The History of EB Fan Clubs
It's been over 4 years since EarthBound has been released. It has endured bad reviews and a quiet release, and it turns out to have a surprisingly large fan base. The following is my account of my EarthBound legacy - from the first time I heard about it, to the first time I picked up the controller and played, to the first fan club I joined, to, well, today.
I remember when I first played it. It was 1995 I believe, and I saw a review in Game Players (which became Ultra Game Players, then Game Buyer, and then folded) for EarthBound. It slapped the game with a 64-126160ue to it's lack of replay value, simplistic graphics, and overall weirdness. I took a look at the game, and said "Cool." But I wasn't interested, so I just kept on flipping through the mag.
Flash foward about 5-6 months. I was flipping through my old mags for bedtime reading, when I found the review. I had grown interest for RPGs by now, but what held me back was the Shakespherian style of the genre. I don't wanna be a friggin' knight trying to save a princess in some fairy tale setting. Heck no. I wanted a modern time RPG. Something I could relate to in a way. I saw that this was about as close as I got. The next time I was at Blockbuster, I picked it up for rent. And when I plugged it in and hit the power, I was amazed.
I had an overactive imagination then, and I still have it now. (Why do you think a lot of people like EarthBound: Legends? I've gotten a few excellent comments on that fanfic. Ask EBG Ness, if you want proof.) I kept dreaming of the possibility that James Cameron or Steven Speilberg would pick up on this game, and find out that it would make an awesome movie. Of course, though, I say to myself "Dream on", but I still wonder about what would happen if EB was a movie. In fact, I sometimes act out the part of Ness in the movie. I know, a 14 year old doing that kind of stuff is weirder than EarthBound itself, and I knew it. I've kept it to myself until now.
Anyway, fate placed me in an AOL chat room one day, and I found this kid polling in the chat room. As luck would have it, she said "PRESS 777 IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO JOIN AN EARTHBOUND CLUB" I typed in the 777 and joined a club known as The Sharks. Strange how pressing four little keys can change your life. When I entered the club, I was amazed by how many fans there were. It was around 300 at the time, and it would nearly breach 1,000 at one point. Back then, The Sharks were extermely powerful. Who led all this? A kid known as CATAPULT19, once known as SLTIM, and soon to be known as SeCtoR X19. He was your everyday teenager. Everyone related to him, and everyone wanted to be his friend. Only a select few were his friend. I became one of those select few, despite not being the sharpest knife in the draw. I also learned the SeC succeeded in making half the EB community on AOL start clubs and such. 9037777411460f them failed miserably like the shows on UPN down here in Long Island. Part of that 10was The EB Gang, led by EBG Ness which is now more community than club.
Basically, the club scene, from there, had it's ups and downs. Near the end of the bright years, an anti-Shark war broke out. It was between the club and two staff members (of course, they didn't staff at the time [did they?]) of EB.net (out of respect for those staffers, I'm not naming names) that built a club up of anti-Sharks. They weren't really anti-EarthBound. Rather, they were more anti-SeC. This war revealed SeC's dark side, and although I was way behind SeC, I started getting more and more to the neutral point over time.
The Dark Ages of the EarthBound clubs started when Sec's progress report came in. Obviously, they weren't good. SeC's parents blamed AOL, but here's what was boneheaded about it. Instead of taking away AOL for the quarter, or until his grades could catch up (at least that's what I'd do, but hey, I'm 14), they boneheadedly decide that AOL shouldn't even be a privledge for him. So Bye-Bye AOL for SeC. I lost a real friend that night...and it was the saddest moment of my life.
The clubs took a bad turn from there. They dropped like flies. To add to that, The Sharks jumped from Leader To Leader, eventually getting handed down to me and two of my friends. We were given a type of speech by EBG Ness, saying that the future of the Sharks were in our hands and stuff like that, and then we were leading the Sharks. And we had work to do. Unfortuneatley, I got this job in the middle of 8th grade...and 8th grade was my absolute WORST YEAR EVER. So I had to deal with the stress of 8th grade and run an 800 member club. AND I had another war to settle. After the war was over, my BIOS chip and my RAM got fried, so I was given about 2 months without a comp. It was a good break, but when I found out what happened while I was gone, I went into an uncontrollable rage.
Apparently, despite an E-Mail my mom found the time to drop off while she was at work, BRIAN DX, one of my colleagues, decided to fire me as well as my other colleague, Matingly22. I took it well. Mat didn't, and he was in an all out flame war with BRIAN. To add to that, BRIAN, who thought that he could manage it fine by himself, was making The Sharks worse - and tanking everyone off in the process.
