World Opponent Network
Encyclopedia
World Opponent Network or WON was an online gaming service, created by Sierra Games as the Sierra Internet Gaming System (SIGS). WON was used by games such as Homeworld
, Half-Life, Star Trek: Armada
, Soldier of Fortune, Dark Reign 2
, Silencer
, ARC
and online versions of casino games as well as early entries in the Hoyle games series.
Sierra was purchased by Havas
in January 1999 and Cendant Software became Havas Interactive, which came to control WON. In March 2000, Havas Interactive merged WON.net with Prize Central Net to form Flipside.com. Regardless, games such as Valve Software's Half-Life continued to use the service.
In 2001, Valve acquired WON from Flipside.com and began to implement the Steam system in beta form. Over the next few years, as Steam was developed and tested, WON continued to serve.
Valve shut down the last of its WON servers on July 31, 2004, officially killing the remnants of WON. All online portions of Valve's games were transferred to their own Steam system. The announcement disappointed some of the long-time Half-Life and Counter-Strike
players who held it in high esteem for being, at the time, more efficient in terms of speed and system resources than Steam.
After the shutdown of WON, some players continued to run a patched version of the retail versions of Half-Life or Counter-Strike, which connects to a WON replacement called No-WON (or WON2
), and allows users to use the original server browser to connect to Half-Life servers, and their various mods (including Counter-Strike 1.5, and a Steamless version of 1.6), much as they could before WON's shutdown.
After its shutdown, users who tried to connect to WON in games such as the retail version of Half-Life would receive an error message, for example, claiming that the game client is out of date. However, since November 1st 2008, the date that the WON servers were taken entirely offline, the client will simply time out while trying to connect.
Homeworld
Homeworld is a real-time strategy computer game released on September 28, 1999, developed by Relic Entertainment and published by Sierra Entertainment. It was the first fully three-dimensional RTS. In 2003, Relic released the source code for Homeworld...
, Half-Life, Star Trek: Armada
Star Trek: Armada
Star Trek: Armada is a real-time strategy game published in 2000 by Activision. The game's look and feel is based primarily on Star Trek: The Next Generation, and features a few of its main characters and ships. Playable factions include the United Federation of Planets, the Klingon Empire, the...
, Soldier of Fortune, Dark Reign 2
Dark Reign 2
Dark Reign 2 is a 3D real-time strategy PC game released on June 30, 2000 by Activision and Pandemic Studios. Being a prequel to Dark Reign: The Future of War PC game, Dark Reign 2s storyline focuses on what has come before the conflict in the first Dark Reign...
, Silencer
Silencer (game)
Silencer is a multiplayer-only video game released by Mind Control Software for online play using World Opponent Network technology. It combines elements of sidescroller games with other Sci-Fi action games such as Crusader: No Remorse...
, ARC
Attack Retrieve Capture
Attack Retrieve Capture was a free multiplayer, 2D computer game created by John Vechey and Brian Fiete as a college project and later published by Hoopy Entertainment in 1995. The game was primarily capture the flag , but other game modes existed. In the 2-team CTF mode, each team tried to...
and online versions of casino games as well as early entries in the Hoyle games series.
Sierra was purchased by Havas
Havas
Havas is the second largest advertising group in France and is a "Global advertising and communications services group" and the sixth-largest global advertising and communications group worldwide, operating on the communications consulting market through three main operational divisions:*Euro RSCG...
in January 1999 and Cendant Software became Havas Interactive, which came to control WON. In March 2000, Havas Interactive merged WON.net with Prize Central Net to form Flipside.com. Regardless, games such as Valve Software's Half-Life continued to use the service.
In 2001, Valve acquired WON from Flipside.com and began to implement the Steam system in beta form. Over the next few years, as Steam was developed and tested, WON continued to serve.
Valve shut down the last of its WON servers on July 31, 2004, officially killing the remnants of WON. All online portions of Valve's games were transferred to their own Steam system. The announcement disappointed some of the long-time Half-Life and Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike is a tactical first-person shooter video game developed by Valve Corporation which originated from a Half-Life modification by Minh "Gooseman" Le and Jess "Cliffe" Cliffe...
players who held it in high esteem for being, at the time, more efficient in terms of speed and system resources than Steam.
After the shutdown of WON, some players continued to run a patched version of the retail versions of Half-Life or Counter-Strike, which connects to a WON replacement called No-WON (or WON2
WON2
WON2 is the user-created and operated online gaming network, and is a re-creation of the original World Opponent Network online gaming service...
), and allows users to use the original server browser to connect to Half-Life servers, and their various mods (including Counter-Strike 1.5, and a Steamless version of 1.6), much as they could before WON's shutdown.
After its shutdown, users who tried to connect to WON in games such as the retail version of Half-Life would receive an error message, for example, claiming that the game client is out of date. However, since November 1st 2008, the date that the WON servers were taken entirely offline, the client will simply time out while trying to connect.