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What really happened to Earth & Beyond? Be awesome F2P now

chryseschryses Member UncommonPosts: 1,453

Earth & Beyond was my very first MMO I ever played.  I still rememeber the awe I had when I jumped into the ship and zoomed around the universe with 1000's of other players.  Its too long ago but the trading in the game was very active and I loved gathering recipes and the joy of learning a rare one.


 


After several months I moved on to Jumpgate (needed PvP).  Then I was sad to hear E&B closed down.


 


There are plenty of crappy MMO's out there making a lot of money.  Anyone know why E&B shutdown?  Wouldn't it be an awesome game for F2P and micro payments?  may look a little outdated but it would have 10's of thousands playing. 


 


(Found the old PC game box on the weekend, brought back memories)

Comments

  • alakramalakram Member UncommonPosts: 2,301

    Originally posted by chryses


    Earth & Beyond was my very first MMO I ever played.  I still rememeber the awe I had when I jumped into the ship and zoomed around the universe with 1000's of other players.  Its too long ago but the trading in the game was very active and I loved gathering recipes and the joy of learning a rare one.


     


    After several months I moved on to Jumpgate (needed PvP).  Then I was sad to hear E&B closed down.


     


    There are plenty of crappy MMO's out there making a lot of money.  Anyone know why E&B shutdown?  Wouldn't it be an awesome game for F2P and micro payments?  may look a little outdated but it would have 10's of thousands playing. 


     


    (Found the old PC game box on the weekend, brought back memories)

    Look for earth and beyond free to play on google, just 1 click away. image



  • DarkholmeDarkholme Member UncommonPosts: 1,212

    The party line at the time was that it wasn't living up to subscription expectations... as to whether or not there is more to it, we probably will never know. However I think that a game like E&B would do a lot better now with the demographic of the MMOG player expanded to what it is... I still hold up my time in Earth & Beyond as my top MMO experiences.

    -------------------------
    "Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places..." ~ H.P.Lovecraft, "From Beyond"

    Member Since March 2004

  • chryseschryses Member UncommonPosts: 1,453

    Wow that is really cool.  Going to check that out later at home.  Just thinking that if E&B was out now, they would never cancel it but probably make it go F2P.  EA must know that they could just turn the servers on and they would have 1000's of subs, that would just be the fans going back. 

  • BrenelaelBrenelael Member UncommonPosts: 3,821

    It's owned by EA and the word "Free" isn't in their vocabulary.

     

    Bren

    while(horse==dead)
    {
    beat();
    }

  • FastTxFastTx Member UncommonPosts: 756

    EA likes to shut down games. RIP Silent Death Online. :(

  • chryseschryses Member UncommonPosts: 1,453

    WAR going same way then?  Looks a little empty and I KNOW Xfire is not guide but its quite ridiculously low.  Something like 2500 hours.

  • randomtrandomt Member UncommonPosts: 1,220

    A good space mmo of that nature would certainly hit the spot.. Have slight hopes that one of those couple of f2p ones in the works might come close, but being that they are starting out as f2p, i am not holding my breath.

  • Starbuck1771Starbuck1771 Member UncommonPosts: 375
    Originally posted by Darkholme

    The party line at the time was that it wasn't living up to subscription expectations... as to whether or not there is more to it, we probably will never know. However I think that a game like E&B would do a lot better now with the demographic of the MMOG player expanded to what it is... I still hold up my time in Earth & Beyond as my top MMO experiences.

    There was more to it. EA decided to stop supporting it to sink more money into the Battlefield franchise , and the Sims franchise. Battlefield was a good choice however the Sims Online failed out of the gate. I was Starbuck og Strength & Honour. The guild is still around all these years later. Those who played may remember us as the guild that would would come give jumpstarts to players ships.

    image
  • DemoniixDemoniix Member Posts: 2

    The problem with EnB wasn't just the direction of the company.  During the Beta, there was a lot of players on looking for a space based mmo.  The real issue came down to the beta into release patch.  All of the farming areas were "rebalanced" and so was the economy.  I would make a trip out to an area to farm the monsters, and the items dropped would sell of a really good price.  That changed, as well as creature stats, so things I should be able to kill at level x would no require level x+5.  So basically, the player base that had been built up over the entire course, were dropped.  No one listened to our complaints.  Nothing was reverted.  And then WoW came out. 

    Had they left the game alone as it was during beta, they would have started with enough of a player base to get it started, and become self-sustaining.  But they made a basic game developing problem.  Same one WoW has been making more and more.  You don't change something that works.  You improve on it, or leave it alone.

  • rodingorodingo Member RarePosts: 2,870
    E&B didn't really have much for content either.  It was basically just fly to an area, grind and kill hundreds and thousands of giant space shrimp, loot, and sale.   Don't get me wrong, I loved the in cockpit over the shoulder view of your pilot view, and the fact that you could walk in stations.  I think the aesthetics and deep mechanics of the back then, soon-to-be-released Eve showed that more players actually wanted Eve than E&B from player feedback, not to mention the actual release of Eve probably had a major impact and migration of players.  I think EA was smart to close it down and cut their losses.

    "If I offended you, you needed it" -Corey Taylor

  • DemoniixDemoniix Member Posts: 2

    Eve came out a year after the Earth and Beyond Release so that didn't have too much of an effect.  But it did fill a hole.  Earth and Beyond had a long beta testing phase that generated a solid player base.  And while the endgame wasn't as expansive as we're used to now, it had potential to grow.

    The issue came from EA purchasing Westwood Studios for their command and conquer franchise and after they got one more game out of westwood, they cut it.  Which is probably why they stopped investing time and money into Earth and Beyond.  It could have kept going, but with the release effectively nerfing the entire game, they lost a lot of player base.

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