Earth Eternal – Page 2

Earth Eternal Buyer Likely Time Warner

“I’m pretty happy this company won the bidding, as I think they have the resources and the pre-existing audience to help make EE a success.”

One of our last messages from Sparkplay CEO Matt Mihaly before the Earth Eternal servers and website shut down in what feels like a year ago. Speculation has been high since Earth Eternal shut its doors and announced that, although they did find a buyer at auction, the buyer could not be named and there was absolutely no inkling to when the game would be coming back.

The Earth Eternal fans have been diligent, admittedly more diligent than myself, in sleuthing and unearthing just who purchased Earth Eternal, and the answer is? Time Warner, which most of you figured out from the title. Of course, this isn’t a concrete announcement, but Earth Eternal’s silent Facebook page has a fourth administrator, Jac Ky. Jac Ky’s profile lists his likes as Cartoon Network India, Cartoon Network Australia, and his few wall posts include the Ben10 Omniverse game.

Again, this isn’t concrete, but it does coincide with the fact that Earth Eternal was recently moved to a new host, on the same servers as Cartoon Network’s website. Undoubtedly Time Warner has some deep pockets, and if the speculation is true may be putting some major upgrades into Earth Eternal to get it ready for relaunch.

Of course, we may see Duke Nukem Forever before we see Earth Eternal relaunch, so whoever purchased it is moot at this point. Big thanks to Rhinok over in the MMORPG.com forums for finding this information.

Looking Back, Moving Forward: October '10

Better-Business-Bureau-torch — A BBB Month

If you woke up with a strange urge to gorge yourself on meat stuffed with other meats, it must be November…or just another Monday morning. With November coming, and the holiday season right around the corner, we take a look back on what October brought us: Halloween events, particularly in the hat trading simulator formerly known as…I believe it was called Team Forts. Yes, while we were busy killing all the demons (only to find out we were the demons), it was business as usual in the land of MMOs and the developers who create them.

Naturally the Better Business Bureau makes number one on our list. Now, most of the companies remained unchanged with their scores since July, except for Cryptic Studios who apparently took my advice and started replying to complaints. Their score now sits at an A- from its original C. The “Checking In With The BBB” will be back in January.

DC Universe Online was delayed. Sorry, Joker! Those who preorder before November 15th get guaranteed access to the beta, however. Those who didn’t preorder get jack squat. Although there is no set date, DC Universe Online is set to go live sometime in early 2011.

Square Enix announced an embargo…I mean a voluntary request that reviewers hold off for thirty days, a threat I would like to see enforced through practically every gaming website/magazine in existence losing their free swag, because the grand majority completely ignored this request. You can still send us swag, Square, we love you for your need to smother your customers, not in spite of it.

And speaking of Final Fantasy XIV, the game bombed on Amazon.jp. Final Fantasy XIV on Amazon’s Japanese website still carries a 1.5 star rating, with 137 one-star ratings to five one-star ratings. Square Enix would later reward early adopters with a free extra month of the game. My apologies to the owners of Gizzard Blendtertainment for any confusion that the article caused.

Lord of the Rings Online in Europe…what a saga. Through October, MMO Fallout brought you weekly updates on the situation regarding LOTRO’s release in Europe under Codemasters, as well as our own speculations (that turned out to be correct) on whether or not the issues were really technical. Codemasters announced that Lord of the Rings Online Europe will make the free to play transition on November 2nd.

Speaking of cash shops, Eve Online is getting one. Don’t worry, kids, it’s only vanity items. In the same interview, CCP’s own Tori Olafsson denied any claims that the developer was working on an Eve Online 2, or reboot of Eve, noting that such options had “no purpose.”

Oh don’t tell me you didn’t see this coming! With the launch of the new Everquest II Extended, Sony announced that Everquest II servers would be merging, shutting down a total of six servers.

