Game History
From SSWiki
Contents |
[edit] VIE Team
Sniper Days (1995)
Beta Days (1996)
Subspace (1997-1998)
Subspace 1.35 Cracked (1998-2001)
Twister
[edit] Continuum
Initial Client Release (2001)
Updates & Biller Changes (2001-2003)
Continuum .39pr1 (2003-2007)
Continuum .40 (2007-Current)
[edit] History
SubSpace evolved from a game originally called Sniper (1995), a project to test the effects and severity of lag in a massively multiplayer environment over dialup connections.[1] After its creators realized its viability as an actual game, public beta testing began in February, 1996, and it became fully public later that year. The game was released commercially in December of 1997 with a list price of US$ 27.99 for unlimited play, requiring no monthly or hourly fees[2] The game was originally developed by Burst, led by Peterson and Rod Humble, for the US branch of the now-defunct Virgin Interactive. Later on, Jeff Petersen would use SubSpace as inspiration for Sony Online Entertainments Infantry and Cosmic Rift.
While in the beginning the game only offered four playable ships, a couple of servers, and a limited number of maps, during a costly and extensive testing period the game developed depth and replay value seldom rivaled by games before or since. When the game was officially released, it was not a commercial success due to poor marketing and the relative newness of the MMO genre. In addition, after two years of playing for free, many players refused to pay for a game that they had beta tested for two years, and instead opted for a software crack written by CLASS. The crack's popularity was bolstered by widespread irritation with delays and focus-stealing caused by the check. Later, a Russian programmer who also released the cheat utility Twister, released the SubSpace v1.35 client to bypass the game's CD check.
The server software had been distributed with the commercial release. Once VIE went under in 1998, many of its remaining US assets were purchased by Electronic Arts, but the SubSpace license was not. This caused all of the commercially hosted servers, including the official VIE servers, to eventually go offline permanently, and independently run servers became the only choice for hosting zones, including the old VIE zones The community lost many players but continued to survive.
Within a short time, a number of cheats in addition to Twister appeared,[3] and commercial game hacking programs took their toll on the game as well. In response, a banning utility and new client were developed, arresting the cheating epidemic. The new BanG utility extended the banning capabilities of the server while the new client, named Continuum, largely thwarted the efforts of hackers. Continuum is now the only client permitted to connect to servers on the SubSpace Central billing server, which stores user names and passwords. In addition to security improvements, Continuum added increased media and gameplay capabilities. Citing security concerns, the authors of Continuum have declined to release its source code.
[edit] References
- ↑ http://reviews.cnet.com/pc-games/subspace-pc/4505-9696_7-30977300.html Retrieved January 30, 2008
- ↑ http://subspace.legendzones.com/history.php Retrieved January 30, 2008
- ↑ http://www.subspacedownloads.com/index.php?act=what_is Retrieved January 30, 2008