Well, this was a failure

[Virtual Ocean Horizon]

Ever since the game got on steam, we got an initial population boost, and then within a month everything was deader than ever. I mean literally, the only active zone left is TW, if you even call that active in its current state with nothing but strays and speccers. Things were really bad before we got on steam, but after they got so much worse. EG doesn't even have enough players to host a game outside of the center anymore, and it seems all the staff quit too.


I cannot express in words how much of a dissappointment it is to see the last ditch effort to revive this game fail so spectacularly.


Yeah, this is goodbye subspace. What a spectacular and pathetic way to die.

[DIRK THE DRIPLESS]

Honestly, I don't think it's the graphics or gameplay, it's more that the client has never been modernized for the current gaming landscape. The launcher is far behind in terms of just about everything, and a lack of any type of global statistic system holds it back. Furthermore, there are a lot of older features in the client that are completely broken at this point (mostly web linbks, online manual, etc.), and that puts out a, for a lack of better term, overall lazy vibe.

I know the Continuum client was developed many years ago by a community member that has since moved on to bigger and better things, but why hasn't anyone in the community stepped up and started a "community restoration project"? I really don't know how far it could be taken, and if something like global statistics are even possible given the nature of zones and all, but I really don't understand why we haven't seen a revised Continuum client since the 0.40 update back in 2007.

EDIT: I'd have to agree that the game is well into its twilight years at this point.

[Tatuira]

I want to play!!!!! I miss to old zones my favorite was 17thParallel, it died long time ago. But i like Hyper Space.. I got the game on steam like a month ago, and since then couldnt find a single play on HS... Do you guys program like a day and hour to play???

[Phenom]

What expectations did you guys really have? This game has been abandoned by it's developers since the early 2000s and all of us back in the day knew it was going to die around 09-12.

I appreciate you guys putting it on Steam since it's still a fun way to kill an hour or 2 even if it does have... 1/10th the playerbase it had 12 years ago.

[𓂀𓂏𓂀]

Originally posted by Jö Zeholipael☭:

Everyone here seems really bitter. Did you guys expect millions of players coming to this game? Because that was unrealistic as ♥♥♥♥. Play because it's fun, not because it's popular. I play Neotokyo and it hardly ever has active servers. But so what? It's fun, and I play FOR FUN.

It's not pathetic way to die. It's just an old game with a niche concept. Yeesh.

The problem being that so few people play now that most of the time you can expect to get on to TW being completely empty. I'd love to play "for fun" but the key word there is "play", something you can no longer do without planning an event.

I started over ten years ago and played this off and on. I'd say the population dwindled very slowly. Even 3 years ago this game was fairly active. Something happened between when I got on about 2 1/2 years ago and the steam release that just dumped half the remaining playerbase. When this came out on Steam I got it excited that we'd at least get about a hundred active players back, get us to late 00's activity at the very least, but it flopped hard.

It's extra bad when I didn't care too much for the basic arenas and strongly prefered custom arenas. Back when I started, you didn't even need to advertise or wait for it, you could open up any custom arena and expect it to populate on its own within several minutes. It just got harder to the point where it's impossible to do it internally. For years before this died the only server anymore was TW, with Metal Gear CTF server at a distant second, pulling enough players for a game once in a blue moon. You have to bring friends in with you, because it's the only way you'll have anyone to play with. This game is well and truly dead at this point, and it sucks because the industry and consumers have "moved on" from this type of game, so there's not gonna be another game that's anything like it. If the steam release wasn't enough to revitalize Continuum, nothing will do it. I'm only in my mid 20s and I'm already a dinosaur ;-;

[MaGicBush]

Originally posted by Niro:

Originally posted by Jö Zeholipael☭:

Everyone here seems really bitter. Did you guys expect millions of players coming to this game? Because that was unrealistic as ♥♥♥♥. Play because it's fun, not because it's popular. I play Neotokyo and it hardly ever has active servers. But so what? It's fun, and I play FOR FUN.

It's not pathetic way to die. It's just an old game with a niche concept. Yeesh.

