Subspace came out in
1995, made by Virgin Interactive Entertainment (VIE) and was one of the earliest
multiplayer online games, depending on who you listen to it might actually of
been the first. It was immediately very popular basically for two reasons.
First of all more or less anyone could play it even on the most dodgy of
connections. Secondly was the deceptively simple gameplay. It was very easy to
start and once you got into it and realised the depth of the
gameplay it was incredibly addictive.
For two years the game
was in open beta and several zones were hosted by the VIE servers. The problems
started when the game went retail. The servers were still free, but you had to
buy the game CD to play on them. The game wasn't advertised well
and with the game being free for so long it didn't sell in big amounts. VIE
pulled out in 1997 and a year later closed their servers down.
This wasn't the
end. The Subspace client had been cracked and the retail CD included the server
software so user made zones were springing up all the time, but
without VIE there was no central control and cheating was rampant
Slowly the community came together. Starting their own servers and regaining
control of the game. The Subspace Council (SSC) was formed by
sys-ops from the major zones. This gave the game the central billing
it had lost when VIE pulled out.
Then in 2001 a new
client was made to replace Subspace. This new client was programmed from the
ground up without any access to the original Subspace code by Mr Ekted and
PriitK (aka Priit Kasesalu, one of the creators of Kazaa). It was
called Continuum and allowed SSC to get rid of the cheaters and continue the
development of the game.
Although now eight years
old Subspace is as popular as it's ever been. The game play is as addictive as
it was eight years ago. The old VIE zones are still there, now known as SVS
zones (Standard VIE Settings), but there's now all kinds of different zones and
settings to play. The recent updates to Continuum has seen several different
zones spring up taking advantage of the new graphics and sound options. The best
example of this new generation of zones is SSCC Metal Gear CTF and SSCI Desert
Storm.
DoubleZero was formed in
August 2003 from players from Alpha West, the original Subspace zone. Most of
the players came from either Victimise or SilverArrows, the two squads founded
by the squad caps Vorbis (Vic) and DBeckham (SA). Check the squad history page
to find out more
