Return to the History summary.
September-October 2010
Soon after the servers go offline, refugees swarm Earth Eternal Forever looking for whatever news they can get and debates rage. Among the topics involved are 'who is the buyer of EE?', 'what will happen to our characters?' and 'will the game ever come back?'
Those trying to 'remember' EE, begin creating EEF threads that compile things such as the EE Lore, the Player Races and the lores around them, the 'Age of Beasts Timeline', player made maps, Clan data and both fan and official EE art.
Player Danny Dumal, leader of the clan The Furry Inquisition, surprises the EE community by revealing himself to have secretly been one of the Earth Sages.
In the middle of September, Matt Mihaly, Andrew Sipotz and John Yoo make appearances on the EEF forums to respond to the 'rumor mill' being run by the players on the website.
One of the details John Yoo reveals in his first post on the site involves the fact that the final two patches of the game released by Sparkplay, Patch 0.8.7 and Patch 0.8.8 respectively, had been with a team of less than 10 employees. This is the first public reveal that at least two thirds of the original 30-something member developer team at Sparkplay had either left or had been let go before June, a full two months prior to Matt's fateful announcement of Sparkplay Media's untimely demise.
John also explains that the game was performing poorly and that, even though EE veterans were upset with the changes he made to the game, these changes were badly needed “to make the game more fun and accessible” and it had been working. He mentions that he had replaced the previous Lead Designer because the game had been failing. With his changes, player retention rates increased, money was pouring in more than ever before and “people at the company” were actually enjoying the game for once, “a sure sign your game is heading in the right direction.”
John Yoo also reveals some of the plans Sparkplay had for Earth Eternal. These included revamping combat to 'make it really shine' and to continue revamping the other zones in the same way as Bastion and Corsica. After that, the plans were to “get out of Open Beta and watch the game grow to success”. Unfortunately they never got to do these things due to “the series of unfortunate events” that was out of their hands. This of course, refers to the company failing after going bankrupt.
Andrew, aka Piggypops, finds it funny how completely wrong the players are regarding what happened at Sparkplay and who the new company really is.
It is revealed in this month that player Yon Fildibeck, among others, has started a 'radio show' titled 'Heartwood Tower Voice' in the spirit of what was once Earth Eternal Radio which has since all but ceased. Heartwood Tower Voice turns out to be a skit filled show featuring various players' characters and quite a bit of comedy.
By October, the rumor mill as to who the new company really is rages on in the EEF forums.
The EE Community starts to fracture by this point as many former players get involved with other games and the fate of EE becomes less and less important to them.
Late in the month, Matt finally announces that the IP and asset transfer along with all the legal stuff to the new company has finally been completed and Earth Eternal's fate is no longer his responsibility. He expresses his hope that the new owners will make EE successful and, due to who they were, the game would have plenty of funds to keep it going.
Amid replies to this announcement, especially in regards to players' concerns regarding their characters that had been backed up prior to moving the servers to their new home, Matt replies that that data should remain intact and that 'it would be stupid' on the new buyers' part to wipe the existing data.
Unbeknownst to nearly all the 'refugees' on the EEF forums, player Grethnefar has been compiling EE data he has collected from prior to the server shut down. He partially reveals some of this data on the EEF forums after a time and begins to, upon request, post a player's character data regarding things such as their level, race, class, where they were on the various leaderboards and what quests they had completed (via the RSS Feed messages). He also posts other bits of data such as charts detailing which races were played most/least, the most/least played classes and the percentages between male and female characters. As time goes on, he adds other bits of data collected. Perhaps the most interesting detail that is revealed is that the player Village Idiote is the one and only player to reach Level 55. Not only that, but, by sheer luck or accident, Grethnefar reveals he had somehow managed to salvage the character models of many of those who participated in the Mushroom Isle Party. These models were preserved exactly as the players had them during that final SPM event.
In secret, Grethnefar begins work on a hobby project that will determine Earth Eternal's future. A select few other prominent players are given the chance to help.
November 2010 -
As the debates rage over who the new owner of EE is and what will become of EE from here, bits and pieces of info begin to surface. Eventually, some players catch wind of a Japanese website that refers to a game called 'Ikimonogatari' that is 'in the works'. This game looks strikingly similar to Earth Eternal, sparking several forum debates.
Also during this month, the identity of Earth Eternal's buyer is finally unveiled by none other than Piggypops himself. TurnOut Ventures, a joint venture company between Turner Entertainment and Outblaze for the Asia-Pacific region, based in Hong Kong, China is the new owner of Earth Eternal. In addition to this news, Piggypops reveals that not only was the game purchased by TOV, but, that the team that is to work on EE, comprises a number of former-SPM employees including himself.
Later in the month, Piggypops further reveals that TOV plans to honor the pre-existing contract between Sparkplay Media and Sankando and that the team, now located in Hong Kong, will be translating the game to Japanese; confirming that this 'Ikimonogatari' the players had been seeing bits and pieces of was, indeed, Earth Eternal.
December 2010 -
Near the end of the year, Earth Eternal Forever is ablaze with debates over the 'new looks' of the character races seen in these 'Ikimonoagatari' posts that have begun to appear on Sankando's website.
Piggypops teases former players with screenshots of him playing the game that very week, rekindling hopes that maybe, just maybe, their beloved game was soon to return. He also announces that he is to be the Project Lead of the new EE dev team.
Further cracks in the community appear in spite of the good news due to fears that the 'new Japanese looks' of the characters would be reflected ingame. The debates rage over whether or not those were just concept art or if they really would be 'new models' and if they were new models, are they just 'local' appearances or would any new English re-release of EE carry them as well.
January-April 2011 -
During this period of time, the rumor mill rages over what Ikimonogatari would mean for the future of EE. It is also during this period that many truly dedicated players devoted to EE would join the ranks of those who lose interest in it, the changes seen from the Iki images fueling the belief that the “original” EE was now truly dead.
In a secret server that has now been created, Grethnefar and his helpers begin sifting through the data he has collected from the SPM servers and make great progress figuring out what is what and what goes where.
Also during this time, Piggypops announces Earth Eternal Patch 0.8.9 which would be seen in the upcoming Japanese version. He also hints at a new player system he calls 'Sidekicks' which sparks debates on EEF as to whether this meant players would finally be getting pets ingame. Piggypops also reveals the completion of the revamped third new player zone New Earthrise in addition to the news there will be three new 'World Bosses' in the game.