First steps
Welcome to the largest community driven website dedicated to the real time strategy Original War. If this is your first time interacting with the online community here or even with the game itself, take a few minutes to read the below summary of what Original War is and everything the Original War community currently offers.
If you like the RPG and RTS game genres, then you must have at least heard of a game called Original War at some point. It was first released in 2001, quickly earning awards and praise from reviewers worldwide.
Original War awed players with its compelling campaign story and innovative, never before seen gameplay style. You can learn more about the gameplay by reading some of the below articles:
The campaign however was not everything. There is only so much you can do in single player, and players quickly craved for something more. Thus, they soon started trying...
At first there was Gamespy Arcade, and the players saw that it was good. But all good things have to eventually make way for better things. The arrival of Original War Support and the unofficial community patches changed everything. It brought many new possibilities, such as:
- Master Server
Before the community patches, Gamespy Arcade was the program of choice to use to set up multiplayer games. In time Gamespy abandoned their GSA service however, and the community required a suitable alternative.
The answer was simple: create a central server that would display all online games currently in progress, and allow the community a place to chat.
The Original War Master Server project was born.
Originally created by Stucuk and hosted on OWSupport, the Master Server is now available at:
- Original War Ranking
As the multiplayer community grew, it became more competitive. Clans were formed, rules were established and some players became well known for their gaming skill. This created a need for a ranking system that would keep track of online matches so that it could be documented once and for all who is the best Original War player.
With the help of Stucuk the capability to record match outcomes was built into Original War itself, and integrated with community accounts on OW.net, which enabled the system to basically run itself.
The latest version of the Ranking requires patch 1.11.0 or higher.
- Original War Support
Officially opened in January 2006, OWSupport is where new Original War patches are created from community input using the Original War source code that was given to Stucuk by Altar Games.
One of the first suggestions for the very first community patch was enabling advanced modding capabilities for Original War. With the release of patch 1.03 and the tools needed to edit the core game files, Original War modding was made an easy reality.
- The community
From the moment Original War became a moddable game, there was a constantly increasing amount of modders appearing in the community, at first releasing simple stuff such as sandbox missions, which later on progressed to short and simple as well as long and advanced campaigns. All of this became possible through community research and information sharing on its forums.
Presently there is a whole list of mods that have been released and are ready to be tried out, many of which are available on the download page on this website. All mods always work best on the newest available patch.
All patches since 1.02 were coded and released by the Original War Support team, however none of them would be possible without community feedback and beta-testing. It is up to the community to help develop Original War by submitting bug reports, asking for new features and creating new mods and ideas.
You can help us by giving your input:
Our community is vibrant and growing, and new content is constantly released. Become part of the community to share in the experience and leave your own mark on the development of Original War.