All Points Bulletin joins the ranks of Earth Eternal in games that are dead, but not really dead because someone might be buying them, but they aren’t playable. Neither game is online, and though we know there is a buyer for Earth Eternal, and likely one for All Points Bulletin, we still don’t know who it is yet.

And finally, likely the biggest double-take of October, the announcement that Champions Online would be going free to play. Yes, Cryptic wants to take their thumb out of the pie and shove their entire fist into it as Champions Online goes partially Turbine this coming Q1 2011. More on the Champions Online transition…soon.

Looking Back, Moving Forward: October ’10

Oh don’t tell me you didn’t see this coming! With the launch of the new Everquest II Extended, Sony announced that Everquest II servers would be merging, shutting down a total of six servers.

Looking Back, Moving Forward: September 2010

meridian59WeThreePeopleFire — True next gen capabilities.

It’s time to change the MMO Calendar, which can only mean it’s time for another Looking Back, Moving Forward. September brought upon us life, as well as death, and a whole lot of free to play.

It’s been over a month since Earth Eternal shut down, following Sparkplay’s demise. Even though the game was sold off during an auction back at the end of August, there hasn’t been much word out of Earth Eternal’s Facebook or Twitter pages. MMO Fallout is still looking for news on this ongoing story, including just who bought up the game to begin with!

Speaking of delayed action, although Lord of the Rings Online in North America launched its free to play turnover on September 10th, its equivalent in Europe, hosted by Codemasters, has yet to follow. Going off of claims of lack of preparation, Codemasters is still giving no concrete date on when the transition will take place.

Speaking of free to play titles, Sony’s Pirates of the Burning Sea announced its transition to free to play, following Everquest II Extended and Lord of the Rings Online. There is no set date, but Pirates will be following the formula of its predecessor from SOE, Everquest II, with the cash shop.

Generally we’ve had some sort of prior notice to a game shutting down, usually between one and four months, sometimes longer. When Realtime Worlds announced that All Points Bulletin was shutting down, they gave us one week’s notice, with no real date given at the time. All Points Bulletin shut down just 90 days after it launched, making it the shortest lived (launched) mmo in history. Exteel, the mech-based MMO, was NCsoft’s latest MMO to shut down, a free to play venture with a cash shop and, as some players referred to it, a “pay to win” system. Exteel’s shut down, unlike APB’s, was rather unsurprising due to NCsoft’s past actions with the title.

Cryptic Studios revealed why the Klingon faction in Star Trek Online will not be pumped full of content to the point where it rivals that of the Federation: Because there aren’t enough people playing Klingon to justify setting resources on it. Of course, few players play Klingon, in a grating circular motion, because there isn’t enough content for the faction.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars Adventures launched this month, to an odd reaction. Disregarding the idea that this is technically a kids game, much of the reaction appears to be from people far outside this game’s intended audience. As I pointed out in my article, there’s a very good reason you don’t see professional journalists going out and reviewing Imagine: Party Babyz.

Mortal Online’s Henrik claimed that the upcoming Epic Patch will be so big and change the game so drastically that it will be like Mortal Online 2. The so-called Epic Patch is set to go live at an unconfirmed date, but will contain everything including a new patcher, higher resolution, new inventory, new AI, new game master capabilities, and more.

The lawsuit between Quest Online and David Allen is finally over, with both sides wiping post after post off of the internet. Following the recent settlement, a few MMO Fallout viewers noticed that both Derek Smart and David Allen have had blog posts and comments on third party websites wiped clear, perhaps part of the settlement.

Final Fantasy XIV launched at the end of the month to mixed reactions, but luckily with Square Enix backing the title there is no chance of FFXIV heading underwater by the end of next month (November). The latest installment into the Final Fantasy MMO franchise won’t be making Aion or World of Warcraft flinch, but it will maintain a health population for many years to come. Those who would like to check out the game can do so via buddy invites.

