TeroH

If we want to keep the Linux crowd out for another decade or so, yeah, Silverlight is the way to go And yeah, Red Corona looked fab for its time. Hmm. Maybe we could as a community buy the sources to THAT? ...

Plus, there is still the option of actually getting hold of Priit and start talking some sense to him. I don't have much credibility in this community today, but trust me, it can be done. Anyone got GS's contact current information? All the contact info I have for Alex is from over half a decade ago.

Zones stealing passwords was already a known threat a long, long time ago and it was discussed extensively then. Whether this actually resulted in actual code in the client/biller/server, I cannot remember. I have a faint memory that countermeasures for this was already built into Continuum and the biller.

It's doable, as the video clip shows The player counts were never quite as high as in Subspace though... this thing was hosted for a couple of months at the same place where the SSCU zones were located at the time. I would imagine that the server code was done on something entirely different, and the server was mainly responsible for all the game logic, just like in SS.

There was already Red Corona made by a Finnish marketing company Valve almost 10 years ago. Red Corona ran on Shockwave, Macromedia's system similar to Flash. In addition to being entirely browser based, it also had a good 3D engine - it drew the maps in 3D but the gameplay was still 2D Subspace style. Visually it was much, much cooler than Subspace, plus it was multiplayer, and had SMS services like buying extra weapons and such. So an idea like this would be entirely doable. Who wants to give it a go?

Back in the day there were talks about having a two level billing hierarchy, one for the established zones and second for new zones. The idea behind the second one was to be a sort of a read-only billing proxy to which every new zone could connect - so that you could use your existing SSC username on any new zone, but not, for example, create new logins. Priit was never willing to give his client to the hands of other people, and it is very, very undertandable after all the difficulties that the SSC encountered - cheats, hacking attempts, DDoSes, the like. Yet at the same time it was clearly a risk to place too much on his shoulders, and he used to be a very busy guy with all the other projects he worked on. I know that he communicated with at least some other developers back then, but I don't have any idea how much he's involved with things these days. I fully agree on that the community has to be player run. VIE was our finest example of what can happen when all the control is concentrated in one place, and that one place suddenly loses its interest. But at the same time, things have to be run in a coordinated fashion, and that can only work inside a fairly small group. Public discussion should definitely be encouraged. The balance is difficult to keep - the team "running things" needs fresh blood, because as we've established earlier in this thread, people move on, but at the same time people don't really want to work with people they don't know or want to work with. SSC used to choose the Council people based on their activity - zone admins, hosters, etc - but I don't know how things work now; the general tone of the conversation implies that not much happens. And future clients... well, I'd say a capable programmer can create a new client relatively easily, a bunch of capable programmers can probably do it faster. It would definitely help to have co-operation of some people who have most of the knowledge regarding the tech that's used to run stuff now. It is possible to arrange that, I'm sure. I think Dr Brain was spot on a few posts above. Now how to achieve that goal?

The main concern with the biller, if it's still effectively the same codebase Priit used back in the day, is user login information exposure. It doesn't have much value, but it's the central authentication point of the game and if it gets damaged, that could very well be the final blow to the game. A bridged biller might work as a solution. It's an interesting concept, I can see how one would work and it might be quite implementable. Of course there are always other ways... a couple of phonecalls springs first to mind Lynx, you made references to the situation of SSC. How is the politics of Subspace these days? How big is the userbase? Number of zones?

These two things are essential. 1. Keeping up with the times technologywise. This doesn't mean that you should be adding new features the whole time. What it does mean in the case of Subspace is, for example, updating the graphics engine, and such. 2. Keeping the community open for new people. Fact is, people move on, and the only way to deal with that is to make bringing in new enthusiastic people as easy as possible. Item 1 is of course more challenging, as there is a limited number of people who can code. I still think, over a decade from when I was most active, that things like authentication and anti-cheating technologies are stuff that are be better off with only a limited set of people having access to it, however, that doesn't mean making things technologically as easy as possible for the player base to use. Item 2 is where much more can always be done. The internet has developed a lot, and its possibilities, I bet, are still underutilised. I don't know how a new zone is started these days, but that process should be as easy as possible. And most importantly, information about the game and the related services needs to be shared as much as possible, to make it possible for new people to come in, improve on what's out there and come up with new ideas. Mine Go BOOM did very valuable work on this back in the day. T R I

I used to play a lot. Too much actually. So much that I used to spend my weekends at the office, because the office network had practically no lag. It wasn't unusual for me to spend over hours per week at the office just because of playing the game... adding to that the other Subspace related stuff I found myself increasingly involved in, soon there was no time for anything else. Fortunately a girl dragged me out of that pit, literally, sometime in 1999 if my memory serves me correctly. It didn't take me long to realise that my life needed more than just an online community. Even though things between me and her didn't work out, I had learned my lesson. I started practising yoga and tai chi, one day found myself at a local pool hall, and all in all felt much better about myself. I rediscovered writing music, got some of it published, then found a new girl... things like that. I'm again dating a wonderful girl, I actively teach and compete in pool these days, and overall I'm a much, much happier person than I have ever been before. Subspace had its place in my life for several years; I played and actively worked for it since late 1996 to maybe 2001. It was good fun, but it dominated my life, so it had to go. I bet I could still kick your ass in a good SVS duel though, TestTube, my old Exiled squadmate and former Seeker of Truth - a good T R I ally you guys were! -salute- I still sometimes wonder what the Subspace scene is like these days... maybe one of these days when I don't have anything to do I'll download Continuum again and check if my old account still works. For old times sake.