where some people are the cylons and they have to scupper the humans without being noticed to actually being a cylon themselves and the humans job is to get a successful mission and find out the cylons.
16/08/2010 at 17:59 Ginger Yellow says:
I just want them to make a PC version of the board game.
16/08/2010 at 11:00 P7uen says:
I have very mixed feelings about this based on the information at hand, and therefore have nothing of value to say about it.
Thanks for your time,
P7uen
xoxo
16/08/2010 at 11:03 user@example.com says:
While the flyey shooty bits of the series were good, I preferred the talky bits and the religious bits and the occasional phoenix wright bits, and the big-ship combat was more fun than just the fighters alone. Lots of dakka on a battlestar, they’re basically designed as MMO-style tanks anyway. Civilian convoy gets attacked by raiders, a basestar shows up and tanks the basestars while the civilians jump away.
If one of the character classes is either crazy religious prophet or acolyte of crazy religious prophet, I’m in. Baltar <3
There just seems to be a lot more space in the setting for an MMO on the human scale, rather than with ships, but the earlier summary goes on about tactical space combat and exploration. :(
In related news, I just bought Squadron Strike, 3D space combat wargame from the guys behind Attack Vector: Tactical, only with a bit less hard SF and more emphasis on recreating random TV/film/game/book spaceships. If I ever learn how to play the damn thing, I'll start by statting up a battlestar or two. There's a game that could do with a PC version, or at least a VASSAL module. There's one for AV:T, but not SS yet.
16/08/2010 at 11:08 Sobric says:
If playing the crazy religious character also means having very real (and very sexy) delusions of Tricia Helfer, then I’m also in.
16/08/2010 at 11:27 Down Rodeo says:
Actually, there are some of us that recognise Callum Keith Rennie from “Due South”, but then I couldn’t actually place which character he was in BS:G immediately.
16/08/2010 at 11:49 Daniel Rivas says:
Due South!
Thank you for reminding me that was a real show that actually existed, and not some bizarre delusion from my six-year-old brain.
Next: Sliders. I didn’t just dream that, did I?
16/08/2010 at 16:45 Nick says:
Both real!
Due South had a great theme tune too.
16/08/2010 at 11:35 Dawngreeter says:
You know something is a really bad candidate for an MMO when you can be sure there will be more players than actual surviving members of humanity in the original story.
16/08/2010 at 11:39 Alexander Norris says:
Jamie “him wot played Archie from Hornblower, oh, also, he was in Band of Brothers as protagonist officer dude” Bamber.
16/08/2010 at 15:20 phlebas says:
Don’t forget Law & Order UK!
16/08/2010 at 12:07 Mavvvy says:
Why would’nt Battlestar Galactica make a good mmo? WIth a good healthy spoonful of innovation it could be quality.
But I suppose your all right in one sense, that aint going to happen.
Tis a shame, Planetside showed what was possible many years ago, now we are all stuck with WOW clones that offer little snipets here and there, but nothing that jumps out and says “here im different “. Sad times indeed.
16/08/2010 at 16:57 Starky says:
Bleh innovation is such a meaningless buzz word…
Along with “emergent gameplay”.
I’d rather a game, especially a MMO offer solid gameplay and fun, than focus on trying to “innovate”.
16/08/2010 at 17:57 Mavvvy says:
I would argue that our two points on occasion are solidly linked.
16/08/2010 at 12:19 Ginger Yellow says:
So they’ve got Boomer/Athena but not Helo? That’s going to be a bit weird.
16/08/2010 at 12:21 Alex says:
Man… i really hope this doesn’t end up being just a Planetarion clone…
16/08/2010 at 12:31 Mavvvy says:
Never heard of that, from the wiki it sounded like a 4X Frankenstein. Was it any good?
16/08/2010 at 15:06 Malawi Frontier Guard says:
It was good when it came out, but was outmaneuvered from around 2003 on by clones and competition during experimentation with different business models. If you play a strategy browsergame today, chances are it was directly or indirectly influenced by Planetarion, however the game itself would be considered a bit old-fashioned today.
16/08/2010 at 13:23 Rikard Peterson says:
I haven’t played any MMOs, so I don’t know how common it is to have actors playing parts. (They did it a bit in Uru, didn’t they? But that never really got off the ground.) Still, that sounds interesting (to read about, anyway) and I’m looking forward to hear more about it later!
Unless I’m misinterpreting this (not that unlikely) and it simply means that they’re lending their voices to some NPCs, in which case I wonder why it was posted as news at all.
16/08/2010 at 13:57 EvilDonut says:
Edward James Olmos is no more Battlestar Galactica character than Harrison Ford or Mark Hamill are Star Wars characters…
16/08/2010 at 15:49 Hodge says:
If Dean Stockwell does anything like this then I’m in.
16/08/2010 at 22:49 Leelad says:
If I can have a Battlestar then decide that I don’t want it and play chicken with a basestar then i’m in.
I would also accept warping into a planets atmosphere, freefalling, launching vipers then warping back out as another reason for me to get involved.
I do also appreciate that they could just loop epidose 4 of season 3 to get the same effect but yeah.