Sniper - Infantry - Subspace

[CreatiX]

Hey

 

I just googled alot on ss history and found out priit is one of the main creators of kazaa and skype ..

If im just slow and this is a commonly known fact, than why in the world does any1 wonder that priit is gone?

 

i also read, that subspace started as an open beta under the name "Sniper" (1995) originally with 4 ships which later turned into "infantry"/"subspace" .

Still my research left some open questions:

 

I. Do these beta-versions (sniper, infantry) still exist somewhere? If so, where? If not, any screenshots/etc ?

II. Whats the difference between Infantry and Subspace 1.0 ? I guess there was a 1.0, was there?

III. They say that priit and mr ekted wrote cont without any access to the original 1.35 source - now hows that possible?

IV. After going retail in 1997, there were only 7 ships so they implemnted the shark later on. When was that?

V. In theory, shouldnt it be pretty easy to add more ships to ss/cont? (VIE obvisually made it possible to add new ships to the game easily - i cant imagine they let 28.8 k users download the complete game again if they knew b4 theyd make those updates/addons)

VI. And last but not least: When exactly did VIE shutdown their game support and how many versions of Subspace were there between the retail release in 1997 and the VIE shutdown?

 

Best regards

-cre

[RedWaller]

Look this up on wiki. It has everything you need.

[CreatiX]

i have read the wiki entry about subspace. its what made me post this thread.

[The Real Picard]

i have read the wiki entry about subspace. its what made me post this thread.

 

Good thread, for some of us, who've been around from the beginning, it will be nice to see what type of replies come forth. I for one, claim fame from Jeff Petersen leaving public KILL MACROS because I made him laugh with mine. They almost did away with them during Beta however he and Blackie loved the stupid stuff I came up with. I've literally used thousands upon thousands of them over the years!

 

True Story!

TRP

[»CypherJF]

This is nothing new -

 

I thought it was common knowledge that he was a big developer for Kazaa (see do!@#$%^&*ents submitted in the RIAA vs Sherman network court cases where he outlines their liability for copyright infringement), Skype and his latest project, Joost. A 2d game is probably a spec on the wall compared to his latest projects.

-

 

To answer your questions:

I. Do these beta-versions (sniper, infantry) still exist somewhere? If so, where? If not, any screenshots/etc ?

> check subspacedownloads.com

 

II. Whats the difference between Infantry and Subspace 1.0 ? I guess there was a 1.0, was there?

> Infantry was written by the same folks as the Subspace game. It's rumored the engine is a super-set of Subspace. They applied "what we've learned from developing Subspace" to the Infantry game.

 

III. They say that priit and mr ekted wrote cont without any access to the original 1.35 source - now hows that possible?

> The VIE protocol and other things had been reversed engineered. It's not a complex game in the first place?

 

IV. After going retail in 1997, there were only 7 ships so they implemnted the shark later on. When was that?

> Shark/Wasp had been around as a sysop-only ship, I believe. Wasn't it in 1.34 where it was finally released as a "new" ship? I don't recall the actual history on this.

 

V. In theory, shouldnt it be pretty easy to add more ships to ss/cont? (VIE obvisually made it possible to add new ships to the game easily - i cant imagine they let 28.8 k users download the complete game again if they knew b4 theyd make those updates/addons)

> No, the part of the protocol which defines a ship is set to a maximum of 8. In order to change this we would have to get rid of any VIE clients (bots included), and go pure Continuum protocol + client. Well "getting rid of" is pretty strong, but I think you get the point.

 

VI. And last but not least: When exactly did VIE shutdown their game support and how many versions of Subspace were there between the retail release in 1997 and the VIE shutdown?

> 1.34 was a CD, and there is was a 1.35 released.

[»freakmonger]

Just to clarify

 

Subspace was never called "infantry"..A few people from the VIE team of programmers went to harmless games (formed and owned by trixxter, a subspace player) and then they created infantry and sold it to Sony. ( I think there was a company between harmless games and the sony transaction but this is just off the top of my head)

 

Infantry is still around but it is NOT free. And does not have as many players as subspace. The same team of programmers later created "Cosmic Rift" which is a !@#$%^&*ty version of subspace. Again, doesn't have the playerbase of subspace.