See, while I was gone, EBG Ness took control of The EB Gang, and brought it to the top of the community. Heck, he MADE it a community. BRIAN shattered the diplomacy between the two clubs by writing Anti-EB Gang articles, convincing members to start with the EB Gang, stealing their ideas and claiming it as his own, and that's only the beginning. I think he did a lot other stuff I can't remember, and it really angered EBG Ness to all extents, ready to start a war. If a war started between the EB Gang and The Sharks, they would be dead in a matter of hours. See, Ness was a former hacker. He was forced to quit when AOL got smarter, but he knew exactly how to engage in combat.
The first thing I did when I got a loaner was try to improve relations. Ness was very paranoid, and he kept an embargo on The Sharks because he didn't want war. The EB Gang had nothing to do with The Sharks, and the Sharks started to wither and die. It really showed how dependent The Sharks were. I finally convinced Ness to lift the embargo. And BRIAN also resigned from the pressure. But in Matingly22's eyes, BRIAN made a major mistake.
You can check with your family, but Mat found that officers of a company, much less a club, could only fire subordinates. Technically, me and Mat weren't subordinates. So since we were never fired in the first place, we were the rightful leaders. However, BRIAN dismissed that theory and said that EB0und, the VP was the new president A huge argument went on about this. It was finally settled with EB0und as the president, Mat as the VP, and me as the AVP.
I eventually resigned from The Sharks, angry over what the clubs had become and what they should have been. Clubs should have been something fun to do. Nobody should have to be dispatched to get members, be compelled to fly up the ranks, or whatever. My resignition letter also caused Mat to resign as well so he could donate his time bringing back his old club and start a cause based on my resignition letter.
Mat's still trying to get his club, the Mr. Saturn Nation, off the ground. EB0und is still the leader of The Sharks, and there hasn't been a newsletter for over a month. BRIAN DX has mended his problems with EBG Ness, and now books for The EB Gang's own simulation wrestling fed. EBG Ness continues to lead the EB Gang and shows no signs of stopping his hot streak. He has set a goal - 2000 members by the year 2000, and seems well on his way of reaching that mark. As for me, I'm a member of the EB Gang, and plan to become a member of The Mr. Saturn Nation. I'm also planning out an EarthBound music video based around Edwin McCain's "I Could Not Ask For More".
I would like to thank you for reading this article. It was one of the long ones, and it was loaded with filler. For that, I apologize. Good day.
It's been over 4 years since EarthBound has been released. It has endured bad reviews and a quiet release, and it turns out to have a surprisingly large fan base. The following is my account of my EarthBound legacy - from the first time I heard about it, to the first time I picked up the controller and played, to the first fan club I joined, to, well, today.
I remember when I first played it. It was 1995 I believe, and I saw a review in Game Players (which became Ultra Game Players, then Game Buyer, and then folded) for EarthBound. It slapped the game with a 64-126160ue to it's lack of replay value, simplistic graphics, and overall weirdness. I took a look at the game, and said "Cool." But I wasn't interested, so I just kept on flipping through the mag.
Flash foward about 5-6 months. I was flipping through my old mags for bedtime reading, when I found the review. I had grown interest for RPGs by now, but what held me back was the Shakespherian style of the genre. I don't wanna be a friggin' knight trying to save a princess in some fairy tale setting. Heck no. I wanted a modern time RPG. Something I could relate to in a way. I saw that this was about as close as I got. The next time I was at Blockbuster, I picked it up for rent. And when I plugged it in and hit the power, I was amazed.
I had an overactive imagination then, and I still have it now. (Why do you think a lot of people like EarthBound: Legends? I've gotten a few excellent comments on that fanfic. Ask EBG Ness, if you want proof.) I kept dreaming of the possibility that James Cameron or Steven Speilberg would pick up on this game, and find out that it would make an awesome movie. Of course, though, I say to myself "Dream on", but I still wonder about what would happen if EB was a movie. In fact, I sometimes act out the part of Ness in the movie. I know, a 14 year old doing that kind of stuff is weirder than EarthBound itself, and I knew it. I've kept it to myself until now.
Anyway, fate placed me in an AOL chat room one day, and I found this kid polling in the chat room. As luck would have it, she said "PRESS 777 IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO JOIN AN EARTHBOUND CLUB" I typed in the 777 and joined a club known as The Sharks. Strange how pressing four little keys can change your life. When I entered the club, I was amazed by how many fans there were. It was around 300 at the time, and it would nearly breach 1,000 at one point. Back then, The Sharks were extermely powerful. Who led all this? A kid known as CATAPULT19, once known as SLTIM, and soon to be known as SeCtoR X19. He was your everyday teenager. Everyone related to him, and everyone wanted to be his friend. Only a select few were his friend. I became one of those select few, despite not being the sharpest knife in the draw. I also learned the SeC succeeded in making half the EB community on AOL start clubs and such. 9037777411460f them failed miserably like the shows on UPN down here in Long Island. Part of that 10was The EB Gang, led by EBG Ness which is now more community than club.
