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, remember this was in the days before broadband connections became widespread. 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 having been free to play 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 though. 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 nearly ten years old Subspace is as popular as it's ever been. The gameplay is as addictive as it was in 1995. 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. It's best to think of Continuum as a multi-game platform rather than a single game client. You have all the old Subspace zones still hosted, then there's the 'Super zones' that have emerged since the end of VIE involvement such as Trench Wars, Death Star Battle and Extreme Games which are effectively different games although they all share the same client. Now with the recent updates to Continuum new zones are starting to appear that take advantage of the new graphics and sound options. The best examples of this new generation of zones are Metal Gear CTF and Desert Storm.
The next stage of development in the Subpace community is just starting to happen. Coded by Grelminar A Small Subspace Server (ASSS) will allow zones a lot more customisation of their server and game settings without relying on the use of bots or Continuum upgrades. How this will change current zones and what new zones will emerge using ASSS is not clear, but with Subspace approaching it's tenth birthday the game and it's community are still going strong and still developing.
You can read the Subspace Wiki entry here
Subspace History