 

The differance in infantry and subspace is vast being they are two completly different games....Infantry is more based as human soldiers, hence "infantry"

 

If nobody has answered your other questions by tomorrow I will try to get to it but I'm going to bed right now.

[Hoch]

IV. After going retail in 1997, there were only 7 ships so they implemnted the shark later on. When was that?

As near as I can remember the reason why the shark was the 'mystery'

ship is that it VIE intended it to be a teaser. In other words, it was an

incentive to get people to start playing the game, particularly when pay

for play started in earnest.

 

That's at least how I remembered it. But I would recommend an earlier

suggestion in downloading some of the older versions of the game.

Especially Sniper. When I'm bored at work I will occasionally play it :-)

 

 

-Hoch

[Gravitron]

Rod had a short backstory to Subspace, back in those days he was big time onto writing, like any good designer should.

The Shark was the idea of some sort of alien presence, then couple vers after the retail release ver they decided to throw it onto the mix as a final bonus gambit.

It was never completed, its model, infact.

Shark is the sysop *UFO (aka, ghostship), which you supposedly see in the SS Intro.

 

v1.34 was the last retail.

v1.35 is Sage386 patch disabler versus his (yes, he made both cheat and protection) twister hack.

 

IIRC, and I may be very wrong as it was quite some long time ago (decade!!!), VIE shutdown somewhere october or december 98, about a week or couple after the "The Big End" rumours begun to fly on the SS mainstream.

I think it was KBoom who slip loose the headsup about it.

 

Also, the wiki suck balls.

Here's somewhat of a summary of 'our' history which I've composed.

http://www.theventer.com/Temp/historystory.txt

 

 

http://www.freeinfantry.com - the underground Free Infantry movement, going strong and large.

[CreatiX]

thanks alot for all those detailed replies!

 

So once they shutted down the servers in nov/dec 1998, were there already non VIE zones or was there a period of time when subspace was 100% offline?

 

Best regards

-Cre

[Gravitron]

There were plenty of non-VIE zones since first retail round, but they were all amatuers without any organization (noteably, rx7 aka nitrous oxide's Extreme Games among one of the first to still be around nowdays) and seperate from each other running off people's cable modems, many of them poping up like mushrooms and then go down within a week never to be seen again.

Baud orginized a central (SSC biller) network and the INet hosting servers in the dying throbes of VIE and ran all the official zones; xalimar ran the entire SSX network farm, permanently hosting user zones; they combined together a bit later to essentially become all and whole of SubSpace.

Nowdays, with INet/Sonera pulling out of SS due to restracturing and Xalimar losing the hosting due to some !@#$%^&*hat tattle-taling on him, Priit host all of SS.

[»freakmonger]

Nowdays, with INet/Sonera pulling out of SS due to restracturing and Xalimar losing the hosting due to some !@#$%^&*hat tattle-taling on him, Priit host all of SS.

 

Priit hosts ALMOST all of SS

[MikeTheNose]

I validate Gravitron's post and history regarding subspace (not infantry as it's nothing I know about). It does leave out a lot that he doesn't know about though. Such as Trench Wars, SSCU, SSCE and others.

[Gravitron]

I didn't go onto specific details as I don't know most of individual zone's personal history, nor is it of major concern to the summary and is mostly being infused with a lot of political struggle BS.

There is also a !@#$%^&* lot more of internal-SSC BS and what not that I DO know about that I didn't want to get onto because it's going to end in bias and, again, irrelevant to the history review.

 

Priit hosts ALMOST all of SS

Seriously, who looks at T3G or Testtube's failed network made 98% of bots and 1% of the zone staff/owners 24/7 in spec and 1% players?

[»freakmonger]

I didn't go onto specific details as I don't know most of individual zone's personal history, nor is it of major concern to the summary and is mostly being infused with a lot of political struggle BS.

There is also a !@#$%^&* lot more of internal-SSC BS and what not that I DO know about that I didn't want to get onto because it's going to end in bias and, again, irrelevant to the history review.

 

Priit hosts ALMOST all of SS

Seriously' date=' who looks at T3G or Testtube's failed network made 98% of bots and 1% of the zone staff/owners 24/7 in spec and 1% players?

