Happy Birthday Half Life: Opposing Force & My Influence on the Release

On this Thursday November 10, the game Half Life: Opposing Force is turning 12 in our PC gaming community. Lets all applaud Gearbox Software, Wish them a Happy Anniversary, and celebrate their first game release! In which I also took part in. It makes me happy to see how successful they have grown.

The Clan World Network was a partner of WON.net in Fall of 1999. As a partner, we hosted numerous high profile leagues, ladders, and tournaments for all of Sierra games. I was to host and manage one of the biggest memorable events of my lifetime. I had to put together a huge Half Life “Live the Dream Tournament” where the online winners were flown to San Francisco to play in the finals at Club on November 10, 1999. These tournament finals coincided with the Half Life: Opposing Force release party. The winning team then got the chance to play Randy Pitchford and the Gearbox team in the HLOP4:TDM on their new maps.

The online event portion lasted a few weeks eliminating a huge entry list of players in a long bracket tournament. The link to the event information page can be found here. This event also took place on my birthday which was extra special to me. Also on a side note the release date is wrong on the Wikipedia page.

Here is the Press Release from the Event:

WON.net and Sierra Studios are holding the Half-Life: Opposing Force"Live the Dream Tournament", hosted by Clan World Network, beginning October 22, 1999. The tournament will be using the Bootcamp map from Valve's Half-Life. The top four players from the tournament will spar for the championship title on November 10,1999 at a live event in San Francisco, California. Championship players will compete using Half-Life: Opposing Force developed by Gearbox Software. This is the first time ever that consumers will have gotten a chance to see this new game in action. Sign-ups are already taking place at WON.net!

Who would have known that this event would have some of the most important people in gaming today.  Randy Pitchford of Gearbox Software, John Vechey of Popcap, and more.

Click Here More Pictures and Highlights of the Event

Happy Birthday Half Life: Opposing Force!

Happy Anniversary Gearbox Software!

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