Earth (Hopefully) Eternal Coming Back Soon…

Earth Eternal has been making the newsstands recently due to the game’s almost-closure, auctioning, and selling off to an unnamed company. To the dismay of many of us, on August 31st Earth Eternal shut down with absolutely no explanation or forewarning, bringing both the website and game offline, along with a long silence from the company’s Twitter and Facebook pages.

Well, yesterday the Earth Eternal twitter sparked up:

The EE servers are closed until further notice. All your characters are saved and the new owners will be bringing the game back soon(ish).

On September 9th, the following was posted on Earth Eternal’s Facebook page:

Hi everyone. As you know, Earth Eternal is down. Our ISP pulled the plug for non-payment, which was expected. I wasn’t able to give you any warning, unfortunately, because I was at Burning Man and completely out of reach for the week that it went down. Full backups of all the data exist and the company that is in the process of buying Earth Eternal will be starting it back up again in the nearish future.

Hopefully more to come in the next week or so. Still no word on Earth Eternal’s buyer.

Earth Not-So-Eternal: 1 Week Later

I’ve been sitting on this for a week now, so I think it’s as good of a time as any to start talking. Back in August I wrote about Earth Eternal facing potential shut down due to Sparkplay Media running out of cash. In the ensuing week, the company put the game up for auction, where the title was sold to another, then unnamed company. Things were looking up.

On August 31st, the Earth Eternal website and game shut down with no explanation whatsoever. After a week of patiently waiting, any attempt to log into the Earth Eternal website or game is met with a “cannot find eartheternal.com” and the game servers are providing no response.

I want to be optimistic on this, so I’m going to bring back what Sparkplay CEO Matt Mihaly said about EE riding on the servers until the host shuts them down for nonpayment. Vaulting off of that optimism, I’m still crossing my fingers for who the purchaser may turn out to be. My top choices are Jagex, Quest Online, or Acclaim (maybe not the last one). We’ll all know that we’ve woken up in hell if the purchaser is NCsoft.

More on Earth Eternal as it appears, and speaking of investing, when is All Points Bulletin getting saved?

Looking Back, Moving Forward: August 2010

Video of the month.

There is no doubt that All Points Bulletin stole the show this past month, showing up on MMO Fallout at least once every three days heading towards the middle of the month onward. Although Realtime Worlds announced APB carrying 130,000 active players, I have to question how many of those players are actively paying subscriptions, as I have my doubts that Realtime Worlds would be going into administration if the grand majority were pumping cash directly into the cash shop and game time veins at RTW.

August was filled to the brim with news that makes you scratch your head and question reality. Bill Roper is gone from Cryptic, I was sent a legal threat by David Allen, I had my wisdom teeth taken out and pretty much immediately went back to writing up articles despite being heavily drugged on hydrocodone, I was featured on Biobreak and Tobold’s blog.

On another good note, however, MMO Fallout now has five active backups going. For the sake of my own embarrassment, I won’t mention the incident that lead up to me being paranoid about losing my information, but irregardless I now have five flash drives, each carrying a backup of MMO Fallout that I update on a weekly basis. I backup this website daily, but I only transfer it off of my computer every Saturday.

I’m still disappointed that the Atari versus Turbine lawsuit resulted the way it did. I personally love legal drama (when it doesn’t involve me) and would have enjoyed seeing something come out of this other than secret settlements.

Warhammer Online fans rejoiced this month. Although BioMythArts Entertainment (or whatever they’re calling themselves nowadays) isn’t giving specific numbers, they are willing to announce that Warhammer Online is indeed profitable, with tens of thousands of new players streaming in thanks to the endless trial system.

Over on Sony’s front, Everquest is once again proving that although their alternate rule servers are unique, they more often than not crash due to low populations. Such is the case with Everquest’s 51/50 ruleset servers (players start at level 51 with 50 level AP) which are due to be merged into normal ruleset servers.

Unfortunately, another month brings another game shutting down. After a year of promises and well wishes, Playdom announced the shuttering of Chronicles of Spellborn, after the Facebook gaming company acquired Acclaim. Although Acclaim’s two other MMOs 9Dragons and 2Moon were transferred to other hosts, Chronicles of Spellborn was shutdown late August.