[/quote']

 

1. I pay for SSCC now.

2. MG has less than 8 bots, that is about as many or less than other zones (chaos, tw, eg, etc). Weather you like to aknowledge it or not, MG has a valid population in subspace. 3/4/5 on the population list. Depending on the time/day.

3. I'm not getting into this with you. I really could care less what your opinon of a network is.

 

Each day you should ask yourself, "what have I done for the community lately?"

[Gravitron]

1. I pay for SSCC now.

New sucker born every minute?

 

2. MG has less than 8 bots, that is about as many or less than other zones (chaos, tw, eg, etc). Weather you like to aknowledge it or not, MG has a valid population in subspace. 3/4/5 on the population list. Depending on the time/day.

MG MG MG MG, all I hear from you !@#$%^&* newbies is MG.

Who the !@#$%^&* cares about MG? You do.

Why? IDK...maybe because you're their admin.

I was actually refering to the rest of the 'network' with its 10 or so dumb dead zones, but sorry that I didn't count MG, maybe it's because it's a piece of crap of a newb zone wannabe-Infantry that even I have came up with a better gamepklay design back in 98 or 99 and that no one, in particular me, give a !@#$%^&* about.

MG!

Good thing EG isn't involved here, they could bring 200 troll-drones on a finger snap to testify how awesome their zone, and therefore their network must be too, is.

*barf*

 

3. I'm not getting into this with you. I really could care less what your opinon of a network is.

Yet you just did.

And guess what, the rest of SubSpace doesn't care a flying !@#$%^&* about your network/oppinion either.

 

Each day you should ask yourself, "what have I done for the community lately?"

I don't prodd Alex daily to give up about you, come to the conclusion that "WTF wasting all energy over fixing your idiot punk lamers !@#$%^&* when can be playing with children and having fun" and shutting down everything aside premier league.

And let me tell you, he's probably a !@#$%^&* lot closer to it than he let you see.

Try playing kindergarten nany to a huge bunch of dumb !@#$%^&*ed kids, see how long you can take it.

[»doc flabby]

The most miraculous thing about this whole story is you can still play subspace 10 years on....

[Dav]

I just googled alot on ss history and found out priit is one of the main creators of kazaa and skype ..

If im just slow and this is a commonly known fact, than why in the world does any1 wonder that priit is gone?

Probably swimming in his millions.

[»doc flabby]

No, you cannot. SubSpace is dead.

You can play continuum, though.

 

Freak, way to kill thread.

Well you can download the subspace cd and play on your own

[wub]

mg > you. So much hate in these forums

[Testtube]

LOL @ Grav

[Audry]

I dont know why some peoples always try to start a flame war... if you dont like a zone gameplay, or the way it is runned, it doesnt mean no one else does. OMG HERE I BRING MY PRONESS: Grow up.

[Gravitron]

TT, don't make me post that log of yours saying you love !@#$%^&*.

[Obe]

thanks alot for all those detailed replies!

 

So once they shutted down the servers in nov/dec 1998, were there already non VIE zones or was there a period of time when subspace was 100% offline?

 

Best regards

-Cre

 

 

Once VIE shut down thier servers, there was already a large number of servers that ran on thier own billing server. The database that was kept was the origional Euro network. Subspace was never actually 100% offline.

[PoLiX]

http://www.subspacedownloads.com/interviews/baudchaser.txt

 

Participants: Fallen Angel, Baudchaser

Description: Baudchaser Interview

Created On: Thursday, December 27, 2001

 

 

Q: How, why, and when did you get involved with Subspace?

 

Baudchaser: A Rainy day in Georgia? Where I met Subspace? ... Actually I think I played it

first back in ... hm... 1995 first... a friend of mine had discovered it, and handed the

link to me. I tried it a few days, didn't really see the point of playing it - and forgot

about it.. until a rainy day in 1996, when I was incredibly bored. And somehow I managed to

find the game again... It had changed some, and for some reason it appealed to me this rainy

day, and I kept uh... playing it for the next few years to come.

 

 

Q: What was your name & the zones you flew.

 

Baudchaser: I signed up as Baudchaser, as that has been my nickname ever since before

Internet started to reach out to us mortals... And I tried most zones, most types available

back then. SVS zones was the only thing available, super zones was something invented later.