Basically, the club scene, from there, had it's ups and downs. Near the end of the bright years, an anti-Shark war broke out. It was between the club and two staff members (of course, they didn't staff at the time [did they?]) of EB.net (out of respect for those staffers, I'm not naming names) that built a club up of anti-Sharks. They weren't really anti-EarthBound. Rather, they were more anti-SeC. This war revealed SeC's dark side, and although I was way behind SeC, I started getting more and more to the neutral point over time.
The Dark Ages of the EarthBound clubs started when Sec's progress report came in. Obviously, they weren't good. SeC's parents blamed AOL, but here's what was boneheaded about it. Instead of taking away AOL for the quarter, or until his grades could catch up (at least that's what I'd do, but hey, I'm 14), they boneheadedly decide that AOL shouldn't even be a privledge for him. So Bye-Bye AOL for SeC. I lost a real friend that night...and it was the saddest moment of my life.
The clubs took a bad turn from there. They dropped like flies. To add to that, The Sharks jumped from Leader To Leader, eventually getting handed down to me and two of my friends. We were given a type of speech by EBG Ness, saying that the future of the Sharks were in our hands and stuff like that, and then we were leading the Sharks. And we had work to do. Unfortuneatley, I got this job in the middle of 8th grade...and 8th grade was my absolute WORST YEAR EVER. So I had to deal with the stress of 8th grade and run an 800 member club. AND I had another war to settle. After the war was over, my BIOS chip and my RAM got fried, so I was given about 2 months without a comp. It was a good break, but when I found out what happened while I was gone, I went into an uncontrollable rage.
Apparently, despite an E-Mail my mom found the time to drop off while she was at work, BRIAN DX, one of my colleagues, decided to fire me as well as my other colleague, Matingly22. I took it well. Mat didn't, and he was in an all out flame war with BRIAN. To add to that, BRIAN, who thought that he could manage it fine by himself, was making The Sharks worse - and tanking everyone off in the process.
See, while I was gone, EBG Ness took control of The EB Gang, and brought it to the top of the community. Heck, he MADE it a community. BRIAN shattered the diplomacy between the two clubs by writing Anti-EB Gang articles, convincing members to start with the EB Gang, stealing their ideas and claiming it as his own, and that's only the beginning. I think he did a lot other stuff I can't remember, and it really angered EBG Ness to all extents, ready to start a war. If a war started between the EB Gang and The Sharks, they would be dead in a matter of hours. See, Ness was a former hacker. He was forced to quit when AOL got smarter, but he knew exactly how to engage in combat.
The first thing I did when I got a loaner was try to improve relations. Ness was very paranoid, and he kept an embargo on The Sharks because he didn't want war. The EB Gang had nothing to do with The Sharks, and the Sharks started to wither and die. It really showed how dependent The Sharks were. I finally convinced Ness to lift the embargo. And BRIAN also resigned from the pressure. But in Matingly22's eyes, BRIAN made a major mistake.
You can check with your family, but Mat found that officers of a company, much less a club, could only fire subordinates. Technically, me and Mat weren't subordinates. So since we were never fired in the first place, we were the rightful leaders. However, BRIAN dismissed that theory and said that EB0und, the VP was the new president A huge argument went on about this. It was finally settled with EB0und as the president, Mat as the VP, and me as the AVP.
I eventually resigned from The Sharks, angry over what the clubs had become and what they should have been. Clubs should have been something fun to do. Nobody should have to be dispatched to get members, be compelled to fly up the ranks, or whatever. My resignition letter also caused Mat to resign as well so he could donate his time bringing back his old club and start a cause based on my resignition letter.
Mat's still trying to get his club, the Mr. Saturn Nation, off the ground. EB0und is still the leader of The Sharks, and there hasn't been a newsletter for over a month. BRIAN DX has mended his problems with EBG Ness, and now books for The EB Gang's own simulation wrestling fed. EBG Ness continues to lead the EB Gang and shows no signs of stopping his hot streak. He has set a goal - 2000 members by the year 2000, and seems well on his way of reaching that mark. As for me, I'm a member of the EB Gang, and plan to become a member of The Mr. Saturn Nation. I'm also planning out an EarthBound music video based around Edwin McCain's "I Could Not Ask For More".
I would like to thank you for reading this article. It was one of the long ones, and it was loaded with filler. For that, I apologize. Good day.