Speaking of which, Earth Eternal came very close to shutting down. The most adorable non-Asian MMO hit a brick wall running when Sparkplay announced that the company had laid off all but two employees, and that the game would be sold at auction, with high hopes that a buyer would pick up the title. Luckily, a buyer did indeed pick up the title, and we’ve received information that many of the Sparkplay employees may be making a return soon enough.

Alganon-WAIT IT’S NOT WHAT YOU THINK- ditched the initial client purchase completely by going 100% free to play earlier this month. While the free title is restricted in how many quests you may partake in daily, as well as a shorter level cap, players can remove these restrictions with a simple cash shop purchase.

While we’re on the subject of departures, Bill Roper announced that he would be leaving Cryptic Studios. In unrelated news, I’ve been receiving emails of gratitude for reporting on this story.

On yet another sad note, Realtime Worlds and their newly released MMO “Absolving Perot’s Blame” (or APB for short) have been pretty much a weekly staple for MMO Fallout news. What started out as a simple announcement of standard restructuring took a turn for the worst when Realtime Worlds went into administration (Bankruptcy) and announced that they were looking for investors with what was left of the team. With the recently released patch offering major updates to the game’s driving and shooting, we can only hope that these much needed enhancements didn’t come too late.

All Is Not Bad: Earth Eternal Has Been Sold!

I can’t shake the feeling that we’ve been in rather a slump this year. We’ve seen the closure of Dungeon Runners, Metaplace, Cities XL, Phantasy Star, and now Chronicles of Spellborn, Exteel, and possibly All Points Bulletin in the near future. So, owing to that knowledge, we take what good news we can, and more specifically that good news is that Earth Eternal has been sold!

In a posting today on the Earth Eternal website, Sparkplay CEO Matt Mihaly (one of the two remaining staff members) announced that the bidding has ended, and the game has been sold to an unnamed buyer. The buyer cannot be named currently, as the contracts haven’t been signed and all of the formalities are not finished, but Mihaly has promised that it is a known company with the pre-existing audience to give the game its due attention. As he put it:

“I’m pretty happy this company won the bidding, as I think they have the resources and the pre-existing audience to help make EE a success.”

We’ll have the company name in about a week, but until then let’s throw MMO Fallout’s rule on speculation out the window and try and guess who it is. My bet is on Jagex, who seems to have a growing interest in funding fledgling MMOs. Whoever it is, it’s a big company according to the news report (“moved astonishingly quickly for a company of their size.”).

Great! Now all we need is for Realtime Worlds to announce that they’ve secured an investor and the week might not seem so bleak.

Earth Eternal Likely To Shut Down

Earth Eternal is one of those MMOs I talked about mainly on my Facebook page, which mostly occurred last year when I was in the beta. The MMO has always been tiny, be it the furry inhabitants that populate the world, or the teeny developer that created it, but not the client that ran it. Earth Eternal is like WoW-Lite, I believe I referred to it as, but injected with a full syringe of vitamin-D (The D stands for D’aww).

So, of course, I’m saddened to say Earth Eternal will likely be shutting down fairly soon. In an open letter to the community, Sparkplay CEO Matt Mihaly announced that the team has been cut down to two people, one of them being him, and the latest attempt to sell the game has failed. Although Earth Eternal is up for auction, it is probable that no one will buy up the title.

“I will keep you updated as to what is going to happen with Earth Eternal, but in all likelihood we won’t know until late on Friday whether someone is going to buy EE and keep it running or not. Let’s hope for the best!”

Here’s hoping for the best.

Best of April Fools 2010

While doing Kevin Bacon’s usual rounds of Topeka searches for MMO news from my favorite Kansas city of Google, Kevin Bacon checked the calendar and realized: It’s April 1st! The glorious day of the year where, at least in Kevin Bacon’s experiences, news stories fall into one of two categories: Companies either announce something insanely exciting, only to link you to Rick Astley or a well-designed news page, or something horrifying. If you’re a skeptical optimist, like Kevin Bacon, you usually end up looking at everything in the first week of April as if it might spring from the page and stab you in the face. Kevin Bacon is not completely sure that this article itself is real.