So while my Jur!@#$%^&*ic !@#$%^&* flew around in the SVS zones, I soon figured that Chaos Nevada was

my place to be. I remember clearly I asked around how to make a squad. Help files was never

my strong side, and once somebody managed to tell me how this squad could be made, I started

to go around recruiting people who was hard to beat. I mean, in battle. I was pretty bad

back then, but still I couldn't recruit anyone worse than me. So I ended up with some

players on my squad, some of which I would use terms as "legendary" as of today...

Skysweeper, Black Bart Smurf... Together we shaped up the squad Langoleers (misspelled name

for Langoliers - after a Stephen King book with same !@#$%^&*le), who rocked Chaos Nevada for

some time.... peaked at around 100 members...

 

Fallen Angel: Whoa! That's a few members to manage!

 

Baudchaser: We tried War Zone and King of the Hill too, but it never appealed to our

talents as Cowboys... We never herded very well, so back to Nevada we went

 

100 members isn't too much, if you have structure and discipline... We didn't...

 

Fallen Angel: LoL. Cool sounds like you owned Chaos Nevada for a long time. =)

 

Baudchaser: We owned it totally for some time yes... Though, it all went boring after some

time. The reason we made this squad was to bash the other "tough" squads, those who could

pose some threat to our lives as cowboys... Let me see... Smurfs, Ministers... But we all

became their friends after a while, no more fun

 

 

Q: What initially inspired you to start doing work for the Subspace community?

 

Baudchaser: I really didn't want to get myself into the community, I just wanted to setup a

nice server for us people in the squad. A server where we could fight without any !@#$%^&*holes

around, where we could get rid of lame !@#$%^&* tricks as minerepping. So that's what I did, I

setup a server and me, Skysweeper and a few of the squaddies designed a war-type of zone

where there was no specials... only bullets and bombs. A special small type of map ensured

there was a lot of action all the time, and before I even knew it - we had 70 people playing

simultaneously in rush hours, choking the bandwidth of my host back then... And a big

coincidence wanted more things to happen, it proved that Telecom Finland (now Sonera) wanted

to setup a Scandinavian Subspace server, which they had more or less given up the idea of

now when I had a successful server in Norway. So I just happened to start talking to these

guys at Sonera, and we agreed they'd provide me hardware and bandwidth, I'd build the

server/zone concepts and get things rolling. And at the very same time, VIE US started to

tremble, rumors of buyouts and what not started to shake our community pretty hard... Poor

old Blackie did whatever he could to keep the community alive and kicking as long as he

could, and for what he dared to do without putting himself in a bad position, but all in

vain... the VIE US servers were shut down at some point, and suddenly the servers I hosted

with Sonera was the only serious set of high performance servers left around...

 

So all of a sudden I had like thousands of people looking in my direction, "Yo, what now?"

... I didn't really like this, because Subspace was already taking up too much time. And

having a big expansion plan emerging in the horizon, wasn't what I really wanted to spend

my spare time with over the next foreseeable future months. But oh well, I had started it -

so I just had to keep it up. It was fun after all, even if my personal and business life

suffered from this time consuming "hobby"...

 

Fallen Angel: That must have been scary to realize that you had the whole future of Subspace

in your hands at that point. It sounds like Subspace might actually have died without your

contributions during this time?

 

Baudchaser: I wasn't really scared about it, except that it already took too much time...

And I slowly realized that the fun of playing, the magic, disappeared as days went by...

Before, I always saw people taking tremendous amounts of hits without dying, but I always

thought there was a reason for it... that this reason was part of the magic in the game.

Now when I suddenly started to spend more time as sysop for the zones, I slowly realized

that these things were merely a result of aged and partly bad written code. I realized that

lag was, at this point, more a matter of the routing in between people playing, than the

speed of your connection, and the ping you had in between those players. Some people had a

distinct advantage all the time while playing, while others had a distinct disadvantage.

And my own perception of the game as "magic" where people could build their skills by

practice and hard work, disintegrated into a "build skills and get a lucky set of

routers"... lag never bothered me before, until the day I started to realize this factor.

 

So while I slowly lost interest in the game, it took more and more time off my hands and I

had less and less interest in maintaining the servers, listening to the always-!@#$%^&*y

community, who never had anything but complaining, and whining to do come up with... apart

from the regular percentage of !@#$%^&*-kissers who is present in ever aspect of every community

you can find, digital or analog.