The problem being that so few people play now that most of the time you can expect to get on to TW being completely empty. I'd love to play "for fun" but the key word there is "play", something you can no longer do without planning an event.

I started over ten years ago and played this off and on. I'd say the population dwindled very slowly. Even 3 years ago this game was fairly active. Something happened between when I got on about 2 1/2 years ago and the steam release that just dumped half the remaining playerbase. When this came out on Steam I got it excited that we'd at least get about a hundred active players back, get us to late 00's activity at the very least, but it flopped hard.

It's extra bad when I didn't care too much for the basic arenas and strongly prefered custom arenas. Back when I started, you didn't even need to advertise or wait for it, you could open up any custom arena and expect it to populate on its own within several minutes. It just got harder to the point where it's impossible to do it internally. For years before this died the only server anymore was TW, with Metal Gear CTF server at a distant second, pulling enough players for a game once in a blue moon. You have to bring friends in with you, because it's the only way you'll have anyone to play with. This game is well and truly dead at this point, and it sucks because the industry and consumers have "moved on" from this type of game, so there's not gonna be another game that's anything like it. If the steam release wasn't enough to revitalize Continuum, nothing will do it. I'm only in my mid 20s and I'm already a dinosaur ;-;

It happens. The same thing has happened to games like Duke3D, Doom, Quake 2, etc. People stop playing it like myself for periods of time because we move on. I come back from time to time, as do others which is the 10-20 or so people you get in a Trench Wars game still anytime I decide to hop on Subspace. It's not quite dead yet.

I am 30 so not much older, and I remember playing Subspace in it's prime when I was around 12 or 15. I do miss those days.

[Purge]

what's with the steam updates? I got excited for a second.

[ein]

In truth Subspace ceased to exist when Chaos Zone added team size limits and the nonstandard map. The game designed by geniuses and tested by hundreds of thousands of people hasn't been played in a long time. What survived were minigames and novelty zones, most of which were put together as experiments or just to goof around in. That doesn't mean they weren't good games, and it's hard to argue they didn't have lasting appeal. But they tended toward instant action, repetition of battles, tight spaces, fast ships, hitscan or instant kill weapons, and very often death zerging.

That's not how the game was made. The controls were difficult to learn, and once you learned them a fight against another solid pilot could last several minutes. The maps were big, and the tight spaces were big enough to outmaneuver both opponents and their fire. Defensible areas could be taken by careful tactics, and zerging was discouraged by considerable death penalties. The locations people used for flag bases were balanced with weak points, and the slower nature of the ships and weapons meant long, interesting fights and sometimes surprising turns of events.

None of this has existed for a long time, even in Chaos Zone. The whole point of Chaos was for players to set their own goals and to create mischief for each another, and the most important aspects of this were megaturrets and aggressive swarms. These presented what amounted to boss fights, as it would often take far more than 7 players to take down a 7 man turret or a well organized swarm frequency, especially if they were controlling territory.

None of this can happen in the small Chaos map or with the dynamic team size limits. The general population must be presented with an unfair contest versus these turrets and swarms. In a map with lots of cover and remote areas where you could green up, this works out fairly since the boss fight is optional. In a small map the boss unavoidable, and then the team size limits mean it can't happen at all.

The folks who run Chaos deserve credit for keeping the traditional game alive at all. Heaven knows I had countless chances to do better and never quite managed it. But if you want to know why so few people are playing Subspace and why it didn't get a bump from Steam, it's because the game is gone and we never offered it on Steam.

[Wormhole Surfer]

Originally posted by Vexus:

I mean, good work on Continuum and all, but come on, keep it legit. I'd love to come back with the original game mode. Until then, I will lurk sadly on the sideline.

There is one server that is still running the original VIE/SVS game mode and if you couldn't find it, you should probably just sell your computer and move into the woods.

[Wormhole Surfer]

Originally posted by Zeream:

. EG doesn't even have enough players to host a game outside of the center anymore, and it seems all the staff quit too.

I know this is going back a couple years, but someone in TW ♥♥♥♥♥♥ us over so that EG wasn't listed in the Zone List which resulted in a lot less players than we should have received when this game went live on Steam.