The History of Trench Wars/The Future

(March 2002 - ?)

March 2002 has been an exciting time for Trench Wars. After many years as the founder and head of Trench Wars League, perhaps the most respected Smod in TW, Slowbob quit his position. What followed was Crome taking over the leagues with many changes including the addition of the basing and jav to TWL. Meanwhile TWTL will finally change to a diminished place as a pure ladder-type format while the new TWL will take centre stage. This new change caused new Smods, new bots, new arenas, and a new website to take place creating, what seems to be, a Golden Age for TW Leagues. After winning both TWDL and TWBL, the end of –Final-, one of the most celebrated squads in Trench Wars finally happened as Disqualifier nears his compulsory military service. The reestablishment of Siege brings back one of the great squads to the zone. And with new people pulling the strings in the Smod positions things might finally come to change. Even the Sysops have become much more active recently.

Beginning in secret back in December of 2001, DoCk> with the help of Sphonk (Juiio) started a completely new Bot Development Kit project written completely in Java. The project involves creating a standard general Robo Ref type Bot which could easily be modified to do different hosting jobs. The first signs of this project are already evident with the establishment of ?go basing and Arilou Lalee’lay’s ?go Starcon. Eventually the goal of this is to completely automate the zone, a task which DoCk> has promised.

Also recently released was the long awaited Continuum .37 by Priitk. With many new features, Continuum .37 creates many new possibilities for the future of the zone and Subspace as a whole. So far this has included things like scoreboards for league games, and different ship sizes. We can only guess at what’s to come next.

The old Elim vs. Pub apathy has slowly eroded over the years and has really ceased to become that important as populations have started to mingle more. A new TW UBB has just be created which is very exciting to all. Populations hover around a record 500 during peak times, and indeed all of Subspace has peak amounts of people.

Even the old records of old are finally being broken. In the championship TWDL match between Melee and –Final- 134 people showed up for this historic event.

Yet many things still remain. The resolution restriction remains. Shrapnel in Javelins for Elim remain. Elim has been stuck at a low level of competition for a long time. Old vets still grumble about times long ago when people actually cared to try in Elim, but those times are long in the past. The Staff remains bloated, with Staff training a thing of the long past. Although there will always be some gifted hosts, on the whole events are still hosted in an extreme amateur manner. Hopefully of course the new Bots will take care of this issue. There is still no real support from the upper Staff for any real proactive solutions or suggestions for improving the zone by the general population. While the staff progresses to add more and more to the zone, old problems are not being fixed or even being acknowledged.

But still the zone has managed to keep many of its unique attributes, which have led to its success over the years. The many great events still go on, and the successful formula for the public arenas continues. The community remains more or less, and the squad rivalries will hopefully remain in the new leagues. With all that has been promised by the staff, it seems as though we might be headed into a new Renaissance era, but as always only time will tell.

Trench Wars has had a long journey from a newbie super zone to the most populous zone in the game. The changes over the years have added to what makes this zone unique and what allowed it to prosper. Will this continue? This is a question, which no one has been able to answer about any zone let alone about the game itself, about Subspace. Since March 1997 when the fear of Subspace becoming pay had connotations of the game dying forever, many have speculated when the last day will be. Yet that day must come sometime, but hopefully for the many who enjoy this game day in and day out, that day is far in the future, and many great events will happen in the meantime.

2010's

The Trench Wars community successfully campaigns to get Subspace Continuum on Steam.

Current Status

Subspace was noted by media outlets as recently as February 2021, demonstrating a multi-decade culturally relevant longevity enjoyed by few games.