Earth and Beyond

Earth & Beyond (commonly abbreviated E&B or EnB) was a science fiction massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by Westwood Studios and published by Electronic Arts (EA). The game was released on September 24, 2002 in the United States. EA shut down Earth & Beyond on September 22, 2004.

Featuring three races: the Progen, Jenquai and Terran. The Progen are a genetically altered and advanced race. The Jenquai are philosophers that seek eternal life. The Terrans are the original humans. Each of the three races is descended from the human race on Earth, in essence they are all human. The game’s storyline takes place in the Milky Way Galaxy. The Progen, Terran and Jenquai are all uneasy of each other, but still manage to live together in peace. The Terrans are known for their extremely large corporations, such as InfinitiCorp and GetCo. InfinitiCorp is the manufacturer of the intersystem and intersector warp gates. The warp gates were originally created by the mysterious Ancients, an enigmatic and hyper-advanced race who had all but disappeared.

Rumors of the game’s cancellation became prevalent in early 2004. EA confirmed the suspicions in March 2004 by announcing that Earth & Beyond was to be discontinued the following September, stating that it would refocus on other projects. Earth and Beyond estimated they had up to 400,000 subscribers early, with 650,000 at its peak, and later showing continually lesser numbers. This can easily be attributed to the lack of advertising it suffered from and the opening of Star Wars Galaxies by Sony Online Entertainment. It has also been rumored that Electronic Arts wished to put more money into The Sims Online and turn that into a big marketing success. Not surprisingly after the March statement, the figures which had already dropped to just over 20,000 saw their most dramatic decline, which eventually lead to the cessation of Earth & Beyond on September 22, 2004.  [Via Wikipedia]

However the community is still going strong.  Players still want to play this game!! Dozens of YouTube Videos, hundreds of people on forms and multiple web sites are still singing the glory of Earth and Beyond.  Almost 6000 people signed a petition to save E&B as EA was coming in for the kill.

So why isn’t EA listening?  With the advances in computers in the last for years and the prices of bandwidth coming down you can’t tell me that popping up a server will really cost an arm and a leg.  Hell just throw up a server, tell the people “We will NOT be updating this game, play at your own risk” and charge people like $7 a month for access.  Even at ~3k of people that would more then cover the server, power, and bandwidth.

What to do if EA doesn’t want to pony up the server/bandwidth?   Do what Microsoft did with it’s old MMO called Allegiance and release Earth and Beyond open source.  Since there’s already at least 3 versions of an Emulator (at various stages of development) to allow people to play it EA could save itself the cost of anything and just allow the community to develop the game we loved to play.  EA wouldn’t be losing out on anything, they would still own the copyright.  But here’s a community of players bitching for almost 4 years about their game being dead.  That’s saying something about the power E&B had over it’s players.. and the need for that type of game in today’s market.

So what’s the outcome if EA continues to ignore the pleas of the players?  Continue to deal with a community fighting to save a game they love or wait for an Indie group to create the “Terra and Furthermore” game with all the next-gen MMO updates and lose out on a game that could blow WoW out of the water.  There is/was no other MMO like E & B (and EVE isn’t like E & B) and there still SO much potential updates/upgrades that could be done to the core system to further the game and game play to make it into a game that will last longer then Everquest.

Above and Beyond all of that, either option is a win-win situation for EA and the players.  The players get what they want, and EA gets some MUCH needed good PR.

Give the players what they want..  Give them Earth and Beyond.

Rareware and Xbox LIVE

Xbox Evolved has many sources indicating that the classic N64 Rareware title “Goldeneye 007” will be coming to Xbox Live Arcade later this year, as well as many others.

Talking with very reliable sources, and seeing evidence ourselves, Xbox Evolved believes that Microsoft, Rareware, MGM Studios (studio that makes the James Bond 007 movies) and Activision (holds the license for James Bond 007 titles right now) have come to an agreement to bring the Rareware developed Goldeneye 007 out to Xbox Live Arcade shortly before the new game developed by Activision is released.

The title will feature updated graphics, and of course an all-new Xbox Live multiplayer. Not only that, but we have found evidence that Rareware is planning on releasing even more of their back catalog onto Xbox Live Arcade, specifically, Perfect Dark and the original Banjo-Kazooie. Expect more on at least Goldeneye 007 later this year.

