Creation
Following the closure of the original WON on July 31, 2004 by its owner Valve Software, in favor of its own Steam system, there was considerable controversy within the Half-Life communities over Steam's reliability, security and privacy. Some users found it difficult if not impossible to use Steam, because of the resource-drain that it placed on some computers of the time. Others considered it a form of adware because part of software's function is to display ad popups and offers pertaining to Steam games upon each instance of opening the main program. There were also concerns about security, especially that of credit card numbers used in online purchases via Steam, and whether or not it may become a subscription-based pay-to-play service. In addition, Steam updates any installed games before playing online, under the premise that this avoids the manual drudgery of searching for and applying game patches as well as ensuring everyone that is playing has the same uniform version. However, some preferred Counter-Strike version 1.5 over the newer versions.
As a result of these and other concerns, along with the desire by some to simply continue playing the older games the way they had for years, various players and groups developed their own solutions which allowed them to play Counter-Strike 1.5 and older, non-Source engine, Half-Life games without Steam.
In late November 2004, some of the largest of these groups, in particular SteamlessProject.nl, succeeded in developing a good working solution. SteamlessProject.NL and NoWon later partnered to form WON2, with NoWon seemingly functioning only as a link partner and not actually taking part in active development of WON2. The network slowly grew and maintains a steady size of about 900-1000 gaming servers with usually 2000-3000 players online at any one time. Most of its master (backbone) and content servers are based in Europe, especially the Netherlands.
Read more about this topic: WON2
Famous quotes containing the word creation:
“There have been heroes for whom this world seemed expressly prepared, as if creation had at last succeeded; whose daily life was the stuff of which our dreams are made, and whose presence enhanced the beauty and ampleness of Nature herself.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“There’s something wonderfully exciting about the quiet sing song of an aeroplane overhead with all the guns in creation lighting out at it, and searchlights feeling their way across the sky like antennae, and the earth shaking snort of the bombs and the whimper of shrapnel pieces when they come down to patter on the roof.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“Man is a masterpiece of creation if for no other reason than that, all the weight of evidence for determinism notwithstanding, he believes he has free will.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)