The GlobalAssault Story
It was September 1998. I was deep into Unreal and mapping like crazy for Unreal when I got my hands on a pre-release copy of the SDK for a new game to be released in November 1998 called 'Half-Life'.
At first I thought nothing could take the place of Unreal but I decided to give it a try. I loved it instantly. It took a while to change my way of thinking about mapping but I liked it.
Half-Life was released in November and I launched a Death Match server on my home 1.1mb DSL. I also launched a site to support our Death Match server. The site was called 'Mustang's Corral'.
After 7 months of excellent gaming we started building a large following on the server. We had over 400 different players a day and the server was busy 24/7 with gaming groups from different continents.
As the evening hours marched around the globe we had crowds from Germany, then from Japan, then the USA and then it started all over again. After 7 months I knew I needed a better name and started brainstorming
new names for the site. One day I happened to ask my brother (ReLoaD) to brainstorm names with me. He thought for a little bit and blurted out "Global Assault" and POW! I knew he had it.
The site and game server was renamed to 'GlobalAssault' and the site was redesigned in August 1999. This was version 2 of the site which incorporated map downloads to compete with 'Radium' (anyone remember the Radium site?).
Well, it was an instant hit. The site grew to 6,000 maps and turned 30+ GB in traffic a month. Version 2 grew to 3,000 registered members focusing on Death Match gaming, HLDM map reviews, and map downloads.
In August 2001 I moved the site and game server to my home after installing my own T1 and servers. We were running several DM servers and two DoD servers. About this time ReLoaD once again stepped up to change
the path of the site. One day he said to me "You should try Counter-Strike". Shortly therafter we added Counter-Strike. Eventually the DM and DoD servers fell off the radar and we focused on CS.
Each time the web site has turned an evolution of changing services, features and/or hosting setups I have redesigned to accommodate these new features. This is version 10 which continues the minimalist
approach that version 9 established to support our game server. I have purposefully placed our server in Dallas on a 10 GB backbone hosted by Level 3. This location was chosen to evenly support our regular players across the U.S.A.
Version 10 returns after a six month break while I decide whether or not to bring back map downloads, the forum, the calendar, map reviews, development groups, member and mapper profiles, etc. All this sounds fun but the real
question is if there is really a need for another online resource. Are the existing sites covering the topic well enough? Weigh in with your opinion by emailing Mustang.
Mustang