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[Update]
But, according to EGM Goldeneye is dead.

you’ve read the latest issue of EGM, you’ve probably cried over the apparently silent death of an Xbox Live Arcade version of Rare and Nintendo’s classic James Bond shooter for the Nintendo 64, GoldenEye 007. Quartermann’s rumor mongering didn’t elaborate much, but there’s definitely more to the story.

The GoldenEye port has been in development at Rare for several months, and was never intended as a remake. The XBLA version would have featured the same graphics, maps and weapons from the N64 version, but with the crucial addition of online multiplayer over Xbox Live.

Unfortunately, the reason GoldenEye for XBLA died came down to money. Our source close to Rare said the conversion was a mere two months from completion, but Microsoft and Nintendo couldn’t agree on the financial side of things. The point of contention, as our source puts it: would Nintendo receive a one-time fee for the rights to the game, or a continuing cut of the XBLA revenues? The latter seems to make sense for everyone, but apparently it wasn’t that easy.

[Via 1up]

GameTap Review

GameTap has been around for a few years slowly building up their library of games.  Think of it as GameFly and Steam all rolled into one.  GameTap allows users to download and play a full featured games just by selecting it and downloading the game to the local machine and with a library of 950+ games (and growing monthly) you won’t get bored quickly.

There are two types of accounts the Free account and the paid account.  Now, I’ve been playing around with GameTap since it was first released.  Never bought an account, just playing off and on for the free full games.  The other day it dawned on me, as I installed the client for the 4th time, that perhaps it’s time to seriously look into buying an account to get access to the other games since the free account only gives you access to a limited number of games that seem to rotate from time to time.

I talked it over with my wife (whom’s a casual  gamer) about the idea.  She liked the idea of having access to the game library and not needing to store it either on the computer or in the house with the rest of my 1000+ game disks and carts.   With broadband it’s faster to find and download the game then it is to find the game in the closet, get the disks.. install it.. worry about the damn CD-KEY and the 1/2 hour install. at $10 a month, it’s cheaper then a standard MMO and gives you a much wider varietie of game play styles to match darn near any gaming mood you are in. 

You can also list and compare your favorite games with others on Gametap, setup a friends list and even challenge foes to high score battles.  There’s  lot to offer from this little system.  it’s taken a while to really start catching on, but as more and more gamers turn to services like this Xbox LIVE, and even the crappy PSN to get their gaming fix, GameTap is a great cheap way to keep you gaming.

Bioshock.. The movie!

Yeah, yeah.. So I’m a little late with this news, but I wanted to make sure it wasn’t just some Internet rumor floating around.  I always thought BS would make a great movie.  Now for the real question.  Will BioShock: The Movie be any good?  We all know how many video game movies totally suck (like 99.9% of them, and that .1% mostly suck)  How could Hollywood go wrong with this movie?  The characters, the actions, the plot, the environment.. it’s all right there for the director.  He/She wouldn’t even need to think to make this movie rock.
so how could it suck?  Just wait until release.  I have faith that Hollywood will find a way to make this no brainer suckth ass.

 

Ah, videogame adaptations. Critics hate them, audiences mostly ignore them…and yet the studios can’t seem to get enough of them, which is why — if the latest rumors are correct — BioShock could be coming to a theater near you.

The scoop comes from Joystiq, where “a reliable source within a major film production company” has shared the news that BioShock developer 2K is in discussions with said company to bring the bestselling game to the big screen.

If you aren’t the gaming sort, here’s a BioShock synopsis from the gang at CinemaBlend:
Bioshock is a first person shooter set in an alternative version of the year 1960. The game follows a plane crash survivor named Jack who explores a spectacular, crumbling underwater dystopian city called Rapture. The city is infested with mutant beings and mechanical drones which, as you’d expect with fleshy-headed killers, attack.

If you’re reading this and thinking to yourself, “Sounds like the kind of thing someone might want to use a lot of green screen to make,” well, the studio’s apparently right there with you; according to Joystiq, “the studio hopes to bring the fallen aquatic utopia of Rapture to celluloid life through extensive use of green screen technology, an approach not dissimilar to Legendary Pictures’ interpretation of 300.”

Obviously, this is just a rumor right now — but BioShock has sold oodles of copies, and where a studio senses a built-in audience, a film (or dozens of films) aimed at that audience tends to follow. And anyway, we’re getting another Street Fighter movie, so really, this isn’t much of a stretch. Excited yet, gamers?

Source: Joystiq, CinemaBlend, Cinematical

[Via Rotten Tomatoes]