With every April Fools that comes and goes, it is important to remember that for every generation of gamers that are used to the April 1st jollies, there are plenty more who fly off the handle when Blizzard announces that World of Warcraft is shutting down due to low subscriber numbers. So, for better or worse, here is the Best of April Fools: 2010 edition.

Earth Eternal is ready to make fun of their status as a “kiddy” game, with weapons and graphics removed (but purchasable in the cash shop).
Runescape is finally ready to announce the grand opening of the Wet & Wildy theme park! I wonder how long before the popcorn is nerfed, those kernels are overpowered.
Blizzard hopes you have fifteen grand to drop on a virtual reality helmet, and let’s be honest: Who doesn’t? This new technology will allow you to experience Battlenet and World of Warcraft in ways you only dreamed possible. A deal, and lasts for months on end before needing a replacement, that’s longer than your average battery!
Ớ̸̥̗̝̼̙͕͉͙̇̆͑̔ͥ̃͒ͦ̓ͤ͂͌͋̌ͦͨ̓̂͟h̶̢̧̛̟̥̠̘̱̼̳̭͒̄͋̎͗̉́ͣ̌̽̒̑͊͗̃͝ ̸̨̛̭̼͖̺̹̝̪̯̓̈́ͣ͗̉͊̈́̀͗̐̈̚g͒͑̓ͦ͂̔͊̑ͥ̿̽̔̃̈̊͏̸̡͖̯̼͉̜ͅͅǫ̴̪̟̠̟̪̩̼̤͕͂̆̿ͩ̿ͧͬ̇͑̉̑́̚̚͝d̡͈̙̰̠̩͍̺̗̣͛́̉͗̑̔͑̂̃͒ͭ͢ ̭̗̠̳̲̬̻͍̜̭͖̘͇̄͒̏̒̽͘ẉ̘̲͍̪͍̭̝̯ͣ̏̆̎̃ͮͧ̃̊́̉̀͢h̟̬̩͈̟̖͉̞̭͙̤̼̺̖̲͓̩̎ͫ̈́͌̃ͧͣ͐̎ͣ͆ͮ͆̒̚͜͠y̸̷̛͂̉͆͐̆̓̏͏̗̟̙̘̟̪ͅ ̶͓̘̜̺̺̭̥͕͛ͩͯ̿̕͟d̹̱͇̦̮̤͙̙͕͖̀̈̽͋ͮ͐͆̑̽͛̔͐̾̎͗ͣ͌́͢o̸̢̨̥̳̠̰̘̖͈̓ͭ̆̈̓ͭ͑̽ͮͬ͌ͮ̾̒̒̾ͮ̉̚͠ ̵̧̰̯̦̼̻͚͍̠͙̫̦̠̰̦ͣͦ̓̈̾̊̒ͥ̽͗̏̅̏̿͊̃̀́̚̕ͅͅṱ̶̶̛͔͕̲̫̤̣͕̤̞̭̳̲̣̘̬̘ͣ͌ͣ̉̅͛̏̈͂͑͐̋ͭ͐ͪ́̚̕h̼͕̠̹͔͙͓̱̫̬͔͛ͪ̎̔̄ͧ͒͒̄́̚͟e̛͈͖̞̼̬̪͉̞͔̯͎͊͂͒̅ͩͩ̒̋̌̐͒̈́ͣ̆͑̓ͬ͞ͅy̝̪͙̰̰̬̜͒ͬͫ̈́̊ͭ̂͛͐̿̒͌ͮ͗ͫ͜͢ ̧͓̳̣̠͙ͥ̃ͥ̾ͦ͂͛͟h̶̶̵̪̤̻͉̹̖̗̤̜̼̖̣̜̿̊̉̒̚ų̶͍̖͍̰̙͕͉̀ͥͫ̀ͯͪ͛͐ͨͤ͑̉ͅͅŗ̖̼̟͕͔͎͉̰͍͍̪̞̱̯ͪ̃̂͗ͩ́̈͒̓ͦ͛̉͢͢͞͞ͅṫ̶̡̩͚̮͍̮̈́̓ͩ̀ͫͣ͆ͦͤͣ̈̆̉ͯ̆ͩ͟ ̷̨̻̤̬̟́̀͑ͫͫ͗̋̂ͧͭͮ̃ͤͮ̒̆̃ͯ͜s̨̛͎̳̺͓͉̦̍͆̆̉̏͑̅̑̀͑͂̆̓̊́͢ͅo̷ͦͦ̿̐̄ͩ̽͏͏̖̤̘̻̟̗̤̪̭̞̝̦̱͔̤͘͝ ͈̭͖͟ͅb̧̢͍͉̭̣̗̻̠̓ͩͮͬ̅̐ͪ̒̏͆͘͠ȁ̷̵̯̹͈̰̣̥̼̟͔̯̟̟̠̰͖̘͍͌̋́͛̐̓̉̌̿͌̽̔ͪͮ͋̅͟d̛̄͆̋ͣ̒̅̃̓̋̇͒̈͂̃̏̄͟͏̮̥͈̳̭͓̕ͅͅļ̲͚̼͈̏̿ͬ̀ͯͨ͒̔ͨy̡̗͍̳̟̩̐̓ͩ͊̍̓̑͆ͩͣͫ̊͐̒ͧ̀̀ ̝̹͖͎͉ͧ̇ͧͣͥͭͫ̊ͭ͆̈̿ͨ̋͗̾̚̕̕ô̸̯͙̬̯͍̗̗̙͉̠̖̼ͬͯ͑͆͒ͤͫ͐͘͘̕͝h̷̢͖͚̤̠̫̿͆ͪ̔̽̔ͫͣ̄ͦ͛̓̿ͩ͘͜ ͔̦̺͔̟͎͖̤̲̜̙̙̳̙̞͖̦̩̟͋̆͗̌̀̓ͫ̉ͣ̏͋̇̐̉͑͒̎̀́̚͜g̲̭͙̣̺̗͈̰̙̦̲̯ơ̶̳̦̰̠̱̥̹̰͐̉͆͒̓͌ͤͬ̍̑ͯ͂ͭ̐̅̚d͇̥̮͚͚̺̳̏̋͆ͨ̂ͨ̊͞
