It appears Earth Eternal is not so, as it was shut down for the second time on November 21^st, 2011 at 9:00PM EST. No reason was cited, but the game's website (and that of its Japanese version, Ikimonogatari), were withdrawn, with an announcement on the project's Facebook page the sole notice — much to the outrage of fans in the comments.

For historical purposes, a collection of links and other tidbits posted to Newsbytes in August.

Earth Eternal, which was billed by some as a furry MMORPG, and which went offline in September 2010, is about to be relaunched in North America under its new ownership. Formerly run by SparkPlay, the new version, described as revived and revamped, will be operated by Outblaze and TurnOut Ventures. Although rumors have abounded for months that a relaunch might be forthcoming, it was only recently that there has been a more definitive announcement that a beta would be launching shortly.

The new game will have some differences from the old. Only twelve of the twenty-two character races from the original will be available. There will no longer be a browser version, and a Facebook account will be required. The changes to the game made it impossible to preserve characters from the original, so all players will need to start over (and according to their website, characters created for the beta release will be deleted at the end of the beta period).

Some have already been playing the Japanese version, and report that the character models have been somewhat altered to a more Japanese styling. Despite some differences, the overall look and feel and the gameplay are much like the earlier incarnation of the game.

(Vikie Foxfang assisted in writing this article.)

So get out your katana, because this time it's kemono style!

Almost a month ago on 31 December 2010, Snoopy007 found a very interesting page on the website of Japanese game company Sankando.

Furry-friendly browser-based MMO Earth Eternal is up for sale after its organizers ran out of money. [tip: lupine]

According to CEO Matt Mihaly (Aurelius), the company has already recieved a few offers, and will keep the servers up for now.

The game – featuring a variety of anthropomorphic animal characters – is free to play, and entered 'open beta' last October.