Mother 3, also known as EarthBound 64, was in development for several years on the Nintendo 64 Disk Drive (64DD). This N64 add-on was, unfortunately, a failure, and never made it out of Japan. No one ever heard much about it after that, or expected to.
In May of 2004 (a year and a half ago) a jovial fellow who we'll refer to as 'Sourceperson' from here on out contacted Jonk via email with this picture:
The disks in the picture are serially marked with the letters 'M3' and 'KM'. We didn't know what the 'KM' might be, but we knew what the 'M3' probably meant - the disks in the picture are Nintendo 64 Disk Drive (64DD) development discs. For those who don't know, Mother 3 was originally slated to debut on the 64DD.
We thought we had found the EarthBound fan's holy grail - the development discs which contained Mother 3 / EarthBound 2, a sequel for which we had waited nine years.
Sourceperson informed us that he had not been able to access the discs, and was interested in selling them to us since we were the people most likely to be interested in the contents. After lots of discussion, we agreed to pursue this opportunity. We had a few hundred dollars in the site's funds and a group of roughly 30 staffers and other trusted people involved in the discussions, prepared to do whatever it took to get those disks.
That's where the story begins. I promptly created a secret forum called Devster's Lab: Mother 3 DeeDee! (catch the Dexter's Lab references) for our team to discuss the project. All of our discussion went there - discussions about money, shipping, hacking, and cracking.
To make a very long story short, we did not get the disks after an entire year of negotiation. Disappointed, we gave up and waited to hear what might happen. We, as a staff, neither defend nor regret our actions - we did what we could with all due diligence and caution.
Several weeks ago, a fellow by the name of coreycorey2000 showed up on the Mother 3 / EarthBound 2 forum claiming to have found some 'blue discs labeled M3' - and the hunt was officially back on.
Now that things are in the open, we have publicly resurrected that forum for public view - Devster's Lab: Mother 3 DeeDee! Anthadd, JamesPicard_007, SimonBob, and I have gone through and cleaned out all references/addresses which might reveal too much information about the Sourceperson or anyone else directly involved with the transaction.
I have also gone through and 'resurrected' each post in chronological order, with a quick comment/summary for each one in case you don't want to bother reading the entire thing.
Behold a huge chapter in the history of Starmen.Net, and despair!
...and then rejoice, because the disks have returned to us :D
In May of 2004 (a year and a half ago) a jovial fellow who we'll refer to as 'Sourceperson' from here on out contacted Jonk via email with this picture:
The disks in the picture are serially marked with the letters 'M3' and 'KM'. We didn't know what the 'KM' might be, but we knew what the 'M3' probably meant - the disks in the picture are Nintendo 64 Disk Drive (64DD) development discs. For those who don't know, Mother 3 was originally slated to debut on the 64DD.
We thought we had found the EarthBound fan's holy grail - the development discs which contained Mother 3 / EarthBound 2, a sequel for which we had waited nine years.
Sourceperson informed us that he had not been able to access the discs, and was interested in selling them to us since we were the people most likely to be interested in the contents. After lots of discussion, we agreed to pursue this opportunity. We had a few hundred dollars in the site's funds and a group of roughly 30 staffers and other trusted people involved in the discussions, prepared to do whatever it took to get those disks.
That's where the story begins. I promptly created a secret forum called Devster's Lab: Mother 3 DeeDee! (catch the Dexter's Lab references) for our team to discuss the project. All of our discussion went there - discussions about money, shipping, hacking, and cracking.
To make a very long story short, we did not get the disks after an entire year of negotiation. Disappointed, we gave up and waited to hear what might happen. We, as a staff, neither defend nor regret our actions - we did what we could with all due diligence and caution.
Several weeks ago, a fellow by the name of coreycorey2000 showed up on the Mother 3 / EarthBound 2 forum claiming to have found some 'blue discs labeled M3' - and the hunt was officially back on.
Now that things are in the open, we have publicly resurrected that forum for public view - Devster's Lab: Mother 3 DeeDee! Anthadd, JamesPicard_007, SimonBob, and I have gone through and cleaned out all references/addresses which might reveal too much information about the Sourceperson or anyone else directly involved with the transaction.
I have also gone through and 'resurrected' each post in chronological order, with a quick comment/summary for each one in case you don't want to bother reading the entire thing.
Behold a huge chapter in the history of Starmen.Net, and despair!
...and then rejoice, because the disks have returned to us :D
