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Greetings!
Earth and Beyond was, in
fact, one of the best MMORPGs ever released, well, to many
of us it was anyways. This game was created by some very
creative people at Westwood Studios, and, while surfing this
site, you will see many documents written by them. The
Westwood Studios team had a vision. So many games out there
that were the same .. hunting rats with a rusty dagger and
torn cloths for example. Earth and Beyond was going to be
different, and, it sure was.
This game offered everything,
3 different mission types, 150 levels per character, 3 races
each with 3 professions, a crafting system that is very
different from all others ever seen, uber items that set
everyone apart, epic missions, the ability to solo with ease
or team up with friends, and much much more. This game was
very different from all others. One thing that this game
created that no one expected, was perhaps the best community
of people ever assembled.
One problem was that Westwood
Studios wasn't exactly the biggest, it was a small, but very
successful company. Their claim to fame was the Command &
Conquer (C&C) series. In 1998, Electronic Arts (EA), one of
the biggest publishers in the industry, bought out Westwood
studios with a $122 million dollar cash deal. During the
buyout, Earth and Beyond was in development stages, and EA
continued on the development of the game, including another
title Westwood Studios was working on, C&C: Generals.
Earth and Beyond went live in
the fall of 2002 after a very successful Beta Testing
session. The game was beautiful, the music, sounds,
graphics, all were the best. Once the game was released,
thousands of players signed up for accounts, creating unique
characters. Shortly after launch, players started to notice
things wrong .. one thing was that 3 character classes were
missing. Also, another thing that many noticed, was that
there was little advertising being done for the game.
Questions were being asked to the developers, and no answers
were given. The community started to thin out, and players
started to play other games.
It wasn't long before the
developers starting to frequently use the sentence, "... we
just don't have the resources to do that." How could a
billion dollar a year company like Electronic Arts have no
resources. More players left in anger. We all had
questions, but, the developers were unable to answer them.
Then it happened. In early
2004, Electronic Arts announced that they were shutting down
Earth and Beyond to focus the resources elsewhere. The
community was outraged. People cancelled accounts and left
for other MMOs. Our game was officially dead. Some diehard
players, like myself, stayed until the plug was pulled.
September 22, 2004 was the last day of Earth and Beyond.
Rumors say that there were anywhere from 5,000 to 7,000
active accounts in the end.
Perhaps Electronic Arts
thought that the community of Earth and Beyond would die
off, with players finding safe haven in other MMOs. Well,
they were wrong. Were still here. Since the games closure
on September 22, 2004, the still active community of Earth
and Beyond has been very active in trying to get the game
back, through fan sites like this on, or on the Electronic
Arts message boards, or sending letters to the executives at
Electronic Arts, or with petitions. Were doing everything
to convince Electronic Arts to re-open Earth and Beyond, or
licence the game out to another company that will care for
it. If any executives from Electronic Arts reads this,
please, re-open the game. Let us fly our ships yet once
again.
- CraZboy
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