 

There are people who say that the game would have died if it weren't because of me.... I beg

to differ, I don't think the game would have died, but I believe it would have continued in

a bit more decentralized form and shape, a bit more disorganized - and definitely without

proper backing for the centralized billing server. The strength and fundament of Sonera I

believe was partly the reason people gained confidence in the servers I set up, hence they

dared to spend their valuable spare time playing...

 

 

Q: What was the toughest job for you regarding your role in subspace and what was your most

rewarding accomplishment?

 

Baudchaser: The toughest job was indeed to keep my own motivation up, as I saw the

commercial backbone of Subspace disintegrated in front of my eyes the day VIE US was bought

up, and the purchaser didn't have any idea or strategy of continuing the game. My own

motivation was partly money and partly the game play itself, but as there was no money -

and the fun of game play itself ceased to exist, I needed to find other sources of

motivation. (Which I didn't find.) The most rewarding accomplishment, I'm not sure as of

today. I guess some of the people I learned to know through this game, some of them quite

unique. People I would probably never have met if it weren't for Subspace. And my experience

in maintaining a community also triggered the start of GameAddicts Network, which I started

with my co-responsible for the Sonera Subspace servers, SuperFly... This website and the

network concept also triggered a career boost for me, so I guess all in all these factors

seen as one would be the most rewarding accomplishment...

 

Q: I understand that you were the creator of the first Subspace Council. Tell me about how

the Subspace council was built? What area(s) of Subspace did you support within the council?

As one of the first leaders of this community, what was your vision for the future of

Subspace when you created the council?

 

Baudchaser: I realized that my role in the community was quite unique, and that I was left

alone with more or less all the responsibilities and power. I've never believed in having

the sole power of something that affects this many people, even if it's "just a game." So I

tried, at an early point, to delegate this responsibility to more people, people which I

could cooperate and talk to, and people who could, so to speak, control me whenever and if I

did something I shouldn't have done. I'm quite temperamental by nature, and since I spent

all this time and resources for, with no commercial interests, limiting my temper, I decided

that having other people around would help to make sure the community always saw the better

parts of the game.

 

Fallen Angel: That sounds like an intelligent way of balancing everyone's contributions so

that not just one person dictates the future of the game. It takes a mature and wise person

to know how to temper their own strengths and build on their own weaknesses to the benefit

of the community. Not many people are willing to sacrifice their needs/egos for the better

of the whole community. I think that separates the true "leaders" from the rest.

 

Baudchaser: So the SS Council was initiated and established by me, with a few of the

valuable people who already had a role in the community. It was basically meant to be only

a few people, I think originally we had 6 onboard... representatives from the most important

zones. Later on somebody else took over the council idea, and stuffed it full with all kinds

of people for all kinds of reasons, at one point I had the idea there was more people on the

council than actually playing the game.

 

 

Q: That's interesting. I don't believe anyone really knows much about the original council.

What was your vision for the future of Subspace when you created the council?

 

Baudchaser: The council's main role was to give the game some sort of power balance, making

sure no people (like me) could go on an Ego trip making things go bad, a collection of

people who could easily re-establish zones incase hosts went down, or sysops went sour... My

allover vision of Subspace was just as primitive, let people play and have fun, but keep a

democratic-dictatorship type of government ... don't ask, I cant really explain what I mean

about a "democratic dictatorship", but I know it works.

 

I always wanted to keep up the development of the game. I still believe, even today, that

this game could be the greatest multiplayer game ever. I am also sure, even if today's

community would resist heavily, that the game could go pay-for-play and get a commercial

backbone sporting servers worldwide, gaining a community and a population bigger than we

ever saw before. That was my vision back then, and that's the only thing which could ever

tempt me to go back to the game as an active part again...

 

 

Q: Did your visions come true, did they fail, or exceed your expectations?

 

Baudchaser: My visions didn't come true, both because I gave those visions up, and I

realized there was other communities where I could spend my time, and where I could build my

own business more successfully. I do believe people like Priitk has a fair chance of taking

the(ir) game into a commercial stage, thus bringing my visions to where I wanted it to go

back then. However, it wouldn't really be "my" visions, it would be theirs...

 

 

Q: Do you have anything to tell us regarding the council today? Your over- view of it's

function?

