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Earth & Beyond is a science fiction massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) game developed by Westwood Studios and published by Electronic Arts. The game was released on September 24, 2002 in the United States. EA shutdown E&B on September 22, 2004, ending the paid subscription service that allowed players to play.

Game universe

It is not known what year it is set in exactly, but that it is some time around the 2175 AD. It features three races: the Progen, Jenquai and Terran. The Progen are a genetically altered and advanced race. The Jenquai are philosophers that seek eternal life. The Terrans are the original humans. Each of the three races is decended from the human race on Earth, in essence they are all human. The game's storyline takes place in the Milky Way Galaxy. The Progen, Terran and Jenquai are all uneasy of each other, but still manage to live together in peace. The Terrans are known for their extremely large corporations, such as InfinitiCorp and GetCo. InfinitiCorp is the manufacturer of the intersystem and intersector warp gates. The warp gates were originally created by the mysterious Ancients, a enigmatic and hyper-advanced race who had all but disappeared.

The Warp Gates

Originally, a Progen freighter was travelling on a trade run near Pluto, when his reactor exploded and sent him flying into a nearby asteroid field. As a result of this, a nearby asteroid exploded and revealed the gate of Akeron.

When you flew into the gate, you would be almost instantly transported to the Aragoth system (this did not happen in the game anymore because of lag). The finding of this gate led to many things, both good and bad.

• The loss of several explorer vessels investigating the new Aragoth system,
• The start of the Gate war
• Infiniticorp gained the ability to make other gates
• Lag while playing the game (everyone uses Akeron's gate to get to Aragoth)
• Other insignificant things

Home planets of the three races

The home planets of all three races is really Earth, but when long range space travel first became available, each race went to a separate planet. The Terrans stayed on Earth, the Jenquai moved to Jupiter and the Progen went to Mars.

The language of the V'rix

In the Aragoth system, suddenly after the Progen opened up another recently discovered ancient gate, ancient artifacts about the V'rix appeared. Two large Maelstroms appeared in Jenquai and Progen sectors. Alien life forms started appearing all over the galaxy, small bat-like creatures poured out of the Maelstroms. The Aliens would fly around sectors in random patterns, when a comm signal was opened to an alien craft, it would simply reply in a language like this: (Note: this is not the actual text message they would reply with)

H2LL4,3'M1N1L32N

It was first believed to be a mathematical form of communication, until the language was decoded.

Decoding the language

H2LL4,3'M1N1L32N

• There are English punctuation marks
• There are Roman-style characters
• Numbers are used in seemingly random places

To decode the language, you will need to use a chart like this one, that lists the vowels.

|A1|
E2|
I3|
O4|
U5|

There are five vowels in the English language, if you replaced them with numbers, in the sentence Hello, I'm an alien you would get

H2LL4,3'M1N1L32N.

Note:

• The Aliens do not use spaces.

Playable professions

There are three races (as mentioned above) and three professions: Warrior, Explorer and Trader. Not all combinations are available for play. The following professions are available:

Jenquai Warrior

"Ninja". Jenquai warriors rely on stealth. Their weapons of choice are beams, weapons with the shortest rang.

Jenquai Explorer

Explorers are very difficult to play solo. This class has the thinnest hull and the fewest (three) weapon mounts. Conversely, they have six device mounts.

The JE class has some unique abilities in the game:

• Open wormhole.
• Build reactor.

Progen Warrior

The ultimate tank, slow and loud. Huge hull, powerful shields. Hull damage control skill reduces damage

Progen Sentinel

The most under-used class.

Terran Enforcer

Long-range artillery. Second only to the Progen Warrior in hull strength, the Enforcer benefits from fast engines (fastest warrior class) and long-range missile weapons. These last two attributes make the class ideal for kiting.

Terran Trader

Despite its name, a TT is must-have in any hunting group, due to its in-flight repair ability and shield recharging.

Factions

In EnB, every player and most NPCs belong to a faction. Some factions get along well, some less well and some don't get along at all.

A player's standing with a faction is a numerical value

• -2000 or below: red. Mob attacks on sight.
• -1999 to +1999: yellow. Neutral, won't attack until provoked.
• +2000 and above: green. Friendly.

Here's a list of factions (incomplete):

• Centuriata Warriors (Progen Warriors)
• Sabine Explorers (Progen Sentinels)
• Collegia Traders (Progen traders, NPC only)
• EarthCorps Warriors (Terran W.)
• InfinitiCorp Traders (Terran T.)
• Hyperia Explorers (Terran explorers, NPC only)
• Shinwa Warriors (Jenquai W.)
• Sha'ha'dem Explorers (Jenquai E.)
• Sharim Traders (Jenquai traders, NPC only)
• The Red Dragon (abbreviated RD). Pirates. Hate any form of authority.
• Bogeril. A loose collection of early settlers in the Alpha Centurai system. Bogeril are renowned for their ingenuity and tinkering abilities.
• Anseria. Violent Psionics, they hate InfinitiCorp.
• V'rix. Mysterious aliens. Apart from the Mordana, they hate everyone and attack on sight. The feeling is mutual.
• Mordana
• Glenn Commission. The Glenn Commission is the neutral government of Beta Hydri.
• Good Earth Trading Company. Although competitors of InfinitiCorp, their faction standing is neutral.

Every time a player kills a mob, their standing with the victim's faction decreases, and their standing with other factions that hate the victim increases. For example, killing Red Dragons decreases Red Dragon faction, but increases (in a smaller measure) Centuriata and EarthCorps faction, because these factions hate each other.

The Red Dragon are a special case. Although players start with a large negative RD faction, getting friendly with them is desirable because this allows acces to the Smugglers Run system, which is an excellent shortcut between far-flung places in the galaxy.

Cancellation

Rumors of the game's cancellation became prevalent in early 2004. EA confirmed the suspicions in March 2004 by announcing that Earth & Beyond was to be discontinued the following September, stating that it would refocus on other projects. E&B never became very popular, reporting close to 40,000 subscribers early and later showing continually lesser numbers. Not surprisingly after the March statement, the figures saw their most dramatic decline.

External links

• www.ebportal.com
• www.saveenb.bravehost.com

Spawned Projects

 www.unknownabyss.com
 enb.game-host.org

Community

Today Earth & Beyond's community still keeps in contact through the forums of www.ebportal.com and enb-files1.game-host.org/forum. The latter forum is an ongoing community project by various E&B fans to develop a new E&B-style game, to be known as Beyond Earth Online.

• 2002 computer and video games
• Massively multiplayer online role-playing games
• Windows games