The history of the Academy

-as written by Jell

The first Academy

Motives

Allegiance Academy was created on June 29th, 2001, after we (my brother, TheMaster_C, and myself, Jell) discovered how easy it was to create a website with Geocities. Geocities would offer 20 Mb of free webspace, with "not too annoying" publicity. We knew nothing of web design, and this was a good starter. Lacking ideas, we simply placed a few Allegiance images, and quickly a guide was born.

Making of

In order to illustrate our explanations, we went to get all the pictures of Allegiance we could, from ships to stations to every single piece of equipment, resulting in hundreds of pictures that we cut out of their backgrounds, using Photoshop. Then, in order for them to melt with the background, we used paint to add colored dots that would look like stars. The pictures thus looked embedded within the page. We also used a color code to try and make it easier for players to distinguish our different sections, but the look was very unprofessional.

Goals

With sections like Odd Events, History and News, we wanted to keep players aware of what was going on in the Community and in the games. Odd Events would relate events like cheaters who would order miners/constructors around so that they would die, History was a kind of illustration of the Community's background, and News would relate most major games in extreme detail (to help players get new strategies) and other big events (like the dawn of AW3). Of course, the central goal was to have players learn about the game, but most players already knew most of Allegiance's gameplay through years of experience. Thus, this was really mostly an experience for ourselves.

The second Academy

Motives

I decided to remake the Academy. Instead of going in fancier projects like detailed descriptions of every single ship, with six pictures of each ship, I decided to give it a new look, and give better information. It's been a long time since the first Academy, which had a total visitor amount of approximately one thousand in a year (the Academy gets this at least weekly now. Still low, but much less), and the old Geocities website was many quality levels below what the rest of the community offered. Although this basic HTML website with strange colors is still far from ideal, it delivers much better.

Making of

The logo was made with Photoshop. Indeed, our first logos were also made that way, but we knew merely the basics of Photoshop. I now am more familiar with the program (although aware that I barely understand any complicated function), which allowed me to make a fairly good looking logo, for once. Also, my new knowledge of Dreamweaver allows me to use a quality HTML editor and to use FTP upload. Since Geocities doesn't offer FTP connection anymore, I had to turn to a new server. A friend of mine suggested iquebec, a European site offering huge services, such as 100 MB webspace, 5 e-mail addresses, FTP upload, and more useless stuff, for free. It was not bad, but there were problems, mainly related with spyware. Grimmwolf later offered himself generously to host the website for free. For the other pictures, I used the exact same as the old Academy, since there is nothing wrong with them, along with adding new pictures related to Alleg's constant development.

Goals

Mentioning new projects would be something that would seem always of actuality. Indeed, either new factions, new developer tools, improved cores or new security software seem to be created constantly, not mentioning the media being produced by players. However, this may add to the already great complexity of the game. The number of factions may come to double, and until a single core dominates, the complexity will be at its highest. It is the role of this website to accommodate the newbies and make their arrival in this community as smooth as possible, allowing them to become valuable pilots as quickly as possible to increase the community's size.

The Third Academy

Motives

This Academy will most likely be the final version, as I will soon have to leave for a while. The look was designed by a very talented person to make it very professional, while maintaining the quality of the content and its simple and accessible presentation. The motive remains the same, give newbies a great introduction to the game and jumpstart them to "Veteran". This is also the motive behind the incorporation of the @Cadet, a newbie training program, subsection into the Academy's Community section.

UPDATE - (08/2006):

With my (BV) taking over of the Academy website it is undergoing a major content update. It will reflect the current game as it is played now. The site is being updated to XHTML standards and total CSS sheet control. It will maintain the original look and feel, but be more efficient. Plans include bringing in a lot of the original MS storyline material, updated ACS material and an internal search engine.

Making of

A template was obtained from VikingThunder, containing an early version of the logo with a basic layout. Working from there and with VT's assistance, the Academy quickly became what it is now, with very useful HTML tools like server-side includes to avoid repetitive page-by-page editing of navigation menus (like we had on the first Academy), as well as colors more appropriate to websites.

Goals

The goal is to present new and old players alike with great content in a beautiful and efficient presentation while maintaining the initial initiatives of the very first Academy, namely to present every bit of content in such a way that it stimulates cognition and is made that much easier to learn, using many pictures, schemes, examples, and simple explanations. Hopefully, along with details on such important issues as the core differences, newbies can grasp enough concepts to gain their independence of thought within Allegiance. Many blame the Academy for not being exhaustive enough in the information given. Please take good note that the Academy's goal is not to serve as an encyclopedia, but to soften the learning curve that many see as Allegiance's biggest obstacle to recruiting new players. Therefore, general examples are given, and information is at a higher level than percentage point differences between cores.

The Current Academy - September 2007

Motives

I (BlackViper) took over the Academy in August of 2006. I wanted to keep this website going. As the Cadet Administrator I knew it would be a useful tool for educating new players coming in the community. I also wanted to preserve as much of the historical aspect of our community as possible.

Making of

With the help of Badger@ACE in the beginning and now assisted by FreeBeer@ACE we undertook a major job. Our first goal was to bring the website upto date code wise. This was to improve the speed of the site. With my hosting the site a faster server was leased. That has helped some.

To put this in perspective, we have recoded almost 2000 pages. Switched to a CSS style sheet (Which is W3C compliant), created templates and server side include files to speed up the creation of new pages. Literally hundreds of hours spent spell checking and updating content to bring it up to speed to current core, factions' and ships' information. Creating new tables, making pages fit to one page width on a small monitor, improved navigation, etc.

We have added a download page with all files hosted here. We have added a Historical Section where my archive of material going back eight years can be posted. We have added all of the DataNet posts, timeline and made provisions for hosting player fiction. Along with an area that will be devoted to the original dev team, beta period and post release (Prior to MS dropping support).

We are very close to having the entire site W3C compliant. We only have about 40 more pages to recode. We have hoped we have kept the original feel and look to the site. The site now is coded mainly for FireFox. Stats show the majority of users do not use IE.

Goals

To update the lesson portion of the site. As Cadet Administrator I have my staff working on two new Cadet programs. One will be a very short 3 week course to get players into the game quickly. All of that material will be hosted here and available to the public. The second Cadet program will also be hosted here, but will only be available to the Cadets enrolled in class.

What is currently the Crash course will have some material migrated into the new cadet program. The other material along with what is now called "advanced" will be moved into an intermediate posted course.

With the FAO's purchase of an internal Wiki we have agreed to move most of the community material to the Wiki where it will be maintained by them. I will retain the historical section, @Alleg and @Cadet here.

We hope to continue to ensure Jell's vision of a quick study guide for new players and also provide more in-depth material for the intermediate player. This should take us well into 2008 to complete.

+BlackViper - (@Zone, @Alleg, @CDT, @ACE)

The Free Allegiance's Cadet program provides a more in-depth learning program. For more information: Cadet Information That is the advanced course. See the Cadet I link on the main menu for the "Newbie Guide".