 

Baudchaser: I really don't know much about today's council. But I believe the people who has

the real power and the real influence, aren't active on the council's premises. It's quite

simple. There is a small bunch of people who owns Continuum, I believe it's two or three of

them, while the council is represented by probably 20-30 people (if not more, I honestly

don't know). I believe that the "true" council as of today, is not the ones who calls

themselves the SS Council, but PriitK and his group of people, doing the actual work to keep

the game alive... Lets take an example, how many people in the council would be able to

actually stop PriitK if he decides to get the game going commercial wise? I don't think

there is such a person, hence the council and its role is more a collection of people who

have bandwidth and zone concepts, but no real power to affect anything but choosing whether

or not their bandwidth should go to hosting pr0n movies, or a subspace zone. Bandwidth and

hardware can easily be replaced, the program code, graphics and so forth can not.

 

Fallen Angel: The council has stated they are nothing but an e-mail group.

 

Baudchaser: If the SS Council states they are an e-mail group, then I guess that's close as

you get to the truth...

 

Fallen Angel: I see. That's quite an insight that I believe needs to be said by a person who

was so integral in this game.

 

 

Q: You mentioned GameAddicts earlier in our interview. I visited the site recently and

notice a great new look. =) Tell us more about your site and where you are heading with it.

 

Baudchaser: I've always been quite interested in online communities... digital communities.

I started back in 1993 with phone-to-phone connection community systems, permitting people

to be online, exchanging messages, mail and chat with each other. They could just as well

play games, with high scores etc. As I realized internet came around to stay, I started to

develop my own competence for bigger communities, in particular the ones revolving games. I

always felt that the web part of Subspace were neglected, and I did not back then have the

competence, time, or resources to develop this on my own. So I decided to start a little

test project, www.gamehacker.com, which I registered just for the !@#$%^&* of it. The name was

just too good to let go. I started some community message boards for Subspace, the

"Subspace Gazette" news site, and a infantry site too. Just to see if I could make the web

part of these games better for the players.

 

As time went by, we decided to make this site a more generic one, and the Subspace /

Infantry look and feel were slowly abandoned, and we started to recruit people who didn't

really have a clue of what those two games were. And even if we do host parts of the

Subspace community forums now, we have no plans of getting further involved with Subspace,

unless somebody comes up with a clear business strategy for doing such.

 

Fallen Angel: I really like the new look at GameAddicts. It is very well put together and

the schematics are pleasing.

 

Baudchaser: Our plan with GameAddicts for the future, is to remain independent, provide

news, articles, and journalistic material involving all kinds of games, and eventually

participate in developing our own games, or parts/modules of such, where we can have direct

influence on the final results. I've seen by far too many promising games go down under

simply because too many people without competence and know how have been sticking their

fingers into areas they shouldn't.

 

 

Q: I know from continued contact with a lot of old-school players that they are concerned

with the lack of respect within the community today. The council supports their own

interests and is not interested in giving any guidelines as to bans, etc. Quite a few of

these old players asked me to inquire as to your opinions of then versus now and what you

think might help this concern.

 

Baudchaser: I seem to recall from way back that a few persons I obviously do not wish to

name at this point, got onboard the council for the wrong reasons. I also happen to know

that quite a few of the people on the council have far better copycat skills than creative

skills, a factor which seen alone is not very important, but seen as a part of a person's

development into a position as he has today, on the council, might clear up a few things.

Some people are more concerned of getting a well known name, becoming famous so to speak,

somewhere. Preferably in a game they like and spend time in. Some people do things for

commercial profit (I'm one of them), some people do things to gain fame and glory - either

way, you might call it a reward. I've experienced the fame and glory in Subspace, although I

never really cared much for it... actually this fame and glory -effect was affecting my will

and ability to play a good game in a negative way, since I could no longer use my beloved

nickname to play. And, of course, the Billy The Kid effect, just imagine how many kids came

to gun-duel me. It was quite boring. But I believe some of the people who are on the council

today, are there more for the !@#$%^&*le "Member of Subspace Council" - than a sincere will to

actually change things for the better. I also believe some of the people on the council are

there for all the wrong reasons, and I'd like this to be taken as a general comment rather

than criticism versus single individuals.