Bioware wants you to check out the latest class revealed for The Old Republic: The Sarlacc Enforcer. Not content with simply shooting your prey? Experience the joy of planning up to a hundred thousand years, waiting cautiously for your food to get within range. Don’t worry, you’ve got time.
NCsoft is ready to bring the next expansion to City of Heroes. No, it’s not Going Rogue, it’s City of Sidekicks. Be the person always screwing up the mission. In fact, the more you screw up, the better you do!
Atlantica Online shows jokes the door and calls for a real event. Logging in for an hour will grant you the Fool title, as well as a small buff in attack and defense.
Fallen Earth would like to offer you an uber edition. What is so uber about this edition? It comes in a gold sleeve. How many other games offer gold sleeves? Huh? That’s what I thought.
Guild Wars wants to answer your pleas. When you think of mini-pets and their owners, why are the mini-pets small and the owners tall? ArenaNet thought exactly that, and today your characters are small and your pets are tall.
Turbine is also getting into the spirit of the year. Forget Tibia as the most popular mobile MMO, just wait until Lord of the Rings Online makes its way to the Iphone and Blackberry!

I’ll be updating this page throughout the day, as soon as I deal with this incessant mouth-breather. No, you may not blog. I do not care about your blog. Get back in the box. My speech and typing functions appear to be overlapping, I should shut them

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