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The Game Archaeologist goes to Earth & Beyond: Final memories
The question that lurks deep in the recesses of most MMO gamers' minds -- the question that they never really want to ask -- is what will happen when the lights go out? When your favorite game is finally sent to its resting place in that server farm in the sky, will we still care about it, and if so, what will we be able to take away? While most of us have yet to face this, considering the longevity of most launched MMOs, it does happen, and it will certainly happen to us sooner or later. And while you won't be able to take your max-leveled, uber-geared character out of the game and into another one, you hopefully have the memories, the friendships, the screenshots, and the bragging rights. With many canceled MMOs, the shutdown is fairly abrupt following the official announcement, although some games, like Earth & Beyond, give players enough time to say their goodbyes and get in those final experiences before everything goes dark. Like many of the games we've been exploring in The Game Archaeologist, Earth & Beyond may not have enjoyed stellar popularity, but it certainly did have a remnant of dedicated fans who have yet to let the flames of their adoration die down. Today we've got a buffet of E&B goodness: the background story from the manual, final memories from a few fans, and a photo album full of concept art and nostalgic screenshots. Sound good? Let's go!
PlanetSide veteran remembers the Battle of Forseral
PlanetSide doesn't get much attention these days. It didn't get much attention when it was fresh on the market either. It has always seemed like a clunky, not-quite-right prototype for what a massively-multiplayer-first-person-shooter could be. But some folks remember their time spent there quite fondly, including Rock, Paper, Shotgun's Quintin Smith.A few days ago he wrote up an article about how veterans of the game fondly share war stories, and then provided his own epic tale. It's a great story that shows how players with good humor can turn a game-crushing bug into the gaming experience of a lifetime.The story resembles the Battle of Thermopylae; one nation is forced (by a bug) to the brink of annihilation. It's interesting because it's presumably the one time any faction in PlanetSide was faced with the possibility of complete and final loss of a war that's rigged to be impossible to lose (or win). We recently brought up the question of stakes in PvP, so this new RPS article is topical! Amusingly, the article is also not entirely dissimilar to our own PlanetSide experience.
Starcraft II WWI '08 panel part 3: Terran
The Terrans and their BFG's Pardo then moved on to the final Starcraft race, the Terrans. The theme here they wanted to push was guns, guns and more guns. No Queen or Mothership here, just lots of units with lots of firepower.The first unit Pardo talked about was the Jackal. It's a fast, mobile firebat that spits out fire lots of splash damage. With its speed and mobility it has the potential to take a big chunk out of your opponent's forces.The next unit was The Thor. It's a large ground assault unit with two abilities. In addition to its anti-air flak cannons, it can self-repair. And if it is destroyed, its wreckage stays on the battlefield and can rebuild itself. No Hero for you!Finally, Pardo talked about some larger issues about the game they were working with. They didn't want the game to too heavily emphasize micromanaging units. They want players to have time to deal with the macro issues of resources, expansion and strategy. So they designed most units to be simple movers and shooters, not like the more complex units of Warcraft 3. They also de-emphasized Hero classes for the same reason. Hero characters will mostly be met in the single player story mode and even then, as characters to talk to instead of taking control of them in battles.In terms of development, the team is focusing currently on spell casters and special abilities that come later in the game as well as upgrades for base units. The story campaign is about one-third done.The last point Pardo wanted to make before the panel was open to questions was about the evolution of Battle.net. With the release of SC2, Battle.net will be transformed to become what they hope is the premiere gaming platform for PC online play. NEXT: Q&A with Rob Pardo ===>
How would a Starcraft MMO work?
Speculation over Blizzard's upcoming MMO continues unabated, even with the lack of anything new to feed upon. The biggest hope, I dare to say, is that it's going to be Starcraft that gets the treatment, even if it's still a long way away from release. Starcraft holds fast in many gamers' hearts, including mine, so it's only natural to want more. But when actually considering the possibility, how would it play out?Our Krystalle has already given this a glance over on WoW Insider, and our recent Ask Massively asked a similar question, but I'd like to take it deeper. Let's take World of Warcraft as a point of comparison and see if we can run down this mythical beast.