 

I don't know in which form the council operates today, but as I see it, there is no need for

a council, what is needed, is a few people surrounding PriitK and his small team, who can

manage and control the community in a strict, but fair, way. Democracy does not really work

in any aspect of a society, there is always 30% of the people who don't get what they want.

So how could it ever work in a game like Subspace?

 

Fallen Angel: Understood. My thanks for your insight.

 

 

Q: Give us your words of wisdom for the benefit of our younger members in the community that

are interested in becoming staff and doing more for SS or their zones. (How do they get in

on a ground level and climb the ladder? Qualifications, attributes you would look for in

your staff, etc.)

 

Baudchaser: There are no golden answers of how to get anywhere. The only viable option to

get anywhere in today's Subspace, would be either to assist PriitK and his team in

developing the game, and that means do things they haven't covered already. I believe

they've got most things covered, but ... getting somewhere in the council shouldn't be very

hard, I assume starting by kissing the right !@#$%^&*es would give you a flying start. It also

seems like most people (current sysops) think its enough to have high speed bandwidth and

fast server hardware to start a server/zone, but I'd say the whole game has way too much of

that already. Too few people think creative, and those who do - rarely succeed. Too many

people are copying each others concepts, modifying it a slight bit, and then launch it as

something brand new... keeps the players rotating between the zones, but rarely brings

something new to the community. There is too few people trying to actually build new

concepts, invent new zones that challenge other things than just a quick trigger finger and

luck. There is an ocean of things to do, an ocean of concepts to be found, which not only

could prove successful, but also help getting some new spirit and fresh blood back into the

game. Once upon a time I created a concept named "Death Star Battle". That's a very long

time ago. How many new and successful concepts have come online after this time? Maybe a

few, but I still believe the ones doing good - but geeez so old - are Extreme Games, Death

Star Battle and Trench Wars... add a few more, and then we have the whole list.

 

If you want to get anywhere today, bring something new to the game rather than polishing and

tweaking already existing concepts. Prove that you're better than the rest, don't talk about

it - just do it. And your Subspace career should soon be on its way.

 

About attributes and what I look for? Well, I look for people that don't give a !@#$%^&* about

kissing !@#$%^&*, who are mature enough to stand up and think for themselves, make their own

decisions, and stake out their own path - as well as being interested in the bigger goals

rather than just their own personal ones...

 

 

Q: Where do you see the Subspace community in the future and What is the most important

thing you would like to say about Subspace and the community at large?

 

Baudchaser: I'd wish for PriitK to go commercial with the game, inevitably saying, some of

the current players would drop the game simply because they don't want to pay a dime for

their entertainment. But as I see it, social welfare is a government issue, and not

something companies should worry about. And the future that opens up if the game could get

some commercial backing, is by far more worth than a handful of freeloaders who believes

it's their god given right to be entertained for free. I can count a few thousand hours

I've spent keeping this game alive, and I can only imagine how much PriitK and his team have

spent. I believe its time to get the game organized and commercialized in a way that can

secure many new players, many new zone concepts, a lot of new spirit and somebody to take

responsibility of keeping the game fair for all parts to play.

 

 

Q: I have heard from members of the community that if Subspace/Continuum went commercial

that they would be forced into hacker groups to obtain hacked versions of the commercial

version. Is this something that happens more or less when a game goes commercial?

 

Baudchaser: Nope... pay for play. People need valid accounts server side, as in all (or at

least most) online games. You pay $xx to play per month, per year or something like that.

You purchase or download a client, which will not have full functionality until you have a

"full" and paid for account on the server. These hacker groups could hack all they wanted,

it wouldn't help. What's the point of a hacked client - when the server controls

everything.

 

You will automatically get rid of most the whiners, you'll get first class servers/bandwidth

for the game, and the people who runs the game/community will have other motivation than

pure personal ones (which is indeed not anywhere near truth today)...

 

The game is kept alive because its free, but at the same time that's what stops it's

evolution, and inevitably what will kill it as time goes by.

 

Fallen Angel: I really appreciate your time today in interviewing with me.

 

Baudchaser: Hm... ... I did promise didn't I, although it took a lot too much time before

I could actually get there.

 

Fallen Angel: I think it is very important for our community to hear your insights.

 

Thank you again.

[jacob hunter!]

Very intertesting read thanks grav.